"Okay. Then - then you can be. But we gotta - there is some stuff we have to do, we can't just say it -"

Nodnod.

"You can't be mine in weird places with too many things happening where it's dangerous to be entangled with me. Doesn't work, I can't - I can't keep endangering you and still feel like I might deserve to have you -"

Nodnod.

"And I can't - you can't be scared I'll leave."

"But I - am."

"Right. I -" Sigh. 

"Uh, you being scared I'll leave is bad. We can't have - the thing we had before all the awful things happened - if you're scared I'll leave. Right?"

"I - guess not."

"So - 

- I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I keep thinking you'd love me if I'd come up with the right words and then I just can't and I barely - 

- I love you. I thought I was doing the best thing for you and I was sad all the time, always, but I thought you'd be happier. And - and I shouldn't have - shouldn't have tried to -

- if I thought I owned you I wouldn't have done it because you can't do that to someone that's yours. And if you thought I didn't I couldn't have done it because you could've ignored me - am I making sense -"

"I think so. Some."

"So there's like - if something bad had happened back at home when you were in my debt and there wasn't magic for changing debt then no matter how bad it was I wouldn't have thought of - 

- I don't really like the you with the powers, at all -"

Nodnod.

"Can you - can you tell me a story, do you have one that might help -"

"I can try."

And she thinks, and holds him, and pets his hair, and then she tells him the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.

She tells him of how Orpheus, a son of the god Apollo, was blessed with the ability to play beautiful music, and was under his father's protection. He fell in love with a beautiful woman named Eurydice, and they were married. But his wife was bitten by a snake, and died. So Orpheus traveled to the underworld, where he faced many dangers in order to be reunited with his beloved, and finally he came to the god Hades, ruler of the underworld, where he pled his case and impressed him with his music. And so Orpheus was told that he could have his wife back among the living, but only if he made the whole journey back without looking to see if Eurydice was following him. Orpheus accepted the terms, and traveled back. But he noticed that he could not hear his wife's footsteps behind him, and as he walked, he grew more and more worried that the gods had tricked him and gotten him to leave without that which he had braved so many dangers to be reunited with. A few steps before he reached the realm of the living, he lost faith and looked behind himself, where he saw that Eurydice was behind him, but a ghost, not yet made solid by her return. Immediately, she was taken from him, and as it was not possible for even Orpheus to make the journey to Hades twice, he died alone, still grieving what he had lost. And though he searched the entire underworld as a shade, he could never find his beloved.

"I don't - actually know if that's at all helpful, I'm sorry, it's - what I thought of."

"It's - yes, I think it helped - I keep wanting to prove it, somehow, but I can't, I can only prove other things, I could carry you away from here but that doesn't prove it, I could hold you and pet you and sing you into debt again but that couldn't prove it - I want to have sex with you, isn't that a stupid thing to want? You preferred to be blinded even before I sent you away - but I want you to be mine, I didn't hurt you when you were mine, and I don't know what that means and I'm casting around for things that didn't happen before - 

I feel so scared that you'll realize I was right the first time and so scared that you won't but I'll still never figure out how to get it back -"

Snuggle.

"I was scared you'd leave. Before. Not - not before we came to your court, I mean - after we left your court and came back to Elizabeth's. Worried that - that you'd decide you had made a terrible mistake of some kind, and stop - thinking it was good to be with me, and leave.

"And then you left."

"I didn't - know that was what you were scared of. Thought you were unhappy because I wasn't - protecting you, wasn't doing anything for you, you didn't have any choices when you chose me and now you did -"

" - but you've done lots of things for me. I might have been scared of other things too, but - when I try to remember I just keep remembering again and again that I was worried you'd stop - trying, stop thinking I was worth taking care of at all, stop - being kind - "

"I nearly got you killed -"

"Rana, before I met you I was looking forward to death."

"What - do you want -"

"I want to be with you. And I want to - I want to be far away from all of the complicated things that are happening and that keep hurting you, and - I want to find some way of also looking after my children, although I think I'm not entirely sure how to do it. And - I don't want you to leave. I don't know if that's stupid, but if it is then it'd be because - other things are more important than happiness, mostly."

"I want to deserve to have you. I want to - to feel like I am capable of taking care of you, and not just because you'll forgive everything or not even notice it or not consider it much worse than what happened before -"

Nodnodnod.

"I don't know how to have that. I'm - scared that I can't because it's actually not true and I actually don't deserve to have you."