Fairytale?

Chapter 19- Everything About Romance

After the frosty silence in the gardens,
After the agony in stony places-
The shouting and the crying
-
(trigger warning: self-harm)
-

"Could you put the stuffed animal away?"
Edmund had absolutely nothing against stuffed animals. But Sanya had not looked up from the puppy plushie even once since he'd walked into her room.

"His name is Milkshake." Sanya said very primly, still not looking Edmund in the eye. She was afraid of what she would see if she did. "I couldn't decide between Vanilla or Milkshake, but then I thought that Milkshake sounds more adorable as a dog name, don't you think? Which is why-"

"Have you named all your plushies?"
She had a lot of them. It had unnerved him whenever they had sex here- and when he'd finally told Sanya about it, she had rolled her eyes and carefully stuffed them inside her wardrobe.
Then she'd taken off her dress and pushed him down on the bed.

She looked next to herself, and frowned.
"More or less." The cheetah was Minnie- and the twin teddy bears were Twittle and Tattle- the yellow giraffe was Bunu- the little lion was Leo, which she knew was very uncreative, but it just fit him very well! "Except for the dolphin, the pink teddy bear, and the other dog one. I don't care much for the pink teddy- and it's really difficult to name dogs. As for the dolphin, I keep calling it Dolphy, and I know that's stupid-"

"That's what Jem called his dolphin plushie."

"Oh-" Sanya finally looked up to see Edmund staring at her from his seat at her desk, his lips turned down, "I completely forgot."
It felt like a punch to the gut. She'd forgotten about her little baby boy?

"Your memory isn't exactly the best." He said, smiling a little. "What happened to Dolphy?"

"He lost it. I don't remember when exactly- but he did. Jemmy was too old to care about a plushie- so he said-" She added, because one could never be too old for plush toys, "but he turned grey for an entire week."

"That is bad. What did you do?"

"Told everyone he had pox, and kept him in my chambers." She shrugged. What else could she have done? Tell everyone that he was the biological son of the Faerie Queen? "He only stopped being grey after Selene threw a tantrum about- Heavens, I don't even remember. But he tried to calm her down, and in doing so, he calmed down as well."

He smiled sadly, "He was a good big brother."

She nodded, the corners of her lips lifting up, "He learnt that from you."

Edmund would have loved to hear more stories about his children- learning about them was as bittersweet as was humanly possible- but the longer he put off what he'd come here to do, the more likely it was that he would never do it.
"We need to talk."

Oh, for the- she should have told the maid to tell Edmund she'd gone to India, or something.
"I told you, it was an accident with the sciss-"
What would it take for him to believe her lie?

"About America." He ended, cutting off her lie.
She was so insistent on it- but he knew her. He knew her, even if she forgot that, and he almost always knew when she was lying.
"You know, what my parents told you day before."

"I'm not going to go." She said immediately. How could she leave him? "Can you tell them for me?"

"Really?" Honestly, he'd not been sure of what he'd thought her answer would be. "Why not?"