more pacie fic.

[starlightsaoirse]

Aspasia Aleron was not a superstitious woman.

When she was a child, her brother and sister would hold their breath whenever they happened to pass a cemetery. She herself never understood the impulse, even when Antony, somewhat exasperatedly, explained that it was so they didn’t breathe in any of the unquiet spirits contained within. She also never held her breath when riding through a tunnel, whether in a car or a train.

She laughed when superstitious aunts admonished her for ducking underneath ladders, if doing so meant taking the most efficient path, and took a certain amount of glee in the amount of unrest her black cat, Scuro, aroused in the same relations. Indeed, Scuro was her beloved companion from early childhood well into high school.

She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the delicate rabbit’s foot dangling from a classmate’s backpack, which she claimed was the source of her luck. Aspasia felt oddly vindicated when that girl fell on the basketball court that fall, spraining her ankle—some luck.

In high school, Carlo would race through yellow lights as if unafraid of red lights, car crashes, and tickets, but never failed to reach a hand up and knock on the roof of the car while doing so. She simply rolled her eyes, knowing better than to ask.

Even her father, her meticulous father, on the rare occasion when he spilled salt, was known to take a pinch of what had spilled and toss it back over his shoulder.

When she first met him, she half-expected Sin to keep four-leaf clovers about, the same way he kept a stock of ocean-scented room fresheners. She was relieved to learn that that was primarily an American superstition and not one he ascribed to.

No, Aspasia was really not a superstitious woman, and never had been.

These thoughts were absently fluttering through her mind as she examined her reflection in the floor-length mirror. The strand of white pearls that had belonged to her mother looked exquisite above the sweetheart neckline of her wedding gown; the pearl studs, borrowed from Sandra, matched perfectly. The pearl diadem her father had commissioned just for her should have been too much, but somehow, against her loose, dark curls, was perfect.

She adjusted the chiffon skirt of the floor length gown, fussing with it, really. Nobody would ever accuse her of being superstitious, but a woman was allowed to make concessions on her wedding day.

Even if those concessions included a royal blue scrap of lace that passed for underwear.