Shadewood “Til’ Death Do Us Part?”

Gwen was simply not an angry spirit by nature - curses would never be screamed to the wind, abuse never hurtled from her lips to another, but every being was capable of feeling resentment. The empress was the silent type, who, when venom bubbled in her gut, would let it pool around her; allow the steam to erupt in total quietude, so that nobody would ever know.

With the frigid wind hurtling around her, she stood a fraction taller - a queen of the winter who had plunged them into the depths of ice, summoner of the snow. Nothing fell from her tongue as her husband gave his speech, and instead she simply watched him, searching the iridescence of his gaze in the hope that somewhere, he was not speaking the truth. She did not desire to be cast lies, but in this instance, she wished only that Raziel was playing some harsh prank on her. Anything would have been better.

Of course, the empress appreciated his fair words, and his care in ensuring she knew he loved only her, but the burning wound had been opened, and it could not be stitched shut with soft praise. She demanded nothing from this king of the shadows, only his love, but she feared. The Eruna feared, so terribly, that she would lose him - he would slip from her embrace and fall into that of another. In all her years of beating and fleeing, nothing would ever break her more than seeing Raziel drift away, leave her in the dust - where even now, she wondered if she belonged. Perhaps he was right…

But maybe he wasn’t. Gwen fought the hurt that bloomed from the cracks in her chest, threatening to snake around her throat and cut off the breath seeping into her body - it felt as though she was being strangled, vision darkening, legs wobbling, until she dug deeper into herself and made a decision. A decision to stand up for herself, as, perhaps, Pige had never done before. It was one of the hardest accomplishments she'd ever achieved, pushing away from the doubts and clinging to the last of the hope; she was not proud of it, nor the situation, but there was no other way. "Raziel," she started, doing her best to meet his eyes. "If I told you one day that I had found a young man, that I wanted to have my young with him rather than you - because I loved you and wanted to protect you from harm, would you have accepted it? Would you have stood by as I fucked another man, with your best interests in mind?" A slow, but sharp intake of breath.  Her voice was steady, no vexation caught in her tone or expression - only pain in her eyes, if he dared enough to search. "How would you have looked at those children, knowing they were the spawn of me and another, younger and more capable man?"

Tell me honestly, she begged. His talk of murder had her heart nearly crack right in two. "You would kill our children, for something that was never fault of their own?" She knew that the king she loved had, in darker moons, been an assassin, but to destroy what life she'd worked so hard to give to him... "...everything I died for would have gone to waste." Even more, her sons and daughters would have been killed by their own father - she could see it, a violent, cursed image of blood and gore, the flash of teeth and the screaming terror of the newborns. They would never understand what brought their dad's fury upon them. The whining, the gut-wrenching vision of her babies' corpses shredded on the den floor. Her legs trembled. "If I... If I took that risk, then it would not be their fault. It would be mine. And though I see that you are not, I am fully aware and accepting of such a challange. Do you not think I weighed these options in my head, the moment I first considered raising a family?" It couldn't stay swirling in her mouth any longer. "If I could not trust you with their lives, even when I am gone, what... what makes you think I can trust you with a first litter? What if that killed me? Would you destroy what we made? Would you kill the only thing left of me?" 

It was not fury licking through her veins, but confusion. Hurt, and an over-powering sense of uselessness. He did not believe her capable of carrying more than a single litter - and he was willing to stick his dick in another girl just to have kids, rather than accept simply her. She was not enough. At his offer to call, her pearled head shook, adamant in her choice. "No, i've heard enough. I need time to think." With that, she turned, seeking to shelter beneath the cover of shade that the shivering trees provided - she would not turn back today, not unless his voice reached out to her again.

Gwen knew he was doing this to protect her, but maybe she didn't want to be protected all the time. Cry's flattery had not been enough to cover for the meaning of what really sat behind his words, and even though he offered her the final decision, it hurt that he'd even had to ask.