Eulalie could not find it within herself to be more stern with him, not about his attitude, not about his keeping something like this from her. Not when she looked upon his face and saw the shadow of distress over it. Not when he deflated with his breath and spoken words. She wanted answers, but to see him stand before her so nearly defeated wore away at her resolve. Already there was a softening to the sharpness of her gaze.

A half-brother. Eulalie had struggled enough with her own sister to know that sibling relationships were not made of blood alone, if at all. She yearned to know more, however. The discontent she had witnessed was not born of simple genetics she was sure. Whatever it was that had put such a chasm between Somnus and Atreus was much more than that.

“You’ve never told me about your family much,” Eulalie said, and she thought of all the weight he has always carried on his shoulders, of all the ways he has doubted his ability to be a King and she wondered if this is why. Was it this, this part of his past that she’d never heard, that made him question himself and had filled him with guilt?

The ivory woman looked at the way this burden weighed on him as he averted his gaze and sighed, and her heart ached for him. There was a line between them, binding them together. Maybe not physically, maybe it was not there at all in any capacity, but she felt it all the same. It tugged on her every time she looked at him, every time her beat a little faster at his touch or settled into a content rhythm when he was near. Now, it pulled on her, drawing her close to him.

Eulalie closed the space between them even before he had finished speaking, and she pressed against him, wrapping him in a gentle but firm embrace. In the quiet between them she allowed herself to feel the way his heart beat beneath the blanket of his skin, and she knew, had always known, that this was right. Nothing could change that. “You can tell me, and I will be here with you through it all. You don’t have to carry this alone any longer.”

"Speaking."

In that embrace Eulalie understood. They stood chest to chest and she could feel his heart and hear his breath and she knew: this had been weighing on him for far too long, whether he had chosen to speak of it before now or not. She lent her strength to him, her resolve. The sunshine woman felt her love for him in her whole being and she wished it were something more tangible, something for him to hold onto.

Then, he breathed, and then he spoke.

She listened with rapt attention, patiently allowing him the quiet and time he needed to get everything out. His description of their youth reminded her (not so fondly) of her own childhood. Her parents had always favored her elder sister, as though she were their only child. But, to become cold and hardened was a choice. Eulalie had never allowed the actions of her family or anyone else to skew who she was, to mold her into something that she did not want to be. For all the ways they had looked down on her, for all the ways they had treated her like she was less than worthy, the ways they had hurt and wronged her, she had tried not to give them the power. She wondered why, then, had Atreus seemingly given himself over to the jealousy?

When Somnus paused, Eulalie wondered if he might stop speaking. But he pressed a kiss to her neck and continued, and a smile turned up the edges of her lips. She gently brushed her nose along his skin in reassurance, a feather light, adoring touch.

The words continued to flow, slipping off Somnus’ tongue and filling the space around them. Each one painted a picture in her mind. The thought of a younger, curious Somnus and serious Ulric brought another smile to her face. She had never known their origin story, and she thought it suited the pair of them quite well. It made her happy to know that he’d had a friend in Ulric throughout these troubling times in his story. That they’d had friends in each other. But Eulalie could tell this tale was becoming more difficult for him to voice, as each pause came, every breath he took to prepare himself to speak more. She admired him so much, and her heart swelled.

Soon, the images painted in her mind turned dark. Stained with blood and betrayal and darkness. It would be a lie to say that her heart did not ache for what had been done to Atreus, for the trials he had been forced to face in his life. Eulalie could not, and did not want to, imagine how she would react if something were to happen to Somnus and her children, especially done by another’s hand. Would she too go mad? Do anything for revenge? She couldn’t say, and the thought only made her resolve to protect her family even greater.

Then Somnus was done, the last of his story falling to the air and dissipating like a mist in the eye of the sun. She did not move, for a moment, remaining there pressed against him, until finally she did step back, catching his verdant green eyes with her own, dark as earth. “Worried about what he might do while he’s here,” she said and it was not a question because she did understand. If Atreus did destroy a kingdom in his grief and anger, now he was here, tasked with helping to heal their son’s ailment. Even she, too, felt the clawing grip of worry at her heart. “We will keep an eye on him, Somnus. We can leave Alba and Tabbris with him every time he’s with Regis that we cannot be. We won't let any harm come to him.”

Eulalie looked into Somnus’ eyes and had nothing but love and compassion in her. She felt no differently about him, for nothing he could ever tell her could change the way she loved him. She knew him, and if anything the responsibility he felt for all the things that had happened spoke volumes more than anything he may or may not have done. And while she could not know what Atreus’ intentions were here in Delumine, and though she hoped above all that those intentions were good, they would be prepared either way.

She stepped close to him once again, and would gently press her forehead to his and close her eyes. “You are incredibly brave, and caring and good, and I love every part of you,” The words slipped from her lips with ease, filled with nothing but truth and devotion. “You do not need to carry this guilt with you,” she paused, and would press the rest of her muzzle against his, “Somnus you need to forgive yourself for what has happened in the past, or it will haunt you for the rest of your life. You did what you could, and you are enough.”

"Speaking."

“You will never be without me,” Eulalie said. So sure of it she was that her heart beat a little faster and her earth brown eyes glimmered like the sun shone from within them. She was an eternal flame, a burning fire, warm and comforting and steady. She would always be with him, her whole heart, her whole soul. Her whole being. It was tied to him, and had been she knew, since that first day out on the banks of the Rapax.

She thinks of that morning, with the sun shining and she thinks of pink dolphins and miracles. And what a miracle, love is. What a gift that she should feel it so deeply for another and have it returned in kind. Her heart was incomplete without him, Eulalie realized. Without him it would spend the rest of her life searching, yearning. Together they were whole. Together they were made better. Stronger. It was a feeling of what she imagined flying might be like—in the clouds—the sun brushing over you, filling you, with the whole world open to you below.

She felt every emotion of Somnus’ keenly, every beat of his heart and release of his breath. She felt it all, as if they were her own. Were they not? Was her heart not his, his not hers? Had they been destined to this, so lucky that the gods had placed them where they needed to be to find each other, in the time that they would require it most? She wanted to say ‘You have never been without me,’ because it felt right. Standing here Eulalie felt as if she had never been anywhere else, and could be nowhere else after this. At his side was the only place she belonged in this world.

‘Would you marry me?’

Eulalie thought of the moment she had stood within the halls of this very citadel, heart pounding, worry creasing her brow. She thought of the moment she had come to tell Somnus that she was with child, fearing, above all things, that she would offer him her heart and he would not take it. Oh, but he had taken it, so gently, so steadily, and held onto it every day since then; carried it with him, faithfully, carefully. She remembered her fears and her doubts and she let them go. There was no place for them here, even in her memories.

She need never doubt him.

She need never hesitate with him, for all he had ever done was give her reason to love him more fully than she thought she ever could.

“You are my home, Somnus. The place I will always return to again and again, in this life and the next and all after it,” her voice was but a breath, a whisper on the air, reaching out and brushing against him, filling the silent space around them. Eulalie had not thought she could love him more, could find more reasons to stand at his side, and yet her heart overflowed. It overflowed into her veins, into every cell. Into her very core. If you could see inside her she would be nothing but devotion, pure and everlasting.

“You have had and will always have my heart; it could beat for no one else but you,” her eyes glistened, her joy brimming on the edge of everything that she was. And beat her heart did, a rhythm, a chorus, soaring to the skies above. Oh, how stories could be written about the love her heart sang, how the love her heart sang could convince even gods to mold the world to accommodate it.

“Yes I will marry you,” she smiled. The first of her tears slipped down her cheeks. Everything in her hummed, glowed, rejoiced. She stepped closer to him, pressing against him, wrapping herself in everything about him. There was nobody and nothing but them in this moment, and she would be nowhere else for the rest of her days but here, standing with him. Loving him. The rest of the world would just have to wait, “nothing on this earth could change my mind.” And she held him close to her and vowed that she would never, ever let him go.

"Speaking."