It would never cease to amaze him, truly, how his lover might live within this world for so long as he had and yet not find himself afflicted with a desire to know just what those shells were made of or how many dinosaurs there were or how deep the ocean was. These but the very sorts of thoughts that might plague Dorian's mind and so prompt some quest for knowledge. The Monarch assured he might never quite know enough. There was always a book to be read or something new to be discovered that just the day before he had not known and yet, by comparison, it seemed as if Sebastian was wholly content to merely exist without ever wondering just why something did what it did or was as it was. The vampire quite content to simply acknowledge those things without seeking further depth. It was, Dorian thought, a rather marvellous way to live in some fashion. Sebastian so relatively at peace with the world, seeking further knowledge on those select few thing that intrigued him while Dorian was forever plagued by a veritable need to know that on occasion exhausted even himself. It was truly as if his mind was wholly determined to make up for those five hundred or so years of life he had missed. The world to the Fae King, after all, was still entirely magical in every sense of the word. A world that, as Sebastian said, was moving far too quickly for them to see all off. This a rather potent truth that the vampire himself had surely come to terms with while Dorian still remained wholly exasperated by the fact. Sebastian so commenting that there was beauty in mystery all the same with a playful wink of his eye. Dorian's own gaze rolling in good-nature.

"Oh sta zitto." (Oh shut up)

There was little save for playful delight in those almost cheekily offered Italian words, Dorian's head shaking but once more in the moments before he moved to offer that treasured sand dollar to the little girl whom had spied it within his hand. The child dashing back to her pile of sand with a decided glee that so seemed to stir Dorian's own lips in to but the softest of simpers at the simple delight it seemed to bring her. Sebastian's lips upon his cheek in the wake of that gesture seeing his own simper shift into a near dazzling grin as such a simple gesture of affection. His fingers interlaced with his companions once more, the pair content to continue down that beach. The news of Troy and his newly expectant lover so seemed to have the effect upon Sebastian that it had surely held upon Dorian the moment Troy had announced it to him within the bar some nights ago. That shock upon the vampires face entirely clear before he confirmed just what Dorian had suspected. That Sebastian, at least, had never heard of such a thing as this in all his time or from any other vampires he had surely met in passing throughout his life. It was that very notion that had prompted the Monarch to consider that nature of those affinities most supernatural's seemed blessed with. It was likely that one or the other merely possessed some sort of previously unrecognised affinity for children or birth or something of the sort. Sebastian so suddenly adding but an almost strikingly obvious detail even Dorian had not considered. The manner in which a vampire died each day.

"Ah, but I did not consider this! You are right. It must live somehow while she does not. It is unfortunate perhaps that I have never met her. I should have liked to see her in the least, if only so I might see just where that life upon her is focused with my own affinity."

That, Dorian was assured, would have provided some answers to his own curiosity even if this was hardly a concern for Sebastian or himself. Dorian frowning slightly in that further contemplation. The man so given to consider the very nature of life itself, his gaze flickering briefly to Sebastian himself, so aglow within that current state of living, before dismissing his considerations upon it entirely for now. The anomalies of Troy's life, after all, were surely not his business to involve himself with even despite his curiosity or indeed, his concern for that baby destined to be born to an unmarried couple. A veritable sin within his own time. The Monarch so at last offering the truth of his own birth under similar circumstance- even if he was wholly assured that truth had been glaringly obvious to Sebastian all the same. His lover was of breeding to fine to ever query such a thing. The topic itself was all but forbidden within his palace all the same, as if his own court was somehow still ashamed of the idea after all these years. Those age-old prejudices still entirely intact until even Dorian himself so rarely mentioned them. He was hardly ashamed in turn, after all he could not change the nature of his birth. More so it was the distress to others the idea seemed to cause that had seen the man refrain from inquiring upon it. It was an unspoken topic for more than five centuries, such ideals ingrained within him in turn and yet, here and now, so far from the land of his birth and to his very Consort no less- such admittances could surely be made. At least, if Sebastian was correct as Dorian surely believed he was, Troy's child hardly seemed destined to suffer the same fate. His lover's inquiry upon his true sire hardly one the Monarch found he minded in any sense. A soft simper touching his lips as he regarded the man beside him.

"Do you know, Mon Cher, in five centuries you are the first person to ever ask me that? I wish someone had done so sooner when those who knew might have been alive. I fear I do not know for certain though I have my thoughts-"

His words were perhaps momentarily halted in the wake of that sandcastle class, Dorian paused upon the edges of it before seeking to coax his lover down onto the sand beside him so they might hear but the end of that class. Dorian so querying as to whether this building was a talent his lover possessed. Sebastian's admittance that beyond putting a sand within a bucket- that it was not- managing to coax that soft chuckle from the King all the same as the instructor so finished his explanation before dismissing the class. Dorian content to remain upon the sand just outside of it, reaching for two of those buckets so free for use before passing one to Sebastian in turn. It was a decidedly childish thing he was assured and yet childish or otherwise this was but one form of art he had never yet tried!

"I fear I need attempt but one small castle, then we need no longer sit here, I promise."

That warm grin touched his lips all the same, Dorian moving to mimic his lover then in placing that sand within the bucket before upending it to leave that singular stacked pile beside Sebastian's own with which to sculpt. Dorian reached then for that small crafting tool before his features so shifted into a look of concentration, the man beginning to experimentally cut away at the sand for several moments before he spoke once more.

"It has been in the Italian papers of late, this question of my birth, did you know this? I left one of the papers upon your desk yesterday though I do not think you have yet had the time to read it."

Dorian himself was so rarely inclined to indulge those gossip rags or pointless magazines. Vogue perhaps the only one he had ever seen Sebastian pick up in turn. The vampire so taken with the cover that had featured them that he had framed it. Even Dorian himself willing to admit that it was perhaps one of the best pictures of them ever taken. Newspapers however were another matter. Dorian having taken some pleasure in reading of those daily affairs of his country as Sebastian did with his beloved England. The paper rarely given to idle gossip that was more often than not incorrect. The question of his birth however, was apparently one that had inspired the curiosity of others. Dorian inclined to wonder, truly, how much the President had dappled in bringing this idea to the attention of the media.

"I asked my Mother once, when she still lived, as to the nature of my Father. She told me off for being insolent. It was a truth so many knew and yet one it seemed everyone was determined to deny and yet hold against me within the same breath."

It was a veritably impossible situation. One he could not have ever hoped to win. The politics of the ancient world entirely impossible sometimes. Dorian glancing but briefly up at Sebastian once more as he continued with his sculpting. The Fae hardly distressed in any sense to speak of such things. Indeed the Monarch found it almost a relief of sorts. As if such words had longed to be uttered.

"The newspaper believes it is one of three men. Three! I dislike this implication of the papers that my Mother carried on with men. She was not such a woman as that. She did her duty to my Father well and aside from myself each one of my siblings was his own."

If any had been unfaithful in that marriage it was surely Ferdinand. His bastard children were well known and yet his fidelity was never questioned. Such was the misfortune to be born a woman in such a time in which the rules so seemed to differ and yet Dorian hardly queried it now.

"The paper so suggested it might have been a man named Giovanni Romano, I have never in all my life heard of this man. I know only that he died, apparently, during the French invasion. I suspect he was also human. Another suggests it was a man named Antonio, this man I knew, I met him many times for he was the stable boy at Turin I do not at all recall if he was Fae though. The last of their scientists in this, how you say, genealogy- so believes it is Matteo. They think I look like him."

Dorian Aragona