This story was inspired by this writing prompt. The image is by photographer Hesam Montazeri, and you can click here for more of their work!

Bluebell smiled, gazing at the bridge’s fluorescent lighting. “It’s wondrous!”

“It’s new,” the old man holding her hand said. “I hope that’s okay.”

The girl looked to him, nodding under her short blue hair. “That doesn’t matter. It just needs to cross running water.”

Kenneth’s eyes were tired, but happy. “So, how does–”

The young woman’s freckled face became concerned as he fell into a fit of choughs and wheezes. They subsided as she touched his cheek. “My poor brave soldier! Catch your breath.”

His breathing eased watching Bluebell take hold of her purse. “What happens now?”

“We’ll cross.”

The man in his nineties raised a bushy eyebrow. “That’s it?”

Snapping open a clasp, she dipped her hand into the golden glow of pixie dust. “Do you remember how we met?”

“You don’t forget a dying fairy falling into your foxhole. Or patching her up under heavy fire.”

She nodded. “I learned the horrors of mortal wars that night.”

“I learned to believe again. People called me crazy.”

“Well, it took more than removing a shard of German iron for you to heal me. You gave a piece of your soul to patch that wound, and in return, I gave you an equal piece of mine.”

“Is that why I’ve dreamed of you for seventy years?”

“I’ve been dreaming of you for centuries,” she said tossing amber motes into the air above them. “Time flows strangely between here and the thrones of Titania and Oberon.”

A golden aura enveloped him, and Bluebell steadied his cane-aided walk. “I feel light, like when you faded away after I saved you.”

The structure’s illumination warped around them. “Don’t fight it, Love. Human bodies are but chrysalises. Let it go. Be young… Unfurl your wings, and fly with me!”

Kenneth embraced her. “Geronimo.”