August Closed Prompts

[sereneadherent]

🧙 WHO: Marianne and various Avalon denizens
⚔️️ WHAT: Closed threads for August, including Marianne's grand plan to avoid being murdered and her first ever therapy session!
🕒 WHEN: Throughout the month
🗺️ WHERE: Hotel; homes of various CR; Maruki's office
⚠️ WARNINGS: some Shit is probably going to come up in the therapy thread--will update as needed.

Comments

[silky_bearing]

"N-no... Please don't apologize, Marianne. You've done nothing wrong." It's not her fault he's a disaster and has spent years denying things to himself and others. He looks over at her, apologetic and clearly distressed.

"I-I'm sorry. I don't know how-" Lorenz just trails off, shaking his head and gesturing helplessly. How does he talk about this sort of thing? He really has no idea what to say when saying anything at all feels like a betrayal of everything he's worked towards for years as well as their friendship. Lies are unbecoming, ignoble, and while he understands why Claude had to tell so many for his own safety he-

He doesn't want to admit to something that could ruin everything if revealed. Not when they've fought so hard to come to understand one another.

[sereneadherent]

It's not as if Marianne is especially adept or experienced with this kind of thing. That's part of why they're drinking and having this conversation to begin with. They both have a lot to work through, even as they're in different phases of untangling their own feelings and desires.

"You have nothing to apologize for, either. Expressing oneself is hard." She knows that struggle intimately. "You don't need to say anything, if you cannot. It's scary enough to even admit things that you've been hiding from even yourself. At least, it was for me."

With a sigh and a bittersweet smile, she leans into him and sips her wine. The room is wavering slightly, and the physical contact with him helps make things feel steadier. The rules of propriety have flown out the window long ago. "It's funny, and a bit cruel, how nobles are constantly told stories of love and romance but aren't actually free to pursue it. Souls like yours, beautiful and creative, should be allowed to... to love, regardless of duty. You do so much, Lorenz. You care so much, and... it's not fair."

[silky_bearing]

She leans into him and he tilts back towards her, draining his glass and setting it aside for the moment. One arm curls around her, more for his own balance than anything else. "I resigned myself to that a long time ago... it seems so selfish to worry about such things, especially with the former Leicester territories in the state they're in now."

A heavy sigh, head tilting to lean his temple against her hair. It's easier, to say that at least. To speak of love as a concept rather than the specifics of why each of those little teasing criticisms from their former leader get under his skin so readily. Much much easier to speak in broader terms than acknowledge anything that might hurt others instead of only himself.

[sereneadherent]

Marianne hums softly, not happy with this conclusion of his but not arguing it either. "I suppose."

The few moments of silence that follow are comfortable, if sad, and Marianne lets out a heavy exhale and closes her eyes. "But please remember that you have friends who love you, even as we work together to rebuild Leicester and Fódlan to be a better place." A pause, followed by a small huff of warm laughter. "And since we're both heirs to important houses and will be involved in the heaviness of the work, you won't be able to avoid me. I'll take you to tea."

She reaches up and pats his back, gentle and affectionate in the gesture. "Surely, you can spare an afternoon to yourself every now and then."

[silky_bearing]

He hums softly in agreement, lips quirking up in faint smile. "I don't believe I'll have a choice between you, Lysithea, and Her Grace." Hilda can sway him easily as well but she rarely needs to. It's Marianne and Lysithea that insist on fussing back at him.

"Perhaps later... when Fódlan is more settled, when things begin to truly mend... maybe then it would be worth revisiting." The closest thing to a concession he can make. In another year or five, maybe things will be stable enough by then that he could excuse not marrying. The idea that marrying a man might even be a possibility is outside his understanding but... stepping away from that particular expectation. Perhaps.

[sereneadherent]

Lorenz, like her, has no shortage of friends looking out for him. The Deer as a whole are a family, of sorts. It's one of the many things Marianne is grateful for.

She nods her head lightly in response, careful not to jostle his head on hers too much in doing so. "You have a point. We have our whole lives ahead of us, with the war over, that there's no need to rush into anything." While there is no shortage of work to be done, at least Lorenz is able to look ahead with full clarity. The war has ended, Those Who Slither in the Dark have been dealt with, and the world as they know it can heal and move forward.

Marianne herself is not quite that lucky. Her Fódlan is still torn apart by the conflict, and war is waiting for her when she finishes her time here in Avalon. Something twists in her at that thought, a combination of dread and jealousy. "At least, you do. I still have to make it to the end of the war first."

[silky_bearing]

He tsks softly, scolding her immediately because he knows her well enough to know the thoughts that accompany such a statement. "It will come sooner than you know and you will see this New Dawn everyone speaks so fondly of and you will blossom in the light of that newly risen sun. I have seen it for myself."

He will accept nothing less than the most positive possible outcomes for her. But it comes back around to a dawn that Claude leaves them to tend alone and he can't drag his traitorous thoughts away from the man. Has he ever been able to since the name Claude von Riegan was first introduced to him, hissed furiously between Father's teeth as he raged about all the things this boy would take from them.

Goddess, he was such a fool to believe a word of it.

"I cannot wait to enjoy the new Fodlan we create with you Marianne. And who knows, I've been so busy perhaps you and Hilda will reconcile your feelings once the war ends and I am simply unaware of it.... I could hardly fault you both for not telling me immediately."

[sereneadherent]

Marianne is quiet for several moments after he speaks, and she sniffles softly as drunken tears sting at her eyes. It's a beautiful sentiment, one that she's still not sure she entirely deserves. And it's a glorious goal to reach for, a light at the end of the darkness that is the war that consumed the whole of Fódlan. That Lorenz is reassuring her with this is no surprise; Claude's new dawn is important to all of them.

All she has to do is keep on living. Which is a welcome change to how she used to carry on before.

"I'm sorry..." she murmurs, knowing full well that her tears have the potential to worry him. But even as she wills herself to keep it together, the hold she has on herself loosens and she's soon crying in earnest. She's not even completely sure why she's crying.