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loruleanheart · 2 years ago

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Ok, just finished my Ashley/Salazar short story. Going to post the epilogue in full here too since its short and I don't think there's anything here that's too objectionable. If you enjoyed, please consider leaving kudos on the work on AO3, and a comment if you're up to it!

Wounds: Epilogue

She sat in the university's atrium, alone on a bench, twisting the thick gold band on her finger from side to side, a habit she’d formed over the weeks and months since. This ring… It was to her a reminder of the evil in the world—but also, the good. It didn’t look like modern jewelry by any stretch of the imagination—more so that it belonged in a museum behind thick glass.

The opulent central diamond was surrounded by a ring of pearls. On the inside of the band, engraved in fine, delicate script were two names. One, ‘María Isabel’, and the other ‘Catalina’. It seemed the ring had been passed down through the Salazar family. Had Ramón really just given her such a priceless heirloom?

Perhaps with Lord Saddler’s blessing, you will be returned to me once this is all over… My darling…

Ramón’s words echoed through the recesses of her mind, amazed that she could recall his voice and his words so clearly, all things considered…

She’d really meant that much to him…

Something deep inside her wrenched and then wavered before subsiding. A thousand different thoughts and feelings were conjured up, competing against one another. Her mind was buzzing with all she wanted to relate to someone else, but couldn’t.

After the plaga had been removed she’d gotten off the operating table and stood and walked on her own feet, like nothing had ever happened. How she felt inside, however, was indescribable—there was relief, yes, but she was also bent, almost to the point of nearly being undone as she tried to put on a cheerful face for Luis and Leon’s benefit.

The general public remained blissfully unaware of the dangers Los Illuminados could have posed, though Leon would go on to write a confidential report that would make its rounds among groups committed to fighting bioterrorism.

Back in the United States, her life resumed as it had been. She returned to her university, her sorority, and her friends. She was forever changed, and everyone else was none the wiser. The whole ordeal had come and gone so quickly that not even her friends were aware she had been missing. Not that she’d dare breathe a word of what had happened. Who would believe her?

She made her best attempt to settle back in. Life became predictable again. The time she’d spent with Ramón might have been mistaken for a fever dream if she were not wearing the ring he’d placed on her finger.

How odd it was… That one crazy, long-ago night in Spain had seemed endless at the time, full of the most intense fear and dread she’d ever experienced. Now there were countless nights she would give anything to get back on that sofa.

Radiant sunlight poured down through the high glass ceiling as if the sun had been partially obscured by thick cloud cover moments before. Presently, she stopped fidgeting with the ring and glanced up again at her surroundings.

The only sound was the gentle trickle of the fountain in the center of the atrium. It was quiet and peaceful this time of day, which was one of the reasons she would frequent this place in between classes. And because it reminded her so much of the castle garden she’d been so captivated by under the moonlight.

She breathed deeply and reached for her laptop sitting next to her on the bench. Strange… She’d never been very creative before, nor much of a writer, but now she felt a hundred stories brimming inside her. She’d even enrolled in a creative writing course—quite a deviation from the business degree she was pursuing. Perhaps she’d become a novelist instead of following in her father’s footsteps. Would he be disappointed?

Tonight, like most nights, she’d crawl into bed, the end of a long day of classes and studying, with a pad of paper and write until she felt her eyelids growing heavy. She’d write everything from the sweetest romance to stuff that would probably make Ramón blush.

For him, she would write, and she would live. That was how she would honor what she’d lost. She would write about different lives and scenarios, different identities. She liked to think of them as the lives they might have spent together if they hadn’t been hindered by distance, illness, or a parasite-worshiping cult—or the most damning of all: death. She could not publish anything she had experienced in Spain, but there were no rules against writing fiction.

Ashley sighed.

Ramón… You deserve a thousand first-class scripts.

#Resident Evil 4 remake #Ramon Salazar #Resident Evil 4 #Ashley Graham #Ashley/Salazar #Ashley x Salazar #fanfic

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drawnfamiliarfaces · 2 months ago

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