Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 11

Chapter 11

*Before…

I smile and pull the length of chain to myself and my “wand” and he’s staring at me and there’s a smile and a nod.
“Ye got thet right.”
I smile. “You’re not scared?”
“Ye came in and ye helped save me an mine before Sir Alaan did that says a lot about ye. I think I can trust ye.”
“Thank you and you’re sure you don’t mind me doing this?”
“Nay ‘side I kin say I knew ye when ye were just learning yer craft and maybe be even a little bit famous t’boot.”
“Well thank you Master Smith it’s nice to be so highly thought of.”
“Ye kin call me Aiden.”
“Chrissy.”
“Oh nay yer high born I can tell thet much.”
“No, I was wealth born there’s no man or woman that should be set above another.”
Eight days or so ago and a boyhood away I didn’t even know that much about life to even say that and now.
Now it just feels right.

*And Now…

It’s been touch and go with the magic and seeing the magnet force within or rather around the metal in the shop as I’ve been working with the magnet wand I’ve fashioned and Aiden’s been very gracious as far as that goes and he needs my help with cleaning up and doing a few chores that require extra hands and his apprentice is still down with the fever or well recovering after he’s been dosed.

Still it’s been a few days and this has given me room to breathe and to thing after Megan and I happened and my feelings about that and myself and this body of mine.

Sleep’s been touch and go as well with naughty dreams of her and then again dreams of Alaan too and the thoughts of how Megan’s fingers felt inside of my body and the intense pleasure and then my mind would do the fantasy drift from that to Alaan and something bigger than a finger.

I shouldn’t be thinking of such things…sex…and it’s…it’s where me head goes when I’m alone and sleeping but at the same time I’m scared, really scared of those feelings and falling into being Christiana more than I remember being Christian.

I’m scared of losing myself.

Who am I?

Who am I becoming?

And I feel kind of bad about second guessing all of that too because it’s not right being scared and disturbed over Megan showing me such an amazing time…it just kind of makes me feel guilty about feeling so scared about it all.

And the morning swims and the nursing that we’re all still doing helps but it’s not enough, it hasn’t been enough for when the candles get blown out and it’s time to lay down with my far too many thoughts.

And Megan’s still sort of confusing too because there’s still these looks between her and I that get excitement bumps from and it sets my imagination going as to the two of us together. And yet with some of the extra free time that we have not being in the alchemy tents we’re practicing with the practice blades more and I swear that she’s trying to hurt me when we do that.

It’s leaving be bruised and frustratingly looking to Nicole.

“I really don’t understand her, we were together and we…and it was good, it was better than good and she looks at me like she wants to be with me again and she does things like this…”

I show Nicole a bruise on my thigh while we’re in the baths.

“Well you were expecting anything else? Look Chrissy she very might want to have her way with you again and likely so from the looks that I’ve seen but at the same time you need the work, your bladework might be good against the untrained but for anyone that knows what they’re doing it’s pretty bad.”

“I know and I welcome the training but it’s still vexing.”

Nicole laughs. “Women are vexing even to other women I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard Jessa gripe that much. She’s not going to treat you less than you deserve just because the two of you have done the knuckle and vulva dance.”

I blush beet red. “Nicole…”

She just laughs and sinks still laughing at me under her bath water.

So instead of over thinking that and driving myself into the nutter’s shack I take some of that free time and energy to give Aiden some more help and to work at my magic.

It’s not something I’ve done a lot of but it is something I have done. You’re expected to do some things in the smithy or especially with the castles ferrier when you’re a noble and you have things to do with horses.

You need to know how to do these things because as a page and with a knight and a squire or a retinue it’s the pages that do the horseshoe work and the grooming and the tending to the feed and care of the horses.

I was starting to learn all of that too when all of this had started and one of the things that you learn first or are supposed to are the tools and what they look like and such…home it was also knowing what goes where.

So I’m not totally clueless in here and I get a few looks from Aiden that are surprised or impressed?

“Ye know a ting or three aye?”

I nod as I’m concentrating on magnetically levitating some of the cullet from one place into another place. “I was wealthy born; it was something we were told we needed to learn with the horses and such.”

“Oy then canna ye use a hammer and all then?”

“Not for smithing, but I can halfway hammer a nail in place.”

“Have ye ever worked wire?”

“No, I just know enough I guess not to be a pain.”

“Aye well I have sommin ye kin do whilst I do other things and it’ll be a large help t’us all.”

“I’m willing to learn.”

“Arite now come hither and I’ll show ye hoe to make nails.”

“Nails?”

“Aye, we need nails all the time it be one of the things a smith’d be making day in an out but it’s ‘prentice work and mine’s still abed.”

“Okay, I’ll make nails.”

I’ve never thought about making nails but it’s a thing we just had all the time and never really learned to make them at all. Aiden shows me how with first us taking long thin rods of hot, hot steel and we beat one end into a point and that point goes through something called a drawplate.

That’s just this thick square of metal fastened into a vice and once the hot metal is shoved through we pull it while it’s still soft enough through the hole.

It’s harder than it looks, a hell of a lot harder since I’m pulling hot metal rods through making a longer thin and nicely rounded thick wire like thing and it cools and it’s hard enough then to be made into nails.

He shows me how to use this chisel thing that you set onto one of the holes in an anvil and between that and the hammer it cuts it off at the right length making a two side bevel and then you take the small pliers and beat an matching two beveled sides on it and then you fold over the head end with a couple of hammer strokes and then drop the nail through another plate that it’ll fit into except for the lumpy head which you strike down to make the striking head.

And repeat…Aiden does it really, really fast and it takes me twenty tries before I can make a nail without muffing it up but one he’s satisfied with the nails after that he lets me do it on my own.

It’s actually welcome work though pulling the rods through the draw plate is really, really murder on my hands because if I don’t hold the pliers achingly tight with my little hands and then pull with all of the strength I have and all of the body weight that I don’t.

I never thought that this would be such a hard thing to do. I mean all of the things that I could do before it’s all different now…thinner and weaker and it’s frustrating and at the same time it’s me now or who I’m becoming.

Working metal is sort of becoming satisfying in the attempt at least.

There’s something more to it too when I’m a bit calmer and settling into a rhythm it’s the metal and all of the connection to the magnet force and it’s just this way that it seems to connect with me.

No wonder though with the things that I sort of remember Lady Blackhand doing that she had so much metal with her.

I finished working through all of the rods that we had there and I go back to working with my wand and seeing and feeling the magnet force in things and I stop from that and I get a piece of the cullet and go outside and I start to try and use the wand to latch onto the chunk of metal and sort of whip it or throw it.

That takes a while… I can reach it with the wand by extending the power to the chunk of cullet and then holding the lines of magnet force there. I can move it that way too and control the in and out by reeling in my power to me through the wand.

It looks very impressive to just be pointing at a chunk of wrought iron and have it floating around and such but to what I’ve seen this is.

I’m a five year old figuring out how to play with blocks.

Okay, stop Chrissy…breathe…figure it out, so far this responds well to logic. I close my eyes and breathe, not even thinking just breathing and letting the calmness sink in and then I let the power flow through e and the wand to connect to the chunk of metal and sort of just play, move it around, treat it like a new toy instead of doing magic.

I whip it around me, make in zip up and down and whip it around and under my legs and it starts to get fun. It takes just this…this whipping it ahead and a burst almost blast of power like blowing a seed through a straw only it’s power instead of air.

Voosh…I lose sight of the chunk of cullet as it heads out of sight over the lake.

“Oy it’s a good thing that you didn’t have that aimed at somun Chris.”

I turn and see Hawk there with Taylor and a trio of two wheeled carts with a pair of mules piled high with things they’re foraged and hunted and I see things that have been made while all of the things were going on in here.

It’s beyond silly that I’m so happy that they’re here and on te other side of the wall.

“Hawk! Taylor!” It comes out as a squeal as I hit another level of pitch that wasn’t possible before and I’m mugging them both.

Jessa hugs me back and she’s chuckling at me I’m sure and Taylor…he scoops me off my feet in an embrace and hugs me tight which is startling for sure and yet it’s making me really happy. Not like crushing happy but just this swelling emotional happy.

Taylor gives me another squeeze. “I’m glad that you’re alright there Chrissy, you an Nik were so damned scary brave comin in here without the knight an his squire showin.”

I blush but hug him back. “I had to, there was no one else and I knew some things to help.”

Jessa nods. “Still though could’ve been worse, you two did really good.”

I’m sniffling and wiping at my eyes. “You two did too, out there without all of the camp gear and stuff and foraging for us and hunting and doing the chores outside the walls…that was a really big deal.”

Taylor grins. “Well then we all did something good then didn’t we?”

I nod but I’m still smiling and I hug Jessa again and she grins and she looks at me. “Aright now how ’bouts we get all this t’where it needs going an we can catch up with Nik.”

Taylor nods. “An I’ve still the post t’do fer here too.”

I grin and take a set of reins and start heading for the main hall leading the mules on the way there and it just sort of has this right feel to it with us all being there together again even though we hadn’t spent a whole lot of time with each other.

I still enjoy the reactions of the villagers as we’re bringing things in to them and a lot’s going to the kitchens in the main hall and there’s a very celebratory mood too as the gates are staying open and it’s like this sort of cloud lifts off of the village.

I’ll admit, it was sort of getting close in here mentally.

And it’s something that I can see in the people here and not just all of the supplies and things being done outside the walls like in the fields and the gardens but it’s that closed in for too long thing breaking up here like fog in sunshine.

And with Taylor and Hawk here I’m smiling all the way through the unloading of everything and then I’m back in the kitchens of the main hall getting water heated and helping out with things there as I get roped into the kitchen chores again and at the same time volunteering to help because honestly I think I should really learn these things.

I do see there’s some looks as Taylor and Hawk both notice how I am with the people here and how they are with me. It’s sort of gratifying in a way to see then have this sort of impressed oh really sort of look on their faces as people call me by name or more often Wisdom or Wisdom-Chrissy.

Though it’s mostly the younger ones that call me that.

Hawk heads off with some of the others doing some of that post huntsmen…huntsperson things and likely off to the butchers and Taylor’s setting himself up with the stuff for the post and has his books out and his writing desk and there’s already people lining up so to as get letters written out for those that might be worried since the word of the sickness has likely spread along and such to other places.

Hopefully there’s just as much and just as fast a spreading of the word about the good that has happened here as well. A slow trade year will hurt folks here but a next to no trade year will be almost as devastating as the fever was here.

With the doors open there’s more stuff to be had, there’s milk lots of it from the milking bairns and while we had some it was a risk to bring over the palisade and had to be scalded before we could use it.

All the fresh milk and cream and even the soured stuff gets put into use. I’ve never eaten soured cream before nor have I had it with chopped chives of onion and some onion itself nor herbs.

Home soured was…well soured and it wasn’t seen really as food but here it is. Though when asking about it, it seems to be an elvish thing.

Yes elves.

I know next to nothing about them to be honest aside from the folklore and that they live in a great forested land up and passed the mountains of the dwarves and that it’s said they have powerful magic and that they are amazing archers and all the oldest of oldest tropes.

One new thing that I learned is that they are trade partners with the dwarves and that’s where some of the things that the humans here in these lands learned these things from.

Either way I like this sour cream, not in a ridiculous way but it’s a fine condiment.

And there’s no shortages of things being made with the milk and such and the churns are full with the children taking turns and so are the pots for the fresh cheeses and then there’s sweet barely scalded milk that we’re making this sweet rolls from and bread with.

Those invoke images of home, memories of that kind of light fluffy bread that gets made home, this isn’t quite as refined as that with the grind of the flour and such but it’s made wonderful with beet molasses added to it all and it raises and has this smell that just…it’s coming to be a smell I am really starting to know and get more familiar with.

It takes longer than one might think to get some serious baking done but a lot of that serious baking is all primer for the ovens and the hearths and the stoves and then the real cooking starts with the foods both hunted and foraged and things that were brought in from the further fields.

I’m still musing over the fact that people here use natural clearings as places to plant gardens and the like again it seems like a just fine idea to me it makes sense if you can do it and are looking to save both work and timberland. But home it’d be so frowned upon…father might have gone for it he allowed gleaning for firewood and that’s what we’ve been doing on the road with the bundles of wood, that keeps things clear and healthy but crops…it’s just not really done.

But there’s things like squashes and a whole bunch of those and some are for the main meal and some are dessert. There’s these really sweet ones that they have called Jacks and we hollow them out from the tops and the seeds get separated the guts go to one a chopping block and are chopped to a paste with a cleaver and a pinch of salt and then they scrape the insides out with a spoon and all of that goes to this pot of milk and are cooked down until their like this creamy sort of soup and some sugar is added and to the lot of it and some apples sliced and peeled and then it’s all mixed up with old bread and suet and eggs and the jacks are stuffed and then they’re set aside to cure and they’ll get baked off as pudding when the food is near done.

Some things though are such eyefuls to be when they start bringing in the meat and the parts and the sausage that is fresh made from the butcher…sausage like I’ve never seen with cooked down onions and boar meat and liver and brain and hearts of the beast as well as blood and cracked grain but the chopped fine guts of a squash and berries and bits of crab apples or other things.

I think I like the smell of the ones with just the meat and suet but spiced and flavored with pickles and dill, and I’m a little fearful of the blood pudding with grind of livers and brains with cracked grain and flavored with onion and pickled beetroots…it looks like an organ itself somewhat.

Then there’s things like potatoes and the ways we’re cooking them like boiled, mashed, scalloped and fried…oh fried done in a pan of fat that’s seasoned with onions and there’s carrots and beans and peas and all of those wonderful things all.

We actually see very little of the big portions of the meats the sausages are the main meat that we’re cooking…the rest if being smoked or salted or set up to be dried or brined. We’re eating the stuff that’s going to go bad fast unless you do something with it all and it’s supplemented with other things…lots of other things.

I swear by the gods I will never look at preserves and vegetables and milk and greens in the same way ever again.

Oh and of course there’s my fish.

I take a break with two steaming mugs of tea and head over to Taylor where he’s busy taking peoples post down and I sit with him and pass him a mug and then take the lap desk from him and smile and motion the next person up who’s waiting and he grins at me.

“Thank ye, I was getting a bit of a sore wrist.”

“I remember that feeling; all the practice with writing and then my clerking apprenticing did that with me as well.”

“Aye, but I’m just a simple keep lad, I’ve just been lucky t’have the privilege of me letters and me numbers t’aint like I’m used to doin this as a living.”

“I’m thinking that you are far more than just a simple keep lad, I grew up with simple keep lads and while they had some advantages to be sure they certainly weren’t doing the things that I’ve seen you doing.”

He just smiles at me as he’s taking a drink of the tea then he shrugs. “I’s jus takes life as it comes I was raised doing a lot of everythin and it just kinda stuck wit me is all.”

“That’s a good thing to have stuck to you, scrap iron and chains not so much.”

He coughs a little on his drink. “Pardon me but what?”

“I was learning to move metal and my power got away from me and I sort of got wrapped in things from the smithy.”

“Oi…careful thet coulda been dangerous.”

“Oh that’s for sure I hadn’t really thought or expected that at the time.”

“Aye lots of sharp metal there Chrissy.”

I nod and I blush some. “Well it had interesting side effects.”

Taylor looks at me. “Oh really then how so?”

“Megan found me.”

“An…oh…well they how’s that given things then.”

I really blush. “It was pretty amazing actually and stunning and not a thing that I’d have ever really considered happening for myself.”

“What ye never dallied?”

“No…I’d not worked up the nerve honestly though the interest was definitely building.”

“And from this end oh things?”

I blush some more. “It was amazing, it was scary and earth shaking.”

“Earth shakin’s good.”

I nod and drink some tea. “It is but my head’s still a little wrapped up in all of the preconceived things that goes with making love and being a woman. And it’s not really like that not with me and certainly not with Megan.”

“And ye were expecting what ye knew from those middle kingdoms and such then?”

I nod again. “I can’t really help it but her and Nicole and Jessa they don’t act like the way I’ve know women to act at all and I’m not used to sex just happening.”

“Oi…it does here iffa a woman takes precautions and it does here if they want it. It’s a thing we got from the elder races and such that whole off and odd notion that women are people and have needs and such as people and there shouldn’t be a double standard and such.”

I’m finishing up one entry into the book with my finger scribing magic. “It’s not like that at all home and I’ve been raised like that so I’m still sort of trying to wrap my head around that idea.”

He leans forward and slips his arm over my shoulders. “You’ll get used t’it Chrissy.”

“Have you? I mean have you dallied and how do you deal with the afterwards?”

“Y’do it wit respect, y’did each other a kindness, it’s a lonely world out there and all and we’re really only richer when we share it wit others.”

“Sharing myself’s not the same as sharing the world.”

“Oh aye it is really, a person’s a whole mess of stuff good and bad and all things in between and when all of you meets all of another person and there’s that spark there of connection t’is no sin to want to share that, or t’want to know someone deeper.”

I blush. “Well there was deeper had.”

“Oi…bad one there I oughta charge ye for that joke.”

I grin a little. “So even just sex is…okay?”

“Aye, contacts a need as is attraction too and it’s a healthy thing.”

“A healthy thing?”

“Aye how did her wanting you make ye feel?”

“Good…actually really good even with all the other things.”

“Exactly Chrissy and it’s returned too, there’s always too much of stuff to be true and it’s never a great idea to drop yer pants or lift a skirt fer jus anyone but at the same time there’s a great lot that’s good about being wanted and wanting someone just as is.”

I smile. “I think I’m turning heathen here with all my chastity falling by the way side.”

Taylor gives me a serious look. “Christiana it’s a whole other thing here and chastity’s fine if that’s your way but here we take having more than just one way to live very seriously.” He’s staring at me. “You’re a sorceress, you have the majik and seeing that as a thing they’ll never let you take back your place in your old realms, magic power and political it’ll both be a bane to you and they’ll try an stop ye, they’ll try and box ye and when they can’t I’ll wager that they’ll try and kill you.”

I look him in the face and the emotion there…the fact he looks like he actually gives a damn and that this worries him and that he’s thought about it is making me feel that sort of ow…clench feeling in my chest and my throat.

“I know…and if my sisters are alive it might fall to one of them but I have to try and win it back to stop that bastard who came and killed my parents and those I love.”

Taylor nods. “I know Chrissy I’m just saying you’ve a fuck of a tough row t’plow and ye may jus want to claim a little bit o joy out of life while and whenever ye can.”

He gets it….I think Taylor might even get it more than me and he tightens that arm around me as I lean into the hug and it’s not really even that man comforting a woman hug but it’s that friend hugging a friend and comrade in arms kind of thing.

“Thanks Taylor, this really helped.”

“Aye, I’m a good lad like that.” He grins and I give him a bit of a shove.

“Leave off ye need a break and I’ve got this.”

“Aye I sees that you’ve more than a few more trick then with the magic and all.”

I nod. “It’s improving all the time.”

He kisses my cheek before getting up and stretching and making things pop when he does it. “Good, it’s good to see ye getting yer feet Chrissy.”

I smile and he heads off and I can hear him speaking to some of the others about libations and if there will be dancing or not.

I smile and motion the next person in line to me so I can take down the news that they want to share.

……………………………….. The post gets taken down and the supplies are being put up and put down depending I guess on what you’re doing and people have been showing up from outside the village. Again it’s something that I didn’t really know about that there’s always those who live close to a settlement and aren’t in a steading just out there farming or whatever they do to survive and yet they still want to be free of people.

They’ve been cut off from town as much as the people here have and now that the all clear’s been flagged out by Sir Alaan we’re seeing them coming in now to see their kin here or for trade and celebration.

Megan and Sir Alaan are dosing the newcomers as their showing up and turning them away if they refuse not many do but a few do. Well you can’t make everyone trust or reason even with the marks of a knight-healer.

And there was still more dosing and more medicine to give out to those that were the sickest yet and getting some of the ones that were homestuck out and with the other villagers as things were building toward a celebration and not just a celebration but almost a bit of a country fete.

There’s games being contrived and I’ve only seen some of that and not been a part of it at all with like the racing of barrel hoops with sticks and target games for bows and knives and axes and a sawing a log contest and arm wrestling and most of all the dancing.

There’s going to be some more dancing here and there’ll be music too and there’s some getting ready for all of that and the women and the lads all making themselves proper.

It’s actually a full day’s work and into the evening when we’re done and ready and the tables are set out as best they can be and there’s so very much to eat and more than I even helped with as things came from home hearths and things came in with those that come in from the outer houses and all.

There’s torches and lanterns and best of all there’s candles in jars and glass dished of all shapes and colors and sizes and some even with scents brewed to them. It’s a really rustic and yet beautiful sight and so many here dressed in the gods day’s best and cheerful and happy.

One of the local girls gives me a laurel of flowers to wear on my head like so many of the other women here are doing tonight Nicole included and laughingly a few of the men too.
There’s laughter and the small children running and there’s music being played by volunteers with drums and tams and pipes and flutes and fiddles and all those country band things that I used to see at fests with my parents when we’d show to them.

Before too long though we’re all eating and laughing and there’s ale and ciders to drink and some raw wines made from fruit or berries too and stories being loudly told over and over instead of speeches and the things that I’ve seen at home.

I’ll admit that I’m blushing when the praise heads my way and people talk of me and I do a few stands and slight bows when there’s a few cheers and some clapping and I hoist my drinks a few times.

Choke cherry wine, blueberry wine, wild grape and even some made from pear from another village, crab apple cider (My favorite of the night), wheat beer, oat beer, barley and maple beer (My second favorite.) Spruce beer (Not so lovely.) and there’s others and I try a taste at least of all of them but I stick to the barley beer while eating and then with the cider the rest of the evening.

I clap louder for the others though as games are won and there

Nicole’s actually one of the best here, she tells stories of the things that people did here in town and it’s such an odd turn the way that Taylor backs her up with stories of those outside the walls and what they all did and between the both of them it gets turned away from what we did and they make it more about what the locals did, about how they worked so hard to save each other and get through the fever.

Making it pretty much the opposite of things that I know and was raised with. Raise up the people and not the nobility?

That’s worth a few more drinks, it’s just something that even as it’s so odd and not really done with Middle Kingdoms nobles it makes me happy here…I like feeling this way and with so many people feeling happy and feeling the cheer I partake a bit more than I thought I might and it’s with a bit of that liquid courage that I let Cedric come over first his cheeks a drink blushed red and I join him and the others out on the dancing planks.

It’s a sort of makeshift kind of stage and it’s wooden planks covered with spruce needles and it’s pretty well lit and I’m soon being spun around and there’s dances with Cedric and a lot of the other lads and men there and it’s not like close dancing but more like these rowdy pattern dances and group step things and there’s multiple partners and lots and lots of circles and spins and there’s fun things like whooping yells and stomping the feet which is fun because it makes the planks clank and clap and there’s hand clapping too.

I don’t know any of the dances or the names of the songs and it doesn’t really matter I’m cider fortified enough to lose my usual self-consciousness and have some fun and try and learn these things and even use my powers…learn the steps… Arc it all into my brain.

Yell with people, have fun, toss my hair back and forth, grip my skirts and sashay and sweep with them and move…get my blood going and pumping and my arms and my hips….there’s something visceral going on between they way I’m moving and dancing and the sway of things and the light bounce of myself as I dance and there’s also this sort of…people are looking, men are looking…Megan…with that look.

Pretty…I think I feel pretty and it’s not like this vanity thing that I’d expect from some of the girls and women that I was raised around but this sort of…a charge? I feel nice, I feel noticed and it sort of feels nice.

Then again I’m drinking past the limits of self consciousness.

I’m actually passed another flagon of cider and I’m halfway drinking through that when Sir Alaan is there and he’s drinking too and he extends a hand after he drains his flagon and they music shifts over to something less countryside and more courtly and fanciful and I’m biting my lips and a bit of a sweaty mess as I take his hand and we head back out onto the planks and the music is close enough that I think I can remember the way that people, that women danced this at home and with a little mental ignition it’s there and I slip into trying to do as I seen my eldest sister do and the dainty lift hand and the curtsey after his bow and then again and then the circle steps around and back and then turn around a full circle away from each other and snap both fingers with our arms behind our backs then into the dainty hand on the other side and a reversal of all those other steps and the spin away as well and the snaps and step back in and speed it up.

I look at some of the others and they’re starting to do the same and join us learning it all in that whole fanciful way. Nicole and Taylor stepping up and inviting people on the planks with us and soon just those looking to learn…there is a wedding coming up according to the post.

Alaan and I are actually smiling with them and at each other as we show them the dancing the way that we were taught even if I’m lighting my way through the different dances inside my head.

It’s kind of fun breaking these old class rules.

It’s very fun when we’re slowly starting to mix the two styles together…a few more turns, use the circle to switch a partner to the right and add a clap after the snaps as we step back towards our partners.

And then it’s late and the lights are burning low when the fiddles and violas start singing out that up close and personal waltz music and I’m finding myself really close and hands holding hands with Alaan once again and he’s…he’s very, very handsome and I’m feeling…and he’s so large, bigger than me in this good way and he’s smiling just from having fun but he’s looking at me…he’s looking at me in a way that makes me want to blush and makes me want to want things.

And then he makes me twirl.