:the way home:

- o1; Early June -

But oh, your smiles are like spindles of silver weaved into sunsets.

.Shun x Fabia.

...

(the wind and his princess

the star child and her knight.)

let's be blissfully in love because it's full of

angst & humor

and just a little bit of romance.

/

She didn't look like his adolescent self's depiction of a dream girl did, but maybe it was okay; sometimes purple twilight stained her blue tresses a dark and closer red. And while she wasn't quite demure, she was noble, and it contrasted with his simplistic life of monochrome in a beautifully fitting way.

Her smiles to him were not sisterly. When she looked up at him from beneath her lashes her smile was soft and strong all at once, rather than expectant and hesitant. And when she held his hand he felt her palms were marked by both jewels and scars.

Velocity was a staircase to him, the speed of light was his default setting and there were only a dream's worth of people that had ever gotten you to slow down. But red supergiants and bubblegum holograms didn't instill him with the same adolescent sort of fluttering that your princess did anymore.

They understood underneath their superficial grins; but sad brown eyes still followed his delayed movements on the monitor, and he asked himself silently how Miss Alice could expect him to love her when he became older too and knew better.

\\\

Thinking back, he realized that he fell in love with Fabia on a sticky, sweltering June afternoon, when she grabbed his arm and launched him into the still still air. The screech of cicadas sounded like laughter when he fumbled the landing, breath and grace and rationality stolen by her emerald pride.

"You're good," he managed to say, carefully preventing his tone from fluctuating. And her shoulders trembled from a blend of physical exertion and a restrained ice cream smile as she kept the alignment of her features perfectly professional.

She tossed her hair over her shoulder in a princessy sort of way, because anyone would be lying if they said she wasn't something special, and she knew it. Even so, her expression was good-natured when she replied: "You're not so bad, yourself."

/

The shadows cast by her crossed legs mirrored that of an earthen girl's when she observed the most insignificant things with an exhale of awe. But then she pointed to jade vases and orchids, china plates and tabletops, floor cushions and little gold statues, and she said "Tell me what this is," with the perfectly measured sort of innocence and regality that only a star child can manage.

Instead of his accustomed sideways looks or stoic silence, he found himself answering her persistent questions, and something close to a smile curved his mouth when she laid a palm on his forearm, unimposing.

He wondered if the heat was getting to his head, or if it was just her.

\\\

It was stupid and awkward and uncoordinated when, in the middle of training, he messily deflected a blow aimed at his shoulder and nervously forced out a "Do you want to go see a movie with me sometime?"

He felt like the most foolish person on both his planet and hers because, first of all, he didn't even like movies, and second of all, he didn't get nervous. And she was looking at him through her lashes and he would have no objections if the earth were to suddenly swallow him up.

Then she blinked and said, "What's a movie?"

"Never mind," He mumbled, and drove a fist towards the sleeping sky.

/

Condensation from the steel bars collected on her palms, and she offered a slow half-smile when she caught him looking. The sunlight settled around the two of them (or maybe only her) with a sort of ethereal radiance; her electromagnetic tiara sparkled with an invisible glow.

And he knew he was head over heels (as far head over heels as he could be, anyway) because he thought she looked gorgeous with a flushed sunburnt complexion and hair matted to her sweaty skin.

He realized he wanted to kiss her, and directed your glance elsewhere as his heart started beating in that erratic way that signifies that one hasn't completely grown up.

That was when she tilted her head and leaned in and affixed him with a serious expression that almost looks mischievous for a split-second.

And then she grabbed ahold of his forearm. "You never said training was finished for the day," She smirked, before stepping forwards and throwing him in the air with all the momentum she could gain in two seconds of a brow furrowed in concentration and his unguarded eyes.

The ground separated itself from him and he wanted to sigh from the irony; because that girl really did have him head over heels. Literally.