dreams (alver x og cale)

Epilogue 4: Wedding

Madness. Complete madness.

If Cale were to put a specific label on his last few months, that would certainly be the only way to describe it. If he were to reflect on the past year or so, he'd have stronger words to use.

From a crown prince to a king and from a nothing lout to the king's fiance and now–

"...are we seriously getting married?" Cale asked his reflection, feeling a touch out of sorts with the progression of events. Far from it, it was just so far beyond his wildest dreams that he didn't know quite how to process it.

It wasn't necessarily that everything happened at once. There was time. About a six month long engagement as well. He ought to have plenty of time to accept the new reality he was faced with. It was just a lot more than anyone would be prepared to cope with.

"So my fantasy lover of my dreams was actually real and loves me to distraction and because he's also extremely power and influential, he introduced same-sex marriage into the royal family just so that he could be with me" was quite a hefty sentiment for anyone to handle.

And then there was the matter of Cale's family.

"Are you ready?"

Cale looked away from his reflection into the face of his stepmother and felt... complicated.

The only wedding he'd attended in his life was the one between this woman and his father. To this day he carried bittersweet feelings about the affair.

He'd never really hated Violan, he respected her and he understood that she wasn't responsible for his mothers death or his father moving on. He knew that she was a wonderful mother to Basen and Lily and she had never once been cruel to him.

He had been cruel to her though.

Cale smiled weakly at her, it still took a lot of getting used to. Putting down the act and being sincere with his family. He had to suppress the impulse to sneer and cuss, chase her away so that he could maintain his persona.

Perhaps that was the best thing Cale had learned from Alberu's blunders. It was convenient that he could hold it over the king's head for the rest of all eternity but more so than that, Cale was forced to do some self reflection.

As his family forced that poor bastard to endure trial after trial to earn their approval, Cale couldn't look away from the situation any longer.

He loved his family and his family loved him. He was old enough and mature enough by now to know that there were actually better ways to protect them than to just become a lightning rod for criticism. One sidedly deciding that he knew what was best was a poor way to handle any situation.

Mostly it was the spiteful side of Cale who didn't want to be as big of a fool as Alberu was.

Violan looked him up and down and offered him one of her rare smiles of approval. It wasn't the sort of sunny smile one might see on anyone else, it was as tight and elegant as the woman herself. But Cale could recognize the affection in her eyes. "I have something for you, if you'll accept it." She said sternly and Cale relaxed a bit.

If Violan approved of his appearance, he didn't look like a fool. Cale wasn't normally remotely insecure about his appearance or fashion but the wedding brought him an unfamiliar stab of anxiety that he was unfamiliar with.

His thoughts kept straying to how unbelievable this all was. What would he do if he went out into the ceremony and Alberu changed his mind? Realized that trash like Cale actually wasn't worth his royal time?

Well, Cale knew exactly what would happen. Lily would probably behead him right there, treason or no. Once Alberu had finally managed to earn the approval of his family it became apparent that if he attempted to weasel his way out of this, the consequences would be grave.