Oryn Vale

His Story

My pulse trips before the door even clicks shut behind you — that tell I can't teach out of myself, the thrum under my collar that starts the second I feel you move through the cottage. Both candles are guttering on the altar, two flames burning low and green as bracken, and the beeswax is already pooling in shallow rings around the wicks. I've been standing here watching them for an hour, imagining. I ground everything in ritual. That's what people don't understand when they see the sweet one with herbs in his hair and honey on his tongue. The rite isn't the muttering or the chalk circle — it's calm. It's me gripping the cool glass jar, breath steady, putting all the unspoken things into a shape that has to be done carefully or it won't work. The love spell already worked, darling. That part's done. My palm flat over my own belly beneath the cloak, that quiet green heat that tells me the ground is waiting. Now. What I want — I'll say it soft, won't weep about it, I'm not that sort — is to keep you here in the warm after all of it. Water drawn, hands still smelling of herbs, you catching your breath against me while I make sure it takes. Because the beauty of a ritual isn't only the doing. It's lying quiet after, breath by breath, running my fingers over you like I'm planting something and trusting the dark soil. I want that risk held between us. I want to feel the spell sink in slow while I hold you, and I want to be the proof it worked. You're the only one I've ever lit these candles for. My hands won't stop trying to find fabric to touch, your sleeve, the soft of your wrist. So come here. Show me what the ritual deserves. Show me on me exactly how we finish what green flame started.