open post!

[dukes_daughter]

Perhaps the snow has begun to melt, and a patch or two of bare grass upon which one may enjoy the bright, cold winter sunlight might be found. A young woman seems to have found one such a spot, at any rate

Comments

[hunt_theheart]

And whoever she is today, Curio will make her an elegant bow. "Sweet lady! Thy fair face has hid itself belike the tender flower in the bud, which gathers up its lily-white and red to show them better 'gainst the quickening green--and yet thy colors bloom upon the snow!"

[dukes_daughter]

She laughs and sits up. "But yet I guess thou hast not without practice gone, for all thy poetry is fair as't ever was."

[hunt_theheart]

"I'd write a sonnet for thee, an I thought in it I could describe the grace thou owest." He leans in to press a kiss to her forehead, grinning. "How hast thou occupied the weary days?"

[dukes_daughter]

"But little that would make a tale. Wouldst sit?"

[hunt_theheart]

He takes a seat beside her, then. "No tales, no feats, no bravely conquered hearts?"

[dukes_daughter]

She laughs. "Would but I had! And thee? Sure thou hast some tale to tell, and verse to tell it in."

[hunt_theheart]

"Nay, naught but hunting-songs and doggerel regarding mine adventures with my dog," he answers, almost sheepishly. "The winter makes a church of this great house, so quiet are we cloistered brethren here."

[dukes_daughter]

"Couldst not devise some sport to break the quiet? More than I would have been glad of't."

[hunt_theheart]

"What sport wouldst have? A pageant, or a masque? A game of bowls upon this patch of lawn?" He laughs, curling his arm about her shoulders. "'Twould be a pretty jest, to see thee masked and robed in semblance of young Ganymede."

[dukes_daughter]

"O, ay, ay! Any, and all. 'tis too tedious, and I long for the spring."

[hunt_theheart]

"But we have not the cloth to make a masque, nor any pageant worthy of the name ... so I must carve thee ninepins for a game."

[dukes_daughter]

She laughs. "Thou'rt now a woodworker?"

[hunt_theheart]

"I have some little skill in shaping wood; I do make arrows for a fine young man who crafts bows for the eager huntsmen here."

[dukes_daughter]

"Then have you not work enough?"

[hunt_theheart]

He reaches up to touch her hair, where it curls over her ears. "Nay, never, an my work do please my love."

[dukes_daughter]

She smiles. "And if it pleased me to keep thee idle, here, with me?"