After the Hunt (Sam)

[Dymphna]

Dymphna’s best defense towards her past, despite working through almost all of it, was to focus on something else. That something else in this case came with the words our pavilion. She latched onto it with greedy hands. She was caught grinning like an idiot over what was likely nothing; she still managed to catch his scimitar again with the hook of her sickle… Though she was starting to suspect that in the event of an actual fight against the weapon she was in trouble. With her back straight, feet grounded, and the smile still on her face, she let out a melodramatic huff. The weapons, she thought, were going to have to be lower for her to get any sort of leverage between a smaller blade and generally weaker arms. “Our pavilion?”

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"Well, yes," he said, holding the facade of bravado for a few moments before it crumbled into blushes. He let the momentum of his strike, or what would have been its momentum, turn him around again, this time striking lower as if intuiting her need to make headway in this mock battle. "I hope," he added, hoping whatever her response to the strike was, he could move in closer to her without getting cut.

[Dymphna]

The move he made was exactly what she’d been waiting for. She hooked her sickle once again, pushing his arm upwards as she swept in to grab his elbow. The goofy smile turned into something a little more triumphant as her eyes lifted to close the small distance to meet his. “I hope so, too,” she said quietly. “Our pavilion… I would like that.”

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Trapped there, he gave her only a brief, happy smile before firing his coup de grace; he leaned down to kiss her full on the mouth, letting go of the hilt with one hand to find the small of her back and press her close to him. It was a closeness he had missed since the hunt ended and he craved its return, and wanted it not to go away. When they were done kissing, at least for the time being, he said, "Good, because I think I'm in love with you."

[Dymphna]

At first she giggled through the returned kiss, which was better than the first few times he’d kissed her and she’d nearly jumped out of her skin. Her sickle hand dropped until she could wrap her arm about him. He wasn’t the only one who had missed this. What he said though, caused an awed look to cross over her face. For some reason, despite her own feelings, she wasn’t sure she’d been expecting that from him. Not yet, at least. Her eyes set to blinking, the motion slowing as his words sunk in, and she gave him the faintest nod. Was she trembling? Perhaps a little… “Sam, I’m in love with you, too,” she whispered.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

He laughed a broken little laugh, full of nerves and wonder. Such things had been beyond the ken of his imagination a few seasons ago, but here he was, crossing blades and (!) tongues with a Drykas girl whose gentle manner and intelligent eyes made his body seize up at the most awkward of times. His off hand ran up and down her upper arm as if to ease her trembling or make sure she didn't up and disappear like some mirage to a man dying in the desert. "So I'll have to be an expert at this, with the short bow, at Webbing, and so many other things before I can claim you with a true heart..." He almost gasped a breath as if there were bands of steel constricting his chest. "Please be patient with me... Now I have a reason to make my dreams come true, because now you're a part of them."

[Dymphna]

She looked down at his hand thoughtfully for a moment, the smile widening on her lips. When she returned her eyes to his face, there was clearly a threat of tears, even as she leaned in to kiss his jaw once, twice, and then a third time. “Sam… I’ll be patient, but just…” She swallowed. “To me you’re already perfect. And, I just… Please don’t get so focused on improving yourself that you forget I’m waiting for you. I just… I worry about my father finding someone for me.”

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"But he's the one who can approve or deny my suit," he said in earnest, face entirely lacking in guile. "I suppose I will at least have to be a competent Webber before he will accept me, and I must purchase the actual pavilion before... before everything can be official. Don't I?" He sighed, having no problem with a goal to work toward, but not wanting to take so long that he lost the prize.

[Dymphna]

She smiled a soothing smile at him as her hand picked up to cup at his cheek, thumb rubbing at his skin. At that moment, she wished that Sam could see in himself what she saw. His potential was great, and his desire to achieve was strong enough that he’d not fail. He’d earned her faith as well as any deity could. “That’s true,” she said quietly, leaning in to press a few kisses to his jaw. “Worry about Webbing. My father will be most concerned with that. If you are strong there, I’m sure he’d overlook even a lack of pavilion… And we will get a pavilion, Sam. Just remember that we won’t need a fully proper one until we have a family… We’ll be fine in a tent until the tent gets too full of arms and legs…”

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"I'm working very hard," he said. And he was; at Webbing, hunting, networking, and everything he could think of to better himself, to become that paragon of a Drykas that would impress her father and the fathers of other women who would eventually join their family. "I'll keep working... "Can I show you something?" he asked quietly, almost slyly, peering at her from under his eyebrows, which gave him an impish sort of look. He wasn't the sort of young man who could pull off a truly devilish look very often.