Terms and Conditions

She was pleasantly surprised by how swiftly Albion appeared when she called for him, his pale, ivory splattered form appearing from the lightly snow-dusted landscape. He hadn't changed too much since they saw one another last at the festival, but she could tell he was maturing much the same way she and Saracyn were. His features were becoming more angled and masculine, his build filling out slightly to match his towering frame. He was objectively quite handsome and besides the ties their marriage would create she logically understood that he would be an extremely suitable option as far as a father for her children went. Part of her wished that her heart was more willing to play along with such an arrangement so that she could give Albion a complete marriage like her parents had, but that wasn't the way the cards had been dealt.

She smiled as he approached, giving a little nod of her head to his greeting. "Hello, Albion. It's good to see you again." When he mentioned his hunch that this wasn't a simple visit from her "betrothed" she chuckled softly with a slightly guilty grin. "Is anything ever really that simple?" she questioned. The arrangement itself made things far more complicated than if they had the chance to organically come to this decision on their own, but she understood her mother's concerns and knew that she had simply been looking farther into the future than she and her brother were willing to consider right now. She rose to her paws and nodded off toward the trees that lined the dam-logged river. "Will you walk with me while we talk?" She didn't know if walking made the conversation any easier, but it at least gave her something to do and a reason to not be looking directly at him the entire time.

She began to talk beside him through the territory, keeping an easy, leisurely pace at his side as silence settled between them for a moment. Eventually she found the words to speak and she glanced toward him as she said, "I apologize that I hadn't been here when my mother came to make the offer to you. She didn't tell me what she was planning until it had already been done. Otherwise I would have told you this before the proposal was made." She turned her obsidian gaze back to the path ahead of them, hesitating as she gathered her courage. She knew it would be easier to simply be up front with him than beat around the bush and lead him on. She didn't know what his expectations of this relationship were, but it likely wasn't what she was going to explain to him.

"I need you to know that my heart already belongs to my brother Saracyn," she said fairly bluntly, finding no better way to ease into the truth than to just come out and say it. "The truth of the matter is that the Mendacium laws forbid us from having children or being mated to our siblings so my mother arranged this marriage in hopes of deterring the relationship I have with Saracyn." She was a bit afraid of how he might react to this so she kept her gaze ahead for now, too worried that she might find disgust or something similar on his expression. "It is my duty as the future Matriarch to keep to all of my family's laws and to lead by example, but I can not give up my life with Saracyn... At least not entirely." She glanced up at Albion then, daring to see how he was reacting to all of this. "I need someone who is willing to be the father of my children and I need someone who can stand by my side in the public eye as my husband. You would have a prominent place in my pack and would spend my days with me as a confidant and a friend... But once we return to our den in the evening I will be Saracyn's."

She paused for a few moments while they continued to wander slowly through the quiet forest, letting this information sink in and process before she said anything else. "I understand if this isn't an agreeable arrangement for you any longer. I understand if you want to back out. It's a lot to ask from someone and I'm sure it's not the marriage you had hoped for... But if you would at least like to come back to Elysium with me and give this a try then I would love to get to know you more and see how you might fit with my family. If at any point between now and when I become Matriarch you decide you no longer wish to go forward with our deal I will let you go with no questions asked. However, once I become Matriarch and we have our first litter then you are sworn to stay with me for the rest of our lives." She slowed to a stop, looking to him with a questioning, serious gaze for a long moment. "What do you say?"

"Avacyn Mendacium"