From This Day [LA3]

[Kevan Dunn]

"I want you to be happy with me, Arwyn. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now, when looking back, I wish you would still be blessing the evening we made the pledge, having no regrets." His eyes were opened wider as he was looking at her from beneath, having bent his neck back enough to rest his head on her knees.

[Arwyn Forrester]

She runs fingers through his short hair, looking down. "Then what you should do... is treat me exactly as you are now. You listen, you take me seriously, you recognize where I have strength, and you aren't uncomfortable with it. You want me to be myself, and you've encouraged what I want to learn, and seem to have respect for me. I have never been under the impression you think of me as lesser or weak." She smiles. "I'm not sure you realize how much of a gift that feels like by itself. I want to be able to do as much for you."

[Kevan Dunn]

"I am sure I haven't realised all that, though you're right I admire and adore you." He smirked with a more affectionate expression underneath his mirth. "All those things you mention, it is hardly deliberate, it just comes from how I instinctively feel what is right between us. It feels like my heart just knows, and I don't second-guess it. Maybe that's how it is with love?" He reached up with his hand to caress a curled strand of her hair, keeping their gazes connected. "But in the end it's an easy job for me, just to let your natural strengths flourish and interests to grow. You'll have a harder task with me, with all my deficiencies, the ways I get caught up in my own sense of purpose, get ahead of myself or get distracted by wrong kinds of things. I have been bred to be a fighter and whatever refinement I have comes from Maester Oswell's tutelage or my own effort not to be constantly embarrassed by my know-it-all younger sister."

[Arwyn Forrester]

"And I get bull-headed and overly ambitious. And you can imagine how those parts of my personality intereact. There are times when I can be a bit... 'This is what I've decided is going to happen. Help me or get out of my way,'" she says with embarrassment. "I don't need perfection, or want it. It seems like helping bolster one another in areas where we have problems is part of a good partnership."

[Kevan Dunn]

"You can be like that? Good to know. I am almost sorry for our enemies." He pulled himself up slightly to get his face closer to hers. "I am not perfect, but I can excel if I put much effort into something. So giving each other some direction may work wonders for both of us."

[Arwyn Forrester]

She leaned over completely, their lips meeting in a strange upside-down kiss briefly before she sits up and answers. "You should feel sorry for them." A smile crosses her face, bright in the light of the fire. "It would. We'll excel together."

[Kevan Dunn]

"What is it that you think we can accomplish together, over the long term? What kind of life do you really want for us?" Ha asked once the taste of the kiss he had eagerly leaned into waned.

[Arwyn Forrester]

"I think we could do anything," she says, looking down toward him affectionately. She looks up at the sky. "I would like to travel with you. I think that could serve your House, though... I don't like doing things just frivolously. It would need some breathing room, though."

[Kevan Dunn]

"That's a shame. Some things I'd like to do with you are very frivolous." He smirked, shooting her a desirous gaze from beneath, or rather to her chin if she didn't look down just in time, but then blinking it away. "I think we can make both our houses more powerful than they currently are. It would involve diplomacy, good governing and military buildup."

[Arwyn Forrester]

"Well, there are some things. I'm looking forward to those," she said, her voice becoming a sultry teasing tone. She continues a little more seriously. "I agree. Economic build up, too... Dunn can't sustain military buildup while relying so heavily on mutual defense treaties. Even if something happens to strengthen them again, I think the current situation is a lesson."

[Kevan Dunn]

For now he had no take comfort in the thought that he was on her mind in those ways and she was looking forward to them. Quickly swept up by more stately issues, he adjusted. "Yes and no. We have quite a bit of undeveloped land plagued by brigands, so soldiers are as needed as bailiffs and serfs. We do have a working iron mine, a good thing for both swords and scythes. And there may be other riches of the earth hidden under the Silver Hills that my predecessors failed to prospect."

[Arwyn Forrester]

"Can't build up one without thw the other. What a spiral." She shook her head and leaned down, kissing him again. This time, she had the playful idea to catch and gently tug at his lower lip before parting. "Sorry, I get too caught up in that stuff."

[Kevan Dunn]

"Governing?" He replied once his lip was released, beaming at her subtly passionate tease. His fingers traced a line along her dark eyebrow, toward the temple and along the earlobe, ever so gently, perhaps trying to get that purr she had hinted him on earlier. "If all goes well you'll be the Lady of the Burrow, so nothing wrong in getting used to it."

[Arwyn Forrester]

"Planning and whatnot at least... I like organizing things," she murmurs. What he was doing was distracting her, and does indeed extract the soft purr he was looking for.

[Kevan Dunn]

"You'll be organising many things... but not anything. I want the right to bring disorganised spontaneity onto you every once in a while." He grinned at the purr and moved his fingers down, along her neckline.

[Arwyn Forrester]

She stretches her neck out a little to give him better access to her neckline. "I'm not opposed to a little spontaneity."

[Kevan Dunn]

The caress actually became less teasing and more affectionate, with Kevan exploring her neck with wonder, tracing it for the sake of it rather than provoking or arousing her. This switch to tenderness, that was new to him, to step out of the race up the hill and actually revel in the view. "Not being opposed is not the same as looking forward to, but I'll do my best to make you a bit more enthusiastic in due time." He smirked brightly, his eyes corroborating the mirth he was feeling.

[Arwyn Forrester]

She hummed softly, enjoying the contact between them. She could sense the change in his touch, and how warm his hand felt in the cool weather. Still, his comment made her look down again. "Oh, stop that," she replied with humor, leaning to the side to nip gently at his earlobe. "," she murmured softly into his ear.

[Kevan Dunn]

His muscles reacted with a shiver to the sensation, but her words affected him even more, kindling into a flash the true passion he imprisoned deep inside himself so as not let his desire of her determine all their interactions. He bit his lip looking at her intensely as his hand wrapped around her neck. And yet, he didn't want to seem reckless to her, flaunting rules and obligations, but an honourable man worthy of her passion when the right time comes. "Hearing that makes me the second happiest man alive, Arwyn. I'll become the happiest when it actually happens. I have a feeling that your passion will be all that I will ever need from a woman."

[Arwyn Forrester]

The look her gave her made her pale skin flush and her heart pound. She knew she had to hold back, but he was so very tempting in that moment. Her tongue ran across her lips, mouth suddenly feeling dry. "When that time comes, you'll have a hard time keeping me off you," she murmured, interrupting what she was saying with a deep kiss, her tongue finding his this time and dancing with it before pulling back after several long moment. "I think you'll enjoy seeing just how we keep warm in the long winters."

[Kevan Dunn]

"I have an answer to that." After the passionate kiss in which their tongues danced together he rolled onto his knees and leaned over hers holding himself by the edges of the stump she was sitting on. The fire behind was giving his silhouette the halo and kept the face shaded but even that could not suppress his smile from shining as his lips were coming for more in more natural face-to-face orientation. "I just won't be keeping you off me." As their lips connected his tongue enticed hers to join him for longer, his nose nuzzling gently against hers as their mouths were having a more intimate rendezvous. She could feel his inner struggle as he was suppressing the instinct to grip her and press himself over her, to let the pent-up passion dictate their actions. The moment of balancing on the edge lasted as long as the kiss, but he eventually pulled away with no small reluctance. It was harder and harder to hold back, and yet holding back he had to. He fought back his exasperation with an amused chuckle. "I hope there will be some reasons for us for springs, summers and autumns too."

[Arwyn Forrester]

"As many reasons as there will be opportunities," she says, feeling her own reluctance to part. Very little bent her iron will when she had made a decision on something. But she was very tempted in that moment. Still, she rose, starting to move toward putting out the fire. "We should probably head back. I need to get ready to go speak with Alessia and see what she has to say."

[Kevan Dunn]

He raised his brow at that, but nodded, slowly regaining clarity of mind by means of cool evening air. "Then maybe ride ahead; I'll take care of collecting things and the fire." He said that against himself, but he felt if they stayed together much longer he just might not have the mental fortitude to let her go at all; her silhouette against the fire was raising his temperature toward the one to be found among the flames.

[Arwyn Forrester]

"All right." She smiles warmly. "Have a good evening... We should talk tomorrow morning, all right."

With his assent, she

/exits.

[Kevan Dunn]

He watched her go and got down to business of cleaning up the site only after the sounds of the hooves of her steed faded away. Groaning in irrational disappointment he found the idea of taking a dip in the cold river appealing, wishing to be shocked out of his current mindset, so there was that before he would leave the area.

/scene