Where the forest met the shore, he found a bleached-out log for them to sit on. The sun was making its lazy journey toward the horizon, sending the forest shadows reaching toward them. His little basket held a large honey cake for them to share and a bottle of wine. He used his sheath knife to pull the cork, doing it badly. “It will never go back in,” he told her gravely. “We’ll have to drink it all here, or waste it.”

“No more than a glass for me,” she demurred, only to discover that he had forgotten to bring any sort of cups for them. He offered her first drink from the bottle, which she shyly accepted, and then made her blush when he smiled slyly before he drank, saying it would be his first taste of her lips. She knew he was altogether too glib and that she should take warning from his clever way with words rather than be charmed by it.

But she was seventeen.

When the bottle of wine was half-gone in shared sips, he began to draw her out with questions, and though she tried valiantly to tell the tale of how she had come to be alone in the world in a calm manner, her throat closed and her eyes filled with tears when she spoke of her father. She looked down at her blue boots, and then reached down to touch them as if by doing so she could remember the touch of his hands when he’d given them to her. That was when Azen put his arm around her. He said nothing, but simply held her for a moment. And when her tears broke forth, he gathered her into his arms and let her cry.

She could not have said how or when she ended up in his lap, leaning her head on his shoulder. Nor did she really know when drying her tears changed to kissing her mouth. His lips held her as firmly as his arms. Perhaps she was not as alone in the world as she had thought. Evening and the forest shadow cloaked them from all eyes. She let him kiss her, and listened only to his sweet murmurs and the language of his knowing hands.