Just You and Me

Ezra's ears perked when Syanna called over to him where she was lounging in the shade while he got a drink and he looked back at her over his shoulder with his usual grin at her thanks. "Of course. I'm happy to," he replied as he turned back to come join her on the grass, settling in beside her to enjoy the cool breeze that passed through the shaded area. When she mentioned how she wanted to tell him something while they were out here he looked at her curiously with a tilt of his head. "What is it, beautiful?" He had already been very surprised and encouraged by her eager willingness to take this little trip with him and that alone had been a treat for him after the last few months. A little part of him worried that it would be more bad news or some kind of way for her to let him down easy on something, but the expression she wore didn't seem to hint toward anything like that. He hardly ever saw her nervous and the way she fidgeted with the grass under her paws made him infinitely more curious and more than a little nervous about what it could possibly be.

Her sweet words about how much she appreciated him and everything he had done for her brought a little, lopsided grin to his lips and his expression softened as his tail brushed against the ground with gentle wags. His nerves at least started to settle with her thanks, feeling reassured that this really was just a moment of happiness among the dark of everything that had happened and he was more than happy to savor and enjoy it while he could. He hoped that slowly they would get more and more good moments like this to enjoy as time went on, but he knew there would still be hard times and doubts ahead of them too. He almost wanted to just pull her into him and insist over and over how she didn't need to thank him and how he would forever try and do whatever he could for her, but he could tell that there was more to it than that so he stayed quiet, letting her work through her obvious nervousness to say what she wanted to say.

It was hard to keep his smile from pulling all the way across his face as she went on about how she wasn't going to let what happened stop her from being herself, showing a little glimpse of his Syanna that he missed so much—the same one that had already over come so much and just continued to keep on fighting. Even just that little moment had been enough to tell him that all this work and effort and support he had been putting in really was worth it, but when she finally got to the point of everything she had said and revealed what she had actually wanted to tell him it felt like everything stopped for a moment as his heart skipped a beat and he started to wonder if this was all somehow just some kind of dream.

His eyes widened as his brain caught up to the present, realizing after a beat that this wasn't a dream and she really had told him that she loved him. That made his heart soar and he just couldn't keep himself from scooping her up in his forelegs and pulling her smaller frame tight to his, laughing lightly with giddy laughter as he squeezed her tight and nuzzled into her cheek, feeling as if his heart might just swell and burst right out of his chest. He knew how much that little phrase meant coming from her and even though he would never have taken an expression of love lightly from anyone, it especially meant the world coming from Syanna. Words couldn't possibly express how he was feeling in that moment, so flooded with relief, happiness, and love, Ezra just defaulted to showing her how he felt in the only way he really knew how. He caught her lips with his own, kissing her deeply and passionately as he held her tightly to him, laying on their sides in the plush grass on the bank of the near by stream.

"Syanna & Ezra"