[ It is part of the nature of Elven marriage that the way she looks at him now β the particular kind of want he can see in her gaze, in the blush that suffuses her cheeks β is singularly new. There is nobody else that has looked at him like this, nobody else that has set such a lightness in his heart, not in this way. It's exciting, and, despite being such an unknown, not something that frightens him.
He has felt love before β for his friends, for his people, for those closest to him β but nothing quite comparable to how he feels as he looks at Rhaenyra now. As a politician, as someone who is aware of the importance of public appearances and maintaining polite relationships with those one might not genuinely feel kindly toward, he knows how to put on a facade, how to control his emotions (and he knows that she knows that, now, knows how to divine a false feeling from a true one), but it's a guard he lets drop more and more when he's around her.
That manifests, sometimes, simply in the willingness to speak relatively informally, to jest with her in a way that he generally refrains from when in court (to allow himself some fraction of youthfulness that should be long gone from him). Now, for instance: ]
Flattery and truth, combined. [ Her brow presses to his, and his eyes momentarily close, a contented sigh escaping him before he looks at her again. ]
Lovely, then, ΔbrazΘ³rys, [ he says β wife, an echo as well as a nod to his progressing studies. ] Beautiful. As radiant as any of the stars placed in the sky.
[ He could go on, but it is not totally in his nature to be quite so sentimental (or at least to be so demonstrative of it), and it feels better this way, he thinks, than to dare come close to treading into the kind of obsequious flattery she'd been subject to in the rest of the Red Keep. And besides β again, they have time, and he hardly intends to refrain from expressing just how he feels about and regards her for the rest of their marriage.
With that in mind, he makes sure to catch her gaze for another brief moment before β slowly, cautiously, making sure he isn't overstepping β he leans in to kiss her again. ]
no subject
He has felt love before β for his friends, for his people, for those closest to him β but nothing quite comparable to how he feels as he looks at Rhaenyra now. As a politician, as someone who is aware of the importance of public appearances and maintaining polite relationships with those one might not genuinely feel kindly toward, he knows how to put on a facade, how to control his emotions (and he knows that she knows that, now, knows how to divine a false feeling from a true one), but it's a guard he lets drop more and more when he's around her.
That manifests, sometimes, simply in the willingness to speak relatively informally, to jest with her in a way that he generally refrains from when in court (to allow himself some fraction of youthfulness that should be long gone from him). Now, for instance: ]
Flattery and truth, combined. [ Her brow presses to his, and his eyes momentarily close, a contented sigh escaping him before he looks at her again. ]
Lovely, then, ΔbrazΘ³rys, [ he says β wife, an echo as well as a nod to his progressing studies. ] Beautiful. As radiant as any of the stars placed in the sky.
[ He could go on, but it is not totally in his nature to be quite so sentimental (or at least to be so demonstrative of it), and it feels better this way, he thinks, than to dare come close to treading into the kind of obsequious flattery she'd been subject to in the rest of the Red Keep. And besides β again, they have time, and he hardly intends to refrain from expressing just how he feels about and regards her for the rest of their marriage.
With that in mind, he makes sure to catch her gaze for another brief moment before β slowly, cautiously, making sure he isn't overstepping β he leans in to kiss her again. ]