076: Frozen Time

[Cordelia]

Primus.

He was dead to me for so long that it feels strange to see him alive. Not just alive, thriving, laughing, and full of love.

And yet, it also feels like it could have been like this forever--a happy family. Royal, yes, but otherwise normal. Seeing moments like these makes me wonder what it might have been like between us had we been born at a different time, when our people weren't at odds. Would we have been introduced at a ball or through some other arrangement? Would we have known we were mates from the first time we danced?

I've never seen Primus this content. If I could freeze time, I would leave us at this moment, a mother and a father rocking their babies to sleep, placing them one by one in bed, kissing each little forehead before leaving them to rest. I wish we could say here like this, far away from all our troubles on the surface, free of the responsibilities of rulership and war.

I place a hand on his back as he sets two more of our younglings next to