3 days after Beltane
The Quickening has passed, the Ascension has begun but Arwen is still thinking of the events of the celebrations in Umbra. It makes her upset to think about but she cannot stop, something about it is bugging her.
The naturalist girl who has died over nothing, her attempts on Queen Carina did not succeed luckily, Arwen is glad that her sister isn't harmed. And that poor girl was so young. Too young to be an assassin. Perhaps she was coerced. Who knows. Now she is dead no one will ever know.
Arwen is happy though that Klaude managed to persuade his father and Cierra to let him come back to Umbra and Draven Mansion, he arrived just yesterday.
They lounge about in Klaude's rooms now in secret, for the sun is up and everyone else is fast asleep as is the shadow's custom. Draven Mansion is a massive estate so no one is even within earshot to hear them speak. It is much better. Some privacy at last.
Cierra ordered the shadows leave early those days ago, the same night of the botched Quickening which none really minded as their version of nighttime of every else's daytime. They like to vanish and travel under the cover of darkness.
But now they have returned and Cierra spent the first few days drilling her about potential plans and strategies to kill Nalani and Carina. It's all a headache. Now she is grateful to be free of Cierra and the politics, if only for a few hours. She is still not keen on killing, she may be a queen but it's not her nature to kill even though she's told it should be as a sacred triplet, by the islanders, by the shadows and by the temple - she's not keen on the priestesses or the High Priestess honestly.
"What is troubling you my love?" Klaude asks, concern on his face as he catches her rueful expression. He notices the subtle changes in her face and emotions so much better now, he has been watching her. Even when she turns away, if only to admire her beauty.
"It's the girl, the assassin," Arwen sighs, turning to face him on the bed.
"What about her?"
"She was so young," Arwen says, shaking her head, "it made no sense, why would she risk killing a queen when she knew she could never escape alive."
"I can't say that I know the mind of an assassin that well but what is she to you?" Klaude asks, pulling her closer. He doesn't mean to be mean in his manner, he is just blunt. Klaude isn't an over thinker like her.
"Nothing, I never knew her but I still feel for her and her family, they looked so shocked and distraught," Arwen says, shaking her head, "something about it all doesn't match up."
He considers it for a moment but Arwen sees him dismiss the thought of in his head before he even replies. She's been watching him to. The way his expressions and mind works.
"I wouldn't ponder it now, what's done is done, we have to look forward especially regarding your future, precarious as it is," Klaude says, "you are a queen so you are always at risk but your especially vulnerable now the Ascension's begun, I don't like it at all."
None of her supporters likes it but they are all confident having seen her ability at Beltane. But Cierra is not convinced. She continues to berate Arwen's 'weakness'. Perhaps Arwen is not as cunning, ruthless and politically savvy as the Radurons, despite her years of Cierra's tutelage but she still thinks she would make a good queen, she wishes to make the island a better place. Rid it off of the corruption at last.
But the promise of her reign brings the promise of Cierra ruling the whole island in everything but name after she inevitably pressures Arwen into appointing her as the Head of the Black Council and then installing other Radurons and shadows - Arwen would not be surprised if Cierra made the Black Council a completely shadow dominated government.
Everyone with different gifts and opinions would be silenced. Cierra ruling worked in Umbra to a degree, they all share her gifts and her goals but the rest of the island would not like her or her methods of ruling. And the island certainly don't trust them, they have heard of the Radurons and they are fearful. Rightfully so.
The people may revere Arwen because of her gifts and Quickening performance but they are still wary, ironically they fear her the most though Arwen is perhaps the kindest. Carina and Nalani have more common and known gifts, they are more predictable, they promise safety and security. Even with the mistrust of poisoners from years before the shadows trump them in that department now.
Before Arwen's birth some people even thought the shadows had simply become a myth as tales passed from generation to generation and fact soon became fiction. Nobody really understands what Arwen even is, even some shadows in Umbra don't even truly know due to her strength - there are so many aspects to the shadow gift a person can have and Arwen mostly has all. Who knows more affinities could develop later. Ones thought lost to time. Nothing is impossible on the island.
"Neither do I," Arwen replies, sighing, "my future is very uncertain, I will constantly have to watch my back for poisoned food and the like and of course Nalani's famous flames, I can't say I particularly like the idea of me being burnt to a crisp or poisoned and then you possibly marrying one of my younger sisters, one of whom could be my murderer, it wouldn't exactly be the most harmonious match."
"It will never happen," he says instantly, shaking his head, "I can't comment on Nalani but I've met Carina, her and that giant viper of hers scare me a little," Klaude finishes which makes Arwen chuckle," and you aren't going to die, I love you too much to let that happen."
Love. So strange. So sudden. Like her and Klaude's relationship. She has never felt like this before. And even with the beginning of the Ascension and the dangers she faces, she can only focus on him.
Sometimes Arwen forgets she is a queen because of being around him, for better or for worse. It's not wise, that she's allowed herself to be utterly consumed by a man rather than focusing on the task at hand. At slaying her way to becoming queen crowned, saving her own life and being able to rule the island, the first shadow queen since the Queens of Old to rule from the Volroy. Permanently uniting the elusive Umbra and Fennbirn once again.
There's pressure in that as well. No shadow queen born to the island has ever been slain in the Ascension - they have all reigned victorious. All five of them. It is documented well in the Raduron's personal library, as well as Umbra's enormous library in Tenebris Avenue.
Queen Dominique, Queen Clio, Queen Reyna, Queen Morana and Queen Ondina. So the Radurons and the citizens of Umbra expect her to do the same, they expect victory and strength. Nothing more nothing less especially as they view her as a chess piece, one that will got them more power politically and in terms of their gifts.
The shadow gift used to reign far superior over the rest, Arwen has heard Cierra tell her tales of the age of the shadow queens. Such glory and undiluted power. From those tales it sounds like shadows were barely even mortal, the sheer strength of their gifts made them sound like goddesses and gods.
Ebony has even told her that the people of the island was secretly glad when the shadow queens stopped being born, weakening all the shadows and consequently causing them to draft the treaty to separate themselves entirely from the rest of the island. It also gave the other gifts a chance to not be entirely dominated by shadows and no one was strong enough to oppose them in any matter when they had their shadow queens ruling, at one point they were close to taking over the whole island.
In the modern day shadows are still strong and with years of no queens to boost their strength that is a credit to how strong the original gifts must've been, but at least now the gifts are on a more even playing field. Still, she doesn't care so much about the supposed grandeur of the "Shadow Age", all she currently cares about is Klaude.
Truth be told in that Arwen feels a sort of relief, she doesn't want to focus on the horrors ahead and the horrors she experiences currently from Cierra, not just through the abuse and being torn down constantly but also the isolation, she's never really had true friends, never been allowed courtesy of Cierra again, deeming no one as worthy to be by a queenside apart from her and Ebony to a degree.
Cierra Raduron is her guardian but also her terror. It is much easier to pretend that she is just a normal girl, a normal girl in love with a normal man. Even then it wouldn't be true, Klaude has royal blood as well, Valostran royal blood. They both have ties to a crown in one way of another.
Their lives were never meant to be normal since birth, they have always been important from their bloodlines and the power their position brings, especially as Arwen being a direct heir to the throne but also being given the shadow gift, such an unusual yet powerful gift.
Not inherited by her biological mother, the war queen, but by what the temple doctrine decrees is the only mother queens have - the Goddess. Arwen wonders why the Goddess chose to finally send a shadow queen after all this time. But she cannot pretend to understand a divine being, especially one so cruel as to want bloodshed constantly.
But erasing that from her mind Arwen smiles, letting his hand entwine hers as she replies to Klaude, "I'll never get used to you saying that."
"What that I love you?" Klaude asks bewildered and a little amused.
Arwen nods, "I've never been in love before, I don't even know what it entirely means."
"It means that I am yours and you are mine," Klaude says lazily awith a small smile kissing her fingers then turning, switching to her neck, leaving butterfly kisses up there much to Arwen's delight. She could happily get drunk off of his touch more than any nightshade wine.
"Promise me this is forever," Arwen says turning towards him as he stops kissing her neck for a minute locking eyes with her.
"I will be yours till the day I die, always and forever," Klaude says with another smile and that alone fills her with such happiness.
He kisses her again, just once. A tender and loving gesture but it makes Arwen want him even more, she wants to show him how much she loves him, they could both ignite with the way they make each other feel.
She carefully traces her fingers down his cheeks to his neck, kissing his neck which catches him by surprise, for that is normally his signature move that he does to her. It makes Arwen smile.
She likes surprising him so she does it again as her lips leave his neck much to his amused irritation. but they soon meet his lips as she pulls his face further towards her, taking a little control for once. They kiss so fiercely after that, not holding back a bit as her hands grab his hair and his hands cup her face but soon entwines his fingers through her long raven hair. Such beautiful hair.
They keep on kissing, just savouring each other's embraces but Arwen pulls away slightly, their noses still touching and she just smiles with those full lips of hers and those pearly white teeth.
"I love you and I want to be with you emotionally," Arwen says but then pauses as if she is a little nervous for her next words, "and physically."
That makes Klaude sit up as he tilts an eyebrow, "physically?"
She nods, barely able to breathe as she holds his eye contact, slowly removing her black shawl, revealing her beautiful arms to him.
They are a few small marks scattered across them. Scars. From Cierra or herself she doesn't know. Some may call them ugly but he thinks they're beautiful. They show her warrior's heart, her strong she is and how she overcomes and darkness.
The sight of her makes Klaude want to utterly devour her, she is so beautiful and he is entirely in love with her. He's had sex before of course, with his station of nobility in the Valostran court and his looks, he's been with the prettiest of Valostran noble girls but he knows deep down that none of that can compare to his moment.
Where for the first time he will be with someone he truly loves rather than only being with someone he has a fleeting attraction to. Her mere presence threatens to consume him, he is suddenly overwhelmed at this bright ethereal queen before him. And she has chosen him. However this began he wouldn't trade it for anything. She is precious to him.
He remembers when he first came to the island, he never wanted or planned to stay, he was only following his father and uncle's orders. Until he saw a peculiar girl, with the most striking colouring he's ever seen, dressed and adorned in all black standing in a ballroom, the shadowfire managing to illuminate her beauty perfectly. He remembers her expression of distain when she found out who he was. How times have changed. But since then Klaude loved her. It sounds like the words of a madman but he swears to the Goddess he did. He felt so connected to her before they even spoke.
Just as he does now in this moment as she is prepared to share this experience with him he stands, moving over to her as he turns her around, moving her hair slowly and tenderly at of the way and kissing down her neck which makes Arwen's breath hitch.
She's has never felt like this before. It feels like when they would kiss normally. But completely different. Better. More intense.
She is a maiden and though it doesn't matter if a queen doesn't wait till the marriage consummation with her king consort as the island is a matriarchal society, she's still a little nervous. Just a girl at heart even though she's of age now.
Not scared of the pain, she has dealt with pain her whole life from Cierra but about being so vulnerable. It just feels like she will lose a piece of herself forever, it feels like she will share her very soul with Klaude. But there's no one else she wants to share it with. So in that split moment she decides.
She doesn't want to wait anymore. She's ready. She doesn't want to hold back.
"Are you sure?" Klaude says as he carefully and slowly unlaces her corset, another layer as he gets closer to her bare skin, still hesitant to keep going down this path but he cares about her too much, he wants her to be entirely sure.
"I've never been more sure of anything in my life," Arwen replies, turning around briefly to kiss him, leaving them both breathless and then she turns back around and he keeps unlacing her corset, faster this time with more urgency and assurance. They both want this.
He finally unlaces her completely, Arwen then removes her skirts and Klaude removes his trousers and they both let their clothes fall to the ground and she slowly turns to face him. Both of them keeping eye contact for a moment before taking each other in.
Slowly and gently Klaude rests Arwen back on the bed, keeping his eyes on hers looking for any sign of discomfort.
He kisses her one last time, savouring the feeling of her lips on his before looking at her for confirmation. He wants her to be as comfortable as possible. He knows she is a maiden and the first time can be equally thrilling and daunting.
Arwen only reaches her head up to his year whispering, "don't stop,"
With that their bare skin connects and their very souls entwine as passion, love and lust all blends into one as he moves in her, kissing her, worshipping her and they give each other everything they had.