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Moonlight filters through the canopy of the trees, the light catching on the dew beads atop the leaves. The air is thick with the summer-night hum of insects buzzing and the faint smell of moss. Somewhere nearby a Satyr laughs to itself, as if in on the joke.
Dakota sits on a fallen log, her spear laid across her knees and flute by her side, head tilted up to look at the blinking stars and the ever shifting moon through the branches. She’s pretending not to listen for him.
...
The sound of a twig snapping breaks the silence.
“Careful,” she says without turning. “Your Leafstep is slipping, Bran”
A soft laugh comes in answer, close to her now, closer than it should be. “Only because you’re listening for it, Kody.” Briarquin emerges into view from behind the trunk with a thorny sharp smile, all smug and easy confidence. He leans against the tree as though it grew specifically to hold him.
She snorts. "You never walk anywhere, you just... appear. Like a bad idea I didn't know I was already having."
He puts a hand over his chest from where he's leaning against the tree, feign wounded. "Ah. A bad idea? You wound me."
"You'd like it if I did," she replies, the corner of her mouth rises into a smirk. Her grin is sharp, but tired along the edges. Tired of hiding behind a facade.
He watches her for a moment longer than a joke should last and slowly stalks closer to her. "You're far from wounded, Maskling. You're humming tonight. I can hear it in the air."
She shrugs, "Hard to sleep.”
...
Silence falls, though it's not awkward – just filled with heavy understanding.
Briarquin settles on the log beside her, so close that their shoulders brush. "You're thinking again," he murmurs gruffly. "Dangerous habit."
“Says you,” she counters. “The one who’s never said a straight sentence in his life”
“True,” he concedes with a lazy grin, “but my words are prettier.”
He studies her profile, the way moonlight rims her features with pale silver. Then softer like a secret shared with the night sky, he adds, “You’re not lost, you know? You’re just… wandering the shape of yourself like a stray, my stray.”
...
She swallows, the word hitting something carefully barricaded. She doesn’t answer immediately, but when she does, her voice is very small and steady.
“And you’re not just trouble,” she says. “You pretend you are, but you’re not.” She nudges him with her shoulder. “You’re my Bramble-Heart. All prickles on the outside so no one sees the soft bit in the middle.”
He goes very still.
Then he laughs, a breathy, startled thing. “If you tell anyone that—”
“—I’ll deny it,” she finishes. “Obviously.”
...
Another pause. The night and its creatures lean in to listen.
He reaches out and, without quite touching, brushes his fingers just above her knuckles, as if the contact itself is another bargain. Abruptly he yanks his hand back and clears his throat, a tinge of pink on the very tips of his ears.
He pulls an amulet out from behind his clothes. The pendant is decorated with different phases of the moon. “Everchanging like you,” he says as puts the amulet around her neck.
She quietly put her hand over the pendant hanging by her heart. “Thank you, Bramble…,” she breathes.
Neither of them moves.
Somewhere, the Satyr goes on laughing—because in the Feywild, there is always a joke—but this one is gentle, and it hurts, and it belongs to them.