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So, if Edarial wasn't sure that his wife hated him before, he's really, really sure of it now. It's pretty usual that if they're in the same room, he feels nothing but silent, seething hostility from her. Usually, his reaction to this is a poker face followed by running. He doesn't like having someone hostile just - there at the dinner table, glaring at him with her hissing familiar.
Zevros doesn't hate him, Edarial's certain of it, but he's not helping. He's literally never seen his twin this angry before. This is coming from someone who has seen his twin be angry loads of times. At meals, he just - sits there. Stabbing his food and glaring at Edarial while he does it. He gets why, he knows that Zevros is furious with him for the whole 'cold political marriage' thing. It still hurts, though, to have his immediate family just be so openly hostile.
He gets more withdrawn. Meals get delivered to his room rather than him eating with Iobel and Zevros right there, being near-openly hostile. He stops sparring with Zevros nearly entirely, spends an unhealthy amount of time in either his office or his room, and Berathyme spends all her time coiled around his shoulders, offering what little comfort she can.
She's pretty terrible at advice, but at least he has someone that doesn't actively hate him nearby.
He throws himself into being a king, gets lots of things done, and is generally considered by the public to be good at it. A good king. It's sort of tainted by bitterness, now. But the country does not fall apart, it does not break down into civil war - he handles it. The education system gets a shove in the right direction, the canals get cleaned up, various unemployed people get jobs. He wonders what on earth he's done wrong when he's doing good in the world, but he supposes it doesn't matter.
He knew what he was getting himself into, when he made this choice. He knew that Zevros would be upset with him. Maybe to the point where their camaraderie will just never recover. He doesn't know. From the beginning, he knew that he'd be shackled to someone he doesn't love. Edarial hadn't been expecting the random hatred from his new wife, but he certainly wasn't expecting to be happy.
Just, well. He wasn't expecting to be so miserable, either.
It shows, the misery. Dark circles under his eyes, the withdrawn, blank expression, unkempt hair. He loses some weight due to skipping meals just to avoid his close family. Or, other times, he just forgets, burying himself in work so he doesn't have to think 'What did I do?' over and over again.
But he's a good king. So that's something.
royal_obligation
come_midnight
"I have letters out to the other candidates to find out if they were coerced too. But perhaps you can tell us and perhaps you'll even tell the truth, was I the only one to be so thoroughly kept captive?"
"Well there's really no point to lying, considering where I am, so... No. But you were the most troublesome."
come_midnight
"Lovely," snorts Iobel. "Why did you jump straight to commanding my presence at the palace? I'd have accepted a politely worded invitation. Perhaps Edarial and I would have gotten along famously under better circumstances."
"Most people are more persuaded by commands than invitations," shrugs Nataliem. "And I'd offered to get you an invitation, but you'd turned me down."
come_midnight
"I turned you down because I expected you would be able to get me some perfunctory meet-and-greet at best and that wouldn't serve for the kind of information I would have wanted before getting married. You didn't offer to get me that."
"Pff," snorts Nataliem. "It doesn't matter how I got you into the marriage, what matters is that you were married. I had no doubt that his majesty could win you over from there."
royal_obligation
His majesty raises an eyebrow. Then, testily, he replies, "I beg your pardon? 'Win her over'? I'm not a rapist, I wasn't about to -"
come_midnight
...Iobel looks eloquently skeptical.
"I was under the impression that he had held my cat hostage, and he assiduously avoided me for months."
"I was under the impression that he had held my cat hostage, and he assiduously avoided me for months."
royal_obligation
"Kindly," says Edarial with a tone that is anything but pleasant, "do not try to familiarize yourself with me, I want nothing to do with you."
come_midnight
"And even if he had tried to charm me, I was under the impression that he'd held my cat hostage. If we'd had enough of a conversation early on to produce that information then instead of just the other day, I imagine the ultimate outcome for you would have been the same. Did you have some plan of getting away with it?"
"Because I was not expecting his majesty to be so cold as to lock me up in prison," says Nataliem primly.
come_midnight
"You're such a brilliant judge of character I'm beginning to wonder how you could even tell I'd be a good queen," mutters Iobel.
"I had other candidates," he shrugs. "You were hardly the best. They were better options, but his majesty ignored them once it became clear they were involved with me."
royal_obligation
Edarial smiles, just a little at the last part. He does not regret ignoring them for being involved with Nataliem. Not in the slightest.
come_midnight
Iobel glances at Edarial. "Were you turning women away for having met Nataliem or was that code for 'in his pocket'?"
"Ugh," says Nataliem with distaste. "No, I wasn't sharing any of their beds. It would feel incestuous."