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[rosarianoath]

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[noburden]

"I thought... some part of you must have known. I was raised as a sister to you and Joshua, and I felt that affection for you both, but... I always wondered each morning that I woke up if it would be the day your mother or father thought me too much of a burden. My parents were likely dead. The North broken by the blight."

His father was never actively cruel to her, but she believes there's more to being a father than providing food and shelter.

[rosarianoath]

“I know it wasn’t easy for you,” Clive says, looking lost. “But my father never would have cast you out. Wouldn't your parents be glad that you were cared for and loved, especially when they chose this path for you?”

[noburden]

Jill looks just as lost, searching his eyes and not seeing what she hopes to see.

"My parents would have preferred I stay with them. With our people. They didn't choose for me to be a ward. Rosaria forced their hand, and... they likely died for it, regardless."

[rosarianoath]

Disagreement flickers across Clive’s face. They did choose, he could say; they started raiding Rosaria’s borders, they offered peace when driven back. Rosaria is hardly innocent of error, but to say they’d rip a child away from her parents without their blessing is a hard lump in his throat.

Does she truly believe this?

“You were so small, Jill,” he says. “I’m sorry you remember it that way, and that you’ve been carrying that hurt for all these years… but that was not the way of it.”

[noburden]

She frowns. Does he truly believe that?

"Why is it that I'm the one that's wrong? Do you really think there's no possibility that what I say has truth behind it?"

[rosarianoath]

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” he says, sitting up a little straighter. “I’m just taken aback… my father wasn’t like that at all. He was a good man. He wouldn’t hurt a child, or want her to live in fear…”

[noburden]

"He was a ruler before all," Jill says carefully. She knew that as a girl. "He was kinder than I ever imagined he could be... but he still took me from my home. Does giving me another make it less painful? I still don't know."

She shakes her head.

"But no one ever spoke of it. Just as no one ever spoke of how terrible your treatment was. It was just easier to ignore it."

[rosarianoath]

“I heard plenty about my inadequacy,” he says, a little sharp. He doesn’t want to be here, not like this. “But all of that is in the past now, Jill. Why do we have to tar the good memories?”

[noburden]

"I'm only speaking my truth, Clive. That was my experience and what I saw," she says, struggling to keep upset in control. It hurts, but it's no surprise to her.

[rosarianoath]

“And I believe you,” he says. “But I also believe in my father’s good intentions!”

[noburden]

There it is. Jill pulls her hands back to herself, sitting up properly and folding them in her lap.

"You and Dion are so alike," she says, knowing it's a dig. "The both of you willing to defend your fathers to the grave. Good intentions are one thing, but it's their actions--or inactions--that define them."

[rosarianoath]

A dig it is. Clive just looks at her, confused, brow furrowed.

“My father wanted peace. He might have achieved it, had Dion’s father not put the Rosarian people to blade or chains, and its countryside to the torch.”

[noburden]

"And how did they treat their sons?"

Their firstborn sons, made to be shields, ruin their bodies on battlefields. It makes her feel sick, trying to rationalize how any parent could do that to their own blood.

"You can't think that's any way to treat your child, Clive."

She feels her heart sink. Is that the kind of father he would be? She doesn't want to believe that.

[rosarianoath]

Clive withdraws his legs slowly, untangling himself from the bedding to exit the bed.

“Befitting our station, it was appropriate.” He stands. “I hope it’s of some consolation to you that there is no kingdom left to call sons to such duties.”

[noburden]

It wasn't appropriate. It was an excuse. She'd say as much, but the next words sting.

"Clive," she says, at a loss for any words that won't further upset him. She mourns Rosaria, but she is deeply relieved no children of theirs will ever have to live up to the expectations of a duchy or bloodline.

[rosarianoath]

“I’d like to keep at least some good memories intact, if you don’t mind,” he says, as calmly as he can. He picks up the book and takes it away to the bookshelf, if only to put some distance between himself and the bed. His heart is hammering. “I’m sorry. I know our upbringing wasn’t perfect, but I apologize on my father’s behalf that it was so frightening to you.”

[noburden]

"... I'm sorry, too." Sorry, most of all, that he can't see her childhood for what it was. Maybe he's incapable of acknowledging that they both were treated poorly. What then?

"If I were never made a ward of Rosaria, we would have never met. And so I've been grateful for that, all these years. I lost my family, but I gained you and Joshua."

Always the brightest parts of her history despite the pain in her heart. It feels worse now, speaking of it to him, and feeling as if she's somehow wrong.

[rosarianoath]

“And you still have us,” he assures her. “You have nothing to apologize for, Jill.”

She’s entitled to her opinion, her perspectives.

[noburden]

"I didn't say it to upset you," she says quietly. Of course, once that door was opened, she knew he'd be unhappy. Just like Dion. But if she didn't say it, who would? Certainly not Joshua.

[rosarianoath]

“I know you didn’t, but it did.” He swallows his breath. What an unpleasant thing to admit. “We best get on with our day, hmm?”

[noburden]

An unpleasant thing to admit, but she hopes it's a good sign that he did. No yelling. No storming out. The both of them are still here.

Jill stands and approaches him, slowly reaching out for his hand.

"Is there more you'd like to say?"

[rosarianoath]

He’s stiff as she approaches, but he does put his hand out for hers. He pauses before replying.

“Does Joshua know you feel this way?”

[noburden]

She takes his hand, using both of hers to hold his.

"No. No one does, only you." Not Joshua, not Dion. "I don't have the courage to say such things to Joshua. You have the burden of my unfettered thoughts and feelings."

[rosarianoath]

Bitterly, he wishes she wouldn’t say those things to him, either, but he nods, looking down at her hands. He wonders how often she cried into them, alone.

“I can bear them,” he says, softer. “Am I supposed to say that? That I’ll gladly bear anything you wish for me to shoulder? Or is that…”

He trails off.

[noburden]

Jill knows him well enough to know he would prefer to never have this conversation at all. But shouldn't they? Shouldn't they have this understanding, even if the understanding is that they both view their pasts differently?

Her thumb caresses the back of his hand.

"Is it what?"