Dear @someonethatiamnot, the cat’s out of the bag now: I, @bianka-bee, am your Cinnamon Santa! You’ve been a delight of a giftee, and I’ve really enjoyed talking to you instead of just my usual admiring your writing from afar. ;) Not gonna lie, your chill about answering messages really helped relieve my stress in the promptness department, and for that I’m grateful. Thank you for the Christmas music recs, looove all of them so far. I hope you enjoyed the stocking stuffers I left you throughout the month. I’d originally planned for a longer story as the main gift, but went for a shorter fic + gifset instead - I think you more than deserve the little Outlander shoutout after the trauma of being asked to choose between that and Swingtown (that was very Grinch of me, lol). Enjoy, and happy holidays! :)
P.S.: I really wasn’t sure what format to post this in, so I’m posting the whole gift here, and I’ll be posting the gifset separately over on my blog for an option to reblog without the bulk of text.
Your face is my h e a r t, and the love of you is my s o u l.
The coin, hot in my hands before, threatens to burn a hole in my pocket now. Perhaps that’s what draws my eyes to the door even though my mind should be elsewhere—a sign? Magic? It must be, because you’re here, you weren’t coming but now you’re here, and my chest expands with warmth, and what does this even mean? What does everything mean? A coin’s just a coin, right? I look at you and look and look—and I see, well, more. Your hair over your shoulder, not braided like before but loose, and smooth, and no doubt silky to the touch. A smile, sheepish but true, elusive but satisfying, and I shouldn’t be looking at you still, or at all, but I just can’t help it. Perhaps yours are the eyes I was born to gaze into.
This seems silly, and reckless, and a lost cause, and the closer I get, the more I want to flee, but that boy Henry believes in this, and don’t I owe myself a chance at happiness? So I push the church door ajar and that’s as far as my legs will carry me, for you’re there, dashingly handsome, facing your beautiful bride, and my head screams this was a mistake but my stupid heart won’t listen because hope had already been planted there. And then you look at me, and your brow creases—you weren’t expecting me. But I’m here. And you won’t—can’t?—stop looking at me, and then you smile. I know what my heart says, and maybe if I stand here long enough, you’ll hear its frantic beating and know, too. Then what would you do?
*** I’ve lived through loss and pain, faced death and torture, cast the Dark Curse and survived its breaking. What’s a ball compared to all that? And yet I am afraid, my palms sweaty and my mouth dry. When they announce me they don’t even say my name, it’s really the Saviour they’re cheering for, not me. Then I see you—and you, you’re here for me. You look at me like I’m all that’s precious and good and worthy in the world, and then part of me thinks maybe I am those things. You watch me walk into your waiting arms like you can’t believe your luck, and I certainly cannot believe mine. My heart stutters, but this is no longer fear.
The Saviour, they say, and that’s fitting in a different way, a private way, for I seem to have been holding my breath waiting for you. They don’t say your name but my heart screams it over and over, calling for you: Regina, Regina, Regina. And look at you, all pastel and glitter—soft and radiant on the outside as I know you to be within. Your eyes perhaps a little too wide, your smile a notch too tight. Here to prove yourself. But there is nothing to prove—not to me. I already know everything I need. My smile is for you, is for that pesky year in which you’d have no doubt mocked me for a smitten, lovesick puppy if I’d dared look at you this way. And I suppose I am. Absolutely, hopelessly besotted with you.
*** Mother would tell me love is weakness, and life taught me that lesson over and over. Such lessons are hard to unlearn. But I’m trying. Oh how I’m trying. Because love can be exploited, yes, but it can also be forged into a weapon that fuels courage and unparallelled fierceness. And then love becomes strength. Protecting myself seems unimportant when it comes to protecting those precious to me.
We’re destined, you and I, and no matter when or where our paths cross, we’re going to feel it. A connection that can’t be foiled, nor denied. One that won’t be ignored even with my heart displaced. We’re bound together at the very soul.
We’re destined, but even that, I learned, is no guarantee. A tavern never entered is all it takes to miss a precious chance, and will my mind ever stop wandering to page XXIII, wondering what kind of life we could have had? A short one, presumably, with a violent end—yet still I wonder. Don’t you?
You say it’s all about timing. So is this it for us? The right time?
We can only hope.
No matter the time or the realm, I can at least promise to never run again. To hold on to this, to us—together.
My mother would sing of broken hearts, and I, a strapping lad of fifteen, swore never to meet that fate. Foolish youth knows nothing about the price of all things good and pure, but years, friendships, and yes, love, have taught me better.
Never did I dream I would be the one to break a heart though, least of all yours. Never yours. Even pixie dust holds no promise of unscathed hearts. Ours are both scarred, both touched by darkness, both rejuvenated with light that entered with the love of a child. You and I, we match.
Father would warn against the luxury of feeling with tales of an ancient deity’s wrath. He'd speak about a terrible god smiting men for daring to love, splitting them in half with a lightning bolt, dooming them to an incomplete life. I’ve learned since that’s not how the story ends. It ends with each of us seeking the other half of our soul—and I’ve found mine. It has your name written on it, etched deep into it so that neither time nor circumstance can ever erase it.
Across time and across realms, I choose you and will keep choosing you, and my soul soars.