((I'm so sorry it has been so long since this has been updated. There has been so much happened in the last few weeks that have impacted me in such a horrible way and not only drained me of inspiration and motivation but have emotionally exhausted me too. Thankfully, I am now on the mend and have started chapters including the one to follow this one, Matched and Vibranium Bound. To that end, I do hope this chapter is to your liking. It's long, over 5,000 words.))

It should come as no surprise that sleep completely evaded Lucilla that night.

Her routine had stayed the same: She had dressed for bed, had her last cup of tea of the day, bid goodnight to Annah, drawn the curtains around her bed and settled down with Lilia.

But the Little Empress did not sleep.

With her almost year-old daughter snuggled close to her chest (celebration arrangements had already been made to begin in a few days' time), Lucilla's mind wandered endlessly.

I don't know who I can trust anymore. The little dove's nose dipped into the comforting, lulling scent of her daughter's Umbaran hair; inhaling it and feeling it work wonders to soothe her already.

My father… Tormented, she had followed the same trail of thought umpteen times and it always seemed to lead her back to the same place. The loop, the tedious, repeating loop, seemed endless. I couldn't trust him… Or… Did he see Orion as I saw him tonight a long time ago…?

Lilia shuffled in the midst of slumber, the heat and cushioning of her mother beneath her maximizing her comfort; as only a princess (and a very loved child) should sleep. The minute movement of the borderline-toddler's body against her own reminded her: She had survived. Not only had she survived, but she had also survived and fought to put herself where she currently found herself. More to the point, she now fully intended to use her position to protect as many as possible from the same atrocities she had been subjected to; but none more than her own daughter.

It seems, now, I can't trust my own husband either… At least my father had pure intentions, if a little scatty in how he went about it… But that was always him to a tee… Then again… if I was so desperate and helpless, what would I have done to protect my child? Who would I have turned to?

Understanding and dawning ebbed at the edges of her consciousness; the garish similarities of her and her father's actions at different points in reaction to similar threats. What she had done to prevent the same thing happening to her daughter (and others) as had happened to her, who she had turned to in a bid to secure such a position; perhaps the little dove and her papa were not so different after all. As far as Keir had been concerned, the Order was about to start crashing down around them when the attempted abduction on Coruscant took place and so, felt his time to be short and jumped the blaster accordingly.

Maybe his daughter was just as guilty where blaster jumping was concerned when she became the face of the most hated organization in the galaxy (along with its two most hated individuals) and turned her hand to changing it forever. Maybe changing herself too in the process. Upgrading herself, as a matter of fact.

Lucilla did not get the chance to become emotional either with regret or loss (mourning her father having been lost to anger), not when the peace in the Little Empress' bedchamber shattered; the splinters of it glass sharp and acidic to the ear.

"LUCILLA!"

The animalistic pounding on her (locked) chambers door, combined with the antagonized howling outside sent her scrambling up in bed, scattering her sheets in the darkness, while Lilia's startled screams erupted in her eardrums.

"Shh, shh, shh…" Like every other time Lily woke in distress, her tiny form automatically became swallowed to her mother's chest where her lips consistently pressed to her child's ebony-flecked forehead. "It's alright, sweetheart. Mama's here." Concern and comfort were always Lucilla's immediate, snap reactions when her daughter displayed any sort of disquiet. All the while, mid-coddle, Lucilla's eyes hardened, her temperance dissipating quickly and instantly, the uncontrollable ire from earlier began to flare once more.

What the hell does he think he's doing?!

More heavy pounding bounced the door in its frame; the sheer force of the fist upon it prompting it to bounce in the frame and rattle on the track that pocketed it into the wall.

"LUCILLA!"

"It's alright, Lily… Just a moment, my angel, and I'll get rid of him." Lucilla fully intended upon doing just that but first, her darling daughter found herself separated from her mother and placed into the cot at the bottom of a royal bed. As far as the Little Empress was concerned, she would be no more than a minute or two. And truly, with each step she took from the cot towards the barbarism beyond the parlour that roused her incensement more and more, a minute or two was all it would take.

"LUCIL-!"

Grand Marshal Orion Hux's fist should have collided with the door to the Empress' chambers (a set of chambers he usually had ample access to) for the umpteenth time but, true to his excessively intoxicated state, he may have stumbled slightly when the door was suddenly no longer there to make contact with. Instead, his unsteady frame teetered warningly when the grounding of the door evaporated; it was not his first warning, not when his small but vehement wife replaced it out of seemingly nowhere.

"What-" If the burning, seething hiss did not indicate to Orion that he was in trouble, nothing would. Between absolute and unquenchable fury and the desire not to upset her daughter again, Lucilla's Coruscanti husk stayed low but acidic."In the crumbling remains of Alderaan, do you think you're doing?!"

The smell should have been a clue; the rancid, mixed odour of alcohol and cigarra smoke. Not to mention, of course, his swaying disposition; despite how he clung to the wall beside her chamber door for dear life as if it would protect him from the spinning hallway.

"I want to go to fucking bed, Lucilla!" Without the same concern for their child's comfort as his spouse, the Grand Marshal's demand was made at a belligerent volume. Propelling himself off the wall via the grasp of whitened knuckles (he appeared to only have one glove of his dress uniform, as opposed to two), Orion lumbered past his little dove (whose indignance fell on deaf and very drunk ears) and made for the bedchamber.

The height difference, often a bone of playful contention between her and her beloved husband, amounted to little when she charged confrontationally into the Grand Marshal's teetering path; blocking the bedchamber door and, therefore, "their" daughter.

"Perhaps it suited you earlier, Orion, to disregard what I said about returning to your own chambers in the presence of those utter reprobates you call fellow officers, but I meant it!" As if the mere mention of "those utter reprobates" twigged something within Orion's pickled brain that positively surpassed the need for sleep, his priorities re-adjusted.

"You thoroughly embarrassed me tonight!" He retaliated petulantly, complete with a spray that made her flinch, but not enough to clear her from the doorway. "I tried to strengthen our alliances with some of the more well-connected officers and you- YOU- had to stomp in like the spoiled brat that you are to poison the atmosphere and jeopardize the process!" As could be expected, and as is only natural, the sudden spike of savage accusation and volume, cued little Lilia's howls to explode once more from the bedchamber beyond the argument.

"The only thing poisoned here is you!" Lucilla snapped in retort, steeling her spine, and preparing herself to lock horns while Orion's stance radiated something similar. "And I'm not even talking about your current drunken stupor!"

"Hardly drunk!"

"Since you woke up, you have been nigh impossible to deal with! You have been vain, arrogant, pig-headed, demeaning and wholly self-absorbed!" Instead of hitting home and perhaps giving him an insight into his own off-ness in the past week or so, the redhead seemed to take it very much to heart. Or… Not so much to heart, rather the observation stoked a mirrored incensement to his wife's.

"I am doing my utmost to secure LOYALTY!" Orion barked, clearly finding no fault in his actions but willing to put the onus back on his wife for her reactions; reactions that, given the circumstances and recollections he had extracted from her himself, could only be natural. And yet, he remained convinced of that evening's gathering and its purpose.

Of course, the hostility climbed and with it, Lucilla's anger and hurt in tandem; feeding off each other. But the one she loved most persisted, oblivious (or uncaring) of the pain and betrayal he doled out with gusto. If that wasn't bad enough, Lilia's distraught, confused squalls carried from the bedroom behind her; caused and fuelled by her "father's" carelessness. Stuck between standing her ground and tending to her precious child, the dark-haired darling swallowed the emotion and stayed fast; keeping firm against her husband.

It's alright, Lily… It's alright, my love, I know… I'm so sorry…

Formerly carefully gelled and placed strand dangling and dancing in frothing frenzy like a pendulum, Orion's usually pasty face had adopted a flushed, rosy hue; not unlike the one of indulgence his father had had prior to his death. Now, he tripped over a similar ego. One she had challenged by entering the dining room uninvited. By belittling him in front of his guests. By commanding the staff (sarcastically or not) to corrupt their meal. By giving the mere impression (he had heard the mutters) that he had no control over her. It meant drinking away the humiliation that had actually made things worse. That and… like immediately after Lily's birth… he listened to those whose opinions had gotten him in trouble before. Clearly, the Grand Marshal had learned nothing.

"The First Order is still a pivotal part of the Empire, YOUR GRACE…! And you would do well to remember it! It is still the cornerstone of WHY you are where you are!"

"If the First Order wanted to do what we have done, they would have done it long before we did! They need not have waited for me, but it seems our success had to wait for MY initiative!"

"The officers I hosted tonight have devoted themselves to being the underpinning that keeps the Imperial palace standing!"

"In service to no one but themselves! To secure no one but themselves!" Lucilla hurled back, his delusion flabbergasting her. Although… He had not really been himself of late. "And you, in your selective blindness, cannot even see it!" Once more, the blue-eyed beauty swallowed and fixated on Orion, her beloved Orion, with a different air. Pleading, vulnerable, desperate… As if it would break the vileness he inhabited lately and none more so than that night.

"Answer me this, Orion. Did you see who sat two seats down from you? On your right-hand side?"

Surely she didn't expect anything else but dismissal? Derision? Drunken impatience? And she got all of those.

"Colonel Damten!" The visible flinch across Lucilla's pretty features did nothing to soften the love of her life, nor the sharpness of the name snarled without hindsight of wrongdoing as it cut into her. He knows. And he doesn't care. Without realizing it, she must have adopted a fragility that only antagonized him further.

"Don't look at me like that, Lucilla!" Between her husband's intoxicated bawls before her and Lily's torrents of frightened cries behind her, the little dove felt herself backing into a corner. Her back met the doorframe of the bedchamber while Orion closed in; following her subconsciously and imposing his physical superiority over her in a (accidental or not) show of intimidation that whittled her fast. "That was long ago! Move on! Forget about it! Now, our aim is to acquire strongly rooted allies if we wish to maintain what we have achieved, the past bedamned-!"

"I will not align myself with that man!" Lucilla shouted back; fracturing her restraint (there was no preserving of the peace now), her voice cracking with emotion as she did. "Or anyone who thinks they can do what they did and feel no consequence! I will NOT allow that kind of corruption!"

"Why must you be so insolent?! Have you learned nothing?!" If the acrid stench of mixed alcohol and cigarra smoke (that Orion tended not to dabble in much, that night being a rare exception) was bad before, it increased ten-fold when his face hovered inches from hers to drive home the blows as crushingly as possible. "You are supposed to be a silent party. You are supposed to be seen and not heard. Like a child is supposed to be." The Grand Marshal, whose hair matched the flush in his cheeks, steadied himself and locked his stony eyes (maybe slightly bloodshot) with his wife's watering ones, his cruelty unfinished. "Like you were at the very beginning. When you knew your place!"

"Out." The gasping swipe immediately punctuated Orion's cutting remark, her breath fluttering with the smothered emotion that she fought to control. And after such a wicked, beastly thing to say, she amazed herself by keeping true. "Get. Out. Now."

"I WILL DO NO SUCH THING!" The redhead bayed like a demented animal, descending into ferity as she continued to prove the snide comments of certain guests accurate and gallingly correct. "I WILL BE DICTATED TO NO FURTHER! DO YOU HEAR ME?!" So much so, he did something he had not done in a long time, many moons ago aboard Starkiller Base: He raised his hand. Palm in and flat. Grazing his own, opposite shoulder. Ready to strike the woman he had sworn he would never hurt again.

However, despite how Lucilla watched the rising of the (ungloved) hand with a strange, resigned serenity, nothing happened.

Well… Perhaps that's not quite true.

Instead of striking his wife as both of them expected and Orion fully intended to do, his hand hovered; suspended and paused in mid-air, like something held it in place. As if that did not confuse the feuding couple enough, the Grand Marshal's face, already flushed from booze and bile, pinkened further as it began to contort with discomfort. Tightening, closing, suffocating discomfort.

The offending hand dropped and clasped the exposed bump of Orion's Adam's Apple; something usually hidden by the rigidity of his uniform but had come loose during the evening's revelry. Grappling with an invisible, intangible clamp, his panic climbed, and his frantic scrambling intensified but to no avail.

The useless gulping of air yielded nothing, hence the plummet into hysteria and his oxygen levels along with it. It looked familiar, or should have but in the heat of perplexity, it did not register. Not until another element of a long-forgotten, if similar, incident blew into the parlour in a thundering of boots and a warring flurry of black.

"What are you doing?!"Horror-stricken, Lucilla managed to tear her attention from her struggling, purpling husband to the vengeful new arrival; powered seemingly by rage and barbarity. "Stop it! Release him!" The helpless squeak grated on Ren; not on the thin thread of mercy reserved only for Lucilla and Lilia but irritation that his rushing to her aid was not appreciated. Over the floundering chokes of his redheaded rival and under his unrequited affection's pleading gaze, the Supreme Leader grudgingly (and more roughly than was probably necessary) did as he was begged.

Despite how white-wrapped arms extended to Orion in a bid to console him as he collapsed against the wall, heaving in the lungfuls to replenish the stolen oxygen and all the while massaging his throat with gusto, the Little Empress was fearfully swatted away. Before she could stop him or dejectedly try to reason with him, the Grand Marshal had scuttled swayingly from the room (and his wife) like a blinded cockroach; weaving past a seething Ren with a wide berth and a terrorized whimper.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Instantaneously, Lucilla's focus (along with her demeanour) shifted, and not for the better. Taking to his frustration-dousing (or building) habit of prowling the room, as if to ensure it remained secure, Ren returned the glower.

"Lily was upset!" He growled back, his usual delicacy and reverence held for the Empress diminished quickly as he advanced on where she stood, spine steeled, to meet him head on; one male simply substituting another. "And he was going to hurt you! Or were you gonna let that slide too?!"

"That is no concern of yours!"

"The hell it's not!" Ren spat back, the trademark snarl becoming a permanent fixture etched into the Supreme Leader's features. "I'm supposed to allow an assault on my Empress?! While my daughter is screaming in the background?!" Blurring lines between his personal (and parental) and dutiful concerns? Perhaps. Or perhaps they were not so separate to Kylo Ren, not with who the Empress happened to be and what she represented. Before she could protest, however, as she was about to, Ren circumvented that too.

"What about what he said to you?" Significantly closer now, gazes mercilessly locked, zoning in on the pain and hurt his latest point elicited but, like his military counterpart, he had no intention of stopping just yet. Not when he needed to undermine every excuse she could possibly make in Hux's defence. ""When you knew your place." When you were property. Something he could use on a whim and toss aside when he was finished. Like those pieces of shit he entertained tonight, knowing they'd done the same thing to the woman who was supposed to be his wife. You're telling me he didn't deserve his windpipe caved?"

Naturally, Lucilla had no answer and if she did, she would have choked on it. The quiver in her breathing and the swallow in her throat suggested that maybe, just maybe, Ren had gone too far but clearly, a nerve had been touched. Severing his ruthless hold on her doleful gaze, he readopted his prowl; no less vexed but opted to redirect it from the mother of his child.

"He's a traitor, in more ways than one, and he deserves to be dealt with like any other traitor."

"You expect me to execute my husband as a traitor in both marriage and duty to the Empire?" Drained and dry but still managing the injection of blunt sarcasm, Lucilla's back found the grounding of her bedchamber doorframe. "And I suppose you should be the one to swing the sword?"

"Yeah!" Concise, no beating about the bush and jumping on the Empress' empty remark with brutish passion; zoning back in on her from a distance. "Yeah, I do! And I should!"

"Of course you do." Came the cynical response that dripped disinterest. "Because what else would clear your way to completely seizing myself and Lily?" Lucilla did not dissect the throwaway comment, merely assumed Ren would add it to his brooding and stewing for later like he usually did. What she could not have foreseen, however, was the shadow that engulfed her, enveloped in swift silence. When her eyes heightened in apprehension, she found just that.

"You know I would do nothing without your blessing first." Urgent but restrained, his lips folded anxiously as that familiar clawing in his gut kicked into high gear; their eyes reconnecting solidified it. "Unlike some, my first and only loyalty is to my Empress and my Princess. I don't need to network to attain power, I have as much of it as I want. Alliances and back-scratching don't interest me. But if they did, I wouldn't be sacrificing my most powerful ally, my wife, for someone who would kill me the second my usefulness runs dry." A very simple sentiment that Orion appeared to have overlooked.

In that second of eye-searching, neither could attest to how it came about but it mattered not, it happened all the same and with a ferocity that neither could have predicted.

Sandwiched (with no complaint) between the doorframe and the solid form of the Supreme Leader, Lucilla's silk-clad arm slung around brick-shithouse shoulders in a bid to draw herself closer into the suddenly addictive embrace. The mutual hitch of a shared breath only happened when one surfaced to draw breath from the other but with that done, they immersed themselves in each other once more.

Reaching blindly behind her, the Little Empress' alabaster hand clutched the door handle and pulled it closed; separating her briefly from a set of eager, if inexperienced, lips, though instinct had begun to improve him already. Her hand reached again but clasped something else instead.

Ren allowed himself to be led, keenly so, by linked fingers far more delicate than his own. He did not question the destination but knew the bedroom to be out of bounds; as it happened, he would not be left wondering long or led far.

The reading nook would do, where that fateful conversation with Doctor Craven had taken place only a week previous. The day bed, like the bedroom, lay beyond the limits of decency as it tended to be one of Lily's favourite napping spots; not that anything of this could be considered decent. But if she were going to taint something, her own space in the immediate vicinity would suffice. Lips reunited fervently once the dark-haired darling was settled on the cushioned windowsill, Ren found himself bending to reach her; something he did with neither qualm nor protest.

The certainty and sureness were unspoken; the question of consent (unlike last time, how many years before) answered through provocative body language. Even without it, his fine tuning into the Empress told him all he needed to know; reading and feeling the flow of a new kind of energy. One geared solely for him.

Kylo Ren felt his way in the metaphorical dark (some scarce flickering candles remained to heighten the forbidden intimacy); relying on instinct, intuition, and the little dove's reactions to guide him. Their communication stayed minimal (unsurprisingly, really, when their lips found enough to busy them) but somehow, it made little to no difference if they spoke or not; not when… this (whatever it was) flowed like the most natural thing in the galaxy.

The depth of the reading nook (and Lucilla's overall size) meant that from her waist up could be comfortably held by the cushioned windowsill; even if it meant a stretch for Ren. Still, he took great care to nurture the massive, glorious breakthrough and so, followed her; almost the entirety of his being covering hers. The soft groan resulting, shared and sweet, marked progress; a literal graduation to physical unity, though remaining mostly clothed.

Be gentle. Be careful. Don't do what you did last time.

He didn't remember it feeling like this, that first and last time when she lay there and stared at nothing, all those years ago. He recalled it being a more… sterile encounter; how her head had rolled to the side, her only sounds being involuntary and of deep discomfort. A kiss? No such thing had occurred to him then, nor would the then-Knight have even known how to go about it. And why would he? When she had been there to simply fulfil a purpose, his purpose? Now, it seemed to be constant; one very much craved and enjoyed by both. While he stopped short to savour the near-foreign envelopment (not of his own fist) and strived not to choke on the sensation, she appeared to be doing the same; if a little differently.

"You alright…?"

"Yes…" A steadying inhale suggested it to be only the partial truth, so instead of powering on, Ren paused with his forlorn, chocolate gaze trained on his Empress in the low, sensual light. "I had just… forgotten how substantial you are…"

"D'you want me to stop…?" Without recognizing it as a veiled (and accidental though in no negative way) compliment, Ren (save for an inch or so) waited; his significantly bigger form wedged between the blue-eyed beauty's open legs, dependent on permission to continue.

If ever there came an opportunity for Lucilla to re-evaluate, to think about her husband (who had betrayed her first, albeit in a drastically different way) and what the morning might bring, it was just then, when Ren bore down on her; beastly but benevolent. If she told him to get off her, leave her chambers and stay away from her for days on end, Ren would have done so. Nodded dejectedly, removed himself (both from her and her quarters) and taken the more direct rejection as best he could, but he would have done it. She could try and reconcile herself then, up all night stressing, one more secret to keep until she decided if Orion could handle it or not. If it didn't come out in a particularly vicious disagreement first.

However, with all that in mind…

"No… No, I'll be fine. I'll adjust."

With the blessing given, Ren took it before it could be revoked but he did so with the self-promised gentility and a confident reunion of their lips; the gesture being reciprocated wholeheartedly. Withdrawing a few cautious inches, the Supreme Leader took his time and the first of those light thrusts came with observation for discomfort over his own (immediately awakened) pleasure. To his anxious dismay, the Little Empress did not outwardly mirror his enjoyment. However… that dismay happened to be short-lived when, as she had assured, she began to adjust.

There remained something so utterly bizarre about the situation that Lucilla found herself in.

The chronometer on the fireplace put the time somewhere after 4 am but instead of being in bed with her daughter, the ungodly hours had taken something of a strange turn. Sitting up in her reading nook, her rear parked at the very edge, legs spread to a man who was not her husband (albeit, the father of her child) but… there seemed something so instinctual entwined throughout every micromovement that led them to there and then; saturating every passionate second that followed.

Her concern had not been misplaced, not given the last time such an eventuality had occurred but, to Ren's credit, it appeared he had done nothing but mature and grow since then; taking him from a violator to a lover. Clothing loosened (Lucilla could not lose much more other than stripping the nightdress from her upper half) in a bid to disperse the heat that gathered underneath between his skin and the endless reams of inky fabric, Ren always made sure to return to her, to press his lips back to hers; gentle but urgent. His movements (not a clumsy, callous, selfish barrage like before) came consistently and with inflated confidence when Lucilla began to respond in a way that actually reflected a mutually enjoyable sexual encounter.

Rhythm, comfort, and trust established; the Supreme Leader felt the familiar beat of the butterflies as a porcelain hand pressed to his chest in another layer of intimacy. Amid the flow of strong, steady thrusts into the mother of his child (who had started to sing her delight like music to Ren's ears), the much larger ebonette indulged in a shuddered moan of his own; breaking the lung-draining kiss and dipping his damp forehead to hers.

Near black met heavenly sapphire to drive a deep, wordless connection even deeper as desire and sating craving climbed. Nudging forward ever so slightly to close the sparse distance, the bridge of Ren's nose lowered to meet that of the Empress and line them together in a gesture of affection blended through the longing. To counter it? Lucilla budged her rear to the edge of the friction-warm seat and once more, brushed her lips to the Supreme Leader's in the lightest, most tender of kisses; like the benign creature she was.

More candles had burned out in the interim, edging the forbidden two further into tantalizing darkness but it mattered not; not when he could feel her, taste her, smell her, and hear her. For the sight of her to gradually decrease (albeit not disappear completely) was a loss to the smitten male, to be sure, but it made for a great exercise in imagination. After all, would he not want to remember this for as long as he lived? The magnificence of those beautiful features contorted in utter ecstasy, an ecstasy he provided? The stray strands of darkest ebony clinging to her brow from the sweat of their two bodies clung together in desperate rapture? Not to mention the darling whines he would keep enveloped in his memory and the small weight of her dainty thigh hooked to his hip as she took every quickening thrust?

Lungs straining and barely coping, lips warring with no victor, hips pistoling (Ren's more so but Lucilla met him as best she could), one could only assume the crescendo would come soon. After that… who knew? Hearts hammered in sandwiched chests, one daring the other to give out first but neither willing to concede to loss if it meant missing out on this remarkable experience.

One would probably assume that the stamina rich Kylo Ren (with years of tireless training and missions in high pressure, high exertion scenarios) would thrive in the situation he currently found himself; comfortable and familiar with, almost. But while terrorizing innocents and laying waste to all before is one thing, the Little Empress was very much another; and Ren found himself wilting fast to the sweet gasps and groans that demanded more.

Fit, strong and virtually unstoppable otherwise, the Supreme Leader began to falter; falling victim to the foreign, carnal grip on his entire body that forced him on until he could go no longer and, essentially, crumble to exhaustion.

Lucilla, like Ren, had been taken hostage by the addictive thrum between her legs; where her arse had pinkened raw from the thrust-driven friction of the seat, where her clit practically vibrated, where her cunt itself throbbed so deliciously in pained pleasure that to continue would be to break down and sob. Or, indeed, to stop.

As it happened, Ren's inexperience (despite his exceptional stamina, a less used appendage did the dictating) won out; and while it may have been short-lived, the recovery may well have taken longer.

Suddenly, the blocky, hulking form of the former Knight stiffened; seizing in his dominant mantle over his daughter's mother and unable to do anything but let the inevitable happen. Internally, those contracting, silken walls massaged every last drop of what he usually examined on his glove when he finished though not this time; this time, he would see very little of it. Instead, his gaze dropped, immoveable, to the picture of perfection below him.

She warmed him still, her thighs tightening in a subtle, pleasant squeeze of his waist but so spent and drained, she scarcely acknowledged the chaste kiss pressed to her forehead in a bid to rouse her. More were pressed to her face until, eventually, her other arm joined the first around Ren's shoulder and she was lifted to him in a guarding, adoring embrace while still resting upon the windowsill. They stayed like that, recovering, for several moments; each listening to and feeling the other's come-down in such close proximity, their pants eventually dissolving at the same calming rate to mere relaxed breaths.

That extension of intimacy lasted… Until Lily decided otherwise with a blast of her powerful lungs. And even then, the beat of hesitation as if debating whether or not to actually separate, spanned another moment.

"I'll… uhh…" Only partially successful in prying her father from her mother (initially, at least), Lily's relentless cries from the bedroom would ultimately sever them; physically and mentally from the events of the past few minutes. "I'll go."

Instead of leaving, as she expected from the implication of "I'll go", Ren crossed the floorspace in only a few strides and took to the bedroom; making himself decent as he did before he comforted the beloved child within.

Lucilla, on the other hand, now free of Ren's stiffness impacting her and keeping her taut, could slump in the reading nook and, as had become a habit, tilt her hips towards the ceiling and let gravity do its work.