Northstar Vale oh, really? you usually just let strangers rub chamomile onto your lovely bottom?

a soft, roguish smirk plays at the corners of the tundrian's lips as it becomes apparent that his teasing has flustered her. or at the very least, that was how he chose to take the stutter of her tongue over her words as she is quick to dispel them. ❝i was teasing, tonttu.❞ he brushes it off errantly with a low chuckle, seconds before his jaws split with a yawn. when it ends he smacks his lips together for a few seconds, blinking the remaining vestiges of sleep from his eyes.

an itch seizes his left paw suddenly and he nibbles upon it to relieve it, tongue drawing over the teeth mussed fur as her admission falls from her lips.

i love you.

for a moment heart and world appear to stutter to a stop; frozen in time. melkor is as a sculpture of ice and stone as those three little words work their way thru his head, touching upon his heart, his veins, his soul and the very marrow of his bones. i love you. she is the first outside of his parents — and even then only lotte probably said it — to utter those words to him; the first to say it in a way of lovers. they're much more powerful than the warlord would've ever thought them to be; arresting him so.

it is her kiss against his scars that unthaws him; liberating him. ❝as i love you, andraste.❞ he'd thought of using his nickname for her but in light of the heavy confessions using her name seems stronger still to him.