[she doesn't know that the world is turning just for her]

skill: [none]

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Euphemia’s words died away on her lips. The fire itself was indescribable; something so beyond words that Euphemia could procure none at all to describe the type of total self-fulfillment she felt while basking in its glow. It did not burn her; it caressed. It did not desecrate, but sanctified.

and Euphemia herself was transfixed.

Duskbreaker materialized by her side, breaking her concentration and earning a gasp of surprise, uttered by parted, pale lips as she stumbled backwards half a pace. His nearness and presence overwhelmed her, while the gravity of his persona was enough to tighten her throat and stem the flow of words – somehow, his arm had found its place upon hers, and she instinctively hooked her wrist to catch him and find balance.

It was nothing but micromovements, the shifting of weight and turning of limbs, but it was enough to bowl Euphemia over emotionally, allowing her heart to crack wide open. Anyone standing in this golden light, which the man beside her claimed to see, would be consumed by it entirely.

Euphemia could not fight it. His words felt like a calm, spring breeze – specifically, the breeze she always caught after hiking up the northernmost rise in Frostfang Vale, when she would stand above the valley and feel the updraft that had swirled in that earthen bowl for centuries.

She could literally feel them, his words, as they left his mouth and settled in the nooks and crannies of her ears. They peppered her face like freckles, and lay across her lips like kisses.

How was it that she could feel his own breath? As his slowed, so did hers. The tightening in her chest loosened, and her arm slowly lowered. Her lips pursed slightly as she thought of the many, many ideas she wished to share with him. He spoke of the fire, but she could no longer see the fire.

She now knew the fire’s entire purpose – to illuminate Duskbreaker, and allow her to see him as he truly was.

A king, amongst men.

Oh, what a responsibility she bore at that moment! How to tell the man that she had gotten to know over the past few weeks that she now recognized his truest self, and that all the parts that made him were the perfect complement for all the parts that made her? How could it not have been so evident before this very moment?

How could she immediately right every wrong she had done unto him by neglecting to cherish him as beloved?

His eyes were upon her, gold that melted and shimmered. Gilded in the power of his attention, Euphemia dared a step closer to regain what she had lost in her stumble. These flames do not nearly burn half as strongly as you, she spoke, but the maiden found that her voice only came in the hushest of sounds.

nor half as bright.

Then, she was again at a loss for words. Her gaze dropped, unable to contain the potency of his own. She hauled in a deep breath, and then she did that again.

and again.

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