The Crown Prince blinks, raising his right eyebrow. "M-me?"

"You cannot do this alone, Zai." Sophia explains. "You've been doing this alone for your entire life. Your politics, your duties… but if you don't let anyone help you you'll drown in it all. Right?"

Zai Tianci doesn't have an answer, staring at his hands, at the mess of a floor bed.

One of the thought processes on Sophia's Committee points accusingly in a panic. Security! Get this mad-mind off the mic!

No! The rest of them suddenly cry. Let'em cook! For real this time!

"Zai." Sophia doesn't make eye contact with this handsome specimen, can't make eye contact; but still speaks to him in that measured tone. "If you can't trust me, then who can you trust?"

"It's not like that." He has a way to argue that point. "I can't trust you Sophia. You're the daughter of the Imperium, your nation wants mine. Your people want our arcanite, our land as a buffer against the Axials, your people want us to worship your goddess, you…" Zai Tianci tells the truth, because nothing else can compare to it. "... you are the enemy."

Because a political machine will always need to eat: its enemies, its allies, its very own people.

And the Imperium will always starve for more, always hungering for power, silver, and blood.

But Sophia Elise cooks, perhaps a miracle of words coming together to make this most succulent of promises.

"Not anymore, Zai." She touches the abyssal black ring on her finger, its counterpart on the Prince's own hand suddenly filling with a supernatural warmth. "I am your wife, and we should stand together because of it."

She pauses, letting the world sit before continuing.

"We will stand together because of it, I'll make that promise to you."

There's something stirring in his heart, something more than the cold distance and the relinquishing of fate, but his longing look suppresses it all in a tidal wave. "Please don't make promises you can't keep, Sophia. I am the last person you should trust."

"Why?"

"Because it is in all my interests to have you… removed from my side. If you were gone, then our people could begin to rebuild—from the Great Starving, from our wounds in that war. We wouldn't have to sell ourselves to you, we could finally be a nation again. And with you gone, your Imperium won't have a way to take over the Dominion from the inside. And if you're gone then I…"

He cannot say the next part, the ring on his finger weighing him like a thousand tons of granite rock.

And this young woman doesn't give him a chance, speaking without a single care in the world. "I trust you Zai, that confirms it." This Princess almost orders him through that cold facade. "And I want you to trust me."

He can't meet her gaze. "Sophia…"

"As I said before, I don't want to rule your nation or have any great plans for it. I am simply content with rotting in bed with my donuts… and a few novels and maybe if I can, if needed, have you in my…"

This girl's internal monologue slaps her. I almost said something along the lines of personal, in-bed indulgences. Keep it together Sophia, come on.

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She continues, unabated after an awkward silence. "... have me sit in council, your adviser to matters in terms of Imperial politics… if needed of course. That's all that I desire."

Better never actually, but we still have some pride in our hearts.

It's an offer too naive, too great for the Crown Prince of Tianci, and he instinctively pulls away. No answer, no implication beyond just turning back to the window, watching the stars beyond.

And in the sky, where the ancient ones, the gods once came from, there is no answer for him. No great word that gives him the answer, no divine interference for his world of blood and hunger.

For the world, for the Dominion, for Crown Prince Zai Tianci—it's too late to save them.

He stands from this floor bed, trailing black silk like a spectre, a ghost walking through this hallowed place. Detached, empty, his voice so quiet Sophia can barely tell it from the cicadas and wind. "It's late, we should retire for the night."

Because it's too little, too late.

Sophia Elise has failed, rejected in her own bed.

WHAT?! One of the thought processes screams out, pointing to this incredible series of composed words, to this masterpiece of conversation. WHAT IS THIS REACTION?!

We had him in the palm of our hands and yet he jumps?!

No, not even that he doesn't even want us in his hands!

An entire committee of consciousness sent into a fury of arguments, yelling, screaming at one another in rage of confusion at themselves, no… at him.

Someone's left a bomb in here—a device of frustration bottled to explosive pressure. A tantrum only seen decades prior from a pre-teen child, about to be unleashed in a meltdown of divine proportions against this utter disaster of a Crown Prince.

Child of the fields, daughter of the barley-wheat and silver mountains. We have lived in this place for eons, listened to the blood-deaths of generations, of those who worship us as gods.

We have seen this before, watched as both our peoples crossed the gaps, used the stars to wage war. We have seen his kind before, we have witnessed it in that monster you worship as a goddess.

So we come with a warning:

He will never survive alone.

And the great gaseous giant above, along with the spirits of this world, push fate beyond its breaking point, pushing this human soul to act beyond even her own capabilities for just a single moment.

TO SAVE US ALL.

Sophia Elise the Eighth stands from her position in this bed, pajamas dripping with cold sweat, and takes those disgustingly moist steps towards Crown Prince Zai Tianci at the precipice of the open window to her room.

"Zai, I trust you."

The young woman, gently but quickly, takes advantage of the surprise and grabs the forearm of her politically married husband.

And for a long minute the world is just the two of them, those eyes of blue and brown meeting for something, for some exchange of words to happen.

I trust you, because I've fallen for you. Child of the murder and blood, child of the ancient songs and the abyss of stars. You and your vast oceanic soul have drawn me into your tides, your storms. I yearn for the sound of your waves atop my shores, your gentle embrace upon the sides of rocks and cliffs.

Every moment I feel for your heartbeat, to breathe the scent of salt and driftwood from your skin, to hear your voice sing a longing song to fill my soul.

Because I, whose soul smelled of wheat-sap and copper-silver, have fallen for the sea.

Because I, Sophia Elise, love you.

So Sophia speaks that poem, composed by the world and the spirits and time and rock and sand and matter and energy, in her own voice. A forced smile with too many shown teeth and a stank breath, eyes ringed with dark circles of sleeplessness and skin blushing red with nervousness, and a voice tuned with so much desperation it practically was begging for spare change on the street.

"I… uh… hah…"

"Ok well."

"S-sooo…. Like… well b-because."

"I k-kinda… like you?"

"L-like… like you."

It's not clear enough, and so she logically has to hammer in the extra nails to really make sure he truly gets this.

"R-Romantically. L-like… like you. R-romantically like you. I… yeah…"

And the world, from the crashing waves of the Adranic Ocean, the great gaseous spirit high above, to the small forests and even the house itself, all collectively sit there in silence.

Shocked. Painful. Silence.

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