Eventually Althalos and Esme were left with time to waste. At first they held to silence, both going over the day's events-him sitting, and her pacing. It bothered the Aelif more-he was the first to speak up. "Do you really see our time together as a prison or death?"

She shook her head. "I was speaking more on potential as leverage against your cousin's way of thinking-that man is forceful; I could use the entrenchment. I honestly see it as awkward with the potential of being a so awful. It depends on what we make of this bond, and you've been damned disinterested in anything beyond duty and lust."

It would be amusing to see his pained expression, but the Aelif looked like the subject tore at him as he objected. "What do you want? Love? This is not a child's story. There are very real consequences to who you are. One of the worst being that you will take my firstborn away from me and I've no right to stop you."

"See? It's yet another iteration of 'You're going to leave me, so why should I bother?' You're giving me no reason to try to stay. And it really feels like you're dumping all of known history on my head like it's my fault. Until this bond showed up, I assumed that someone sold me to my mother, that I was fully human. Damn it, All, you're not the only one whose world has been upended."

There must be some sort of universal code for the formation of stress headaches because Althalos looked peculiarly human as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're right. I shouldn't bring it up so often, like it's a living thing getting between us. It's not like either of us will have much choice when the time comes."

The capitulation softened the former thief's attitude a bit. "I don't think a choice would change anything for me, Althalos."

That caught his attention as he looked back up at her. "What do you mean?"

She took that as an invitation to sit beside him. "The set-up wouldn't change. You were there to capture me and my people. Without the connection, I'd still have tried to run and alert them. If successful, I'd still wind up selling stolen goods from a cart, and I'd still be best saved by at least trading my body for a little security from some guardsman out there. The guild actually wants us weak ones to sell out: settle down, even marry. It gets us out their way. Low tier selling goods is a major culling of those who have ties to The Shards without having to directly kill. And I would love to live long enough to be an old woman. The only thing I find wholly alien in our situation is that I will have the strength to leave you. I didn't have the strength to leave my guild."

"So without the bond, you would still pick me?" The Prince had to shake his head-the idea of them choosing each other of their own volition didn't settle well with him. "You're speaking love and children's tales, still. We would have no reason to marry."

"I said nothing about us marrying, Althalos." She spat that out quickly-the notion of marrying him bothered her. It wasn't how life was supposed to go, and reeked of Aelfine magic. Not that she'd say no-self preservation lay in such security, after all. "Such pairings usually work through the guardsman buying some hovel to live in with his lover, to cut down on the cost of bedding a woman. She-in turn-drops her man's name any time she's accused of selling stolen goods. It goes like that for years, until she can amass enough money to start a shop with a small apartment above the sales floor. At that point, she's no longer dealing only in stolen goods, and her man goes in and out of her life as she sees fit. Marriage is at the discretion of the guard in question. But you're not free to choose another partner like most the unmarried, as you court death to cross a guard while selling stolen goods. That, and marrying has different consequences."

"Such as?"

"Some guards marry to keep women from succeeding in business, others marry for love. But still, the man expects a house-slave in exchange for making herself legally his. Very few run their own business after that."

Althalos frowned. "I really dislike the picture you've painted."

This was the second conversation that used the phrase, so she took the time to figure this one out, before responding-not that it took long, giving the context of both uses. Artwork was not common in The Shards. "Oh, it gets worse. You're not just a guard, my Prince. Someone like you wouldn't rent or buy a hovel, you'd outright buy a more prestigious property, have standards that I would be forced to live with. Marriage wouldn't even be thought of with your title and my lack of status. Eventually you would tire of me. Perhaps if the property chosen was cheap enough, and I pleased you all those years, I might earn my home as a gift. That is, if you're a generous man. If the house chosen was too opulent, I didn't please you, or you were awful, I'd be back on the streets when you were done. Except I'd be much older, without a job to fall back on. I'd be lucky if there was anything left of me worth a 'Skirthouse tumble. And I'm sure you know the type-older women trying to hide their age as they sell themselves. There is no hint of children's tale to this."

"So, you would still choose me but not gain a place for yourself." Althalos was still reeling over the idea that women he bedded over the years on up to Esme were women left in a bad situation. That was enough to make his skin crawl, given how often these women were begging him to give himself to them. The mere idea that they didn't want him, were forced into it, yet begged him-it bothered him on several levels. So now both of them were primed for a fight-anything to quit thinking.

She nearly made him jump when she continued, he was so lost in thoughts he didn't want. "That's not the end of it. That life would all be dependent on you choosing me. In the greater scheme of things, a pale human woman who busted your attempt to capture thieves wouldn't be on the list of women you'd like to seduce even once. I would end up trying to capture the attention of a much less impressive guardsman. And if I was really lucky I wouldn't see you again."

"And you don't think I would choose you in such a manner?" Althalos felt like this question was torn from him, it hurt to speak--wholly unlike himself.

It had to be the bond talking. She hoped it was, given that such a question mixed signals he had been giving her. She waved him off for her sanity's sake. "No. You've made it perfectly clear that I have not been your choice this whole time, M'Lord. This bond-driven life is more a child's tale, than the would-have-been. And I cannot find any enjoyment in children's tales as it is."

That caused Althalos to smirk, as he relaxed a little. "Just how do these tales lack in pleasures?"

"Well, usually the girl of secret rank is not in her twenties. She is caught up in romance at the cusp of adulthood. And given the changes in how I think of things over even a handspan of adult years, these things are geared to a much younger woman, one who I've not much in common with."

"Such as?" There went those eyebrows of his again. It gave her the urge to smooth them out. Not that an Aelif's brows ever fully relaxed, but still.

"In such tales, you're supposed to wholly save me, be instantly charmed by who I am. The bond does do a little of this, but you didn't save me-who I am has. And you are not charmed-or more concisely, you're not happy to be charmed. In a child's tale the Prince and Princess are exquisitely beautiful and in awe of each other's appearances, and their goodness shines through their dazzling beauty. I suppose you fit your side well enough-a lawful man who has to know that women adore his features, but it's pretty damn clear that neither of us look at me that way-in spite of your interest. I've thought and done evil-mostly harmless evil, but it's enough to claim I'm not innately good. I'm not even classically average with this pale skin. To make matters worse, whatever was fine in me was robbed over this past month's stresses. I'm not pleasing to the eye. You bring me out to show to your family-who would be jealous of this? Nobody. I am more a burden than an asset."

Althalos opened his mouth in objection, but closed it quickly to sit there, frowning for a few moments. Eventually he found what he wanted to say. "That's a highly unfair view of yourself. You're not inherently bad, that I've noticed. And I've no objection on the way you looked during our first night together. And anything you have now my objections are strictly that your health has been violated."

"But you don't deny I'm less than stunning."

Althalos shook his head, in frustration. "I don't know how I came through that month so unscathed. You're being hard on yourself for no reason.You're going to regain yourself and more."

"But you don't deny that you're the one who belongs in a story, either." The pointed look she gave him showed she clearly didn't buy his excuses.

"Oh, I'll deny that, too. You've met my grandfather-he is the Aelif ideal. My cousin-though we look less alike-is very much the same. I look like my mother brought in human barbarian stock. No Aelif bulks up on muscles-no Aelif tries, for that matter. I don't arouse most women, I intimidate them-and I'd bet without this thrice-cursed bond, it would be the same between us. And I did this on purpose. There is no mistake in my being a big braw Aelif."

"What?!" Esme didn't know how to handle the idea of being too intimidated with him to not drool over the way he looked, especially since the bond ensured it. And then he did this intentionally? Yes, he was intimidating-what Aelif wasn't? But intimidation did almost nothing to stop attraction-it just stops people from acting on it, if they are overwhelmed.

"When I was young, maybe mid-twenties, not yet full grown, the only thing that was largish was my eyes, and I was considered such a pretty little thing that the Aelfine kept mistaking me for a girl. I am this man you dared call nearly perfect because I worked on building imperfections, to mar what was once seen as perfection. And the older I get, the less I believe there is such a thing."

They gave each other much to think on before their first dinner in the king's court.