The Crown's Entrapment



At Cordon Castle

Xenia let out a sigh of relief as she entered her shared room with Darius. Finally, after days of constant traveling, she was back in the comfort of her own bed. Not that she didn't enjoy her adventures, of course. She got to see her friends again, and it was nice to stretch her legs in a place that wasn't the hallways and the immediate area around the castle.

"Finally home," she mumbled as she cuddled up to her ever so handsome husband. "And you're with me as well? I must be dreaming."

"I can assure you that you're not dreaming, Xen," Darius chuckled as he moved to hug her even closer to his own body. "We are indeed in the comfort of our own bed again after days of constant traveling."

"I know, I know," she chuckled. "It's just that… It feels special, you know? It feels like we have to make it special and all that."

"Special, huh," Darius chuckled. "If you put it that way…"

"Stop it. No making love tonight," she scolded him with a chuckle. "Besides, I think my healers will take offense if I put too much strain on myself when I'm this far along."

True enough, she was getting big enough that she was actually starting to feel herself slowing down despite her efforts. She was also feeling a lot more tired than usual. Not enough that she wouldn't be able to move on her own, but just noticeable enough that she was actually feeling annoyed by it.

"Well, if that's the case, then perhaps something else?" her husband suggested, his lust for her radiating through their shared Bond.

"Hey, I said no making love tonight," she pouted. "I know it sounds wrong, but I'd like to not have both Jayra and Aurelia on my case for supposedly jeopardizing the pregnancy."

"Fair enough," Darius weakly sighed. 

A silence settled between them as they both enjoyed the silent night sky. Eventually, she felt his hand hover over her swollen stomach, his palm softly rubbing her belly as if to show his affection for their unborn children.

"So, do you have names for them now?" Darius asked.

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" she scoffed. "And speaking of, can you tell the genders of our babies now? I'm sure they're big enough for you to do your thing."

"Let me try then."

Xenia waited in bated breath as Darius closed his eyes. She felt him focusing all of his attention on her stomach, their Bond pulsating ever so slightly as he felt for their children's presence. Before long, he opened his eyes, and she could feel the happiness radiating off him as he stated his findings.

"A boy and a girl," he grinned at him. "We'll be having both a boy and a girl."

"Perfect," she grinned back, her love for him overflowing as she gave him a chaste kiss. "We can have a child both to spoil."

"Hey now, I won't have the future rulers of our realm be spoiled brats," Darius sternly said, but his frown quickly gave way to a smile as he added, "If we're going to spoil them, we'll do so properly. We still have to groom them for their future roles, after all."

"Agreed," Xenia chuckled. "At least we'll have something to work with when thinking up of names."

"How about we go with my earlier suggestion then?" Darius hopefully asked.

"Really? You still want to go with those combination names of ours?" Xenia scoffed. "Dear, they're cute, but they just… they sound wrong, especially for the future rulers of Cordon."

"What do you suggest then?" he challenged.

Xenia opened her mouth, only to promptly close them as she fell into deep thought. As much as she had a ton of ideas for names, none of them just seemed right to her at the moment. It was as if the time wasn't right for them to come up with names…

Well, either that, or she was just being indecisive with them again.

"It'll come to us in time, I'm sure," she swiftly deflected with a chuckle. "We still have time anyway. We can come up with better ideas."

"If you're sure," Darius chuckled. 

Another round of silence settled between them as Xenia found herself snuggling up to her husband. Sleep was starting to come to her, but she didn't feel like resting just yet. Despite the immediate happiness that she just experienced, the current mysteries in her life came to her all the same. News from the Element Forest still hasn't reached her, if there even were news to be had. And then there was the debacle that was Osman. He was still missing, and she really hoped that he would stay that way, if only for them to still have the thought of him still being alive out in the wild somewhere.

"How goes the search for Osman?" she couldn't help but ask.

Darius let out a sigh as he replied, "Still no news, unfortunately. While the search itself is starting to ramp up again, our search area is only growing wider and wider." He shook his head as he added, "At the rate that we're going, we'll need to add both more time and manpower if we want to make sure that we've covered all our bases."

"Sounds about right…" she sighed, somewhat disappointed that her hunch was correct. "I can only hope that we get some kind of news soon."

"I hope so too," Darius agreed. "If not for us, then for Lady Bella…"

Xenia let out another sigh as she pulled herself even closer to her husband. She felt herself smiling at his embrace, letting his comfort wash over her worries as she finally felt herself starting to doze off.

"You should sleep, Xen," he cooed into her ear. "I'm sure you're tired."

She simply hummed as she closed her eyes, letting her tiredness take over as she let Darius's presence overpower her worries. There were times when she could let herself be worried about such things. For now, she just wanted to rest.