"Sorry. From the outside, it looks like a heiress marrying a Vaesteri heir. And again, it would be weird for it to be a con."

"I have no idea at all how that could be a con."

"Leo turns out to be a girl after all and now you two are married. At least until me and Fernando magically contest the marriage. Maybe she - in this hypothetical Leo is a she pretending to be a he, so I am using female pronouns - maybe she doesn't know that we know that we can nullify the marriage ourselves. It's not the most easy thing to find out."

"That's not what I meant. I meant that from outside, it would look like a regular marriage. From the outside, if that kept being a regular marriage, it wouldn't be surprising. Even if the method by which that was achieved was mind control."

"Good to know we can count on you in keeping things being horrifying."

"It isn't the case. And I am warded and it isn't the case." Felix says defensively. "Leo wouldn't do that."

"You don't know."

"We don't know."

"Still isn't a stable plan."

Sigh. "I am not willing to put past the possibility that it isn't meant to be stable. It can be short-lived and have enough time to produce a child."

Pause.

"I have been increasingly less trusting of our grandparents."

"Emote, Fernando. You know how, I have ever seen you doing it. So you are proposing that our beloved grandparents did this to lure Felix into a trap."

"They are not that bad and it is an absurd plan."

Fernando sighs exaggeratedly. "It is and I am being over-emotional. It is an absurd plan."

Pause.

"I am being over-emotional."

Hug.

Yeah, triple hug.

"To justify myself... I think that the idea is absurd, but now that is in my head and it involves the possibility of us going through that... I am irrationally afraid, and the mere awareness of my fear isn't helping. ...I am increasingly noticing... the worst parts of myself in our grandparents, the calculating parts, and when I try to model myself with their apparent values and coldness. If I cared so much about our bloodline, why, if someone tried to forcibly have a child with us, I wouldn't stop that. I would absolutely deal with the individual after getting the precious heir. After."

Thomas... doesn't disagree with that perspective.

"Mother... when I thought about mother reacting to that theory. I think she would agree it was a possibility. I know she is not unbiased, but still."

"Risk and reward. Or price in this matter."

Felix and Thomas want him to elaborate.

"I think... it would be easy for them to sacrifice us for the greater good. If they think that the survival of the bloodline and its status is more important than the individuals."

"It wouldn't be the first descendant that they fucked over."

Pause.

"No, not fucked over. They killed our uncle."

"Thomas... no. That is a terrible thing to even imply about anyone whose child killed themselves."

"It isn't accurate, no."