<div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i.imgur.com/NHlFgsv.png">[ img ]</a><br/><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="color: #BF0000"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">You said you don't have to speak...I can hear you.<br/>I can't feel all the things you've ever felt before...</span></span></span></span></span><br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">• • • •</span></div><br/><br/>To say dropping her accent was hard would have been an understatement. Each time she started reading aloud and would allow herself to fall into a natural rhythm, the accent would come back in full force and the progress she’d made would vanish. English would blend together with her mother tongue and become a nearly-incoherent compilation of Spanglish that would have set her mother clicking her tongue and giving a stern look. No, that wouldn’t do. For this union to go off without a hitch, she’d need to buckle down and properly speak the language without the hindrance of her own holding her back.<br/><br/>A breeze blew through the trees, through the leafy canopy that enveloped her, bringing the scent of fresh roses and lilies toward her. Her eyes drifted closed, embracing the moment’s peace before returning dutifully to her work, relaxing a bit more into the cushion’s beneath her until the breath of wind subsided.<br/><br/>She was oblivious to his approach, initially. As far as the woman knew, she was alone in the garden with nothing but the book to keep her company as the wind whispered through. Her mother was still inside, as was her father somewhere. No siblings to contend with as her only remaining sister was busy with her own duties and was keeping her nose firmly implanted in her own business. That just left her and her own thoughts. Thoughts that were filled with doubt and curiosity about the man she’d not yet met whom she’d been promised to. It was common practice, certainly, but that didn’t mean she’d not hoped to know the man she’d spend the rest of her life with prior to such an arrangement being made, perhaps a childhood friend? Then again, with the plague that’d swept through, there wasn’t much room for being choosey, either.<br/><br/>But then movement pulled her focus, movement that was more than the breeze shifting branches and ruffling leaves. This was more than a bird’s wings flapping as they dove and wove in between foliage or a small animal slipping into a burrow. It was a mass, a human mass, somewhere in her peripheral that had her eyes lifting up from her book. Eyes adjusting to the dying light, it took her a minute to focus on the figure to which the voice belonged, the figure a mere outline as she continued to stare as politely as possible.<br/><br/>And then the world seemed to stop once more, for a different reason entirely, her lips parting and eyes widening a bit in surprise. Pleasant surprise.<br/><br/>Handsome didn’t begin to describe the man who was at her gate, a hand resting against the wrought iron. Was he a stranger looking for someplace near? He wasn’t a face she’d seen and she knew the faces from the area…but, given their location, he could have been passing through and needed a friendly face to guide him onward to where he was headed. Standing from her seat, the corner of the page bent, she clasped her hands behind her back and slowly walked over, closing the gap between them and finding him to be all the more beautiful the closer he got. It was…remarkable, how handsome the man could be. It didn’t seem human, looking the way he did, so entrancing and inviting.<br/><br/>Her nerves kicked in the closer she got, but she wasn’t about to let her family down. If they heard of her faltering, she’d never hear the end of it, and this was the perfect time to test out her English in a conversational sense.<br/><br/>Stopping just short of the gate as was polite, she declined her head in greeting, glancing about for what could have been a carriage or other form of transportation that she may have missed. “Are you lost, sir?” Bellen asked, her accent thick, praying he spoke English or she’d have to try another tact. “Are you looking for someone?”