"I guess that's a good idea."

Well. She can hold out her hand for them and then read them aloud, then. At least that's doing something.

When she is done he thanks her. 

Okay.

"D'you - have any idea what we should be doing now?"

"Not really?"

"Oh. Well. Kinda same."

"Let's go to bed."

Nod.

He doesn't dismiss her in the mornings. Since she said it'd be better if they spent time together that wasn't in bed. He listens to Fazil's notes about the state dinner. He holds her, at night, and wishes that she loved him, and that's it. 

She will... probably eventually need to ask him if she can leave? But she can do it after he's made it through the state dinner. Probably less fraught then. And it is, actually, really important to do anything she can do to get him minimally functional again. She'll just have to hope that the gnome hasn't gone back to Absalom by then. And that Verita is fine. Probably she's fine.

She reads notes to him and prompts him to eat and tries her best to be supportive and affectionate and stuff.

The state dinner is torture, of course. He ignores the advisors shooting anguished looks at him over everything and declines to answer some questions about how he was protected from the effects of the spell and if he offends anyone horribly they pretend otherwise. They brought presents. Horible foreign whores at least three of whom are probably spies. He says that he's delighted. He says that his wife is expecting already but it'll take a lot of work to give Abadar as many choices as he ought to have.

He gets to leave, eventually.

She has not left his room. She's writing a story for herself on some paper.

"How'd it go?"

"Well, I don't think anyone's declared war yet."

- she was kinda hoping for confirmation that it went slightly better than that, but either way, it's probably really important that he get to have something really positive now? Since it was probably completely horrible for him and he's probably spent the last six hours mostly looking forward to getting to leave.

"That's good, then. Proud of you."

"Are you."

- honestly she's kind of terrified now, because there is, still, nothing particularly stopping him from hurting her if something lands wrong and he decides she's insulting him or something, but - 

"Yeah."

Sigh. He flops on the bed. 

...she could ask him what he wants, but that might come off as implying that she's trying to get out of this, since they, like, had an agreement, and stuff? She wishes she had more direction here. Wishes she wasn't so scared of making the wrong guess. But she has to guess something, right, because asking is a risk, too.

She's just gonna snuggle up to him and kiss him. Kind of tentatively, to start out, in case actually he wants to talk or something. He probably doesn't want to talk, but it's still really hard to be confident in any particular course of action.

Kissing is good. He relaxes, slightly. 

Oh good, then she's probably not messing anything up horribly or about to invite retribution upon herself? That's good, makes the fear inside her uncurl a little bit, even if it isn't anywhere close to gone. She's really still not in the right frame of mind for this, but she committed to this, and he worked very hard, and he deserves it, probably. Gotta hold up her end of the deal. Gotta - not think about what he'll do if she doesn't and just think about how hard he worked today. 

There can be somewhat less hesitant kissing and she can start working on him having fewer clothes.

Snuggle. "Love you."

Oh good, she's succeeding then. "Mhmm. Love you. You ready?"

"Mmmhmm. Been - thinking about you all evening."

She smiles at him. "Mkay. Hope this's at all worth the wait, then."

Annnnd she can try kissing lower.

She wasn't really sure how this was going to go, beforehand, how doing this for him again would settle in her mind, whether it'd fix something or break something, whether it'd be something done out of fear or out of love. It's both, though, she thinks, when she gets there, two framings of the same act that manage to exist in the same space, like two people occupying one body. She's a wife comforting her husband. She's a prisoner placating her captor. Neither is more real than the other. She watches her selves, takes in the two narratives and the thoughts they produce, filing them away for later. Their emotions are very different, but they are of one cause. They have no difficulty working together, not tonight, not for this.

She hopes he's happy with her.

Yeah. 

He should've suggested this much sooner, it doesn't solve their core problem but it's so much better than frustrated cuddling that's all about what she's refusing him. But on the other hand, this way she suggested it, and that's nice.

When she's done he pets her and tells her that he loves her very much and - this will take words, and he's so out of words, but -

"you were trying to help me, with this dinner. You were very good. It helped. I was glad I had you. Felt like you were on my side."