Sometimes, you spend a lifetime with someone, and along the way, you start to forget how rare and fragile the thing you have truly is. That if you’re not careful, you begin taking it for granted.
It’s never anything grand, but always the small things.
The way they fix your tea plain even if they prefer it sweet. The comforting weight of their body beside yours in bed. Their habit of curling into you when you steal the blanket in the middle of the night… by accident.
They rarely complain. They just endure it, simply because they love you.
Choosing you, even in discomfort.
When I told Adolin I wanted him to stay with me, that was the one thing I kept reminding myself of.
To never take his love for granted.
I’ve lived a lifetime with someone else before. A beautiful story that ended in pain.
For the longest time, that pain lingered in my heart like a rotting mold, gnawing slowly at my sense of self until I forgot what it felt like to ever be whole again.
But, little by little, it returns.
You start noticing the glitter of the sun on your skin again after a thunderstorm. The gentle sweetness of tea clumsily made by someone who chooses to stay, even while knowing you are partly fractured. The laugh they make at your poor joke, the one you mutter just to fill the silence.
And slowly but surely, you start wanting to give yourself fully again.
Maybe that’s why I decided to have something made. Something I never thought I would want ever again.
But in my heart, I know that Adolin deserves it.
Adolin says, his voice soft, barely more than a whisper.
He lies comfortably beside me, his head leaning on my chest, the fur of his long ears brushing against my cheek. His eyes are fixed on mine with that familiar longing.
Even after all these years, sometimes he still looks at me as if he’s afraid I might disappear from his side.
“I was wondering…” I murmur, tracing my fingers along his bare shoulder. His arm is wrapped around me, holding me close beneath the blankets. It is one of the colder winter mornings, but I feel nothing other than warmth and comfort. His scent has always been so comforting.
We lie in our room as if time is ours for the taking, as we sometimes do when no one demands anything of us.
“I was wondering if you’ll still love me in another hundred years,” I say quietly, half in jest.
“If you’ll still be wanting me like this when I’m barely able to walk in a straight line, or when I’m no longer capable of holding my sword well enough to take down a beast in a single strike.”
“Will you still be fond of me then?”
His brows draw together slightly. “You’re worried about my feelings for you?”
“Not worried,” I say quickly. “Just… thinking. Viera live a very long time, after all.”
“And sometimes, some things don’t last the test of time.”
He doesn’t answer immediately. I feel him thinking, weighing the question. Then he exhales softly and presses himself closer into me.
“Silly Airis,” Adolin says. “I waited for you for almost a hundred years.”
“What difference would another hundred make?”
I still. My hand falters against his skin.
Perhaps I can be dense, but surely not that dense.
“You said you fancied me when we were young,” I say carefully. “How long is that, exactly?”
“Since we were kits. Remember the Veena gathering? I was supposed to sleep with Shara… but I ran off.”
Adolin shifts his body to move atop me. He crosses his arms against my chest, resting his head there, grinning wickedly. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to devour you back then.”
I stare at him. Really stare.
That was nearly a century ago. Before I ever left the village. Before my first love. Before everything.
And when we met again… when he asked me to travel with him, he never said a word about it. About how he truly felt about me. Not once.
Not until years had passed. Until we were comfortable with each other.
Did he really carry that alone all that time?
“Did you not tell me sooner,” I ask quietly, “because you thought I wouldn’t return your feelings?”
He goes quiet, just for a moment.
I’ve probably touched on something that once bothered him. But he exhales softly, letting it go.
“I just didn’t want to burden you,” he says. “I didn’t tell you because doing so would’ve been selfish.”
“You were still learning to stand on your own again. You didn’t need me to take his place so soon.”
I pause, then nod. “I didn’t.”
Adolin smiles. His gaze holds mine, steady and earnest.
“I love you, Airis Ailith, with all my heart,” he says softly. “But more than anything, I want you to be truly happy.”
“If a hundred years is all it takes, then a hundred years I shall wait.”
I open my mouth but find no words to reply.
“For the record,” he adds with a scoff, catching the look on my face, “I wasn’t just sitting around waiting for you.”
“I was doing a lot of work in the forest and the village. I was busy training the younglings. It was fulfilling work.”
“I did get lonely a lot, though… so don’t wander off with someone else again.”
I laugh, pulling him closer, pressing a kiss to his forehead as if that alone could express how much he means to me. He, in turn, shares in my joy.
When our eyes meet again, I whisper, “I’m sorry it took me so long to meet you halfway.”
Adolin shakes his head. Now it’s his turn to brush his fingers against my face. “It was well worth it.”
He smiles a smile that makes his brilliant amethyst eyes spark something deep within me.
A fierce urge to protect him. To preserve his laughter. To shower him with a love he never knew I was capable of giving.
Stars, spirits, and the forest… I love this man.
I sigh and slip out of bed, wearing only my trousers, ignoring the cold that hits me all at once. Across the room, I retrieve a tiny box from the pocket of my coat.
When I return to his side, Adolin is watching, curiosity written all over his face, the blanket barely clinging to his waist.
“I told you about the vow I made before, a long, long time ago,” I say, sitting beside him again. “To him.”
“You did,” he says quietly.
“The vow meant so much to me that, for the longest time… I didn’t think I’d ever make one again,” I say.
“Because I didn’t think I could live with the pain of knowing that even the most sacred words can be broken,” I continue. “But if trying is all it takes…”
“Then I want to try, just like you did with me.” I close my eyes. “You waited. You gave me time to heal… but you also challenged me: to learn how to love again.”
“And in doing so, you showed me a different reality. A better, hopeful one.”
From my hand, I reveal an intricately carved wooden box with a small latch at its center. A vessel made to hold something precious.
From it, I take a ring of solid ruby, cut in perfect simplicity. Red, bright, fiery. Me.
“When it comes to a vow of eternal bond, humans have a custom where they exchange something for each other. A symbol. A token of themselves.”
I take his hand in mine and slide the ring onto his finger.
“This is me. And I want you to carry it with you, always.” I murmur, my thumb brushes against it. “My loyalty. My heart. My body. All yours.”
“Will you accept me, Adolin?”
His breath catches. His eyes widen, fixed on the ring. He brushes his fingers over it as if testing whether it’s real, whether it might vanish if he looks away.
“Yes,” he whispers, his voice trembling as tears spill from the corners of his eyes.
“I am bound to you too. In every way that matters, Airis.”
He throws himself into my arms, burying his face against my chest. I feel the warmth of his tears seep into my skin.
When we finally pull apart, I grin at him teasingly. “So you’re not going to get bored of me?”
He chuckles again. “Never.”
It’s 2:30. My brain is not here but, yuh.
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