My Frustrations

[Xander Andaris]

1st of Vhalar, Arc 717

Xander kept up his act of content until he was in the carriage and far enough away from the house that he could let his true feelings show. His head dropped backwards and thudded against the carriage wall behind his head as he growled, his face face contorted from the pain of the bash and the frustration he was feeling inside. He closed his eyes for a moment as he struggled with containing himself, he still had some self control issues when it came to his anger. After suppressing everything for so long they came at him in heavy waves that were hard to process and contain so after keeping himself in good check all afternoon with Thomas Andaris he couldn't hold it in for another second. "I sometimes think I wasn't made for this world you know? For all the good I could do the fact that I say one title wrong makes me nothing but an uncultured dog is ridiculous." Xander pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

He looked to his pregnant wife with a shake of his head, his eyes a mixture of emotions. "Why do noble folk struggle so greatly to see past my blunt and straight ways?" The Baron tapped his knuckles against his forehead as he churned over the meeting in his mind, the way things worked down South were hard for him to come to grips with. It was not a question of his intelligence though more of his personality and beliefs. Politics in the capital were full of deceit and underhand tactics. Secrets were the currency of nobility and while Xander had his fair share he much preferred honesty. "He doesn't want me to lead he wants me to stand by your side like eye candy." The wolf bit his cheek and shook his head.

"The future is not in giving the correct titles to old men or appeasing a court of them, it is in actions and the people." Xander felt conflicted, the way he spoke sounded ungrateful for what they were being given which was incorrect because it was a step closer to what would be their goal. However, he could not ignore the strings that came attached, this council Thomas had spoken of and then the fact Xander felt certain the man would wish to lead from the background. While the young man would accept advice he would not be ordered around by the man that much he knew. Still he could not decide why he was really so angry about the events of the meeting when overall it had been a success for them

If Xander searched his feelings long enough he would likely find the answer to this but it did not seem he would find it before he blurted out more idiocy. "The Southern courts are full of deceitful old men and women and it needs change, balance can not be created when people put themselves so much higher than another. My blood makes me no better than any other man and I should be treated as if I were just a farm boy. My actions are what should make the people respect me and follow me, they should want me to be their leader not just because my name demands it from them." Xander looked then at Celeste and swallowed heavily. "As for Thomas' words against my family he has no right to talk about the negativity coming from a family because he need not look further than his own son and grandsons. Status quo is not what Rynmere needs either, if nothing changes and we just force the place back into its old ways to keep everything how it should be it will just come back again twice as bad." Xander leaned his head forward into his hands and moans wearily, his skull was beginning to throb with a headache.

Xander leaned completely forward and bridged the gap between him and Celeste, resting his head in her lap. "Maybe I should just stick to being eye candy and fighting if needed, I will probably get myself killed with my views or worse you." His hand reached and took hers to his lips where he gently kissed it. "I just want to do what is right for Rynmere and its people, I want to make everything the way it could and should be." Sighing again he did not look up but reached his hand up and gently brushed her cheek with his knuckles. "This is why I need you, I would be a mess if it was not for you, I might even be dead if I hadn't met you as Lord knows I would have gone through with my crazy plans." Xander's words stopped for a moment as all that was left was the sound of his breathing and the wheels rolling over the cobbled road. "I love you my Dragon."

[Celeste Andaris]

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Celeste watched him as he thumped his head against the back of the carriage and she felt her heart go out to her husband. She loved Xander, there was no doubting it, but for someone with such ambitions as him, he was woefully impolitic at times. Here, in the carriage where they were alone and uninhibited, though, it was fine for him to express every frustration he had. She sat, quiet and attentive, and she simply listened as he spoke. Listened to his annoyance at a situation, how he felt. She heard the words and understood the deeper feelings behind them. As he leaned forward, though, and rested his head in her lap, Celeste smiled gently and stroked his hair. He kissed her hand, then stroked her cheek and Celeste leaned into that embrace, her brown eyes watching him. "I love you too, Xander."

She looked at him and she sighed, slightly. She was going to need to make a decision here and she did so knowing that it was the right one for their family, but not necessarily the right one for the two of them and their relationship. "But Xander, you're missing the point." She held on to his hand and spoke in her quiet, calm voice as she spoke the words which she wished she didn't need to.

"If you were eye candy, Xander, Grandfather wouldn't have spoken to you like he did. He wouldn't bother, he would simply want to keep you sweet and stupid and pretty." That was, without a doubt, true as far as Celeste was concerned. "So take that out of your head now. It simply is not sensible." Her hand stroked his hair as she looked at him, searching for the best way to explain what she knew to be true, what she understood. And what he seemed perennially insistent on not understanding.

Breathing in, she began to speak. "Politics, as it is practiced in Rynmere, is like a game of poker. Seven families playing, each with their own hand, their own cards. We are seeking to sit at that table, Xander and we are wanting to win." She shrugged slightly, then, there was no doubting just how high the stakes were, after all. "Like any game, we have to know the rules. Not just the rules of poker generally, but the rules of the house, of that table." She understood his frustration, she truly did. But that wasn't the point. It wasn't the point at all and she had to make him see that.

"We sit at the table and we pass the port to the left like everyone else. We look like everyone else, we play by their rules. To do anything else is to show our hand. Until, my love, we control the game and then we make it our rules." It was a harsh truth that Celeste spoke and she knew that it wasn't what he wanted to hear, but it was what he needed to and she did not doubt it for a trill. "If we do not fit in, we give ourselves a double disadvantage. We make ourselves obvious, make people look at us and question our motives. More than that, though?" It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. It didn't make it anything other than true. "If we don't fit in, we give our enemies ammunition against us. If we want to change the game, Xander, if we want it to be played to our rules, then we need to play."

With a gentle shrug, Celeste glanced out of the window. "If we aren't prepared to play by the rules, then we shouldn't sit at the table. Because the other option to politics and what we seek is war. We don't want that, so we have to play by the rules." She didn't like it any more than he did, but it was true. "If we do this smart, my husband, we can make the world the place you want it to be, the place it should be. But first we have to sit at the table and play poker their way. It's the only way to learn their hands, their weaknesses and strengths. To identify their tells." Did that make any sense to him at all, she wondered?

[Xander Andaris]

He knew he looked like a child now, whinging about how things weren't how he wanted them but it was much the opposite. He was expressing his frustration with the selfish games everyone played, allowing his views about the state of the political sphere to emanate through his actions and words. He was a politician there was no doubt about that but he had different political tactics and ideas to most of his peers.

What Celeste said about Thomas and him not being eye candy was also true but he ignored it, still not believing the man really thought of him as important. It was clear to him that that Duke believed in his granddaughter and her ability to mould Xander into what everyone else was.

Her fingers soothed him as they stroked his hair but it was not enough to keep him from his deep seeded discomfort. Thomas Andaris was clearly talented at what he does and was highly intelligent, Xander could appreciate that but he wished to change the system not continue it. He wished to rebuild the society of Rynmere to fix the issues of old and that would not be maintaining the status quo as it had been described. Xander sat up as he listened to Celeste and perhaps saw a slight difference in their understanding of what they were heading towards, he had no doubt a war was on the horizon one where a political game of poker would be much less important.

"I know what you are saying but I do not wish to play their game. The game is what has got Rynmere into the state it is now and it clearly isn't helping to make it a better place." Xander traced the window frame with his index finger and shook his head. "I am not better than the next noble if I simply accept the way things are, even if I did and we won changing the game would not be so easy. Just because you play one way doesn't mean everyone else will, those who have played one way so long are not likely to change their style to suit one man and woman." He clenched his fist and slowly lowered to his side, closing his eyes as he thought.

His knuckles went white as his muscles squeezed his hand tightly closed."I do not believe it gives us a disadvantage, I believe it gives us the edge of unpredictability, it gives us a way to find those who seek change and those who wish to force a developing nation back to its knees and halt or worse reverse progress. Introducing a new styler just stirs the pot or if you'd rather, reshuffles the deck and introduces some new cards." Xander was honest, strong and noble it was what made him powerful and yet it was also his weakness. He saw what happened to his parents and many other nobles, those who played by the rules and he did not like it.

Of course he had seen those who had refused to play by the rules and failed, Veljorn Burhan's failure to take Rynmere away from the boy king a good example. Xander, however, was not the fallen false king. The young Baron was in pursuit of something greater than just the throne, he was after rebirth for the kingdom, he was in search of a new beginning for the people and the nobles for a purge of the old ways and a start for the new.

"Perhaps my support rests with my ability to lead the people, to represent them when no one else truly will. Some nobles agree with me, I know this, some do see me as fair and just but not all and not the ones in power at the moment. Maybe war is the only way, maybe the people need to bring about the change, while I want support of the nobility the people are who I care about and there support is what I need. To rally the common folk behind our cause would bring the nation to its knees and would bring about the change necessary, to rally as many nobles to the cause would also be good but they are only a small number among many. Xander looked at her, the fire of revolution alive in his eyes, a rarer sight these days. "The seven houses are failing and like the deck they need a reshuffle, like the entire structure here in Rynmere everything needs a reshuffle and if the nobility does not support it then I must look to those who would benefit most. Our people."

[Celeste Andaris]

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"Xander, you are missing the point." Celeste said and she looked at him with calm eyes. "If you want to use your noble birth to better Rynmere. Actually, if you want to use your noble birth to do anything, you have to adhere to the traditions of nobility until you are in a position to change those traditions." Celeste wondered if she was just being dense, simplistic and foolish. One of them certainly was, and she closed her eyes briefly.

"You have a choice Xander. Be a noble or do not be. If you are going to use the title to affect change, then all to the good. But if you are going to use the system you have to be in it." She looked at him and there was very genuine concern in her eyes. "Do do anything else is to not learn from Velijorn Burhan, from Alistair Venora." Celeste did not want to be so harsh, but he couldn't have his cake and eat the sweet thing too. "If we are making a bid to be where we are aiming for," he knew what she meant, there was no doubting it. "Then we are in the system. And Xander, I love you, I do, but you need to toughen up."

It wasn't what he'd want to hear, she knew that. But it was absolutely true. "Not with me, not when we're alone, but listen to yourself. You are concerned about what grandfather criticised you for. You gave him that ammunition to criticize you with. If you had not, you would be free to focus on what he said. What he said and what he did not, what he is offering us." As for the 'edge of unpredictability', she shook her head. "That's nonsense." Hard words, she knew. But that didn't change the truth of them. "Unpredictable, in a ruler, is not a good trait. Not at all. There is nothing to be gained from refusing to use the correct title, Xander. Nothing."

When he talked about where his support lay, Celeste's eyes looked at him impassively and she made a quiet statement. "I would say that, considering my grandfather just offered you a Duchy, your support comes from him. You are being childish and ungrateful." Her irritation was growing by the moment. "You turn him into a villain, calling you eye candy and he has just handed you the next step in our plan. He is showing enormous faith in us both, not just me, yet you focus on him picking you up on something which would cause us both damage were you to do it in a different situation. If you want to be part of the common people, Xander, refuse the Duchy. "

Gesturing outside, she made a final point. "Because if you seek to use this title to achieve good, then you are in the system. And I ask you quite simply, what harm is there in using the correct title? What difficulty is there in that? You have refused to learn it out of stubborn bloody mindedness and frankly, it makes things more difficult. We are better served by being able to slip smoothly into the role and remember always that it is a role and where our loyalties are. THAT is the sort of thing that will keep others on their toes. We just got given the damn Duchy, Xander. We will be on the Council. We can make a difference. But if we're going to do that, we have to be able to sit and watch. We have to."

Sometimes, she thought, he was the most frustrating man in the world.

[Xander Andaris]

The Baron, released his hand from the tight fist it was balled into. His eyes seemingly to change shade slightly, going a darker blue, perhaps the light or maybe a slight attribute of his Biqaj heritage. ”This is about more than a title, this is about working as expected in a system that is backwards and not geared towards change. Instigating change where nobody wants to see it is a pointless and fruitless exercise.” Xander tapped the bridge of his nose, clearing his mind with a deep inhale.

Hitting the wall behind him three times he felt the carriage begin time slow. The signal for it to stop having been received by the driver, Xander looked at his wife and pursed his lips. ”Besides I did not refuse to learn the correct titles for pompous old fools I was never taught it, instead I was left to try and learn it all myself, no easy task I will tell you.” There was a twinge of anger in his voice, frustration bubbling up inside him. ”Not all of us were raised in the great Duchy of Andaris, shown the way of Southern politics.”

The carriage came to a halt and Xander reached for the door, tapping the handle for a moment. ”We will be Duke and Duchess but I will not pretend to be happy that this system is what we will suffer through. The system will probably be the end of me.” The new Andaris opened the door and slipped out. ”Maybe I wasn't made for this like I thought, perhaps I have deluded myself.” Reaching in he collected his sword from under the bench, stepping away he pushed the door closed.

”Take her home, don't stop until you reach the estate, keep her safe.” Stepping back he waited for the carriage to leave, ready for the time alone to think he needed. ”I will make sure she gets home safe my Lord, I will not stop for anything until we reach the safety of Astedia.” Xander nodded and watched, buckling his sword to his belt as he looked at the open fields around him, it was going to be a long walk from here.

[Celeste Andaris]

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Not all were raised in the great duchy of Andaris? Celeste looked at him and her eyes were dark, hurt shining in them. "How you must have struggled while I lived in luxury." If he was even vaguely listening, her voice was deep, quiet and dangerous. But he wasn't, of course. He wasn't listening because he was talking.

But then, h wasn't talking. Because he was collecting his sword, stopping the carriage and getting out. Celeste watched him as he did. She sat, with her back as straight as it was possible to be, her eyes calm and her expression carefully, so carefully neutral. Impassive, even. She did not argue, did not make a fuss, she simply sat in the carriage until they reached Astedia and then she took the hand of the footman who helped her out and she smiled. "Thank you." Her composure was complete and she made her way indoors. Once inside, she made her way to her room, their room, and she sat. She was thinking, trying to work out what she had to say, trying to see what she had to do.

Her instinct was one thing, but she had to consider this. She had to. Xander had many sterling qualities, but if she didn't get this under control now, things were going to go from bad to worse, she knew. So, she couldn't afford to be angry with him. Celeste put that to one side, ignoring it. She was angry, there was no doubt, but she was angry because he had hurt her. He had hurt her because she had allowed him to and she would not make the same mistake again.

Because he knew her, he knew things about her which she had never thought she would tell anyone and yet he still had decided that the thing to do was to walk out, to walk away. That told her something and it was not something that she wanted to think about but she had to. He would leave, he would step away if it suited him or his mood. It was better that she knew that now than had continued to work under such misapprehensions as she had been. It was important that she learned the lessons taught in this situation and she determined that she would. So, she asked Phillipe, her head of staff, to make sure that she was informed the moment that the Baron returned home and Celeste made her way into her study.

However, Phillipe was very good at his job, very loyal to Celeste and therefore, when Xander came back, Celeste was informed and she made her way to their rooms, where she had been told he was. Walking in, she looked at him and breathed in. "Are you alright?" It was the first question on her mind and her resolve came close to slipping as she saw him. But Celeste had been taught well, all her life. "Xander, we need to talk." She moved over and sat on an armchair. Purposely chosen as it seated one person, no more. Her body was still, like she was immobile when she spoke to him. "I can not be the go between, the political one. I can not be the one to do the necessary politics and political play because we are pursuing your dream." She looked at him with a very calm gaze in her alabaster face. "Totrial, I was torn between my husband and my grandfather. The only male Andaris currently alive who has never once tried to ..." her voice caught and she breathed in, then out again. "Who has never once hurt me." Come to that, Xander was the only Krome the same could be said for. Maybe, she thought, it was somehow her fault.

She shook her head and then stood, turning her back to him and looking out of the window. "Something has to change. If it will not be you, then it will need to be me. So, if we can not do this together then I am going to withdraw from politics completely and stay at home with the baby when she comes." That was not an easy decision to come to, but there it was. "That leaves you free to pursue this how you choose. That is better than this, surely?"

[Xander Andaris]

The walk home was a long one but it gave Xander what he needed, time. He needed to get away from the carriage and the politics, the huge questions of the future and their roles in it. The young Baron needed the air, the time to himself to calm down. With the looming birth of their child on the horizon and the wishes for revolution still heavy on his mind he felt drawn between two lives and two dreams. While he was indescribably happy that he had fallen in love and that he was going to have a child soon it had made things much harder. Ever since he met Celeste his life had gone through many unexpected twists and turns, his life was different to say the least and so was he.

Watching the Andaris landscape slowly pass him by while he walked was soothing but still something burned in his mind, hard to ignore and even harder to calm. The wolf did not know what the burning was, whether it was anger, sadness or hurt. Whatever it was it made him uncomfortable and it was what he had wanted to keep away by leaving the carriage. The last time he and Celeste disagreed on how to handle a situation she had ended up throwing ornaments across a room.

Xander approached the Estate with no more solutions than he had when he had left the carriage hardly calmer either, while he had been able to wallow in his own self pity and take on something that resembling relaxation he really had no answers.

He made his way through the house, using the back entrance as he wished not to be greated by faffing servants and start rumours about his lone walk. The wolf prowled to his room where he would stand and look through the window. How far he had come but how little things had changed, it was like throwing pebbles at a castle wall.

Hearing the door open behind him he span to see his wife, his love and he remained somewhat emotionless. He couldn't feel right now, he was struggling to keep from being overwhelmed already, perhaps he had inherited more of his father's disposition towards losing control than he had hoped. "I am...okay." The pause would definitely question his honesty with the phrase but he meant, he was okay but only okay.

He watched her sit in the armchair and remained standing, rigid like ice as he observed her and prepared for a scolding. Instead there was no shouting, no insulting or finger wagging. Instead there was a woman who wanted to make sure her life was happy, Xander understood her aims but he did not think it was what she really wanted. To live at home out of the public eye and away from what she did best. Or was it?

"Well what is your dream then, if you wish not to fight and be unhappy together for chafing my dream then what is your dream." He looked at her as his eyebrow raised. "Never once have you trully told me what you want from your life, what you want to do and what you wish to see. My passion can be overbearing, it can take over and hide what is around me, I don't want it to do that with you."

There was no doubting that he loved Celeste, he would like her to help him along his hard path but if she did not want it then it was a burden he would not put on her. "What do you want Celeste, what do your head and your heart desire? Tell me so I can understand how to make this work for the both of us, whether I go on alone or with you by my side is not an issue. I will fight alone and pursue my goals alone as long as I know you are happy too, that you are completing your own goals while I struggle after mine."

Xander stepped closer too her, looking at the woman he had fallen in love with, the mother of his child and the companion he would have for the rest of his life. "I want you by my side if it affects your answer, we are bound to disagree and the truth is it is good. We both have our positives and our negatives." The immortals knew what a fool he could be but Celeste had her flaws too. "I do not wish to change myself too much though, you have to see that I want to remain me. I want to come out at the end of this whether victorious or not knowing that I remained true to my goals and my beliefs, true to myself.
If not then I will not have to convince them of who I am but also myself, no man should have to struggle to bring back his true self because he should never give it up."

[Celeste Andaris]

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Once she had spoken, he replied. First, of course, he told her that he was alright. Not good, not great, just alright. Feeling how she did, Celeste noticed things, saw them with a cold, calculated gaze. Such as recognising that they both knew how he was, but there was no reciprocated question of how she was. But she said nothing about it, simply watching and listening as he spoke. What was her dream? Celeste listened, quiet and calm, as he spoke of being unhappy because of her 'chafing his dream' and that he would 'struggle on'. One phrase hit her, squarely, in the chest.

Whether I go on alone or with you by my side is not an issue

He did not want this, he did want that. Him, him, him. Such it was and such it had always been with Xander Krome, Celeste thought. Whether it was alone or with her, he did not care, it was not an issue? Her blood ran cold in her veins and she looked down at the arm of the chair she was on, noticing the pattern for the very first time. It must take a lot of skill, she thought, to craft such a pattern, to make such a wonder with one's hands. She imagined it would be very rewarding to do that.

With her, without her, it was not an issue for him. Yet, the consequences of his dream would impact her, their children. He knew that, for good or bad they would be pulled into it and Celeste breathed in, trying to make sense of things. He loved her, she did not doubt it. Yet here, as he stood rigid and tall, immobile and inflexible, Celeste realised that it was secondary. Secondary to his dream, to his revolutionary determinism. She was, and would always be, secondary to that.

And in that moment, Celeste Andaris realised that she had made the most fundamental of mistakes. All she could do now was make the most of it, try and retrieve it. Salvage what she could.

"I think we are speaking at cross purposes," she replied, having not spoken for some time. "You will go forward with my support, Xander. I am asking you if you want me to be engaged in the politics or not." Her hands were folded in her lap, she was calm and cool and in control. It was what she did best. "I have always believed, that I can support you best there. But if you do not wish to pursue this the way that I know, then I become less useful." She looked at him with guarded eyes, not showing the hurt she felt, not showing anything. "In fact, I become a liability, because I behave in one way, you another. So please be clear, the moment were wed, our destiny in this was wound together." What were her dreams? She wanted to laugh hysterically, but she did not. Her face remained calm and impassive.

"If my brand of politics is going to cause us to work at cross purposes, then I can retreat. I think it is a waste of my skills, but at the end of the trial, it is important that we are united." Immortals forbid he should ever compromise, see things any way other than his own. Celeste lifted her eyes to look at him, "so, what I am asking is how we wish to proceed, Xander. Nothing else."

It was too late for anything else. Much, much too late.

[Xander Andaris]

If he had known what was going through her mind at that moment he would have dropped everything, the dreams, the titles and the wealth. He would have sacrificed it all for her, instead he just felt confused. He could not understand what it was she wanted, she was a mystery to him and every moment he thought he understood he felt himself become more confused a moment later. He knew his own faults and he knew his own flaws, he felt them everytrial and on fact he fought with them everytrial. There was constant turmoil in him and only one thing that had kept it in check his whole life, his dreams. Dreams he had changed once already, his original plans lost to the winds of time and replaced with something more ambitious and while he hated to say it the idea had been somewhat planted in his head one fateful afternoon.

The Baron did not blame his wife though, he blamed himself, like he did for everything. Somehow he had caused this whole thing whether true or not it was his mistake and his alone. Maybe Celeste did not realise or maybe she did the point was he allowed everything that ever went wrong to be on him, he let it fester and eat him up inside. Suddenly his heart began to race, was this how it was supposed to feel. He looked at her, cool and collected, his composure starting to slip as he wrestled to figure out what she really wanted.

Xander did not believe for one minute she really only wanted to know if he wanted her to step back or not. No. This was bigger, this was fundamental and he could not let it sully the rest of their marriage. He would not let them end up like his parents or many of the other nobles who ended up despising one another over difference of views. However, he had no solution, he did not want to become a clone of all the other nobles out there yet he knew what Celeste had said was true. Assimilate or lose or perhaps even die, death was not in his plans. Of course he knew it was a possibility with what he was trying.

Likely stupidly he ignored her questions as she had his. "No. Tell me what you want, I cannot keep going on like this not now. I have made mistakes, lots of them, and I have let this go far enough. I won't let this relationship just be about me any longer, I can't let it be like that anymore. I want our child to see us as something more than what we are on the path to become." His vision began to blur but not from tears, he felt dizzy, how odd. "My dreams have always come first before all else, me, you, us, we were all second too it and it can't be that way anymore. Not if it is going to tear us apart and break us down." His vision cleared again as he managed not to wobble too much on his feet.

"I want to know if you have been doing the things you have been doing for me or for you because if it has all been for me then why continue, we will never be truly united if we do not have even vaguely the same aims and the same hopes so please tell me." His rigidness went and so did his composure as he walked over to her and knelt before her, not the first time he had put himself in such a vulnerable position. His head was bowed and he looked at her feet, tracing their outline with his eyes. "Do you remember our wedding day, how happy we were, how close we were." A tear dropped form his eye and onto her show as he breathed steadily to keep calm. "I want to feel that way again, together and united as one where we were stronger than ever. Alone I am weak but with you I am strong. I will never stop loving you." The last words were what he had said to her and her alone that day, they still rang true to him now.

A second tear came down and landed on the floor quickly soaked up by the rug. "Let us stand tall together but only if you truly want too, I will learn whatever it is you think I need to learn and I will let you take the lead in the politics. I know you are better than me down here, I do things unconventionally and that doesn't work but I wish to try and keep myself true along this journey. The future is ours and we just have to take it but the path we choose is just as important as the location we end up." He inhaled deeply as he fought his immortal damned emotions back, caging them up in the long dormant hole he had once kept them. "Together, it has to be together."

[Celeste Andaris]

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Celeste frowned slightly as he seemed more than a little unsteady on his feet. "Xander, what's wrong?" She knew enough about pregnancy and the sudden dips in blood pressure she experienced to recognise a dizzy spell and she stood, putting her hand on his elbow to steady him. "Do you feel dizzy?" He looked pale, she thought as she sat back down and then he moved to kneel on the floor and Celeste did not think twice, she slid to the floor next to him.

He spoke, poured out his heart and Celeste heard it all, listening carefully. This moment was crucial, for them individually and for them as a couple. She had to navigate it carefully, tread with consideration of all of the consequences. She knew it, knew it absolutely, and yet her mouth spoke words and Celeste wondered if it was aware of how crucial this moment was. "You'll never be without me, Xander. It will always be us, always. Not because of the laws, because I love you."

She put her hand into his, holding on to it and she spoke, her voice far away and quiet. "Peake always believed that our father murdered our mother. Once, I was about nine or ten, father had," she paused, trying to gather her emotions together. "I look like her, you see. Mother. Father was drunk, I was having a riding lesson. There was a young stable boy, he saved me. Stopped him." Raised in the great Duchy of Andaris and shown the ways of Southern politics? Maybe that was what that was. Maybe. "That night, I was afraid that he'd come to my room again, so I sat on the stairs. I heard him and Peake shouting, screaming at each other. He murdered my mother because he had her replacement. Me. Peake said he would kill him if he touched me, but that was so that he could..." she waved a hand, dismissively. Xander knew that bit.

Sitting on the floor with her husband, Celeste breathed in. "I promised myself, sitting there, that I would never subject my children to sitting on stairs and listening to arguments. That I would, one trial, be with someone who loved me for me." Her voice was a whisper, as she tried to explain it. "So, I've done everything I have done for us. Not you, not me, us."

She shook her head, though, at his words. "No, I don't want to take the lead. I want us to be together, Xander. Our goals, not yours, not mine. But for that to happen, truly happen, we have to be honest with each other. Not locking away emotions, not taking all the responsibility. You want to know what I want? Fine, I want us to be controlled and holding on to our emotions, locking them away and presenting what we choose to present, how we choose to present it to everyone else, but in here? In here I want to be us. I've held myself away for such a long time I want to be able to be that person with you. But I can't unless we both are." Otherwise, she'd spend her life sitting on stairs, metaphorically speaking. Putting her hand on his chin, she lifted his head to look at her. "Later that night, my grandfather came to my door and told me he was going to be having a midnight feast, asked me if I wanted to join him. I did. We met my father on the way to my room." It had been a close call, Celeste knew. "The next morning, Grandfather took me to his estate where I stayed for a good long while." Her grandfather was an important man to her, would always be. He had saved her from a lot worse, she knew. She also believed, she told Xander, that he had warned her father about the line he had been about to cross, because he never crossed it again.

What did that mean? What did she want? Celeste looked at him and her defences were gone, completely. "I dreamed all my life of a man who loves me and who I love. Of standing together, always. Please don't walk out on me again, Xander."