Part of her wants to look around and find out where it's coming from, how he got the flowers laid, how has he organised the weather for this? But it fades away when she looks at him. It always does.

She obliges him, her gaze locked on his, her hands in his hands.

She'll go where he goes, if he only stays this close.

"There's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you tonight, dear," she murmurs, amber eyes sparkling. 

He only smiles. "For you. It's always been for you."

All right. 

It's time. 

The song ends. (You can, in fact, in all of Falador, if you have a lot of influence, find an elven musician to hide in a corner at five minutes' notice.)

He kneels. 

Takes out the ring. 

"Raina." His eyes shine now with a purpose greater, older, than he is. "Will you be my Queen?"

The sob breaks from her before she even realises it. 

All she's ever wanted. A home. A great love. Someone to be her harbour.

It doesn't even matter if she's scared or unsure. They will work through it together. Forever. 

She kneels to meet him, tears streaking her perfect face, half-laughing, half-crying as she closes her hands around his. 

"Yes. Forever and always, yes, yes, yes." 

He's not sure how he ends up where he does, with the ring on her finger and Raina in his arms as he stands, holding her close, kissing her. 

"I love you," he whispers, for lack of any better words in this or any language. 

She's laughing through her tears, gasping for air, and between kisses she says to him, "I love you; I cannot imagine loving anyone else; I will love you forever."

Raina clutches him close, arms thrown around his neck, breathing in the smell of him, and bergamot, and that perfume she's made him start wearing and admires the ring on her finger. 

"Where did you get this? Have you had this since we left Volturgard?"

He chuckles, leaning his head against hers. "Er. Yeah. A while ago, actually. I kind of - while you were away I petitioned the dwarf king. There are - there's the crown jewels but I - I thought you should have something new. New beginnings. It's dwarf-wrought, his majesty ordered the greatest jeweller under the mountain out of retirement for it -" he's aware that he's rambling. "Yes. I had it made... a long time ago, honestly. I knew."

She has makeup on, gods, can she just stop crying already, it's ruining the makeup and the dress and probably most of this night.

"How long?" she whispers, grinning. She loves knowing how he thinks of her. 

Yeah he doesn't care as long as it's the good kind of crying.

"Before the Kraken." He'd been waiting for a good time and not completely sure she'd say yes after everything, but none of that seems important now. 

She stares at him in wonder, and réalisation snaps into place, rendering the world in such sparkling clarity. 

She's going to worship Her for the rest of her days. 

"You know, I... I always thought you might think this is silly, but all these years after Lapidir, I was travelling, and searching for... something." She cocks her head at him. "There was this... push, this desire, this wanderlust that could never be sated. I met a priest of Aphrodite, and they did something to me, maybe gave me some part of Her spark, and it only abated when I arrived in Volturgard."

Raina smiles at him, his, forever. If what she's saying is right, she might have always been. "I think She was guiding me to you." 

Warp and weft, a pattern complete, a circle closed. A rose grown out from cold stone, a breath of warmth in the winter, a flash of light in the blackness; She sees it and it is good. 

A soul lights up in Her sight forever, another of Hers stolen away from the darkness; and then Her attention moves on. 

"It's not silly." He says it all at once, knowing somehow. "It isn't. Of course Heaven knew - this was meant to be, Raina."

She beams, precious and vulnerable and happy, in the way that he sees only. To everyone else, she is the seductress, the bard, the politician, the Siren of Lapidir, but to him... she is Raina. 

"You can take my clothes off now."

He cups her face and kisses her face first. 

His, his Queen, now and forever. 

And then he takes her into his arms.