dwgm | Drabble Challenge: "Joy", etc. (Reply)

Haven't posted here in a while. Things have been good. Working, writing (posted the last bunch of Norrington's Choice, unbetaed but oh, well; also Querida, a Harry & the Pirate I "deleted scene" that introduces a new character that will appear in H&theP IV, beginning in the next chapter; and a "Dessert" Drabble, Knave of Hearts, a H&theP IV "deleted scene"). Now working on Chapter 7 of H&theP IV, and posting PotC recs to crack_van this month. Busy!

Went to a wonderful concert last Friday with ladymora and dr_mrow and eliensign at a Jr. High in Santa Barbara (in my next life I want to go to a Jr. High like that--what a gorgeous theater!), a fundraiser for a couple of ladies who lost their La Conchita home, and nearly their lives, in a mudslide recently. Many local artists were there, including Christopher Cross (who sounds just the same as he ever did), and Glen Phillips, formerly of Toad the Wet Sprocket, who was fantastically good. There were blues groups, and celtic groups, and a Hawaiian Uke duo, and Irish folk music, etc. etc. -- really wonderful.

Rain has ended and we are basking in sunshine, green and wildflowers. Even Death Valley has a shallow lake, and flowers they haven't seen in years!

Wrote a drabble and a half for this week's challenge at Black Pearl Sails: "Joy".

~ Marry in April ~

~.~.~.~
Marry in April when you can,
Joy for maiden and for man.
~.~.~.~

It wasn’t in the myriad details of the preparations—the choosing of linens, the delineation of the contract, choking over a celebratory brandy with her father.

Nor was it in the ceremony itself, standing stiff at the altar, clothes too tight, people too many, vows too solemn.

And the reception was almost worse. It rained and they were all squeezed into the governor’s mansion, approval by no means universal, and then that tense moment between James and “Mr. Byrd”.

Not even later, that First Time, both tired but determined to ignore sager council. The words ‘conjugal relations’ gave no hint of the awkwardness and pain commingled with the wonder of those moments.

No, it came after that, hours later, waking warm and close, the cool, rain-swept dawn shutting out the world and its expectations.

Beloved Husband. Beloved Wife.

-.-

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