Like you imagined when you were young
OK OK OK so o///o
o////o
This is the story I mentioned on Plurk. This is canon, but it doesn't really happen in the story. It's super pre-story. But I like this scene, so I decided to write it before I forgot it entirely. Even if only Layne & I read it, which I fully expect, I'm having fun writing it.
Title: When You Were Young (1/2)
Words: 2,600+
Universe: Morning to Moon
Rating: PG
Notes: I wrote this with a busted keyboard, so if you see a typo, please ... pretend, for me, it is not present.
Outside, the sound from the crickets was nearly deafening, especially with an open window. It had been barely thirty minutes since the rain had stopped. The good thing about living just outside the city, Samaire realized, was that it bridged the gap between desiring things like seeing the moon on clear nights and being close enough to get to work without too much problem. It was truly the best of both worlds; she couldn't claim it provided much privacy, as she lived in an apartment in a suburb.
But on these wet April nights, the cool air drifted in from the road and, with it, the sound of wildlife. The crickets and the various choruses of frogs, some of them sounding eerily not unlike church bells. It was a strange comparison, but they had this throaty croak that echoed through the dark like Sunday noon in the country.
It was a sound she hadn't heard in a long time and simply didn't care to. What this city life brought was a complete disregard and thorough trashing of those country values. There were priests and some churches, but who visited them? Out of towners, country people. Samaire didn't care either way, but it was a slight nostalgic thought that made her sit up in her chair by the window, set her book on her lap. It was something she hadn't thought about in a long time, and for good reason. Just because it was nostalgia, it didn't make it good nostalgia. There was a difference.
Samaire wasn't the type of person to chase the past. Or she didn't consider herself a person who did. She had made declarations on the subject. What were the golden times, she'd asked her father, when he talked about a time when girls respected their parents' wishes. I think they just exist in your head. This was one of the last things she told him before she left.
There wasn't pangs of guilt here, or soft sighs as she picked up her book. Samaire just rolled her eyes and remembered how these things all seemed to mix together: her father, the church, leaving home. They had in common the sense that they were all things she was over, completely. She would say that aloud when she didn't feel like discussing it: I'm over it. The end.
It worked because her next few thoughts were, in order, this is a good book, is this going to be a sex scene, I didn't think they wrote sex scenes in this series and what's that noise.
At first, it sounded like a very large insect hitting a window, but if it was hitting itself that hard, it'd be dead. Just a dull thump thump against a hard surface. It took her only a few seconds to realize it was pebbles hitting something. The side of the apartment building, most likely.
Samaire looked at her clock. It was just past eleven. Was it really that late?
The sound of the rocks, which they had become in her mind, instead of "that noise", stopped. At least for a moment before there was a loud thud and a soft voice saying, "Hey, HEY."
Samaire suspected as much, but trying to ignore the sound wasn't going to work, clearly. A soft voice was about to turn into a loud voice in few seconds. She carefully placed a tasseled bookmark inside the pages and leaned out the window disapprovingly.
Ashe smiled up, not the least bit guiltily, from the courtyard outside.
"What?"
"Let me in, the front door is locked."
"Our land lady locks the doors at 10 pm," Samaire answered flatly. "Only the tenants have keys, you know that. She lives on the top floor and isn't above dumping buckets of water on the noisy."
"Sam!"
"Plus, you were throwing rocks at the second floor window below mine. I'm glad that room is unoccupied, you know." Samaire frowned. "And you know what floor I live on!"
"I saw your window was open. I didn't want to hit you with a rock."
This was logic, she had to concede. Instead, she sighed. "What is it? It's too late, I'm on duty tomorrow, I can't go out with you tonight."
"Oh, but you'll want to!" Ashe yelled back up.
"Be quiet!" Samaire looked out and up. The light was still off in the land lady's room. Not for long.
"You'll want to," said Ashe, more quietly. He put his hands in the pocket of his jacket and gave her what she knew he hoped was a "winning smile."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay," she said. She have to put her pants back on, but she couldn't yell that out. "I'm coming down, but you can't come up. I won't get you to leave. I mean, I really am on duty tomorrow."
Ashe yelled this was okay, and Samaire winced at the echo of his voice in the courtyard, as she shut the window and fitfully threw on a pair of wrinkled jeans.
It wasn't that she wasn't happy to see him. She was. His face still provoked this strange feeling in her stomach it did a year ago, but it also came with a touch of annoyance, because he could've come by much earlier. She'd been home for three hours. She made note to tell him this as she hurried down the stairs. They'd go out tomorrow night. They were adults now, they didn't just stay out until morning when work was tomorrow. Samaire didn't, at the very least.
Ashe was waiting right outside the door the moment she unlocked it. She only had a moment to close the door behind her before he grabbed her bodily and kissed her. It was a quick kiss, but unusually furious.
"Hello to you too, drunkard," said Samaire with a laugh, noticing Ashe's face fall immediately.
"I'm not drunk!" he replied resolutely, his hand still gripping hers. He gave it a squeeze and added, "I've just been up and thinking."
Samaire almost added, "And drinking," but his pained look was genuine. Besides, she thought, he seemed to barely be able to contain his glee and the moment he mentioned thinking, his voice lowered to nearly a whisper. He was as serious as he could be.
"Marry me," he said simply.
"Excuse me?" Samaire laughed, then covered her mouth realizing the echo. Ashe's face lit up at the sound of her laughter and he began to laugh too, louder than she had and didn't try to muffle it.
"No, no," he said, hysterical laughter just around the corner, "I'm really serious."
Samaire stopped laughing immediately, but Ashe kept laughing until he saw her face. "You look so damned shocked, Samaire. The look on your face is priceless."
"It's a joke?"
"No, it's not," he said again, lifting a finger to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes. "I love when you get that look, it's so hilarious. I could tell you anything, you'd just fall over."
"So, you're serious?"
"Yes, I am." He grabbed her hand again, which she'd pulled away to cover her mouth. "I really am. Do I look like this often?"
He shook his head, not waiting for a reply, which she didn't think she could form. "I told you something before, I want to know if you remember it. I told you once I didn't think I felt about you how I felt about anything else. Anyone else. I did, didn't I?"
He had. Samaire's mouth was suddenly dry, and all she could do was nod. He had said this two months after they'd started dating seriously. It'd only been six months now, but it seemed cold, or tasteless to mention this right now. Samaire squeezed his hand back.
"It's still true. I want to prove this."
"Prove it?"
"Okay, prove is the wrong word," he said, waving his other hand. "I want this to be concrete. I want to show people."
"You're going to show me by eloping with me at midnight on a Tuesday night?"
"It's not midnight yet, and it'd be Wednesday. But yeah, I am."
"What about a wedding?" Samaire felt she was playing devil's advocate or playing the part of logic uselessly. But when did anyone get asked these things, everyday? They didn't. Samaire never had been. She felt her reaction appropriate.
"Screw a wedding. Do you want a wedding?"
Samaire really didn't. Age was irrelevant, to her. They were old enough to work and had been for years. But what would people say about their marriage at this age? Working was one thing, getting married might be another. People didn't matter, Samaire countered herself, but what about their friends, their -- his family? They did matter.
Samaire supposed they did, but almost as though something else had taken over her vocal chords, she felt herself saying, "I don't want a wedding."
"Okay, I'd give you one if you did." He smiled again at her. "But I really don't want to."
Samaire didn't answer and she hoped Ashe didn't expect her to. The hand on her vocal chords seemed to have receded, the force bringing words out of her. She felt like she could say nothing until the sentences had tumbled and polished in her mind. She bit her lip.
The sounds of the frogs still echoed around them and for a moment, that was all they heard and all she felt was the weight of his hand and the breeze that tickled her bare arms.
The feeling was back.
The feeling she had felt when he'd said yes to a date, the feeling when they kissed for the first time, the feeling when they'd made love for the first time. The first time he said he loved her and she said it back, the feeling when he whispered in her ear, admitted he didn't know how he could feel this way but did. In his whole, short life, he hadn't felt this way about anything or anyone since and she believed him.
The feeling started in her stomach, and made her heart beat, it electrified her fingertips and pumped her veins with this excitement she didn't know she'd ever felt before. She felt goosebumps. It was this childish, primal feeling of happiness, intermingled with this feeling of success, though that was the wrong word. Were there words? There were. There were thousands and they were dead wrong too.
When she'd first joined the guard, she'd seen him sitting under trees, holding court with friends and flirting with girls and it had arrested her for a time. She remembered wanting to spit at her reflection in the mirror. Who are you to be good enough for anyone? She didn't know boys, men, romance, whatever. She didn't think she could. Her courage to approach him seemed stupid, but when he'd said sure, they could "go for dinner", she felt even more stupid, for ever hanging her self worth on another person. And of course, for the doubt.
Now that same young man who seemed untouchable was holding her hand, his face flushed, and smiling. She had long since cast aside that her feelings were simply because they were reciprocated or because someone did reciprocate them. That was stupid. Her feelings were because she loved him. Why didn't it have to be that damn simple?
"I will," said Samaire. "If you want to get married tonight, we will. I still think you're crazy, but I think anyone would."
What she didn't expect was Ashe to grab her in his arms and pick her up. She expected a hug, of course. And his grab was so unrefined and rough. Samaire felt his fingertips digging into her skin. She wasn't heavy, but he just wasn't delicate.
"What are you --"
Her "put me down," was drowned out by his voice yelling, "Carrying you, bridal-style, so get over it!"
"Okay," Samaire grunted, throwing her arm around his neck. "Carrying me where?"
"The next block, we're calling a cab."
"Then to where?"
"A surprise."
"I trust you," she said and realized he'd began to walk down the road, the streetlamps casting a halo-like glow on his head. "Just don't drop me."
"For that, you know, I'm just going to throw you down in the street."
Samaire blew a raspberry.
&&&
It was fifteen minutes before they reached the city streets, and had argued the whole way concerning his carrying of her. He tried to throw her over his shoulder when she said his nails were digging into her hip. That didn't work, so he put her down half-way there, told her she could walk, he wasn't going to be a gentleman ever again, she had blown that chance.
The lights got brighter, the streetlights in particular became closer together the nearer they became. The moon, for what little it was becoming, eventually disappeared into the sky. In the street, pools of water from the recent rain reflected the city lights, glittering and then distorting when they walked through them.
As soon as they arrived at the city limits, he asked if she wanted another chance. Samaire had laughed and kneed him in the back before she realized his attention was focused on waving down one of the few cabs passing on the street at this hour.
"Okay," said Ashe, "there is an art to this."
"You show some leg?"
"You wave cash."
It worked on the second try. A grey taxi skidded up to the curb and Ashe had jumped back to avoid being hit, almost knocking into Samaire.
The window rolled down and a young man's face swam into view from the dark front seat. His hair was a tangled mess of dreadlocks and a toothy grin was etched on his face.
"Where you guys going?"
"Edge of the city, Luna Place."
The cabbie whistled. "Fancy neighborhood."
"Do we not look the sort?" asked Samaire.
"Do you want me to answer that?" asked the kid, before jerking his thumb to the backseat. "Get in, we should be there in twenty."
"That's a thirty minute drive, man," Ashe replied, raising an eyebrow. Samaire knew they were ignoring her scowl.
"Look, get in or not."
Samaire had no warning before Ashe, with almost supernatural speed, scooped her into his arms and threw her bodily into the backseat, before sliding in himself.
Samaire kicked him as soon as the door closed. "You cannot manhandle me, I'm not one of your friends."
"You're stronger than I am!"
Samaire tried not to kick him again, but it was true. She was the victor in all of their sparring matches, save for one. That one, she had allowed him to win at the last minute, from a keen sense of pity. When she had admitted it later, he snorted and said he knew it, it shouldn't have been that easy. He had frowned after, and whimpered in a wounded voice, "Ow, my pride."
Samaire knew he claimed he didn't do, as he called it, that "macho pride crap." Samaire also knew he was wrong, but sometimes letting people believe things was best for their peace of mind. It was more amusing than anything, really.
He leaned over suddenly and nuzzled her cheek. "Let's not do the domestic violence just yet."
"You're so rough." Samaire whispered in his ear, "That's fine when in bed, but if you keep throwing me around, I keep kicking." Samaire knew this came from some misplaced sense of being romantic, because he looked at her, almost offended, and said, "You try to be a gentleman ..."
"Where are you taking me?"
"Don't change the subject, we're discussing violence."
"No, I'm really interested. I've never been to Luna."
"We're going to see a priest."
"You know a priest?"
"Look at it this way," said Ashe, with a sigh, "Think of the rarest fruit you know."
"... Okay."
"I probably, or at my parents, know someone who grows it."
"I forget about your connections." Samaire watched the city passing in a flash outside the window. She tried not think about how fast they were going. "So we're going to see a priest."
"A priest."
TO BE CONTINUED dun dun dun
I would really really like some feedback if you can :(
o////o
This is the story I mentioned on Plurk. This is canon, but it doesn't really happen in the story. It's super pre-story. But I like this scene, so I decided to write it before I forgot it entirely. Even if only Layne & I read it, which I fully expect, I'm having fun writing it.
Title: When You Were Young (1/2)
Words: 2,600+
Universe: Morning to Moon
Rating: PG
Notes: I wrote this with a busted keyboard, so if you see a typo, please ... pretend, for me, it is not present.
Outside, the sound from the crickets was nearly deafening, especially with an open window. It had been barely thirty minutes since the rain had stopped. The good thing about living just outside the city, Samaire realized, was that it bridged the gap between desiring things like seeing the moon on clear nights and being close enough to get to work without too much problem. It was truly the best of both worlds; she couldn't claim it provided much privacy, as she lived in an apartment in a suburb.
But on these wet April nights, the cool air drifted in from the road and, with it, the sound of wildlife. The crickets and the various choruses of frogs, some of them sounding eerily not unlike church bells. It was a strange comparison, but they had this throaty croak that echoed through the dark like Sunday noon in the country.
It was a sound she hadn't heard in a long time and simply didn't care to. What this city life brought was a complete disregard and thorough trashing of those country values. There were priests and some churches, but who visited them? Out of towners, country people. Samaire didn't care either way, but it was a slight nostalgic thought that made her sit up in her chair by the window, set her book on her lap. It was something she hadn't thought about in a long time, and for good reason. Just because it was nostalgia, it didn't make it good nostalgia. There was a difference.
Samaire wasn't the type of person to chase the past. Or she didn't consider herself a person who did. She had made declarations on the subject. What were the golden times, she'd asked her father, when he talked about a time when girls respected their parents' wishes. I think they just exist in your head. This was one of the last things she told him before she left.
There wasn't pangs of guilt here, or soft sighs as she picked up her book. Samaire just rolled her eyes and remembered how these things all seemed to mix together: her father, the church, leaving home. They had in common the sense that they were all things she was over, completely. She would say that aloud when she didn't feel like discussing it: I'm over it. The end.
It worked because her next few thoughts were, in order, this is a good book, is this going to be a sex scene, I didn't think they wrote sex scenes in this series and what's that noise.
At first, it sounded like a very large insect hitting a window, but if it was hitting itself that hard, it'd be dead. Just a dull thump thump against a hard surface. It took her only a few seconds to realize it was pebbles hitting something. The side of the apartment building, most likely.
Samaire looked at her clock. It was just past eleven. Was it really that late?
The sound of the rocks, which they had become in her mind, instead of "that noise", stopped. At least for a moment before there was a loud thud and a soft voice saying, "Hey, HEY."
Samaire suspected as much, but trying to ignore the sound wasn't going to work, clearly. A soft voice was about to turn into a loud voice in few seconds. She carefully placed a tasseled bookmark inside the pages and leaned out the window disapprovingly.
Ashe smiled up, not the least bit guiltily, from the courtyard outside.
"What?"
"Let me in, the front door is locked."
"Our land lady locks the doors at 10 pm," Samaire answered flatly. "Only the tenants have keys, you know that. She lives on the top floor and isn't above dumping buckets of water on the noisy."
"Sam!"
"Plus, you were throwing rocks at the second floor window below mine. I'm glad that room is unoccupied, you know." Samaire frowned. "And you know what floor I live on!"
"I saw your window was open. I didn't want to hit you with a rock."
This was logic, she had to concede. Instead, she sighed. "What is it? It's too late, I'm on duty tomorrow, I can't go out with you tonight."
"Oh, but you'll want to!" Ashe yelled back up.
"Be quiet!" Samaire looked out and up. The light was still off in the land lady's room. Not for long.
"You'll want to," said Ashe, more quietly. He put his hands in the pocket of his jacket and gave her what she knew he hoped was a "winning smile."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay," she said. She have to put her pants back on, but she couldn't yell that out. "I'm coming down, but you can't come up. I won't get you to leave. I mean, I really am on duty tomorrow."
Ashe yelled this was okay, and Samaire winced at the echo of his voice in the courtyard, as she shut the window and fitfully threw on a pair of wrinkled jeans.
It wasn't that she wasn't happy to see him. She was. His face still provoked this strange feeling in her stomach it did a year ago, but it also came with a touch of annoyance, because he could've come by much earlier. She'd been home for three hours. She made note to tell him this as she hurried down the stairs. They'd go out tomorrow night. They were adults now, they didn't just stay out until morning when work was tomorrow. Samaire didn't, at the very least.
Ashe was waiting right outside the door the moment she unlocked it. She only had a moment to close the door behind her before he grabbed her bodily and kissed her. It was a quick kiss, but unusually furious.
"Hello to you too, drunkard," said Samaire with a laugh, noticing Ashe's face fall immediately.
"I'm not drunk!" he replied resolutely, his hand still gripping hers. He gave it a squeeze and added, "I've just been up and thinking."
Samaire almost added, "And drinking," but his pained look was genuine. Besides, she thought, he seemed to barely be able to contain his glee and the moment he mentioned thinking, his voice lowered to nearly a whisper. He was as serious as he could be.
"Marry me," he said simply.
"Excuse me?" Samaire laughed, then covered her mouth realizing the echo. Ashe's face lit up at the sound of her laughter and he began to laugh too, louder than she had and didn't try to muffle it.
"No, no," he said, hysterical laughter just around the corner, "I'm really serious."
Samaire stopped laughing immediately, but Ashe kept laughing until he saw her face. "You look so damned shocked, Samaire. The look on your face is priceless."
"It's a joke?"
"No, it's not," he said again, lifting a finger to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes. "I love when you get that look, it's so hilarious. I could tell you anything, you'd just fall over."
"So, you're serious?"
"Yes, I am." He grabbed her hand again, which she'd pulled away to cover her mouth. "I really am. Do I look like this often?"
He shook his head, not waiting for a reply, which she didn't think she could form. "I told you something before, I want to know if you remember it. I told you once I didn't think I felt about you how I felt about anything else. Anyone else. I did, didn't I?"
He had. Samaire's mouth was suddenly dry, and all she could do was nod. He had said this two months after they'd started dating seriously. It'd only been six months now, but it seemed cold, or tasteless to mention this right now. Samaire squeezed his hand back.
"It's still true. I want to prove this."
"Prove it?"
"Okay, prove is the wrong word," he said, waving his other hand. "I want this to be concrete. I want to show people."
"You're going to show me by eloping with me at midnight on a Tuesday night?"
"It's not midnight yet, and it'd be Wednesday. But yeah, I am."
"What about a wedding?" Samaire felt she was playing devil's advocate or playing the part of logic uselessly. But when did anyone get asked these things, everyday? They didn't. Samaire never had been. She felt her reaction appropriate.
"Screw a wedding. Do you want a wedding?"
Samaire really didn't. Age was irrelevant, to her. They were old enough to work and had been for years. But what would people say about their marriage at this age? Working was one thing, getting married might be another. People didn't matter, Samaire countered herself, but what about their friends, their -- his family? They did matter.
Samaire supposed they did, but almost as though something else had taken over her vocal chords, she felt herself saying, "I don't want a wedding."
"Okay, I'd give you one if you did." He smiled again at her. "But I really don't want to."
Samaire didn't answer and she hoped Ashe didn't expect her to. The hand on her vocal chords seemed to have receded, the force bringing words out of her. She felt like she could say nothing until the sentences had tumbled and polished in her mind. She bit her lip.
The sounds of the frogs still echoed around them and for a moment, that was all they heard and all she felt was the weight of his hand and the breeze that tickled her bare arms.
The feeling was back.
The feeling she had felt when he'd said yes to a date, the feeling when they kissed for the first time, the feeling when they'd made love for the first time. The first time he said he loved her and she said it back, the feeling when he whispered in her ear, admitted he didn't know how he could feel this way but did. In his whole, short life, he hadn't felt this way about anything or anyone since and she believed him.
The feeling started in her stomach, and made her heart beat, it electrified her fingertips and pumped her veins with this excitement she didn't know she'd ever felt before. She felt goosebumps. It was this childish, primal feeling of happiness, intermingled with this feeling of success, though that was the wrong word. Were there words? There were. There were thousands and they were dead wrong too.
When she'd first joined the guard, she'd seen him sitting under trees, holding court with friends and flirting with girls and it had arrested her for a time. She remembered wanting to spit at her reflection in the mirror. Who are you to be good enough for anyone? She didn't know boys, men, romance, whatever. She didn't think she could. Her courage to approach him seemed stupid, but when he'd said sure, they could "go for dinner", she felt even more stupid, for ever hanging her self worth on another person. And of course, for the doubt.
Now that same young man who seemed untouchable was holding her hand, his face flushed, and smiling. She had long since cast aside that her feelings were simply because they were reciprocated or because someone did reciprocate them. That was stupid. Her feelings were because she loved him. Why didn't it have to be that damn simple?
"I will," said Samaire. "If you want to get married tonight, we will. I still think you're crazy, but I think anyone would."
What she didn't expect was Ashe to grab her in his arms and pick her up. She expected a hug, of course. And his grab was so unrefined and rough. Samaire felt his fingertips digging into her skin. She wasn't heavy, but he just wasn't delicate.
"What are you --"
Her "put me down," was drowned out by his voice yelling, "Carrying you, bridal-style, so get over it!"
"Okay," Samaire grunted, throwing her arm around his neck. "Carrying me where?"
"The next block, we're calling a cab."
"Then to where?"
"A surprise."
"I trust you," she said and realized he'd began to walk down the road, the streetlamps casting a halo-like glow on his head. "Just don't drop me."
"For that, you know, I'm just going to throw you down in the street."
Samaire blew a raspberry.
&&&
It was fifteen minutes before they reached the city streets, and had argued the whole way concerning his carrying of her. He tried to throw her over his shoulder when she said his nails were digging into her hip. That didn't work, so he put her down half-way there, told her she could walk, he wasn't going to be a gentleman ever again, she had blown that chance.
The lights got brighter, the streetlights in particular became closer together the nearer they became. The moon, for what little it was becoming, eventually disappeared into the sky. In the street, pools of water from the recent rain reflected the city lights, glittering and then distorting when they walked through them.
As soon as they arrived at the city limits, he asked if she wanted another chance. Samaire had laughed and kneed him in the back before she realized his attention was focused on waving down one of the few cabs passing on the street at this hour.
"Okay," said Ashe, "there is an art to this."
"You show some leg?"
"You wave cash."
It worked on the second try. A grey taxi skidded up to the curb and Ashe had jumped back to avoid being hit, almost knocking into Samaire.
The window rolled down and a young man's face swam into view from the dark front seat. His hair was a tangled mess of dreadlocks and a toothy grin was etched on his face.
"Where you guys going?"
"Edge of the city, Luna Place."
The cabbie whistled. "Fancy neighborhood."
"Do we not look the sort?" asked Samaire.
"Do you want me to answer that?" asked the kid, before jerking his thumb to the backseat. "Get in, we should be there in twenty."
"That's a thirty minute drive, man," Ashe replied, raising an eyebrow. Samaire knew they were ignoring her scowl.
"Look, get in or not."
Samaire had no warning before Ashe, with almost supernatural speed, scooped her into his arms and threw her bodily into the backseat, before sliding in himself.
Samaire kicked him as soon as the door closed. "You cannot manhandle me, I'm not one of your friends."
"You're stronger than I am!"
Samaire tried not to kick him again, but it was true. She was the victor in all of their sparring matches, save for one. That one, she had allowed him to win at the last minute, from a keen sense of pity. When she had admitted it later, he snorted and said he knew it, it shouldn't have been that easy. He had frowned after, and whimpered in a wounded voice, "Ow, my pride."
Samaire knew he claimed he didn't do, as he called it, that "macho pride crap." Samaire also knew he was wrong, but sometimes letting people believe things was best for their peace of mind. It was more amusing than anything, really.
He leaned over suddenly and nuzzled her cheek. "Let's not do the domestic violence just yet."
"You're so rough." Samaire whispered in his ear, "That's fine when in bed, but if you keep throwing me around, I keep kicking." Samaire knew this came from some misplaced sense of being romantic, because he looked at her, almost offended, and said, "You try to be a gentleman ..."
"Where are you taking me?"
"Don't change the subject, we're discussing violence."
"No, I'm really interested. I've never been to Luna."
"We're going to see a priest."
"You know a priest?"
"Look at it this way," said Ashe, with a sigh, "Think of the rarest fruit you know."
"... Okay."
"I probably, or at my parents, know someone who grows it."
"I forget about your connections." Samaire watched the city passing in a flash outside the window. She tried not think about how fast they were going. "So we're going to see a priest."
"A priest."
TO BE CONTINUED dun dun dun
I would really really like some feedback if you can :(