Common

His blush, she decides, is the single greatest thing she has seen all year. It feels as if someone has shot her full of the buzzy feeling that comes after eating certain jungle flowers, like someone had mainlined butterflies straight into her stomach.

"I know," she responds, a genuine laugh bubbling from her chest. His playful rejoinder has only emboldened her, and given her more reason to lean into the charade. "You would have had to hide that cute face for the rest of your life, and that would have been a damn shame, really."

Her delight grows by the second as they continue their back-and-forth exchange, and she is more relieved than she can say that his shyness seems to have abated. In its place seems to be a genuine interest in her, and that's all she's truly ever asked for from this world.

"You would ask me to give up my birthright for you?" She asks, affecting a mortally wounded expression. She, of course, had no such birthright. Even if Rougaru had stuck around long enough to name an heir, she had never made any effort to make him want to choose her. She was the spoiled daughter, not the intended heir, and she'd been perfectly content with that arrangement.

"I suppose I must if I don't want our children to grow up in a broken home," she said wickedly, mostly because she suspected that the mention of children - a possibility that had been distant on her own radar - might bring that blush to life again. "I wouldn't want them to overhear mommy and daddy fighting over whose bed they're sleeping in tonight."

She offered him a wink, thoroughly delighted with their exchange so far. "So where shall we call home, now, Renvari?" She toyed with his name slightly, liking the way it fit in her mouth. This had been, by far, her best trip to the Commons, ever. Even if he somehow forgot she existed by the time they made it to wherever it was that he called home, she would have to consider this a rousing success. She hadn't laughed this much in years and it made her tentatively eager to see what the future held.

maresilver baylove