The Sun Also Rises

Dorian was wholly oblivious to those stresses and concerns that turned fitfully within his lover over his own behaviour in front of Matteo this very evening. The Monarch equally oblivious to those softly murmured words the Frenchman provided in some effort to assuage those concerns in the vampire. Dorian merely breathing that sigh of relief near in time with Sebastian's own the moment they were left alone. Hosting Matteo was hardly difficult in any sense, the Frenchman more often than not content to take care of himself and yet for Dorian in the least it had been a truly long evening. His mind was positively filled with so very many things he had learned and indeed desired to consider further in the coming days before even more questions so inevitably tugged at him. He found himself near drained both emotionally and physically, tiredness tugging at him already even despite the relatively early hour of the evening still. Yet, here and now, there was little the Monarch desired more then to retire to that living room, to cast aside those airs and graces and talk of politics and Presidents and Makers and all those things that so signified work and effort on their part and merely indulge himself in the company off his consort. How much he adored those moments when the eyes of the world were not upon them and they might simply relax as any other partners surely took for granted.

His fingers entwined easily with the mans own the moment the vampire wholly agreed to forgot those perhaps more pressing issues for now and took one final sip of his tea, Dorian content to lead the pair to that leather sofa, waiting for his lover to make himself comfortable upon it before allowing himself to slip into place beside him and all but collapse into his lap in one of his truly favoured positions. This was how Dorian so preferred to spend their evening. The Monarch distinctly more at ease even despite how decidedly unroyal it was to lay about in such a fashion. Dorian truly having come to value that privacy they had behind closed doors when they might be allowed to exist in any fashion they desired without the judgement that came so readily and heavily from each and every being in their presence. Sebastian's hand nestled within those locks of brunette hair a moment later, that simple gesture stirring a warm simper to his features as the Fae so finally took that moment to inform the man of but some of what he had longed to speak off all night. How meaningful it was to him, to finally discover the answers to but some of those things he had always wondered off within that relationship between his Mother and Matteo. Those rumours long circulated throughout his childhood had finally been given some substance, the truth of what had been kept from him and all the palace at large nothing short of shocking and yet Dorian was far more inclined to marvel at just how they had managed to keep that secret of their affair from the court at large with few it seemed, outside Ferdinand himself, so knowing that truth. At least initially.

Dorian offered but the beginning of that tale to Sebastian then, speaking of just how his parents had come to meet and so eventually fallen into each other's embrace and yet for a tale so terribly old it was, perhaps, not old at all. A woman unhappy in her marriage and a man far more enticing then her husband so stealing her away was hardly uncommon. Centuries it seemed, did not change human nature or desires. Dorian taking some amusement from perhaps how very atypical that story had begun. The Fae paused to consider then just how Matteo so seemed to change when he spoke off his once Lover. Dorian assured he had never heard his Mother spoken about quite like that before. The picture Matteo painted off that outgoing, vibrant, affectionate woman so far removed from even his own memories off her that it seemed near difficult to believe. His silver gaze glancing upward then at Sebastian's own softly uttered words.

"I thought it might be so. Thank you for looking for me."

He responded gently, Dorian unable to prevent that soft smile that adorned his features at the knowledge that in all the world his parents had somehow found one another and, despite it all, had managed to have at least something of a relationship for those long years until his Mother's death. There was something almost....beautiful in that knowledge. Foolish though it surely was the Fae near found himself content to know he himself existed because of that profound connection and overwhelming love. His own silver eyes lifted briefly back to Sebastian then.

"I wondered for a very long time why it was so Matteo had never married in all these years else found someone to settle with. Yet, I quite think I understand now. If Mother was his soulmate as you say, if he felt about her even half as much as I feel about you then it makes a great deal of sense to me. She may have died near five hundred years ago- but he is still in love with her. All the centuries in the world will not change it."

He had never considered, truly, how profound the death of one's soulmate might be until this moment. Had he learned of such things before he had met Sebastian then even he would surely have scoffed at the idea that one could not move on even from the death of a husband or wife. Within his own time, men especially, remarried often and yet how little he had truly understood of love all those years. How wrong he had been! How few people too- were truly privileged enough to find their soulmate in this world and be fortunate enough as he himself was- and Matteo had not been- to be able to be with them. How easy it was to understand now that he had so found Sebastian just why Matteo had never found another to love in quite the same way. It simply could not be done. No one would replace the love he had lost. Matteo had found no other- because he did not want to. Did any being ever even have more than one true soulmate? That near thought so seeing the Monarch press but a little closer to Sebastian then as if suddenly struck with some need to cling to him. Yet, his ever curious mind so continued to turn all the same.

"Bastian? This may be a truly curious question but I fear I need ask it else my mind shall keep me up all day with thoughts. When it was so you looked at that thread Matteo had upon his finger, if it so belonged to Mother and she has died....where does the thread lead? Or is it simply...broken?"

It was a surely curious question and yet such threads were hidden from his own view, Dorian so unable to answer such things for himself. This business of soulmates intensely curious to him even if he so strove not to query his lover about it at each passing moment. Just why it was of any great importance where that thread lead Dorian hardly knew and yet he could not help but wonder if, even in death, Matteo and his Mother still remained connected in some fashion. How unfair that life seemed. To so love one another so intently, to be forced to do so in secret and then to have death separate them once more. Dorian sighing softly in that further contemplation before continuing then with that tale he had begun.

"Matteo told me that after I was born Ferdinand was suspicious from the beginning that I was not his own. Yet it was few years before it was made clear I was not human and Matteo said he spent a great deal of time with me after I was born. He said he often tended to me in the night when the Palace slept, that he took me out to the gardens for walks and he remembers still those evenings I took my first steps clinging to his hand. I wish truly I remembered it, any of it, it is foolish I know but I fear near guilty for so believing him almost....negligent over those years."

He had not been, not at all, Dorian wholly aware that he could not be expected to remember those years of life between his birth and two or three years old in which Matteo had been largely present and yet how it bothered him to have thought ill of the Frenchman.

"When it became apparent I was not human Ferdinand flew into a rage over it and planned to have me....disposed of. Mother and he fought, I am told, and yet she argued vehemently for my life, she had tolerated his bastard children from his mistresses for years and all the palace believed me Ferdinand's all the same. It would be a public embarrassment to admit I was not his son and to so save his own pride I was merely believed by many to be his least favoured son for years. Matteo's presence in the Palace was no longer tolerated, he was forced to keep his distance and so tells me Ferdinand threatened him on several occasions to bring about my death if Matteo displeased him with his presence. That is why he was so absent for so much of my life. He was made to be."

How much of his life made sense when those early years could be so pieced together by one whom had been there witness them. Dorian pausing but briefly before so finishing that tale.

"My Mother was distant from myself too, though I do remember moments off affection from her. She was distant with all my siblings, it was just the way she was. We were raised largely by nursemaids, it was the done thing in that time. I remember her so differently to how Matteo speaks off her and I wonder now, truly, how deeply unhappy she must have been and whether or not she was distant from myself in some effort to protect me too. Showing favour to me would not have ended well I am sure. Were you close with your own parents? Or was it common in your time too, for children to be raised by wet nurses?"

Dorian Aragona