Kimmydonn Week 46: Parting

Kimmydon
Wednesday


Picture 1

Picture 2


Kimmydon's Choice: both


Title: Parting
The princess gathered her basket of herbs and turned back for the castle. The knight stood in her way, taking the basket from her arm.

“Don’t strain yourself,” he said, with a smirk.

“Don’t mix them up,” she relied coolly, resting a hand on his arm as she picked her way out of the meadow. “Why are you here?” she asked imperiously

“It isn’t safe for you to be out here alone. I’ve told you so before. I’m going to wind up rescuing you from some evil sorcerer yet,” he grumbled.

“I am hardly defenseless,” she reminded him. “With the contents of that basket alone I could chase off any number of lurkers.”

She stopped abruptly, seizing his arm in both of hers. The knight wasn’t sure if it was fear or excitement that gripped her, until the tiny creature stepped out of the trees - a fawn, still speckled. “Isn’t he dear?!” she cooed.

The knight guffawed loudly, frightening the animal away. The princess scowled at him. “Well he is, deer,” he managed between snorts, upending her basket. Swinging the now empty vessel at his helmetless head, she bent to beginning sorting through the mess of stems in the grass.

Marla gave me an odd look as I walked through the kitchen, pulling my blond locks into a tail. “What?”

“You’re going out?” she asked.

“Yes.” I opened the fridge and pulled out the juice. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” she said smiling. “You’re going out with Dan?”

I set the carton back down with a thump. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

“Nope,” she said, popping a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. “Have fun,” she managed around the metal stem still between her lips.

“Thanks,” I said, swallowing my juice. “We’re not dating.”

“Uh-huh.” She didn’t even pretend to believe me. Setting my glass in the sink, I nearly ran out of the apartment. Dan had planned to meet me at the park. He had some new lyrics he wanted me to hear and to give me back my notebook.

I sat on the bench with my new notebook, jotting down more notes for my story. I pushed my glasses up just in time to see a small boy wave at me and blow me a kiss. He had liquid dark brown eyes and eyelashes that seemed endless. His dark hair was curly, adding to his cherub-seeming. His pudgy hand reached out with the kiss, and I put my fingers into it, index and middle. He smiled and squeezed them. It was only then that I saw Dan standing beside and slightly behind him.

“Are you going to introduce us?” I asked.

Dan smiled. “This is Damien. Damien, meet Jenn.”

“Hi,” he said, before turning and tucking himself between Dan’s legs.

“What a sweetie. Not yours, I hope,” I half-joked. I would hope if he had a kid he would have mentioned it by now. Also, I could not picture him a responsible father.

“Why not? Isn’t he as adorable as me?” he asked, picking up the toddler and hugging him.

“Yes, he is, which is part of what frightens me.”

Dan chuckled. “It should,” he said in the voice that made me squirm in my seat, waggling his eyebrows at me. I nudged him with my shoulder in the hopes of stopping him in his tracks. It seemed to work. At least he never pushed. Constantly hinting, flirting, but never pushing.

“No, I had one near miss. A girlfriend missed a period, but no kids for me, yet. This is my cousin.” He turned Damien toward me and he started to babble. I only understood every third word from his mouth and they didn’t fit together at all: Ma, juice, home, Nana, sand, tree, truck. On and on he babbled while I nodded and asked him questions like. “You have truck?” or “You love Nana?” And he would continue. Dan’s mouth was slightly agape.

“I didn’t know he knew that many words.”

I chuckled. “Do you have trouble getting a word in?” I asked Damien.

He continued to babble; I understood none of this barrage. “How old is he?” I asked Dan.

“Not two yet. Seriously, I figured he’d just play in the grass. I didn’t expect this.” He looked down on his cousin in wonder.

“Well, why don’t you read him some of your lyrics. He might like them. Do you like Dan to sing?” I asked Damien. His chubby cheeks lifted in a smile and then he twisted to smile at Dan. He clapped his hands together.

Dan chuckled and pulled out my old notebook. He flipped to the back and began singing. Damien crawled over into my lap and snuggled into my arm as Dan sang for us.

“You could use live instead love there,” I mentioned on one line, “just to make a change.”

“Yeah. That’d work. Thank you for this. As you’ve heard, I pulled six songs from your characters. I think the princess and knight have to be the best though. You’re still writing them, aren’t you?”

My jaw fell a little. Damien shifted slightly in my arms as I stiffened. He was almost asleep.

Dan chuckled and flipped a page. “Here Damien, you’ll like this. ‘Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there lived a princess. She had magic powers, but she wasn’t strong. She needed someone to defend her. She used her magic to protect her kingdom, but she had run out of the special root that ringed her castle in fire. Her guards fought against the attackers, but they were falling one by one.

“‘Her special knight, the strongest of them all, had been sent away by the princess, not on a special mission, but because she wanted him out of the castle. It was a mistake. He could have helped her if he’d been there.’” He was paraphrasing a lot, but I didn’t see the need to correct him. “‘He arrived just in time with the root, allowing the princess to cast her spell.’ The knight and the princess didn’t get along, but they needed each other. Even if neither could admit it.”

Damien was a dead weight in my arms, passed out only a few lines into the story. Dan took complete advantage of the fact that my hands were full. He leaned over the toddler to put his lips on mine. “I can admit it,” he whispered. “I need you, Jenn.”

It wasn’t that sticky warm voice that made me melt, it was his speaking voice, only without any of the taunting it usually held. My heart was thudding fit to burst. Blood rushed to my head and cheeks making me dizzy. He was so close, his lips still on mine. How could I think? All I could see were his liquid dark brown eyes.

“No, you don’t,” I managed.

“I want you, then.” His voice drew on that husky tremor that made his singing mellow, that made me putty.

“You...” I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. He kissed me again. No more passionately than before, but his hand did brush my ear, cupping the back of head, waiting. “You don’t want all of me,” I claimed. “You don’t want my mind, my dreams...”

“Why do you think I took this?” he asked, smacking the top of my head with the notebook. “I love your mind. I love the way you beat me with it. I need armor against your rapier wit,” he teased. Neither of us laughed.

He was still too close. Why did he always sit so close, constantly touching me?

“Why won’t you let me in?” he asked, exasperated, sitting back a little. “Haven’t I been here? Haven’t I listened, offered my ideas, my words. Haven’t I taken enough haughty stares?” His finger traced my ear making me shiver. “I’m not asking for everything, just something.”

“Something,” I murmured, unable to resist his spell. I pursed my lips and his closed on them, sealing them. His teeth brushed my bottom lip, making me shiver again and gasp.

He took advantage again, and ran the tip of his tongue over the inside of my lips, and I leaned into him, seeking more.

Damien shifted, saving me from embarrassment. I sat up quickly, pulling the child closer, almost as a shield.

Dan smiled and pushed my glasses up my nose. “Thank you. That was definitely something.”

I tried not to cry. This was still a chase for him. I couldn’t let it be more to me.

The princess brewed her potion carefully, knowing she couldn’t afford a single element to go awry. When it was ready, she took it to the knight.

“Drink this,” she ordered.

He looked her over, far too familiarly, then downed the goblet in three long draughts. “Strength serum?” he asked.

“Amnesiatic,” she answered just before he passed out. She couldn’t let him any nearer than she already had.