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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He gets more withdrawn.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 Dark circles under his eyes, the withdrawn, blank expression, unkempt hair.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_pain
"Cool. Guess we will just sit on our asses until then," shrugs Zevros. "Unless there's any topics you want to talk about in three minutes?"
royal_pain
"Eh. I guess I have a question, are you going to stop glaring at Ari all the time, now?"
royal_pain
"Okay, good. That got a bit awkward, like - he was running from you, basically the entire time."
royal_pain
Zevros looks at his brother, then says, "And you! Are you going to apologize and say I was right?"
royal_pain
"Yeah, go fuck yourself, man."
A few of the guards are surprised by Zevros telling their king to fuck himself. Not that Zevros cares.
A few of the guards are surprised by Zevros telling their king to fuck himself. Not that Zevros cares.
come_midnight
"Am I missing some story about your heroism behind the scenes?" wonders Iobel in Zevros's direction softly.
royal_pain
"I was the one that noticed the results of your cat and the strange convenient headaches at the same time. Went to tell Edarial, he blew me off and went back to pouting. Not to mention, I was against the whole 'get married to someone you don't know' thing from the beginning."
come_midnight
"But you didn't, for example, ask me what was wrong, or present a sufficiently approachable face that the survey-taker went to you with my story, or double-check the intake procedures of queen candidates, or keep a close enough eye on the guards to know that at least half a dozen of them are taking orders from someone else."
royal_pain
"Hey, you didn't exactly come to me and tell me that something was wrong. I was just going to leave you alone because your life is none of my fucking business. This shit is all Edarial's territory for dealing with, and guess who dropped the ball?"
come_midnight
"Oh, believe me, I'm kicking myself for my own missed opportunities. I could have gone to you, I could have gone to Edarial, I could have simply thrown enough magic and screaming at the top of my lungs around during my rescue attempt that I would be guaranteed attention outside of a handful of bought and paid for guards and helpless servants, I could have burst into tears at the wedding, I could have kept hold of Cricket in the first place, downed those guards, and dunked him myself, I could have worked faster on my wall-walking spell, I could have prioritized cramming my idealized teleportation spellchart into my head last summer instead of setting the project down to pick at an immortality hex, I could have done so many things. And so could any of us, so why are you being more judgmental than my cat?"
royal_pain
"Because if Edarial had listened to me in the first place, none of this shit would have happened. You'd be in your magic shop working on an immortality hex, and we'd be anywhere but here. The two of you would never have met, I wouldn't be pissed at my brother, your cat wouldn't have been kidnapped and poisoned, and Ari wouldn't be a quivering mess of misery. Everybody wins."
royal_obligation
Edarial is currently demonstrating that he is just as good at death glares as his brother is. Look at him, looking like he wants to wish death on his twin.
come_midnight
"Congratulations, Zevros," says Iobel tiredly. "I'll write my mother for the 'you tried' stamp she has to encourage students who have not successfully accomplished anything. We can all have one."
And then she is invisible.
And then she is invisible.
royal_pain
Zevros sort of growls and shakes his head. "Don't care. We'll just deal with Nataliem and then go back to biting each other's heads off."
come_midnight
"Mm-hm. What's the address?" Iobel asks, starting to charge the wall-walking.
come_midnight
Iobel goes to wander around the environs of this house and see what they're dealing with.
It's a large, fancy house, with pretty gardens and a few fountains. Iobel can see lots of people inside it, some whose silhouettes look like they're carrying weaponry. On the third floor is a lavender figure who's isolated from the others, and who seems to be sitting at a desk. That's probably Nataliem.