Porcupine Ridge ❝—berries tart & lilac sweet.❞ (wdg.)

tiny tiny pp of mel! lmk if it ain't chill ♡

Their hunted could be minded later, for now.

He has all rhyme and reason to decline her, of course  —  a thought that near leaps to tongue and yet does not even get the chance to, for he admits now that it had been his belief that wedded they already were. Though the fée understands as much  (he had given her his name, she supposes),  a softened anxiety remains writ upon the desecrated features, limned with some bewilderment at his own admission. Shorn lips part, intending to speak for such things  –  but then his  I'll marry you  hums forth from the woad mouth and the stricken is left to blink helplessly; to blush hopelessly. Forgetting, perhaps, that he had given her the truth of his love for her only two morns hence; forgetting, perhaps, how it brimmed within heavied arms whenever he held her close to that wardrum heart.  “Oh—”  A fool still, she was!

“Oh– w-well, we do not sing sonnets unto another,”  cobwebbed and cottony mouth; halting, hushed,  “nor do we have gods to hear our unions, nor priests to bless them. Our marriages are those of blood,”  delicate acknowledgment of said elk; of their own selves, garbed in terrible red,  “and of soulmeld. We do not kiss, but mark another, and ... and fair consummate to seal such an oath. I will show you– z-ze marking. I mean– ah–!”  Feathery, flustery; applered,  “My people ... I, I remember ze valerian vows, if ... you would allow me to guide you through them?”

He did;
and so the fairylight is a smidgen more starstruck than oft as she drew nearer, nearer; not at all minding that they both reeked of venison and the stench of its sweat; mussed with mudthaw. A heavy pause as she sat herself before him; situated herself, praying that her own heart would not dismantle itself of the ghostbone chamber of her ribs; that the smothering warmth within every reach of her would ebb ebb ebb.

Then, slow, sonorous  –  beginning before she fell true from herself:

“Nalyë axovíse va ninya,”
all patience and pausing,
“antávaldë i ye vertanya.”