Lizzie of the North (Yrsoreth Chronicles 2)

53◦✿◦In Sickness and In Sickness

Okay. STOP. Before you read, go back to the Foreword: Welcome to the North, THEN COMEBACK HERE. 

Do it. DO IT!

Enjoy!

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

It was almost midnight, but the Lizzie and Alec sat in silence on the carpeted floor, facing the open door of the balcony.

Since her request, they sat there, with only the rustle of her hair against his struggling hands could be heard. Then there are his sighs from behind, whenever he messed up the pattern.

Yet, the beating of her heart was deafening, whenever his hands would brush at skin exposed by her nightgown's neckline.

"This is nostalgic," she said, in a poor attempt to cover her loud heartbeat that he might hear.

But the blush on her skin and rebellious rhythm were not part of the nostalgia.

The awkwardness, the complicated thoughts—it just sprouted and stayed within her like a stubborn fast-growing weed.

His fingers brushed against her nape, and Lizzie, at her best, bit her lip. "Like we were children," she squeezed the words.

"But we are not children anymore."

She turned to him. "Must you make things difficult?"

But Alec just smiled, held her cheeks and faced it forward. "Stay still."

"Is it still difficult?" she asked.

"Not so much when we were younger."

"Did you practice?"

"You can say that."

And Lizzie didn't like his answer. "Is her hair like mine?"

"No. Hers were much tame and smooth."

Keep talking and I'll smack you in the nape.

As if he heard her threats, he provoked further. "And the minstrel even said your hair flowed like a river. But rivers aren't as smooth during storms."

"I'm sorry then. Go back braiding that woman's hair."

"I can't do that. Mother had cut her hair."

Lizzie bit her lip at his chuckle. She had played right into his hands like a fool. But more importantly, his breath tickled the skin on her back when he whispered, "Done."

He lifted the braid past her shoulders. The wild curly hair that once reached her tailbone was now reduced to a messy arrangement for the worse. For a guy who practiced, he was beyond hopeless. Lizzie lifted the hand mirror, only to see Alec—who said he didn't want to be her friend nor her cousin, had his face beside hers, staring back at the mirror. Slowly, he leaned his head on her shoulders, his nose close to her neck.

Well, this never happened when they were children. And her heart hit her ribs as if trying to leap out.

"You—'re terrible," she breathed. "Is this even a braid?"

"Let me do it again." His breath brushed straight to her skin, it was warm and hair-raising.

Lizzie gulped. She had to. And before she was swayed to agree, her stomach growled to an audible degree.

Her reflection in the mirror was redder than a moment's ago despite the bright twin moonlight. She felt him smile and his chuckle tickled her skin deep.

"I'm really hungry." Just a little bit. "I don't have anything to eat." She has, on the top drawer; cookies, bread, dried fruit and meat.

"You are."

"Get me food." And she just wanted him to leave on his own accord because Lizzie could not push him away.

Alec pulled himself straight, and the chill crept to the spot he left. "Wait for me." Then he disappeared through the terrace.

Lizzie remained in her position like a sitting statue showered by the twin moons. It was for two reasons that glued her eyes to the mirror.

One, the hairpin he snuck clipping on her hair, with the jewel as blue and as bright as her wide eyes. A hundred thousand gold coin accessory from the auction, pinned on a hair with the poor excuse of a braid.

More than that, it was because of two—the realization that hit her louder than her growling stomach and her heart.

"Would it be called love if my heart beat fast and I lose my breath by even hearing a low hum of his voice?"

Luppe's words stuck in her head.

Her heart beat like an overworked Velcan horse, and it was not with his voice. Everything Alec does constricts her chest like she was dying.

"Would fever crawl to my face when he smile at me?"

His smile warmed her face, but the quiet and intense stares were worse—she burned in them.

"Would it be love if my skin tingle when we touch?"

Her skin did not just tingle, it was as if something crawled underneath them, not just by mere touches, but by his lips and his breath.

"Would it be love if I feel a knot in my stomach every time we meet?"

It was not just a knot, butterflies and birds flutter, and soldiers on to war marched in it. It wouldn't be a stretch if it was like Honey was sprinting inside her stomach.

The hand mirror was already down on her lap, and could not capture the parade of emotions on her face

No. Lizzie thought as she watched the twin quarter moons sneering at her predicament. She rose to her feet and paced back and forth, her nightgown swaying in the motion.

It's not that she was naïve nor clueless about such feelings. She just ignored the warning and labeled them as an emotional predicament of reuniting with a childhood friend.

And now, it kicked her in the gut and Lizzie could not recover easily.

"No," she whispered to herself, halting for a deep sigh. Oh, the complications it would bring. The disaster. To have fallen in lo—that—Oh hell no.

This must be a divine punishment from the gods.

It must be the hunger, she assured herself. But it's not like she was famished to mess her head and heart.

"What are you doing?"

Lizzie gasped at Alec, who was standing by the terrace with a cloth bag of food and drinks.

For some reason, he was more radiant in her eyes. His features, which sometimes would come out cold, then warm, then just insanely beautiful, were more defined. All the symptoms hit her at the same time.

"Lizzie, what's wrong?"

You.

She stepped back as he inched closer.

And my feelings.

With all the chaos he caused in her physical and emotional state, Lizzie concluded that Alec and her feelings for him were a disease.

"...You make me sick."

Yet, the way it was said and the blush on her face, came out like a rephrased confession of love.

The intuitive crown prince who had seen her different expressions the whole time they were together, and had felt the same but way earlier, understood. "....You make me sick too."

And thus, that was how the two vaguely confessed their feelings.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

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