Chapter Nine
The Proposal
"Why didn't you wait for me?"
- Wesley, the Princess Bride
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"How could you lose hope?" Her voice is heavy with diamond tears. "How could you think I would not come?" Her heart pounds. She has never been so close to a mortal, has never felt such strange longing. "Why didn't you wait for me?"
"I did!"
"But not in your heart. And because of this..."
Secretly, she is willing to choose him, a mortal life and a mortal man.
"I will do anything you ask!" He swears recklessly. "I will give you whatever you desire, whatever you ask! I will travel the world for you! I... I..." His mind casts about for something desperate and sincere to say.
"You would not do this for my sake, Isumbras," she whispers sadly.
"I would! I would go, and... and bring you a necklace of icicles, slippers of glass, a dress of rose petals! I would bring you a cape of swan feathers, a crown of moonlight! I would bring you the moon itself, on... on a chain! And bring it all back in the fur of a white wolf!
"All these things I would do for you, if you would but be my wife!"