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Amateru wasn't letting go of Elkurud. Not ever. He kept his arm around his fiancé as they carefully made their way away from the place they'd returned to after that horrifying battle. Exhaustion clung to him like a fog, but he wouldn't let himself collapse, not until he could properly kiss Elkurud and talk with him about everything that had happened.

Once he deemed them far enough away, in a different park than the one they'd been before, he pulled Elkurud to him and crushed him in a hug, trying not to cry.

"Is it really you?" he asked between little huffs of breath that gave away the fact that he was trying not to cry. "I can't—tell me something only you'd know, El."

Amateru gasped quietly, and with no further hesitation to be had, dipped his head to kiss Elkurud thoroughly, making little desperate noises as he did so. His fiance was here. He was alive. He was real and warm and everything Amateru had thought was gone forever.

"A symbol of our love everlasting," he whispered when he pulled back, tears streaming down his face. "I said I hoped you liked the house we built around the darned thing, because movin' would be, uh... That mighta been hard to explain to any buyers."

Amateru shuddered. "Very unsafe. Some kinda disease," he said, pressing their foreheads together. "People just—they just went mad. Angry, and-and wild, and... It was terrifying, El. Everyone just slowly dropped dead after losing so much weight, and nobody could stand upright properly anymore, and some people killed each other in their aggression, it... I was the last one. I went to bed one night, and woke up a thousand years later to the last of us all dead. I don't know why I survived. Why..."

He swallowed, breathing shakily. "I'm so glad I have you. I dunno if I could bear livin' like this on Earth much longer without ya." He brushed his fingers through Elkurud's hair, fondling one of his feathery ears gently. "It's so good to see your face is still yours."

Amateru grinned, grasping Elkurud by the waist, lifting him, and spinning him in sheer joy.

"A thousand years overdue," he agreed when he finally set Elkurud down with a happy sigh. "I'll marry you every which way we can. Earth, Amataran, Elkurudian, whatever it is, I'll do it a hundred times if I gotta. My love, my everything, my sweet."

He knelt to the ground, taking both of Elkurud's hands in his. "I'll marry you again and again to call you my husband as many ways as possible. I want to be with you forever, and not wait any longer than I hafta wait, after these long years without you."

"We'll make them safe. Things won't be perfect.... Never will be. But I'm sure we'll find people who will help us." He kissed Elkurud's hands and stood, beaming with quiet joy.

"I've been staying with a lovely Knight of Ida," he murmured. "She's been so kind, ever since I landed here in the last summer. It was summer, and I said it was cold. That's how hot home got. And yourself? Safe?"

"I'll ask. Maybe your new friend can come along, too, if their parents are so... odd. It will be great to be with you like that again." He smiled, kissing Elkurud's cheek. "In the meantime, we should all get some sleep. Figure it out in the mornin'. I love you."