I Would Ask You To Dance (Mareven)

Even More of a Monster

Note: This is unedited so expect more errors than normal.

     He supposed that their relationship was doomed from the beginning. Their initial engagement started as a political one, so why was he to assume this one would end any different. Not to mention his unruly emotions, which he tended to hide behind his mask, were only complicating matters. In was in times like this that Maven wish he had listened to Mother. Emotions made you weak, they clouded your judgement. It was easier to do what needed to be done when morals weren't part of the equation.

Yet despite how often he tried to rid himself of them, she always managed to make him question his decision. She had a way of making him want to feel, want to be human. Though, of that Maven wasn't quite sure that was for the better. His country was at war. They didn't need their king to be human. They needed an immortal king, even if only in appearance.

     He had even written his own vows for her, or at least attempted to before he left he left Whitefire. He wondered briefly if she had read them, but he knew she had. He'd left them sprawled across his desk, an open invitation for her to read. He knew, of course, that there were traditional vows that every king said to his queen, but he had wanted to write his own for her. Even if it would have only been heard by her in private. But that time was over now, it had to be. She had made it abundantly clear that it was, that he was nothing but a monster. She wasn't wrong, Maven knew that much, he had wanted to kill her sister, but he didn't. Instead he sent her away, did the one thing that could stop him from crossing a line he could never come back from, but somehow that made him even more of a monster.

     Mother was right, of course she was always right, killing Gisa, no matter how amoral, would have been the best thing to do. It would have been easy to cover up and would've help put the final nail in the Scarlet Guard's coffin, but he hadn't. His humanity had gotten the better of him, and for that he was grateful, but he just wasn't sure what price he'd have to pay.

He stared emptily at his glass, drained of all liquid. He tried to remember how many glasses of the amber liquid he had in the past few days and realized he'd stopped keeping track sometime ago. Though he supposed it didn't matter how much he had drunk, the alcohol hadn't had its desired effect. He had hoped that it would give him the new insight into his dreary situation that he had needed, but it only confirmed what he already knew. If they took the emotions out of consideration, the situation became instantaneously clearer.

     He knew his transport was to arrive at any minute, but he couldn't bring himself to think anything of it. He knew he should have been deciding what he would say to her or if he would say anything to her at all, but his mind drifted to the mounds of paperwork he'd have to catch up. He'd done all that he could while he was away at the cabin, but it was not nearly enough. He could hope that she'd done some work while he was away, but that would be foolish of him. His lips curled up in a disgusted smile at the thought of it: hope was such a fickle thing.

     She had asked him to prove it. To show that she wasn't just some experiment to him. Albeit she had a point, he could have counted the days that Mare had been away on one hand, it was still an incredibly annoying task. It took him a day to realize that she wanted him to take some space from her and figure things out for himself, and so it had been two weeks since they had really spent any time together.
     Cameron still came to bed every night, plagued with nightmares of brother, and they saw each other during meetings, but their interactions outside of that were scare. And if he was being honest, Cal missed her. Somehow, despite Cameron being an arm's length from him, he still missed her. Cal knew that two weeks wasn't a particularly long time to give someone space, but the world they lived was at war. One of them might not return home from their next mission and he wasn't about to miss his chance.