Summary: It started out so small.
It used to be a rare thing, but it had grown more and more common. It was a crooked little thing, shy and small at the start. A brief little thing, that first one, hardly there before it was gone again.
As it goes, it grew, it became a sparkle, shown to a single entity. From shy and startled to loving and daring.
Time passed and it became a confident thing, easily summoned and hard to dismiss as long as the entity was present.
And then there was a time when it was lost, when it fled from it's host and vanished from sight and, very nearly, memory.
Then suddenly it returned, bright and shiny but with a new reservation that hadn't been there previously.
It became quick to come and hard to banish once more, bright and shiny shifted to hopeful and delighted, from delighted to tired and loving, from tired to proud and the loving remained.
It was happy and wonderful, bright and as often as it appeared now-a-days it was still just as cherished as that tiny little thing it had been at the start, shy and startled and just as lovely as the one that came easy and often.
That crooked little thing he had caught sight of out of the corner of his eye that first time, perhaps he cherished it a bit more than the others because it had drawn hin in caught him and refused to release him.
Magnus' eyes softened as he watched Alec smile and coo at the blue child they had brought into their lives several years ago.
Yes, that crooked little uptick of Alec's lips that the man seemed to reserve just for him, yes, that one was his favorite, his King's smile.
I had to have Magnus waxing poetically about Alec's smile. I should be writing on Candle... but, well, I have zero attention span so here you go.