I was more than a little chilled and sleepy when I felt us descending over a fog-shrouded land mass a few hours later. It was a moonless night now. The stars were out shining brightly, but most everything below us was just dark and almost featureless. The dragon seemed to know where he was aiming us though.

"Lance . . . Lance? We're almost there," I now heard.

"Sorry, I must have nodded off a little," I realized as I now stirred and fully roused myself. I almost withdrew my hands and was about to take a stretch, before I remembered where I was and decided to keep my arms securely around Roana instead, with my hands nicely warm underneath her jacket around her tunic-clothed waist. "I'm just glad I didn't fall off in my sleep," I yawned.

"The strap would have held you, or Rökkr would have caught you," she assured. "Most dragons are good at mid-air rescues. But you are getting more comfortable with this?"

"A little more," I admitted, still trying to wake myself up. "How long will we have here until we go back?" I then asked.

"Let us decide that after we rest a while here," Roana encouraged. "Hang onto me tighter though, Rökkr is about to land us at the house he and I share."

"You share your house with a dragon?" I asked.

"Those in the journal came to, remember?" she noted.

"Oh yeah, I keep forgetting," I yawned again. "That book is brought to life here."

We descended between what seemed to be a couple ridges or ranges of dark mountains. I could barely see one or two fires or torches below and in front of us that the dragon appeared to be aiming for. I occasionally sensed things moving in the air around us, even heard gentle whooshes in the distance. They were probably other dragons, but I couldn't be sure. Tall mounds or boulders within what was now a valley became bigger as we continued to descend. Rökkr now levelled off and braked somewhat as we flew down among them. I could just make out that these mounds were houses with rounded roofs covered in grass or moss.

I was entering a hidden world. This place was dark and mysterious, but already it was intriguing me like nothing else ever had. Everything was silent around us as we landed on the grass in front of one house with a thud and a bounce with Rökkr taking a step or two as he touched the ground. A gently flaming torch was illuminating the house's porch and front door.

"I'm going to have to get used to that," I said, feeling a little jarred from the landing as Rökkr retracted his wings on either side of me.

"You are tired," Roana invited as she dismounted ahead of me. "Come, shall we go to bed?"

"Yeah," I accepted as she now helped me off the dragon. It all just seemed surreal to me, like I had stepped right into the journal.

"Come inside," she invited putting an arm supportively around me as we walked up the steps to her house and she opened a large, wooden door.

The house was almost just like the ones described in the book . . . tall, curved ceilings and thick wooden beams, ornamented with carvings. A cooking fire gently lit up and warmed the interior. The only modern improvement seemed to be a metal funnel and stovepipe above the fire that caught and channelled the smoke from the fire out of the house.

"Roana . . ." I sighed as I looked around.

"You like it?" she asked with a smile.

"I do," I decided.

"Would you like to relax with a nightcap, a bath, or a massage before bed?" she offered.

"Roana, you don't have to do all this," I cautioned as I looked at her. She seemed to now be as tired as I was.

"I want to," she assured, as she took off her flying jacket. "Here, let me relieve you of your coat. Then I just have to take Rökkr's saddle off and give him a little something."

I took off my jacket and gave it to her, and then followed her over to the cooking area.

"Thank goodness my neighbours came and made this fire for us," she appreciated as she took a bucket and then dipped it into a simmering cauldron.

I was impressed by such neighbourliness. "Wait . . . Mead Tea," I then recognized from the journal's descriptions.

"As with most all Night Furies and other dragons since Hiccup and Astrid's time, it is a favourite with Rökkr . . . his nightcap," Roana confirmed. "He also likes at least a few fish when he comes home, especially after a long flight like this," she added as she walked over and reached through what looked like a cupboard door set in the wall of the house for a few raw fish, before putting them on a metal tray.

"Here, I'll carry the tray of fish," I offered, relieving Roana of that. "So it's a symbiotic relationship, between you and the dragons?" I then asked as I followed her over to where Rökkr was already laying himself down to rest.

"Yes," she confirmed, "we, human and dragon, both depend on each other in this society, and we both benefit. We share everything. But we all know why we are here . . . to preserve this way of life, and allow the dragons to live well now, and thrive for the future."

"Here you go, Rökkr," I said as I laid down the tray of fish beside Roana's bucket of tea. "Thank you for the flight," I marvelled. "Can he understand me? I mean since you probably speak Old or New Norse here."

"Because of my time at WSU, he is the only dragon here who understands English," she smiled as she unfastened and removed Rökkr's saddle from him. "I bonded with him when I came back, and I wanted to keep my English up, so I taught him to understand it. He can understand everything we say. He just cannot speak English, or our local Norse, as he has some difficulty shaping his lips to shape and modify sounds into speech as we do. What is that, Rökkr?"

The dragon grunted again as he looked at me after eating a fish.

"He says, 'It was an honour to fly you, Revered One,'" she translated. "He will start calling you by your name in time. We just do not have any other 'Lances' here, so he will have to come up with an equivalent grunt in Dragon for you."

"How long would it take me to learn his language?" I asked, looking at him.

"Perhaps most of a lifetime, as you have not been exposed to it from birth," Roana answered as she then gave Rökkr some pleasurable scratching and rubbing along his neck as a reward after his long flight, while I now stood up and watched them both. "The distinctions among the grunts and murmurs, and the ways they use them, can be difficult to pick up. Even after almost a thousand years with them, neither we nor they have written their language or dialects down, although they can write in ours with brushes held in their mouths. But it would be difficult to figure out how to write or spell out their grunts and murmurs in either Norse runes or Roman letters. They just sound so much alike most of the time, and even a slight change in their order can completely change the meaning of what is being said. So Dragon dialects have remained oral ones. But together, we have written some of their thoughts, stories and lore in our Norse language. Most any of our human languages are much easier for them to come to understand though, because our consonants and vowels are much more distinct. As you probably deduced from what you have already read in the Journal, our founders, Hiccup and Astrid, never learned to understand or speak Night Fury or other dragon dialects themselves, only their children did. That did not diminish their bond with them however, nor would it with you."

"There, he is set for bed now," she noted with satisfaction as she turned to me. "So what would you like?"

"I don't know," I confessed to her with a smile.

"Would you like me to remind you of the choices?" she smiled in turn.

We both laughed.

"No," I assured with a gentle smile. "Roana, I know what we talked about maybe doing earlier. But I am on a knife's edge between committing to all this, and not being able to; and I want to be fair, and kind, to you. Earlier this evening . . . well, it just didn't seem to be as important, and serious, as it does to me now. I'm also pretty tired."

"Of course," she agreed as she moved closer to me. "But you wouldn't like anything? Not even a massage to help you settle in?"

"I don't know," I hesitated as I tentatively embraced her. "But I have to admit, you do feel good though."

"Whatever you would like," she offered as she smiled while gently extending her arms around me as well. "Anything."

"But the dragon," I hesitated, "he wouldn't mind?"

"If you remember the journal," she reminded me, "we helped them rediscover and appreciate romantic love. They have come to revere it, and the sharing of it, as a sacred gift. I do, too. Rökkr has even told me he wants to see me mated, and loved."

"Mated, rather than married," I remarked. "You had mentioned this before. What's the difference?"

"It has a more primal, total meaning for us," Roana noted. "The dragons have influenced it, almost given it to us. People can marry just holding hands, sometimes at arm's length from each other. But here, when we mate, we mate body and soul, our entire selves. Marriages can be broken. But once you mate with someone the way we do, the way I honestly want to, you exchange something with them . . . spiritually to me, as well as physically. Something you just cannot take back, because you choose not to. You are their mate, and they yours. There is an awareness between the two of you, always."

"So, by what you just said, isn't that what I still am to my ex-wife then?" I now wondered with some discomfort.

"Let me ask you a question," Roana posed. "Do not think about it, just answer, right away. Did you marry or really mate with your ex-wife?"

"I married her," I instinctively answered. "She and I had been in a relationship for two years already. It was convenience and familiarity as much as anything else."

"Did you mate with her?" she reiterated.

"We had sex," I said flatly, looking away. "It was release . . . for both her, and me. There was nothing spiritual. She never 'gave' her whole self to me, and really, I never did either, not like you talk about. I would have known that, or at least felt it . . . I think."

"I have had sex, too," Roana said. "A few times, only we call it 'exploring' as I have said, and it is permitted. That is what we could share tonight, if you like."

"So we wouldn't mate?" I wondered.

"It's difficult to describe to an outsider," she sighed. "But to us, even to me, mating is sacred. Not just for what those who mate do on the outside together in bed—but for what they feel as they do it, or really even well before then, on the inside. It is basically the most sacred choice and awareness any of us can ever know. And it is not just sacred with some outside deity or doctrine, but between the beings we cannot lie to . . . myself and yourself. You and I can explore tonight, but we do not decide to mate until we know together that we will not break it, which is a choice to love . . . one that becomes, and sustains, the feeling of love. It is the difference between what swans share versus what ducks do together."

"Well, how does it happen here then?" I asked.

"However the two partners involved want it to," Roana answered. "Among dragons, when a dragon decides they have found the right mate, one just looks at the other and basically grunts, 'You mate with me for life?' The other usually but not always grunts 'yes', and they just decide they are committed to loving each other, and to each other's wellbeing, after that . . . all without ceremony, unless their human friends or family insist on it. Just as with humans though, not all dragons do that. But committed dragon couples are very loving, and once committed, they never divorce. They adapt, blend, and above all, accept who each other is. If they cannot, they don't commit.

"We humans make a bit more of a celebration out of it though," she continued, changing tone somewhat. "But since we don't have priests or churches here, which Vikings never had anyway during their era, there is no religious intermediary saying, 'Wait, we have to approve or bless you before you do that, or can proclaim yourselves mated.' Swans and other beings who mate for life have never needed that. Chiefs or clan patriarchs once arranged marriages and performed loose marriage rituals or proclamations in ancient Viking times. But the founders who brought us here somewhat broke that mould, and both women and men have largely been choosing their own mates and committing how they have wanted to ever since. There is usually a feast involved, sometimes two . . . a public one and a private one. Some couples choose to exchange vows, as well as prayers to Spirit, the gods or even ancestors. But rings are usually involved somewhere in it all."

"You said dragons never divorce," I noted, "but humans never divorce here either?"

"Well, very rarely," she qualified, "a human mating can still not work out. The partners just do not have the discipline within themselves for the give and take that makes it all work, they may have decided or agreed too quickly, or they just choose differently. But they harbour no ill will here. We all value the freedom and gift that choice is. Freedom is our one founding philosophy, the reason this village was established . . . the freedom to live, believe, choose, and do as we want—both as a society, and as individuals. The freedom to love, or not love, is part of that. But the freedom of choice, and of commitment, are the most important to us . . . because otherwise, the dragons would not exist, and we would not exist as we are. All the humans here know they could live different lives on the outside, but we each have chosen this life with the dragons, and are glad, even proud, that we have."

"It is a powerful choice here," I admitted. "But what happens if two people do decide to separate?"

"If one partner does not love the other anymore," she continued, "or as they thought they did, the other partner may naturally try a little to keep their couple together. But we do not force another to remain with us. There are plenty of people here who will help separated persons to move on with life. But it just does not happen all that much. Those who want to really commit and enjoy the deepest love imaginable do so . . . for life. That is what I want. Those who do not share that, who just want to enjoy pleasure, or sometimes breed to simply experience the joy of children, can. They do on the outside anyway. But since we are close here, there is nothing to fight over in break-ups . . . people just release each other in love. And children do not need money here to be supported. Both parents are usually still around to help and raise them anyway, unless one moves to the outside, which can happen. But there are some interesting hybrid or blended families here, besides the human/dragon ones like mine."

"That all makes sense," I admitted, "a lot of sense. But if coming together and breaking up is so easy and painless, what keeps a couple together then?"

"Choice," Roana readily answered as she then took and held up my hand in hers. "A choice to know something deeper in life, the only way you can . . . with someone else. It is also a choice to honestly care for and love someone, which to me is a wonderful thing all by itself. There can be a warm, familiar comfort to be found there over time. The trick though is finding someone else who wants to make the same choice you do, and who feels right. It is something I have been seeking for some time."

She looked at me for a moment again, as she self-consciously lowered my hand and let it go. It dawned on me this time that she had just gently shared a wish with me, her heartfelt wish. I looked with compassion back at her. I moved to embrace her again, just feeling a desire to.

"Roana," I said gently, "this is why I can't sleep with you tonight. This isn't just a date or a fling anymore. It's different. It's something that I either want to take all the way with you, or leave you as a pure friend in my heart . . . not that I'd be allowed to remember you for long like that, which pains me, actually."

"It would pain me, too," she said. "But Lance, thank you," she then whispered softly. "Sorry I am whispering, but I just do not want to screw this up," she sniffed. "I wanted to let you know though, somehow."

I held her tighter. "Thanks for being honest with me," I whispered back. "I don't think I want to screw this up either."

We both chuckled as we held each other close for a quiet moment. Roana then pulled her head back and just gazed at me deeply.

"What?" I finally had to ask.

"I would screw things up so badly if I told you," she sighed, shaking her head.

"How do you know?" I invited.

"I feel it would if I did," she said without elaborating further. Roana moved her arms up around my neck and held me tightly. I held her back just as tightly.

"But I have a choice to make here," I cautioned, reminding both her and myself why I had come.

"Not tonight, alright?" she assured as she held me.

"The choice . . . all this, and you . . . it's not leaving me alone here," I sighed. "You and a life here are all blending together. I know it won't take me two years—if it feels like it needs to, as you suggested earlier today, the answer is 'no'. But, for the first time, I feel open, honest . . . with even myself. You're giving that to me, Roana. You really are."

"I am glad," she replied quietly.

I just allowed myself to look into her eyes for a moment as she gently gazed at me. I then had to look away though. I felt I would have lost myself had I looked at her any longer.

"It is alright, Lance," she said.

I closed my eyes, feeling almost overwhelmed by what she was giving me . . . the understanding, her support, her patience. I needed that right now. But I realized that accepting all that from her was only drawing me closer to her. I didn't know whether Roana's love felt more like a doorway to something new and wonderful, or a quicksand that would engulf me.

When I opened my eyes a moment later, our arms were still around each other, and she was looking at me again.

"Why don't you tell me what is in your heart," she suggested.

"Turmoil," I replied.

She just held me closer and rubbed my back. I couldn't help but hold her closer, too.

"Roana," I said softly. "I am so close to wanting to be with you."

She said nothing as she continued to hold me and stroke my back.

"You know how to deal with frightened, skittish animals, don't you?" I said as I pressed the side of my face tightly against hers.

"You are not an animal," she simply replied.

"How long are you going to hold me like this?" I wondered as I now stared off past her.

"How long do you want to be held?" she answered.

"The longer I hold you, the longer I'm held by you, the more I love you," I admitted. "But the more I feel I lose myself."

"And you do not know if you are ready to give that self up," she noted in our embrace as she looked past me as well.

"That's it," I agreed. "That is exactly it."

"Well," she said looking at me once more, "you are here to try all this, and me, on. See if it fits, feels right. So, how am I feeling so far?"

"Good," I had to admit. "Almost dangerously good."

"That is the best kind of good," she smiled.

Both of us silently moved close again and held each other for what seemed like the longest time. Roana eventually seemed to shift a little, settling against me.

"I'm sorry, are you going to sleep?" I asked.

"You are restful to me," she said. "Your presence, your embrace . . . they are soothing."

"I don't want us to fall over here," I cautioned.

"You are right," she replied now stirring herself and drawing back from me a little.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I didn't want to ruin our moment."

"Well, it doesn't have to end," she suggested.

I drew Roana back to me. She didn't resist, even as I gently brought my lips to hers. She willingly kissed me as I began kissing her. It became a harmony, even a shared silent, physical music between us. We just kissed and embraced and caressed more and more. I reached a hand under her tunic and felt the skin of her lower back, as she grabbed the tail of my shirt, lifting it up so she could rub her hand on my lower back as well. I loved the sensations. I began surrendering to them, even craving them.

But it wasn't right.

"Roana . . . we'd better stop," I gently said amid our kisses, forcing myself back from crossing to a place, a place of commitment with her, that I just wasn't ready to yet, the way I knew she wanted me to. "I can't explore with you like this," I said. "I just can't. For me, it's either commitment, or it has to be nothing. You're already too special to me for anything less than that."

"I understand," she said as we ended our kissing. "But Lance . . ."

"What, Roana?" I asked.

She looked away and shook her head. "I cannot say anything further," she sighed, before looking at me again. I could see her longing for me in her eyes. I allowed my own gaze into her eyes to linger. If we had kissed again, neither of us would have been able to stop.

"Come," she then invited, now looking away, "you take the bed tonight. I will sleep beside Rökkr, as I normally do."

"Oh yeah," I remembered, as I recovered myself as well, "as described in the journal."

"Rökkr is very kind, and very loving to me," she said as she looked at him dozing now. "He and I are not mates, but we are committed to each other, as much as most any dragon and human can ever be. So you were right a while ago, I do have a 'guy' in my life. But he is no threat to you and I, and if you chose, you would enter into the family bond I share with him, too."

"Roana," I said hesitantly, "I don't want to torture you, or us. But I don't want to be apart from you tonight, or almost this morning now. With all this," I sighed, "all the decisions or choices I have to make here, I don't even know if I'll sleep all that well."

"Would you like a massage anyway?" Roana offered with a smile. "No strings, no sex, no mating, no test . . . just an honest gift, from me to you. One that will allow you to relax, maybe find peace with everything here, and discover what is really right for you."

"Roana, you're tired," I sighed with empathy.

"Can I tell you something else dangerous?" she asked.

"Alright," I nodded with a gentle smile.

"I wanted to give you a gift of welcome, amid all this that I know is very overwhelming to you," she said. "It was about to be a gift of exploring sexual pleasure with me. But I honour the choice you just made. It feels even better than sex."

We both laughed.

"Roana, you are dangerously, even perilously important to me now," I assured as we continued to loosely hold each other. "We both know I maybe have a day or so here, to make up my mind. For me now, to make love with you would be to mate with you, bond with you. I have to make sure within me that it's a promise, and a choice, I can keep . . . for your sake. I will not do to you what has been done to me."

"That is a gift," she tearfully marvelled as she embraced me tightly again. "Ohh that is such a gift from you." She then just looked at me a little differently, somehow more deeply than she had been before.

"What is it?" I dared to ask.

"I cannot tell you," she said once again, almost tearfully smiling.

"You want to though," I sensed. "So why not tell me."

"To tell you," she replied, taking a breath, " . . . would be to ruin your freedom of choice. All I want," she continued as she placed a hand over my heart, "is for you to peacefully and deliberately make the right choice, for you and who you want to be."

"Roana . . . that is love," I quietly noted.

She just quietly nodded as she continued to look into my eyes.

"You've told me anyway," I said as I looked at her. "You've been telling me one way or another ever since we walked in, haven't you?"

Roana just quietly nodded to me again.

I just closed my eyes and held her tighter once more, knowing what her nod meant. She had given me a gift . . . the kind of recognition and decision within herself that each of us really only gives once in our lives, if we're lucky enough to find someone so special to give it to at all. I wasn't sure if I was worthy of what she had decided to give me.

"My choice is harder, at least one alternative is," I finally dared to say.

"I am sorry, Lance," she sniffed as she embraced me again and buried her head against my shoulder. "But I will love you now, whether you stay or go back."

I cringed inside as she said that.

"I want you to know I am at peace with this," she continued, "whatever you decide. I want you to have freedom. I so want that for you."

"Oh man, Roana," I said, closing my eyes even tighter as I held her. "That really messes me up."

"I know, I know," she said, almost in frustration. "When we wake up to the day, let us both take a step back, clear our heads and hearts, and try and really talk this thing out, okay?"

"We both know it won't be that easy," I warned.

"Would you allow me to apologise to you then?" she asked.

"For what?" I asked.

"Do I have to say it between us?" she replied.

"No," I responded. "But how?"

"I would like to give you that massage," she said. "No sex, strings or obligations as I said. But I would just like to give you something that no one else can, quite like I want to. Even your accepting this would be a gift to me."

"Would you let me give you a massage, too then?" I gently countered.

"No," she firmly replied. "Not tonight. Massages are best given just one per night."

"We're staying two nights then, okay?" I requested.

"Alright," she accepted with a smile, "yes, we can. Rökkr deserves a rest between these long flights anyway. But here," she then surprised me, "I have a night tunic and pants for you, over there on the chair."

"Roana . . . thank you," I sighed with gratitude as I admired the very soft and short-sleeved dark blue tunic and white cloth pants. They were so new they looked like they had never even been touched.

"The tunic, it matches your blue eyes," she admired as she looked at both it and me. "I noticed them when I saw you for a moment in the inn's lobby, even though you would not look at me. I traded for it during our several days apart, hoping you would come to enjoy it."

"Roana . . ." I sighed again.

"I know," she replied, "it is too much."

I just had to hug her once more. "No, it's not," I assured.

Neither of us could say a word for a moment. Roana was skilfully weaving a web . . . one of real, even perfect, love. She was ensnaring me, drawing me in, more and more with each passing moment. I was fast becoming less and less interested in escaping it, or her. I realized that part of me, my old self and any thought of an independent life, was genuinely at risk of dying here.

"My nightdress is over behind the screen there," she continued, almost distracting me from my thoughts, as we gradually recovered ourselves yet again. "You can change here, and I there if you like, unless you want to switch, or you do not mind changing in the open."

"Roana, you are so beautiful to me," I sighed. "I think we'd better change separately, tonight anyway."

"A wise decision, for both of us," she agreed. "But leave your tunic off for the time being . . . if you want that massage."

As she went off and changed behind her screen, I quickly changed into the night pants and lay face down on what was obviously Roana's customary floor mattress next to a now sleeping Rökkr.

I am next to a dragon, I silently thought to myself as I turned my head to look at him, a real dragon. I watched him breathe, almost trying to mentally dissect him and how his body worked as I did. I wanted to reach out and touch him again, but stopped myself from doing so. The surreal nature of it all was suddenly hitting me like a ton of bricks.

I resisted raising and turning my head to look at Roana though as I then heard her walk barefoot across the wooden floor back towards me. If I did, I knew I would lose my heart for sure, and I would not be able to resist taking her and utterly mating with her. That would have been all too easy. But Roana and I . . . we both deserved better than that.

She didn't say a word as I felt her kneel down around my legs. Her hands then touched my bare back, and I practically convulsed from her touch.

"Easy . . . easy . . ." she soothed as she laid her entire self down on my back and embraced me from behind. She even felt irresistibly beautiful.

"Roana," I said with tension in my voice. "This is harder for me than I thought it would be."

"Let me relax you and help make it easier," she softly whispered into my ear as she held me. "Just think about having this any night you wanted."

"Any night?" I asked.

"Any night," she confirmed as she rose up again, spread some kind of cream or oil into her hands, and began working what I can only describe as magic across my neck, shoulders, and back.

"Wait," I stopped her, rising up on my elbows and trying to look at least to the side some. "What about you? What do you want?"

"I would like it most any night, too," was all she would reply as her hands gently pressed me down onto the mattress again and went back to work on me.

Soon, I was living what could only be thought of as a fantasy . . . bedded down on a plush floor mattress beside a dragon, and being massaged by a beautiful Viking who was wearing something very soft that I didn't dare look at. Roana was giving me both the deepest, most satisfying rubs I had ever known, and caresses so gentle that they practically floated me off the mattress. Her hands were creating what felt like a work of sensual art, with my back as her canvas.

When she saw I was almost lulled to sleep, Roana finally settled down between Rökkr and I as she drew a quilt over both her and myself. "Goodnight," she ever so softly whispered soothingly into my ear with a kiss, as she spooned behind me against my back, laying an arm around me.

I had never felt so loved and cared for in all my life, especially during my past married life. As Roana was doing here, my ex-wife had once pursued me, too. Truth be told, that parallel made me a little uncomfortable. But I drew comfort from the clear impression that Roana seemed so much wiser and more in tune with what love and life itself were, and could be.

"You want your tunic on?" she gently asked, holding me from behind in bed.

"No," I sighed pleasantly. "You can keep me warm."

I leaned back against Roana a little more under the quilt. She drew me in and snuggled me closer as well, silently rubbing my bare chest with her hands as she kissed my ear and cheek.

I was loved, dammit . . . really loved now! What the hell was wrong with me here? I shifted again from my inner agitation. Roana sensed it.

"Peace," she now whispered in my ear. "Be at peace, Lance. Do not struggle with your decision. Do not beat yourself up that you have not made it yet . . . or get frustrated that anything is standing in your way. Sleep. We have time, and the right things will happen."

"Your faith, your certainty," I quietly marvelled, "it's more than I've seen elsewhere, in anyone else."

"Thank you," I felt her smile.

"Roana, I love you," I said.

"I love you, too, Lance," she softly replied, "so very much."

"That, I can see," I assured.

"Sleep, my love," she encouraged as she continued nestling me. "All is right now. All is right . . ."

"I wanna give it all up for you . . ." I mumbled.

"Shhhhhhh . . ." she just soothed ever so softly as she gently rocked me. I closed my eyes as I drew her arms more tightly around me.

What are the boundaries between love and freedom? I wondered as I savoured her embrace around me. When is it worth giving up one to have the other? I began to think that maybe, just maybe, real freedom was found in accepting another's love.

I almost wanted to talk about this with Roana, but I could sense that she was now already asleep behind me, as was Rökkr behind her. I didn't want to disturb either of them, so I closed my eyes again and allowed Roana's soothing presence, her peace and love, to usher me off to sleep as well. As I ever so gently took one of her soft, warm hands into mine, I felt her fingers gently squeeze my fingers as she seemed to shift a little against me. Even in her sleep, she was responding to me . . . showing her incredible love to me.

Soon I was asleep as well, nestled in a heaven that was inviting me to stay.