365 Days (Part 1) | ✓

77. Geography

77. Geography: Pick a state or country you've never visited. Write about why you would or would not like to visit that place.

An excerpt from another story I may or may not ever write.

Ava broke open the atlas. Even the mere act of doing so showed how much she loved it. The spine was creased from use. Each page bore lines of Ava's distinctive handwriting. Scribbles covered the surface, mingling with the printed lines of roads and rivers.

"I want to go everywhere," Ava said, looking fondly at the much worn pages.

He stared at her intensely. His eyes, such an unusually bright shade of blue, seemed to be drinking her in as desperately as a parched man consumes water.

"Where do you want to go the most?" he asked.

She didn't look at him, but ran her slender fingers lightly over the page. "Greece," she admitted.

"Greece." His voice had suddenly lost its ethereal quality, and he fell back from her. It had not been what he was expecting. Was he wrong about her?

Ava looked the pale boy next to her in surprise. "Yes, why? You don't think it's a good choice?"

He laced his hand through hers. She almost untied them instinctively.

"Ava, you know what you are. What we are. I told you I would take you anywhere."

She avoided his eyes. "You also know I don't believe you."

He sighed. "Yes, I know that." After a pause, he asked, "Why Greece?"

Ava's eyes lit up. Her irises, like that of her companion's, were a starngely light color, but while his were little pieces of the sky, hers were shards of the greenest grass. "It's the history there. There is something so exciting about going someplace that has those traces of past lives. The Coliseum, Parthenon, Pompeii... People who lived and fought and loved... and died. Yet there they still are. I want to sense them in the stones they chiseled, in the streets they walked... I want to go to Greece."

Her empathy was strong, he thought, with hidden smile. Her head was bent over her book again, and she didn't see it. She would make a good queen, if he could ever get her to believe he was telling her the truth.

"England has the same history."

She nodded. "But that is where you want me to go."

He had to smile. She was so set on resisting him. "You must go eventually. The Seelie Court waits impatiently."

She shook her head, her long hair swishing hypnotically with the movement, but she said nothing. Her silent denial was enough.

Eri knew she would change her mind. No one had never been able to resist the pull of his people. You could say it was what the elves were famous for. Ava, after having lived with humans for so long, would be especially susceptible.

He stroked her hair back from her face, revealing her ears. They tapered into a slight point. His ears did the same thing.

"Greece, then?"

She looked at him then, lips curving into a smile. "I would go to Greece."

He had to indulge her. She was his queen, after all, and he enjoyed giving her what she wanted. "Very well. To Greece we go."