Darling, don't be afraid. I have loved you for a thousand years.
His breath catches in his throat as her lips caress his neck. It’s just instinctive he knows, not meant in that way, just a relieved response to finding him alive, but he can’t help the heat that rises in his skin.
He breathes an inaudible sigh of relief as he pulls away to inspect her, but while the uncomfortable feeling subsides, the heat does not. He does his best to cover it with conversation. “Crazy is right. Have you heard anything? I ran into someone in the meadow that said it was the fairies, but they wouldn’t do something like this … would they?” Not that he has any idea what the fairies would and wouldn’t do, but this just seems so, catastrophic.
He reaches forward to brush her cheek when she mentions her daughters. Having no children of his own he can’t imagine what she must be feeling, but if it’s anything like the feeling of missing her he knows it must be awful. “If they’re anything like you Arrya, they’ll be fine.” He gives her a hesitant smile, though he knows it won’t be entirely enough to comfort her. “Do you have any idea where they might go? Any special place?”
There’s a brief, awkward pause as he thinks of Gendry, and he knows that, while she has not mentioned him, she must be thinking of him too. A part of him hopes that the earth had swallowed Gendry right up along with the kingdoms, but even now he can’t seriously entertain the thought. Gendry is … was … his friend. And while he might try to kick his ass if he saw him again, he can’t truly wish him dead. Not without at least giving him the chance to try to explain himself.
But Arrya is talking again, telling him how worried she’d been that she’d lost him, rubbing her tear-stained face against his shoulder, and his heart feels so full and yet so broken at the same time. “I was scared I’d lost you too. I …” His voice trails off. He can’t even fathom what he would’ve done if … if … “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.” But admitting to that rings too closely to his own, deep feelings, and he forces out a little laugh. “But it will take more than a little apocalypse to take me out, don't you worry.”
I'll love you for a thousand more.