Elven Roses

He still wore his wedding robes, but they had changed. They were now more translucent, more revealing of his long-limbed physique, which like most elves, was slender, and almost feminine.

The patterns and symbols on his robe, where they were once black, were now white, as he approached. In his hand, he held a rose of the same color.

Mericlou felt a burning sensation arise in her chest. It was warm, and very pleasant, as she watched him come closer, stealthy as a cat, inhumanly graceful in his gait.

"I suppose you're wondering what the significance of the roses outside was?" He asked.

"I … was hoping you'd tell me about that." Mericlou suddenly found her voice slightly caught in her dry throat. Her skin had again turned that embarrassing shade of crimson.

"That was the procession of roses, Tulyr," He said. "Remember the jewel that I gave you?"

"Yes." She felt at the golden choker around her neck, the multicolored gemstone, his wedding gift, inset into its center.

"Those colors, I said, are those of the procession of roses," Aldrec explained. "It's an old tradition of my people, a symbol of the progress of love."

He took several steps forward, and in the rune lamps that grew from the walls, Mericlou saw a gentle, peaceful smile upon his face. His blue eyes were transfixed upon her.

"White roses," he said, pausing briefly to sniff the rose he held in his hand, "mean nothing. They can be used for any occasion, happy or sad, or are exchanged between perfect strangers without so much as a purpose."

He came closer, and as the roses outside had done, the sigils on his garments shifted hues, becoming yellow. The same thing happened to the rose he held in his hand.

"Yellow roses mean friendship. But not just any kind of friendship. They represent the deepest, truest level of commitment between two friends: a bond of love and trust that is sworn never to be broken."

A few steps more, and yellow became pink. Mericlou nervously positioned herself near the edge of the bed, and brought her feet up onto its soft, petal-laden sheets.

"Pink roses mean affection. They are used between the closest friends of differing sexes, but as a symbol of the growing attraction one has for the other, or mutually between them: the wish to become more than just friends."

He now stood before her, gazing down upon her face like a sun. Mericlou found that she could not stop her rapid breathing. The rose and the sigils upon her husband's robes were now as crimson as the blood that she could hear throbbing through its vessels under her skin, artificial though it may be. His eyes shone with a fierce light that pressed upon her with the intensity of a cat about to devour its prey.