Some moments are too crucial to be missed. No matter how busy Robin is or how many others there are to check in on, time with her beloved takes priority today.
As always, she's been taking notes. But not of strength nor wounds, terrain effectiveness nor numbers. More like, how Inigo likes private spaces to dance, or to settle where surrounded by greenery and a breeze, or to walk along the sound of trickling water. Inconsequential details with no utilitarian purpose, but reserved as space within her thoughts no one else shared. A private study of information with no other use but to make him happy.
They've camped here before, when the army was much smaller, and she less… distracted. She knows the perfect spot to take him while the rest of setup would go just as smoothly without them around. (It's possible he would have been here before too, but the area, no doubt, would have been desiccated at the time. Nothing but petrified black wood, still burning embers, and a pit of tar.)
Instead they sit in the middle of the smallest peninsula against the widest tree trunk in the meadow. Hanging cords of the weeping willow surround them in a circle, diffusing the scent of its chartreuse flowers throughout the air of their personal world. Late afternoon light and the soothing cadence of a bubbling stream creep in through nature made curtains. As she curls strands of pale hair around a tanned finger while he leans into her shoulder, a smile can't help but spread at how ethereal rays spotlight his face just right.
Lashes flutter open, and Inigo whispers words into the skin of her neck which she had been hoping to hear. "You are my heart. You are me. You are my other half. You are welcome with me always," not mumbled in desperation or cried in frustration or trembled in fear, but given in a more sincere, safer, private honesty.
IS THIS WHAT ROMANCE IS?
Crafting a moment specially made for another to entice a reaction. She offers the setting for his words, and he offers words for the pinking heat in her cheeks which he's scolded her for hiding before, so she displays it proudly for his gaze. He teaches her a magic that cannot be found in any tome, one she thought she could never call her own.
But it is not hers, not really. As he so intimately points out - it is theirs. One gentle heart filled with the cosmos and the monsters of its father. One soul believing it was only meant for others, never to be shared as something special. One persona putting out its best to keep everyone from falling apart while concealing cracks in walls not meant to be seen in the first place. Honestly… they could only try hiding behind perfection for so long before inevitably recognizing one another, and weaseling past defenses in the exact way each knew how.
Here they can hide together, and here they can dream together, and here they can recharge their belief that the whole world can be safe and happy.
Robin may have already promised one half of herself (for now), but she will gladly give the other half to Inigo. She will pour herself out for him until there is nothing left; that would be just quite alright. She is content in his hands, and she will simply find more of herself again in all that he is. The real answer is that together they are greater than any half of themselves could ever be alone.
A place and moment between two people, for no reason but to make each other happy. How many of these memories had he tried to create, tried to weave his special magic into, but had its casting cut short in the middle by someone walking away? What fools. She will plan so many more for each one lost, and she will open herself to accepting him. He would never hear one more rejection from her again.
"You are always welcome with me too, Inigo," she assures, drawing his chin up with what fingers were not still stroking the shell of his ear, and presses a kiss to his lips between each breath, "Your presence is the only foundation I will ever need to build myself and my home on. LET EVERYTHING ELSE FALL APART IF IT WILL. If we are together, we will fix it when we get back."