Ranger's Apprentice: The Tantalizing Tales

Getting up in the little cabin in the woods

Alyss smiles down at the pile of sheets and pillows on the bed. More specifically, she smiles down at the face that's visible between them and at the two big brown eyes that are looking up to her.

"You don't have to get up early just because I have to get up early," she tells the owner of the eyes. Her hands disappear behind her back to tighten the laces of her dress, but her eyes remain fixed on his.

Her husband grins.

"But I like getting up with you."

Will starts pushing pillows and sheets to the side. Alyss shamelessly keeps watching as his body reveals itself and he climbs out of bed. Her fingers move from lacing her dress to braiding her hair, pulling up strands into an elegant up-do. They don't falter at the sight of her husband - all of him.

Meanwhile, Will has found some pants to put on and now begins to button up a shirt that he picked up from the ground. He continues.

"And you know what they say: the couple that wakes together..."

Alyss frowns. It doesn't happen often that a saying doesn't ring any bells and yet she is unsure of the words Will is looking for.

"... bakes together?" she suggests.

Will was looking at the buttons on his shirt to make sure that he wouldn't mess them up. Now, his eyes move up and find hers.

"Stays together," he corrects her. There's a devious sparkle in his eyes now that he's managed to best his wife in the field of linguistics and she can see the wheels in his head turning fast, trying to figure out how to best use this to his advantage.

But Alyss isn't one to give in so easily. She scoffs.

"Yeah, that doesn't rhyme."

But she does break eye contact and looks around the room, for something else to focus her attention on. Her hair is where she wants it and her dress is tightly laced around her. There, the window. Now that her husband is out of bed too, there's no reason to keep the curtains closed. Alyss moves towards the window. She can feel, more than hear, Will walking around the bed and coming to a stop behind her.

Before Alyss can reach out to open the curtains, two arms from behind her already do. They push the curtains to the side, both of them simultaneously.

A clear and beautiful blue sky is revealed to them. The fresh morning air comes flooding into the room, and the soft sounds of chirping birds fill the air.

"I didn't know I had married a member of the rhyming guard," her husband whispers in her ear. He pulls back his arms, away from the window, and instead wraps them around her.

Alyss smiles again and leans back against him, eyes fixated on the trees in the distance, the first rays of the morning light shining on her face.

"Would you've had married me if you had known?"

There's no hesitation in the half a second that it takes him to answer and when he does, there's no sign in his voice of second-thoughts or doubts. Alyss cannot see his face, but she can hear every single thing in what he says next.

"Absolutely."