It is easy to be with him.
She never feels like she needs to be something that she is not. She never feels like she needs to explain to him how much she prefers the quiet to the loudness; she never feels like she needs to explain to him that she feels more like herself when she is walking amongst her mother’s gardens or when she feels that golden light of her healing uncurling into her hand and then pooling into someone else.
She also doesn’t need to explain to him how natural it feels to be with him.
How she feels like she can just be herself.
She is still shy and quiet but she is calm, feeling that familiar warmth spread through her chest when he reaches down to press his lips to her shoulder. She laughs, low and throaty before returning the gesture, lipping at his jaw and then his neck. It is an innocent, friendly gesture and she doesn’t question the way that her heart flutters just a little by the way it feels to be curled so closely next to him.
When he steps back, she glances up, looking thoughtfully at the horizon. “I’m not sure,” she says, honest always with him. “Does that make me terribly boring?” Her lips curve into a smile, her face framed by the wisteria that blooms in her growing mane. She rolls her shoulders and takes a step forward. “Maybe we can go down to the beach today? I feel like we haven’t been there in a while and it’s so beautiful.”
as the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet