Skill: [none]

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Euphemia watched how his feet tapped the ground, unknowingly replicating her own movements, and the shewolf felt a sense of profound peace.

Finally.

Finally, her heart had been opened and fully received by another. Finally, she was being gazed upon. Now that she was loved, she felt whole. In a lesser form, validated. Finally, she could relax in the arms and know that, even in silence, she was not alone. Finally.

This world was so much less frightening and large when not faced alone.

In fact, now that Euphemia got to borrow Adonis’s rose-tinted glasses, she could see that the world was not frightening at all. It was full of stars and beauty and double-meaning – open-minded adventure, and open-hearted love. He had accepted her from the very moment they met, despite having a terrible story.

Awful father, terrifying death, a petrifying rebirth. Yet he faced everything with a sort of innocence and strength that even Euphemia found she could not easily muster alone. It was inspiring – and what a blessing it was to live in such close orbit of something so inspiring!

Whatever followed next, whatever she worked for in this life, would be because Adonis had shown her it was possible. He paved a road in her soul, where before there was nothing but long-ignored overgrowth.

This was nearly the opposite of what Alaric had taught her about the world, and about love-feelings. With him, the pleasure was always adjacent to pain. Here, was different. Adonis took the pain in his life, and laughed at it! It made her want to embrace him, and communicate through a thousand kisses how it was a wonderful way to be, and that she would never want him to be any different.

Instead, she watched him. Her eyes wide and dazzling, her pupils expanded to take in the sight of him as he stepped forward to inscribe their love upon the stars, with the staff they had procured together. It could not be helped how her lips parted, and her tongue poked out the side –

She felt so entirely in her element, so fully committed to her present and future, that it was a spectacle to sit back and watch it unfold. She felt so blessed to be so aware of it – such an active participant in choosing the path of the stars, and the love they had placed in their hearts.

After all, she would be reciting this night for her own children, one day.

She needed to remember the details, such as the way the crimson of his pelt glowed against the white in the growing dark of twilight. How his voice sounded, rolling in the back of his throat as he hummed a starsong. The sequence of the stars as he pointed them out, one by one.

How an image unfurled before them, the colors filled in by her own mind’s eyes. He traced it again, and again, and again, until it was as if he had etched the image upon her very soul.

It was them. There were so many who had taken part in the communion of love, but this had been a feast, overwhelmed by pink flames. Whatever this was, it felt so much larger than just Euphemia and Adonis. It felt as if this was some cosmic secret, and they were beginning to unravel it. They nibbled at the ends of their rope, tasting the truth of reality: that everything was love.

Everything, on the most cellular level, was about relation and attraction. The expansions and contractions of energy and time itself. They were but one manifestation of godly, unifying, enduring love.

Now she was the one who was sounding like mother.

I can see it! It’s beautiful! She gasped when it was clear his words had been spoken, and she stepped forward, tail set to wagging ferociously. Her nose, her gaze, her ears all craned towards the sky. I have lived beneath these skies my entire life, and have never seen it before. The silver shewolf marveled openly.

Then she stepped back, looking at the one she had named Adonis, and found their distance insufferable. She collided with him, the dome of her head locking into the crook of his jaw like a mechanism. I am a changed woman, at your hand. I can no longer see the world as I did before. She allowed her own heart to pour out through her words.

The passion that belied them was evident, though she could not accurately convey how she felt through words alone. Actions did not suffice either, though the sylph attempted to assuage the need to express herself through a couple of delicately placed licks and several deep huffs of his scent.

Thank you, dearest one. Thank you.

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