"You love me," Diana giggled at the lip of her teacup before taking a sip.

Distracted by the taste of flowers blooming in her mouth, Diana didn't notice how the atmosphere had frosted over at her declaration. Even if she had noticed, she wouldn't have cared. After all, it wasn't a lie.

Looking up from her teacup at Claude's chilly silence, she smiled sweetly at him as if she were daring him to deny it.

In his own noncommittal manner, Claude murmured, "Hm," daring her to prove it to him in return. Closing his eyes, he continue to sip his own tea.

Unperturbed by his nonchalance, she rose to the challenge, her smile curving into the ghost of a smirk, utterly reminiscent of Claude's own. Lovers did tend to pick up on each other's traits eventually.

"Look at your tea, Claude," she prompted before taking a sip of her own.

The smile was evident in her voice and he moved to fulfill her request without a second thought. Glancing at the deep orange hues swirling in his teacup, he understood her intentions but he wasn't about to admit to anything.

Sliding his eyes shut before another sip, his indifferent demeanor slipped right back into place as his only defense against the woman sitting before him.

"So?" Claude countered.

Diana looked warmly at her own tea,"It's my favorite."

The lack of Claude's response made her look directly at him before she continued, "You drink it every day and you don't even like tea, Claude."

"This one isn't as bad as the others," he offered in his frustratingly detached manner.

Undeterred, Diana pressed onward. "Claude."

He lazily looked up at her definitive tone.

"Your clothes?" Diana gestured towards his loose Siodonna robes with an inquisitive eyebrow. With the exception of necessary royal events, Claude never wore his empire's standard dress anymore. He lived simply in the loose robes lightly embroidered with Siodonna's usual filigree. In the clothes of her people.

Claude hummed a quick apathetic sound before returning his focus to the tea in his hand.

Having already expected that he wouldn't deign it necessary to respond to her question, Diana was amused and it was written all over her face as she gently put down her teacup. Leaning forward, she rested an elbow on the table and tucked her chin into the palm of her hand.

Tilting her head into her hand, she smiled and gazed at Claude. Her eyes, brimming with tender love, carried the slightest undercurrent of mischievousness.

"Claude," Diana called, summoning his attention back to her. Grinning, she teased, "Have you noticed..?"

"What?" Claude eyed her with slight suspicion, unsure of where she was going with such an incomplete question.

"I've been calling you by name this whole time."

Claude froze as the last few minutes replayed in his mind. Diana had been adamantly, purposefully, deliberately calling him by his name. No one ever addressed the King of Obelia by just his wretched name. Even Felix never laxed in his royal address when talking with Claude in private, not daring to mention such a cursed and crippled name.

But Claude hadn't noticed. And hesitantly, he realized that he didn't mind it when his name fell from her lips.

"I told you," she drawled with a smile as she reached for her tea again, "You love me."