[FIC] Her Heartbeat Was Almost His.
Fandom: Kyou Kara Maou.
Pairing: Geigen Huber Brischella/Nicola
Theme set: Gamma.
Rating: PG 13.
Notes: Written for 1sentence
Ring
The ring he gave Nicola is a cheap silver thing he found out in a bazaar near Suberera by sheer dumb luck, and even as he was giving it to her, promising that one day he was going to give her a better one, she just smiled and told him that she loved it and that she wasn’t going to take it off.
Hero
Huber often says that he’s not a hero but Nicola disagrees with this, especially because she has seen the way Eru looks up to him and she knows, she just knows that he is a hero in their daughter’s eyes.
Memory
During the fever he got when the guards of Suberera took out his eye, the only memory that never changed was that of Nicola, telling him in an awed whisper that he was going to be a father; it gave him the strength to hold on just a bit more.
Box
Nicola used to have a wooden box when she was growing up where she’d save everything she then thought was invaluable (the first flower she received, some letters, a hair ribbon) and didn’t want to lose, but she doesn’t try to have one over in Shin Makoku; you can’t save your daughter’s first steps or your husband’s smile in a box, after all.
Run
For someone so small, Nicola was an incredibly fast runner, or so Huber thought when the petite woman wrapped slim fingers around his wrist and pulled him over several backstreet alleys until they had lost the guards that had been chasing after them.
Hurricane
Having lived most of her life near a desert, Nicola had never felt a hurricane… but she and Huber quickly find out they had one right there under their roof when Eru learns to crawl.
Wings
For her fifth birthday Eru asked for wings, since she wanted to be able to fly over the sky with her ‘Kohi’ friends and Huber who hated denying his daughter anything (Nicola often laughed, saying Eru was going to end up spoiled), asked Anissina to build non-flying wings (specifically requested for them not to fly) that Eru could put over her back and then raised her high over his head, unable to stop smiling when their daughter laughed delighted, asking him to make her fly much higher.
Cold
Nicola hates getting colds; one because it makes Huber worried even if it’s the most innocent thing and two because it makes her remember just how short and fragile is her life.
Red
Nicola used to have a soft beige dress that Huber thought made her eyes even warmer, but she didn’t have any kind of hesitation to rip parts of her dress to wrap around his wounds, and she didn’t even complain when what was left of it was completely stained with red.
Drink
Nicola doesn’t like when she has to work at night, since it means more people asking for alcohol and drunk people usually get too touchy feely (she has a mean right hook after several weeks of practice), but she doesn’t mind as much when the traveler with the soft blue eyes arrives; she’s even more thrilled when all he asks for a drink is water.
Midnight
For her first three months of life, Eru kept on waking up crying right at midnight, and often Huber let Nicola sleep while he walked his baby daughter around the nursery, telling her all the stories he could remember, more often than not wondering if the baby would get tired anytime soon.
Temptation
Nicola knows it’s dangerous to fall in love with a Mazoku, especially one that’s traveling through human lands; she knows all what could go wrong… but she can’t resist anymore the temptation to stand up on her tiptoes and kiss Huber.
View
Watching Nicola with their baby daughter in her arms, singing softly a lullaby, Huber knew he would never get tired of that sight.
Music
When Huber is away, the only way to calm Eru enough for get her to sleep is with a music box that Huber’s mother had given her when she had been pregnant; Nicola is also fond of the soft tune, and she sways a little bit, eyes half closed, and waits for Huber to come back soon.
Silk
He had apologized after the first time they made love (they had been in a small, stuffy inn and the mattress of their room was at the same time soft and hard, and Huber had apologized because it should’ve been in a room full of roses and candles and silk sheets) but Nicola just smiled and kissed him, telling him to not be silly and snuggled against his chest; Huber couldn’t stop himself from marveling at just how soft was her skin.
Cover
Truth is that although from the first moment they had started to journey together they had the cover of being married, they didn’t became lovers until six months after that (and it was mostly because she had kissed him first; she somehow got the feeling that, if not, they would have waited at least another six more); but even from the start, Nicola couldn’t stop the thrill she felt when she said she was Huber’s wife.
Promise
At the first cry of life he heard from his daughter, Huber promised in silence, for both Nicola and the baby’s sake, that he would never do anything to hurt them ever again.
Dream
Sometimes, watching Huber smiling at the way Eru clings to his hand while she gives her first steps, Nicola can’t quite wrap her mind around the fact that her life isn’t just one of her daydreams.
Candle
Huber smiles, just a tiny bit smug, when Nicola gapes at their room: it’s filled with red roses and candles cast soft lights over their bed; and as he carries her to lay over it, he just whispers that he had made a promise.
Talent
Nicola doesn’t really care if her daughter is the first half-mazoku girl to have maryoku; for her it’s more precious how the baby’s babble has the talent to make Huber smile.
Silence
They start joking about having another baby around the time when Eru learned how to walk and silence was a thing forever lost in their house, but Huber knew, by the soft smile Nicola gave him, that she didn’t miss silence and, frankly, neither did he.
Journey
Sometimes, Nicola wonders if Huber regrets asking her to come along on his journey, but then he smiles at her, or touches her face and she stops wondering silly questions that have no answers.
Fire
Frankly, Nicola had kind of been expecting their daughter to develop fire or earth maryoku, but somehow, that she ends up being more apt to learn wind techniques, isn’t as calm as it probably should.
Strength
One day, while Huber saw Nicola laughing with Gisela, he wondered if he really was going to have the strength to watch her wither away, and not do it with her.
Mask
Right from the start, Nicola wants to know more about the traveler, what he’s hiding behind those sad eyes so one day (after several mornings-afternoon-nights in which their conversation had been about the weather and about what he wanted to order and was he staying the night?), she stands up in front of him and sticks out her hand, giving him a smile, saying “Hi, I’m Nicola.”
Ice
There was something to say about winter and about ice and cold weather in general, if it always ended with Nicola curling so tightly against him that her heartbeat was almost his.
Fall
“One of these days, Ernesta Brischella,” - Huber tells Eru, still a little pale from watching their daughter fall down from a forty feet height, while Gisela takes care of the twisted wrist that is the little girl’s only injure, while she holds her other hand, and Eru winces at being called her full name -“You are going to have to stop scaring your mother and me like this.”
Forgotten
After Nicola’s funeral, when the anniversary of the last time he had seen her and heard her face came by, almost unexpectedly, Huber wondered if there was going to be a time where he wouldn’t remember her laugh and he prayed as hard as he could for that time never to come.
Dance
There’s something just incredibly sweet and charming, to watch her husband dancing with their daughter, even if technically the only one dancing is him.
Body
Only when Nicola’s body was pressed against his, her breath against his neck and her small hand over his chest, Huber found himself able to sleep without dreaming of Suzanna Julia’s dead one.
Sacred
Nicola doesn’t really understand why a dead king of four thousand years ago is so worshiped and revered but, if he might bring Huber back and let their baby meet his or her father, she’ll pray until the day she does it.
Farewells
“Nicola!” he screamed even though the Hoseki was slowly draining his strength away, still trying to get to her but she just looked at him, a hand covering her stomach; “I’m sorry,” her eyes said, and his breath faltered, his throat tight, “I’m sorry, I love you, I love you so much, I’m sorry!” and he closed his eyes before they could whisper a goodbye.
World
Eru says that she wants to see all the world, eyes sparkling in excitement while she begs her father to tell her another story; Nicola smiles at this, sitting just across her husband and daughter, and wonders for half a second if her daughter’s lifespan will be enough to fulfill the dream hers won’t allow.
Formal
Huber made the mental note to thank Celi-sama very, very much for the blue dress that she had given Nicola for His Majesty’s Formal Engagement Party; that’s it, once he managed to stop staring at the way the silk seemed to both cling and flow from her body..
Fever
Eru gets a nasty fever when she’s around six years old; Nicola can barely stand the sight of her daughter whimpering in pain, and is both grateful that Huber’s maryoku calms the nightmares a bit, and angry that she can’t do anything else than change the cloth over her forehead and hold her hand.
Laugh
Nicola was trying very hard not to laugh, he was willing to give that much, but he refused to let the kiss his wife left over his cheek change his mood because, frankly, that he was worried that his daughter might have been spending too much time with a boy didn’t make him overprotective or jealous at all.
Lies
Huber doesn’t lie to her, Nicola is very aware of that - he just looks pained at her questions, as if the memories had the ability to physically hurt him - so she stops asking and Huber says sorry entwining their fingers together and giving her a smile.
Forever
Huber didn’t want forever with Nicola, he just wanted ‘today’ and ‘now’ never to end.
Overwhelmed
It is a little overwhelming, finding out that your daughter has been expected for a while as the miracle child born of a human and a mazoku that would have maryoku… but Nicola looks at Huber, who smiles at her, resting a hand over Eru’s small back, and calms down; it’s not as if they hadn’t known before that their daughter was special.
Whisper
When they were traveling, Huber only dared to say ‘I love you’ in a whisper, when Nicola was sleeping by his side, eyes softening when a soft smile touched her face, as if she had really heard it; Huber vowed that one day he was going to earn the right to tell her that when she was awake.
Wait
Around the sixth month of her pregnancy, with her parents-in-law telling her that she shouldn’t do anything too exhausting, Nicola finally decides to accept lady Anissina’s offer about teaching her how to knit; at least it gives her something to do while she waits for the baby to be born and her husband to come back home.
Talk
Eru walked in his studio with the same determined look Nicola had had when they had first met and, after taking a deep breath, she started a - “Father, we need… we need to talk,” - just a tad nervously, as if she wasn’t sixty years old at all, and Huber kept a warm, curious smile while his daughter started, pretending not to notice that Jiruta was outside in the hall, obviously waiting for his daughter’s signal; he was not stupid and he had realized a long time ago the kind of looks that his daughter and Jiruta shared, probably even before they had really noticed it and he was glad, so glad Eru had found someone who loved her like that… he just wished that Nicola was there so they could both hear their daughter’s news, and so he could hold her hand.
Search
Searching for the Mateki of course has it’s ups and downs - downs being all the times they are mislead… but an up is that Nicola finds out that Huber really, really likes when she’s all wrapped in veils and little else.
Hope
One day, while they were traveling to Shin Makoku, Greta asked him what was the thing he missed most in the world; Huber thought of brown eyes and soft lips against his, a whisper of ‘I love you’ over his ear and, while giving a small smile to the princess sitting besides him, he answered ‘hope’.
Eclipse
Somehow, neither Nicola nor Huber is too surprised when, in a very unique solar eclipse that only happens once every millennium, twelve years old Eru ends up on the head of her dragon friend, surrounded by several dozens of Kohi; frankly, they’ve learned what to expect from their daughter.
Gravity
Watching Nicola laughing in a flirty way to a guard that was too much drunk to care about the things a pretty young woman was asking, Huber forced himself not to take a hold of his sword and instead wondered just how long was he going to fool himself into believing the weight of his sins wasn’t going to come down over him one of these days, and if he really was going to let them crush Nicola too.
Highway
Nicola isn’t sure who enjoys more the afternoons in which Huber tells them about his trips or the last place he was: Eru, brown eyes wide open while she gapes, hugging tightly her sandbear plushie or Huber that gets a fond look at having the usually energetic little girl completely enraptured by his tales, sitting over his knee.
Unknown
There are some things that will become unknown as time goes by and weeks turn into months, years into decades: how Nicola’s nose twitched when she laughed, how she looked when she stood near the window of their room and the light would bath her on it; however, there are some things he won’t ever be able to forget: the feel of her hand on his, the smell of her hair when he pressed his face against the nape of her neck.
Lock
When His Excellency Gwendal wonders out loud just where did Eru learn to pick locks, the ten years old girl perched over his shoulders, happily snuggling, Huber turns to see her over the corner of his eye; Nicola bites her lower lip and suddenly is very interested in His Majesty’s talk about baseball.
Breathe
Nicola had died in their bed, in his arms, and she had whispered ‘I’ll be waiting for you,’ before closing her eyes; as Huber waited for the sun to come down, he was unable to stop a part of him that kept waiting for his breath to stop too.
Pairing: Geigen Huber Brischella/Nicola
Theme set: Gamma.
Rating: PG 13.
Notes: Written for 1sentence
Ring
The ring he gave Nicola is a cheap silver thing he found out in a bazaar near Suberera by sheer dumb luck, and even as he was giving it to her, promising that one day he was going to give her a better one, she just smiled and told him that she loved it and that she wasn’t going to take it off.
Hero
Huber often says that he’s not a hero but Nicola disagrees with this, especially because she has seen the way Eru looks up to him and she knows, she just knows that he is a hero in their daughter’s eyes.
Memory
During the fever he got when the guards of Suberera took out his eye, the only memory that never changed was that of Nicola, telling him in an awed whisper that he was going to be a father; it gave him the strength to hold on just a bit more.
Box
Nicola used to have a wooden box when she was growing up where she’d save everything she then thought was invaluable (the first flower she received, some letters, a hair ribbon) and didn’t want to lose, but she doesn’t try to have one over in Shin Makoku; you can’t save your daughter’s first steps or your husband’s smile in a box, after all.
Run
For someone so small, Nicola was an incredibly fast runner, or so Huber thought when the petite woman wrapped slim fingers around his wrist and pulled him over several backstreet alleys until they had lost the guards that had been chasing after them.
Hurricane
Having lived most of her life near a desert, Nicola had never felt a hurricane… but she and Huber quickly find out they had one right there under their roof when Eru learns to crawl.
Wings
For her fifth birthday Eru asked for wings, since she wanted to be able to fly over the sky with her ‘Kohi’ friends and Huber who hated denying his daughter anything (Nicola often laughed, saying Eru was going to end up spoiled), asked Anissina to build non-flying wings (specifically requested for them not to fly) that Eru could put over her back and then raised her high over his head, unable to stop smiling when their daughter laughed delighted, asking him to make her fly much higher.
Cold
Nicola hates getting colds; one because it makes Huber worried even if it’s the most innocent thing and two because it makes her remember just how short and fragile is her life.
Red
Nicola used to have a soft beige dress that Huber thought made her eyes even warmer, but she didn’t have any kind of hesitation to rip parts of her dress to wrap around his wounds, and she didn’t even complain when what was left of it was completely stained with red.
Drink
Nicola doesn’t like when she has to work at night, since it means more people asking for alcohol and drunk people usually get too touchy feely (she has a mean right hook after several weeks of practice), but she doesn’t mind as much when the traveler with the soft blue eyes arrives; she’s even more thrilled when all he asks for a drink is water.
Midnight
For her first three months of life, Eru kept on waking up crying right at midnight, and often Huber let Nicola sleep while he walked his baby daughter around the nursery, telling her all the stories he could remember, more often than not wondering if the baby would get tired anytime soon.
Temptation
Nicola knows it’s dangerous to fall in love with a Mazoku, especially one that’s traveling through human lands; she knows all what could go wrong… but she can’t resist anymore the temptation to stand up on her tiptoes and kiss Huber.
View
Watching Nicola with their baby daughter in her arms, singing softly a lullaby, Huber knew he would never get tired of that sight.
Music
When Huber is away, the only way to calm Eru enough for get her to sleep is with a music box that Huber’s mother had given her when she had been pregnant; Nicola is also fond of the soft tune, and she sways a little bit, eyes half closed, and waits for Huber to come back soon.
Silk
He had apologized after the first time they made love (they had been in a small, stuffy inn and the mattress of their room was at the same time soft and hard, and Huber had apologized because it should’ve been in a room full of roses and candles and silk sheets) but Nicola just smiled and kissed him, telling him to not be silly and snuggled against his chest; Huber couldn’t stop himself from marveling at just how soft was her skin.
Cover
Truth is that although from the first moment they had started to journey together they had the cover of being married, they didn’t became lovers until six months after that (and it was mostly because she had kissed him first; she somehow got the feeling that, if not, they would have waited at least another six more); but even from the start, Nicola couldn’t stop the thrill she felt when she said she was Huber’s wife.
Promise
At the first cry of life he heard from his daughter, Huber promised in silence, for both Nicola and the baby’s sake, that he would never do anything to hurt them ever again.
Dream
Sometimes, watching Huber smiling at the way Eru clings to his hand while she gives her first steps, Nicola can’t quite wrap her mind around the fact that her life isn’t just one of her daydreams.
Candle
Huber smiles, just a tiny bit smug, when Nicola gapes at their room: it’s filled with red roses and candles cast soft lights over their bed; and as he carries her to lay over it, he just whispers that he had made a promise.
Talent
Nicola doesn’t really care if her daughter is the first half-mazoku girl to have maryoku; for her it’s more precious how the baby’s babble has the talent to make Huber smile.
Silence
They start joking about having another baby around the time when Eru learned how to walk and silence was a thing forever lost in their house, but Huber knew, by the soft smile Nicola gave him, that she didn’t miss silence and, frankly, neither did he.
Journey
Sometimes, Nicola wonders if Huber regrets asking her to come along on his journey, but then he smiles at her, or touches her face and she stops wondering silly questions that have no answers.
Fire
Frankly, Nicola had kind of been expecting their daughter to develop fire or earth maryoku, but somehow, that she ends up being more apt to learn wind techniques, isn’t as calm as it probably should.
Strength
One day, while Huber saw Nicola laughing with Gisela, he wondered if he really was going to have the strength to watch her wither away, and not do it with her.
Mask
Right from the start, Nicola wants to know more about the traveler, what he’s hiding behind those sad eyes so one day (after several mornings-afternoon-nights in which their conversation had been about the weather and about what he wanted to order and was he staying the night?), she stands up in front of him and sticks out her hand, giving him a smile, saying “Hi, I’m Nicola.”
Ice
There was something to say about winter and about ice and cold weather in general, if it always ended with Nicola curling so tightly against him that her heartbeat was almost his.
Fall
“One of these days, Ernesta Brischella,” - Huber tells Eru, still a little pale from watching their daughter fall down from a forty feet height, while Gisela takes care of the twisted wrist that is the little girl’s only injure, while she holds her other hand, and Eru winces at being called her full name -“You are going to have to stop scaring your mother and me like this.”
Forgotten
After Nicola’s funeral, when the anniversary of the last time he had seen her and heard her face came by, almost unexpectedly, Huber wondered if there was going to be a time where he wouldn’t remember her laugh and he prayed as hard as he could for that time never to come.
Dance
There’s something just incredibly sweet and charming, to watch her husband dancing with their daughter, even if technically the only one dancing is him.
Body
Only when Nicola’s body was pressed against his, her breath against his neck and her small hand over his chest, Huber found himself able to sleep without dreaming of Suzanna Julia’s dead one.
Sacred
Nicola doesn’t really understand why a dead king of four thousand years ago is so worshiped and revered but, if he might bring Huber back and let their baby meet his or her father, she’ll pray until the day she does it.
Farewells
“Nicola!” he screamed even though the Hoseki was slowly draining his strength away, still trying to get to her but she just looked at him, a hand covering her stomach; “I’m sorry,” her eyes said, and his breath faltered, his throat tight, “I’m sorry, I love you, I love you so much, I’m sorry!” and he closed his eyes before they could whisper a goodbye.
World
Eru says that she wants to see all the world, eyes sparkling in excitement while she begs her father to tell her another story; Nicola smiles at this, sitting just across her husband and daughter, and wonders for half a second if her daughter’s lifespan will be enough to fulfill the dream hers won’t allow.
Formal
Huber made the mental note to thank Celi-sama very, very much for the blue dress that she had given Nicola for His Majesty’s Formal Engagement Party; that’s it, once he managed to stop staring at the way the silk seemed to both cling and flow from her body..
Fever
Eru gets a nasty fever when she’s around six years old; Nicola can barely stand the sight of her daughter whimpering in pain, and is both grateful that Huber’s maryoku calms the nightmares a bit, and angry that she can’t do anything else than change the cloth over her forehead and hold her hand.
Laugh
Nicola was trying very hard not to laugh, he was willing to give that much, but he refused to let the kiss his wife left over his cheek change his mood because, frankly, that he was worried that his daughter might have been spending too much time with a boy didn’t make him overprotective or jealous at all.
Lies
Huber doesn’t lie to her, Nicola is very aware of that - he just looks pained at her questions, as if the memories had the ability to physically hurt him - so she stops asking and Huber says sorry entwining their fingers together and giving her a smile.
Forever
Huber didn’t want forever with Nicola, he just wanted ‘today’ and ‘now’ never to end.
Overwhelmed
It is a little overwhelming, finding out that your daughter has been expected for a while as the miracle child born of a human and a mazoku that would have maryoku… but Nicola looks at Huber, who smiles at her, resting a hand over Eru’s small back, and calms down; it’s not as if they hadn’t known before that their daughter was special.
Whisper
When they were traveling, Huber only dared to say ‘I love you’ in a whisper, when Nicola was sleeping by his side, eyes softening when a soft smile touched her face, as if she had really heard it; Huber vowed that one day he was going to earn the right to tell her that when she was awake.
Wait
Around the sixth month of her pregnancy, with her parents-in-law telling her that she shouldn’t do anything too exhausting, Nicola finally decides to accept lady Anissina’s offer about teaching her how to knit; at least it gives her something to do while she waits for the baby to be born and her husband to come back home.
Talk
Eru walked in his studio with the same determined look Nicola had had when they had first met and, after taking a deep breath, she started a - “Father, we need… we need to talk,” - just a tad nervously, as if she wasn’t sixty years old at all, and Huber kept a warm, curious smile while his daughter started, pretending not to notice that Jiruta was outside in the hall, obviously waiting for his daughter’s signal; he was not stupid and he had realized a long time ago the kind of looks that his daughter and Jiruta shared, probably even before they had really noticed it and he was glad, so glad Eru had found someone who loved her like that… he just wished that Nicola was there so they could both hear their daughter’s news, and so he could hold her hand.
Search
Searching for the Mateki of course has it’s ups and downs - downs being all the times they are mislead… but an up is that Nicola finds out that Huber really, really likes when she’s all wrapped in veils and little else.
Hope
One day, while they were traveling to Shin Makoku, Greta asked him what was the thing he missed most in the world; Huber thought of brown eyes and soft lips against his, a whisper of ‘I love you’ over his ear and, while giving a small smile to the princess sitting besides him, he answered ‘hope’.
Eclipse
Somehow, neither Nicola nor Huber is too surprised when, in a very unique solar eclipse that only happens once every millennium, twelve years old Eru ends up on the head of her dragon friend, surrounded by several dozens of Kohi; frankly, they’ve learned what to expect from their daughter.
Gravity
Watching Nicola laughing in a flirty way to a guard that was too much drunk to care about the things a pretty young woman was asking, Huber forced himself not to take a hold of his sword and instead wondered just how long was he going to fool himself into believing the weight of his sins wasn’t going to come down over him one of these days, and if he really was going to let them crush Nicola too.
Highway
Nicola isn’t sure who enjoys more the afternoons in which Huber tells them about his trips or the last place he was: Eru, brown eyes wide open while she gapes, hugging tightly her sandbear plushie or Huber that gets a fond look at having the usually energetic little girl completely enraptured by his tales, sitting over his knee.
Unknown
There are some things that will become unknown as time goes by and weeks turn into months, years into decades: how Nicola’s nose twitched when she laughed, how she looked when she stood near the window of their room and the light would bath her on it; however, there are some things he won’t ever be able to forget: the feel of her hand on his, the smell of her hair when he pressed his face against the nape of her neck.
Lock
When His Excellency Gwendal wonders out loud just where did Eru learn to pick locks, the ten years old girl perched over his shoulders, happily snuggling, Huber turns to see her over the corner of his eye; Nicola bites her lower lip and suddenly is very interested in His Majesty’s talk about baseball.
Breathe
Nicola had died in their bed, in his arms, and she had whispered ‘I’ll be waiting for you,’ before closing her eyes; as Huber waited for the sun to come down, he was unable to stop a part of him that kept waiting for his breath to stop too.