Sera noticed how the tension seemingly left her husband when she carefully rested against his arm, leading them out of the shadows where Pavlos wished to remain this evening. The woman didn’t know she had such power over Pavlos, but she wasn’t going to question it. At least, like not like how she questioned other things...

The question of whether or not Sera truly loved Pavlos was one that weighed heavily on her heart. It was something that the woman tried not to think about often as she knew that such thoughts just weren’t worth the energy that would be wasted. The two of them had been married for a quarter of a century and had three children to show for it. That eliminated the only possible grounds of separation that did not involve Thanatos. Having never wished for either of them to die, even in the midst of their greatest fights, Sera tried her best to not dwell on the what-ifs as she knew how easily she could be lost to them. After all, she had spent the last forty years wondering what her life would be like if Alexios had not met his bitter end through a barbarian spear piercing the heart that held so much love for Sera. There was no question in her mind that Sera still loved that man. She always would. He had been her other half and no matter how badly Pavlos wanted her to forget him, he was still the father of her only son. How could she forget Alexios when she saw so much of him in Alehandros?

However, the same fondness did not exist for Pavlos. Sera knew that much at least. In her worst moment, it was not her husband’s touch she longed for -- instead choosing to shun him more often than not as she refused to let him see the wounds that were festering beneath her skin. It was childish and unbecoming, Sera knew this. She could hear her long-dead mother practically screaming in her ear about how foolish the two of them were being with these petty fights and shutting each other out from the dark recesses that made them less than perfect… But Sera just couldn’t allow Pavlos to witness that part of her. His constant desire for a son and that underlying layer of blaming Sera for not providing one had wounded her so deeply that she was afraid to be open and vulnerable with him. She knew deep in her heart that he did not want to cause such pain in Sera, but he could not help it any more than the Athenian Princess could help the inclinations of her own heart. That was why she had spent the last twenty years building these walls up that Pavlos could no longer breakthrough. It was the only way she could protect herself from such misery.

That alone made it clear that what used to bring these two together had been lost. It had been lost in the lectures of what constituted being a ‘good’ wife. It had been lost in the late-night fights spurred by alcohol and bittersweet memories Sera could never go back to. It had faded away when the Princess saw the pained look in her daughters’ eyes. Whatever joyous, foolish love that had brought them together had been lost the moment that legacies and bloodlines became more important than the two beating hearts that had once called for each other. The Athenian Princess knew this. She had long ago accepted this and stopped trying to rebuild the rubble of what they used to be… So, the question of whether or not she loved Pavlos should have come easy. She should be able to say ‘no’ so easily that it would seem like nothing.

Then she saw the look in Pavlos’s eyes when her hand gently rubbed his side, attempting to bring some sort of calm into the man so the two of them might not cause a scene. She saw how the bitterness faded away into something sweeter, something more akin to what had been between them at the beginning as both of their iron-clad wills dropped to the floor before them. No one else here may have noticed the inaudible clattering as twenty-five years of anger was dropped at a moment’s notice. Gods damn him, Sera quietly thought to herself as he did the one thing that broke through every wall she had ever put up and had yet to build a proper defense against even after all the fights they had suffered between them. Pavlos might not have known it, but all he needed to do was look at her like that, with all the love and adoration the two of them once held between them as their precious treasure, and she would just melt. It secretly angered her to no end as she knew that it would just open her up to more misery in the end… but Sera couldn’t help it. For forty long years, she longed for nothing more than to feel the love that she had once felt with Alexios, eternally thinking that it was unfair that she only got to feel it as a girl at sixteen when she had been too stupid and naive to know what she had before she lost it. That was all she wanted. Sera just wanted to feel safe and loved. How unfair was it that Pavlos knew how to tap into these things without saying a word?

Knowing full well that Sera should not question a good thing when it was right in front of her, the Princess did not mention it. She did not dare to comment about the electric shift that had passed between them, promising that maybe not all was lost between them as she resisted the urge to rest her head on his shoulder as the space between them silently closed. Had they been home, she would not have thought twice about such an action, but being out here in public forced her to pause. The rocky couple might be having a quiet breakthrough, offering a chance to salvage this marriage they could not escape, but there were still certain decorums in place that Sera could not ignore. The two of them were not careless youngsters who could giggle at the rules anymore. They had to be the shining examples of such standards, especially to the daughters that might not be keen to listen to such rules.

Perhaps if she had done such a thing or offered her husband more than just a simple peck on the cheek, she might have spared herself the pain that was surely going to come when Pavlos became aware of the boys who were still staring at the crown resting atop of Sera’s head.

She had missed the possessive, jealous indicators coming from Pavlos that all was not well with these young men. Sera had been too lost in her own thoughts as she jumped between the lack of love between two of them and the obvious sizing these boys up to discern whether or not they were worthy of the shining gems of Athenia that were her girls. Had she been paying closer attention to the man who was thinking irrationally when Sera made an innocent comment about how these boys should spend time with their children, she might have been able to keep her mouth shut in the first place. Or at least she would have refrained for long enough that Sera could have led Pavlos away from them before mentioning again what the two of them should be focusing on tonight. However, Sera had no clue that Pavlos would think that the Athenian Princess who had spent the last sixty years obsessing over the presence of regality and other decorums had been referring to herself with such phrasing.

Sera had learned rather quickly though where her husband’s thought had wandered when she was suddenly hauled off the floor of the party and led down a side hall, deeper into the Kalospiti Sappheire. A shrill cry left her as she felt his nails dig into her upper arm, making it clear that something had infuriated him, but the Princess didn’t know what that could have been. “Pavlos! What are you doing?!” Her husband might have been deaf to it as he was so deep in a jealous rage, but the sheer confusion in Sera’s voice should have at least hinted that she had not actually committed this great crime that Pavlos accusing her of committing. Even though Pavlos had been fairly gentle with pinning her against the wall, Sera was not some young spry thing that would have been filled with absolute lust in regards to finding herself in such a predicament. She felt nothing short of confusion and a slight twinge of fear when Pavlos practically snarled in her face, speaking about such things as unity and other men lusting for her title.

What in the name of Zeus’s pants was he talking about?

Before Sera could even get a single word into this mess, Pavlos continued his tirade, letting loose the anger that sera had thought had slipped away earlier when the two of them finally had a breakthrough in this fractured relationship. It seems to be that Sera had been wrong in thinking that the anger had faded away as not only had it now returned to her, but it had been joined by some righteous unholy fury that Sera had never thought that Pavlos would have dared to show at a social event like this. He was a grown man. He knew that if he was angry at her over anything, he was to bite his tongue and save it for when the two of them were behind closed doors. Nevermind the simple fact that these accusations were not true nor would they ever be. Sera truly didn’t know what upset her more -- her husband thinking that she would dare to stoop to such a level or daring to air their dirty laundry like this. The two of them might have been alone in this hall, but even the most dimwitted of babies knew that nothing in this Argothian home was ever private. How dare Pavlos risk the world knowing about their marital troubles like this?

“What in the name of Hades are you talking about!? Have you lost your mind?!” Sera bitterly hissed back as she fought back every urge to slap this man for daring to think that she would stoop so low. She might be absolutely miserable in this marriage as she was now permanently tied to this jealous, bitter fool; but she was a Princess of Athenia. Sera was the sister of his king, did Pavlos suddenly forget this? Had the countless standards she held all of the Marikas too conveniently slip from his mind as he accused her of being some sort of floozie that would flirt with anything that has a pulse? Surely, he couldn’t have forgotten how much of a prude she had been fifteen years after her first husband had died, how bitterly he had to work to prove to her that he was not just another lustful boy chasing after the crown sitting atop her head? She might be significantly older now, but she had not changed in that sort of way. She might flip-flop between loving and despising the man who was keeping her pinned against this wall, but he was the only man alive who had the honor of holding her heart. He was a dimwitted fool to think that she would stray from this. Had he learned nothing about her in these last twenty-five years?

Before she could truly unleash the anger that was bubbling up within her, Pavlos stepped back, clearly trying to calm himself down from whatever high this jealousy had worked himself up into in order to spit such cruelties at her. For a moment, Sera just stood there, dumbfounded as those bitter words rung hollow in her ears. Did her husband really think that she was capable of such things? She knew that Pavlos resented the fact that she was now spurning his more blatant attempts to father a son, but did he really hate her like this? It was more than Sera could bear, having dared to think that maybe things might have been okay to only have a raging mutt scream in her face. That was what the anger festering between them had turned them into. Something that had once been noble and pure had become vile and twisted, making them almost unrecognizable to each other.

Had they not been in public, Sera might have let this upset bubbling in her heart fuel another fight as she tore him a new asshole to stick his own head into if he was going to think she was capable of such things. However, this was different. They were in public and Sera was on the verge of tears. She could feel it rising in her chest, an aching hiccup escaped her as she stepped back away from him. “Don’t touch me.” She snapped, her voice cracking as she spurned his attempt to reach out to her and guide her back to the party as if nothing had happened. He had just accused her of an unthinkable crime, which made him think that she wanted him anywhere near her.

“I had been talking about our daughters Pavlos. Our Daughters. How could you think I’d do such a thing?” Her words were bitter as she continued to shake her head, trying to fight back the inevitable tears that were going to fall. Her mind completely brushed over the true accusation that he had cast down upon her that she still loved Alexios. If Pavlos ever wondered why Sera craved the touch of the man who would never accuse her of such things, even as he left her alone for months on end as he fought wars at the western border of Athenia, he would only need to think about this moment and how he had accused her of such things. How he had ruined something that could have been pleasant and good with his bitter twisting of reality -- All the while Sera was completely oblivious to how she was doing the same thing. They might be polar opposites in every sense of the word, but they were equals in their own hypocrisy.

“But go. Find yourself some filthy Taengean whore. Maybe she could give you that wretched son that you’ve spent the last twenty-five years ruining the rest of us for!” She bitterly spat out as the tears finally began to overflow and her own aching sobs that felt too much like the ones that had come after losing Alexios filled the empty hallway. Knowing that Pavlos would likely try to comfort her in a moment like this, the Princess tried to brush past him in the direction of the exit so that she might escape to anywhere, but here. She could not cry in front of everyone. At least not while the lessons of the late Nefeli were ringing in her ears, trying to fight back the flood of emotion in the woman who was supposed to be stone-faced in the face of such accusations. However, she couldn’t. It was too much. Hearing such angry things from Pavlos had been the tipping point that had finally broken her resolve to turn the other cheek. She could bear the accusations of still caring more for Alexios than Pavlos, but being told that she actively sought to encourage the affections of other men? That had been too much. Far too much.

Truly, there was going to be no chance of salvaging what had been lost between them.