rocketmunkey

rocketmunkey t1_j25o6ij wrote

It was after dinner, and as we finished cleaning up I grabbed her around the waist, pushed my face into hair and breathed deeply. "I am the luckiest man in the world, and I am forever grateful for you."

She leaned back into me and sighed, then gently broke free and turned to look at me.

"How long is it now that we've been together?" She asked.

I cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her. She returned my look, asking again, "How many years now? Sixty?"

"Sixty-two, if you count from our very first meeting," I replied.

"Has it really been sixty-two years?" Now she looks off, wonderingly.

"Indeed. Feels like just yesterday, doesn't it?" I say, thinking that she's just doing that thing all elves do where they reflect on how, to them, a decade feels like a year does to a human.

"Sixty-two years together, that makes me ... 182, and you ... " she trails off.

"Eighty-seven," I answer.

"Eighty-seven years old. And yet, you still look the same as you did sixty-two years ago." She looked sharply at me. "How? Every other human we know has grown with over these past six decades, has grown up and out, weathered and greyed, but you... you are the same!"

"Ah, that." I sighed heavily, looking down. "I ..." I looked away from her eyes.

She stepped forward, guardedly. "You... what? What is it? What are you? Who are you?"

I sighed again, and softly took her hands, but she pulled them away. "Who am I? What am I? I am yours. Forever. Always. I swore this the day we were joined, before our loved ones and our gods." Silently I prayed to those gods now, for the allowance and strength to tell her what happened that night of our union ceremony.

A knock interrupted our soul gazing. She moved to open the door, where outside was a messenger, who simply said "Message for him", handed over the script and left. I took the message, silently read it, and nodded.

I took her hands again, and as she started to ask about the message, I continued. "Before anything, you must know this. I am human. I am yours, forever, always. This is and will be ever true." I dropped her hands and showed her the message. Two words, it read: "Tell her", and marked with a symbol - a face-up coin.

"On the night of our union, we were blessed. By our families, and our friends. By each other. And by our gods."

She looked at the message, then back at me. "What do you mean 'by our gods'? They were there?" She whispered.

"One was, for sure. Maybe others."

She looked stunned. "And they heard our oaths? Our vows?"

I nodded. "They did. And they agreed to keep them, so long as we do."

Her voice dropped lower. "How did you know? And why didn't you tell me?"

"At the gathering, after the union ceremony. When we were playing games of chance. Do you remember? We had lost every match, but..."

"But it didn't matter, because we were playing together, and besides it was making the others happy." She finished for me. "Until that one lady sat to play."

"Right. And all of a sudden we couldn't lose."

She looked at the message again, at the symbol. "Tymora? Lady Luck herself?"

I nodded. "She came afterwards, to me alone, I don't know why. She said that she'd had a fantastic time, and believed our oaths and vows were made truthfully and righteously, so she blessed our union. Then she swore me to secrecy, I was not to tell you 'until the right time', she said. Which is now, apparently." Once more I took her hands. "And by the grace of Tymora, I am the luckiest man in the world!"

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