Alternate Realities

Rumor Has it (prompt)

Prompt (submitted via Tumblr): On top of all of her duties, the rumors had crept into her mind. Rumors of truths and lies and assumptions. She flopped down on her bed overwhelmed with fatigue. He entered the room shortly after, wrapping his arms around her. "Rumors?" She nodded. "You know they aren't true." "They are." "Even if they were, you know better than to give in." She paused for a moment. "Lie to me." He looked at her bewildered. "Lie to me. Make me feel like it's only us." Without hesitating, he murmured, "I hate you."

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Healers heal, they don't hurt. It's a core value that she now realizes some in her house don't uphold. When she asked her cousin, Bellona, why she was helping to make more silent stone, Bellona looked at her perplexed. And slathered on a bitter treatment made worse by how deeply she'd earned it.

"I guess the Prince is light on pillow talk, or I suppose that's not what he has you for."

There's no response to that. Indignation was impossible after the full second it took for her to absorb it. By the time she had breath in her lungs, she couldn't deny it. But she also couldn't describe her relationship with Ptolemus without bringing impropriety down on herself. Her mother already couldn't look at her. Worse, Ptolemus hadn't talked to her about silent stone at all, and lately, there'd been less and less talk on pillows even though there had been more nights together. Maybe Bellona was right.

Bellona touched her arm and her expression shifted sad and her eyebrows tilted with pity. "I guess in this condition, we'll all see where you stand before next winter."

Wren turned, holding her breath and walked away, straight to her mother. Even though her conduct had brought on a new meaning to the term shame, there was nowhere else she could go. She couldn't sense for herself if Bellona was right, but she also had no reason to doubt her. And her mother, having had two children, she should know something about it—or at least could find a healer in the family that could be discrete.

Sprawled out on the mattress in the small apartment she preferred to share with Ptolemus, she cried into her pillow. Three hours and a gentle touch from her great-aunt Wonita, and she could feel the walls whispering her secret. Conducting an affair in the open had not been her goal. She hadn't planned any of it, least of all to be producing a child before Elaine. Not just a child, but the bastard child of the future Rift King. Undoubtedly, when a Magnetron appears among the ranks of House Skonos, the real judgment—from the other houses—will start.

When Ptolemus pushed through the doors, the only thoughts she had were rooted in a deep, anxious dread, and a pervasive wondering about what took him so long. Surely, the walls had whispered to him hours ago?

"Tired?" He sinks onto one knee on the edge of the bed over an arms-length away.

She nods and doesn't move.

"Because of the rumors?"

Wren shakes, constricting herself to just cry and not sob. She nods.

"They're not true?" His hand touches her skin, a flat palm on her calf.

"And if they are?"

"Even if they were, you'd know better than to give in, to let them see you cry." He lays down next to her, his face on the pillow and his hand on her back.

"Lie to me," she whispers. He rolls back a half inch, waiting for context, a clue. "Lie to me. Tell me this is just between us. Lie to me." She demands.

He told her the only lie he could bare, a small smirk parting his lips, "I hate you. I loath you. You've destroyed my happiness."

She crumples into relieved tears, letting his lips touch hers. Between them (and only between them), she is not his mistress— but his wife.

No rumors or pointed judgments could ever remove that one little lie.