tbo offshoot
A shy smile. Soft lips. A warm embrace.
He’s been having these dreams for years, ever since he was young. Sometimes he laughs to himself as he remembers them, knowing he’s been using such a fairy tale romance as a measuring stick to compare his suitors to.
Who can ever hope to match his knight? She’s brave. Strong. Kind. And so, so… good. Everything about her. Sometimes he sits idly, lost in the memory of her eyes. Deep, dark pools that seem to sparkle with an inner light. The sharp contrast of white clothes against her dark skin… the wonderful softness of her hair… the way she always seems to have all the right words to make him smile.
It’s as if his dream woman has grown with him. And, of course, it being a dream… some nights are simply them in each other’s arms, sweating as they cry each other’s name, kissing, tasting, loving so hard that it’s hard to imagine ever having anyone else.
And that dream is what he rouses from before he’s thrown into a carriage and expected to play nice with some other man who is nowhere near the otherworldly beauty of his knight. Sir Thandi! Even now, as he walks with a fresh suitor, he thinks of her.
And then there’s trouble. A creature, something filthy, monstrous, threatening—somewhere in him finds his magic as Sylvanus whispers in his ear a promise to help him fight. He doesn’t want to fight, he only wants it all to stop! Vines rise and wrap it up, and he wishes desperately that his knight is real. Wishes don’t save lives, though, and then he hears her voice.
“Incendo.”
He turns. Those eyes. Those clothes. Her familiar face looks at him quizzically and he approaches her, not believing his eyes. He almost doesn’t hear her speaking to him as he whispers no. It can’t be her. It couldn’t.
She’s come to get him.
He opens his mouth and next thing he knows, everything fades away in a flash of white.