original

The Chronicles of Death

Tác giả: All_J

Chương 1: Longing

In the morning sunlight streamed into Annie's room through the window panes, waking the girl on a rare cool morning. It had been raining all night and all of Winchester was covered in a welcome haze.

Annie opened the windows of her bedroom to a view of a flower garden of roses and violets. Sunlight caressed the rosy skin of her face and the damp, fragrant air filled her lungs. This was a special day and everything was going well.

*TOC, TOC*

"In between."

"Good morning, miss. I see you woke up earlier than usual. Eager?"

"Yes a lot!"

Annie's blue eyes sparkled like real aquamarines as she answered Edina, her personal maid.

Annie was happy that she would be meeting Michael after the two full years he had spent at sea with the Black Navy. Sometimes she got a few letters delivered by passing sailors, but it was never enough.

His scent mixed with the scent of the sea in the letters was all that gave her comfort that one day he would come back and that day was today.

Just the thought of hugging him again made her anxious and smiling.

Annie stepped into the porcelain tub after taking off her pajamas and dipped her head in the water hoping to soothe her heart, but the water was warm and even though it relaxed her muscles it didn't have the effect of calming the longing.

"Your father and brother led the way. Mr. Carl left the wyvern carriage for Miss and Mrs July to catch up with."

"Hm..."

"What's it?"

"I wish I had gone earlier too…" Annie grumbled.

"Maybe if the girl had woken up earlier..."

"Fine. I don't want him to see me looking sleepy after two years. Now I'm a woman."

Annie held her little breasts under the water. Her words were more to her than to Edina, making the maid smile as she wrapped a towel around Annie's head.

"Don't worry, they will grow." Edina said with a pitying smile on her face.

"H-he doesn't care how big they are."

"Don't be silly. Every man likes big breasts, it's in their nature."

Annie made a worried expression as her gaze fixed on her small breasts. She was afraid Michael would be disappointed to see that she hadn't grown that much.

Noticing her beloved girl's complicated expression, Edina knelt beside the tub. "But he loves you and that's why he doesn't care about the size of your breasts. And isn't that what matters?"

Annie smiled, relieved at Edina's words. Minutes later Annie and her mother were flying into Black territory, the Cornwall Peninsula of southern England.

In the early afternoon the weather was still pleasant and the flight was calm. It didn't take long for Annie to see the steppes of Camborne, Hayle, Saint Ives and then the majestic Castle of the End.

***

The day at sea started long before the sun set in the sky and for Michael it was no different. For all sailors it was always the same routine for the past two years.

Wake up at 4 am, do your personal hygiene, eat your breakfast, deal with the deck problems, climb to the top of the mast and watch the crow's nest until your shift is over, have lunch and then instruct the recruits and feed the prisoners.

A sailor's life was not simple, but he learned to like it. The smell of the sea and the adrenaline of fighting pirates and sea monsters or resisting the charms of the dreaded mermaids.

For Michael all this had become something to be cherished, but that life ended today and he couldn't wait to leave it behind.

"Anxious to come home, brother?" Iliria, a girl as beautiful as a mermaid asked as she approached Michael.

"And you, Iliria? Are you coming back?"

"Hm…I don't know. Last time I came back Dad wanted to make me a lady and Erika almost did it."

Iliria was an adventurous girl who loved the sea as much as she loved fighting, and at that she was good. Michael had dueled his younger sister several times and never won a single match.

"Mom will be sad if you don't come back. She'll be sad and then mad." Michael warned.

A shiver ran up Iliria's back at the thought. It had been exactly four years, two months, six days and ten hours that Iliria hadn't come home since she joined the Black Navy and her mother wasn't happy about it.

"I-I think I'll go with you."

Michael smiled as he saw the girl run somewhere and then looked away to the north. Only a few more hours separated him from her, from her touch and her scent, and he imagined how beautiful she had become after two years.

"Ready to go home, Corporal Black?" Major Guran asked as he approached while cleaning his cap.

The Asian man was bald and shorter than Michael, but like Iliria, being an undine, he had an overwhelming beauty.

Michael quickly came to attention with the arrival of his superior.

"Rest boy. Today is the last time I'll see you on a ship probably." Guran said with some loneliness in his voice.

Since he boarded the ship, Michael had become a brake on Iliria and Guran feared that the girl would become an uncontrolled tornado again with Michael's departure.

"I'm sure Sergeant Iliria will be happy to command the fleet in my place sir."

"I see you hated the last two years anyway." Guran joked.

"Sir?"

"Wanting that traveling disaster to command the Black Navy? Are you trying to wipe out a three-hundred-year-old military force, lad?"

"Indeed, Major. I think you'd better rise through the ranks fast to stop that."

"Hahaha! It was nice having a man like you on my ship, Corporal."

"It was good to have fought alongside you Major Guran."

The men shook hands and after giving the official navy salute, they said their goodbyes and once again Michael's heart traveled north.

'I'm coming, my love.'

Michael's eyes were filled with longing and anxiety.

Neither of them knew they could miss someone so much and not even love someone that way.

Long two years separated the two and in those two years the love they felt had grown stronger.

In his spare time, Michael read and reread the letters Annie had sent him, and the same was true for Annie. For both of them, this was the only way to kill the longing they felt and fill the emptiness that absence caused.

"Just a little longer…" Michael said to himself and his face contorted at the sight of hideous clouds in the distance.