#*vanrose thought exercise

i’ve talked abt it a bit in this ask but i didn’t really get into his Feelings about it. i think he would undergo just like ??? such insane mental gymnastics. genia was just his young pretty innocent little plaything to corrupt as he wanted—now she’s his mother-ordained equal who he never would have subjected to such depravities if he had known. he wouldn’t feel guilt or shame or anything like that, but i think he feels this weird blend of like . disgust/anger because my equal is nothing more than a whore -> crashout about how he’s deserving of more and this must all be because loa cheated on him; but then also intense horniness because my equal is MY whore, perfectly molded to me. no wonder she took me so well. no wonder she knew as second-nature how best to soothe me and serve me and please me. his brain is literally just so fried from being cheated on, i almost feel like i’m leaning towards him just keeping genia a secret and continuing to use her as he had been? except worse because now he’s reallllllllly trying to get her pregnant.

Because the political intrigue of the bed slave being Beron's mate would have like a huge political and emotional crisis to everyone 🤣

wow what a scenario to rotate !!! i immediately had like six competing thoughts about this. her being his bed slave is honestly pretty easy to sweep under the rug if he wants it to be. the system is restricted to the forest house so the commonfolk don’t really know about it, so it would be the simple matter of a few deaths to keep her ever having been one silenced. plus she’s only ever been his. which is what he’s always really wanted of a partner. something amalia couldn’t give him.

two primary options for beron here. one: keep iphigenia quiet and focus on breeding her—he has an heir but she could provide him the strongest heir he could have, a perfect heir, one who makes up for all the ways eris lacks. if eris knows, if he’s the heir beron has raised, he’ll try to put an end to that. best to be cautious. and so iphigenia is kept and bred. two: mother ordained polygamy babyyy! amalia is too favored of the people to divorce even in favor of his mate; his mate needs to be officially recognized so that any children they bear are legitimate. lowkey envisioning some loose henry viii katherine of aragon -> anne boleyn type shit. he controls the high priestesses and largely reigious narrative as a whole across autumn, so he restructure it. he can have two wives—the one who bore him sevenfold + his mate. there’s safety in making genia a public figure. if she dies, everyone obviously looks to eris or amalia. then beron could kill his heir or his wife for killing his mate.

there are just so many players and so many variables in this though. like fucking hell eris is going to let iphigenia conceive. that was her biggest fear with beron to begin with, what would be done to her if she fell pregnant. even beyond eris—like hell amalia lets herself be replaced, like hell emile lets himself fall lower in beron’s esteem, like hell kirsi lets carmine sit back while he gets bumped down to his father’s Other Kids. she’s safer if he makes her a public figure, but his efforts at quelling her origins in the forest house fail. eris spreads it, amalia spreads it, carmine and kirsi spread it. his image is so important to him. what he did to her she ruins it. he gets pissed. but that—having her shame known by so many—makes iphigenia like. she is a suicide risk forreal. that is her real life genuine nightmare. for everyone to know. for everyone to think it of her. for it to be the first thing everyone sees and the only way they conceive of her.