"My love!" Huinesoron cried, clasping Neshomeh's soft, delicate, beautiful hands in his warm, strong, also-beautiful-but-in-a-manly-way hands. "I have waited desperately, eagerly, anxiously to see you again!"

A single tear ran down the side of Neshomeh's wonderful, gorgeous, flawless face, and she had to turn away from him.

"Neshomeh, my love?" Huinesoron said, his warm, strong sod this I'm not going to repeat the same adjective string every time his hands come up you can't make me hand cupping her chin and gently, sweetly, inexorably turning her head back towards him. "Whatever is the matter?"

Neshomeh let out a sob, and threw her arms around Huinesoron, which accidentally pulled his wide-open shirt a little wider. Well, she tried to throw her arms around him, but Huinesoron had such a magnificent physique that she didn't really reach all the way around. "Oh, my precious, my darling, my one and only!" she cried, burying her face in his unrealistically-defined chest. "My love, my sweet, my sugarplum, I'm married!"

Huinesoron's perfect, elfin, improbable face was the picture of confusion. "But, of course, my love--I am as well. We are married to one another."

"We are not!" Neshomeh wailed, her face still managing to be awe-inspiring, unmarred, and equally-improbable as she cried. "My love, my--my--" her perfect face, once in the throes of agony, was now confused and thoughtful. "I, I can't think of any more endearments."

"Orange blossom?" Huinesoron suggested, his chocolatey, perfect, unnaturally-good-smelling hair blowing a little more dramatically in the wind than usual.

Neshomeh grinned. "Thanks!" Her face once again became one of agonized love. "My orange blossom," she continued, "I am married to Phobos!"

"Phobos?" Huinesoron repeated, staggering slightly. "But--my peach--my nectarine--my heart--I love you!"

Neshomeh sobbed, once again burying her face in Huinesoron's chest. "And you are married to Kaitlyn!" she howled. "My--my--um--my dove, my parakeet, my toucan--we are not married to each other!"

Huinesoron desperately, unceasingly, need...fully? clung to Neshomeh. A single manly tear rolled down his manly face. "Then, my love," he whispered, looking into the middle distance, his hair somehow managing to blow even more dramatically in the wind, "we will run away together."

Neshomeh pulled away and looked up at him, eyes wide. "But--my lemming--my groundhog--my hamster--what of our spouses?"

"Is our love not true?" Huinesoron said, willing dramatic music into the background. A veritable gale whistled around them, tossing his hair around his face, and he had to shout to be heard over it. "ARE WE NOT IN LOVE, NESHOMEH?"

"WE ARE, MY PRECIOUS SNOWFLAKE!" she replied, forgetting that she was obligated to use no fewer than three terms of endearment. Then she thought of something. "BUT, MY DARLING, WOULDN'T THAT BE ADULTERY?"

Huinesoron frowned. His concentration slipped, and the gale and dramatic music ceased. "Well, er, I suppose so..."

Neshomeh looked up at him, confused. "But, um, my wombat, isn't Alleb writing this?"

"Um," Huinesoron said, looking around him at the undescribed setting, "um, I think she is?"

"Well, my star-nosed mole, she wouldn't write an adulterous story, would she? I mean, it doesn't seem very in-character for her."

"I suppose it isn't," Huinesoron admitted, baffled. "Does, er, does this mean we're through?"

"I'm afraid so," Neshomeh said, stepping away from him and wiping the tears from her cheeks. She turned and began walking away, presumably towards Phobos. "Bye, hS!" she called over her shoulder.

"Huh," Huinesoron said. He stood for a moment, then started in the opposite direction. He supposed Kaitlyn must be around here, somewhere....