Rocky Road 18: This is Why
Title: This is Why
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Rocky road 18 (garden), malt (PFAH: Ivy: walking on the clouds), pocky chain, caramel (the last two).
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG.
Summary: Beauty is never ridiculous.
Notes: Fluff, as promised. Also, FINALLY DONE WITH ROCKY ROAD WOOT. Also, I think this turned into a love letter to a place I've never been, but so it goes.
"Can you believe," Ivy asks, wandering hand in hand with Gina through the Cloisters, "that they actually packed these places up and shipped them here? Actual old monestaries from actual Europe? It seems a little ridiculous."
Gina turns and smiles at her, the sun making a halo of her golden hair. Appropriate for the Cloisters, for the stained-glass windows and medieval saints that surround them.
"Beauty is never ridiculous," Gina says, and waves at the long avenue of columns, the stone arches like frozen grace. "And is there any place more beautiful than this, here?"
In answer, Ivy kisses her.
--
There's a particular tree in a particular courtyard that they both like to lie beneath. It spreads over them now, a fully opened emerald umbrella, casting a cool green shade on the grass. Ivy can never believe how green the Cloisters are, nor how silent. It's strange to think that there is a place this quiet and contemplative in New York City, of all places, but here it is.
Gina rolls over, spreads her hand across Ivy's belly. There's no passion in her touch now, only affection. Only love.
There's no room for anything but love here. She likes that.
--
Even in winter, the Cloisters are beautiful. The snow here stays white when the rest of New York has turned it grey and slushy-black. The potted plants brought indoors to last out the winter are bright splashes of color. Sometimes, in the evenings, the stained-glass windows cast colored shadows on the snow. They come here for that beauty, now, when they can't get it anywhere else.
"I understand now," Gina says, quietly, "how they did it. The nuns, I mean, in medieval Europe. If you got to come home to this..."
Ivy can understand that. Peace can be worth anything.
--
They don't always go in; it's twenty dollars each and they can't afford that, not as often as they want. Sometimes they just go to the park and spread out a blanket near the walls, where Gina usually falls asleep, curled in the sun, her head in Ivy's lap.
It's on a day like that, the sky as blue as Gina's eyes and the grass as green as hers, that she looks down at her hand on Gina's hair, sees her ring and it hits her; they're married. At last.
They'll bring their children here someday, she thinks, and smiles.
--
It's not long after that spring day that Ivy's mother realizes that they don't have any decent wedding photographs. Such a crowded, noisy day it was, full of so much joy and so much love, so many friends and family that no one remembered to record it.
This, her mother declares, cannot stand; they must have a wedding photo taken. And Ivy and Gina know how: the two of them in white (because some traditions are worthy, and some symbols are true), hand in hand, at the Cloisters.
Beauty is never ridiculous, and the two of them, together, are beautiful.
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Rocky road 18 (garden), malt (PFAH: Ivy: walking on the clouds), pocky chain, caramel (the last two).
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG.
Summary: Beauty is never ridiculous.
Notes: Fluff, as promised. Also, FINALLY DONE WITH ROCKY ROAD WOOT. Also, I think this turned into a love letter to a place I've never been, but so it goes.
"Can you believe," Ivy asks, wandering hand in hand with Gina through the Cloisters, "that they actually packed these places up and shipped them here? Actual old monestaries from actual Europe? It seems a little ridiculous."
Gina turns and smiles at her, the sun making a halo of her golden hair. Appropriate for the Cloisters, for the stained-glass windows and medieval saints that surround them.
"Beauty is never ridiculous," Gina says, and waves at the long avenue of columns, the stone arches like frozen grace. "And is there any place more beautiful than this, here?"
In answer, Ivy kisses her.
--
There's a particular tree in a particular courtyard that they both like to lie beneath. It spreads over them now, a fully opened emerald umbrella, casting a cool green shade on the grass. Ivy can never believe how green the Cloisters are, nor how silent. It's strange to think that there is a place this quiet and contemplative in New York City, of all places, but here it is.
Gina rolls over, spreads her hand across Ivy's belly. There's no passion in her touch now, only affection. Only love.
There's no room for anything but love here. She likes that.
--
Even in winter, the Cloisters are beautiful. The snow here stays white when the rest of New York has turned it grey and slushy-black. The potted plants brought indoors to last out the winter are bright splashes of color. Sometimes, in the evenings, the stained-glass windows cast colored shadows on the snow. They come here for that beauty, now, when they can't get it anywhere else.
"I understand now," Gina says, quietly, "how they did it. The nuns, I mean, in medieval Europe. If you got to come home to this..."
Ivy can understand that. Peace can be worth anything.
--
They don't always go in; it's twenty dollars each and they can't afford that, not as often as they want. Sometimes they just go to the park and spread out a blanket near the walls, where Gina usually falls asleep, curled in the sun, her head in Ivy's lap.
It's on a day like that, the sky as blue as Gina's eyes and the grass as green as hers, that she looks down at her hand on Gina's hair, sees her ring and it hits her; they're married. At last.
They'll bring their children here someday, she thinks, and smiles.
--
It's not long after that spring day that Ivy's mother realizes that they don't have any decent wedding photographs. Such a crowded, noisy day it was, full of so much joy and so much love, so many friends and family that no one remembered to record it.
This, her mother declares, cannot stand; they must have a wedding photo taken. And Ivy and Gina know how: the two of them in white (because some traditions are worthy, and some symbols are true), hand in hand, at the Cloisters.
Beauty is never ridiculous, and the two of them, together, are beautiful.