Oh My, I Messed Up the Story

Time passed so slowly it hurt.

Visiting became nearly impossible during the winter since even Al struggled to make it to Raisha on his horse through the snow. Abby and Blaise exchanged stacks of letters instead of individual ones so there would be more to read during the time between deliveries.

When spring finally came and Raisha ended up having a more bountiful grain harvest than expected, she volunteered to go help them out and spent a wonderful month seeing Blaise every day. Then she saw him again at the spring festival back in Ilmir that everyone was invited to.

She spent a lot of time working with Ayana and a few others who knew how to read music transcribing as many songs as they possibly could from her memories back home. It was a long process since she only had her singing voice to go off of but it served as an excellent distraction.

They were able to put on a musical, The Little Mermaid, at the festival because of their collective efforts. Abby was the director but also played the piano off stage. Ayana accompanied her on the violin and Nyla played the tambourine during the more upbeat songs like "Under the Sea."

Blaise had been quite impressed by her efforts and that sparked a long discussion about her days in high school drama. She had once been in the very same musical playing one of the eels and had worn Heelys to imitate swimming across the stage.

They didn't have anything like that here but she figured it would be within the realm of possibility to create rollerskates, which were similar. Bikes too. The problem was that the cobblestone roads here would be far too bumpy for such things.

She ended up telling stories about bike rides she and her family used to go on, including the one where Katie had barely gotten a new bike that was too big for her. She lost control and the overlarge front tire bounced right off a brick wall so she flew on top of it and ending up stuck in a bush.

Blaise cracked up, saying that he could imagine the look on her face. He couldn't really since he didn't know what Katie originally looked like but he did know her well enough to know her facial expressions at this point.

His visit ended far too soon. Abby immersed herself in work yet again, trying to help Katie come up with a way to get wagons up the mountain more easily. What they would really need was to clear enough trees to make a wide, winding road so the gradient wouldn't be too steep.

They got a few builders involved in the brainstorming process and eventually figured it out. The trees they cleared ended up being used for building things and firewood instead of cutting down lumber in the regular area.

The project took over a month and most of the men in the village got involved since removing trees was such laborious work. But eventually they had a real road leading from the bottom of the mountain to Ilmir.

They would be able to export their goods in much larger quantities at a time now since things wouldn't have to be sent in saddlebags. Honestly, they should have done this much sooner.

Abby managed to visit Blaise twice more before the harvest made things so busy she hardly had time to breathe. She was counting down the days until he could come home.

The specialty training that took place directly after the exams were passed would wrap up in December and then they would be back to do the same thing in Ilmir. She only had to get through two more months before he would be here to stay.

===

It was a particularly cold day when the Warriors finally made it back to town. There hadn't been a storm in weeks so they had been able to cut a path through the snow back to Ilmir without too much difficulty.

Abby was filling in as a teacher for the day because Vashti had caught a cold. She was in the middle of conducting a geography lesson when the door opened and a blast of cold air made everyone shiver.

She was about to scold whoever it was for interrupting when she saw silver hair sticking out from underneath the beanie as he turned around to shut the door. Blaise took it off to shake the snow from it and grinned at her.

"Sorry, is this a bad time?"

She launched herself into his arms and dangled from his neck as the children all laughed and pointed. She didn't care about the teasing she would have to endure later.

"You're back! When did you—"

"I came here straight from the inn. We barely arrived."

Abby shot Maeva and Carlene desperate looks and they both rolled their eyes. "Go. You won't be able to finish the lesson with your head in the clouds anyway. I suppose preparing the next one can wait. I'll take over."

She mouthed "thank you" at them before grabbing her own hat, coat, and gloves to head outside for a bit of privacy. There was so much she wanted to say to him now that he was here to stay. The most important thing being that she knew now that she didn't ever want to live without him again.

His sense of pride would be shattered if she proposed (he was very traditional, after all) so she couldn't do that no matter how tempting it was. She would have to drop as many hints as possible that she wanted to be proposed to.