[Another shiver crawls down Eridanus' opal-crusted spine, prickling the skin of his scarred back in gooseflesh. He has to fight to keep from closing his eyes, the fluttering of his eyelashes the only other tell as that tickling thumb coaxes a soft sigh from his throat. He wishes to be lost in the feeling—his chin resting in the palm of his Eternal's hand, his gaze upwards and indulging his magnificence.

But the pleasure of a devotee wanes from his expression, replaced instead by a pinched brow and a melancholy frown. The hands that rest upon Lucius' wrist slide down the length of his arm, feeling over the firm give of muscle and vein as they do. It's a stupid question—but Eridanus won't say as much. Rather, when his lips part it's with another sigh, though this one speaks to a loneliness centuries past rather than a longing.]

Ryeanna. [He speaks her name short and simple, and when his gaze returns upwards, there's an urgency in them that wishes to move beyond the topic of his own loss.] It is a bitter taste indeed, and my brush with it held no sweetness to follow thereafter. Alike as we are in some ways my beloved, that is not one of them.

[The peal of laughter is far too merry and by reflex, his overlong ears fold back with the sudden sound. Still, he keeps his chin carefully slotted in Lucius' hand, and closes his eyes as that silvered edge hovers over his brow. He fully expects the sharp kiss of that blade, but rather than pain and the warmth of blood, Lucius' words catch his attention. Eridanus' eyes flutter open once more, staring up at his consort with a gaze that is far more blissful than it was the moment before.]

Returning to your side is certainly worth celebrating, my Eternal. Emptiness consumes my soul whenever you are far, [and with that, his eyes close again with the nuzzling of his chin against fingers,] but my love for your magnanimity will bridge any chasm, and destroy any obstacle that keeps us apart.