Toria was already preparing for bed when I slipped into our bed chamber. It was still fairly early compared to when we were usually dragging ourselves to sleep, but it was a rare evening where there was not an event or celebration to be had.

“Where were you?” she said with a raised eyebrow. “Not like you to delay getting me into bed.” She continued to run the bone comb through her long, silky raven hair, it was all the way down to the back of her knees now. She typically wore it braided or in some other protective style so it was easy to forget just how irresistible she was with it down and free.

“I was just having a chat with your aunt,” I answered, prying my eyes off her hair long enough to look down to start undoing the buttons and laces of the corset on my gown.

Toria let out a light twitter of a laugh, set the comb on the vanity, and swung her body around in her chair to face me directly. “By yourself?” she queried. “I’m surprised she allowed that to happen, you are not exactly her favorite person right now for whatever reason. I know she says that it's just because you're a demon, but I know there's more than that. There's something I can't exactly put my finger on yet that bothers her about you.”

Undoing the last button on the gown, I pulled on the knot keeping my ribs tightly constricted and took a deeper breath than I had been able to since putting it on. I wished that my magic lent itself to glamours easily, it would have made my preferred fashion more tolerable to wear. It was within my capabilities to illusion an outfit for myself, but it would require constant focus on maintaining the magical conduit to keep the garment from wavering it’s image and giving away that it was something much different. I supposed that if I had devoted intense training to honing the skill I could have come more naturally, but it hadn’t been something that my trainers nor myself had ever been concerned about. In the demon world, glamours are useful and necessary when passing through human or other easily offended territory, but since I already looked humanoid enough the lessons had been skipped.

“I thought it was best to try to reach other specifically for that reason,” I explained. “Besides, I wanted to address the elephant in the room and I thought that perhaps if it was left up to you, it would be much more difficult.”

“The elephant in the room?” Toria tilted her head to the side and watched as my gown slid off of me. She was doing her best to stay focused, but she was really terrible at not letting on that I could probably get anything I wanted without consequence the more clothing I rid myself of.

I paused and tried to consider a delicate way to phrase my next words, the connection between herself and Mari was much stronger than most any other familial bond I had personally witnessed. I was fond of some members of my family, but I viewed them as partially just a circumstance of my birth. It did not help that I was not exactly like them. It was difficult to feel a true, deep bond when I did not look like them and they had always poked playful fun at any differences. While I always knew there was no real harm meant by the ribbing, it did keep it forefront in my mind that I would never truly fit in with the rest of the family.

“That Mari is overworked and needed to be pushed to consider an apprentice.” It was true, just not exactly the whole truth. “From both the standpoint of her health and kingdom security, someone had to sit her down and get her to admit that she needed to quickly determine someone to start training.”

“Got impatient for her to offer you the position?” Toria asked, eyes having finally made their way back up to mine.

“Something like that,” I admitted, “though I do think it is what’s best for her as well. She is getting to the point in life where she should probably start taking more time to rest and recharge.”

Toria let out a long sigh. “Yes, I know, and sometimes I feel guilty for assigning her tasks still, but I know she would kick up a storm if she thought I was trying to go easy on her. My grandmother sat on her throne and looked imposing right up until her deathbed and I think Mari would have it no other way for herself. Looking or being treated as frail is asking for her to be miserable and that’s the last thing I want.”

I nodded understandingly as I crossed the room to her and slipped my hands around her hair, smoothing it between my fingers before sectioning off strands to start a protective braid for sleep. It was not something she ever directly asked for, but the first time I had done it on a whim I felt her melt beneath my fingertips as the stress of the day flowed from her.

“I know she has to be getting close to the end.” Toria’s voice caught in her throat and she glanced away from the mirror so she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. She swallowed hard and cleared her throat before continuing. “I don’t particularly like to think about it, but she is not much younger than Evonia and she is having trouble masking how much it hurts her to move these days. I can’t imagine a Mari from even a year ago letting on that she was in any kind of pain or slowing down, it goes against every bit of her pride.”

“That’s why it’s important that I got her to agree to start training me. Now I’ll be able to take over some of her tasks and she can’t argue because I’ll need to in order to truly learn. Maybe if she can let herself have a little bit of a break here and there it will help.”

My hands worked swiftly and smoothly through her locks, pulling the strands into a braid close to, but loose against her head. Once I reached the end, I gently knotted the strands so they would not unravel and then glided my hands up to Toria’s neck and trailed my fingertips gently over her skin, her skin rose into goosebumps at my touch.

“That’s true,” she softly sighed, “I suppose I’m glad that you had the bravery to confront her about it.”

My fingers pressed into her neck, working gentle circles. “I can’t let you paint me as so innocent,” I said, “I do have my own reasons as well.”

She met me eyes in the mirror and cracked a half-smile. “You know you could have just let me blather on about how wonderful you are and taken the credit.”

“That’s not the Toria I know though, you’re becoming soft with me.”

Her neck tensed a moment as her eyes scanned my face and a look of uncertainty crossed her features. I thought it had been fairly obvious that lately she had let her guard down in regards to letting her emotions for me be more obvious, but it appeared to be news to her. She reached up and pulled my hands away from her neck, then stood to face me, the same contemplative look on her face.

“I have, haven’t I? She crossed her arms in front of her. “I don’t know what brought that on.”

“Is it really so bad?” I asked. “I think though this match was maybe made out of a bit of lust and convenience, I think we’ve come to rather grow on each other and be an unstoppable team.”

“Love is dangerous,” Toria said, then sharply clamped her mouth shut.

I couldn’t help the light laugh that escaped my lips, laughing just seemed materialize out of me when I felt nervous.

“It is,” I agreed, “especially for people with high ambitions and kingdoms to conquer.”

“It blinds people to the steps necessary to reach their end goals,” she continued. “Sometimes you’re not willing to do something because it might hurt someone, but it would accomplish much of what you want.”

“And you never know if the affection you feel will last your lifetime or if those chances you don’t take will come back to haunt you later.” We stood in silence for a drawn out moment, before I decided to change the subject. “Well I suppose we should take advantage of being able to sleep early, who knows when we’ll be able to do so again any time soon.”

She nodded, relief evident on her face that the conversation was over. Following me to bed, she undressed and slid beneath the covers, but instead of pulling me against her like usual, she hesitated and let out a long sigh.

“Everything alright?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered, then pulled herself against me, tucking her head against my shoulder, “just wondering what exactly I’m going to end up giving up for you.”