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Written for thnidu’s prompt.
Willow stroked back a strand of Alder’s white hair, smiling into his old face, as she thought back to the day they met. It was easy to bring his young face to mind and his support, which was something that had never wavered. He smiled back. After being together since she was eighteen it was easy to see that he was thinking back too, remembering who they had been and who they’d become. Every day she was reminded of how much she loved him. That love was the reason they’d totally ignored the fae way of doing thing, instead choosing to have a monogamous relationship for their entire lives.
“Do you ever regret it?” Alder asked, reading her mind again.
“Never.” Willow kissed his cheek, feeling how much it had changed. “I wouldn’t have been happy with anyone else.”
“Sometimes I can’t help wondering what our lives would have been like if your father had lived. I don’t think he would have been happy with me as your consort.”
Tilting her head to the side, Willow looked at her consort, the man she had chosen, and knew he was right. “Would you have run away with me?” she asked.
“Yes.” Alder took hold of her hand. “Living without you, knowing what we meant to each other, would have been too difficult. Knowing that gives me an understanding of why so many couples ran when one or other of them was told that they had to marry someone else. I just wonder where we would have gone.”
“I had an idea. For a long time I believed Father would wake and take over, even after he died, so I spent some time working out where we could have gone if he told me that he didn’t give us his blessing. It seems silly now, but…”
“Things were so different back then. It seems so strange to think about that time, about what we had to go through to even get the fae here, and still there are those clinging onto the ways things used to be.” Alder shook his head. “The majority of them can’t even remember the ways things used to be. Instead they believe what their parents and grandparents have told them about the wonders of Kalinia.”
“Fortunately none of that is our problem any longer.” Willow was grateful to have finally stepped down as the Queen of the Fae, passing her crown onto River and his consort. “Instead we can spend the rest of our time together.”
“I am still the family elder, but maybe it’s time I passed that responsibility on too. What do you think of Esra’s eldest daughter?”
“Talia?”
Alder nodded. “Talia.”
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“It’s time, Willow. Past time. We’ve done everything we could to get the fae to accept the mixed bloods, to accept that they are probably mixed blood, and Talia is the only person I should pass on the title of elder to.”
Biting hard on her lip Willow nodded. “You’re right. We’ll talk to Talia and see how she feels. If she isn’t comfortable with being the first mixed blood elder then we have to respect that.”
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.