Hushed Willows as spring opens (touching, skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

Kincaid's sloe eyes crinkled at the corners when she seemed to appreciate the joke. He was growing ever more comfortable in her presence as it became more and more clear they were well matched. Part of him was even starting to think — to hope! — that something more might come out of this. Something meaningful.

In the mean time, it meant enough to him just to have her around. "Why Eleuthera," he said in faux indignation, "Are you callin' me old, now? Darlin', I'm in the prime of my life."

Debatable. He flashed her another grin as they set off, presumeably to better hunting grounds, or at least someplace less sacred, so that they did not have to worry about disturbing maternal spirits. (He cast a glance over his shoulder, at that thought, and wondered shrewdly if Eleuthera's "mothers" would have been cheering them on or rolling in their graves.)

"Y'know, it makes me think of a song, when you put it like that," he told her, and sang a little part of a song that likened love and life and the enjoyment of such things to a fine wine, growing sweeter with age:

I love bein' in love
it's the best kinda drug
drunk on the high, leanin' on your shoulder
sweet like wine as it gets older
when I die, I don't wanna go sober