• Closed • Past, present, future

[Celeste Andaris]

1st Vhalar, 717

The suns would set tonight for the first time since Saun, Celeste thought as she looked out of the window of the carriage. She sat, comfortable and relaxed and leaning against her husband as they made the journey to her Grandfather's estate. The Duke of Andaris, Thomas Andaris, was expecting them. They would be visiting him and talking to him for the first time as husband and wife, Baron and Baroness to their Duke. She was first in line to the Duchy of Andaris and one of the things which was more than important but was vital was that she and her grandfather communicated regularly. However, this was the first time that she had been able to see him since they were wed. "He'd have come to the wedding had he been able to, I assure you. Family is important to him, loyalty too." Celeste looked at Xander and shifted slightly in the seat, turning to look at him better.

She got comfortable, one hand resting, as it so often did these trials, on her stomach, swollen with their child. Her brown eyes searched his face and she knew that he was thinking about what this meeting might mean, what it represented for them, for their future. "When I was a little girl, I remember being at the Estate, it was what we always called it, and watching my brothers play. I was too little, they told me, I could not play." There were a mix of emotions from the young baroness at that memory, for reasons which they both knew and there was no point in raising them further. So, since they were playing in the hallway, I went up the stairs and sat on the landing and watched them. I sat there and watched and watched, for what seems like breaks to my memory." An eyebrow rose as Celeste considered it was probably only about ten bits, but had seemed so much longer to her as a child.

"After awhile, my grandfather came and sat with me. He didn't do that kind of thing often, but that trial he did. He looked at them and asked me why I wasn't playing with my brothers. I told him they wouldn't let me, that I was too young to play their game. He watched them for a few moments then he asked me what I was doing, then, sitting and watching." Glancing once more out of the window she considered that the scenery moved past and that it was like time, and childhood. Fleeting and impossible to catch. "I told him I was learning the rules, so that when I was big enough, I could play and I'd win, because they'd think I was just a girl."

Celeste's face broke into a smile. "He kissed my forehead and told me that I was a good girl. He didn't do that kind of thing much. Never has. But he was pleased with me. I didn't sulk, I didn't hide. I did the smart thing and he liked that. I want to tell him what our aims are." She looked to her husband and tried to gauge his reaction to that. "I believe he will support us. Before we can move, we will need his support in a very practical way." They weren't going to overthrow the king as a Baron and Baroness, after all. The Duchy was the first step.

It was hard to read him, sometimes, Celeste considered. Especially when he had his 'careful, you're talking about her family' face on, which he did right now. So, she nudged him in the ribs and gave the best advice she could. "Just be yourself around him. If he's stern and disapproving of you, it means he likes you. Just keep in mind that you aren't good enough and never can be and you'll be fine." Her eyes gave away her teasing. Although, it had to be said, it was just mostly teasing.

[Xander Andaris]

The gentle rocking of the carriage as it rolled over bumps was surprisingly soothing for Xander as he watched the world pass him by through the window. There were few times he had truly felt nervous in his life but now was one of them. He wasn't sure why the prospect of meeting Duke Thomas Andaris unsettled him the way it did but some how the man he had never met was already in his head. It was likely a case of overthinking because the nerves he felt were completely irrational when he really made himself think about it. Still his emotions were mixed and his attention divided as he sat across from his wife.

It took his brain a few moments to fully decipher what it was she had said to him as his attention was stolen away from the rolling hills and back to Celeste. "Of course, he is the Duke of Andaris, I have no doubt he was very busy." Xander smiled softly, covering up his nerves well in favour of a much more collected and professional expression. He listened carefully to her story and knew well what it meant for her. The bastard that was her eldest brother Peake was a sore spot for Xander and should he ever have been in the same room as the monster he did not doubt that they would not both emerge but he kept that to himself.

The story was an interesting one and it was unusual to hear Celeste speak of her childhood, much like his own past her history was a mystery to him mostly. Each of them had their good and bad and each of them would usually rather keep that out of the conversation. Still this insight did reveal some things he had wondered about his wife, had she always been so calculating and ambitious? It appeared she had. So while she continued her story he found himself chuckling by the end as he looked at her and shook is head slightly.

"You haven't changed I suppose, you still observe and learn, you still plan to win." He looked into her brown eyes with a sort of longing, perhaps for the childhood he wished he'd had or the future he wished to give to his own children. "However, you are right, we need his support if we ever wish to see our dreams realised." Likely she would recall his admittance once that she was always right, something he had been lucky enough to not have come back around and bite him in the behind. Yet.

Slowly his face retreated behind a shield as he began to think, churning through ideas and plans in his mind. Celeste's family meant everything to her and he knew that, in fact he could relate to that and it was important that this meeting go well and that no one go to bed angry in the coming evening.

She nudged him and his natural body response caused him to jerk upright and look at her somewhat wide eyed. "Of course, be myself." He murmured it under his breath as if it were something he did not quite believe in. "Old men are hard to deal with, they are stubborn and set in one way, yet it is them who rule our world." He sighed and looked once again out onto the lands that he one day wished to rule. "I suppose this is where your superior grasp of politics comes in, you know I struggle to deal with people who won't listen. For all I hope your grandfather to be different, I worry he will not see the honour and truth of our ambitions."[/color

[Celeste Andaris]

He chuckled at her story and Celeste arched a single eyebrow at him as he did that. Then, he explained why, that she hadn't changed. Celeste smiled at him and leaned forward to kiss her husband with the kind of passion which she kept from the world and reserved solely for their time alone. "On the contrary, my love, I have changed a lot. Now?" Celeste gently and playfully bit his lower lip and then she sat back before he got revenge. "Now, I'd have them playing my game, I would not seek to play theirs. Also," she took hold of his hand and lifted it to her lips, kissing his knuckles with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "I always win. In the end." Was that in the game of politics, the realities of life generally or just here, between the two of them? Well, Celeste did not say.

The look in his eyes, though, that caused the mischief to depart from her expression, the teasing to stop and Celeste leaned in to kiss him once more, a much more gentle embrace this time. "Our babies will live in a different world from their first breath, Xander. We will see to it, you and I. A different world." A better one, if it was anything to do with the two of them. However, she was right, he said, and her smile told him immediately that she was recalling the same moment that he was. He had refused to give her that admittance in triplicate, yet he had repeated it since. It would do, Celeste considered and her expression to him was fond and amused, exasperated and delighted all in one. It was an expression she only ever wore when she looked at him.

Her poke to his ribs caused him to sit up, but he was still muttering and tuttering and Celeste listened to his words and shook her head. "Hard to deal with, stubborn and set in his ways? My darling, my grandfather is all of those things, but it is not because he is an old man." Celeste was quite sure of her next words, "It is because he is a man. You and he have a lot in common in terms of those personality traits you know. But, Xander, listen to what you are saying," she was teasing him, but the point she made was real. "You have told me that he isn't going to listen, that he might be set in his ways. Yet you are the one telling me how 'old people' are. He is not like my father, or yours." Celeste considered carefully what her grandfather was like.

"He admires ambition, but not for it's own sake. He is about family, blood and name. 'We are Andaris, little silver dragon', I have heard it a thousand times from him. It is not just a name. It means much more than that to him. To me. To you, too." Brown eyes were serious when she spoke the next words. "When you are old and gruff, austere and stern and you are doing your best to keep a handle on a family which has disappointed you in a hundred ways, you will be just like him. That is what he is, what he is doing. My father and his lifestyle, the rumours about my mother's death. The whisperings about her relationship with Peake, then Peake, Quincy and Leeson each. Through it all he has kept the family name strong." She smiled and shook her head.

"If you are yourself, then he will like you well enough. Are you happy for me to discuss our motivations and plans with him? They are ours, not mine and I will not discuss them unless you are happy." That was very true, she would not. It was important that they were both happy. However, in truth, it was the best way forward, she thought, the best that she could do in order to try and discuss their very real need to take over the Duchy so that, in the not so distant future, an Andaris once again sat on the throne.

[Xander Andaris]

Her kiss caught him off guard and as their lips met in a passionate exchange he felt himself relax a little, some of the tension leaving his body in the moment before she teased him and retreated back to her side of the carriage. Her final comment caused another smile to grace his lips and his head to shake once again as he looked down at his lap and then back to his wife as his mood changed. So her next more comforting kiss was welcomed and he held her close for a few trills longer, taking comfort in her warm embrace. "Yes a better world, we will see to it." He was sure that he would not let his children live the life he had too.

Her expression was one he had come to know well, something he cherished as he had seen no other bring such a look to her features. This was something he truly shared with her, something he really believed she would only express towards him. So when she prodded him and brought him out of his trance he could tell that she was serious even if her words were light and careful, he knew this by the more stern look of her face. So he paid close attention to her every word, examining what it was exactly she was telling him.

As he listened he leaned forward on his knees taking it all in until the mention of her brother, his body physically tensed up, his back straightening as he sat up in his seat and grit his teeth with all the tension before returning and building up again. "He has kept your families name clean much like my family name has remained clean when in truth it is a shambles, a font of cruelty and dishonour." His expression was fierce but not threatening, his features somehow perfectly expressed his desire to change and better the mess that was currently Rynmere.

"If you truly think it safe then we can tell your father what we see for the future and how we think we might go about it." Xander leaned forward again and took his wife's hand, squeezing it tightly as he turned it over and gently kissed her wrist. "I can work with honourable men, I can feel like they are stable and helpful partners so I will trust your judgement and therefore trust him." He looked up from where he had kissed her and then moved his hand to her belly.

His fingers rested gently around her belly button as he felt a small bump against his palm when it came into contact with her stomach. "I think they know I am here." His eyes went soft as he looked towards where he had felt the movement, the gently kick of their child from within its current home. "Sometimes I wonder if maybe I am risking this by wanting more." Xander's entire expression had changed, his political mind momentarily gone as he thought as a father not a leader.

Quickly he shook his head a little and looked up again. "Sorry I should not have said such a thing, it will only worry you and I know that i not necessary. I will always make sure that no matter what the two of you are safe." He removed his hand from her stomach and gently stroked her cheek. "This trial will mark a turning point for us, I have no doubt that the course of our lives will be altered with this meeting and our dreams will begin to be realised. Our future is bright."

[Celeste Andaris]

He hated it when she even mentioned Peake, she knew and her hand found his as he tensed there in front of her. "A better world, Xander. For us, too. One where my brother has no place. He is not an Andaris, he was not the moment that he did what he did." Where were they, she wondered, Quincy and Leeson? What would they say, she wondered, if they could see her now? So many of the things which had happened in her childhood she had not told Xander. Peake's obsession with her, her father's too. All because she looked like her mother. Considering her childhood as she looked at Xander's face, Celeste frowned slightly and then spoke quietly. "There are a hundred things, a thousand. It is not that I do not speak of them to you, it is simply that it is enough. I can't live there, in the past. It was bad, in parts, and it is enough to me that you know that. I know the same for you, it was bad, in parts." Neglect, guilt, parents who were vengeful and violent. That was what he had endured and Celeste knew that he had emerged stronger, but it was very simple for her. "I wish I could make it all different for us both. But I can't." Neither of them could, but they would make it better for their children.

His hand on her swollen stomach caused, as it almost always did, the baby to kick. "I've asked you to stop saying 'them' haven't I? It's far too plural for my liking." It was all well and good, she had said more than once, him sitting there and throwing out numbers. He wasn't at the business end of this particular production. But then, what he said next caused her to look up and her face showed her surprise, shock even. She shook her head and took both of his hands in hers. "Now you listen to me, my young pup. I don't know what goes on in that head of yours but really, sometimes, you make me wonder how you manage to walk and speak at the same time. You are not risking our family, you are creating it. My children, Xander Krome, will have a father who they can look up to," she meant it so much she didn't notice that she'd called him Krome. Even if she had, it was what he was as well as Andaris. He always would be. "My daughters will demand that the man they marry is as strong and kind and determined and moral as their father and every man will be found lacking. My sons will aspire to be their father because, to every child of mine, of ours, they will have a father to look up to."

How could he think anything else? Celeste shook her head. "I don't worry. I have no need to worry you silly boy. Because my children will have the kind of father that I wish I had, I wish you did. That is no risk." She did not doubt it but as much as she knew that to be true, she looked at him and shook her head. "You are impossible. And not too bright, if I'm entirely honest, when it comes to realising your own self-worth. Today is a step, yes. But whether it is a step forwards or back, it is a step together and that is what is important." She gave him a smile and then leaned forward to kiss him. "Our future is bright because it is together, our family. And," she added with a sudden wicked gleam in her eyes, "because you had the sense to marry me. Come on, stop worrying, we need to charm my grandfather." Sometimes, she thought, she simply did not understand the way his mind worked. Not at all."When you worry, you get a frown line and you know that it's your job to look pretty," she teased, then glared at him as the movement of his hand caused another kick. "I don't believe you. You're doing it on purpose."

[Xander Andaris]

She had told him to stop saying them but how was he suppose to know if it was a she or he, they was much more appropriate as far as he was concerned. "But we don't know whether they are a he or she, seems wrong to call them by one when they might be the other." He shrugged slightly but his emotions quickly plummeted to a more sorrowful and pitiful outlook. Which prompted support from his lover, words that few spoke to him, perhaps it was the reason for his lack of self belief sometimes. His parents had never told him his worth and in fact had treated him like nothing most of his life.

So as she sang him praise and assured him their future together would be bright and full of joy he tried his best to believe her. The fact she viewed him so highly was flattering and he was quite glad she believed so, all that he had to do was persuade the rest of the world that it was the case too. That was no easy task but he always acted in a way that should not make them believe otherwise.

Still Celeste was certain he had a great worth and was a great man, something he hoped was true for the sake of everyone he cared about. Xander often felt bad for confusing her with his occasionally muddled mind, it was hard for people to understand how he thought he was sure. "I know I am confusing to you, my mind is a strange one and sometimes even I can't understand it." He sighed but was comforted by another kick of the child that grew within Celeste.

"I promise you my love I do not do it on purpose. Although is it not wonderful to feel, the child we created together already moving in their." A smile managed to break onto his face as he placed his ear against her stomach as if he were listening to hear the babe speak or maybe something else. Either way when his ear came to touch her body he could hear something, a faint fast thudding, soft and distant as if someone were walking bear foot on an upstairs floor.

He gently massaged the bump and hummed for a second in delight. "I love you." Whether he spoke to Celeste or the bump was unclear but it was true for the both of them. He longed for the day he could hold them both in his arms and be a whole family together. "I am a very lucky man." He kissed the bump and then Celeste as he returned to his prior position, looking much calmer than he had been before and much more ready.

"Lets see what we can do with your grandfather shall we?" The carriage was still travelling but he was sure they must be approaching their destination. "I hope for our safety you are sure about this, we would be killed for what we have planned. I could not stand to have that happen because we made a mistake in trusting Thomas Andaris." His eyebrow raised slightly. "Tell me you are sure and I will be sure too, I trust who you trust as I know you would do too."

[Celeste Andaris]

His mind was a strange one, sometimes? Yes, Celeste thought, and Ilaren liked a sip of wine now and then. Something, to her mind, of an understatement and then some. He got distracted, though, by the movement of the child and Celeste gave him a glance which said that yes, it was wonderful. However, her words were slightly more pained. "Honestly, Xander, yes, it's wonderful. But it depends where it kicks. Right now, I'm sure my ribs are being thumped and kicked because they are the goalposts for a game of 'kick the bladder', which sounds like a lot of fun until it's your bladder." She smiled, though, quite content to watch him as he leaned against her stomach and listened to the sound of their baby.

When he was sitting back down, he spoke about trust and she listened to him, carefully. They were nearly there, she knew, but at the same time she had to consider this answer carefully, it was what he deserved. "I trust him to be himself. To be for the family, for the traditional ways. I trust that he will want to keep me safe more than anything else." Because he loved her, she knew, but also because she was first in line and married and pregnant. These were very good things as far as Thomas Andaris was concerned. "He knows me, he knows that I have always worked for duty and for family."

It was hard to explain, but she had to try. "I trust him to put the family first and that is what I am doing. I think that we have to be clear with him, otherwise we will be deceiving him and he hates that, truly." Family had to be honest with each other, he had told her more than once, in order to protect each other."{/b]

Looking out of the window, she smiled as the estate came into view. "I don't know what he'll think, but I know that he will listen and he isn't likely to be the kind of person who will start screaming." With a smile, she nodded. "I trust that this is the best thing. I do. Thank you for believing in me, Xander." As the carriage ground to a halt she swiftly kissed her husband one more time and then waited for the door to be opened for them.

[Pash Raj'oriq]

Thread Rewards

This was really, really sweet! Celeste and Xander, a noble couple with a child coming, confronting the future together. There's a lot of love, open communication, and willingness to work around the nuances of male and female roles in noble society especially in order to forge a path forward together. They're gonna be great parents!

Celeste

Points

XP:
15 | These points annot be used for magic.

Fame:
N/A

Loot

N/A

Injuries + Overstepping

N/A

Knowledge

Politics: Navigating the marital minefield.
Storytelling: Reminiscing
Psychology: Men do things very differently

Xander

Points

XP:
15 | These points cannot be used for magic.

Fame:
N/A

Loot

N/A

Injuries + Overstepping

N/A

Knowledge

Politics: Observe and learn the rules
Politics: Navigating the marital minefield.
Etiquette: Avoid stereotypes
Psychology: Women are changeable.

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