Everything that glitters isn't gold

Artorias had been fully expecting Briar to roll her eyes or groan at him when he made a corny attempt to flirt with her, but that had been his intent all along. It was just another part of their relationship, a degree of comfortability with one another where they didn't feel the need to try to impress the other or act out of the normal. They could just be themselves and coexist like they were always meant to be together. Being with Briar felt as easy and natural as breathing to the young Carpathius brute. Despite the deadpan stare she gave him, her smile and the happy wag of her tail betrayed her enjoyment of his silliness. These simple little moments between the two lovers was everything that Artorias loved about having Briar in his life as a constant now. No longer would he feel their time together was finite, no longer did he count the days, hours, minutes until she'd have to leave him again. They were together and they would stay this way for the rest of forever.

Briar smiled and kissed his cheek, agreeing that they should take some of the fire-emblazoned stones back with them, then saying she'd make him something to match her bangle. Artorias smiled back at her, a simple flash of his teeth to his girlfriend while he excitedly wondered what she'd make for him with the stones. He did love a Briar surprise though, so he vowed to leave her to her own devices until she presented him with whatever creative idea she came up with. "Thank you, my love. There's nothing I'd be happier to wear than something crafted by my talented girlfriend's own two paws." In a romantic gesture, Artorias lifted one of Briar's paws up to his muzzle, brushing the back of her paw with a ginger kiss. "Do you know how much I love you? How much you mean to me?" he asked, an obvious sweet flirtation, but also a touch of genuine inquiry in his words. Did Briar truly know just how irreplaceable she was in his life? How impossible it would be to continue on without her? How much she truly mattered to the obsidian and azure alpha?

"Artorias Carpathius" | "Carpathian"