Ya know, why does everybody hate Thayet? I think she's pretty cool. It's Jon who's the idiot. The only idiotic thing Thayet ever did was marrying Jon. Oh, this chapter is pretty soppy, so… well, I'm not going to give it away!
Chapter 6: Love You Never After
Jonathan stared in shock at his wife. Thayet glared back at him, just daring him to say something.
"Thayet…" he said, finally. "My Gods, Thayet!" the look of shock on his face said more than words.
"What?" Thayet asked sweetly. "Notice anything different, honey?"
"You- your face- your hair-"
"Oh, that." Thayet touched her bald scalp for a moment. "It was all for the good."
"All for the good!" Jonathan exploded. "You did that to yourself and it's all for the good? Now you're- you're-"
"I'm ugly?" Thayet finished for him. "Your point being, Jon? Why does it matter to you? You love me, after all."
At that moment, Jonathan's mind was cleared. He saw what he hadn't wanted to see since… since that day in the desert…"
Jonathan watched Alanna storm out as his rage faded. She'd come back, and she'd apologize…
He sat in the tent, unmoving.
He waited for her.
She never came back.
His Lioness never came back. Oh, she saw him again, they mended the fight- but she was never the same again. Never his Lioness. Never the woman who lay in his arms, the one who loved him.
But still the one he loved.
He'd been deluding himself, all these years. Jonathan had known that he didn't love Thayet from the moment they had been married. He'd looked into her eyes and seen love… love he couldn't return. In time even that had worn off… and Alanna had left him. He had changed, but she'd stayed his Lioness, all those years…
He knew she loved George. He knew it, all right, and had kept his distance. If he never saw her again… but it would be torture at the same time. Oh, Alanna…
Jonathan yanked the beltknife from Thayet's hands and pointed it at his throat with shaking, sweating hands.
I can't do it, I have responsibility to my people-
To hell with responsibility. All my life I've put responsibility ahead of myself, my wife, my children. Gods, Kalasin, Roald… Thayet, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for making you think I loved you… I'm sorry, Alanna, for pushing you away… I'm sorry, Keladry, for being so unfair… and I'm sorry, Wyldon, for not realizing where I should have put you… in a retirement home.
I'm sorry, Jonathan, for living a lie.
"I'll love you never after." He said, and plunged the knife into his throat, savagely ripping it back and forth until he collapsed in death.
~*~
Kalasin heard the death bells for King Jonathan, and she wept true tears.
She wept, for she was not the one to kill him.
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Thanx to Radella for suggesting some A/J… I never would have thought of it myself. And please, all you Jon-haters out there, I hope his death satisfies you. I would like to remind you all that though Jon can be an asshole at times, he is still human. He was just too caught up in his responsibility as King to take any time for himself or even his family. He is still, at heart, the Jon we all know in In The Hand of the Goddess.