How utterly dejected Sebastian appeared in those moments. The vampire was nothing short of devastated at the loss of that piano. The mere sight of his husband upon his knees in that very fashion readily prompted the ache within Dorian's own chest to hurt anew. His desire to comfort his husband, even amongst those turbulent emotions that eclipsed his own thoughts, coaxed the Fae King to extend his own hand until his fingers rested gently upon his lovers shoulder in that simple, small gesture. Dorian's own figure eased itself downward until he knelt beside the vampire amongst the splinters of that once rather glorious instrument. How utterly unfortunate it was to lose it! That singular instrument, amongst all the others, by far the most meaningful to them both and indeed- by far the most irreplaceable. The very memories attached to it alone seemed to be all but scattered about them. Sebastian had, once, taken the loss of a teapot distinctly harshly. This, DOrian suspected, would be far worse. His soft utterance that they would fix it seemed to coax the barest of whispers from the vampire in turn. Sebastian content to insist that this could not be fixed. Not this time. Dorian's gaze shifted to those fractured splinters once more. A piano, he suspected, could hardly be merely glued together the way a teapot had. Let alone the work that would need to go into tuning that instrument, rebuilding its base and legs and refurbishing its keys. All on top of somehow somirariouly restoring those splinters to something vaguely solid. That very task was, perhaps, admittedly, beyond any skill Dorian so possessed and yet.....it was certainly not impossible.

The most fleeting of simpers seemed to find the Monarch's lips as Dorian reached to take the singular ivory key from Sebastian's hand. That smooth, ivory piece was turned contemplatively about within his own fingers before his head softly shook in a silent disagreement with his lover. His slate-hued gaze turned back to Sebastian once more.

"I think Father can probably fix it, if we ask him."

Matteo, after all, had restored those pianos before. This one, even in its current state, was surely not outside of the Frenchmans skill to restore, was it? Dorian allowed those very thoughts to prevail for several more long moments as Sebastian's fingers traced over the fractured wood before him. That gesture near akin to caress. How Dorian so...disliked to turn that conversation away from that piano and yet, even despite that instrument's importance, it was hardly its destruction that centered at the forefront of the Monarch's mind tonight. That very image of Sebastian's wife, even in her spectral state, was all but imprinted upon his mind. He had never seen his husband....look at anyone the way he had looked at Isabella. To see her ghost had surely been shocking. To see his own brother had been equally so and yet how he could not help but feel a near sense of dread at the very idea that Sebastian had gone after isabella in those precarious moments. Leaving Dorian himself behind.

Perhaps he had read too much into that singular moment of panicked stress and how yet askew it had sent his thoughts! They had spoken so little of Sebastian's wife. Such a topic was nothing if not decidedly sensitive for the vampire. That marriage and wife were well within his past and for that notion alone, perhaps, Dorian had hardly been content to press upon what Sebastian so clearly did not desire to share. Yet- this very evening had all but thrown those very questions into the veritable open. Those very unknowns of his lover's previous marriage, it seemed, could no longer be ignored. Sebastian's reaction, let alone Isabella's appearance, so lending Dorian that notion that there was considerably more to that very story than his lover had ever intimated. Those questions, it seemed, would lay dormant no longer and yet how loath he was to ask them. To have to ask them. That simple mention of Isabella's name seemed to prompt Sebastian to pause. The vampire stiffened as if her name was a veritable blow agianst him. Dorian himself struggled with those words. His normal eloquence eluding him in the tangle of emotions that stormed so unrelentingly within his own mind and fluttered uneasily within his chest. His gaze shifted away from his companion, if only briefly, Dorian so at last seemed to find those words he desired as his attention returned to his husband again. The silence that followed near deafening.

Sebastian, for several long moments, seemed inclined to merely stare at him. Dorian was inclined to believe his husband had no intention of answering him at all. The knot within his chest only seemed to tighten again. Sebastian' tongue brushed near nervously across his lower lip. His words, when they came, were terribly soft. Sebastian insisted Isabella had become ill. That she had died from that illness. Such a thing so hardly uncommon for that time in history. Dorian so having lost his own Mother to the Plague that had swept Italy. Her death was an event Matteo still so staunchly refused to speak about even all these years later. Sickness, perhaps, held no grasp upon an immortal and yet that pain did not lessen to watch their far more mortal companions fall to its grasp. Whatever words Dorian had so been about to offer were abruptly caught within his throat at Sebastian's sudden declaration that it was his fault Isabella had died. Dorian's features, this time, shifting into a look of confusion as his head shook softly again. His gaze, this time, so hardly shifting away from the vampire.

"Bastian, it is hardly your fault your wife got sick. No more than it was my fault my Mother became ill. Whatever illness she had I am assured, Mon Cher, you were not the cause of it."

Did Sebastian truly blame himself for this? Did he truly believe he was the reason for his wife becoming poorly and later dying? Mortal life was...fragile. Terribly so. Vampires, for all they were capable of, could surely not prevent someone contracting an illness. Yet....could their blood be used to cure it? Dorian, for perhaps the first time, so considering that very possibility. Yet if Isabella had died perhaps Sebastian's blood could not combat illness as it could injury. Either that or Sebastian had simply chosen not too-.

"Sebastian, why do you say it is your fault she died?"

His voice remained distinctly gentle and yet that ardency within it was surely clear. Dorian, this time, determined not to be swayed from that tale. His mind so already having seized upon several near curious notions before it seized with sudden fortitude upon a final....inconsistency of sorts within that tale. There was no part within the Monarch so inclined to believe his husband would tell him any sort of untruth. Dorian inclined to believe his husband faultlessly and yet there was much Dorian suspected, that Sebastian so simply had...not said.

"Why was the outfit her ghost wore so terribly bloodstained?"

There was little Dorian did not observe. The Fae King so eternally aware of those nuances others so often missed.

Dorian Aragona