isolt griffin

I'm more alive than I've ever been

It is the shift, the unforeseen and uncharacteristic movement in the otherwise ironclad and steadfast plates of his persona that set her own atremble; his anxiety begets her own in a presentation of the more insidious and tenebrific facets of love and its requisite trust. Her emotional wagon, as it were, would forever be hitched to Damon's; she would, forevermore, be made weak by the intensity of her love for him. She would be eternally bare, naked, exposing the very most tender and vulnerable portions of herself to this man for whom she pined so fiercely.

The words of reassurance that pass beyond his lips soothe the shudder of unease that seems to rattle her very bones, though the comfort is there and gone in but a moment's passing as Damon drops to his knee before her. Isolt's hand tightens within the embrace of his in what surely could have proven a subconscious attempt to keep her body from straying as her bare feet shift upon the sodden earth beneath them. The appearance of the small box from his pocket proves no less troubling as, from experience, so few things came in boxes that looked as this one did. Did he intend to... ? Surely not. Surely he could not have brought himself to this decision. Of all of the things the redheaded woman knew of her lover, all of the knowledge she had accumulated over these past few years in his presence, these years spent observing him, Isolt held confidence in one thing... Damon's greatest, and perhaps only, fear was that of commitment. He feared the weakness, the dependence, of love and commitment and so he fought against it with all of the might he possessed. It was a battle Isolt surely feared for she was certain that there would come a day when he would succomb to this war within himself and find that he could not sustain the relationship that they had cultivated together. The fire-crowned girl was sure that this day would come and that her heart would be forever broken.

But this is not what he promises with the words he offers to her. He, this man who held within his hands every fragile, breakable part of her, was promising something her imagination could have never concocted. He was promising her eternity... their eternity. And for a long moment all that Isolt finds herself capable of doing is raising her brows, her mouth falling open as if to release words that do not come at her beckoning. There had been a time during her mortal life that Isolt had considered the possibility of marriage, of a family, though long ago had she forfeited the idea to immortality and the notion of presumed impossiblity. But now...

Could she have this? Could she condemn the fear that he would some day grow weary of his decision to have her as his own forevermore? Was this something his heart truly wanted? All of these things, all of this fear, whirls about within her head and her heart as Isolt allows her eyes to drop from Damon and the admittedly-breathtaking ring he brandishes. For a moment she does naught more than simply stand there, her only movement that of her thumb gliding over the knuckles of her lover, for she cannot find it within herself to move, to speak. Uncertainty is a ghastly thing, an iron fist clenched mercilessly about her throat so that she may not offer him an answer to this most important of questions. Slowly though do her eyes finally rise to meet his, sparkling droplets of rain dancing upon the slopes of her eyelashes as she does so.

And when the moment finally comes that Isolt looks into the eyes of her lover... she knows. She knows that he is sure and that she should know this certainty as well. And then, all at once, she does.

"Yes," she offers finally, though it comes as naught more than a choked whisper from a painfully clenched throat. "Yes... of course I will," she says, her voice more assured than before as she draws her body flush with his own and wraps her arms about his neck. The embrace is wholesome, soothing, and yet brief as Isolt draws back only just so that she may have her lips meet his in a kiss that radiates with renewed passion before she rests her forehead against his, a contented and loving smile spread across her features.