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Clouds drift by overhead, white and fluffy against the cornflower blue sky. Aya fancies she can see the curve of the atmosphere among them, count the miles she’d have to climb to touch their cotton forms. Sunny days aren’t so rare in early Irish summer, but they are enough in other seasons that it’s worth appreciating them while she can.
Aya’s seen five such summers since she left Japan. She hasn’t visited her father’s grave in that time, but she’s sure her grandparents keep it clean and decorated with the alcohol that killed him two years after she helped save the world.
It doesn’t really matter now. He and her former life are as far away as the distant clouds.
“Bra-chan,” Aya whispers under the rustle of the daisies in the breeze. A smile tugs at her lips. Three, two…
“You called, Princess?”
Aya swings upright, setting her hands on the grass between her spread thighs. Clover leaves flutter away from her, dislodged by the motion. Bram kneels at her feet as if he’d always been there.
“It’s tea time.” Ireland’s food isn’t quite as good as Japan’s, but nothing quite beats their scones and cakes.
Bram’s red eyes open, used to this routine. He straightens to his full towering height and offers her one of his pale, slender-fingered hands.
“Allow me to escort you back.”
She hasn’t let him completely dwarf her, at least. She takes his chilly hand and lets him draw her to her feet, her head level with his shoulder when she straightens. Without another word he turns toward the black stone castle they call their home, her presence by his side as expected as the sunrise.
“Bra-chan,” she calls. “Have you ever read The Tale of Genji?”
“Of course I have, Princess.”
Her fingers catch in his coat’s lapel.
His lips are soft, as cold as his hands.
She kisses him clumsily, unsure but determined to make her meaning understood. Bram doesn't breathe, so she can’t know if he’s holding his breath like she is. He doesn’t move, not even to pull away, until she does.
Bram stares down at her, searching.
She means to say, I’ve loved you since we left the runway. She means to say, I’ll make a good wife.
She says: “You won’t turn me away, will you?”
Cold fingers hook under hers. His hands are still so big in comparison, his nails long but only through laziness - he’d told her once that they just needed to be cut so often, it was a hassle over the course of an eternity. Gross, she’d said at the time. Wasn’t there anyone who cared to tell him to do it? she’d thought. Later she’d wondered: Wasn’t eternity lonely?
Bram's cold lips graze the back of her hand, a touch warmer now from contact with her own.
“I am your knight,” Bram says, looking into her eyes. “I am yours.”