Chapter Text
“So good!” Jeanne exclaimed in approval as she licked the last crumbs of a sandwich from her fingers, a contented smile spreading across her face.
“Glad to hear it, ma cherie!” Dominique beamed. She loved pampering her Jeanne and watching her take delight in even the simplest pleasures.
The two lovers sat companionably side-by-side on a checkered picnic blanket, which they’d laid out beneath the shadows graciously provided by a lofty tree in order to avoid the brunt of the August sun’s onslaught.
On Lady Dominique’s orders, the de Sade chefs had filled their wicker basket with a small army’s worth of food: Delicious sandwiches stuffed til you could scarcely wrap your hands around them, five types of cheese, apples, peaches, tangerines, a bottle of wine…
Of course, Jeanne, a battalion unto herself, had easily demolished the better portion of their feast.
The chevalier leaned back against the oak’s sturdy trunk, took Domi’s hand, and raised it to her lips, sweetly kissing each knuckle in turn. Dominique blushed, heart aflutter. In her past flirtations, she’d typically played the role of dashing suitor. Now here she was, the fair damsel bewitched under the spell cast by Jeanne’s topaz eyes…eyes which silently told her that she was cherished beyond measure.
“It’s such a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Domi whispered softly, though the pastoral charm which surrounded them couldn’t hold a candle to Jeanne’s brilliance.
“Perfect!” Jeanne affirmed with a grin. “All we need now is a light breeze.”
While not oppressive, the afternoon’s warmth had draped over them in a heavy blanket, and the clouds dotted against the sky like clots of cream did little to quell the rising temperature.
Domi couldn’t bridle the wind, but…
She squeezed Jeanne’s hand.
“Shall I cool things down for us, mon ange? Just say the word!”
Jeanne let out an excited gasp.
“Oh Domi…would you really? But are you sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
“Non!” Dominique trilled as she leapt to her feet. She made a courtly bow and added with a mischievous wink, “Remember that your every wish is my command, mademoiselle.”
Jeanne turned a demure pink at her flattery, but Dominique was utterly sincere. She would never turn down a chance to perform for her darling. Regardless of how humble the stage, Jeanne remained the worthiest spectator, her applause a sweeter sound than cheers from a feted audience of thousands.
Their love ought to have been as impossible as snowfall amidst the inescapable heat of summertime.
A borreau reviled by her own kind, an aristocrat scorned by her haughty relations, two lost souls ensnared in a goldspun web whose pattern they had only understood in elusive strands and fragments.
In all rational estimation, their hopes should have been dashed to pieces against futility’s unforgiving shore.
But Jeanne and Domi abided by the dream logic found in fairytales, where the brave knight arrives at a fated minute to catch the princess safely in her arms as she plummets from her tower. They danced through a perpetual season that was neither spring nor winter, shaking despair out of their skirts like bothersome dust, chasing away midnight with their radiant devotion which outshone the sun.
Compared to that miracle, it was really a trifling affair for Dominique to tweak the world formula just so, enough to pluck water droplets from the humid air and turn them into a flurry of snow crystals the twirled merrily around the two vampires.
Jeanne rose and gleefully spun in the embrace of this anachronous winter.
“Thank you, thank you, merci infiniment!” she sang out.
A snowflake fell upon her lover’s cheek, an icy bisou, which was shortly followed by a warm, silken kiss from Domi herself.