Troubled Waters

19th of Resolve, in the 5th year of the Reign of Yale Redwater, Alshain Magna

Jamilla Laurent looked at her husband, settling into her grav-chair as he ate his eggs in silence, a slight smile tugging against his lips.  Jamilla had fallen in love with Salamah a dozen times, and she figured that smile had been a part of every single one of them.  She loved her husband, wildly, madly, and that smile, a bit smug, but also confident, and (mostly) unplanned, it was one of the things she loved about him.

Of course, to love was not to claim perfection, and on her worst days she began to see how, when faced with the world, Marcus had crawled into a bottle.  On her worst days she loved him the way he loved most of his family: out of a sort of resigned acceptance that this was the way things were, and that no matter how he feels about them he also loves them.  On other days, of course, loving him was far easier, far less painful.

What she didn't understand is why he didn't love her back--or, why, when she sat down and allowed herself the rare opportunity of telling herself the truth, that was the conclusion she came to.  Many days, of course, she could delude herself long enough to love him as a being with few faults, if any.

But he was so closed off, beneath his charm.  His childhood, his family, his sister, his home-planet, she had learned to negotiate a mine-field of topics that would cause him to close up, to retreat behind formalities.

And she knew he had cheated not all that long ago.  What else could explain the surprise visit to Circe, could explain the messages her spies had carefully reconstructed about a meeting with "Charlie."  She wondered what such a woman had that she didn't--because, not to be too vain, she was intelligent, well-bred, had a first-class education and, by the standardized definitions, she was beautiful.  Was it her pale skin, was there some feature he didn't like, or some part of her personality that repelled him?

Jamilla understood that love was a complex thing, that often one had no choice in that matter, and she could even accept with a tearing heart that he didn't love her.  What baffled her was that he wasn't even attracted to her, at least, he didn't seem to be all that often.  In the heat of the moment, perhaps she told herself that the sex meant lust, or pretended to believe the lust might be a symptom of love, but as often enough she allowed herself to be distracted and played with by her desire for Salamah's body not because she was a fool, but because she was desperate and lonely and loved him and wanted him even if it wasn't the way she wanted to want him.

All of this was the context by which she decided, that blustery and cold--did Alshain Magna not have a blustery, cold day, not that it mattered, enmeshed as they were in their womb of a home--morning, to ask him, "Honey, what are you doing?"

He looked up and said, "Attempting to check all the available men of the right bloodline.  I have had enough of Audrey, and at this point I'd marry her to a homeless bum...if he'd treat her right," he amended, since he didn't want to wish misery on any of his family.  "Perhaps one of my courtier friends..."

"No!  She is to marry into Nobility, or not at all," Jamilla insisted, "Trust me, I know them, those so called former friends of yours, and they are like sharks,  they'll latch onto her, destroy you, and benefit nobody."

"They'd just marry her and discard her for her name, her position..." she trailed off, Salamah looking at her bizarrely, as if he was confused.  He touched her shoulder, and she found she was nearly crying. Crying because was he really all that different from them, then, was he?

After a moment, he stood, and, after leaning in to speak some words to her ears only, left, unable to bear it.  She stared at the data-sheet.

He had whispered, ever so quietly, "I don't want to despise you, I didn't mean..."

Sometimes the right words just wouldn't come.