A Cloudless Sky

Westley stared up at the blue sky. The twelve-year-old boy was sick of the farmgirl. He was going to have to go there and start work, but for now he loitered in an idyllic pasture.

Westley spread his arms out and dropped to the ground, spread out like the scarecrow his father used to call him. Westley paused, and told himself it was only sun-dazzle that made his eyes water.

"Farmboy!"

Westley smothered a groan. He was sick of her voice, the way she held herself, her cursed knotty hair, her pale blue eyes and her freckles. Admittedly, the freckles were dark and patterned only across her nose, but they were still freckles.

Aforementioned face popped into view at his feet. His father had taught him to be quiet, to 'leave that gabbling tongue to young mistress over there'. The girl would then laugh, and so would Westley's father and-

"Farmboy! Are you listening to me?"

Westley pulled his head out of the cloudless sky and sun to meet the farmer's daughter's eyes, letting her know she had his attention.

The farmgirl grew quiet, and sat down beside Westley, hugging her knees to her chest. She twisted her head to look at Westley.

"I hear about your father,"

Westley's head snapped around to face hers.

"I'm so sorry for you,"

Westley's cheeks flushed in anger, and promptly cooled. He'd heard everyone say that today, but the farmgirl said it like she really cared. She fell onto her back so that she lay next to Westley and looked him in the eyes. He looked back, and felt a strange kind of sensation at seeing her eyes on him.

"Farmboy?" the girl reached up a hand as if to touch his face, but instead picked out a flower, before resting her hand on the ground next to him, eyes still soft and deep and sorrowful.

"Farmboy, I don't want you to call me 'mistress' or 'farmgirl'. Call me my name. Call me Buttercup, please,"

It wasn't a request.

Westley rested his hand over hers, daringly. It didn't seem to affect her, just as the fierceness in his eyes didn't.

"As you wish,"

It was the first sentence he ever said to her. Buttercup laughed, sat up and clapped her hands together.

"That's what your father used to say when I got upset! You'll keep saying it, won't you? When I'm sad?"

"As you wish,"

Buttercup pressed the buttercup she had picked into his hand, grinning, before racing back to the farmhouse, Westley close behind. For some reason, the phrase seemed right on his lips.

He tilted his head to the sun.

"As you wish"
-

Many years later...

"Westley?"

"Yes, Buttercup?"

"I don't…do you remember when you started saying 'as you wish' to me?"

Westley tilted his head to the sun.

"I fear not," he lied, "It must have slipped my mind, Buttercup,"

"Oh, well. But you will help me put back the farm when we get home? Especially your father's…"

There was a quiet moment, and then Buttercup's soft eyes met Westley's blue eyes, and Westley smiled.

"As you wish."