Common

“Bjorn, Bera Konung.” A King. She knew not the intricacies of what fell from his tongue, but she knew enough to understand beneath him rested a throne; a crest, a sigil empowered by the intrigues of ego and want. The compulsion was there and bade the girlish wanderer to be smart, to be quickened to experience and to fear the unknown. Deft hands calloused the heart, yet the sunlight bore the flesh soft and clean again and again. Her weight shifted, drawing a step deeper into the stranger’s aura. From him lifted brine and earth, of sun and verdant perfumes. She knows she shouldn’t, yet her brow pressed against his neck, allowing her lungs to be filled by him.

Hardened accusations did not suit her—her countenance was made too soft, too malleable to kindness than raw-stripped stone or chipped ice. Beneath warm hands it’s contours transcended sorrow, and promise warmed the whiskey-rimmed eyes. Charismatic eminence brewed in the spaces in-between, his entire being starving the cold and winter torments with the prize of his avarice and proffering a never flavour of security. Despite the churlishness of her words, the accusation fell flat and as it left her lips came more with the fortunes of naivete, with hopefulness. “Am I also fortunate that you have found me first?”