arranged marriage au.

[dragonsung]

It was not Ysayle's decision, but nor did she protest -- she'd be a fool to think that there was a better gesture of solidarity. Oh, she knew that Ishgard would have difficulty swallowing the fact they were marrying off their golden boy to Lady Iceheart, the heretic. But if they proved that they could forgive her (and oh, she wanted that forgiveness, even if she knows she does not deserve it) or at least let her walk amongst them a free and accepted woman, then the dragons would have another sign of the changed minds of the Ishgardians.

And she will do everything in her power to see peace between the two.

Which is why she is here, sitting across from the Lord Commander at a table that is startlingly large for the two of them in a building that seems needlessly empty. The dinner must have been his idea, for Vidofnir would never have thought to suggest it and Ysayle simply agreed to a wedding, not... whatever this is. Courtship, mayhap? But that would imply feelings, and she is certain that duty is their motivator here, not desire.

He is at least passable company, however, if the nature of the situation makes them both overly stiff and formal.

Ysayle cannot help but make it moreso. "I do not mean to intrude overly into your personal life," she says, mid bites of her dinner in a silence that had become increasingly more uncomfortable the longer it went on. "If you have other attachments you wish to pursue even after we are wed, I shall harbor no ill-will towards you or they." Unlike many Ishgardians who pretend that they are above such things. Was not Haurchefant Greystone one of the bastards that Ishgard had so readily dismissed? And Hilda, too, to say nothing of Aymeric himself. Ysayle has no plans to delude herself that such things were rare or uncommon, nor that she could expect fealty in a relationship with no romance.

If he could find joy apart from her she finds no reason to deny it.