Drabble prompt: love story
The challenge is to create a love story between your character and a current NPC... and make it believable. The NPC that I chose for my character is the risen tidesage, Thomas Zelling.
This little drabble takes place as my character, Anatalya, is doing some herbalism work, and Thomas has sought her out and confronted her about their growing relationship...
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“I was… Well, I was starting to think that you might, um…” Thomas ran a bony hand over his hair nervously. “I was starting to feel that you… might… care for me.” He looked away quickly, his breath coming faster.
“Of course I care for you,” Anatalya whispered. “You’ve become very special to me.” She put down the garden trowel she was using and looked at him fully.
“Talya… I…” Thomas sighed. “My wife… she lives, and I… I’m still…”
Anatalya placed her hand on his. “I know, Thomas. And I don’t want that. You don’t have to worry.” She patted his hand, then resumed planting the mageroot slips, carefully separating the roots before setting each cutting into the soil.
“Oh.” Thomas looked away, and the features of the shy, bookish human he had once been flickered across his decaying face. “W… well…” he stammered. “W…what do you want, then?”
Anatalya sat back on her heels and thought about how to answer that question in a way that would convey her complicated feelings. Yes, she had love for Thomas, but also great respect for him and his marriage vows. She valued him far too much as a friend to overstep her bounds. She wanted him to know that. But she also wanted him to know there was something more. Or there could have been.
Absentmindedly, she rubbed her nose with her gloved hand, leaving a smudge of dirt. Thomas was looking at her with such an odd expression. Was it relief? Hope? Disappointment? Longing?
All of those?
But then his mangled face curved into a ghost of a smile, and he passed his palm in front of Anatalya’s smudged nose, whispering an incantation under his breath. She felt a cooling mist coming from the hand of the tidesage, and a feeling of renewal and calm washed over her entire body.
“I, uh… I always washed my children’s faces that way,” Thomas said. “Being a tidesage does have practical uses sometimes.”
To Be Continued…