It was one of those rare moments where he imagined a life different than this, in a world tucked away and separate from this war-torn place. A paradise, a haven -- upenda, if you may. From the day he took his first breath he had known only the need to be strong, to fight and train and be prepared to defend. To earn his way through blood and sweat, tooth and claw, securing a future for the ones he loved most.

Alaric had never not known brutality.

He had watched his father murdered when he was barely old enough to survive on his own, had had the sense to flee with his siblings before the ire of the new King had been turned on them. For months he had roamed, rangy and thin, surviving on sheer will alone. Growing, gaining, learning, until finally his day had come.

A crown, then, so vastly different from now, but defended just as fiercely. Fight after fight, challenge after challenge, marked with stolen moments of quiet in between. With his first children those thoughts had wormed their way in, of a home where he would not have to fear falling to claws that would in turn tear his future to shreds. Scar after scar, win after win, and still he had stood proud before them. A king in his own right, an earned position, with few days of peace in between.

And loss -- bitter and heavy even now -- that altered the course of his future so completely.

Perhaps not red.

But if not red, then what? Red was all he knew, all he had ever known, and the wheat king licked his lips as if he could taste it now. The copper flavor was not his favorite, but he would spill it again and again if it meant just a few days of rest. He would spill it again and again if only to prevent that loss from ever touching him again.

Is there anything left that comes easy?

This question he can answer, and the words fall as quickly from his lips as the last denial. "No," and a huff of air with the two letters, "nothing easy is worth having." Love, she might argue, was easy. But was it? Could one simply fall in love and live happily ever after, skipping off in to the sunset? Ah but that was a thought, wasn't it? Why, then, was it crimson stripes in his mind's eye and not bear-ish brown?

"I wish it were, though," this is a quieter admission, a glimpse behind the mask that he never takes off. A hint of the gentler creature that is buried far beneath the layers of brutality and instability.

His gaze on hers is hot, then, burning with the words he cannot say, or will not. Burning with the desires that are forbidden, the dreams of a world beyond this one where happily ever afters did exist. A world where there was no tangled web of alliances and fueds and they could simply be.

"You are," because he cannot hold his tongue, not completely, "special." A long enough pause that he can see the glimmer in her eyes and he grows weak. Weak enough that he acts with impulsion, drawn to her like the proverbial fly to honey. Or perhaps he is the moth and she the flame, for he has little doubt that she is capable of burning him to ash.

He moves as a friend would, seeking to brush his nose across her cheek before attempting to wrap his neck around hers, to pull her to him with a nudge of his chin. An embrace, a comfort, if she would have it. Because no matter what they were in this world they were friends, and Alaric would not stand by when she had diamonds in her eyes.

"I am right here," because damn the rest of them. Esmeree he missed -- even now he remembered the way they had fallen together with this same ease -- but he couldn't find it in himself to care. He was here and he wanted her to know it. He aimed to pull her closer, to tuck her against his chest if only for a moment, breathing deeply and slowly and reminding himself over and over that she was not his. Respect -- it was not a thing he felt often for the fairer sex, but it is here in droves.

So, reluctantly, he pulls back, his eyes earnest as they seek to find hers -- "if one thing could have kept me in the Oasis it would have been you." Not because he loved her (did he? no, that was impossible) but because she was his first friend, here. Because in @Aidoneus there was a kinship he had never thought he would find again, not after...

But he holds her gaze, or he tries to, with intention. See, Aidoneus? See the impact you have? See the gift you give the world?

He would have held her again if he could have. If the line did not exist (the one he had already crossed, without thinking of it) he would have held her again and listened to her fears, her worries, her woes. Alaric imagined that seperate world where he could lay with her for hours beneath the stars and be whatever it was she needed him to be, even if that meant they were only friends.

But that world is not here -- that world does not exist -- and though he mourns it he does not push his luck.

Why -- why Seneca's child?

It is a bucket of ice water thrown over him, a stark and harsh reminder of who he was and who she was. A King and a Queen but not of the same land, of kingdoms at odds and lines drawn in the sand. He wants to erase them, desperately, but they are etched deeply. Beyond the sand, then, and in to the very crust of the earth. This island they have found, this little corner carved out together, will eventually sink back in to the fiery river below.

Will they ever find it again?

Why does it hurt to think that they may not?

"Not Seneca... Saga." How much had the Oasis King told his wife? What of their conversation did she know? Alaric would have assumed everything, but perhaps Seneca is not so different and guards his wife from some things. "Seneca was not the target. The child bore the Sigrun name." He speaks quickly as if he might be done with this conversation, as if it is an icky thing that he wants nothing to do with. Still, he hopes she finds some peace in it, even as he doubts that that is impossible.

How do you find peace, here? Here where war is snapping at every doorstep and raising its head at every challenge?

"The one who did it is dead," did she know that? Would it be any comfort? "From my understanding she was decidedly unhinged and not well liked." The Rike were not often so bold and risky, though he knew his wife had taken too many steps in that direction, too. Would she end up like Sunniva, then? Dead on the sand, with Sigrun teeth on her neck? As Eulalia had? The former Jarl had not seemed so wild, so frenzied, and as much as Alaric regretted his death could not find it in himself to regret Sunniva's.

How can he be sure? "I cannot." He would not lie to her, he would not mince words. "I can only go by what I know. The Rike are not all as she was, and I have seen no indication that they will turn tooth or claw on any but the Sigrun. The feud is old, with death on both sides..." It was not his war -- but it was. Alaric would not seek to kill the ocean-faring family, but he would spread word of their beliefs and seek to stem the near-worship that he had seen. They were far spread, wide-spread, and he wondered how they had gone so long without the truth being known.

"They drown their children, Aidoneus."

It is a bomb and he knows it, so he pauses. There is a lull in the aftermath of his words and briefly he wonders, again, if she already knew. Did she know? Would she care? From what he had seen of her -- the Mother -- she would. Was he a hypocrite for chosing a side that had killed children because the other side drowned them? From what Alaric knew it was not common for the Rike to fell the young -- it was insanity -- and yet the Sigrun drowned every single one of theirs. Twice.

Have you seen it? How do you know? How are there so many of them, then?

Alizabeth had questioned him, once. Would Aidoneus question him now? He knew only what he had been told, Alaric recognized that, but wasn't most of their information secondhand? Surely she had never witnessed a Rike murder a child, just as he had never witnessed a Sigrun drown one of their own. The ones he stood by had, though, and while he knew the story could have been twisted in time (morphed in to something frightening to scare the little children) he did not think so. "They worship a god in the sea and when their children are born and when they come of age they drown them."

He frowned, knowing how it sounded, knowing damn well that it made no sense that so many of them lived. Unless you believed in Gods and their powers and their ability to pluck a body from the waves. "Every single one of them." He emphasized this and there was a clarity in his voice that spoke of his certainty. Even if he had not seen it himself, Alaric felt it in his very bones to be true. The Sigrun had sunk their hooks in to Amaryllis, had acted the part of the good and the just, but were they truly so much better?

There, then, is the question -- are there any hands that are clean in Amaryllis? Is the entire land drenched in the blood of those that had come before? His homeland was, and maybe it was not so different here after all. Maybe the woven web of alliances were a new piece on the board, but maybe they just disguised the fact that this place was just as blood-soaked as the one he had come from. Here the blood sank deeper and quenched the thirst of the ancients; here they needed reason beyond power and he did not know if that was better or worse. Was it better to want the simple things? A home, a bed, a wife, a family. Or was it better to fight for power and friends and beliefs?

To be godless or guided; which was the lesser of two evils?

I need ---

He needed, too. More than he understood or knew, even now. A clear written path that he could follow? Was that why they did what they did?

Her. Alaric might have laughed, because how ridiculous was that? For him to need her was a laughable thought, wasn't it? Nevermind how his heart banged against its cage of bone and the ever-present tension leaked from his very pores. Nevermind that she was his best friend, his partner.

There is no laughter, though, when he answers her. There is a solemn promise, a truth so deeply seeded it cannot be denied. "I swear to you, Aidoneus, your children will see no harm from me or mine." As long as there was breath in his lungs he would make sure of it, no matter what came of them.

"I will protect them," I will protect you "as if they were my own."

And that was the best he could do.