Author's Note: wtf, why can't I bold, italices, cut or paste, ff dot net? Jesus Christ... nothing's formating!!
Genre: angst/seasonal
Rating: Kplus
Characters: Ashe, Vossler, ft Rasler and B'nargin Dalmasca family
Summary: Crystmas is time for friends and family. And those who are closer than family.
Just the Two of Us
By: Mazzie May
Tradition
At six years on Earth, Ashelia sits on her on the floor leaning against her father's leg. Her eldest brother sits on one knee next to her mother, passing out the presents she hands him. Her older but still young brothers fidget happily, wondering what could be in the boxes.
It was family tradition, spending Crystmas together.
Vossler hovers somewhere along the back wall near the door, nodding with an awkward smile when Ashelia turns to show him whatever it was she unwrapped and casts a watchful eye over to the queen when she coughs.
--
The queen passes on. Life goes on.
Again, they gather around the tree, though her two older-in-the-middle brothers had married into other countries and couldn't join them. Ashe continues to perch next to her father.
But Vossler's moved from the wall to the back of the couch. Two years past, but the children must be monitored for signs of the Illness. He gravitats towards the princess especially.
--
Ashelia's baby brother is the only one who shows signs on becoming ill.
Her other brothers have married and gone away, save her oldest. Her father and she sit in single chairs and the heir to the thrown takes up the couch with his wife. Despite the emptiness, they all manage to smile and enjoy their gifts.
Vossler stands next to her chair and moves just a bit closer when she shivers, not because of the temperature, but something colder.
--
Rasler joins them this year.
Again, her brother, his wife, and now their child take up the cushions, leaving Raminas, Rasler and herself to sit in the singles, albeit Ashe and Rasler's are pushed together.
When they say a small pray for those who couldn't join them and those who were lost, Rasler takes her hand to comfort her. But she'd reached for Vossler's first.
--
That was the only Christmas she spent with Rasler.
And the last with her father, brother and his family.
Dethroned and dead to the world, she sits next to a sad little plant wrapped in gold garland, the only light coming from the tall candle to her right. She sits on the floor, wrapped in a thin blanket.
Vossler sits next to her and she leans against him. Such actions are not permitted between a knight and his charge, nor a princess and her guardian. But seeing as how she's no longer a princess and he has no charge, such comfort should be alright just this once. After all, it was tradition to spend this day with a loved one.
--
Ashe sits quietly in the family room.
She's alone. No one else is there, not even ghosts. Despite all the people who came and went, there had always been one constant. The tradition. But now, she'd beging a new one.
It was her first Crystmas back in the castle and her first without Vossler.
She'd better get used to it:
It wouldn't be the last.
Author's Note: Why the hell won't this stupid site let me format anything, I will destory everything it knows and loves dammit. In other news, here's my holiday fic. I'm so sorry I haven't written anything in a while. Truth is, I have plenty done, I just think it's all bad. It took some minor hounding from a fellow writter to get me to post anything at all, so thank you to her. Please enjoy sad/cute platonic Vossle/Ashe, just in time to depress Sanata to the point that he won't eat my cookies.
R&R please, any and all commentay appreciated.