Rosa... Where are you?
Cecil could think of nothing else.
âSay no moreâ He whispered to Rosa, as he placed pressure on her soft cheek with his left hand, pulling her in the extra centimeter with his right. When their lips touched, he could feel goosebumps shoot down the back of his neck. He cared not that they were in the main part of town. He cared not who may be watching through open windows, what nosey eyes may be peering out at them at this hour. Only one thing mattered for now. He felt once again like he was in Baron. Like he was in the tower, donning the black armor of the dark knight.
No.
No, this was nothing like that. They were in Aphrodite now. This was over a decade later, and their lives had changed. So much had happened since the day he left Baron. So muchâŠ
But through all that had changed, one thing hadnâtâŠ
No black knight's mantle would ever sway her into falling from what gracious presence Cecil had to offer--no apocryphal thought would seep into her being, to complacently settle and destroy her from the inside out. No--Cecil Harvey, now a Paladin, was someone Rosa treasured more than her own life on most days, and loved whole-heartedly, just as she loved herself and her friends, her country and the world she lived in. Aphrodite's streets were littered with the general passer-by shrouds, and no more than the blink of an eye did Rosa have to offer before lips folded in one, swooping, gentle kiss.
...Baron was far away now. If for a mere moment she could bring herself back into thinking they were on the terrace, lost in a heavy-hearted conversation where silence proved dominant, Rosa imagined the tides of change had come upon them, and affection took place rather than awkwardness and distance. And perhaps this proved to be the turning point for that truth; where once imagination came to thread upon a the weary fabric called a 'heart', the utmost liberation of love came to take them both away.
Rosa let her rigid frame sink in his arms and melt into his embrace; there had always been something about Cecil she loved so dearly, and if anything it was his patience with her. Stoic and unresponsive, she'd deemed him once before, but did the past ever matter now? Did sins of a past supposedly right but gone awry, prove to justify someone's future self?... No. Cecil had redeemed himself, and Rosa was proud, but more so was she fruitfully settled with the idea that she'd come back to a man, and not a boy.
And he had come back to her, it seemed.
