Page 99 of A Spark So Bright
Gunnar froze. "Oh. Well, then I suppose Astrid will have to give Rose away then. You know how this works more than I do. I was thinking that blue glen we used to play in as kids, remember? I'll distract her and get her there. You do the rest. We'll say two hours?"
Bjorn had never had a less enthused expression on his face, as Gunnar gave him one more pat on the chest and turned back to Rose. His troll wife was stunning, standing there in the clearing with her hair glowing in the blue light. She was everyethereal creature he had ever dreamt of as a boy, and now that he looked at her, he felt like she held his entire world in her heart.
"Rose," he said, calling out for her and reaching out his hand for her to take. "Want to come with me?"
She didn't even hesitate. She walked over to him with a soft smile on her face. Beautiful in every way. With a spine of steel and an enduring nature that he still wasn't sure he deserved.
But he would try every single day to deserve her.
"Can I show you something?" he asked.
"I don't have anything else to do today. I suppose you can show me whatever you want."
He'd have to work on getting her to be a little more curious about their world in a way that wasn't so... well, maybeoff-puttingwas a harsh word. But other trolls would wonder if she was all that interested in doing anything with anyone. She still wandered, just kept her soul in her body now.
Sighing, he pulled her back into the forest. "I wanted to show you where I got you that pet."
"The caterpillar?" she asked, clearly a little surprised that was where his brain had gone. "I had wondered why you'd brought it to me. They aren't particularly common. At least, I haven't ever seen one."
"No, they usually like to hide. They're quiet creatures and they don't like to have people around them. Most of the time, they let off little puffs of hair that sting when they get stuck in your skin." He could still feel them under his skin sometimes.
Itching his arm, he tugged her further through the woods. The venimoss were reclusive creatures, and it had taken him hours to find their dens. They moved every single year, as if the trees they consumed weren’t good enough for longer than a few months.
They lived in the roots of a very particular tree. And finally he found it with her.
Trollveggen was filled with very similar colors. Greens, blues, and purples. They glowed so brightly down here, it was hard to find any other color decorating their realm.
The crimson scale trees were the hardest to find. He wasn't sure if that's because they didn't grow naturally down here, or if they were dying out from all the other plants doing so well. But he had found a grove of them, and that was where the venimoss most liked to live.
Bright red leaves glowed, but not from the entire leaf like many of the trees here. No, the veins of the leaf were what glowed in pulses. The bark of the tree looked more like snake scales, covering the trunk with an armor that was likely very helpful. The caterpillars ate the sap within it, and if there wasn't such good protection, it was highly likely they would eat through every tree in the forest.
The roots of the crimson scale tree regularly pulled out of the ground in giant loops that hid the caterpillars from their sight at first. Strangely enough, the venimoss enjoyed being on the ground more than they enjoyed being up high.
"Oh!" Rose said, letting out a little cry of happiness as the first few venimoss poked their heads out of their caverns.
There weren't a lot of them. This tree was too small to house the hordes of them that were sometimes there. But at least six of them started coming out from their homes, slowly making their way toward Rose, who had fallen onto her knees in the dirt.
Her white dress was going to be ruined. But she didn't care at all as she ran her hand over their prickly bodies and then toyed with the antennae on top of their heads. "More of them?" she asked.
"I thought maybe you would want to bring the one I gave you back here. There aren’t too many venimoss here, and I think the food competition would be less than where I found it." Gunnar crouched down next to her, watching as all the little creaturesturned their faces to look at him, suspicious at his movement. "As much as I think it enjoys living with you, perhaps it's best to let it go to its family once more."
"Oh, I would love that. Maia is so concerned that the gardens are going to be destroyed by it, and the plants don't like the little one at all." Rose picked up one of the venimoss, its many furred feet waving in the air before finding purchase on her lap. "And I could come visit?"
"As often as you'd like."
They spent the next few hours there, mostly him watching her play with the venimoss and enjoying the sight. She was good with animals. Every touch they ate up, and her attention didn't seem to scare them like he did. In fact, any time he moved toward them, they got all their little spikes up and he swore he heard one hiss at him.
But Rose?
They adored her almost as much as he did. They were all over her. Constantly climbing on her lap, crawling into her arms to be petted, and if they could have purred, he was certain they would have.
It was the best way to spend an afternoon, especially since he was still waiting for everyone else to get together. Gunnar got to spend even more time with her, and that was all that mattered to him.
While she played, he planned. The words were going to be the hardest part. He was a very wordy man, and he knew how to talk for hours on end, but when it came to her, he found that he was at a little of a loss for those words. He wanted to tell her how he felt, what was in his heart, and yet... all of it felt difficult.
He still wanted to hunt down all those who had hurt her. He wanted to start a new life, finding every single one of them, plucking their faces from her memory, and becoming the creature who haunted their steps. Their death would makehim feel maybe a little better about what she had endured, but it wouldn't erase it. As much death that could come from his hands, the only thing that would actually help her was to use his hands to be soft. Kind. Healing for her.
She looked up at him, her face bright and full of happiness, and he knew that his place was right here. With her. No matter how hard it was to let that rage go.
