A/N: I've been inactive for so long, I felt the need to at least write something. After seeing all the fans that just ignore Ekou and pair Amon with Asuka or an OC instead, I thought it was high time to write something else with her in it.

I know that an AmonxEkou fic can never be true fluff without being OOC, but I wanted to do something that was at least slightly more lighthearted than "Ekou's Song". I hope I did an okay job of balancing the fluff and the more serious parts.

Just so you all know, this is in the same canon as "Ekou's Song." I would suggest that you read that first, or at least skim it to get the major points. But if you haven't read it yet, I don't think you'd be reading this...so...(shrugs). At any rate, I hope you enjoy this.

Being a king was much more difficult than Amon had originally anticipated. He had assumed that it would be easy to reign over an assortment of peasants and monsters. Certainly, the former had been delighted when he took over. After he saved them from a swarm of Goblin Attack Forces, the commoners had literally begged Amon to stay on and protect them some more. Their old ruler and almost all of the royalty and nobility had been killed in the purges of the so-called "Supreme King". These people had no concept of anything other than monarchy, so they told Amon they were lost without a king. As long as their standard of living was reasonable, they wouldn't complain.

No, Amon's new subjects were not the trouble. The invaders were the problem here. Since Amon's dream was to govern over a kingdom that had no war, he did not want to resort to violence unless absolutely necessary. However, finding a path to peace was very hard when the monsters would not be swayed by the usual methods. Treaties were nothing more than useless sheets of paper to them, and they had no interest in money or most other material goods.

In order to satisfy them, Amon would have to think of a compromise that would keep his people safe, yet give the monster spirits enough territory so that they wouldn't feel the need to take any land populated by humans. Amon had spent most of his few months as king away from the castle, presiding over countless boundary negotiations. In fact, he would have to go away again the very next morning. When he was gone, he put Ekou in charge of helping the peasants rebuild their livelihood; no easy task itself.

Yes, Ekou...

She did not find ruling as natural as Amon did. To him, she seemed awkward; unsure of herself. This was not the Ekou that Amon had known before. Her old spirit and confidence had disappeared, and Amon was worried that she might not get it back. If he had been responsible for this personality change...he wouldn't know what to do with himself.

Maybe once she had the babies, she would get back to her old self. It was painful to watch her get more and more uncomfortable by the day. She seemed to suffer from any and all pregnancy complications that had ever been recorded. Amon tried not to think about the matter too much, but he knew that there was a good chance that he might lose Ekou permanently this time. The twisted and mysterious rules of this dimension had brought her back once, but Amon knew that it would not happen again. With this dimension's total lack of modern medical procedures, the list of what might go wrong was staggering,

All Amon could do now was make Ekou's life as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances. She often made decisions and signed papers while resting in bed, and Amon had ordered the servants to bring her any food or luxury she asked for. It was the least that he could do to assuage the guilt that still plagued him every day.

That reminded him...he should visit Ekou tonight. Amon had spent all day in his office, looking over papers. He wondered what time it was now...probably past midnight. The candle at his desk had burned down to almost a stub, and there was no noise in the corridors.

Amon got up from his creaky wooden chair, wincing at the ink stains on his fingers. Knowing his luck, some had probably gotten on his face as well. He shivered as he stepped out into the hall. When the only means of heating was fireplaces, it was virtually impossible to keep the castle at a comfortable temperature during the night. There wasn't much light either, but Amon knew this path by heart already. Although this dimension's culture insisted that the king and queen have separate bedrooms, they visited each other often. Even though there was no need to keep it a secret in this place, they had yet to abandon the habit of sneaking around at night.

After about five minutes, Amon made it through the complex series of rooms in the Queen's Apartments. In the innermost room, Ekou was sprawled out on the large bed. She had pillows tucked under her feet, neck and back for support. She was also snoring, which was something she had never done until about a month ago.

Amon walked closer. Even under the many layers of heavily embroidered blankets and in the dimly lit room, Ekou's swollen figure was painfully obvious. It looked like she had gone to a pumpkin-growing contest and swallowed the specimen that won the grand prize. Amon couldn't imagine how she could get any bigger, but there were still almost two months left. He could never tell her this, but he found the distortion of her formerly petite body to be almost disgusting.

For a while, Amon considered leaving and letting Ekou sleep. She needed all the rest she could get. Then again, he had not properly seen her for several days. She might be lonely, and she had mentioned that Amon needn't worry about waking her up.

He walked over to the side of the bed and shook Ekou's shoulder as gently as he could. She woke up almost immediately, and blinked in confusion.

"Is something wrong?" she asked in a voice that was still mostly asleep.

Amon shook his head. That was all she needed to know. At times like this, there was no need for words. Ekou seemed to instinctively understand his thoughts at times like this. He used to think that he could do the same, but sometimes she'd do something totally unexpected. This so happened to be one of those times. Amon had been expecting that Ekou would just go back to sleep, but instead she propped herself up and crawled onto his lap.

He wasn't sure what to do. Neither of them had been cuddlers in the past, and it didn't make sense why Ekou was doing this now. Amon suddenly felt rather silly. He had woken her up with the intent to have a conversation, but found he had nothing to say. And now he was stuck in this situation. Back in the so-called "real world" , he would have just dumped Ekou back on the bed and left without further explanation. Now that they had been through so much, though, that did not seem like a proper thing to do.

Amon sat as still as he could, and tried to ignore how Ekou rubbed against him as she shifted her weight into a comfortable position. Ekou always looked to him to make all of the decisions, but this time he was clueless. What was he supposed to say? Where should he put his arms? And most importantly, why was Ekou doing this? He sighed. This did not fit his cold, logical style of thinking in the least. He had thought he knew how to take charge of any event, and now he was being done in by a simple cuddle. At length, he decided that maybe, just maybe, Ekou would like it if he rubbed her belly. But before he could act on that, Ekou did the work for him. She grabbed his hand and placed it on the side of her stomach.

"Can you feel that?" she whispered excitedly. Amon did indeed feel a sort of rippling motion. This was not the first time that he had felt the babies move, but something seemed different about it now. Before, he had never truly thought of the implications. Now, he suddenly realized that that was partly his DNA in there. Of course, he had known that all along, but had never considered it in depth. A more sentimental person might have been moved to tears, but Amon made no outward indications of his emotions.

After a few minutes, Ekou winced slightly.

"They keep kicking me in the bladder," she said by way of explanation, "I think they're mad because they have to share their space with someone else."

The only thing Amon could think to say was a dry, "So it would seem." But Ekou seemed to be satisfied by that response.

For quite some time, they went back to thinking their own thoughts. Amon wasn't quite sure just how long they sat together quietly. It could have been a couple of hours, or just ten minutes. Finally, though, Ekou spoke again.

"Um...Amon?"

"What is it?"

"Do you...do you...?"

Amon forced himself to be patient as Ekou attempted to form her thoughts into actual words. That was another thing he'd have to work on. He wasn't used to trying to listen to what she had to say.

Finally, Ekou managed to say, "Do you ever wonder if we're actually still alive?"

It sounded like a silly question, but to tell the truth, Amon sometimes wondered the same thing. In this realm, it could be very difficult to tell spirits from the living. For all they knew, none of this was even real. There was probably some very complicated quantum theory at the root of this all, but the scope of it was beyond even Amon. He pondered this at length, then came up with what he thought was an acceptable answer.

"Well, we're alive in this reality. I'm not sure if it's reality for the people back on Earth, but for now this place is all that matters to us. We'll just have to make the best of it."

Ekou made a noise of assent as she snuggled even closer. One of her hands reached over and idly played with the ring on Amon's finger.

Amon felt disappointed somehow. He felt almost like he had wanted Ekou to argue with him. Why did she have to be so damn agreeable and forgiving? Ekou had every reason to hate him, but she seemed to just accept everything. It made him mad, but he wasn't sure why. In fact, he didn't know if he would ever be able to figure all of this out entirely.

Their future was precarious at best. For all they knew, there could be a devastating plague, or the monsters could massacre everyone on no more than a passing whim. But, like Amon had just said to Ekou, the only thing they could do was deal with things as they happened.

He looked down at Ekou, and saw that she was drifting back to sleep. Yes, sleep would be a good idea now. He had to get up early to leave for those negotiations, after all.

One day at a time...that's all they could do.