Announcement

[royal_obligation]

Edarial makes a list of necessities for a wife. He has Zevros check it over, who promptly rips it up and throws it at him. He is of the opinion that if Edarial doesn't actually want to marry a specific person, he shouldn't, and Zevros will have nothing to do with any of it. Edarial sighs, rewrites it, and keeps it and a copy of it away from his twin in the future.

He makes the announcement to various interested people that he will be looking for a bride. Just saying it makes him feel sick. Edarial manages to keep it together long enough to give a list of the qualities he's looking for before he flees. He says he's busy, no one will look twice at him being curt and disappearing to get work done. So no one comes after him when he hides in his room and locks the door.

Face buried in his pillow, he realizes that there's no way he can be personable to his - whatever they are. Potential brides, suitors - whatever, he doesn't care. He'll hire someone to vet them, so he doesn't have to torture himself dealing with women trying to persuade him to marry them.

Comments

[royal_obligation]

"... Fair enough," he sighs. "I'll go."

He stands, goes to the bar, and carefully chooses a bottle of wine. And then calmly pours some of it onto the bed. It gets replaced at the bar, without any further ado. Edarial doesn't like alcohol very much. But they are supposed to have had sex, so - wine stand in. He doubts anyone will care to look any closer than that.

"Have a nice night," says Edarial with a sort of - resignation. Then, he departs.

[come_midnight]

Iobel waits for a few minutes to see if anyone's going to bring her Cricket of their own accord.

[aestrix]

Elsewhere, a guard says to a closet, "Okay, we're about to take you to Iobel, so don't - scratch or maul us or anything, okay, kitty?"

She has a cat carrier. It will be used to transport him. Unless he doesn't cooperate, in which case they might have to throw out the cat carrier idea and just go with a sack or something.

[alicornucopia]

"Iobel?" (something something) "Iobel!"

[aestrix]

"... Go to Iobel," says the guard, then - she carefully opens a crack in the closet door, showing the cat carrier to Cricket.

[alicornucopia]

Cricket peers at the carrier.

"I go," he says, "I will, no box."

(Some of the hexes Iobel has been known to sell are boxes.)

[aestrix]

"... Fine," sighs the guard. "Fine. But no running."

[alicornucopia]

"I will go Iobel," says Cricket. It's debatable if he knows the word 'run'.

[aestrix]

That's probably about as good as they're going to get. If all else fails, they chase down the cat and throw him into the bag.

Slowly, the closet door opens, revealing a hilariously large number of guards for one cat. They're all in armor. Some of them have weapons, though not sharp ones - nets and such, mostly.

[alicornucopia]

Cricket steps out of the closet and regards them all with utter disdain. "Iobel?" he asks. "I go Iobel? Iobel Iobel Iobel."

[aestrix]

The guardswoman considers him, then shrugs and says, "Follow me."

She starts walking in the direction of the Honeymoon Suite.

[alicornucopia]

Cricket dashes ahead of her as soon as supplied with a direction and stops at the next fork in the hallway.

[aestrix]

She points. Left.

[alicornucopia]

He goes left. "Iobel! Iobel!"

[come_midnight]

Iobel hears him and opens her door and catches him when he leaps into her arms and hugs him and sobs once.

[royal_obligation]

Edarial's ruminating on why in the world his wife seems to hate his guts. Was it the letter? Did he word it badly? As he does, he wanders the halls, hoping that he won't run into anyone who will ask awkward questions.

He thinks he hears something, as he walks - he thought it sounded like 'Iobel,' repeated, but that - can't be right. It's his head playing tricks on him.

But he goes to investigate, anyway.

[aestrix]

And he runs into another person who's wandering the hallways for an entirely different reason. She's trying to find a cat.

She stares at Edarial, in surprise.

[royal_obligation]

"Hello, Zephrys," says Edarial, politely.

[aestrix]

That is when she slaps him.

[royal_obligation]

Edarial is more confused than angry, or even hurt. "... Why?" he says, stunned and holding a hand to his now stinging cheek.

[aestrix]

"You know what you did!" exclaims Zephrys indignantly. "Bastard!"

Then she turns and storms off.

[royal_obligation]

"I beg your pardon?" murmurs Edarial to a soon empty hallway. "... What did I do?"

He's... Just going to stop wandering the halls and go hide in his room. The great soon-to-be king of Marlatia, hiding in his room. How utterly fitting.

Edarial curls up with his familiar and tries not to cry.

[come_midnight]

"[Oh my brave kitty. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?]"

"[No,]" purrs Cricket, pressing himself into her as though he is a much heavier cat. "[No I am fine I did not even murder them though they would have very much deserved it are you okay he didn't touch you did he I will make him BLEED -]"

"[No,]" says Iobel, "[no, he didn't, I'm - I'm fine. All that and he's not going to touch me, looks like. At least until it's about time he had an heir.]"

"[Will we run away?]"

"[I don't know yet. Not today.]"

[aestrix]

There is a frantic knocking on the door.

"Iobel! Iobel, it's me," says a familiar voice. "Let me in, are you okay? Please be okay!"

[come_midnight]

Iobel opens the door, clutching Cricket to her shoulder with the other hand. "It's okay, we're fine," she says.