The Hedgehog's Bride

Intro

(out past the fence line, something waits...)

Verse

They say a farmer wished too hard one year,

Got a son with quills instead of hair,

His father couldn't look him in the eye,

Sent him off with a rooster to ride.

I heard the story before we'd met,

How they burned his cradle, called it a debt,

How a boy can be born and still be sent away,

For the shape he wore on his very first day.

Pre-Chorus

He built a hut where the pines grow tall,

Kept his pigs and his donkeys, nothing more at all,

Played his pipes to a forest that never asked why,

No one came close enough to say goodbye.

Chorus

I saw the quills before I saw the man,

I took his rough hand in my hand,

Other brides ran from the sight of him,

I stayed and learned to love the skin.

He waited years in a house of thorn,

For someone not afraid of how he was born,

I won't pretend the waiting didn't hurt him deep,

I just came late to a promise he kept.

Verse

His father's kingdom turned its face away,

Called it shame, never called it fate,

A crown that only wanted a son who looked the part,

Left the real one alone in the dark, alone with his own heart.

Years he counted geese instead of friends,

Years he learned how a story bends,

I won't say sorry fixes what was lost,

I'll say I stayed, whatever the cost.

Chorus

I saw the quills before I saw the man,

I took his rough hand in my hand,

Other brides ran from the sight of him,

I stayed and learned to love the skin.

He waited years in a house of thorn,

For someone not afraid of how he was born,

I won't pretend the waiting didn't hurt him deep,

I just came late to a promise he kept.

Bridge

On our wedding night they burned the hide,

Said it was mercy, said it was pride,

But I'd already loved what was underneath,

Long before the fire took his old, tired skin,

His loneliness doesn't end because I came,

Some years don't heal, they just change their name,

I hold him now the way no one did then,

Late, but here, and here again.

Final Chorus

I saw the quills before I saw the man,

I took his rough hand in my hand, (I still do)

Other brides ran from the sight of him,

I stayed and learned to love the skin.

He waited years in a house of thorn,

For someone not afraid of how he was born,

I won't pretend the waiting didn't hurt him deep,

I just came late to a promise he kept.

Outro

(out past the fence line, nothing waits now...)

A rooster still crows where the old hut stood,

A boy grew up alone in the wood,

Some stories end in a wedding bed,

Some just end in the words that were never said.

Spoken

"This music was created by DiscoPrincess — Royalty of the Night"