He laughed, catching it between his teeth and then tossing his head to send it into the falls and then he kissed me again.
“If it is those things, are you sorry?” he asked me gently.
“I am not,” I gasped, leaning my forehead shyly against his strong shoulder.
“And if I tell you I am slowly making this world new again and that I require your input on some of the most intimate parts of it?”
“Then I will bid you take me to those parts and show to me all your secrets,” I said shyly, peering up at him through my lashes.
“And if it will mean deprivation and the loss of many things?” A ghost of his smile has returned.
“Then I will give them,” I said, kissing his bare shoulder.
“And if it will mean that I gift you with one good thing after another?”
“Then I will consider all those gifts small beside the gift of your heart,” I breathed and to my surprise, he did not answer but instead he ducked down and caught my mouth in a kiss and he was laughing through the kiss and he did not stop kissing me even as he slowly drew me to my feet.
He pulled back only long enough to pounce again. Drew back a second time, his fingers threading through my hair, only to nip at my bottom lip. But the third time he held my gaze with his intent one, and leaned in to press the softest of kisses along my jaw, and when I was drunk with them, eyes half-lidded with the drug of pleasure, he finally stepped back.
When I looked down, I found myself dressed in a gown of soft white with sprays of lace decorating the edge of the deep v-neck in little patches as if it were frost. The full skirts opened to become three great grey owls who fluttered and snapped and hooted with deathly glares at both me and my king.
I was still staring at them in wonder when a movement made me look up and I found my Bluebeard clad similarly. He wore breeches woven of witches’ hair today, his feet bare beneath them and his doublet was formed entirely of living hummingbirds which sometimes hovered close to his body and sometimes took flight, flew laps around him, and then returned to their posts and while he wore his bramble crown, the thorns had grown longer and sharper and bore white roses. He smiled and produced for me a crown that was the same and set it upon my hair, before lifting my hands to kiss the backs of my knuckles.
“I’m making all things new,” he said sweetly, kissing each knuckle individually. “And your time of waiting and torment is over, wife. Never again will you go hungry. Never again will you be cold. Your place is at my side and here you are Queen of the Wittenhame. Need you a home beyond this?”
I looked around where he was pointing and I realized that as we had talked together the pollen had retreated further and further leaving our shallow waterfall at the top of a great vista that was spread before us, filled with sweeping hills and roaring rivers, green lakes and moss-encrusted bogs, white beaches, dusky forests, and purple mountains. The pollen continued to spread far past what I could see, stretching out across the land.
“When you say you are making all things new …”
My words trailed away.
“I meant I was rebuilding the Wittenhame for my people. They must not live with mortals on their plane. They must enter this age fresh and new.”
“You made all this?” I said, stunned, pushing my flower crown up.
And when I looked back he was grinning with mischief in his eyes. “And I have more yet to make. Will you weave it with me and bring to this some of the order of your practical soul? Be the straight line to all my twists and curves, the sharp edge to my soft billows?”
I smiled. “So long as rivers run and moon shines, so long will I be wife to you.”
“Then I shall see that they continue in their courses age upon age,” he said and then he turned from me, took on a look of concentration, and then snatched at the water brimming over the closest step-fall and when his hand came out he had a sleek rainbow trout in his grip. “But first, I will cook you breakfast.”
And perhaps happily ever after meant eating fresh-cooked fish beside a fire burning with white and purple flames while your husband created pink and gold clouds in the sky.
Or perhaps it didn’t, but it did for me that day.
Maybe the next day it would mean something else. Maybe with Bluebeard, I would never know what it would mean.
“And what will I do in this world you’re making?” I asked him between bites. “I feel like a rake in a world without gardens. Like a sword in a world with no enemies.”
“Do not fool yourself, once-mortal wife,” he said and there was a dangerous glint in his eye. “For I am tied to you as you are tied to me. There will be no blossoms if you fade, no sunshine if your smile ceases, no warmth if your love for me runs cold. All this I have created, but it was made for you, and each day you will bring newness to it.”
“And will I have an occupation beyond this marvelous existence I seem to have inspired?” I teased, but I was truly worried. I was not one to sit idle.
“I fear you may have the hardest occupation of all,” he said gravely, taking a bite of the fish.
“Loving you?”
“That is easy enough. But someone must keep me from growing bored or I may forget to bother with setting the seasons in turn, one after another.”
