I'll Stand By You, Believe Me.

Chapter 1 : Hasmariva

                              Chapter 1 : Hasmariva

"Old friend, say you?." Merdicus asks and grins.

I threw him a flash of a small grin. Sure enough he caught it and passed another one back. Cluck cluck whispers his bootheel as it clicks on the rock. The faint aroma of the roses joining the fresh scent of my hair. They cling to my senses. Almond. Fresh. Sweet. This night when the stars, billion light years away, seem so near. Under the moon, with my bestfriend's sunrise hue eyes as company.

"Hasmariva?," He asked like the wind did not make him stutter.

"Aye?" I fix my hair and hug my arm as invisible needles bite my soft delicate skin.

"I shalt see thou anon," he throws me a smile only I received.

"Art thou leaving, Merdicus?" I face him with eyes uncertain.

"Aye. My father awaits I by his wooden bench." He looks past me.

I clap my hands together and replied, "Then, thou be wise an' on your path n-now." I stuttered. I looked at him to see his reaction. Okay, he heard me alright. I hug my arms. I blink twice amazed at how cold my arms had gotten.

"Thou stutter, wherefore friend?," I catch his eyes narrow. I can't help but giggle at his concern.

"Hark, Merdicus," I started, "Suru, thy father, awaits thee at moon!," I can't stop the churning of my stomach as I try and tease him as I always do.

"Oh, Hasmariva. Be it done that I be forth granted a stay with you." He breathes an unfunny laugh as he sees my mouth form a grin. "Can not a man like I, taketh a maiden to her bedplace?" He arches up an eyebrow.

"Tonight of all nights, young man, should'st I be fool to let thou taketh me to my room." My leg muscle twitch as I ended my sentence. He's supposed to be home by now. There was a silent laugh stiffling in my belly.

"But the lone stars speak otherwise." He looks up the stars, and back at me. Those eyes. A deep yellow that speaks of rebirth, burries me deep unto its boundaries. I could look at them all day and see only . . . my friend, Merdicus.

"Argue not. Back on thy path n-now, Merd-dicus" This time I was serious. I feel the tingling prickle of the ice wind, worming it's way to my entirety.

I musn't succumb to the cold. Steady thou go, Hasmariva.

He arches up one eyebrow in wonder. His thick long lashes makes him look like a boy asking his mom for cotton candy at the carnival. "Wherefore the face? Is all fine, maiden?," the way he said maiden tingles my skin and raised up bumbs so high against the awe and the wind, it hurt.

"Aye, man." I cross my arms in the burden as a wind full of infinite space bites my skin.

"Nay I say to you, lady," he walked on the cobblestone of my terrace. There's something about the square of his jaw that show earnest concern and . . . what is it?---affection?

He took hold of my arm as if it was glass. His hands, they were strong and I felt secure in his grasp. My cold cold skin hot against his. An entirely new feeling of trueness and desire. Desire for what? I did not know. There was an ache inside me that sang of sorrow. What do I long for? In this world where everywhere is a night sky reflection.

"Is that thy bedplace, Hasmariva? If it please thee, I rather take thee to thy room than leave thee among the kisses of the cold night," he asks, pointing a finger into it as he keeps walking me to my room. I give a slight nod.

When we reached my room he opened it up and the door gave a slight creek.

I need to oil my hinges first tihng in the morning.

"Change," he threw me the nightgown with a surprisingly controlled leverage, and I caught it firmly on my grasp. I shifted my gaze to him, only to see he wasn't looking at me. There outside, his mind wandered far from this place, though his eye was on a particular star. The way his jaw tightened and the square of his shoulders hunched forward, he was thinking of something undeniably miserable. Probably loss. But from what?

I went around my room to the dresser just behind where my nightgown used to sit, just a while ago. I fit it in and drove my fingers along the silk fabric. It was soothingly warm, despite the icy atmosphere of my room. I look at the mirror, and there was just me . . . me and this silver sky nightgown that now spoke witness of my body. The way his shoulders were arched forward, and the way my spine bend forward to reveal my curves, what was the relevance?

"How now?," I wave yet another long set of fingers to him.

He turns around in awe as I twirl for him.

"Maiden," He stares at me, full of emotion, "I pray to thee that I come by to your bed. Your eyes long for company. The lone stars are unforgiving."

"An' have thine eary father question I? Nay, I say to you."

What in the quacking ducks am I doing? He's my best freind and he'll be sleeping with me later on just because of a stutter---oh yeah, he's my best friend, nothing wrong with it. Bad Hasmariva! Think of the other way, he's a man and he'll---

" 'Tis a shame that an angel in the likes of you tend to forget her own childhood friend." He throws a shy look at me that was gone instantly as it showed.

"Then brother, what say you?," I ask confidently as he starts up my bed and kicks off his boots. Ignoring my no to him.

"What say I, you ask?," now he's officially sleeping in my house, in my room, in my bed! And I ain't playing nice on this one. No-oh, no I won't. But then when I saw his eyes. There was discomfort swimming in flashes across his eye. Is he having doubts about me as his friend? My, my, please let him be not, God.

"Let's go to bed," I said, ignoring his question that was supposed to be my question for him.

I turn down the lights and tuck myself on the other side of the bed, inches far form him. What? My bed is small. I'm no egyptian queen to get like a . . . queen size bed or . . . or whatever it's called, for a single bed!

I sigh.

He sigh.

I breathe.

He breathe.

I swallow.

He swallow.

"Dost thou copy me?' I ask in sweet annoyance.

"Nay, madame," and there he goes, calling me different names, and letting me envision things about him. His perfect smile. His scent that reminds me of summer.

"Perchance. Now, sleep, Merdicus. My warmth of bed lasts not long. Take advantage." I turn my body around and hear him exhale, a loud, but soft one. Was it awe?

"Oft had I to see thou with thine eyes shut. When thou still embodies a poppet. A poppet with nothing but her forest dirt hair, her sweet cocoa scent, and her beauty."

"Art thou saying that I face thee? Merdicus, pray tell." I exclaim as I struggle to remember what he had just said. I look outside my bedroom window. A myriad of stars that suddenly seemed so far, just when a while ago they seemed so near. Just billions of silver spots made to fancy discoverers with telescopes.

"Mhh." And then, there were only soundless breaths coming from him. Old friend. I miss how we were when we were still young and we were both the same. Back when we still played and rolled in the mud, they seemed so very long ago. Washed by the memories of another dimension seeping through another heart of reality. This reality. Where every corner of the world was there, and yet was not. Where there are lies and where there was.

Silently, I turn around so I could face Merdicus. Somehow, this friend I have here was no ordinary friend. No ordinary childhood bestfriend. I run my fingers through my hair and look at them. This hands used to work on the streets of waste, but now, it worked all thorough the living and the non. There goes his eyebrows. Twitching as if his eyes would open and catch me staring.

He was just so lovely.

Under this moonlight, I had one thing to grasp, he in my bedroom silently dreaming of whatever's swimming in his mind. And me, laying on the warmth of my bed as though it was a haven I never knew excisted. Not until now.