A Love Story In Five Drabbles

Author: Lunarisse Aspenstar

Original post: https://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=7211.0

Author's note: It is only OOC Knowledge unless Luna has icly shared the details with you or you were present in the fifth scene.
A drabble is a story told in one hundred words. No more, no less.

Entry for the Amore Tank Your Hearts in the Short Story category.

Thirty Years Ago

She stood trembling as her uncle paced, her blood-stained hands by her side. Her unapologetic eyes gazed into his furious visage. “Never again” he pronounced, “will you waste the resources of the fleet by eloping with his kind. As a mark of shame, you will bear his name.” His words went unnoticed as her mind replayed the scene. A man, who she thought beloved, his visage enraged as he repeatedly struck her. The tool she grabbed in her haste to defend. His blood spilled across the cabin and herself. Her desperate signals for rescue as he groaned in the background.

Twenty Five Years Ago

She bit her lip, tasting blood. Her arms were folded and eyes downcast as her uncle casually turned her life asunder. He stated “Love is irrelevant. You will marry him. He is a suitable match that will advance your family’s fortunes and bloodline.” She did not know the man to be her husband. Her mind pondered as she stood in silence: Was he kind or surly? Handsome or ugly? Would he hurt? Sensing her defiance, her uncle stated “You will do your duty.” Her aunt adds softly from behind her uncle “Perhaps in time you may come to love him.”

Twenty Years Ago

Glasses holding wine the shade of blood rest on the table. His business associates paid her no heed as she brought in the food, then departed praising her cooking. Her husband smiled at her. “Take off those mittens and come, sit with me.” He gestured to the papers full of financial figures and data. “Forget them, what do you think we should do?” Brushing her long blonde hair out of her eyes, she sat next to him and perused the sheaves of paper and began to offer one point after another as an equal and partner. He smiled. “My Beloved.”

Fifteen Years Ago

Blood began to show from the gash on her arm. Wiping it away, she stepped back from the burly instructor in the ring who barked “You’re going to need to do better than that. The unmerciful Sani Sabik will show you no quarter or mercy.” Her chest heaving, she breathed deeply and took a combat stance. Her instructor swept her legs from under her with ease. Rising to her feet without hesitation with a determined look on her face, she told herself she would make it through basic training. She would become a paladin. She would find or avenge him.

Today

A bag of blood hung dripping by the hospital bed. Other bags with fluids were hung. Monitors quietly beeped in the background as she maintained her vigil. He silently lay there for days, beyond all hope, swathed like a newborn in blankets. She battled a mix of trepidation and hope as his eyes finally opened, bright and blue. The doctor absent, her stoic retainer by her side with a hand on her weapon, others out of mind, she laid her hands on his and returned the gaze, eyes to eyes. She said softly and with warm affection “Welcome back, Beloved.”