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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He gets more withdrawn.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 Dark circles under his eyes, the withdrawn, blank expression, unkempt hair.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
come_midnight
"I have excellent parents, but if they appear here at all it is likely that they are going to want to meet my husband."
royal_obligation
"That's fine. Just - as long as the entire situation is explained, beforehand."
come_midnight
"They already know the bad news. I will inform them of the better news when I write."
royal_obligation
Since that seems to be the end of that conversation, he attempts a little smile, and then heads off to go back to being a hermit.
royal_pain
"I seriously swear he is not this much of a killjoy normally," says Zevros once Edarial is out of earshot.
royal_pain
"It is really hard to reduce an entire brother into a few sentences. Uh... Really smart, driven, had a pole perpetually up his ass. Fucking fantastic listener, heart bleeding all over the place, sometimes gets a bit too focused on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. Treats himself like a resource to be used and not like a thing to be taken care of until he realizes he is hurting. Uh... Sarcastic, and a huge magic nerd."
come_midnight
"He sounds like a more uptight, less self-centered male version of me."
come_midnight
"Dubiously. The more I find out the more convinced I am that a great deal of pain could have been avoided, and without thwarting any particularly valuable goals, if the initial letter had been worded as a voluntary invitation."
royal_pain
"Basically. Our dad's a bastard, and considering that I'm a bastard I'm allowed to say that he is an extra special super-bastard. That should die in a fire."
come_midnight
"I will extinguish that part of the palace last if it ever goes up in flames," says Iobel dryly.
royal_pain
"That's the spirit. Uh - I guess I can tell stories about Edarial, that might show his personality a bit better than me trying to ballpark it with small sentence descriptions."
royal_pain
"Oooh, I can tell you about when I told him I was gay! Which is a thing that I am, by the way, try not to be weird about it."
royal_pain
"Cool, thanks! So, anyway, I was trying to figure out a way to tell him, since he is a huge fan of duty and responsibility and I'm kind of firstborn. I figured he would tell me it was a phase and that I needed to suck it up for the country or some other bullshit. So I was kind of aggressive and challenging about it, like, 'Yeah I don't like women what are you going to do about it?'"
Zevros snickers. "He kind of just looked confused, then said, 'Nothing? I already knew' and just moved on because he just didn't think it mattered in the slightest. It was kind of funny, I wanted to hug him for it."
Zevros snickers. "He kind of just looked confused, then said, 'Nothing? I already knew' and just moved on because he just didn't think it mattered in the slightest. It was kind of funny, I wanted to hug him for it."
come_midnight
"I begin to suspect that he agreed to get married to spare you the trouble, as though there is somehow more justice in a straight man being married to a woman he has no interest than in a gay man being likewise. Or perhaps that didn't factor in and it was only your preference for absconding for fruity drinks."
royal_pain
"Pretty sure it was a bit of both. Me not wanting to be king, and me being gay. He wants to be king, and doesn't seem to be gay, so I guess in his head it was the better option. Honestly though, he doesn't seem to be anything, I don't even know if he likes women. He's shown absolutely no interest in anyone. At all."
come_midnight
"Which was a relief on the wedding night yet could prove inconvenient when it begins to look like one of us is doomed to childlessness. Perhaps I'll find - someone."
royal_pain
"Yup. Warn him if you do, though. Because fairness. Pretty sure he won't demand that you stick to celibacy, but he likes to know things."
come_midnight
"I assure you I am not going to carry on an affair without informing the public-father-to-be of any child I may fall pregnant with."