I'm goin' where the water tastes like wine

"I've known cruelty." she admits. a tawdry thing not suited for the softness of her mouth. ill-suited for the wet-eyed damsel. their rounded stare was held to the dark of his coat, closed from the world so that her cheek could fall flush against him.

she thought of the ones she'd escaped, and the ill-practiced kindness of her own family. sheltered, though not spared the clumsiness of family dissent. such a flagrant thing, so carelessly held against her. no stranger to the innate wanderings of their goes, she knew what he spoke of. she knew the bartering, the uncouth wealth of having a harem, and the goods they were pittance to. She knew. she knew and held to Bjorn, her heart thumped with the hope he was not of them, in spite of the dark water pulled from the well of her heart. an inkling, an instinct. but with armance to his own wiles, she was set to that of others.

"Does this mean I am yours?" to protect, to revel in, to have, to hold? her breath seized, giving life to a thousand and two stars, made dizzy by the closeness and the eagerness thumping in her heart. she withdrew from their closeness, turning so that her ice-clipped eye could find him with a wanting stare. he spoke of wolves, of predators beyond her own ability to wage war against.

she'd no art in it, no hands to wield a blade and cleft her would-be abusers in half. a girlish thing, narrow and unsuited for it. the babe in the woods, the lamb in the dark; his to heft into a gilded cage, to house in his ivory tower.