Of Tiredness and Troubles

[maid_in_juuban]

Usagi sighed as she sat down on the familiar bed. She had slept here before, when she had been staying in Nemesis a while back. After the slight confrontation with Saffir, she felt even more emotionally exhausted. She wanted to just lie down here and sleep

Comments

[kingofblackmoon]

"Everything would have upset him," Demando says bluntly. He hadn't known what to do, confronted by those tears and pleas and that self-pity, other than to tell his brother to straighten up. There's no room in the Dark Kingdom for weakness. His former ally, the late palace girl Beryl, probably would have banished the boy for that display, he supposes.

Then again, Beryl has been executed. And she was never Saffir's sister as Demando is Saffir's brother.

Demando pours a glass of wine. He glances back at the decanter, then at Usagi. "I'll pour you some, too."

[maid_in_juuban]

Usagi smiled faintly, holding her thumb and forefinger a small ways apart. "Just a little," she said with a nod. The last thing she needed was to reappear at home with liquor on her breath. Not that wine was very strong, but her mother's nose...

[kingofblackmoon]

Demando obliges, pouring a much less generous glass for Usagi than for himself. He brings both to the bed, where he sits beside Usagi.

She's tempting like that, he can't help noticing, and it requires effort to remind himself that she seems tired and worn and unlikely to appreciate his advances. (It's a troublesome thing, to moderate one's appetites when there's never been a need to do so before. But for her- To have the beautiful princess at last... He will do it, lest he lose her.)

"You're still as beautiful each time I see you," he tells her as he sits. "Your portraits do you no justice."

[maid_in_juuban]

Taking the glass in her hands, Usagi smiled as he spoke. "Thanks," she said, "I needed to hear that. Though it's more so because I know you mean it." She took a small sip of her wine; it really was tasty.