Ravensblood Forest oh, you are the roots that sleep beneath my feet and hold the earth in place [m]

Olive loved the way Dakarai talked to her. His voice was warm with fondness and it enchanted her easily. Even the most simple of his phrases sang and soothed her. How lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky she truly was.

“It was quite strange,” the druid huffed, readily sharing her breathless thoughts with him. Her mind was something she never had to hide from Dakarai; he saw her for who she truly was the night they met, and seemed to love her more for it. Now, her lover knew her at her most raw, most carnal, most unclothed… and they both still couldn’t get enough.

“You and I, we were… we were not here. We were someplace, without trees — there was only snow.” “We moved so silently and for quite some time.” Her pale neck picked itself up off his and looked at him. A thin line pulled the corners of her mouth taut as she remembered her dream’s sudden deviation. “We left crimson tracks in the snow.” She did not know if Dakarai would draw anything from her [somewhat simple] chimera, but in her mind’s eyes these bloody paw prints obtruded from the blanched backdrop in a mildly perturbing manner. Now that the memory had been evoked, she found it could not be suppressed.

Olive knew to take her dreams soberly, as unconsciousness handed the canvas of her mind over to the earth [the currents of which painted scenes and fortold augury]. But, quite honestly, she was hoping Dakarai would encourage her to write this one off. Nothing was ever bad when her paramour was involved and sometimes it was simply easier to ignore these things — this was especially true at that moment. How truly divine it felt to press against him, indulging in post-coital embrace.

“How…offbeat, right?”