And it faded into the dark depths from whence it came.

In fifteen seconds the smell

was gone. In forty-one my eyelids were whole. After sixty I opened them.

“Hey, babe,” she said, “quickly forget the nightmare now. It is quite improper
having them at 10 in the morning.”

“How do you always know?” I smiled.

“Because I’m your wife, silly. Your brightest-star-that-the-moonlight-couldn’t-

drown-out. You didn’t forget your oaths did you, mister?”

How could I?

The words choked in my throat. She turned around – black hair in the usual bun,
eyes shining like the tip of a sword – and with two long strides jumped on my bare
body, clasping her lips onto mine. I started counting. After eight she pulled away,
just a centimeter, and breathed into my mouth, “Pray honour thine lady with
reciprocation, my lord.” I smiled again, a happy tear trickling down the side of my
face, and bridged the gap between our lips. Her tongue slipped in, exploring my
mouth, caressing the words that seemed to be so adamantly stuck and absorbing
them in a conversation that surpassed mere syllables. Within the abyssal darkness
behind my closed eyes I floated in her radiant scent – lilac and gooseberries. After
so many years, she still felt divine.

After uncountable moments she broke away and, kissing my eyelids, asked, “Was
it bad?”

I nodded into her neck.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“A bit later?”

“Of course, babe.”

“Hon?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to tell you something..”

“Yeah?”

“I think you’ve left the stove on.”

She yelped, sniffing the air, and ran towards the kitchen with a gleeful chirp. I
wiped off the single tear, got off the bed and walked towards the kitchen and there
she was – my wife, my best friend. She wore the Cosmere apron we had found at a
thrift store on top of the green sweater my mother had knit for her. Her hands,
which had wiped off my tears during what she called the “poopoo times”, were
busy scraping the burnt omelette from the pan. Her eyes, which had accompanied
mine as they walked down the pages of hundreds of fantasy novels, looked up
towards me with guilty innocence, like Coppy’s when she accidentally tripped me
as a child.

“I wanted to make your favourite breakfast,” she muttered with a pout.

“It’s okay, babe,” I said, noticing the grin on my face, “I love you.”

“I love you,” she replied, scrunching her nose and smiling like a teenager in love,
“Do you want to talk about that dream?”

I watched her clean up the pan and break another egg for me. “No,” I said walking
up to her. The smell of lilac, gooseberries and burnt eggs felt like home as I
hugged her from behind. “It was just a dream.”