Royalty does not normally find solace or even joy within the woods. It seems so odd, almost impossible to describe, and yet if Shirayuki ever knew a place that made her heart swell with a sort of warmth that's hard to define, it would be the woods, the very place where she met her husband. She'd been staying off the main roads, running away, and then she'd stumbled upon an abandoned house, and while that is not the beautiful destination where love is planted or tenderly cherished until it's in full bloom, that's where she encountered a friendship that slowly formed, that became as natural as the woods surrounding them.

It felt safe, like home, and wasn't the over the top overload that one hears in story books as a child and imagines finding love tastes just as exquisite. It came on so slow, that she was in love without realizing it, that she longed to be beside Zen like wings on a butterfly, close and together.

Shirayuki hadn't anticipated love, and maybe it was fitting that they ended up on the forest on the castle grounds when they finally spoke the words of their hearts and truly let love take over. Her first kiss was in a tower, but her second kiss was within the beauty entrenching a woods, kneeling on the hard marble path, arms nestled around the love of her life, that had slipped so easily, so naturally, into her heart that she hadn't noticed at first.

This time, she knew a kiss was coming, and she responded with the gentleness that the softness of the woods seemed to pour into their hearts or perhaps it was just the realization that being in the woods together, sharing these moments, had evoked in them. Or maybe it was something about their transformation, from friends to together like this, to working as hard as possible to be together in a way that might not be accepted so readily.

In the woods came the first tender action of love blossoming before them, though they'd felt it's breath long before, and also, here came the determination to fight for each other despite what ever obstacle stumbled on to their path. They were determined more than anything to make this work, and that is something they'll do.


Of course, their relationship grew from then on, and perhaps the woods really was the place for that, as Zen had led her on horseback to a woods, a forest, off of castle grounds, the day that he proposed to her, said those promised words this time for real, this time without the hint of saying them right over top of them. Instead they flowed naturally, instead finally they could look at each other and know that the future will fully be together.

She'd said, 'yes,' felt the whisper of wind across her skin when she'd leaned over to kiss him, as if the wind was supporting them too, the sound that Zen loved of the wind rustling through the trees, brushing along the leaves, the delicate cadence to another new beginning together, another transformation.

It's here that they know that the fight to be together will be easier from the outside, but together they may have to learn a lot more together, though they don't think of it that day, not as they lean together, with hearts filled to the brim with hope, like the leaves have often held dew.

The woods has been a home away from the castle for a long time for the two of them, a place where change is embraced with a sort of joy that's hard to ignore, and where new beginnings are allowed to unfold. Perhaps, that's why they still find themselves slipping out to wander the leaf covered paths, to hold hands, and feel the embrace of the wind together.

Long since married, this is their second home, whether it's a familiar woods or a newer one, they all hold the gentleness of where two people met, where two people confessed their love for each other, and finally, where two people decided that a lifetime together is something they both want.

So it is here, that they make their trek whenever an opportunity presents itself.