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Feb. 21st, 2022
Title: Keep Reading (1,137 words)
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Blue Castle
Rating/Warnings: Teen / No Warnings Apply
Characters: Valancy Stirling, Barney Snaith
Relationships: Valancy/Barney
Summary: For Valancy, there are few luxuries in life sweeter than being able to read a novel beside a great, crackling fire. Barney is determined to show her one of them.
Notes: Written as a treat for Chocolate Box 2022
For Valancy, there were few luxuries in life sweeter than being able to read a novel beside a great, crackling fire, and she availed herself of every opportunity to do so, stretched out on the bearskin before the fireplace, elbow propped on a cushion, an open book before her. In the Blue Castle, she had become the voracious reader she'd never had a chance to be at her mother's house, making frequent trips to the library and returning each time with an armful of books. Novels, poetry, history and nature books—there was so much she didn't know, so much to learn and discover and experience, and so little time for all of it. There were days when she stared at two or three books side-by-side, genuinely unable to decide which one to read first, wondering all the while what secrets and joys the other books held even as she read the one she ultimately chose.
Tonight, however, there was no uncertainty. She had become engrossed in the story of a tumultuous love affair between a young seamstress and a charming but shadowy duke, and looked forward to its continuing development. It was the kind of book Barney would laugh and roll his eyes at; it was also the kind of book her mother would not dream of letting her even touch, and that alone made it far more entertaining and satisfying than it had any right to be. The seamstress had just bidden the duke a tearful farewell over what Valancy thought was an incredibly petty argument and fled to her sister's home when Barney entered from the veranda, a rush of early-autumn chill sneaking in with him. She glanced at him and he smiled, then wandered over and sat down behind her, lightly rubbing her shoulder through the sleeve of her dress.
"You looked positively enraptured by that book when I walked in," he said, his voice dipping into that deliciously intimate tone he reserved only for her. "Just what has you so enchanted, Moonlight?"
( Read more... )
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Blue Castle
Rating/Warnings: Teen / No Warnings Apply
Characters: Valancy Stirling, Barney Snaith
Relationships: Valancy/Barney
Summary: For Valancy, there are few luxuries in life sweeter than being able to read a novel beside a great, crackling fire. Barney is determined to show her one of them.
Notes: Written as a treat for Chocolate Box 2022
For Valancy, there were few luxuries in life sweeter than being able to read a novel beside a great, crackling fire, and she availed herself of every opportunity to do so, stretched out on the bearskin before the fireplace, elbow propped on a cushion, an open book before her. In the Blue Castle, she had become the voracious reader she'd never had a chance to be at her mother's house, making frequent trips to the library and returning each time with an armful of books. Novels, poetry, history and nature books—there was so much she didn't know, so much to learn and discover and experience, and so little time for all of it. There were days when she stared at two or three books side-by-side, genuinely unable to decide which one to read first, wondering all the while what secrets and joys the other books held even as she read the one she ultimately chose.
Tonight, however, there was no uncertainty. She had become engrossed in the story of a tumultuous love affair between a young seamstress and a charming but shadowy duke, and looked forward to its continuing development. It was the kind of book Barney would laugh and roll his eyes at; it was also the kind of book her mother would not dream of letting her even touch, and that alone made it far more entertaining and satisfying than it had any right to be. The seamstress had just bidden the duke a tearful farewell over what Valancy thought was an incredibly petty argument and fled to her sister's home when Barney entered from the veranda, a rush of early-autumn chill sneaking in with him. She glanced at him and he smiled, then wandered over and sat down behind her, lightly rubbing her shoulder through the sleeve of her dress.
"You looked positively enraptured by that book when I walked in," he said, his voice dipping into that deliciously intimate tone he reserved only for her. "Just what has you so enchanted, Moonlight?"
( Read more... )