Begging Forgiveness|Skyheort, Talen'sul

[Northen Light36]

If all else fails, you will always have a home in Fira.

Shadow rather hoped it never came to that, but he took some comfort in the memory of Tres' farewell when he'd left Fira. He didn't know what he'd do if he'd destroyed his marriage beyond repair and didn't particularly care. He had some ideas of how to protect his wife and children, after that what happened to him was unimportant.

Cloaked to keep his face hidden, Shadow passed unnoticed though the city, revealing himself only to the guards at the palace gates. Once inside, he had a servant escort him to Lya.

"Lya..." he spoke softly and found he could not met her eyes out of shame. "I am so sorry... It's not nearly enough, but I am."

[Kender Bard]

Lya stared at Shadow. She hadn't screamed, thrown anything, or otherwise had any outburst, but the coldness about her was almost tangible. She crossed her arms and just looked at him for an amount of time that stretched into discomfort.

"What precisely are you sorry for?" she asked quietly. "Tell me. I want to know what you think you did wrong."

[Northen Light36]

"What I didn't do wrong would be a shorter list," Shadow replied. "I threatened you, I frightened you, I put you and our children in danger, I hurt you emotionally and nearly physically and I lied to you. There's no excuse for anything I did and I won't try and make one."

[Kender Bard]

Lya turned her back to him and walked over to a window, gazing out of it. "Shadow..." She sighed and her wings drooped until the tips touched the floor. "What am I supposed to do? If I forgive you, I'll be unhappy. I'll feel weak and submissive, like I'll let you do anything as long as you apologize afterwards. But the children will have their father and the kingdom will remain whole, so naturally it's the right thing to do. If I do not forgive you, I will still be unhappy. I lose no matter what. It's beginning to seem like that's the sum of my life with you."

[Northen Light36]

Shadow had thought he knew what it felt like to have his heart break. Now he knew better. What he'd experienced in the past was nothing compared to the raw agony of this moment. In a voice choked with open grief and guilt, Shadow asked, "H-have you always felt this way?"

[Kender Bard]

"No," Lya answered, closing her eyes and leaning forward until her forehead touched the cool glass. "I was very happy with you at first. Then Mathew kidnapped Luminous and later almost killed you and it dredged up old terrors of my younger years and I lived in terror in my own home. You did your best to be supportive, even though I know it wore on you and I was grateful. Grateful, but unhappy and frightened, which made me easy to anger and upset. Perhaps it is why I was so cross with you while you were coping with the death of Damien. So I left in anger and nearly lost you again."

"And the guilt I felt over that... Was indescribable. Because of my selfishness, I had nearly cost you your life. If I had been more understanding, more compassionate, stayed with you despite my unhappiness, you and our daughter wouldn't have had to suffer. So I resolved that I would always do what was right rather than what I wished, no matter what."

"And because of that resolution, you almost killed yourself. I let you carry on while I ruled the kingdom because I was doing my duty and trying to do what was right by you. Nothing I have done has turned out how it should. There is no right answer. Three times now I have had you nearly completely taken from me. My heart can't withstand that, Shadow. I am partly tempted to push you away if only to save myself from the inevitable moment when it happens again."

Her wings trembled, the only outward sign of her distress as she kept her voice and the rest of her body calm, if pained. "All I ever wanted was peace for my people. I have that, but is it selfish of me to want happiness and peace of mind too?"

She turned and gave him a look of heartbreak as well. "Why can't we be happy, Shadow? Tell me, because I do not how to achieve it anymore."

[Northen Light36]

Shadow turned away as the tears began to fall. "I don't know, lo-Lya," he replied softly. "I wish I could give you an answer. Perhaps... Perhaps we just weren't meant to be... Perhaps the kindest, most loving thing I could have done was never to have married you in the first place."

Shadow closed his eyes and sighed. "I've hurt you so deeply, in so many ways... I hate myself for what I've done to you, but I don't know how to fix it. If you wish though, I will leave..."

[Kender Bard]

"Don't go," Lya told him, half pleading, half angry.

She walked over and gripped him by the shoulders, leveling a fierce glare at him. "Forces above, Shadow. I do love you. I haven't stopped loving you. If I did, it would make my life much easier. It's exactly because I love you that I am so torn up with anger and pain. It is why I said I would be unhappy if I told you I never wanted to see you again as much as if I told you to take me back to Maelstrom and pretend nothing ever happened again."

Some part of her wondered if he was right. Perhaps he shouldn't have married her. But that was hardly anything more than speculation.

"You say that you hate yourself for hurting me, but I hate myself as well. I feel as though that each pain you've caused me is of my own making. Shadow, I nearly went mad when I thought Mathew had killed you. The things I contemplated..." She shuddered sharply at that and whispered, "Are not to be spoken of." She swallowed hard. "Perhaps we're so unhappy because we loathe ourselves." She let go of him covered her eyes with her hands, as if she could hold the tears in physically. "Why did you start taking mindmelt like that?"

[Northen Light36]

"Because it was there," Shadow replied. "Because I couldn't handle my nightmares and it offered me a way out." He sighed softly. "Every night I dreamed of losing you or Lumi and Dami or Ann, never being able to save you. Over and over again I'd watch you die, until I finally woke up struggling not to scream. And every day there were more whines and complaints from the court and Ann and Aly were still missing... Then there was the body the guards found, the one we thought might have been Ann..."

Shadow closed his eyes again and turned away. "I told myself it would be only the once. Just enough to get one night's sleep so I didn't behead the next idiot courtier who complained at me, but it wasn't."

[Kender Bard]

Lya didn't make a move to turn him back. She was still covering her eyes anyway. She lowered her hands so her words wouldn't be muffled. "And you couldn't talk to me?" she replied in a very soft voice.

[Northen Light36]

"I didn't want you to know," Shadow replied, equally softly. "I was too proud to admit I was afraid to sleep, even to you."

There was more to it then that, but he didn't want to bring up the topic of how close he was to Ann again, particularly not now.

[Kender Bard]

Lya didn't really know what to say to that. She stood watching him, finally at a loss of what more to say, grappling with her thoughts.

Finally she came to a final train of thought. Speaking slowly and delicately, both to emphasis the question and out of hesitation, she asked him, "What would make you happiest right at this moment?"

[Northen Light36]

"For none of this to have happened," Shadow replied honestly. "But since that's not possible... All that matters to me is that you're happy, Lya. That's all I want and I would do anything you ask to make you so."

[Kender Bard]

What would make me happy? Lya wondered. She had no answer to that. She wasn't really certain if she could ever be happy again.

"I need time to think," she concluded. "About everything. I want you to stay here though, with me. With your family. Dami won't stop screaming for you."

[Northen Light36]

"Very well," Shadow agreed with a weak smile. He paused, then asked quietly, "While you're thinking... Do you want to stay here? In Talen'sul? I'd have to spend at least some time in Maelstrom to keep the nobles from getting irritable, but you wouldn't have to come with me. You could stay here, where you feel safe."