Legend of Ransera

Arvælyn scoffed, incredulously.

"You think she does what is in my best interests, now? That's the turnabout of the century. She is not your better in the Craft of Mesmer, so pray tell me what sorcery mother wielded this morning to instill such confidence?" He could recall frequent and fervent warnings from Finn about the motivations of his family... his mother in particular.

"I suppose I should be happy, but being kept out of the conspiracy is wont to make one suspicious." He sighed, "At any rate, it's a strange thing. I was never conscious of the desire before, but once you proposed it made me want the world to know. I want the realm to celebrate... to gather as they did for Thalya's jubilee."

"That ended poorly, mind."

"You know what I mean. I'm proud that I landed such a beautiful, talented boy. I just want to-..."

"Stake your claim." Cithæra stated, firmly, glancing sidelong to Finn. Arvælyn tensed at the characterisation, but couldn't have refuted it if they were speaking Draconic. And both of them knew him too well to deceive them on this matter, even in their current Common.

"I suppose."

"Well, there are other... simpler and less costly ways of achieving this. Of course, we could gather the realm. Send forth compulsory invitations to the four corners of Atraxia. Some will be gleeful at the chance of seeing the spectacle of the dragons in attendance, others can be coerced toward awe by means of Mesmer, but in the end they won't be celebrating for the reasons you covet. They cannot. They don't know you.

"But if you want to fortify some sort of understanding... to take vows that are truly binding, there are magical means of doing so. We could draw up an arcane covenant or you could both learn and speak your vows to each other in Draconic. Perhaps Finn might prefer to have the ceremony up North... away from all the pomp and circumstance. Perhaps he just wants to celebrate your love with people who know him and care about him, rather than throngs of Vastians who couldn't even pronounce his monosyllabic name."

Arry furrowed his brow and looked to Finn for further guidance.

"Is that what you want?"

Cithæra sat back, smiling faintly as her future son-in-law played her defender. Perhaps it wasn't a wholly flattering portrayal of her motivations, but it was a cogent and an earned one. She couldn't have asked for more, and everyone present would have seen through an attempt at deception.

She glanced down, actually surprised at her response to Finn's words. 'To cross the world chasing a story'... It touched her that someone could feel this way for someone she'd brought into being. She couldn't take credit for raising him, but she was half of the recipe that formed him, and of all the things she planned for her Phædryn... all the emotions she wanted him to elicit: Awe, dread, devotion, reverence... she hadn't really considered love. Not this sort. It hadn't been part of the plan, and yet she found it a welcome variable.

"Wherever you decide to host your wedding, your Solunarian loved ones will be there. I expect the guest list will be quite esteemed with the fully vested heir to the Father of All Platinum Dragons and... you're both on favourable terms with multiple members of Ransera's Pantheon, so... The invitations are yours to render, of course, but worthy of consideration."

"I don't know what I'd want. I know I want to be married to you, but I've never really envisioned a wedding. I've tried since you asked me, but... I'm not sure what feels right. I never grew up imagining myself as the marrying kind..." His jaw tensed as Finn mentioned his jealousy.

"I haven't taken it out on people who don't deserve it. I've taken it out on subjects of Lex Agni." He replied, archly. "When I can feel your Symphony entwining with another as I felt when you initiated Raithen, you cannot expect me to be pleased or to be rational. But I was not rash. I did not act. I did not crush his throat nor rend his mind whilst he was vulnerable. I left, and I came here to seek the counsel of the mother. My mind knows you've a right to your feelings and that it is your actions that should matter, but when I can feel your feelings for other people..." He snorted, and a puff of smoke escaped his nostrils. "My actions, or lack thereof, should be taken into account as well. I did not harm you nor Raithen. I buried my concerns beneath Varvara's shroud and turned to my family and my Faith for an outlet." He sighed, no smoke this time.

"I don't care when people admire you. In fact, I like it! I've always enjoyed being envied. It's when you admire other people... just a tinge too much. That is where I bristle. During that initiation you were not alone in your thoughts. You understand that, don't you? That's not the same thing as a crush or a fantasy, that was an holy communion. A Rune initiation? And you..." He sucked in through his teeth, and his eyes shot up halfway to a roll as he shook his head. The fire behind his eyes looked to be churning faster as he turned them downward to steady himself and push down on that bilious feelings that felt poised to rise.

Cithæra leaned forward to refill Arvælyn's wine cup.

"Raithen is His cupbearer, not his Emblem-bearer." Arvælyn was quick to distinguish, "And I've never sensed anything that troubled me with with you and Vrædyn..." Although the Princeps Pontifex was one of few people who matched him in Mesmer and might have shirked the assessment of his Symphony. He shook off the worry over that possibility. What he didn't know, didn't hurt. That was the rub- He knew too much and he couldn't just turn his Craft off completely.

He grimaced slightly at Finn's assertion that Aværys himself coveted his amatus.

"That is..." He clenched his teeth and looked to his mother, before his gaze returned to meet Finn's. "That is beyond my right to grudge you. He is my better. His desires supersede mine, and if He takes vantages upon you..." Arry snarled slightly, and glanced down. Would the Deus Imperator claim some ancient right of ius primæ noctis upon their wedding eve? "That is something I would have to pray upon, but by the Faith it is aught I would be expected to brook." He shook his head.

"Whatever the case, we will endure whatever comes. I did not wish to voice my concerns. I was handling them on my own. Mater forced my hand in that." He said with a sharp glance to her, as he took up his cup and sipped the wine she'd poured him.

"When things are more settled in Solunarium I will be able to travel abroad again. You needn't curb your ambitions on my account, when they might be shared. Aværys and Varvara left the desert to spread Their Word, and so might we. Our Marks are complementary. I'll grand that we cannot share everything, but I would warrant our ambitions, grandiose as they are, should be amongst what we do."

Arvælyn turned his hand palm up when Finn reached for it, offering a little squeeze when the bard’s fingers clenched his.

“I appreciate that, I’m just… afraid. When wrath comes upon me it reigns. I have a dragon’s fire, but not the forbearance of some ancient thing. I worry that I’ll say or do something irreconcilable if I let you into that part of me. I have always had this fell impulse… even before my metamorphosis, when something angered me I wanted to burn it to ash. Now that I actually can in the moment I conceive of the notion, it takes a special sort of care to resist the urge.

“But… I suppose you need to know all of me to love me truly. Even my capacity for destruction, the which you diminish at the best of times… and rouse at the worst.”

Cithæra slid her chair out from under her desk and rose. She had orchestrated this cathartic congress, but her role had since become superfluous. Making her excuses, she slipped out of her offices.

“I would like to speak more on the future we might engender, but… Why don’t you portal us back to the palace? This feels too formal, now…” Arvælyn suggested. Even if the matters on their plate were professional as well as personal, their very first plans had been concocted in bars and bedrooms. They may not have been as grandiose as the schemes they now broached, but they’d felt epic at the time. From the stage at the Velvet Cabaret to the world stage in just a few years… Arvælyn could scarcely believe how far they’d already come. If he hadn’t scared Finn off thus far, then maybe the bard could truly brook his more volcanic impulses.

Arvælyn smiled at the tile as he stepped from stone to rug, crossing the threshold from Cithæra's office to their own residence. His lips pursed the smile away as Finn replied. It was not out of disapproval, but rather because he was pondering what was said and felt in the moment. He did mark what was omitted, but would not speak in answer to it. That would have felt like a presumptuous intrusion, as Finn had clearly kept his critiques on Solunarian sacrifice mum for his own reasons.

"Heh..." His smile did return at the levity, and his hand even slid down to pinch at Finn's bottom. Perhaps a prelude to the make up sex to which the bard was alluding.

"You are still my fire and my wings, even if you are yet a human..." He was unwittingly paraphrasing a saying he'd picked up from his father. It didn't occur to him to wonder at the origins of the phrase, it just came easily to his tongue in the moment.

He shrugged,

"I think I would prefer your help, whether or not I need it... I don't really want to have that experience without you present. It would feel like a betrayal, even if you aren't oriented to think that way yourself... I'll be interested to see what is expected of me on that front. I know you assume I'll be wed to an elf, but it's not outside the realm of possibility that I'll be wed to a dragon. There are others abroad of here who owe fealty to the Zalkyrians." Not that he'd put it past a Solunarian court to wed him to an aunt, but he'd have preferred a different pairing.

"Whoever it is, I just hope they're less than a century old. Some thousand year old dragon would be impossibly intimidating in the council chambers let alone the bedroom..." He noted, wrinkling his nose at the notion.