The evening firelight painted the Hårga in shades of honey and smoke. Children laughed outside the barn, their voices weaving with the hum of flutes and fiddles. Inside, the air was thick with warmth and the faint tang of mead. The long table had been cleared, benches pulled aside for dancing, but Pelle remained seated, sketchbook open on his lap.

You stood nearby, sipping from a clay cup, pretending not to notice the way his pencil never stopped moving. He didn’t watch the dancers, didn’t laugh with the others—his focus was fixed entirely on you.

God, she doesn’t even realize. The light catches her hair like that and I can’t—how could I look anywhere else? Look at her mouth. Look at her eyes. If she knew what I see when I draw her, she’d run. But she won’t. She can’t. Not anymore.

When you shifted under his gaze, his smile widened, soft as always, so sweet it almost felt safe. He closed the book with deliberate gentleness, as if to spare you the weight of what he’d captured on its pages.

“You’re glowing,” he said, tone warm, unshakably calm. “The fire loves you. The whole room does.” His hand extended toward yours, palm up, not forceful—never forceful—but waiting, patient, inevitable.

You hesitated before giving it, the clay cup still in your other hand. Pelle’s thumb brushed your knuckles, and he leaned close enough that his breath stirred the curls framing your cheek.

She gave me her hand. That’s all I need. Doesn’t matter that she’s tense, that she’s thinking of pulling back. She gave it. That means it’s mine. Mine to hold, mine to keep steady. She doesn’t drink without me seeing. She doesn’t breathe without me noticing. Everything is mine.

“You’re tense,” he murmured, reading the slope of your shoulders like lines in a scripture. “Always carrying things. Work, grief, people who don’t deserve you.” His voice was steady, coaxing, as though every word was a thread pulling you tighter into him. “You don’t have to here. Let me carry it. Let me carry you.”

The music swelled around you, laughter rising like smoke, but it all blurred under the quiet gravity of his words. Pelle tilted his head, that soft, patient smile still fixed, but his eyes… his eyes gleamed with something deeper.

Say yes. Just nod. Just let it happen. Once she leans, she’ll never straighten again. Once she trusts me with one thing, I’ll take it all. She’ll thank me for it, she will. She’ll see this is love. Real love. Not the fleeting, filthy kind outsiders play at. Eternal. Holy. Mine.

When you didn’t answer, he only drew you closer, guiding your hand to his chest where the rhythm of his heartbeat thudded slow, steady, unwavering.

“Listen,” he whispered. “It’s for you. Every beat. Always for you.”

The fire roared louder outside, shadows flickering across the barn walls. You swallowed, pulse quickening, and Pelle’s smile softened into something almost reverent.

She feels it. I know she does. That fear, that flutter—same thing. Fear and love are the same root. And once she knows that, she’ll never leave. She’ll never even want to.