Aah, aah, you were being cordial, Lady Alice? [ Sion twitters and he laughs and oh, oh, he really can't—though her demeanor hasn't changed in the slightest (truly, the Lady is unflappable! she is the winter's frost which has settled across the land in the absence of the sun, unwilling and unable to be melted without the tender warmth of many someones!), she betrays herself. Not only has she returned his kiss, but so too has she returned his blush, and where she'd been quick to tell him not to misconstrue, she's swifter to amend the sentiment not once, but twice, and Sion must be terribly mean, because he's flustered her so, so many times and...!

He is entirely unwilling to cease and desist, not now, not on this night. ]

Could you be letting me down gently, then?

[ That isn't to say he's invested—he's having fun!—and yet he can't help but imagine a scenario where it were different. Where he could entertain the thought. Taking a Queen, as his attendants asked and his advisors implored, had always (and will always) be too unthinkable a thing. There is too much work to be done, a war which would span the whole of the Menoris continent to be waged, and a curse to be broken; these things were no one's burden but his own. To take another's hand, and lead them into the dark... Sion quite simply refused to do such a thing.

And yet, despite all his reservations, it's rather nice to imagine, isn't it? To pretend? ]

There is scarcely a Lady who might so boldly refuse the opportunity to become Queen of any country, much less my Empire, and so you, Alice...

[ With a shake of his head, he leans toward the neatly bundled blanket which is his friend, his hand (bloodied, still bound by Alice's handkerchief) pressed over his heart. ]

You may very well be the most astounding woman I've ever met.