There was no part within the Monarch that so enjoyed being near forced to take that exasperated tone with his lover. Yet, in that very moment, Sebastian was being exasperating with his staunch refusal to answer those questions placed before him. The vampires continued efforts at evasion were hardly placating. Rather, Dorian found himself growing only more concerned for what his husband so determinedly kept from him if he was this afraid to utter it. So much about Sebastian's words did not make sense. Dorian's mind content to paint but a thousand different scenarios. How his imagination might run wild with those possibilities! Some far more horrible than others and yet how stauncily he refused to believe Sebastian could be as capable of his wife's death as he believed himself to be. Sebastian, who was so very...mild in all things, who had nearly cried over a broken teapot, who cherished his deer so much he could not bring himself to hunt even one! How difficult it was to imagine such a man as that being to blame for the death of someone he had once loved. Sebastian's insistence that Isabella was dead and gone, that she no longer mattered, brought a sharp retort to Dorian's lips quite before he could stop himself. That hurt within his voice, despite his efforts to conceal it, perhaps far more clear in that moment. Sebastian had not chosen him. He had chosen Isabella. Perhaps he was wrong to fault his husband on that. After all, the shock of seeing her had surely been significant. The vampires want for his own answers was surely a more than plausible reason to seek to speak to her and yet, illogical or otherwise Dorian could hardly help that simple distress that singular act had prompted within him.

Sebastian's own lips parted as if, for a moment, the vampire had contemplated arguing that very thing. Dorian nearly found himself hoping his husband might if only to insist he had meant nothing by it, that it was merely some foolish reaction and yet- Sebastian remained silent. His gaze once more cast downwards. The vampire accepted that blunt truth of Dorain's own statement. Sebastian's hand lifted to run through his hair then, that visible sign of stress decidedly clear before his husband turned away from him once more. That very act, it seemed, encouraged Dorian's own arms to fold across his chest in some measure of...protection. As if his folded arms might somehow protect him from the ache within his chest this entire night seemed to have prompted. Had Sebastian nothing to say? Nothing at all? It was that realisation, perhaps, that seemed to prompt within Dorian a change from the near eternally gentle Fae to something far more demanding. The Monarch taking on that far more royal persona so often reserved for court. Did Sebastian truly intend to make him demand those answers? Was this what it had come too? Heavens but that worry within him was horrific! The Monarch determined to conceal that very thing for now as he tried that final time to appeal to his husband. There was much Sebastian could ignore and yet- he had never seen his husband manage to avoid a command from his King. That hierarchy of sorts was deeply ingrained within them both. Dorian hated to be forced to play his hand in that fashion and yet those questions could not go unanswered for any longer. Sebastian so surely deserved some right to his own privacy and yet what if that very privacy began to affect their very marriage?

That silence Dorian was once more greeted with was suddenly and abruptly broken as Sebastian's distinctly British lilt so finally parted his lips. Isabella had been....displeased by his feeding habits. Sebastian had mentioned as such before. This having been the cause of a great many of their 'bloody rows' as Sebastian had called them. Isabella had been unwilling to share, a sentiment Dorian understood painfully well and yet the Monarch was nothing if not a realist in every sense. It was simply not possible for Sebastian to feed from him alone. A vampire needed far more than what one body could so continually provide. It would be nothing short of foolish to attempt to deny his lover that right to eat. It was....unpleasant to consider his lover feeding from another, especially when the vampire was so often required to show those victims some level of affection- much less the notion of those feelings Sebastian's venom coaxed within them and yet there was no other way. Dorian, having long since decided that Sebastian's flirtation with others in exchange for that meal, was but a small price to pay for the utter happiness of their marriage. After all, it was not as if Sebastian slept with them, nor went home with them or sought anything more from them once he had fed. Dorian trusted his husband explicitly. Yet Isabella,it seemed, had not. Sebastian insisted she had been upon the very brink of leaving him over it. Dorian's own features softened then, that marriage, it seemed, having suffered terribly over Sebastian's feeding and Isabella's...impracticality.

Sebastian's promise to stop feeding from others and feed exclusively from his wife saw that look of near alarm find Dorian then. Even with his own limited understanding of the functions of the body, Dorian was near assured such a thing was unhealthy- and bound to take its toll. His own head shook softly. The idea seemed doomed to fail.

"Sebastian, that's-"

His words hardly finished. Dorian allowed them to fall short as his lover continued. Isabella, as Dorian had anticipated, so apparently started suffering the effects of that constant blood loss. Sebastian, in his efforts to feed less, had so veritably starved himself to the point that when he did feed, he took too much all over again. Sebastian had reduced those meals even further until he fed barely once a month. Once a month! Could a vampire even sustain itself on that? How on earth had Sebastian even managed to function? Dorian, in that moment, so became distinctly aware of that near vicious cycle his husband and Isabella had both fallen into. Both of them, in their efforts to help one another had done far more harm than good. Yet how much worse that story became. Whatever words Dorian had so been tempted to offer seemed to all but die upon his lips as his husband finished that tale. Isabella had been ill- but not as Dorian had believed. She had been....ill within her mind, to do such a thing as that. Sebastian, beyond starved, had been.....a vampire in every sense of the word.

That conflict of emotions within the Monarch so readily seemed to swell at the sight of tears upon his husband's cheek. Dorian so hardly incapable of remaining still any longer as he hurriedly crossed that room to wrap his arms around his lover and draw him agianst him. Even if he near expected Sebastian to attempt to push away.

"I'm sorry."

How he meant those very words! Dorian assured him he was sorry for tonight, for having spoken harshly, for forcing Sebastian to remember, for the pain he had clearly suffered and sorry too...for Isabella and all she had lost in turn. It would be disrespectful to act as if Sebastian had not played a part in Isabella's death and yet to blame himself entirely was....so very like his husband. How well he knew the vampire and too- how well he knew just how difficult those emotions surely were for him. Guilt so eternally seemed to be his lover's weakness. His arms so gently unwound from his companions figure, Dorian;s hand lifted upward to brush one of those tears from the man's cheek. His voice returned to that far more gentle tone.

"What happened to Isabella was....terrible, Sebastian. I cannot pretend otherwise. You played a role in it, but so did she, love. So did she. Her death was an accident. She was, as you said, not well- and that was not your doing. You tried to do what she wanted and I know how hard you would have tried."

Dorian paused then, affording Sebastian that chance to absorb those words even if he near anticipated the vampire to argue otherwise. What a mess this evening had proven to be in every way! The Fae King at last allowed a sigh of sorts to leave him then.

"She wasn't unhappy you know."

How uncertain he had been about offering those very words and yet, if it would offer Sebastian but even the barest hint of comfort, the Monarch found himself willing to...brush aside his own feelings on the matter. For now. His silver gaze readily met his lovers' own then.

"I do not understand it so entirely myself but I can...feel....certain...emotions more clearly than others. It is almost like an energy of sorts. Like the way I can see life in others. Perhaps it is connected to that, I'm not sure. I can feel it in living people far more readily but I could feel it in her spirit too. Despite the way she was behaving, Serafina was to blame for that, she was not angry at you. I know...without doubt or question- she does not hate you Sebastian. Not even a little bit. I just...know."

Dorian Aragona