"Okay. Mine, then, because I've pretty neatly moved on and give no fucks about it anymore. My mom was insane, waffling between creepily saccharine sweet and absolutely terrifying. To the point where I did not know what would set her off, so I avoided her. Birth-father, nonexistent, I had guardians, but they were not - parents. If you recall that thing I mentioned about my magic if I'm almost out of mana - I went through it. When I was eleven. Because they blackmailed into doing it to see what my actual mana reserves were, so they could more accurately use me to make things. They did it to my sister, too, multiple times because her reserve's higher than mine and they wanted cool magic things."
He looks at Edarial. "Any of this sounding familiar?"
"I can go on, but - essentially, it is not your fault, but you need to be aware of it because apparently it is just destined for me to be surrounded by terrible people."
"There's your anti-clumsy, Isabella," she murmurs.
Adarin keeps hugging Edarial, because he is pretty sure he needs it right now.
"... I-I am... Extremely sorry, that it - does this," mutters Edarial. "I don't mean to just - assume everyone is plotting something terrible."
"I mean, a lot of the people around you legitimately are. Iobel isn't, I can state that roughly as confidently as I can state that you're an alt of my husband and she's an alt of me for any definition of 'alt' worth considering."
"I want to be queen because I think I'd be good at it if y- with practice," she amends. "Good queens get more done than good magic shop proprietors. I very much doubt that whoever you'd marry if I divorced you would be a better queen or for that matter that much more comfortable a spouse. But if there is this much indelible suspicion - if I can't have even the minimal benefit of the doubt from you that I extend to people I have not even met - then I'm not going to be a very good queen in practice and I should go be a very good princess now that I've been offered it, even though I don't overmuch want a daemon. If I cannot have that today, then I do want to know how long I am supposed to wait."
"I do honestly want the country to have the best chance it can. Meaning if you will be a good queen, then I'll help you do that. That being said, it's - I mean, it's really helpful to have another me telling me that it will be okay. But I keep trying and you keep being incredibly cold and that doesn't exactly make it easy to trust you. So I don't know what the timetable would be for me letting you in? But I could help you be queen. By... Actually teaching you."
Adarin hugs him. "Would a - trial period help? Where he shows you how to queen and you both see if you work together as well as Isabella and I do? Then after that you can decide if you want to be a sister princess or a queen. We'll need some time before making the portal anyway, mana and all."
"I'm not actually sure that's going to help - Iobel has a point that we are plausibly making things worse. I'm - hm. The catch-22 in question is that Iobel is having a hell of a hard time mustering personal warmth for someone who not only does not especially trust but also apparently mistrusts her, and Edarial's having a hard time trusting someone who's coming off as cold, and I'm not sure how to - cut the Gordian knot, so to speak - Iobel, why do you love your cat? He's so obnoxious you don't want him to be able to talk to other people if you can help it, why do you like him?"
"This is about the noticing thing you mentioned, isn't it. Cricket detests most everybody, but he produces reasons on inspection - that they're careless or cruel or stupid or whatever - and they are reasons that he has observed legitimately don't apply to me, and consequently he's fond of me. He isn't just indiscriminately affectionate or loyal to me because I'm his binder, he loves me for reasons."
"Your wife," says Iobel dryly, "mentioned as a perk of the relationship that you are good at noticing how awesome she is in precisely correct ways."
"Well that's convenient. I hadn't even meant to do that but I am not complaining, my wife is awesome. But on topic - I think queening would help," he says. He looks at Isabella, and adds, "Recall that I find you talking about economics incredibly hot. It would probably help."