[ For the record: if Asura had only been helping himself to a drink of whiskey from one of their 'Wilder's Reserve' canteens, it would have been spit out. All over Sokie. But as it is, Asura is otherwise occupied.

So instead: ]

I have thought about us many times. [ —he starts after a lengthy bout of silence, surprise causing the King's words to catch in his throat because, Sokie, that had come straight out of left field, all right? But the pause had been distinctly lacking in tension, and the massage had continued all the while (where was that spot, the one which would cause Sokie to thoroughly melt into his hands and sigh?), allowing Asura to gauge three important facts: the first, that Sokie did not ask him the question in jest. The second, that the thought (the question, the idea of them as parents) had just now occurred to her. And the third? Well, it's his own answer: ] I have imagined us as protectors and as warriors, and even as one of those damn couples from the romance novels you read to me. But...

Not about kids. Maybe because my kind, we can't have them. [ Inhuman as he is and will always be. ] Or maybe because I'm like you, and didn't think I was cut out for the job.

[ And yet, yet he'd always been a glorified babysitter for an absentee mafioso power-couple, and he had made it his life's work to take tender-footed and green Changelings into Summer's scarred and open arms. ]

But now? Yeah, you bet your ass that I'm thinking about it. [ Read: it's her fault for mentioning it to begin with. ] And I know that, hypothetically, if it were you and me, we could take on a brat or two together no problem.

Hey, Sokie? [ W e l l, she'd flustered hard and fast, hadn't she? Asura had presented a problem, and her mage's nature had gotten the best of her—she'd analyzed and she'd deduced a solution, presenting it (and inadvertently propositioning him) all in one fell swoop. And that swoop had left her backtracking like she were fearful (but that can't be true, can it? Sokie Undertown, afraid?) she'd broken something between them. But the reality is..! Conveyed in the moment when Asura shifts his position, chest pressed flush to Sokie's back as he reaches to tweak her nose between a fore and middle finger.

And as though it were some great secret, his voice falls hushed (if not vigorously so) when he murmurs into her ear: ] I want everything with you.

[ Fitting together every which way. Family defined on their terms. Storied battles. Reenactments of bad romance novels. Everything. And hey, they've got ten(s) of lifetimes to figure out the timing. There's nothing so awkward about that, right? Any blunder, any strain, is banished in its entirety by the King's avid, true, and unabashed proclamation. The only thing is...

He'd used Sokie's trademark move (the nose tweak!!) against her, and there's not a single soul to save the King from the mage's retribution out here in the depths of the Wilde. ]