Stigandr smiled as he listened to her soft spoken words. This was a side of her he had barely seen, even in all of their time together. This soft and emotional side of his bondmate, a side the made him feel closer to yet by how vulnerable he imagined she must be opening up this much. He wished he had the capacity to express his feelings as well as she had, to be able to articulate the stirrings in his soul as she had. Knowing he could not though with his more limited grasp on language, he did what he knew, nuzzling her hand as it came to rest on his cheek, letting her feel the pressure firmly of him pressing against and into her touch. The warmth he had been feeling increased, as well as a light that had began to show out of his the edge of his vision. He noticed the same light on her neck, on the left side where he had felt the warmth. She had seen it as well and had reached up to touch it, explaining it as a mark of Cheva. Stigandr did not know who that was, but it seemed good. Sahashkalila was smiling as she touched the mark, explaining that they were husband and wife. Sitting up with his bondmate and wife, he looked at her neck and saw the mark, a horse head with the serpent wrapped around it, their noses touching. Him and her. Reaching up, he touched it gingerly, tracing the lines of the serpent's form. "Cheva is the goddess of husbands and wives? She is the one who binds two together in the human way of love, just as we bonded." Stigandr worked it out slowly, talking to himself mostly as he contemplated this. "Then we are truly supposed to be together, if we have bonded and a goddess has deemed it so." Taking her, he kissed her mark softlym lying back down with her, holding his soul mate, wife and bondmate. He felt a purpose to his life. Someone to care for and protect, to stay with always. The dangers of tomorrow were cast far from his mind as tonight he held Sahashkalila, content in a way he had not known since he was a child, young and unaware of the cruelties that could happen. |