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Rolan had found Brid in the library an uncounted number of times—doing research, marking errors in histories, flipping with disgust through volumes of arcana, reading random books for pleasure. The only real consistency when he did find her was that she had always pulled down an unreasonable number of books and piled them on a table next to her favorite reading couch.
But today, he found her between the shelves, a nascent pile of books that would soon be unreasonable forming next to her. She was deeply absorbed in whatever text she'd discovered, but for some reason, she hadn't bothered to sit. She was in a tense crouch, like she might be ambushed at any moment.
"What are you doing?"
Brid sprang up with a squawk, brandishing her book at Rolan exactly as she would a sword at the start of a battle. When her eyes caught up with the rest of her body, she let out a terse breath and fell back against a shelf, giving Rolan a little glare.
"Why would you sneak up on someone as they peacefully and innocently read a book?"
"First," Rolan laughed, "your insistence that your reading was peaceful and innocent makes me suspect it was neither of those things; second, I didn't 'sneak up' on you, I walked normally down a row of books and found you. And finally, I repeat myself: what are you doing?"
Brid gestured impatiently to her pile. "Very obviously I was reading!"
"Yes, of course, let me clarify"—Rolan squatted down in an imitation of her posture—"why were you reading like this? Like you might be hunted for sport at any moment?"
A faint blush rose across Brid's cheeks. "Well, I might as well have been with the way you're creeping around." Rolan did not uncrouch, only raising his eyebrows at her. After a moment of hard staring, Brid glanced to her hands, twisting her fingers together for a moment. She then folded down next to Rolan.
"If I'm not enjoying my reading, I like being able to put it back quickly." She gave a little shrug as she smiled. "Sitting down and standing back up takes too long."
Something felt like it cracked apart in Rolan's chest, then began to spread through his body. As he looked into Brid's eyes, he could see everything so clearly.
He could see her finally moving a desk into his study, claiming some bookshelves, rifling through sheets of parchment from a drawer. He could see her chewing her thumbnail as she emptied the last of her possessions from her flat, terrified of growing roots, but turning and locking the door anyway.
He could see himself casting longer and longer glances at children they passed on the street, or who wandered through the shop, hanging off an exhausted parent's arm. He could see Brid on her favorite reading couch, heavy with child and theatrically miserable.
Rolan could see Brid standing on the branch of an enormous tree, teaching a tiny someone—perhaps with blond hair, perhaps with stubby horns—to nock an arrow. He could see her mother standing on a different branch, laughing that Brid was just as awful a teacher as she had been. He could see both of their devastation when that tiny someone waved off both the bardic and arcane arts to spend more and more time in a druid's grove.
He could see Brid sitting by the fire in their bedroom with her lute, massaging her hands that had begun to go stiff with age. He could see himself next to her with his feet up, finally having to admit he needed days off from the shop. He could see the sunlight gold of her hair shifting over the years to a starry silver.
Rolan could hear the fights and slamming doors, he could feel the weight of nights spent in separate bedrooms. He could smell the wine he would drink as he paced his study, angrily noting everything she'd ever done wrong. He could taste the lingering hint of salt on her lips, from tears spilled after one of them—inevitably the one who hadn't given in the last time—relented and asked forgiveness.
Everything, every future, crashed through him in a moment as he stared at the gangly woman scrunched up next to him.
"Marry me."
Brid made the face of someone who’d just been threatened with a knife. "...what?"
Rolan shifted to face her fully and fell forward onto his knees. "Marry me."
Brid said nothing, her mouth hanging open, her eyes getting wider by the second.
"We wouldn't have to make a big fuss," Rolan said, finding himself breathless. "We wouldn't need to have a feast, or wear fancy clothes. No announcements, no parties. We could have a simple ceremony with only the people you want there. Or it could be no one, no ceremony, just whatever bureaucrat would need to sign whatever paperwork." Brid's eyes were shining, and she was beginning to blink more rapidly. "Or," Rolan forged on, "forget the sodding paperwork. For once, I don't care about the paperwork. We don't even have to get married, really. I just—" He paused to catch his breath. "I just want to know that you would. That you might say yes."
Tears were streaming down Brid's cheeks, and after a dreadfully long pause, gave them a rough wipe with the cuff of her sleeve. "To get 'yes' as an answer," she choked out, "I believe one has to first ask a question."
"I don't want to ask." Rolan leaned toward her. "Selfishly, I don't want to give you an opportunity to say no. I can only make a demand, and pray I've made you weak enough to give in."
Brid at last copied Rolan's position, facing him on her knees, then took one of his hands in hers.
"Then I suppose you're lucky that I find myself simply too tired to argue with you tonight, Master Rolan."