“Fear is a good motivator, and you seem to expect a lot of me,” he hadn't missed that little smile when he'd complimented @Hrefna though and it made him just the smallest bit more confident in the situation. He rolled from his back away from the wall, leaving his large golden frame curled around her sitting position, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her skin but not quite touching either. And, I guess that I like the classics, it was his turn to smile now, “Careful, say too many nice things like that and people might think you actually like your husband.”_{BG — ART — CODE}

"I think you expect just as much of yourself," she projected with a shrug of her shoulders. She hated the idea of it–of being the nagging bride dragging her husband to do her whims with a chain secured around his neck. She hated that the men responsible for securing this chain upon him would not be the ones to earn his inevitable resentment; that would belong to Hrefna alone.

"Well, I wouldn't want them thinking otherwise," Hrefna pointed out with another hushed laugh. Things were easier there, behind the walls of their den without prying eyes to force their paws in this way or that. She knew how to please Lysander if she needed to. She knew she only had to soften her edges slightly for him and say things more positive than their reality felt. Other lions were not so easily pleased. "What do you think? Do I like you?" She asked.

---

@Lysander_{BG — ART — CODE}

“That's true,” he would admit, because she was right and he was beginning to accept that. If he'd really been interested in an easy, uncomplicated life he'd had an opportunity to leave. “I'm sure by siblings are somewhere very relaxed right now,” but honestly he knew that he could never have left Kallan at least. He couldn't have gone unless she went with him... and then there was @Hrefna. She'd very quickly managed to ensnare his curiosity long before more serious feelings had followed. “I think you do sometimes, but its hard to say when you're always so distant,” he said, the words serious but his tone had a teasing note to it as he would brush golden tail against her side, pointing out that even now they felt the need to keep space between._{BG — ART — CODE}

He agreed with her, for once. Hrefna quirked her brow subtly with a shimmer of her silver gaze, considering the notion of it for a moment–of Lysander holding this ambition for his life within himself rather than just in Hrefna's visions of their future. Perhaps it was this thought, or the promise of the fresh pelts' warmth, or even just how he stared at her from down below. "It's hard to say when you're always so distant,” he answered. She glanced from him to the pelts, and then back to him.

"I'm right here," she argued in a low murmur, her own words causing flutters of anticipation to surge through her from her toes to her tail. For once, she did not even know what she wanted. She only knew this was the day to mark her as an official adult of their world, and that she wanted to be ever-closer to the boy with whom she now shared a bedroom.

---

-fade-
@Lysander_{BG — ART — CODE}

Lysander had no delusions that their relationship would become magically perfect if he just found a way to give Hrefna everything she wanted, but it was a good feeling to finally become aware of why they clashed to easily. They had more in common than he'd been willing to admit, something he thought would simultaneously make them more volatile, but also more powerful. As he brushed his tail against her dark cloak he couldn't have imagined her reaction, not anywhere outside of his most intimate dreams anyway. When Hrefna finally closed the distance between the pair of them there was a brief moment of nervousness again before he found it all too easy to appreciate this part of the life he'd chosen. fade exit_{BG — ART — CODE}