#*marius

oh ho ho

eris – ass man ass man ass man. said it b4 i'll say it again—eris enjoys anal with females because it is inherently uncomfortable and exclusively pleasurable for him which makes him horny bc it shows their willingness to endure discomfort to please him. notably though if a female is willing to do that, he's willing to play a little dirty dj to make her feel good during. and if you were wondering . yes beron feels the same way. yes this is directly informed by beron

emile – also an ass man! also informed by beron! but he does not care at all to ease the discomfort when he indulges in anal sex. relishes in it guiltlessly in fact. somehow both thinks favorably upon a female who endures it from him and less of her at the same time. look how eager she is to please me but also females are beneath me

carmine – this one was confounding as all get out. i like . honestly don't think he cares very much either way? he cares that a female makes him feel wanted->seen->an approximation of loved. as long as she doesn't have any visible unsightliness he's down, and even then ... i mean this is Thee brother who'd absolutely fuck a human or a lesser fae no hesitation just for the adoration they'd look at him with ykwim. maybe maybe maybe i'll loosely say tit man just cuz i think we could get to a mommy kink with him

silas – just got the most divine strike from god that he's a tit man. yeah he'll linger on cleavage. even get a little bit distractable if it's a non-political situation. they're the first thing he goes for on a female. notably he of all the brothers is the one to have this preference be a make or break deal for him. if she ain't got yitties he ain't sprung. all the other brothers it's just like casual preference

marius – for purely horny threesome reasons i'm making marius an ass man pre-silas' death—but because silas likes a gal w tiddies so much, marius keeps an eye out for them foremost. silas goes straight for the tiddies while marius is palming her ass and grabbing her thighs and then kneeling to tongue between them while silas uhhhhhhh cancel twit

ronan – ass man specifically because he's looking for the development and definition of the glute and hamstring muscles and if it's there he's going boioioioioing ! baby want a muscle mommy so bad but autumn fae aesthetic standards keep him from achieving his dream :(

i think ronan laughs pretty openly and has like a really rich, genuine, infectious laugh. trading stories around a fire type laugh. folks always chuckle or smile along despite themselves. carmine laughs freely too but it’s warmer and more inviting and a little sensuous. folks lean in when they hear it just to be closer to it. a sound like fingers grazing the thigh. in writing marius post-silas, i’ve found he tends to laugh at really inopportune times over fucked up things he thinks. the type to suddenly chuckle to himself in the middle of someone saying something not even slightly funny. bless him my little cocoa puff

oh this is such a lovely thought-invoking question. let me map post-eris ascension out a little … i think amalia probably waits on helion to seek her out because—if after all this time he does not want her, if after all this time his affections have waned, if after all this time he has found another, for she has of course heard of his dalliances, if after all this time he turns her away, then what does that leave her? but of course it doesn’t take very long for him to seek her out. probably at eris’s ceremony. which is time enough for eris to spin it as a calculated move on both of their parts. to make him a shrewd heir to the throne rather than an abandoned son; to make her into a wily and cunning politician to have leveraged herself as lady of another court so readily, that way the betrayed hearts of the people won’t bring any lords to prompt eris to seek vengeance against her and helion.

there’s never any hope for her and emile, and she knows it. he is her biggest disappointment, biggest failure. he immediately ingratiates himself with the beron loyalists and begins an intense downward spiral; he died without his father’s acceptance, the one thing he wanted above all, and so he mythologizes beron—is the most potent threat to all of his family. emile, by necessity, has to die soon after beron dies. she and carmine have a cordial but distant relationship, the way you might have with a friend you once loved dearly but fell out with and things can now never be the same but neither of you can address the rift because that would be to acknowledge a problem at all. she would favor marius most of all the non-lucien sons she has left, if only because his grief is the most potent and least generally violent—but he makes it very clear that he would kill lucien in less than a heartbeat and she can’t countenance that. he’s also most loyal to eris, if only because of complacency, which strains them further. so left to her after emile dies are eris, carmine and kirsi, and marius and adonia.

i think carmine and kirsi would probably bring her the biggest sense of indignation; they have three children together and carmine, despite still being charming and silver-tongued, is unlike amalia has ever known him to be now that he’s married to kirsi. proof to her of how different her sons could have been if they ever even just got free of beron, which means proof to her of how she failed her sons in letting beron sire them at all. kirsi is very hypervigilant of her kids and doesn’t let any vanserra close knowing How They Are, so i could see a lot of strain between kirsi and amalia at social gatherings, especially because kirsi doesn’t have time for autumn pleasantries and that would offend amalia. they are kin of my kin; i have a right to know them, amalia might say if sufficiently offended. you know not even your own kin; you may claim no right to mine, kirsi might say back. and carmine who has never (and will never) acknowledge that his deep-rooted sense of unlovability comes from his mother feels a keen satisfaction at hearing kirsi do so, which strains everything even more.

i’d say marius and adonia are most gracious with her in the aftermath, once adonia heals enough from losing her mate to regain her sense of self and her sense of propriety. but i think amalia disdains adonia for all she sees of herself in adonia—adonia who was in love with a male who was not her husband yet stayed with her husband until his end at the expense of herself and those around her, then immediately found solace in the arms of her love once her husband died. the parallels are Very Much There. so if adonia eventually gives birth to any of marius’ children, i think amalia might try to overstep with them. maybe try to make amends for her own failings as a mother by criticizing adonia. gently, of course. they are both autumn ladies. but marius wouldn’t stand for it, not after so long of adonia doubting herself with emile. he’s a bit more of his old self now, which is to say he takes on the silas role in his relationship with adonia—happy to be bark and bite on both of their behalves because she is him as he is her. this fills in the loss of a mating bond well for adonia; she basks in it.

maronia + don't leave, hide

At some point, the sheets are pulled back. The fire in the hearth has long since burnt out, and the cold seeps in with a vengeance, as it always does. Never just a chill pebbling at his skin anymore, but the marrow-deep iciness known only in death.

Marius catches Adonia's wrist, and it is warm to the touch. “Don’t leave,” he rasps. “Not yet.”

Conflict writes itself across her face, tugging down at the corners of her mouth, flattening her brow. He knows it is an unfair thing he asks. Emile will kill him if they are found out, but his brother will do far, far worse to her.

Still, he cannot bring himself to retract the words.

Adonia glances to the balcony doors, where the light of false dawn is too bright behind their curtaining, then looks back to him.

“Alright,” she murmurs. Again, like she is reassuring herself, “Alright.” She tucks back in against his chest, and her heat presses into his flesh, far enough he can pretend it is all he knows. “But just for a little longer, hm?”

He might nod, but already drowsed by her comfort, sleep overtakes him before he can be sure.

Marius is jostled into waking with his heart already in his throat. It takes him a moment, first to realize that he is conscious, then to wince against the bright of late-morning, then to realize who is shoving at his chest.

"Adonia," he mumbles.

She gestures frantically at the door as he pushes up onto his palms.

Emile’s voice filters in through wood that seems suddenly insubstantial: “…ny my entry?”

Marius is on his feet before he makes the choice. He shakes his head, a paltry attempt to clear away the muzziness of sleep. He has no time to reckon with whether this buzzing in his body is fear or thrill.

His chamberlain, the blessed fool: “My sincerest apologies, Lord Emile. I would never—”

There is no hiding Adonia. Emile would sense another presence in the room and grow suspicious not to see it plainly. No doubt already does.

for Maximum Pain i would love for her to be extremely similar in bearing to adonia. well-bred autumn court lady, pristine etiquette, socially savvy, educated in court matters, strong with the flame, fiery and wily and raging quietly against the restrictions imposed on her. ambitious. a little bit spiteful. always dreamt of being picked by a vanserra son as do all the ladies. except where adonia had hers shattered by emile, silas was the real deal. charming, proper, aristocratic and regal, strong the way a lord ought be, just as ambitious as her—yet he could be roguish and playful, especially around his same-faced brother, and sometimes his smile quirked such that her belly leapt as though in freefall. maybe she even grew up friends with adonia and that’s how she caught silas’ eye as a suitable match—an in-autumn arrangement that strengthened beron’s ties to some dissenting faction of the nobility, thus an edge over unmarried eris. but then a romance actually kindles between them, too. basically just better-timeline adonia.

it is all going very well between them. marius gets jealous at first that his twin’s attentions are being taken from him, so silas sets up a threesome between the three of them to show marius that nothing has changed, that they can still share in all things, that it is the bond between them as wombmates that comes first, always. she sees this too—realizes that if she wants to ascend with silas, marius is a package deal. with marius placated, things go even better between silas and his betrothed. maybe they become a little dream team. two people in love and uhhhh his brother, for some reason. marius grows fond of her. not in a romantic sense but she gels well with their dynamic, and she never intrudes on matters that ate just between silas and himself. things are good.

then, of course, silas dies.

beron still wants the benefits of the marriage—and he wants to punish marius for failing, then for making an attempt on his life. so he swaps out silas for marius. she is devastated, but at least she’ll still have marius to lean on. someone to understand. someone so like her beloved. someone she could come to love. someone she knows could come to love her. except that marius can’t even stand to look at her because she serves the exact opposite for him: a remnant of silas and thus a reminder that silas is gone. like having yet another corpse of what was tied to his leg and drifting behind him. he would cut her free of him if he could, but beron would never allow it—and that’s another reason he cannot stand to he around her, because she is a punishment from his father, who he hates as much as he hates lucien for being the reason silas is dead. she is left completely unmoored and alone, even further because she alienated adonia by 1) having everything adonia wanted handed to her; and 2) making no effort to include adonia in it.