Artificial Horizon - A César Fernando Basa x Reader story

XXXIV: Pre-ignition

The ignition of the fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber, occurring before the spark.

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December 10th, 0100Z (0900LCL)
Location: Albay, Philippine

In hopes to have a good shot of the ever-shy Mayon Volcano, the entire team decides to set the shooting schedule in a much earlier hour. Hence, by this time, we're already starting to cross-out our checklist of locations. Albay is the last from our destinations, that after this one, we'll definitely be back in Manila tomorrow. With that in mind, everyone seems to be so eager to finish the shooting as early as possible for today to have a few more hours to dwindle around.

First on our stop had been the popular Daraga Church, situated on a hill that also has a good view of the Mayon itself. The church is a fine example of Baroque architecture, and based on our further researches before the shoot, everyone in the PR team are amazed with how the façade and its walls are made out of volcanic rocks. It's white coloring, however, is the result of a coating of lime that is meant to be some protection from deterioration.

A white sedan car, with a flower ornament on the front, is parked by the main entrance of the church. With red carpet sprawled from the stairs, it seems like there is a wedding being held. With that, we can't have any shooting inside the church until the wedding is over, and all the while we are waiting, we can do so those we can take from outside.

However, we are done roughly forty-five minutes later, and the wedding is yet to fully conclude. In the end, everyone else is given a chance to take their own photos and also to look out for a few souvenirs by the stalls across the church and at the parking lot.

As for me, I decide to enter in the church and take a seat at the back to watch the closing ceremony of the wedding itself. And despite it being strange to hear a very different dialect, it is much weirder to find myself almost teary-eyed at the scene that I am quick to take my handkerchief to wipe it away before anyone else can see it.

Kung ganito ang pakiramdam ko sa kasalan ng ibang tao... paano pa siguro kung ako na mismo? I ponder, and I bite my lower lip as I try to conceal my smile away at the prospect.

In my dreamscape, César and the dream version of me are to be married soon. With how my dreams tend to usually skip weeks or days—except for that one time only that I dreamt of the following morning—will I be able to miss seeing that moment myself? Will I be returning to the dreamscape with I and César already married? And it somehow breaks my heart at the prospect of not being able to feel that moment.

I know that I'll definitely not be missing much. Of course, it will be quite too different to that of experiencing it in the real world myself. Imagining doing so, standing in front of the altar with the man I love with all my life, brings a distinctive flutter deep in my chest.

I guess, it will also be a good idea not to have an experience of it then in my dream as I'll certainly just be hopeful.

After another awkward conversation with Elian last night, with me agreeing to discuss matters concerning what he was doing than to delve deeper on his strange words, I also headed back to my own room earlier than him; roughly an hour or two since I've found him there. As I watched him do the work and him discussing matters to me, I found out that being a pilot wasn't truly all smooth-sailing; especially seeing him do some flight planning and navigating on his own that he mentioned to be the works done during their training; and him dealing with computations and memorization of emergency procedures and specifications of a respective aircraft just for a so-called check ride to be granted a license to fly a respective type of aircraft.