swim through the fires to stay in this world

( Because The Time In Kissing Town Was Really Painful To Watch )

“I’m not afraid of you, Wolf,” Virginia told him, as they walked away from Little Lamb Village.

Wolf stopped short and stared at her.

Tony and the Prince were walking ahead of them, snippets of Tony’s one-siding conversation drifting back.

Wolf looked at her, and her eyes were soft, the same sweet, caring blue they been when the villagers had tried to burn him. They’d had to hold her back, and even as the wood piled around him he’d known he was lucky to have one person who wouldn’t cheer as his flesh charred.

“I’m not,” she repeated, and she smelled of sincerity and, now that he was staring hungrily at her, faintly of nerves, but not of fear.

“Marry me, Virginia,” he said, dropping to his knees.

“What? Don’t be ridiculous.” Virginia laughed incredulously and started to walk quicker, catching up with her father and the Prince. “I’ve known you for a week!”

As Wolf got up to bound after her, he realized that she hadn’t said ‘no.’



“Virginia...” Wolf started. Virginia looked up at him, bits of broken greenery in her hair, and cheeks flushed with lovemaking. “There’s something else I’ve wanted to ask you since I met you, well since slightly after I met you, because when we first met there were other things foremost in my mind...”

Her bright blue eyes seemed to glow with love and he got distracted by the smell of their scents mixing, the soft, supple feel of her skin, the memory of her taste filling his mouth and he leaned down to sample again.

“You wanted to ask me something,” Virginia prompted, later.

“Virginia Lewis, would you give me your h–”

“Yes,” she interrupted and kissed him. “Wait, you were going to ask me to marry you, right? This wasn’t still about playing hide and seek–”



He wanted to be her destiny; her reason for traversing worlds. He didn’t want her purpose in The Nine Kingdoms to be (matricide) an act that would scar her soul and ravage her mind with guilt.

“Yes,” she told him, later, in New York, and he realized that he wasn’t her destiny; he was her prize, her reward for the hard road she’d walked, and Wolf swore he’d be the best pot-of-gold he could possibly be.



Sleeping Beauty was always his favorite fairy tale- he loved the idea of a princess awoken by a kiss, of her falling in love before she woke from sleep, before she even saw the face of her Prince. Plus, he did love a woman who could cook.

But watching Virginia sleep and sleep and sleep while around her the sun rose and set and rose and set and rose again.... it was terrifying. She just lay still, finally overcome by the events she’s lived through, dangers unnumbered that would have felled a lesser woman.

He knew what she’d been through, and didn’t want to interrupt her slumber. It was the second-longest period he’d gone without hearing “Wolf” in exasperated or confused or concerned tones since he’d met her, and he hadn’t realized how much he liked the way she said his name (not like the designation of a monster, but like the appellation of a lover). He wanted her to wake up, but he was afraid, too, that these hours would be his last with her, that she’d rise to tell him.... he didn’t want to imagine what.

He knelt by her bedside. Her skin was only a few shades darker than the pillowcases and smelled of linen.

“I want to spend the rest of my days by your side, Virginia,” Wolf said. She didn’t wake and he didn’t quite dare kiss her.



“I will, I do, I mean,” Virginia said, laughing with happiness and stumbling over her words, “yes.”

Wolf picked her up by the waist and twirled her around, the trees behind her blurring into an emerald curtain.

“Just one thing,” she said, when he’d finished kissing her. “This time, I just want a gold ring- nothing magic, nothing cursed, nothing that is going to offer commentary on our sex life.”


(icon by cadhla)