𝐌𝐈𝐃𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄 • k. ayato

04

☄. *. ⋆

The day of the wedding passed quickly in [Y/N]'s mind. Her face turned contemplative as she tried to recall everything she had done and said.

It was a cold night, and she didn't feel like she was in her right state of mind. So much had changed in a single day, and from now on everything would be so different from what she was used to. Not to mention this rivalry she now had with her husband. Was this truly what she wanted? To battle against the man, she's supposed to spend the rest of her life with?

She was born with so much privilege, so perhaps a loveless, power-hungry marriage was only natural? It is unheard of for archons to have lovers, so perhaps for mortals in power, a loveless marriage was the price they had to pay for all that they had.

Her palms felt cold against each other. She did not like what she was becoming. A power-hungry, bitter woman. But she also had no way to change herself, for if she did, she would be eaten alive by all those that do not support her in her regime. On nights like these... a warm embrace was something she'd wish for relentlessly, but within the years, she had realized that that was something she could not buy or command.

She only had herself to keep her steady still.

A cold exhale escaped her lips as she held her head down.

She was sitting on her new chambers' floor, with the doors to the inner garden open wide. So lost in thought that she hadn't realized that the man whom she was waiting for was already standing behind her.

"You're shivering," he said in a quiet voice, wrapping a blanket around her. She thought it was strange. He wasn't teasing her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Ayato asked as he sat down beside her, and placed a bottle of wine between them.

"You're cheeky," she averted her eyes away from him.

"You're cranky," a most innocent giggle escaped his lips, as he supported himself on one hand. He was relaxed, surprisingly.

Was it because she was now his wife? Or perhaps, he simply found comfort in having someone so similar, and yet so different from him sit right beside him as the moonlight illuminated both their laughter and brazen conversation.

Upon a few more words, [Y/N] took the bottle into her hands and poured the wine into two separate glasses. The crimson red flowed delicately and she was ready to lose herself for the night. Unbeknownst to many, she quite enjoyed the taste of wine rolling down her throat, and the feeling of solitude it brought as well. Though she guessed she would now have to share that solitude with her husband who also seemed eager to taste the liquor.

"You seem quite eager," Ayato mused, taking one of the glasses into his hand.

[Y/N] smiled cheerily, "In a jocund conversational flow, wine adds a heady sense of pleasure. And I assume... we have quite a lot to talk about. So let us not be gloomy and enjoy the taste of serenity this God-sent drink has."

With that, she eagerly drank up.

"Are you saying you're quite the drunk?" Ayato asked as he took a sip, "That is something I was not expecting."

[Y/N] giggled, "One should always be drunk."

Ayato hummed tenderly, "With virtue, with poetry, or with wine, as you chose."

"Great minds do think alike," The lady laughed as she poured herself another glass, "Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what my father called entheos or the slight buzz of inspiration."