Re: Prodigal
She'd surprised him, clearly. As Thor began to address her various titles, her posture stiffened moreso than it had been before.
"It's decreed."
Her heart leapt. Zap stood and looked up into Thor's eyes as he continued, but suddenly rose up on her toes to kiss Thor's lips after he'd said he loved her. "I love you too," the queen said, her hands moving to his neck to hold their foreheads together, mostly to hide her pained expression at feeling she'd hurt Thor. She didn't feel; she knew.
"Nathaniel?"
She laughed, directly into the Allfather's face, at his joke. She released him, then, and smirked up to her husband. Her shoulders relaxed as Thor filtered through what his next actions should be. "I do," she answered earnestly. "I know..." sigh, "he's the worst." Her head shook side to side with a (jovial) sense of confused dismay as she gave a tiny shrug. Suddenly, she felt the sting of tears in her eyes and her face scrunched with sadness. "We're not over. You're still my king," her hands came to rest on either side of Thor's jaw in his beard. "I'm going to continue being what you need me to be." By his side, in his life, his friend, his co-parent, his queen. Her lips pinched between her teeth and she let out a heavy, teary, long withheld exhale.
"You're my date for Walpurgis, right?" May day. The day of bright celebration after the long festival of Walpurgis, a week of darkness and connection with the realm of the dead. The fires would be lit, and light would come back into their lives. The symbolism was impossible to ignore. The fair-haired, shining Allfather would have his queen at his side on the first day of May, and they would maintain the tradition of opening the season of growing and fertility hand-in-hand. After that... the twins Freya and Freyr would reign.
Lightning struck the queen, metaphorically. "Three. Above, the center, below." Her hands fell from Thor's face and she looked into his eyes intensely. "A triangle." Which was another interpretation of 'three'. "You, me, Nate. The strongest shape known." It would please Eva, and ease her spirit if the three of them could work in tandem as a trio in all forms. It would please Nate, to be with her openly... It would please the children to see their parents happy and in unity. But would it please the Allfather? "Our bed, our table, our kingdoms..." Three rulers, each very different from the other, bringing a well-rounded (or triangular) outlook and leadership to the care and defense of the Nine Realms.