Danbrey Week Day 4: Sylvain | Earth
“Hey, Aubrey?” Alexandra asks one day.
She seems a little embarrassed from the way that she can’t look Aubrey in the eyes. Instead, she looks between Aubrey’s shoulder and the rest of their party nearby. They are sitting around a campfire, Janelle cooking something while Dani laughs at something Thacker is saying.
Aubrey is supposed to be heading towards the forest in search of more firewood. In all honesty it’s hard to look away from Dani’s smile to meet Alexandra’s eyes. But, whatever is going on seems to be important, so she tears her gaze away.
“Can I… talk to you privately for a bit? I… have a message from Sylvain for you.”
It’s been a while since Sylvain has wanted to speak with her. The last time was to chastise her for creating a few too many pudding cup trees. Which, admittedly, was becoming sort of an excessive thing now. She’d just given her a slight slap on the wrist and limited her on creating too many new species.
Aubrey has been pretty good about this, but she wonders if this has anything to do with creating a herd of binicorn a few days ago.
“Sure,” she says as she pushes away from the tree she’d been leaning against. She leads Alexandra toward the forest. As she turns, she catches Dani’s eye. Her girlfriend raises an eyebrow, but Aubrey waves her off. Whatever it is Sylvain has to say, she’s pretty sure it can’t be too bad.
Once they come to a stop, well outside of their campsite’s earshot, Alexandra begins fidgeting with her hands. Obviously whatever she has to say is pretty important.
Aubrey tries to lighten the mood some.
“So… What’s up Buttercup?”
That gets a small smile out of Alexandra.
“Promise you won’t get mad?”
“I can’t promise something like that. But, I can promise to stay calm.”
“I guess that’s good enough,” Alexandra mutters. “It’s just… Sylvain wanted me to tell you something, but I’m not sure if you’re going to take it well? And Sylvain sometimes has a weird sense of humor so—”
“Whoa, whoa.” Aubrey places a hand on Alexandra’s shoulder. “I’m sure whatever it is, I can handle it. And I’d never shoot the messenger.”
Alexandra’s eyebrows knit together. “Is that an Earth idiom?”
“Yeah. Sometimes kings on Earth would kill messengers if they delivered them bad news. The phrase mostly means that I won’t bet mad at you for whatever Sylvain wants you to tell me.”
“Oh. Okay.” Alexandra takes a breath. “Alright. Okay. Well… Sylvain thinks it’s about time for you to make a flower crown for Dani.”
Aubrey blinks. “Are flower crowns special or something?”
Alexandra splutters. “Are they– Are they important?!”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Aubrey watches as Alexandra does her best to calm herself down. Whatever the meaning, it must be something pretty dang important.
“I can see she wanted me to tell you about this.” Alexandra sits down on the ground with a groan. A lot of her restless energy escapes by the time she relaxes against a tree. Though, from the way she bounces her knee, Aubrey’s pretty sure she’s still nervous.
“Generally speaking, how do relationships… evolve on Earth?”
“Well…” Aubrey sits across from her. “Usually two people decide they like each other and start dating. Then, when they think that they want to be with each other forever, one of them asks the other officially if they want to get married. Then, the couple is engaged until they get married and then they just kinda… stick with each other for the rest of their lives.”
“I see,” Alexandra nods. “Is there like a specific thing you do to officially ask the question of marriage?”
“Well, everyone is different. But, a lot of people get a ring, give a heartfelt speech, get down on one knee, and ask the question. Sometimes it’s in front of people they care about and sometimes it’s in private. Then, while they’re engaged, the person who said yes wears that ring.”
“The flower crown is kind of like that.”
Aubrey pauses. “Like the engagement ring?”
“Yes, Alexandra says.” When someone wants to be with their partner for the rest of their days, they make them a flower crown. They usually only wear it for about a week. But sometimes couples press a few of the flowers and wear them as pendants to show everyone else that they are betrothed to each other.
“I think it’s pretty presumptuous for Sylvain to want me to tell you about it, though.” Alexandra sighs. “But, she seems to think you need to know what Dani might expect eventually. And… Apparently she’s right since it appears that those expectations are different from yours.”
If she’s being honest, she hasn’t thought that far ahead, yet. It took so long for the two of them to decide on a label, the thought of deciding when their forever might start is daunting to say the least. Is this something that Dani has thought about? How long is too long before they decide? What—
"Aubrey. Aubrey please don’t freak out,” Alexandria says, carefully. She places a hesitant hand on Aubrey’s knee. “Sylvain didn’t mean like right now. She just thought it was something you should know about is all.”
Aubrey lets out a sigh of relief.
It’s some years later. Dani and Aubrey have spent a lot of time in both Earth and Sylvain, but most of their days are spent in Dani’s world, helping to restore it..
It’s fall on Earth. Oddly enough, now that the weather patterns are evened out some, Sylvain seems to be a season behind Earth at any given time. It’s wild whenever they stay for extended amounts of time. Because either they have a super long season, or they have a drastic shift of climate. Either way, it always takes Aubrey a while to get used to the temperature changes.
Aubrey is glad they’re visiting now, though. It’s the perfect weather to be outside during the day, and the forest is so pretty with a canopy and carpet of multicolored leaves. And Dani’s delight in crunching them beneath her shoes certainly helps, too.
Most everyone is back at the lodge this time around. Normally they’d be spread out pretty far, what with Duck doing his part to help restore Earth and all. But, Aubrey asked everyone to come home this evening specifically because…
Because she really wants them there after she asks Dani to marry her.
Ever since that day, years ago, when Alexandria had explained their engagement tradition, Aubrey hasn’t really stopped thinking about it. Everytime that their eyes have met over a campfire, after a particularly sweet kiss, even after a terrible fight that Aubrey thinks will surely be the end of their relationship…
She can’t help but think of spending the rest of her life with Dani.
So, she did some planning. She had Thacker and Mama work on getting Duck and Minerva home. She worked on weaving with Janelle’s bemused help. She snuck off in the middle of the night and met with Jake who’d helped her get flowers. And she planted the crown out in the forest in a place that she could easily lead Dani…
It’s going to be perfect.
Aubrey smiles as they near a clearing behind the lodge. She’s pretty sure Jake is staked out somewhere nearby. She didn’t ask him to document this, but she’s pretty sure she’ll appreciate it later if he does.
They’re about a yard away from where the crown is hung on a beautiful birch tree. She’s nervous, but she takes a deep breath to calm her nerves. She can do this! She’s practiced the words so many times. All she has to do is–
“Aubrey?” Dani asks, voice soft. She comes to a stop, forcing Aubrey to a halt, too.
She fidgets with the tassel of her hoodie. Opens her mouth a few times, and then takes a deep breath as she grasps both of Aubrey’s hands in hers.
“Aubrey, we’ve been together for a few years now. During that time we’ve lived through the end of the world, twice.” She laughs.“And we’ve seen some pretty amazing things together. We’ve done some pretty amazing things together. And I don’t think there’s anyone else I’d rather spend that time with.”
Dani takes a shaky step back. The moment that her knee touches the earth below, Aubrey feels tears spring up in her eyes, matching Dani’s own misty ones. She keeps hold of Aubey’s left hand and reaches into the pocket of her hoodie to reveal a small wooden box.
“Aubrey Little? Would you mind traveling Sylvain and Earth as my wife someday?”
As she finishes that question, Dani pulls back the lid to reveal a black ring with a beautiful red stone in the center, wrapped in small black stones.
Aubrey isn’t sure if she’s going to laugh or cry.
“Can you hold that thought for like two seconds?” Aubrey asks, stepping away from Dani.
Dani freezes, her face on the cusp of worry. “Aubrey–”
“Just. Just two seconds and I will be right back. I swear.”
She doesn’t given Dani a chance to respond. Instead she books it over to the birch tree. The flower crown is still there waiting for her. She’s careful not to crush the delicate red teacup rose, yellow blackeyed susan, orange chrysanthemum, and baby’s breath arrangement in her hand as she puts it behind her back and rushes to return to Dani.
As she gets closer, she notices that Dani hasn’t left her position, though the worry and confusion is clear as day on her face.
“Okay, so, before I give you my answer I need to ask one more favor of you, okay?”
“Oh…okay?” Dani asks, unsure.
She’s fudging this part a bit. Janelle, who knew a whole lot more about Sylvain customs than poor Alexandria did, had told her that the recipient only kneeled if they were in agreeance. But, well, none of this had gone as planned!
And Dani’d asked first so, that had to give her some sort of pass right?
She comes to a stop before Dani. She’s obviously very confused by all of this, but she humors Aubrey and settles down on both of her knees.
“Okay, so I …” Most of her words have left her at this point. She had a script and everything!
Aubrey takes a deep breath, doing her best to not let her tears fall quite yet.
“Dani, these past few years have meant the world to me. I don’t know how I would have survived any of this on my own and I just… I really love you.”
She brings the crown out from behind her back and presents it to Dani.
Dani stares at the flowers, in shock for a good minute.
And then she falls onto her back, laughing.
It only takes a few moments before Aubrey flops down to laugh with her.
It takes some time before their laughter dies down. They’re both a bit messy from rolling around in the leaves, but neither care too much. Eventually they both sit up, facing each other, tears staining their cheeks and matching smiles on each of their faces.
“I asked first, silly,” Dani says eventually, bopping Aubrey’s nose with the closed wooden box.
“Yes.” Aubrey laughs. “And you?”
“I will accept it with love,” Dani says, dipping her head.
Aubrey leans forward and places the crown on top of Dani’s head. It’s a bit messy now, but a little tweaking and the flowers sit how Aubrey had envisioned them, the reds, oranges, and yellows blending in prettily with Dani’s blonde hair. She idly picks out a few twigs and leaves as she works.
Once Aubrey’s hands still, Dani takes Aubrey’s hand in her own and retrieves the ring from the box. She then slips the ring onto Aubrey’s left hand. It matches her nails well. The nails that Dani—
“Wait is this why you insisted I paint my nails red two nights ago?”
Dani’s laugh says something more like ‘definitely.’
“Hey, you can’t judge me for my wishful thinking if you insisted that you do my hair for me this morning.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Aubrey refuses to look at Dani.
Or at least tries to up until Dani cups her face and leans in to kiss her.
“We are such a mess,” Dani says as she pulls away.
“Yes, you are!” A voice calls out from a nearby tree. Looking up Aubrey finds Jake holding a camcorder
Dani pulls away and splutters “J-Jake? What are you doing here?! I told you—”
“You both asked for my help. I didn’t know exactly how this would shake out, but I knew, whatever happened, I had to record it for later.”
“Though it’s kind of disappointing just how much money Duck is going to win.”
Aubrey’s blood runs cold.
“I’m sorry, what did you say, Jake?”
Aubey takes in a deep breath and does her best to keep her voice even. “Try again.”
Jake deflates a bit. “Everyone has been wondering who would propose to who. So, when y'all invited everyone to come hang out this week… we figured it was time to put together some more concrete guesses… Duck’s the only one who got it 100% correct though…”
“You all were betting on us?!” Dani shrieks.
“I didn’t bet,” Jake says as convincingly as he can with his two best friends about to go on a murder spree.
Dani groans and leans forward into Aubrey’s shoulder. The flowers smoosh against her face some.
“If I see a single dollar exchanged tonight, it goes up in smoke, got it?”
“Yes, ma'am” Jake looks down at his phone. “You know, I’d better get back, and, uh, let Barclay know to start supper soon?”
He takes off as if Aubrey is at his feet, fire in hand. She is, decidedly, still sitting on the ground, but she certainly entertains the idea for later.
“I’m gonna murder him,” Dani says through gritted teeth.
Aubrey sighs and lays back down on the carpet of leaves. “Don’t do that. I doubt Sherriff Owens would actually let you get away with murder. And it’d be kind of hard traveling two words together as wives if one of us were in prison.”
Dani laughs. “I suppose you have a point.”
She lays down beside Aubrey, who has raised her left hand to look at the ring on her finger. She’d been so focused on asking Dani, she didn’t stop to think just how much the gesture would mean if it was her receiving it.
Dani raises her right hand and reaches across Aubrey to take hers. She holds it for a few moments before bringing it down to her lips and kissing it.
“I love you, Aubrey. And I can’t wait to spend forever with you.”
“Me too, Dani.” A grin breaks out across Aubrey’s face.
