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Prompt: Define.

Character(s): Rasler. Ashe.

Noisome Incendiaries: Define.

Rasler sometimes wonders after his young wife's mental state.

Oh, not in the sense of lunacy which was, admittedly, notoriously known to run in certain other royal bloodlines. Merely, he often wonders how her mind works. Ashe must always be working on something inside her head. She leaps, quicker than most might follow, from subject to subject. The world is simply a puzzle. A project. And Rasler does not find fault in this. If truth be told, he rather admires her for it.

"And then there is you."

Although…although, that admiration tends to be tested when the woman in question decides to voice her thought process aloud. Or, rather, out loud during the early hours of the morning (can it even yet be deemed morning?) while lying right next to him. He screws his eyes shut and presses his face deeper into the invitingly plush mattress.

"Ashe." He mutters, voice thick with sleep.

She is lying flat on her back, her face turned up towards the gilt ceiling, "Maybe I loved you all along and I just didn't know it."

Reluctantly, Rasler rolls onto his side and opens his eyes, using them to trace her profile while he pillows one arm underneath his head. And then, because he is feeling spiteful for being denied a few more hours of precious precious rest, he chooses to disregard caution and volunteers pettily, "Maybe that is just what the masses would have you believe."

She glances at him sharply, a slight frown appearing on her mouth, however the lady continues on as though he has not spoken. This prompts him to grin boyishly as it is an act he is now well used to, "Maybe it is because I do not know how to be in love, that is why I did not recognize the sentiment for what it is."

Now it is his turn to scowl. It was troubling thought; Rasler briefly wonders whom it is she has been speaking with – the newlyweds have been a popular topic of late among the courtiers, falsehoods and assumptions sprouting up like flowers in spring. His tone is sharper than he intends it to be as he feels himself becoming fully awake, "You are not incapable of love, Ashelia."

Her face flushes and her jaw sets stubbornly, "I said nothing of incapability."

The room falls to silence. Suddenly restless, he reaches across the distance to pull the blankets up higher about her form and better cover her bare shoulders. She may very well be used to these cool Dalmascan desert nights… but that does not mean he yet is. And seeing her in such a state makes him colder still. His knuckles brush against the soft skin of her neck and her collarbone. He allows them to linger longer than absolutely necessary, murmuring, "Perhaps it is because you have always loved and have always been loved. Therefore making it difficult to discern the romantic from the platonic."

She reaches up and catches his hand in her own, "If that is so, " she begins, "Recall when first I visited Nabradia. I pushed you into the fountain- that lovely one near the eastern edge your lady mother's private gardens- do you think this was some act of infantile affection?"

Rasler represses a rather unattractive snort when he realizes she is making no jest. So instead he keeps quiet and answers slowly, "I think it was because you were seven and I had just pulled your hair."

"Yes, I suppose there was that…" she trails off, smiling ruefully, "However, that now makes your previous theory illogical."

He arches a brow and challenges, "Perhaps it is only convenience?"

Blue eyes bore into him for a full minute before his wife scoffs and turns away, her back (ever so pointedly) facing him, "Rasler, if you are not going to take the matter seriously, I see no need to continue the conversation."

Rasler blinks. Then, this time, he does snort, an arm snaking around her waist, "Indeed?"

Noisome Incendiaries: Define: End.