And, so, she said that he would have been more worthy than any to have her. He could have sworn that he could have felt heatwaves radiating from her. In his head the utterance of his name echoed in her voice, the sensation of needful longing sparking the inferno in his ribcage and in his gut; and, suddenly, he couldn't help but to need her so much closer. Never mind if he stained her with the blood in his fur now; he could bathe with her in one of the streams nearby and it would all wash out, right?

With her being so close to him, every time he inhaled, he got a good whiff of her heady aroma. Every note of it begging him to react on some sort of innate, instinctive, primal level. She insulted the made up brute then, which made a hot flash come and go over his cheeks and temples. He took a step towards her with his head bowed and his nose and muzzle pointed downward. Even his large pointed ears had temporarily folded back. For saying such a dark and grim thing, he decided that she should be allowed to reach out and touch him. He made this clear with the slight lowering of his tail, the smallest hint of submission he could show her, but his head lifted as if to signal that his head was off limits.

In the dark and against the darkness of his fur, it was hard to see but the wince that manifested over the scabbed-over lines on the left side of his face and muzzle made itself verbally present in his voice. The remembered pain threatened to lash at him in flares of red behind his eyes if he did not do something and do something quick. On top of it all, it did not help that, with his heartbeat picking up in rhythm, his awakening desire to be with her was slowly beginning to eclipse all other notions in his mind.

"Piety," he whispered, her name nothing but a release of breath from his lungs. He gingerly nudged his nose to hers, his eyes closing briefly before pulling away as to seek her own gaze. "Please be mine." His throat went dry and for a moment the silver-tongued prince was rendered speechless as he realized just how magnificent even the dull, fog-filtered moonlight could make her. "Stay with me tonight," he almost begged, his brow furrowed as he struggled to make use of his parched tongue. "I don't... I don't know how to explain it, but I... I need you. I want you."

For what seemed like an eternity, Sköll Archer, at last, fell silent, waiting for her approval, her acceptance of his invitation and request. Without much brawn and with his currently injured front, there was little he could do but to continue to bewitch her with words. He could have said whatever else to calm the burn that was beginning to raze every fiber of his being, but all he wanted to know was that she approved of him, desired him, felt the same as he did for her... but, so long as she consented, he would embark on his ultimate ambition: to acquire someone whom he believed would help him build his own empire from the ground up.

"Then prove it Prince Skoll," she goaded. His pale gray eyes blinked twice as if in total disbelief. Was this the moment he had been waiting for, for so long? Was this what it was like to have someone, who was considered an equal, accept and approve of oneself? The Archer was not so sure until she continued with an alluring flourish of her tail, "Prove you really need me, that you really want me."

He was dizzy again but, even in his own mind, he couldn't find it in himself to curse or cry out in a long string of expletives. His lips had parted and his eyes were half-lidded but, when he recovered himself, he was taken with her, hanging on her every word.

Yes, this was a taste of what it was like to share a mutual love, to deem one another as truly worthy as 'close' companion, to have in place an implied and unvoiced understanding that, one by one, it was absolutely all right to let all those walls down. She beamed at him then, and he shot her a devilish smile. Lifting a forepaw was all it took and just like that, he was bounding after her, living up to his namesake: Sköll, the mythological warg from the old Norse tales.

There was no doubt now that Piety Santoro was important. She was the light he had been searching for in the darkness for so long - his sun, his moon, his stars - and it was in him to chase her for as long as she would oblige. For the dark prince and his fair love, this would be a night to remember and all of it would become moments that would forever remain etched in the furthest reaches of his mind - a moonlit stroll by a rivulet from the center of Heartleaf Creek, a rare and tender moment as they both tried to remove the bloodstains from each others' coats, and the silent hours in which the most sacred act of courtship had been done...

By daybreak, he would gently herd her back towards the borders of Willow Ridge, with his side pressed against hers and his tail set in a slow-swaying rhythm at his back. As much as he had wanted to stay with her, he found he couldn't, and hoped that their foggy, starless night would be enough to keep her until nightfall returned to cloak Relic Lore in darkness. His tongue emerged from between his lips and he planted the softest of kisses to the base of her ear.

"Miss Santoro," he murmured for what could have been umpteenth time in the past several hours, holding her gaze with a beamish smile that was barely there. This was how it would be, never with a good night or a good morning or a hello or a goodbye, and he hoped she would finally come to understand that. With an uneven step, he pulled away to leave her at the borders, already anxious for the sunset when he could see her again.

(Exit/Fade.)