Post by indifferentred on Apr 4, 2015 3:29:08 GMT 10
Series: Two Steps Forward (Yazmín/Vedris)
Title: A Four-Letter Word
Rating: PG-13
Event: 4x100 ‘Types of Love’ relay
Competition: Decathlon
Words: 400
Summary: Storge (affection; can be a sexual relationship that grows out of friendship) - Sandry realises she has missed a trick; Éros (intimacy or romantic love) - Yazmín realises what is different this time around; Philia (true friendship, especially of the reciprocal kind) - Yazmín and Vedris exchange some unusual gifts; Agápe (charity, self-sacrificing love) - Yazmín listens to the gossips. Warnings for implied sex in Storge, Éros and Agápe. All drabble titles taken from the Greek words for the various types of love.
Storge
Sandry scolds herself when Yazmín appears at breakfast that first morning, and she realises how many of the signs she has missed along the way.
When, she ponders, did the chaste goodnight kisses migrate from cheeks to lips, and then glide away from chastity altogether? And how soon after that did they become completely surplus to requirements anyway?
When did ‘Your Grace’ get replaced by ‘Vedris’?
When did Uncle start speaking to her in that special, unfamiliar, deeper tone of voice?
The only thing that consoles her somewhat is the identical look of perplexed joyous wonder in Yazmín’s own eyes.
Éros
He traces Tharian letters on her spine by candlelight as they drift into sleep. He knows every inch of her body by now anyway, but that isn’t the point. There are still discoveries to be made - the shiver of delight she gives as he brushes the sensitive spot just at the nape of her neck, the dip of muscle and bone where it curves towards its base.
Yazmín finds that she likes to feel his hands on her, cool and gentle, with none of the possessiveness or empty lust her past lovers have shown. This is different. Deeper. Kinder. Love?
Philia
Yazmín has had many lovers - it isn’t boasting, simply a bald statement of fact. It is only when Vedris gifts her a caddy of jasmine tea fresh from the Trader ship in the harbour that she realises exactly how bland they have all been. Jewellery, silks, flowers… dull, generic gifts from dull, generic men.
He complains about her gift to him. “My healer has given me enough strengthening charms to raise the dead,” he protests, but she hooks the amulet around his neck anyway.
“Wear this one as a reminder to be sensible?” she asks, warming his weak, old heart.
Agápe
“My mother was the daughter of a Count,” Franzen reminds her. “What honour are you bringing to him? Think of whose shoes you are attempting to fill, and prevent this foolishness from going any further, before you are both injured by it.”
“I’m sorry,” she says; it sounds nothing like her. “I can’t marry you.” She will not - cannot - let him make this mistake.
“They say the Yanjingyi Emperor paid her twenty thousand chams.”
“Yes, my dear,” the biting, well-bred voice replies, “but what was he paying her for?”
“Yazmín, I don’t - “
“Please, Vedris,” she begs. “Just… forget me.”
Title: A Four-Letter Word
Rating: PG-13
Event: 4x100 ‘Types of Love’ relay
Competition: Decathlon
Words: 400
Summary: Storge (affection; can be a sexual relationship that grows out of friendship) - Sandry realises she has missed a trick; Éros (intimacy or romantic love) - Yazmín realises what is different this time around; Philia (true friendship, especially of the reciprocal kind) - Yazmín and Vedris exchange some unusual gifts; Agápe (charity, self-sacrificing love) - Yazmín listens to the gossips. Warnings for implied sex in Storge, Éros and Agápe. All drabble titles taken from the Greek words for the various types of love.
Storge
Sandry scolds herself when Yazmín appears at breakfast that first morning, and she realises how many of the signs she has missed along the way.
When, she ponders, did the chaste goodnight kisses migrate from cheeks to lips, and then glide away from chastity altogether? And how soon after that did they become completely surplus to requirements anyway?
When did ‘Your Grace’ get replaced by ‘Vedris’?
When did Uncle start speaking to her in that special, unfamiliar, deeper tone of voice?
The only thing that consoles her somewhat is the identical look of perplexed joyous wonder in Yazmín’s own eyes.
Éros
He traces Tharian letters on her spine by candlelight as they drift into sleep. He knows every inch of her body by now anyway, but that isn’t the point. There are still discoveries to be made - the shiver of delight she gives as he brushes the sensitive spot just at the nape of her neck, the dip of muscle and bone where it curves towards its base.
Yazmín finds that she likes to feel his hands on her, cool and gentle, with none of the possessiveness or empty lust her past lovers have shown. This is different. Deeper. Kinder. Love?
Philia
Yazmín has had many lovers - it isn’t boasting, simply a bald statement of fact. It is only when Vedris gifts her a caddy of jasmine tea fresh from the Trader ship in the harbour that she realises exactly how bland they have all been. Jewellery, silks, flowers… dull, generic gifts from dull, generic men.
He complains about her gift to him. “My healer has given me enough strengthening charms to raise the dead,” he protests, but she hooks the amulet around his neck anyway.
“Wear this one as a reminder to be sensible?” she asks, warming his weak, old heart.
Agápe
“My mother was the daughter of a Count,” Franzen reminds her. “What honour are you bringing to him? Think of whose shoes you are attempting to fill, and prevent this foolishness from going any further, before you are both injured by it.”
“I’m sorry,” she says; it sounds nothing like her. “I can’t marry you.” She will not - cannot - let him make this mistake.
“They say the Yanjingyi Emperor paid her twenty thousand chams.”
“Yes, my dear,” the biting, well-bred voice replies, “but what was he paying her for?”
“Yazmín, I don’t - “
“Please, Vedris,” she begs. “Just… forget me.”