She couldn't decide how she felt as she walked up to the Fenmyre border. Her father had accompanied her to Auster, keeping her company on the trip and being an escort of sorts despite the fact that she was practically an adult at this point, but she had decided that she needed to talk to Albion alone. This was a very specific problem of her own design that she had to own up to and as she had promised Saracyn she was going to talk to her possible betrothed to make sure that he knew the situation up front so that nothing would blindside him.

In a way she felt like the stakes of this had been lowered since she knew that regardless of how this conversation went she would still have Saracyn at home that would be her right hand and support her no matter what happened. If this went poorly she wouldn't be going into her new position—whenever her mother decided it was time for her to do so—on her own. The other side of that though was that the change to the proposal could make the situation unappealing to the quiet giant and she might be left searching the world for a male that could fill this very specific role.

Avacyn sighed softly as she stood at the border, contemplating for a moment and making sure she had everything she wanted to say prepared. She hadn't seen Albion since the Elysium festival and she wished she was simply coming to visit rather than coming to talk business after all this time, but things were always more complicated than she would like. Tipping her head back, she called for Albion and then settled down onto her haunches to wait for him, knowing from living on their own island that it could take a bit longer to reach the border depending on how long it took to get to shore. She didn't mind the wait though and just let her obsidian gaze roam over the landscape while she did so.

"Avacyn Mendacium"

He had hesitantly agreed to his father’s pulling of strings, if only because he saw it as a window to be close to Scylla. He couldn’t say that he disliked Avacyn either. He had enjoyed his time with her at the festival as she had been the only one to sit back and observe the goings on with him. Albion wasn’t one to be in the thick of social gatherings, it felt good to find her in the same place and he’d easily shared a feeling of camaraderie with her. He wasn’t so sure he was ready to pledge his life to her, but the part of him that still wished to make his father proud, had jumped at the opportunity to do just that.

With his thoughts on the girl, hearing her voice suddenly at the border and calling for him was entirely unexpected. He had been patrolling, sulking much less after his long talk with Chimera and after seeing Manea. He had an out that relieved much of the pressure upon his shoulders, but with it other weights were added.

The thoughts were dashed as Albion turned on his heel and headed back the way he came, appearing before the princess with relative swiftness. His glass blue eyes met hers with a lift of his pale brow. "Hello, Avacyn.” He greeted her easily enough. "Something tells me this isn’t a simple visit to your ah… betrothed.” He said with little emotion, because he hadn’t fully decided on how he felt about this whole strange arrangement. He wasn’t unhappy, but he wasn’t confident either.

"Albion Baskara Klien"

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"

Albion wasn’t blind, and he was certainly his father’s child. Light blue glass eyes roved her thin frame, she was growing into her body similarly to his own. She was gaining curves in eye catching places and the way she moved and held herself was nearing ethereal. The young man hadn’t ever looked at a girl like he did Avacyn, and the underlying agreements were possibly what had really opened his eyes. He was supposed to marry this princess.

She greeted him kindly, her work in diplomacy obvious as she spoke. Albion felt incredibly insufficient at that moment. He’d been spending far too much time sulking and moping while she was training to be a queen. Would he have acted differently if he knew that this was the path that was being prepared for him? He wasn’t so sure. "And it's good to see you,” he returned softly and offered a slight nod as she asked him to walk along with her.

He was most comfortable not talking so he listened as she spoke, and his massive ivory paws carried him beside her. Albion found himself enjoying her presence, just like when they had met at the festival. She was easy to be around, there were no negative emotions as she walked beside him, apologizing for not being there when her mother had made the proposal to begin with. Turned out there was a catch to the easy pairing Manea had brought up.

His pale eyes shifted to her features as she got to the meat of her reason for being here. Firstly, she would never truly be his, her heart was already given to the one that she loved: her sibling. Albi was struck, but he didn’t show the way her statement made connections in his mind. Was that why it was so hard for him to leave Scylla? Did he love his sister? Yes, but it didn’t feel like the same way Avacyn spoke about her brother, or the way that Chimera loved Siren.

Albion’s pale brow lifted as Ava went on to give him a deeper explanation of her family’s laws and what would be expected of him as she revealed the ugly truth of the matter. He would be a figurehead, he would sire her puppies, but their relationship would hardly be more than farce. Albi would show his face by day, but by night he would be left to his own devices, not even allowed to share his own ‘wife’s’ bed.

"I don’t appreciate the prospect of being your pet for the rest of my life.” Albion said flatly. He aspired for a high rank because he wanted his father’s approval; he wasn’t sure it was a worthy consolation prize for becoming a false king. There were other considerations, but how did he voice them when he didn’t even fully understand their situation? "I can’t help but believe this decision would doom me to a lonely existence.”

"Albion Baskara Klien"

Of course a part of her had hoped for an easy agreement between the two of them, secretly hoping perhaps he also had someone else he was interested in that would allow them to walk similar paths side by side. However, that didn't seem to be the case  and Albion voiced his understandable displeasure at this arrangement as he spoke of the prospect of being her 'pet' and how he felt that this would only bring him a lonely existence. Her brows pulled together with a small frown that creased her features, but she wouldn't jump to defend herself or the life that she painted for him. She knew it wasn't ideal for anyone involved and she was truly grasping at straws at the hopes of having even a piece of the life that she wished she could have fully. No part of her life had ever been that simple though and neither would this.

"I understand," she said quietly with a nod. "I don't intend for you to feel like a 'pet' or to doom you to loneliness, but I understand that this situation is unusual and certainly not ideal for anyone involved. I... I wish I could promise you more of me." She sighed softly, shifting her gaze away from him as her ears flicked back. "I didn't want things to turn out this way, but I wanted to be honest with you before we agreed to something that couldn't be undone. I felt that you at least deserved that." She hesitated for a moment, weighing her options. She could walk away now, thank Albion for his time and apologize for not being able to follow through with he proposal that had been made to him or she could continue trying to convince him to join her. She didn't particularly like either option and for a moment she wished she hadn't felt the way she did about Saracyn, but there was no changing that now. Trying to convince herself otherwise would simply tear her apart and make her into something she hated.

When she brought her ebony gaze back up Albion's, she let most of that composed, diplomatic routine fall away, exposing a bit of the uncertain, overwhelmed girl underneath. "I... I do worry that I won't find anyone willing to do this with me and what will happen if I don't," she told him quietly. "A Matriarch that can't follow her own laws or bring the next heir into the world... What kind of Matriarch would I really be?" She scoffed softly at herself, giving a small shake of her head as she glanced down at the ground between them, her white-marked ears flicking back. It wasn't something that she could really talk about with Saracyn with his unwavering belief that they were fated to be together and that their union had to be allowed by the Ancients, but she wasn't so sure despite her love for him. There was no one else she felt comfortable enough with to allow herself to be this vulnerable with, but something about Albion had always felt safe, as if his quiet, stoic nature could easily hide all of her secrets.

"I do not want you to simply be a pet or a paramour," she admitted with another shake of her head. "Being brought up as I have been... with so much responsibility and expectation from brith... it hasn't left much room for living my own life or making friends. I would be forever grateful to even have one wolf outside of my family that I could call a friend and not worry that they were simply being nice to me for my status." It was hard to meet his gaze, too embarrassed by the loneliness she was admitting to him and worried that he might feel as though she was manipulating him. Maybe in some way she was, but not intentionally. She just wanted him to see the real situation she was in—the real her—so he could make his decision based off of that instead of some grand plan she had pitched to him. She sighed and added, "Beyond that... As much as I care about my brother, I do worry that he's not the wisest choice to have alone in my council. He can be temperamental and wild at times and while he is a fierce fighter and protector, I know I need someone by my side that is more level headed to help me think through decisions. Before my mother created this pack the Matriarch was only responsible for guiding and teaching the family... Now there is so much more than that and I don't want to do it on my own."

"Avacyn Mendacium"

She listened to his concerns without jumping in or interrupting him, and when he was done her first words were how much she understood where he was coming from. Immediately she tried to put his fears to rest, she didn’t want him to be her pet or to suffer the loneliness that he could see looming in her offer. Their arrangement was far from ideal, and she did wish that there was more that she could promise him. Avacyn didn’t want things to turn out this way, but as she said, at least she was being honest with him before he gave his life away.

Neither of them said anything for a long moment, and Albion wondered if she was going to call it off and leave him now. That would be the logical thing to do, but then she did something that surprised him. Avacyn started to fight for him. He watched as she spoke, frightened that if she didn’t take him then she would turn into a failure of a leader. Unable to fulfill the duties that were set out for her. Those that her birth required her to partake in. She first showed him the selfish intentions, but he didn’t say anything as she quieted.

His glass blue eyes didn’t leave her through her speech, even as she looked away ashamedly before opening up further. He believed what she said, and she didn’t try and hide her selfish intentions as she told him the desire for a friend and confidant. Not just a placeholder where her brother could not fulfill what she needed. This was her plea to him. Avacyn needed him.

Albion was silent for another long few moments as he mulled over everything she had to say. He was still undecided and unconvinced this was the best path for him. "I’m still uncertain.” He began softly, his eerie eyes searching for her own. "But… I would follow you now and honor my obligation. To see what kind of life you would offer, and delay my final decision until our vow is made.”

"Albion Baskara Klien"

She had been certain that after she laid out the real truth of why she needed him in her life and the role he would play in it he would at best give her a bit of sympathy, but would ultimately decline the request. The more she thought about the arrangement and the longer she considered what it would mean for whichever male she offered this life to the more it felt like an unfair trade. She worried that the only kind of male that would be interested in this kind of scenario would be one that was hungry for power and would take it simply to be as close as possible to the head of the pack and that wasn't the kind of wolf she wanted in such a close and important place in her life. Albion had every right to go back on his agreement now that the stakes had changed, but instead he surprised her by simply saying he was uncertain and following that with the agreement to follow her and see what this life she offered him was like, deciding to hold off on his final decision until they made their vows.

Her gaze lifted to find his as he spoke, genuine surprise causing her brows to lift over her dark gaze. It truly was a selfish thing she was asking of him and a position in her life that purely allowed her to give her heart over to someone who her laws say that she shouldn't and if he decided to go through with this then she would truly owe him more than she could repay. For a moment she didn't know what to say, but slowly her expression softened with gratitude and she breathed a slow sigh, the relief visible in how her shoulders relaxed. She knew that it wasn't a firm agreement and there was a lot that could change, but it took a weight off of her to know that she hadn't entirely wrecked the arrangement that her mother had set up and she had a chance at bringing him into their pack and seeing if this was a relationship that could ever work.

Avacyn stepped closer to him, tipping her muzzle up to press a kiss to his cheek before leaning back with a warm smile. "Thank you, Albion. This means so much. We have plenty of time to get to know one another and see if this will work for both of us... I don't think you'll have any reason to make a firm choice until about this time next year. If there's any point between now and then where you feel like you want out of this just tell me. I won't hold it against you and I won't try to make you stay," she promised. "If nothing else I'll just be happy to have you staying with us in Elysium. I hope you'll find it to be a good home for you."

"Avacyn Mendacium"