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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He gets more withdrawn.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 Dark circles under his eyes, the withdrawn, blank expression, unkempt hair.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.
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royal_obligation
royal_obligation
Edarial's eyebrow twitches a bit, at her wording of 'troubled to give me queen lessons.'
"Not completely random, no, but still quite random in comparison to various people that have been on the political playing field for decades. Yes, they are that delicate. I understand that you are not trying to start a civil war, I am not accusing you of doing so, but I am being frank with you because I don't have the energy to be more gentle."
"Not completely random, no, but still quite random in comparison to various people that have been on the political playing field for decades. Yes, they are that delicate. I understand that you are not trying to start a civil war, I am not accusing you of doing so, but I am being frank with you because I don't have the energy to be more gentle."
come_midnight
"So much for that idea, then. Zevros also opined that it might help if I tell you that I do not hate you."
royal_obligation
He sighs. Then he interrupts his twin's inevitable pleading with, "- You mentioned, earlier, how 'Everybody wins' if I would have never forced myself into marriage."
royal_obligation
"- No, nope. False. All problems for you would have been handled. All of the personal problems that you are having in your immediate family right now. Those would have been handled. But do you know what it would have done for the people that were not us?"
come_midnight
Iobel glances between king and prince, unsure that she's getting all of the content of this exchange.
royal_obligation
"Do you realize," says Edarial softly, "just how quickly this country would devolve into civil war? Do you comprehend that? There are multiple people who have a claim to the throne, several of them would try to use it."
royal_pain
"Kinda not caring, if a country needs one of two people to get married it's kind of a stupid country. Like, just bend the rules a little and let someone make some decisions, not that hard."
royal_obligation
Edarial stares.
"... You get that a country is not just a nebulous entity, right? That there are people in it that did nothing to choose to live in it but be born in it and who have nothing to do with any of the reasons as to why a country is going to combust?"
"... You get that a country is not just a nebulous entity, right? That there are people in it that did nothing to choose to live in it but be born in it and who have nothing to do with any of the reasons as to why a country is going to combust?"
royal_obligation
"And? And those would be the people that would be most hurt by a civil war. Those would be the people that would really suffer. It would be their homes that are getting pillaged for supplies for armies, their fields that are getting emptied, their children that are conscripted to join one side or another - I could go on. There's a lot of material about how wars are bad. I'll spare you."
royal_obligation
Edarial makes a frustrated sound.
"Do you just - not care if people die, or are unmade, or hurt, or tortured, or traumatized? Do you not feel at least some - shred of responsibility for - knowing that you can at least try to stop it?!"
"Do you just - not care if people die, or are unmade, or hurt, or tortured, or traumatized? Do you not feel at least some - shred of responsibility for - knowing that you can at least try to stop it?!"
royal_obligation
This answer seems to calm him down, a little. "Thank you," he says to Iobel.
come_midnight
"So having established that you don't think Marlatia is stable enough to survive the departure of the only available royal blood even with a queen consort trying to hold things together, what is the plan?"
royal_obligation
He sighs. "Right now? Try to fix myself to the point where I am properly - functional to make lifelong decisions again. Work on things that involve fixing the country in the meantime, because I do better when I have set goals to strive for."
come_midnight
"Then I suppose I'll guess, and if you later come to know, perhaps you will tell me."
royal_obligation
"Sure," he agrees.
There he goes. Back to looking - empty and miserable and sad. Great.
There he goes. Back to looking - empty and miserable and sad. Great.