"Edian, you know I'm married."
Staring up at the blonde woman, Roctis sighed and put down his book. All he had wanted to do was read in peace while his wife was (luckily) away for a while. In fact he had been looking forward to it the entire day.
After the normal activities and work, at night he had had dinner with Ignes, bottle feeding her, and read her some fairy tales before putting her to bed. She wasn't fussy and wouldn't wake, though he did look in on her every half an hour. Then he had checked the entire house again, ensuring all the windows were closed, that all the latches were shut, and everything was locked. A quick look through a window before he closed the curtains had confirmed that, yes, it was still snowing heavily. So he'd made tea and sat in his armchair in the living room where the fire crackled, warming it. Dark, and only the light from the flames of the fireplace, along with the candelabra by his side table, allowed him to have picked his book up.
"That..." her voice was soft. Sweet. The type that he wouldn't mind listening to for days, and the type meant to sing lullabies for a child unable to sleep. "It doesn't fucking count and you know that."
He sighed. "I'd think that it's the one thing that counts most."
"Stop twisting the meaning of my words to suit you."
She placed one of her rapiers to his neck, the blade cool against his skin. He hadn't even noticed her unsheathing, but then, he had never been as skilled in these matters as the other Generals.
"What do you mean by this then?" Even if he hadn't anticipated her being so upset, it didn't scare him. She wouldn't kill him, she couldn't. That's why she had come here after all. She wouldn't understand his question either, that he was referring to her blade at his neck and not what her words had meant, but that was fine too.
"She blackmailed you into marriage, and you know as well as the rest of us that she goes and-"
Roctis cut off her words as they increased in heat, he didn't want to hear them. "Like how you are threatening me now?"
There was a tiny inhale at his words, so quiet, yet so sharp, and he felt guilt at the way the pain marred her face as she stumbled back, rapier withdrawing. He shouldn't, not when he was only speaking the truth, but when had situations like this ever been rational? It hurt his heart more when she sheathed her sword with too loud a clack, the sound painful in the silence where only the flames crackled.
"I'm sorry, that, that was my fault."
"You don't need to apologise."
"Don't I?" Edian shook her head, her hair veiling her face. He knows it also veiled her disappointment in him. "Even when I'm going to say all the things you pretend not to notice?"
His hands tightened around the plush fabric of the armchair. "You won't."
"Wouldn't I?"
"No," Roctis said, so much conviction in it that he almost believed it.
"I wouldn't say that your wife goes out behind your back to spend time with other men? Or is it the fact that she cheats on you that I'd keep quiet about?"
He simply stared at her. He couldn't bring himself to speak, even though he had known this. Always he had ignored it, after all what else was he to do? He was trapped in this marriage and couldn't leave, so there was no use in hurting himself by thinking about it.
"It doesn't matter," he finally said.
The disappointment on Edian's face only grew. It hurt, so instead of looking at her, he looked past her at the clock mounted on the wall. It was beautiful, carved of a dark wood; a present from Urokai. Though, he'd had a strange look on his face when he'd given it to him at the wedding, and left immediately to cling to his own husband.
"Even when she's out right now in another man's bed?"
Roctis looked back at her from the ornate hand of the clock that ticked every second.
"What do you want me to do of that?" It didn't come out as calm as he'd thought it would. Instead it was sharp, and loud. Upset.
"Get rid of her. I know you can't divorce her but, it won't matter if she's dead."
The idea made his mind quake. Murder? Just because of an affair? He couldn't. To do something to someone he knew, it terrified him. Edian wouldn't take that as an excuse though. Not when she was a fellow General, and not when she could kill so easily with her own two hands in person. Her rapiers weren't for show the way his whip was.
"I cannot do that. She's Ignes' mother, and I can't take her away from her. She's just a child."
Edian only snorted, and he knew she didn't accept this reason either.
"She doesn't love Ignes either, when was the last time she actually held her? Or talked to her?"
"I cannot just kill her." He wasn't answering her questions but that was because they both knew the answer. That she never had even when Ignes was born.
"Why not?" Edian's voice rose, enraged. "After everything she's done, you love her? Is that what's happening?"
He flinched as her hands went to the hilts of her rapiers, and she froze. What had she realized, he wondered, as she lowered them slowly. Not moving, even as she came up to him, even as she knelt on his chair and wrapped her arms around him, even as she cradled his cheek with a hand, he stared at her.
He could actually see her face clearly now, lit up and flickering orange in the dim gloom. It was strange. Her eyes were teary, and filled with an affection he longed for. But it wasn't one he could have.
"Roctis," she murmured, leaning in so her forehead was on his hair, and her eyes obscured from his vision. "You're the same soft-hearted fool you always were."
Still unmoving, he merely listened to her.
"Do you remember all those years ago? Under that sycamore by the sea?"
Of course he remembered, it had been when-
Sitting under the shade of the tree, Roctis watched Edian warily. She was a wild card, and even if they could be considered friends that didn't mean she wouldn't kill him at the drop of a hat. That's just how the Court was.
"Is there a reason you came?"
There was a pink flush on her cheeks as she answered, but then, it was a cold day and she wasn't wearing a coat or scarf like he was, "I wanted to ask you something."
"What is it?" That only made him more wary.
She sat down by his side, laying her rapiers down on the ground beside her. Hugging her knees, she rested her head on them, looking at him through her eyelashes. "About engagements. Like how Urokai's been engaged to Zarga since he was a child. Is that common?"
Roctis frowned. "Didn't your father teach you?"
"He doesn't talk much, and he didn't know when I asked."
That made enough sense. Even when Gan Jiang Drosia had been a General he had been reclusive to the point most people didn't know what he looked like. "It was more common in the past. It is not considered an unbreakable bond anymore either. They can be broken off."
"Are you engaged?"
Why was she asking that? Mere curiosity? Well, it wasn't information that would harm him so it was fine if she knew. "No."
"Is it fine if I propose to you then?"
Staring at her, Roctis wondered if he had misheard. "Excuse me?"
"I want to marry you-" Edian sat up straight, cheeks getting redder- "because I love you."
That was flattering but- "I barely know you."
"Then..." She bit her lip, thinking. "That's not a no right? So if you knew me would you give me a yes then?"
"Perhaps." Only if she wouldn't kill him, and if he felt anything for her.
Edian smiled (a small sweet thing he'd seen before when she talked to Rayga as he dragged Gradeus back to the Court for the nth time. or when she would speak with her late wife Yayota. or even when she was with Urokai or the Lord's husband) and looked up at the tree. She took a deep breath and wrinkled her nose, probably because the salt of the sea or sting of the cold went too deep, maybe even to her throat and lungs.
"One day then. I will ask you in the future, please give me an answer then."
He returned to watching the sea, pale blue bursting to white as it crashed against the sand. "One day-"
"You never asked."
"I never got the chance," she murmured, her breath hot on his forehead and brows, "I was going to but, then you were engaged. How could I ask?"
He didn't reply, wondering when she would get off of him. It must be uncomfortable to kneel for so long.
"What would you have said?" A timid whisper, filled with fear and anxiety. Roctis shifted, worried at her show of vulnerability. It wasn't like her, and unbecoming of a General, especially one renowned like her. She was known to be stoic.
"I would have agreed." Of course he would have, she was a merciful woman, and wonderful. So very wonderful.
"Shit." Edian drew back to look at him. Her eyes were welling up with tears and she was trembling. "Oh, shit. Then-" she leaned in, so close that the soft brown of her eyes were clear even through her lashes- "what about now?"
His eyes widened and he grabbed her hand on his cheek before she could kiss him. "Edian! I'm married."
"She doesn't care-" Edian leaned in so close that his action didn't matter- "so why should you?"
He could stop her, he definitely could stop her, but he didn't and her lips were against his. His arms around her and then instead of kneeling she was in his lap, her fingers threading through his hair.
It was all wrong, but nobody knew. In the morning when he woke, she was gone, and nobody knew. When he welcomed his wife home with a smile, she didn't know.
He held Ignes, remembering blonde hair and a sharp smile. A promise and the glint of blades. It was fine, nobody knew, so Roctis smiled.