#*maronia

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.

adile / maronia + bauble

When Adonia was a youngling, her mother had a statuette on display in their sitting room. Not a single guest came to visit without heaping compliments on her.

Every strand of her mid-night hair had been lovingly carved, then painted over with so fine a brush that none clumped together. Her dress, a rich, royal crimson, fluttered down her body as though caught on perpetual breeze. Always, she was laughing, the beautiful, tinkling noise that males preferred. Her dewdrop face was bright with it.

The detail was so fine, it seemed impossible to Adonia that she was not alive and simply faking. A pixie seeking safe harbor, perhaps. Such pests were known for their trickery.

Adonia would often leave the room — with intention, mind you, so that the pixie would not sense the lie — then exercise her newfound ability to step through the world and appear before the statuette to catch the pixie, finally, in motion. Devious herself, she never fell for such a ruse. Adonia was still not convinced.

Frustrated one afternoon after her etiquette lesson, and not yet tall enough to reach for the pixie to shake her into truth, Adonia flicked her fingers at the statuette and set her on fire. She did not want to hurt the pixie, of course. Just startle the little thing into action. Her flame never hurt her, you see, so she did not think much of it at all.

But her mother, who had been walking by, was at once aghast.

She is alive, was all Adonia first said by way of explanation.

She is not, her mother said. Why would you want to hurt her, if you thought she was?

I did not want to hurt her. Angry, suddenly, and uncertain why, Adonia asked, What is she for, if she does not do anything at all? If she only stands there, laughing, day in and day out?

Her mother looked at her quite sadly, then. It would be many years before Adonia understood why, and when she did, she would make a very similar face. She brings people joy, little love. Just by being. She does not need to do anything but that.

After that, Adonia came to live like the statuette.

She brushed through her hair, until it shone, until every strand was separate and fine.

She donned the latest fashions, in royal colors, in eminent cuts.

She laughed, beautiful and tinkling, in the way that males preferred.

Not a single suitor came by without heaping compliments on her.

When she attended court for the first time and the mating bond snapped between her and Emile — when she felt it, before he had even looked her way — when she could not keep from blurting it out and earning his sneer — she was glad that even for her indignity in the moment, all she needed to do was be, and she would soon bring him joy.

Sitting at his side now, Adonia stares into the flickering centerpiece of the banquet table and thinks to the statuette, as she has not done for some time. In her memory, it is alive. In her memory, it is still a pixie, tricky, devious, aflame.

The fire before her goes out. It is such a trivial use of her ability that she waves her hand before she can think better of it, and the flame roars back to life.

In her periphery, Emile’s grip on his fork tightens. He interrupts his conversation to snap, “That is servants’ work, Adonia.”

One of his brothers snorts from across the table, just as she murmurs out, “Apologies, my lord.”

Emile cuts a look to him. “Something amusing, Marius?”

But it is the same-faced one beside who leans forth and says, “It’s such low-hanging fruit. Must we even give it voice?”

Marius laughs, then incites the fire into a dance between them.

Silas waves a hand, and a centerpiece down the table flares up. “Come now, Emile,” he says, tipping his head to the other end of the table, where a third candle burns tame. “Your turn.”

In her lap, Adonia feels her fingers twitch. She does not mean for them to. It is much like setting the statuette on fire: frustration set free.

The flame soars towards the ceiling.

Down the table, the eldest brother issues command, cutting and final: “Enough.”

All of the centerpieces die down, abruptly.

Emile, staring daggers at his brothers across, thankfully does not seem to realize it was her who lit the third. But the twins do.

Marius slides his eyes to meet hers and smirks, a clandestine curve to the corner of his mouth.

Adonia drops her gaze to her plate.

after emile dies—regardless of what variation of death he meets—adonia takes it very, very hard. he was still her mate, no matter how awful he was to her, and the bond had atrophied between them but it was still very much there. a part of her has been shredded through, and where the roots of him had once been, there is now only a gaping wound. it is much like what marius went through with silas. there’s also the mourning of what could have been, if only, if only, if only.

emile — emile has a mate, adonia, and they are married, as i hc is custom in autumn regardless of mate status. in classic emile fashion, he views her as a slight to him. she is from a weaker bloodline in autumn, which confirms to him that he is unworthy and weak, which makes him angrier and more vindictive. she can also wield flame where he cannot, which feels like a cosmic sort of fuck you to emile, that she has weak blood but strong power and he has strong blood but weak power. he is an absolute piece of shit to her. if she hadn't felt the bond between them snap into place and announced it in her shock, he never would have married her. at least ... he doesn't? cheat? unless you consider bed slaves and servants cheating, which none of the vanserra boys really do when they're the ones to use them.

carmine — carmine, who rules the province along the border of winter, is betrothed to kirsi, first-born daughter of the winter court family that owns most of the land bordering autumn. this is an entirely strategic alliance, and the exception to marrying within autumn is made by beron because this is a means to expand his rule without violating the treaty. kallias very much wants to contest this betrothal, especially once freed from utm, but he does not have the political strength to. carmine runs her absolutely ragged, especially at first. he is not at all subtle about the fact that he's fucking around on her. i don't think she much cares, except when he does it while in winter, where rumors spread that she must contend with directly. but then she doesn’t care about him so much that he becomes desperate for her attentions and affections->genuinely comes to have feelings for her->finally wins her over.

silas — there were talks of betrothal for silas (and marius) before his death. ladies of fine birth in their respective provinces were brought forth for them (beron) to choose from. this was also done as a way to see if any mating bonds would snap into place. he died just after one was chosen for him. beron conidered just marrying her off to marius, since marius assumed rule of silas's neighboring province after his death for being 1) bold enough to go after lucien and 2) bold enough to attack beron — but amalia intervened. she managed to convince beron to put marrying marius off. not sure how. she is much smarter than me and knows how to handle beron, so she knows what to say to guide his hand without overstepping and earning the back of it. also probably sex. anyway.

let me see let me see!

well into their affair, marius begins to seem okay again to adonia. not like his old self—he’ll never be like his old self again, and she knows that—but alive, at least. he smiles easier. laughs. he shows unfeigned (!) interest in things. sometimes even enough for her to see something like that long-dead sparkle in his eyes. she makes offhanded comment about this in front of someone—amalia, maybe, or carmine—that marius at least seems to have found his footing. they look at her like she’s bonkers bananas, and she’s quick enough on her feet to say: granted, it is not oft that i see him anymore. they log this away because of course they do, but neither suspect anything beyond maybe her trying to fish for information on behalf of emile.

turns out uhhh marius is not okay! not unless he’s in adonia’s company. but she and emile live in their own estate in the province he oversees—so all adonia ever sees of marius is him 1) realizing she’s around 2) knowing she’s around 3) being around her. she doesn’t see the way that fire she’s singlehandedly managed to kindle in him gutters so violently the moment she isn’t around. how he’s just . listless—self-isolating. his only purpose being the tasks eris puts him to. even then, there’s no passion for it really. he’s just good at charms and runes. something he only ever learned for how it would benefit silas. that sparkle she sees, that unfeigned interest—it’s in her. it’s when she plays harp for him, or he manages to catch her playing it for her ladies in the parlor. it’s when she sits near him at dinner and acts like she has no care in the world for him, only to melt in his arms. it’s her, it’s her, it’s always and only her.

this probably should be more of a concern for her. but why would it be? her mate, preordained by the mother, treats her so abysmally. he barely pays her any attention, and when he does, it hurts. nothing she ever does is good enough for him. but marius—she’s his whole world. she’s his everything. she wouldn’t have been had silas still been around—he barely even looked twice at her then. but silas isn’t around, and emile doesn’t love her like he ought, and marius literally only ever comes alive for her. the way a mate should. the way a mate does in those storybooks of her youth. and marius doesn’t have any criticisms for how she talks or acts or thinks. he loves it when she speaks her mind. he loves it when she shows off her flame. he loves it when she does anything at all. so it should be a concern for her that marius is so bereft without her—and it does sadden her to think about.

what a spectacular thing to rotisserie style rotate ! i think adonia hopes having emile’s children will warm him to her—that the kindness he shows her in pregnancy will extend beyond into motherhood. it, of course, doesn’t. i think at first she has a lot of displaced resentment for her baby over this. i could see her being a pretty hands-off mom to the firstborn. i could also see eris experiencing some intense emotions about this (weird! wonder what that could be about?) and having some sort of fraught half-spoken conversation with her about it. or more likely arrange a situation where, some way or another, she comes out of it spooked into taking a more active role in her baby’s life. probably by arranging for the temple she frequents to speak on motherhood or by psyop implanting the idea to marius to talk about his upbringing, how little he ever saw of his mother, how he was fortunate, for beron had such intense focus on silas and eris. emile, once, he heard, but certainly not by the time he had been born. by then beron had tossed emile aside, and emile hadn’t even had their mother to land in the arms of.

hm hm hm i think adonia experiences shame and embarrassment for marius to see that her mate treats her that way, but there’s not a lot of point in hiding the marks from him. the vanserras all know what adonia endures. emile feels it well within his right to correct his female as he sees fit, a lesson he learned from beron and implements indiscriminately. so marius knows what sort of creature his brother is, and adonia knows he knows—plus he’ll see as soon as her clothes come off anyway. she seeks comfort from him mostly by way of him just treating her softly and unlike emile. if he draws too much attention to the way emile treats her, she’s liable to grow indignant and snappish in her shame, much like emile might. if she were only a better mate, maybe he would love her, maybe he would see her worth.

no surprise here i’m sure but carmine Loves pda. he’s very graceful with it as well. like even when it’s a clear breach of etiquette, it seems so perfectly in-place that no one really questions it. to the point where he has probably been The Reason a banquet has devolved into an orgy, just by making others feel comfortable enough to be sensual. kirsi enjoys pda for how it flaunts to others that carmine wants her and her alone but doesn’t ever reciprocate or initiate so she seems a little standoffish—just a cultural difference there.

i think marius and adonia aren’t naturally overly pda inclined but they crave it specifically because they can’t have it. marius is an idle hand on back/hand on leg/hand on chair kinda lover. just likes a small bit of contact. adonia gets a perverse thrill from pda because as A Lady it isn’t really encouraged except at events like samhain, their calanmai equivalent. i could see them sometimes chancing a really stiff dance at a formal event or positioning themselves to be partnered in group dances.