When he realizes she's a bit unsteady (whoops. Also, hot, but also whoops) he holds onto her shoulder with his free hand (the other one on the bike) to help her. "I'm looking forward to that too! I'm perfectly happy to start with that, lead the way!" 

She wraps her arms around him and nestles her face against his shoulder and applies the cozy squeezes, and then when she lets go she's all steady on her feet again.

...one more peck on the cheek. Because she loves him.

Okay.

She turns around and skates into the forest, beaming excitedly.

(She's so cute! And into him! And going to be his! He cannot fucking wait!) 

He grins at her kiss and hops back up onto his bike and bikes carefully after her (does the mansion place (Old House, right?) have running water right now? Probably not. Best to take it extra slow so she doesn't have to shower and have no way to do so.) 

She keeps to a mostly reasonable pace. Instead of taking him to her front door, she passes right by it and goes for the gate that leads to the old house; since opening it is obnoxious, she leads him around the side.

John has some trouble fitting through the gap at the side of the gate while riding (especially while riding slower than he's used to). He ends up getting off his bike to get through rather than trying to pilot his way through, he can catch up to her quite quickly right afterwards. 

She maintains her reasonable pace as they approach the old house, even though she keeps being tempted to go faster.

John is excited too! But it's better to wait and be careful and not make Rosy feel the need to take a shower. And they have plenty of day ahead of them (and since he gets to sleep over, tomorrow too!).

In this manner they eventually arrive at the old house, with its enormous courtyard and its enormous fountain.

Rosy opens the stable gate for John to leave his bike in the rack while she swaps out her skates, just like last time, and just like last time leads him from there toward the front door, where—

—she stops just in front of it and asks, "Actually, I should double-check. Is it okay with you if I introduce you to the house as my betrothed? It's pretty old-fashioned and I'm not sure it'll understand 'boyfriend'."

John... isn't sure what to do with that. 

On the one hand... he's not her betrothed (though is he likely to be? Honestly, it makes sense that he'd marry her eventually, right?) and isn't sure if he's going to be (well... kinda). Or at least doesn't really want to commit to being her betrothed. Yet. (Even if it's a bit of an obvious and foreseen outcome.) But at the same time... it's old magic, and Rosy knows what she's doing and he doesn't. It's probably fine. "Sure, that'll work," he says, after pausing for (several) moments. "That should be fine." 

"My runner-up is 'lover' but... I want the house to understand how important you are to me, and I think 'betrothed' hits that target better. It also matters if you're comfortable with it, though!"

'Lover' might be closer, but hearing her say that he's important to her makes him blush. And she knows what she's doing. "It should be fine," he tells her. (And they really are probably going to end up there anyways. It wouldn't really be ethical to do otherwise. Well, unless she doesn't want to get married? But for all practical purposes, that's what's going to happen, right?) 

"Okay." She kisses him on the cheek. "Then let's do this. Hold my hand and don't interrupt me, okay?"

"I can do that!" he says, grinning at her. 'Don't make any noise at all without the caster's invitation' was on the checklist. He's read that plenty of times (okay, the wording was different, but the idea is the same) while practicing his lines and making extra double sure he hasn't missed anything. It makes sense that it would apply here too. Even if this isn't supposed to be a ritual per-se? Doesn't matter. Time for Silent John. 

She takes his hand in hers, opens the door, and leads him into the house.

There's something about the way she steps over the threshold that has a weight to it. It's—mostly?—just in her body language, a sense of care and attention and thoughtful purpose, but it makes entering the house feel momentous in a way it didn't before.

"I am Euphrosyne Blake, daughter of Ishtar Blake, daughter of Nike Blake," she calls into the darkness of the foyer. A brilliant white glow peeks through the fingers of her left hand, which she's holding closed against her chest. In a grave and dignified motion, she sweeps her arm forward and opens her hand to release the fairy light, which floats forward to cast its light on the pillars and the curved steps and the yawning entrances of the library and dining room beyond them.

"Wake for me," she says firmly.

There's a beat of silence, and then the lights flicker to life, warm and welcoming. Rosy's fairy light returns to her hand to be reabsorbed.

"This is John," she adds, squeezing his hand. "Treat him as my betrothed." The lights ripple in acknowledgment. "Make up the master suite for us, and let us know when you have dinner on the table." Another ripple. "I will be thinking about possible renovations over the coming weeks, but before I decide on anything I want to see you at your best." The ripple this time somehow manages to seem pleased. Rosy nods regally.

Then she turns to John and smiles, squeezing his hand again. "Okay, you can talk now."

That was... honestly slightly low key? But also awesome. "That was really neat!" he says. "Was it... happy, when you said you wanted to see it at its best? Or was I just reading into things? I felt like I thought it was happy but maybe that was just me." 

"It was totally happy! The house can be surprisingly expressive. C'mon, let's go see what it's done with the master suite."

"Already? How fast can it do housekeeping things? And renovations, for that matter?" Didn't she say something about getting laundry done very fast when she last talked about how helpful it was? 

Also, side note, this place looks great now that the lights are on. He pauses to look around at all the decor. And the double height ceiling. And the columns, and the giant pair of stairwells in front of him... "This place is really pretty," he says, taking it all in. 

"I don't think it can do housekeeping literally instantaneously but I think it can do it very, very fast. Renovations will be slower, when we get there."

"Right, gotcha," he says, still staring at all the pretty decor. Then he shakes his head. Didn't Rosy just ask him to come along? Whoops. She doesn't seem to be minding, but still, not very polite. "Sorry, right," he says. "You said something about going to the master suite? Lead the way!" He reaches out a hand so she can take it if she wants to to lead him along. And then he thinks about the things they're going to get up to in the Master suite very, very soon and starts uncontrollably grinning (and might be slightly turned on as well).

She grins at him, takes his hand, kisses it, and leads him on a leisurely stroll through the house.

And John grins some more, and follows, turning this way and that to take in all the sights as they travel. 

The house is much prettier with its lights on but the library and dining room are still pretty empty, so the real star of this little tour is the double spiral staircase, which had fewer decorations to lose. Fully lit, it turns out that the cream carpets have subtle detailing at the edges, and the wooden banister gleams beautifully without the dust that used to cover it. Rosy pauses to stick her head into the open central column of the right-hand stair and look up and down, the better to really get a feel for the way it comes up out of the basement and spirals its way to the second floor.

"You could hang a hell of a chandelier down this thing," she comments. "Sparkles from top to bottom. Do you see it?"

John isn't entirely sure what she means by that for a moment (chandeliers are balls, or like not balls but ball (or maybe half-sphere?) shaped if you squint, not like, a cylinder) but he gets it after running it through his brain several times. Then he sticks his head in the same spot she is and looks up and down. "I'd be worried about someone touching it maybe?" he says, and then immediately regretting it (he shouldn't be saying bad things about her ideas!). "But probably no one would. At least if there was enough leeway between handrail and chandelier. It would look really stunning, at least! I've never seen anything like it." 

"I think it would be fine if someone touched it! You could reach out and poke the dangling sparkly crystals and they'd go tinkle-tink."