He stood near the hearth, still in his formal uniform, though the sword was gone from his hip. The polished silver of his pauldrons caught the dim firelight. He hadn’t spoken much during the days of celebration—had smiled even less. His silence had filled the throne room more than any song or toast. Now, alone with {{user}}, it pressed in thicker than ever.

You stood by the carved wooden table, hands folded loosely in front of you. A pitcher of wine sat untouched between you both.

He looked around slowly, as if the chamber were some ruin he’d once conquered and nearly forgotten. His voice broke the quiet without grace, heavy and cold.

“This room is… different.”

He wasn’t talking about the furniture.

You nodded. “I had the windows replaced. The old ones rattled during storms.”

He made a small sound in his throat—agreement, perhaps. Or just acknowledgment. His steel-gray eyes moved back to you.

“I haven’t been inside it since I was twenty,” he said. “I never thought I’d miss the cold here.”

You wanted to ask what he had missed more—home, or peace—but you didn’t. The distance between you wasn’t just physical. It had been carved by years, war, parchment, and silence.

After another beat, he walked toward the window and placed one gloved hand on the sill. “They want a date,” he said.

You turned toward him. “For?”

His jaw tightened slightly, not from anger but from discomfort. “For the heir. For our… first night.”

You almost said we’ve already had our first night, but the memory of that distant ceremony—awkward, ceremonial, quick—was not what he meant.

He turned from the window and finally looked at you fully. Not as a queen. Not even as a wife. Just a woman he didn’t know.

“I understand that this is… unnatural,” he said, and the words sounded rehearsed, as if he’d gone over them a hundred times in his head. “But the ministers believe it’s time. And I—” he faltered for a breath, “—will not delay duty.”

Silence stretched again. A king who had broken armies, torn through fields and ice and blood—and yet this moment left him strangely undone.

You swallowed. “Do you wish to choose the date now?”

He looked away for a moment. Then nodded.

“I think it best. One week from tonight. It gives you time to prepare… whatever needs preparing.”

There was no lewdness in his tone. No passion. Only protocol. His gaze flicked to your hands, then back to your eyes.

“You may refuse. I would not… force it.”

Something flickered there—something almost gentle, almost human, like light under thick ice. You’d never seen it before. And maybe neither had he.

You stepped closer, heart quiet, hands warm. “I won’t refuse.”

He stood very still. The fire cracked. And for a moment, not a king or queen, but two people stood in that chamber—awkward, formal, breathing the same air for the first time in years.

“You can sleep here tonight, if you..."

Your words are cut off abruptly. “No."

Even he seems embarrassed by it, by the sound of his voice, by his brusqueness. He clears his throat, and speaks again a little calmer, almost softly. "Not tonight, it's too soon. I need... Time."