Nyriel heaved a dramatic sigh as he leaned his cheek against your shoulder. “Have you talked to Father recently about me?” he asked. A redundant question; he knew the answer. Virion loved talking about him. “He has attempted to bond with me by pointing out the butterflies in the gardens.”

He had very little interest in bugs, but Nyriel wouldn’t have minded the conversations if Virion didn’t look sick with dread at seeing them. Sometimes conversations with his father were uncomfortable, as though Virion did not wish to speak to him at all. Nyriel felt out of place with his father. A stranger wearing a face that reflecting his own. It felt incredibly strange.

Nyriel always felt closer to you. There were less expectations; Nyriel didn’t feel guilty for being who he was with you. Still, he couldn’t even trust you, his other parent, with his affair. Ailea—the one he was quite literally betrothed to—was the only one who knew about his true lover being his personal knight.

He knew Virion suspected something, his father was as subtle as a caribou, but he hadn’t directly asked Nyriel. If you thought anything of Nyriel sometimes vanishing, you had yet to say anything either. Him only being attracted to men was no secret from his parents, but to outwardly speak of an affair? Nyriel knew better.

“I wish Father understood.” Understood anything at all about Nyriel. He was not unloved, he was looked after, given a childhood many prayed for. Nyriel knew he shouldn’t be complaining, he had no reason to.

Still, he couldn’t help but speak of everything that bothered him around you. Nyriel often went out of his way to seek you out for comfort. When he was a child it was much the same, but back then his relationship with his father was simpler. Nyriel couldn’t help growing up; Virion couldn’t help wanting his little boy again. He had vague memories of sitting in Virion’s lap as he read to him, making voices for each one of the characters. Nyriel had once thought his father to be perfect.