He soon realizes she is a clingy little thing. She clings to his waist when they walk around his vast castle and she clings to his arm when they are visiting Marmoreal's court and there are woman eyeing him from across the room because he is ethereal and vast and she is just her. She clings to his robes when she tells him about her day and clings to his neck when she kisses him. Clings to his side in the night when her nightmares are the worst and the only sound escaping her lips is his name.

She even clings to him when she is angry at him – at his unsure words and unsurer gestures (he has never had anyone want his attention so much, and he can't find what to do with himself to make her happy most days) - clings to his chest, drowning in the fabric of his robes.

He is Time – made of the sun and stars and distant and lonely. Living in his faraway castle with his only friends the ones he has crafted with his own hands. He knows of order and bounds and doesn't understand the silliness of the finite – attachment only leads to disappointment, he has seen it happen over and over and over again, and why would you subject yourself to that torture? It is all very silly.

But then she is grabbing at him with her clingy little hands (has she ever heard of personal space?) and watery eyes because no Time, I cannot go in that hideous pink dress – do you want me to look ugly? And he really doesn't but he can't seem to get the words out that her grip is suffocating him – swallowing him whole, engulfing the walls that have entrapped him. The little fortress where he has kept himself safe from those silly little feelings that come from her reaching for him like he is something important. And he can't say no to her – couldn't if he tried, because he knows she would break down in tears and rip his heart in half – and he doesn't, in all honesty, want her to stop.

There is no space between them whenever she is around – the universe collapsing in on them - and she might cling to his heart a tiny little (very big) bit, and her body is warm and there is not much to complain about, anyway.

A/N: I personally like to imagine Iracebeth with a normal sized head, but that isn't canon so I won't be putting personal preferences in this. But anyway, here it is!