The Dauntless listened to his love, eyes resting behind inky veils. With his chin nestled into her rump he could feel the vibrations of her speech, but his head lifted when she moved away from him. Molten gold eyes were subject to the light once more as they focused in on her, open, with brows furrowed in concern and confusion. Raw emotion seeped from her body, unbridled and uninhibited. It had always been something Archibald admired about the mare. She had such passion inside of her, and each emotion that ran through her mind she felt deeply in her breast. Archibald could feel very few things in this same manner, but Circe felt all things. She was an ocean and Archibald was a puddle. How she had ever imagined to step into matrimony and love with a creature such as himself, with the emotional range of a single tear, he would never know. It bewildered him. Archibald was a beast, a monster fueled by duty and war. He was a machine of destruction, a dealer of simple deeds, bringer of death. Circe was a goddess, a warrior queen with the heart of a thousand armies.

The tears streamed from her eyes, then, testaments of her emotion. Her sadness, regret, worry, fear--it all poured into Archibald's mind, covering him in her grasp. The true mask of worry shifted onto his blazen face, golden eyes searching deep in her ocean blues. His massive, hulking, behemoth frame stepped forward to swallow her up in his shadow, in his embrace. With the practiced skill Archibald maneuvered around her horn enough to wrap his scarred neck around her, press his face into her body. The only tears Archibald had ever shed fell to the ground at his daughter's grave, but now he even felt a lump of coal forming in the back of his throat. Swallowing it down hard to let it die and dissolve in the acid of his stomach, the Captain took a step back from his hug, lips moving to dry the tears on his Shadowmere's dark face, with whispers of grey shining through the blue and black.

"The mare I fell in love with--the mare I love--is here. Before me, standing with the strength and dignity of a woman who has seen enough heartache and betrayal for a thousand men, and she has survived. The mare I love is passionate, and stubborn, and will do anything for those she holds most dear--I see her clearly." He wiped another tear away with his pale lips. "The future this mare holds is alongside the stallion she knows. Circe, my dearest Circe, you once fell in love with a guise of a strong General, and when you learned of my history, full of sickness and death, you stood strong at my side. For any less to happen now, in my charge, would be a trial of hypocrisy fit for punishment in death alone. I love you, and no matter the history that has unravelled in this mystical land of Helovia, between the two of us together or apart, our future is together."

The Dauntless lifted his proud head, shoulders squaring and his chest lifting with the fire he felt in his belly. "We are slaves to no one, we write our future ourselves. Our daughter, our sons, they are part of us forever, but are also their own--in life and in death." Archibald's body swelled, sides blowing up with his deep breathing. "Let us write the future, together. With strength and passion and determination, Circe, let us create a deeper legacy."

Archibald had never thought of creating another child with his wife before this moment, and he had also never wanted it more than now. The world was right, they were together, and they would never be apart again. Ever.