"And it is such admirable effort on your part, I don't doubt." It was, perhaps, unfair of him to deliver to her such a whip-sharp retort, but he did not need her to explain the benefits of arranged unions to him and to have it laid so barely before him felt very much like being little more than a pawn to be cleverly played.
Arranged marriages weren't a rarity, of course, but it was something that he had put himself above experiencing. He was a prince and, should he want it, he had an entire kingdom to comb over for a match of his own. He wasn't blind to the idea that he would be expected to wed a maiden, to produce his own heir. In time, such expectations would have been fulfilled. For these plans to have been meticulously planned for so long and for it to be kept so carefully from his knowledge...
It felt like nothing short of the gravest betrayal of his trust.
His first instinct at the offering of the chest was to dismiss the gift in it's entirety, to insist that it be sent away because he had no plans to make use of it. He would not be swayed so easily by nothing more than a shiny bauble, no matter what may lay inside it.
Whatever ungrateful words he had intended to spit, however, fall apart before they reach his tongue when its origins register in his mind. Jotunheim.
Jotunheim.
The look that broke across his face was equal parts shocked and outraged. "What?"
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Date: 2014-01-09 07:14 am (UTC)Arranged marriages weren't a rarity, of course, but it was something that he had put himself above experiencing. He was a prince and, should he want it, he had an entire kingdom to comb over for a match of his own. He wasn't blind to the idea that he would be expected to wed a maiden, to produce his own heir. In time, such expectations would have been fulfilled. For these plans to have been meticulously planned for so long and for it to be kept so carefully from his knowledge...
It felt like nothing short of the gravest betrayal of his trust.
His first instinct at the offering of the chest was to dismiss the gift in it's entirety, to insist that it be sent away because he had no plans to make use of it. He would not be swayed so easily by nothing more than a shiny bauble, no matter what may lay inside it.
Whatever ungrateful words he had intended to spit, however, fall apart before they reach his tongue when its origins register in his mind. Jotunheim.
Jotunheim.
The look that broke across his face was equal parts shocked and outraged. "What?"