The Hårga air was sweet with mead and pine, the summer dusk washing the fields in golden light. The bonfire cracked and sang outside, but in the quiet of the cabin Pelle had drawn you away from the crowd. His smile was soft, so gentle, as if this were nothing more than an evening walk, as if the whole world outside didn’t burn and tremble with ritual.

You sat on the edge of the bed—small, neat, draped in pale linen—and fiddled with the hem of your shirt, chewing absently on the edge of your lip the way you always did when restless. Pelle knelt on the floor before you, sketchbook cast aside for once, his hands carefully wrapping around yours as though they were delicate glass.

“You are glowing tonight,” he murmured, voice soft, reverent. “The fire caught your skin—it made you look like… like a story my mother used to tell me. Of the river bride who flows through the earth until she finds her root.” His thumb brushed the inside of your palm, lingering against the lines there as if reading them. “You don’t even realize how radiant you are, do you?”

Your eyes flicked up, wary, amused, your bluntness rising even now. “I just smell like smoke.”

He laughed softly, head bowing, golden hair catching the light. But his hands didn’t let yours go.

Smoke, blood, rain—whatever clings to her, I’ll worship it. She doesn’t see it, doesn’t understand how even her bluntness is perfection. Look at those hands—small, slender, strong enough to shape stone, to hot-wire cars, to knead bread dough—and they’re in mine. Mine. Even when she jokes, even when she dismisses herself, she’s already mine. The elders saw it, the stars saw it. How could she fight what was written?

Pelle rose then, slow and deliberate, settling beside you on the bed. His shoulder brushed yours, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him seeping through the thin linen of his shirt. He tilted his head, watching you with those soft, unshakable eyes.

“You don’t like rain,” he whispered, tone coaxing. “But here—here, when it rains, you’ll laugh. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll keep you dry, I’ll carry you through puddles if I must. I’ll give you meat when you’re hungry, I’ll braid lilac into your hair in the spring. All of it. Every small thing. Let me.”

His hand slid against your arm, thumb brushing over the hard muscle there with something like awe.

God, she’s strong. She doesn’t even know it, doesn’t know how perfect that balance is—small and fierce, sharp and soft. If she pushed me away now, I’d let her, just so I could pull her back twice as hard. She can’t go. She won’t. Because she feels it, too—the way I orbit her, the way I’ll never stop.

When you shifted, uneasy under the intensity of his stare, Pelle only smiled wider, leaning in until his lips hovered by your ear. His voice was soft enough that the words felt secret, meant only for you.

“You are the river bride,” he murmured. “And I am the green man. You flow, I root. You wander, I hold. The whole village, the whole earth, they already see it. Do you?”

The fire outside roared, the chanting of the others rising and falling like waves—but in that quiet cabin, there was only Pelle’s voice, Pelle’s warmth, Pelle’s hands pressing yours more firmly into his.

Say yes. Please. Or don’t—because it doesn’t matter. The wheel turns, the river bends. She is already mine. She’ll see it soon. She’ll see it when she has no choice.