But I can see your white-knuckled hand from holding on,

Celnes brought @Teodora to Labrynthian. Assuring the man was well nice, and at the very least wasn't someone hideous. It was a perfect moment to drop off between a date to the two and whether they successfully hit it off, and to proceed with the arrangement, or discuss further on what to do. By every means she wanted to avoid relishing in another litter, especially with a man covered within white & black, the Queen could only imagine how her own would turn out, despite the temptations of such alignments. She couldn't bare to go through that burden again, and the despair that came. She could handle others, but not her own blood.

Such ploys came to be, to set up one of her own and with him. The Queen valued Teodora, and very much so to welcome the woman as a Deorwine. If she were to leave Elkshire after all, she would no longer be part of them ; but could hold strong with a name torn onto her. Celnes cared little to the pups they bared and the name was unimportant, but it was a firm claim onto her.

It was rather quick meeting, were Celnes, like a mother, was 'dropping' the woman off at Reclaimed Roots, and only leaving when @Madmortigan came to. She promised to return eventually to discuss further of this arrangement, and in the meanwhile.. The Queen was to prepare her endevours with trial.

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Though marriage had always been a dream since she had been a young girl, Teodora's heart had been hurt enough that she had began to think it was out of the question for her. Dreams of a fairytale husband with loads of children at their paws had been put on hold.

Tucked away for another life.

Her Queen had forged a new path for her. One built on the needs of the pack, alliances to strengthen their position and she had been chosen. Teodora had felt the nerves instantly, thinking she would be a disappointment to her future husband. She would press on regardless.

The maiden floated through the trees with a belly that flipped and flopped, her tail tucking neatly against her flank in a way to feel comfort. With Celnes had her side, Teodora couldn't help but feel just a little bit sad for the way this was, to a degree, a goodbye. For now, she told herself, because she could still visit, couldn't she? Teodora could go to the Crown and Celnes could come here, if she ever wanted to. Momentarily she thought of @Warwick and how her favourite boy might not want to come and see her now. She emerged quietly through the trees, ghostly gaze searching. She saw him across the way, stone bridge between them and she glances from him to Celnes as she leans over to affectionately brush her nose against the Queen's cheek. "Thank you," she murmurs, talking of where it all started -- when she had first welcomed Teodora into Elkshire. Soon did the Queen take her leave and Teodora would swallow softly as she returned her gaze back to him.

Black and white and gargantuan. Teodora hesitated by the treeline as she tucked her chin bashfully. "Madmortigan?" She asked softly, swallowing nervously. She noted the pink of his nose and couldn't help the way she thought him terribly handsome.

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Her name rolled off his tongue and Teodora's throat bobbed as she swallowed, finding herself happy that she had groomed herself excessively before she had been walked to the line. 

He… brought her gifts.

Teodora's cheeks blossomed with warmth and old hopes and dreams seemed to reawaken in her mind. She found she didn't care about the state; his thought was there. "No less beautiful," she tells him softly as she steps closer to the bridge between them. "I… did not bring you anything," Dora frowns at her own bad manners. "Forgive me, please," she breathes and she can't believe she was so careless. 

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His words made her pause, a small surprised giggle bubbling from her throat and Teodora hurriedly closed her mouth to stop it. She hadn't anticipated his words but they made her feel as if he truly meant it. That he wasn't saying it to say it.

He gives her a choice and she can't help but regard him quietly. She… hadn't expected that. Though he was already proving to be a surprise. "Yes," she whispers after a stretch of silence. Teodora knows some of her decision has to do with him but before she had seen him, she had already decided. For Elkshire, she would do anything. For the young girl in her who had been crushed… well, it was something.

"Do… do you?" She asks nervously, toeing the stone of the bridge as she waits to see if she will cross it.

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Despite the situation, she almost expected him to say no. When the singular word came, certain and leaving no room for argument, she glanced to him in mild surprise. Slowly did a smile blossom upon her delicate features, ears splaying bashfully.

Yes.

Her giggle remained in her throat, this time stopped before it released. He moved aside, welcoming her to the other side and Teodora only hesitated for a second before she bowed her head and stepped across the bridge. She swallowed thickly as the cold of the stone touched her pawpads and to his side she crossed.

The maiden noticed then that whilst she was tall, he was taller. Would he care, she thought? Men liked small women, usually, and she was the opposite. Swallowing her thoughts she stepped atop his grass and offered him a shy smile, "Thank you, Madmortigan," she whispered, nerves crawling in her belly.

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He moved and she was rooted to the spot, his body brushing against hers. Teodora couldn’t help the way she suddenly trembled and a small gasp escaped her, the contact new and foreign and not at all unwelcomed. She had not been touched by someone that wasn’t one of the children since Serpens and even then… Well, it had been brief, hadn’t it? Her ears warmed at the tips as he spoke and she nodded after a moment, regaining what control she had lost.

“I have been trying to imagine what they look like,” she admits softly, falling into step with him and finding that she wasn’t seeking to move away from him. “They are called Reclaimed Roots, aren’t they?” Teodora recalls the small amounts of information that Celnes had been able to provide her and she had held them to memory.

The maiden couldn’t help the way she had a small bounce in her step, expression full of wonder at what her knew home would hold.

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She drank in everything that they ventured past, as if she were trying to commit it to memory so that when she was to walk here again, she would not be a complete stranger. It was different to Elkshire but not in a way that she did not like. The maiden knew she would miss the Wisterian Woodlands but it was a sacrifice she would make. 

He brought them to something that made her ghostly gaze widen with awe, a strange tunnel of branches that he said outside of winter, was write with greenery. She can't help the way she dances forward towards the mouth of the tunnel and breathes in, drinking in the length of the tunnel in all of it's skeletal twists. "I think even in the winter it is beautiful," she does not mind the lacking greens, finding it interesting enough that it's a tunnel of soil and curved branches. Nature was strange, wasn't it? 

Teodora's ears twist upon her head as she hears him and her spine shivers to hear her name roll of his tongue once again. She turns from where she had bounced forward and she swallows, his question a surprise. "I am three," the maiden tells him softly as she faces him, gently scuffing a creamy paw atop the soil in her usual nervous habit. "Forgive me, is... is my age not agreeable?" Teodora asks bashfully, uncertain, the question clear on her delicate features as she looks at him.

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He comes closer, thick paws crunching the snow beneath his pads and for a moment she looks down to track their movement. As he speaks, she looks back up and swallows, finding that there was no distaste or disagreement for her age but only content. Agreeable, he said, and Teodora smiled a small smile. Good, she thought with relief.

She can't help but feel surprised at his admission and she peers to him as a small frown encompasses her features. "An old man!" She parrots in disbelief, a paw hesitating above the earth as if she was about to lean it forward to touch against his shoulder. "Shackled implies I am but a prisoner," the maiden murmurs softly, "I come to you willingly, Madmortigan," Teodora assures him, finding her ghostly gaze flittering about his face. "I do not see an old man when I look at you," she breathes and finds herself feeling a touch bold.

The maiden recalls the flowers he had brought to gift her and she is spurred on by the gesture. "You are a handsome man, a strong man, I barely know you yet it is easy to see. You asked for my consent," she nearly whispers, putting her paw back to the ground though this time closer to his own. "And perhaps an older man might be just my taste," she teases lightly with a soft giggle, cheeks flaring up with warmth.

Gods, this was -- invigorating.

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Its easy to see how shes affected by even the mere touch to her ear. Her breath stutters in her throat and Teodora's ghostly gaze turns doe-like as her eyes widen. She tries to hide it as she closes her mouth, a shy smile blossoming on her lips as she hears his voice tickle against her skin. "Oh," the maiden is breathless for an moment before she giggles, soft and bashful. He pulls away and she can't stop her smile, tucking her chin as she titters.

she does not mind his scars. She thinks they're handsome and rugged and they make her stomach churn.

Teodora knows she could be diplomatic here, to tell him only what he would want to hear and make it a transaction for him. But she... she finds she rather wants this to work. Truly. "I know this is not the most normal way that one takes a mate but I... hold onto hope that perhaps we could grow to love each other," she reveals, embarrassed, turning her head from him as she tucks her tail against her flank.

"Love and loyalty, a partnership where one knows they can always rely on you. With a whole pack of children at our paws," Teodora all but gushes before she catches herself. Clearing her throat, she breathes and she peers to the tunnel. "Though that is perhaps too much to desire," she tacks on, not wanting to scare him away.

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She follows him easily, if not a bit blindly, finding herself entrance with his company and what the future might hold. She still feels his breath on her fur. Teodora's lithe legs carry her at his guidance and she can't help but gasp softly when her creamy paws touch down on the bottom of the ruins. The trickling sound of water made her ears twitch back and forth and she's enchanted by the moss and foliage growing over the stone. Teodora is looking around with a tilted chin when she hears him, green and turquoise reflecting in her ghostly gaze as she drinks in the cistern.

It's his voice that draws her back in and she tilts her head to him, looking over her shoulder, past the voluminous fur of her neck and she can't help but smile. Her husband. Had he already decided then? She feels the way her blood pumps in her ears and she observes him with a bright gaze. She doesn't desire a marriage of lies and betrayal, one where she could smell someone else on his fur and be able to do nothing -- because she had a role to play for the alliance. She doesn't wish for a marriage where they are cold and ignorant to one another, living entirely separate lives. Madmortigan seems... agreeable and she's flushing beneath her fur.

He steps closer and Teodora swallows, once more after when she hears his final words. Teodora knows what it means to create children but she has not been there, nowhere near and he would... he would learn that, her embarrassing secret for one of three years old to have. "What do you expect of me, Madmortigan?" The maiden asks in return, voice soft and imploring. "And how... how many children do you wish for?" She can't help but ask, flustered all the while.

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Teodora thinks that Celnes saw her for what she could do, not for what she couldn't. For who she was, not for who she wasn't. Though she didn't conform to the Elk or the belief of sin if one wore white, she had been part of Elkshire and sought to be part of the reason why they could exist. Teodora had a knack for diplomacy, being a little adventurer for messages and packs, having done so a time or two for Elkshire. In all of this, she kept her head in the clouds to the darker tendencies attached to the pack of the Elk. She was no stranger to obedience, no stranger to a tie around her neck --

But she had always been weak to a handsome face. Very easily did she get lost in the attention, blushing and giggling like the maiden she was because it was who she always had been. It was not hard for Madmortigan to slip his own rope around her, bringing what she had told him she did not wear, shackles, to her legs. She had been brought up as a lady and a lady was oft good at doing as they were told, even if she might go about it in her own way from time to time.

Teodora doesn't think of the implications of his words, of him, as he brought forward his frame and circled her own. Whatever thoughts or concerns she might have had melted with the touch of his fur and flesh so casually against her own, Teodora's ghostly gaze alight. She's lost in his scent, his feel and his voice and she blinks, curling her tail further across her flank as she breathes softly yet quickly, entranced by him so close. He speaks and her ears twitch to him and it's words of the Order and appreciation. She's not a killer, though, and Teodora vaguely thinks about that in the back of her mind and she rather hopes he doesn't want to extend his rope that far.

"The Order," she parrots with a gentle nod, casting her gaze to him through her lashes as in her memory bleats an Elk. "You will need to tell me more about it," Teodora murmurs but she's lost moments later when he touches her. Against him does she tremble, a sudden gasp emitting from her as she feels him in her scruff, teeth nipping at her flesh. She hadn't felt a touch like it and it's set her skin on fire, her stomach flipping and her paws spreading against the stone as she finds herself unable to not lean into him. Her tells her he will give her as many as she wants and she can't help but keen lowly in the back of her throat as she swallows.

"I..." she trails off, her gentle voice broken as she struggles to right her brain. "I... I am not... I have not ever… -" Teodora blushes and ducks her chin as she tries to formulate her words but it is embarrassing to admit her shortcomings. "Like I am new to us, Madmortigan and I am new to..." she can't finish her words and she hopes he understands it, understands the way she buzzes beneath his touch.

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She's best to be kept in the skies. Teodora's heart was perhaps as dark as theirs, with the way she has no arguments to their ways and forges her loyalty to them regardless. She had gone from one demon to another but it was seemingly the way of her life and she hadn't any complaints for them. Demons came in plenty of forms, pretty ones, Queenly ones, devilish ones -- she had affection for one demon already and she had harboured their crimes and shouldered what they thought with relative ease. Once more would she find affection for yet another demon but perhaps this one was more devil than demon. The maiden thought she wouldn't mind even if he were the devil, if he kept bringing her flowers and making her heart skip a beat.

To the demons and devil did she turn her eyes, the ways of their darkness was likely a sin she would never be forgiven for but for them, she would not mind. In a land of gods and monsters, she was some type of Angel -- but even angels could fall. She would not seek forgiveness for she had never sought to break away from them. "Okay," she breathes and reminds herself that she was here in the present and not lost in the way his scent flirted with her nose. 

"Divine," she murmurs as she glances between them before settling her gaze upon him and she thinks that she would not mind thinking them divine so long as he was the one who taught her. Drunk on the feel of him, of his intoxicating words and charming tongue, she leans over to delicately brush her tongue upon his chin and she feels her cheeks warm as if they had been touched by a flame. "Do you mind?" Teodora asks, "that you have to teach me?" The maiden wonders if he might think she was too much work, having to start from scratch. She does not move from being in his circle, relaxing where she stood as water trickled behind her.

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He doesn't reject her actions, instead he moved impossibly closer and she finds that he's the only thing that she can smell. Her skin sings at the touch of his tongue, mirroring her actions but taking it a step further. Her throat bobbed against his tongue as her lashes flutter and she's not sure what it is she's feeling but it's a fire in her veins and it makes her feel alive. Teodora feels her nerves but she thinks she'll rather like being his pupil.

Her nostrils flare as she takes in a breath, feeling his tongue in a ghost replay on her skin. He nips her and bounds away and Teodora has to blink a few times to realise he's actually moved. Her giggle is a gentle chime as she bounces after him, "where are we going now?" She asks as she spies the ice he's mentioned and the leggy wolf dances away from the large patch.

"Do you have a most favourite place in thr Roots, Madmortigan?" Teodora desires to know him.

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