Dove smiled and took hold of Arvens hand. "Then come and let me show it to you." Here, she was even more relaxed than she had been in the Hogsmeade woodlands and her hair was down albeit in a braid. Even so, it wasn't in the typical updo expected of a woman of her class.

She lead the tall rogue down the path that would lead to a body of water just barely big enough for a soul to swim or lounge in. Evidence that someone most certainly had lay around the place. A tree with a strong branch hanging over the creek had a rope tied to it that had been strengthened once Dove had learned the incarcerous spell. A makeshift sort of cabin made out of trees also stood to the side of the creek which no longer fit Dove, let alone Arven Fisk - but was still large enough to make for a curious exploration for certain little ferrets.

  

---

Virgil ventured into the undergrowth, intrigued by nooks and crannies and craggy old branches, while the ferret's master was more interested in the meaning behind his surroundings. The rope swing, for instance. The homemade den reflected in the silver pool, above which shone beams of sunlight that turned the scene into a nostalgic paradise for an imaginative child.

Arven's mind conjured a picture of a small girl playing here; quite content, quite fulfilled, but... alone.

"And you were not permitted friends here?" he asked gently, careful not to betray the sympathy he felt.

  

---

"I am not permitted friends here even now," Dove said honestly, avoiding his gaze by keeping her eyes on Virgil as the ferret explored. Her childhood had been unusual and isolated but she'd had no real clue just how much until she was a older. Books held worlds and experiences she wanted to see for herself. She'd not even had that freedom as Robin - he had to sneak out though lately she had been more vocal and argumentative with her parents. At the age of twenty-six, the metamorphmagus had very much outgrown her gilded cage and was rattling the bars louder than she ever had before.

"Do you think me a horrid daughter for so blatantly railing against the rules placed upon me?" She asked, a hint of a smile on her lips as she looked over at him. Dove very much doubted it when the rogue seemed to live by his own rules albeit in some respect to his sisters wishes. Besides, she wanted him.

  

---

But why was she not permitted friends here? Why did Dove have to sneak away and work around her restrictions? Her cage was a magnificent verdant one, but it was a cage nonetheless. As far as he was aware, she was not sickly or frail, she was not shameful or strange, and she was not a child. Surely a daughter this charming and fair would be debuted most proudly by her parents? The mystery was a deep one, but he would not pry. Dove would offer whatever she felt he needed to know. The rest was mysterious, yes... but it was also her business, and her business alone.

Arven's pensive look broke into a smile of amusement. "Yes, you are the most horrid", he purred.

Thus reflected in the pool, Arven took her hands gently, raised them and placed a kiss upon them. "Believe me, Dove, if your desire is to break rules then you have secured yourself the perfect partner-in-crime."

  

---

Dove laughed in response to Arven calling her the most horrid. She knew that he did not mean it seriously. She was quietly relieved when he did not press her for more information. Maybe she would reveal her full story to him someday but this was not the time. Not when they had only met three times with him believing that he had only met her twice.

She smiled up at him as he took her hands and kissed them. "Is that a fact? How lucky that I decided I wanted to know what a ferret looked like in the flesh." For had she decided to follow the flock of ladies taking cover from the rain in the shops, she would perhaps not be standing here with him now.

  

---

Now that he knew her better, Arven did not think for a moment that Dove would have fluttered away for rain cover instead of pursuing the temptation of adventure, the allure of risk — ferret or no ferret.

"Oh really", he replied in a playful growl. "So that's the only reason why you let me lead you into the woods?" he challenged teasingly, giving her dainty chin a soft nudge with his hand.

  

---

"Well, maybe the fact it was something I should not be doing held an appeal. As well as the tall rogue that acted as my guide on that adventure," Dove said in faux thoughtfulness before smiling mischievously up at him. It had been a decision she had made in the moment which tended to be the way she lived her life when out exploring and definitely not one she regretted having made.

  

---

Arven chuckled, though privately felt it painfully unjust that the world wasn't equipped to deal with female runaways; or else no doubt Dove would've fled home long ago. Perhaps then they might've met abroad or out on the road, and not as part of a forbidden tryst in the rain.

"Come on then", he gestured back towards the pond and the woodland, so she might show him more of her world. "Tell me about some more of your improper adventures and broken rules." Behind those innocent eyes was potentially a list of wrongdoings as long as the river.

  

---

Dove smiled and continued her 'tour' of sorts. "Well, ladies are not supposed to climb trees but I thought nothing of scampering up there. Depending on high you can go without fear of the tree collapsing you can see so many things in the horizon. I am also not supposed to be talking to strange men in the woods but that seems to be a rule I keep breaking."  Which was harder to do now that she was older and required things such as a corset and much heavier dress. But there were ways around that, she figured.

"I also went to a Christmas Ball once when I had been expressly forbidden to. It was a different kind of adventure in which I could have danced all night." It had also been where she had met Jack Watson but that was hardly on her mind right now. As if hearing the music in her head, she did a few graceful dance steps.

  

---

Although Dove was in some ways a picture of classic femininity, it did not surprise Arven in the least that she enjoyed taking to the trees, and he let out a bark of laughter as he pictured it. Arven himself was too tall to engage in tree-climbing effectively, but he had scaled more than a few cliffs in his time. In fact it was a frequent hobby when the landscape allowed it.

"You are quite the virtuoso", he replied, taking her hand and gracefully turning her in a twirl as she fondly recalled some dance steps. "Rider, dancer, climber, swashbuckler... is there anything this little Dove can't do?"

  

---

Dove laughed as Arven took her hand and turned her in a twirl. "I cannot fly," She answered teasingly when Arven asked if there was anything that she couldn't do. Feeling daring, she leaned up to place the lightest of kisses on his lips before twirling away from him with a smile of mischief on her lips.

  

---

Whoever heard of a Dove who couldn't fly? Arven chuckled as she teased him with the briefest of kisses before she twirled playfully away. Not one to resist, Arven swept her gently but firmly back into his arms. "You cannot fly... yet", he corrected her smoothly, and leaned down to kiss her.

For such was his ever-growing passion for Dove, he would provide whatever her heart desired.

  

---

Dove smiled against his lips as he leaned down to kiss her. "Do you have a magic carpet hidden in those saddlebags, Huck?" She asked teasingly, knowing it quite unlikely that he would have brought one along even if the saddle bags were the magically internally-expanding sort. Dove did not yet say that she had never even flown a broom much less a magic carpet.

  

---

In his youth, Arven had played Keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team — but he'd long since discovered a preference for good old-fashioned walking. Flying was magical, yes... but when you're a blur in the breeze, so much passes you by.

"I have all the magic I need right here", he replied, briefly tracing the side of Dove's smiling face with a gentle hand. "But come to think of it... I have ridden a flying carpet before", he mused. "In Eastern Mongolia."

  

---

A faint flush colored Dove's cheeks. "How smoothly you talk," she teased fondly before perking up even more as he spoke of Eastern Mongolia. "Eastern Mongolia! Now there is a place I have not read about yet, I think," she said thoughtfully. "How is their climate? Their wildlife? Are wizards there as bound to wands and etiquette as ours or are they much more free?"

  

---

Arven smiled as — expectedly but endearingly — Dove enthused about his travels to Mongolia. He offered his arm, and they proceeded to wander onwards along the trodden path as he told her all about Mongolia — its great sweeping plains, its scorching hot summers, its cultural norms, wizarding habits, great differences and greater similarities.

But even as Arven regaled her with his adventures, his mind wandered to a particular topic that had been concerning him. And so, when questions had been answered and there was an appropriate gap in which to smoothly change the subject, he looked down at his sweet bird and asked — "And now I have a question for you.

Dove, would you allow me to pay court to you? We'd still have our stolen moments, and more... but some semblance of approval would allow us to go out in public together. I'd even take you to dances. I have every desire to keep seeing you", he confessed in a more serious tone, stopping for a moment to kiss her hand; "but for that to happen, we can't keep sneaking around like thieves in the night."

  

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