A Charming Place
Date: March 31, 2024 Event: Strawberry Tales (@ichirukicollab) Art: Ana (Lamb & Lion line art, Thermae Bath Spa colors) and Sid (Thermae Bath Spa line art, Lamb & Lion colors) Story: @gunnerpalace Beta: Silk & Mila Chapters: 1 Word Count: 6,533 Rating: Explicit Genres: romance, fluff, smut Warnings: none
Summary: Travel doesn't have to be only either business or pleasure. In 2016, long after an alternative Thousand-Year Blood War and its aftershocks, a married Captain Rukia and Lieutenant Ichigo are given the task of liaising with Wing Bind in London, and leave in advance to enjoy some time in Europe. We join them on approach to the charming city of Bath, in between a bewildering time in Paris and the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in Stratford-upon-Avon. Soothed by the bucolic English countryside rolling by, the two find themselves both wanting a more tranquil—but by no means boring—afternoon, evening, and night together…
Notes: A huge thank you to my artists both for their work and for letting me post it here on Tumblr, and to the Strawberry Tales team! It was a lot of fun to get involved with the community again!
Excerpt
“Remind me which one of us wants to go how far north again, merely to see the house where a guy who wrote plays was born?”
“Shakespeare is not just ‘a guy who wrote plays’,” Ichigo replied sourly.
“Oh, of course not, my mistake,” Rukia continued quite sarcastically, dramatically lifting the back of a hand to her own forehead. “To be or not to be sorry, that is the question!”
He was momentarily lost for words as he realized his wife had quoted the Bard—sort of. Had she taken an interest in the matter and done some study of her own?
As he pondered that, she continued in quite good English: “Alas, poor Shakespeare! I knew him, Ichigo: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!”
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