My Warden (COMPLETED)

My Family

A little Halloween/Fall Solstice story with Cullen to get everyone into the autumn mood.

Six months after their wedding, Cullen and Lana Amell visit his sister's farm. Being a mage, Lana missed out on all the traditions that came with All Soul's Day and Cullen is ecstatic to teach them all to her. Lots of Fluff & Kissing.

I'll be updating a new chapter every Tuesday in October and there's lots of other fun surprises along the way.

Children's laughter threaded through the fall air, wrapping itself around the barn as a trio of Cullen's nieces chased after his only nephew who carried a stick covered in ribbons. Orange and black tendrils trailed in his wake as he kept slowing down for the girls to get near but not enough for them to catch him. Lana chuckled at the antics as they passed by for a third time, none of them showing any sign of slowing. She leaned back from the bowl in her lap and scooted across the tarps tossed upon the wood floor. Despite the creeping chill of autumn, a warm sun beamed down upon them, the rays powerful enough she dressed only in a light dress that blended her in with the other farming families filling the land. Her cane rested a few feet away within easy reach, but for the moment she only had need of the knife clutched in her husband's fingers.

With his tongue pinned between teeth, Cullen drove the blade deep into the flesh of a green and yellow star shaped gourd. Sawing with the same deadly focus he'd spend upon the march of armies, he augured a hand sized hole into the top of the gourd and then pried it off. Strings of elongated squash fibers stretched from the top, back inside the vegetable. Without any care, Cullen sliced the innards off the top with his knife, then scooped a massive handful out with his hand.

"We're supposed to save the seeds," Lana spoke, her eyes upon her own pile of gourds she was supposed to be preparing. It was not going as well.

The tongue slid back into his mouth, and those honey eyes lifted from his prize to try and find hers. With exaggerated movements, he plopped his fistful of guts into the pail. "I know," Cullen insisted, as if he hadn't intended to toss another pile to the mabari resting a few feet away, her tail thumping in anticipation.

"Mia was insistent about planting another crop. And she said something about roasting the remainder?" Lana cast an eye over at him, uncertain of the proposal.

He chuckled at her unease and placed a hand on her knee, the fingers still coated in gourd guts. "Don't worry, they're rather tasty once seasoning's added." His eyes darted down to her leg now slimy with the squash's strings. "Oh, sorry, I...uh..."

Carefully, Lana plucked up a pile of the guts from her own barely carved squash, leaned over, and dropped it onto Cullen's hair. Orange streaked through his sandy locks, dripping down his cheeks as he laughed. "I suppose I deserved that."

Lana wiped her fingers off on the tarp below her, "Not really."

Smiling wide at her response, Cullen scooted forward and, with his gut covered fingers scooped along her jaw, pulled her in for a kiss soft as a sunflower's petals. He was so achingly handsome by the hazy autumn light, dressed nonchalant in mended and patched breeches as well as a simple checked shirt she didn't care about the squash juice sticking to her skin.

"I love you," he sighed, tugging his hand around her waist and trying to scoot her closer for a hug. She wanted to give into his machinations but she had business to accomplish, even if it wasn't going very well. Cullen paused in his attempts to snuggle her tight to him and gestured at the gourd in between her legs.

While he had the good sense to carve a gaping hole in his, allowing easy access to scrape away the innards, Lana began with one so small her hand barely fit inside. Sighing, she admitted, "I'm afraid I'm not very good at this."