Dark

"Mmm... is it...?"

But Siegfried did not really desire an answer for his vague query. The prince pressed his eyelids together tightly; there was most likely a day to be greeted, with all the pomp and circumstance of a muted sunrise. He had no quarrel with matters in the day, of course, but sleep was a difficult allure to overcome. This looked to be one of those mornings where prying his eyes open was harder than lifting his sword, but never failed to manage it, and he was determined for this to remain true.

So as darkness instead met his misted glance, he was stricken with the clarity of shock, but no true alarm to his own faint surprise. What surrounded him was soft and thin and warmed by the last leaps of flame in the hearth, the darkness of morning before the sun had thrown night's blanket from itself and the world below. An hour too early for the sun was certainly too early for a prince, whatever business he might have later in the day. With a sigh, all gentle breath and no sound, he rolled over to wrap himself more tightly in the security of the sheets and found himself staring at Rue. He also found that he had not meant to stare, but was quite unable to turn his gaze or close it after catching her deep eyes, or rather, after becoming caught in something he could only call their fathomless beauty.

She was awake, but not very much so. Her words were just as bleary as his own, drifting in a richly mumbled tone, "Is it what...?"

"...I had wondered if it was morning. It is... not." An apologetic smile slipped across his face, and he ran his fingers tenderly over her cheek for a silent moment. The gray tones that night cast over her pale face were far from enough to hide how she blushed at his familiar touches. He continued casually, thinking little of his remarks aside from the truth of them. "As sweet as you look, my princess, I think we should both go back to sleep. It is still too dark to rise... I'm sorry for waking you..."  

"It's nothing, my prince... but I suppose you're right..." She draped an arm over his waist, and he pulled himself closer, not because her gesture had expected it, but because he had merely wanted to be closer to her. She took the chance, to murmur quietly into his ear. "Though if I had to live in the dark like this, I would do so... if I could be with you, it would truly be nothing..."  

He pressed a grateful kiss onto her cheek, fairly certain his own cheeks were tinged, and not particularly minding if she saw. The affections of her tiredness, he decided, were quite wondrous. Perhaps she was right to think of the dark so pleasantly, if they could speak as they just had more often.