27th July, 1890 — Ari & Dionisia’s House, Bartonburg
Dionisia Fisk

Funny how the time flew, how days became weeks became months and in the blink of an eye their son was more than a year old. Still, he remembered well how things had been little more than a year and a half ago, and for the most part he was grateful for how his life looked now.

The rest of him, naturally, was still wading through the guilt of it.

But this evening had been almost a dream, his shift over early enough to spend some time with Elliott before putting him to bed, and Elliott evidently so tuckered out by the nanny that there had been no time for tears. He had lingered a while in the darkened nursery, enjoying the peace in there and the gentle rise and fall of his breaths.

When Ari padded back out, busy undoing a button on his shirtsleeves to roll them up more relaxedly, he met Dionisia on the landing with a fond smile. They were so often like ships in the night, with her shifts nowadays. “He must have been exhausted,” he said softly to her, so that she could revel in this too, “- he was out like a light.”

Pulling the door a little more closed behind him and beckoning her over towards one of the other rooms so that he could speak a little louder, Ari added conspiratorially: “We’d better make the most of it, hadn’t we?”

(He was thinking he might start reading a new book, himself.)

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   Elsie Kirke, Frida Lestrange

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A good mother always put her child first, but Dionisia was not a good mother. She was good at pretending to be, and although she loved her son, she struggled to bond with him in the way she'd once envisioned a mother should bond with her child. Perhaps it because he was a bastard, and she was afraid that he would one day grow to look like his father—his biological father—instead of either of them. Perhaps she resented him for forcing her to marry a man who deserved so much better than a sham marriage.

Ari didn't love her. (Well, that wasn't right. He loved her in a way nobody had ever loved her before: not romantically, but more than family. They had a partnership built around their shared love for little Elliott, even if Dionisia struggled to understand how a man could take so easily to raising a child who wasn't his own.) He'd never wanted to be with her, though, at least in that way.

She wasn't sure if he wanted him that way either.

Ari was handsome and he was kind. He was everything she'd once imagine she wanted in a husband—if she was ever to marry. It was only the circumstances of their marriage that prevented her from harboring romantic feelings for him. She didn't deserve his love. She didn't deserve him in her life at all. But there he was, standing in front of her on the landing, minutes after putting their—her—son to bed for the night while she was still dressed in her work uniform.

She smiled at him and opened her mouth to bid him goodnight, but was taken aback by his sudden beckoning. What did he mean, "make the most of it"? He couldn't possibly... no. Ari didn't want her, nor had he ever wanted her before. Not like that. Of course, from a realistic perspective, he couldn't have been thinking of anything else, could he? He was her husband, whether they'd intended to marry or not. There were no other women in his life from her knowledge, and simply because they hadn't consummated their marriage before didn't mean they never would.

Her stomach twisted with discomfort, and yet she felt compelled to follow him, if only to figure out what he meant. She entered the door behind him, her brows having unconsciously furrowed with confusion.

"I suppose we haven't had much time for it, have we?" she said, because it was the only thing she could say without turning bright pink.

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   Elias Grimstone

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Ari fought the urge to raise an eyebrow at her response. He felt her sentence would have made more sense if it had just ended agreeing that yes, we haven't had much time. Either of them, individually, given all the parenting; ‘for it’ threw the sentence off a little strangely. What was she talking about? But maybe he’d misheard. 

At any rate, she’d followed him towards his room, so at least they didn’t have to whisper now. “By the time Elliott’s in bed, I’m usually half-asleep myself,” Ari remarked lightly, trying to keep his confusion to himself. He stepped towards her in order to reach around her to the bookshelf behind her, having intended on showing her the book that had been sitting there for a month or two, still unread; he thought she might be interested in it too. That said - the closer he got to her, the more disconcerted she suddenly seemed to be.

Strange. Ari had presumed they had been getting along quite well as the unlikely housemates they were.

“Though I suppose you’d still rather catch up on sleep than anything else?” He added, pausing where he was to survey her; because the irregular mediwitch shifts she had were by all accounts more exhausting than his days, even when she finished at nightfall. He knew he’d been just the same when he was younger - and still, he worried that Dionisia worked herself too hard.

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Dionisia smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. She watched him carefully, examining his every move, and finding herself more surprised at his casualness than anything else. Had Ari forgotten about their arrangement? Had he finally decided that their marriage ought to be more than just a show? She doubted it in the back of her mind; she hadn't gotten as much as a peck on the lips from his since their wedding day, and he'd only touched her with the fondness of a family member or friend since.

It was because of this that she found herself slowly backing towards the bookshelf as he neared her, her eyes growing wide with every step he took in her direction. Ari was not the forward type, and yet he neared her without as much as a hesitation in his step.

But then he stopped and, instead of reaching for her, grabbed a book instead. Was this his idea of seduction? If so, she didn't like how he was being overly vague and avoiding the matter. On top of that, he had to go and make things more confusing by asking questions she wasn't sure she had the correct answer to. Was "no" consent for him to make a move—and more importantly, would she be lying (to both him and herself) if she she simply wanted to retire for the night? She'd never been one to flee in stressful situations, but her fight-or-flight response was nearly failing her as the overwhelming urge to make a move towards the door overcame her.

She merely shook her head.

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   Melody Crouch

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His bewilderment reached a peak when she seemed unable to get out any words at all in answer. He couldn’t fathom how wondering if she was tired was a difficult question. Had he done something wrong - ?

Wait, Ari thought, folding the book abruptly to his chest and stepping back as he read the turmoil on her face and realised, with some degree of alarm, what she had taken him to mean. If he had mentioned making the most of their time to Ben, well, yes, maybe it would have been vastly different. Oh dear.

“Oh! I wasn’t suggesting - that,” Ari said, an equally startled expression on his face as he trailed off rather lamely. “I didn’t mean...” He furrowed his brow, trying to unpick her thought process since they had married. They’d both had their reasons for marrying, none of which had given him any indication that she had any interest in a physical relationship - nor a romantic one, for that matter. She hadn’t married in any affection for him, at least, and it was only that which had kept the guilt from overwhelming him... Even then, the guilt sat high and heavy in his chest. He had lied to her from the beginning - that it was by omission did not make it any better - and while the trials of pregnancy had spared him at the start, more fool him to pretend things would not have to come out in the wash sometime. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to lie to her forever.

“I didn’t think you would want to,” Ari said, just to cover himself, to give himself time to rehearse a version of the truth he could live with. She had been shaking her head when it sunk in - but why shaking her head no, when he had given her an easy excuse to make? Was that just dutiful wifely agreement, for which he had never asked? Or had she been silently hating him since the start for not suggesting it?

If she didn’t already hate him, Ari supposed miserably, she would soon.

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Flooded with relief, Dionisia released a breath that she didn't know she'd been holding in—but in the same breath, almost felt... disappointed? She was glad he wasn't making some terrible attempt to seduce her, but that also indicated what she'd believed from day one: that he didn't want to seduce her. Men who wanted her would have taken the chance, not backtracked at the first opportunity. Dionisia had only been with a man once, and that one time had been under the influence of a love potion, but she was educated enough in matters of reproduction—and through jokes at the pub, the act of conception—to know how desire could affect a man. (She'd certainly been hit on enough, which made this situation all the more perplexing.)

"I-I would not be opposed," she admitted, feeling silly for saying that. It was ridiculous that a wife should feel so when speaking to her husband about these matters, but they both knew the complexities of their marriage. To admit that she would have him was almost as bad as admitting she wanted him. Which, if she was being honest, she did. Or she thought she did. Well... maybe not him, specificially.

"I only thought... well, we are man and wife, and presumably will continue to be until death do us part." She could not see a man like Ari being one to file for divorce for any reason. He had married her—offered to marry her—knowing fully well that she was with another man's child, and he'd still gone through with it knowing it could very well be a child he'd have to claim as his firstborn to avoid scandal. None of it was rational, yet it was, because Ari was a good and honest man. But good and honest men still had needs, surely—and why not soothe them with his wife?

"And we may not have married out of love or desire, but..." She took a breath. "To go a lifetime without it seems like an awfully lonely way to live, doesn't it? I only thought you would want to. Eventually. Just to not be so lonely. " In saying so, it became clear to her that it was not Ari she wanted, but someone—period. She was never the type of girl who giggled over the older, handsomer boys at school, nor had she been in any rush to settle down, but now that she was married she could hardly imagine spending the rest of her life in such a purgatory.

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Ari let out a heavy breath of his own, unconsciously thumbing the spine of the book he was holding as she spoke as if it would settle his nerves somehow.

She would not be opposed. His wife had been expecting it then, to live as they should; and he should hardly be surprised, because of course, once a little time had passed from the mistake that had gotten her into this mess, she would not want to be alone forever. Who would?

Until a few short hours before the wedding, Ari had expected he would be alone forever. He had accepted that and committed to it and had been ready to live the life he had offered her, ready to settle for anything, pretend for the rest of his existence - and then Ben’s confession had upended everything, scattered the plan, abruptly shattered the world into something else.

And now he was happier than he deserved and in being so, he had possibly ruined Dionisia’s life more than he had helped it, and there was no way he could undo it all.

Soberly, he set the book back down on the shelf. Then he lifted his hand and gently let it come to rest at the side of her head, curling lightly into her hair for a moment, shifting down to almost cup her cheek. The fondness in it was real, but the touch had been almost experimental. He could kiss her now, perhaps. He could sleep with her and pretend it was for her sake, to stave off the loneliness - even though he was the guilty one here, and had trapped her in this for his sake.

“I -” Ari let go and stepped away, grasping instead at the back of his neck in discomfort and coming to lean on the back of his bedroom door, assuring himself that it had to be now, it had better be now. He did not want to use her any more, did not want to have more things to be guilty about. He fought the urge to bury his face in his hands, because she would have seen his turmoil now and it wasn’t fair to delay any longer. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, and I owe you an explanation,” Ari said, trying to look up to at least have the decency to meet her gaze.

“But first, please know,” Ari said, his brow creased in contrition, “that - I never meant for you to be lonely. I never meant for it to happen like this.” He was supposed to have been lonely.

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For one moment—one brief, sweet, confusing moment—she thought he was going to kiss her; that her worries about being unwanted or otherwise undesirable had been erroneous assumptions based on their unconventional marriage. The tender caress of her cheek was enough to convince her that she was cared for, but loved—well, it seemed unlikely. He stepped back, his hand going to the back of his neck, making his discomfort evident if it hadn't been before.

For nearly a year and a half, Dio had been convinced that it was her fault that their marriage was like this. She'd roped him into the arrangement. She'd weighed him down with her burdens, and his kind nature had compelled him to act. She was the aggregator, and she'd trapped herself into this... this mess by marrying a man who would never had proposed if not for the baby that had been growing in her womb. The express that found its way onto her face perfectly encapsulated her confusion. He was sorry. So sorry. He had an explanation. She might have said that he didn't owe her one, that it was completely understandable if he wasn't attracted to her or if he hadn't grown to love her like she'd hoped, but he looked like she'd just accused him of having an affair.

(... Was he having an affair?)

"You... I mean-.... I don't quite understand," she decided on finally.

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Of course she didn’t. Nor would she understand when he came clean about everything. Already there was a knot of fear in his gut that said to him better to have pretended. He could have kissed her. He could have done that.

But it would still be lying to her, and he did not want to fathom the idea that she might think there was some possibility of an attachment - a real attachment, the kind of love that everyone wanted of marriage - forming over time between them. And they were married, after all. The least they could have was honesty. 

“Before we married, I was in love with someone,” Ari said quietly, and swallowed. “I had been in love with them for a very long time.” He closed his eyes for a fleeting moment, trying to capture the comfortable peace he had been feeling earlier this evening, putting Elliott to bed, pretending everything was perfect before the feeling fled, maybe forever. Perhaps she would want to leave. To be divorced. Perhaps she would never speak to him again.

“But they didn’t feel the same, and even if they had - there was never any chance of getting married, not in the circumstances. I never meant to marry at all, but - I was so tired of feeling alone, and then you came along and I thought there might even be some good in it.” His hand curled into a fist behind his neck, fingernails digging into skin.

“But I shouldn’t have done that to you, because I’m still in love with someone else and I always will be -” and Ben loved him back which made it so much worse, but how could he have backed out on the day of the wedding? What would Dionisia have done then? “and I know it’s not fair to you, but I just - can’t keep lying.”

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It was not an affair he spoke of. It was a former love. A lost love. It was the sort of love Dionisia had always imagined was in store for her—the kind of match that could not be because of circumstances, because of life. Before Elliot, she had firmly believed that her only beloved would be her job. It was the one part of her life that she could not live without, as evidenced by her obscenely short stint as a housewife. In a way, she could sympathize with him. In another way, it sucked the rest of the hope that remained tucked away in her heart. She listened without speaking, her lips curled into a small, sad smile. One of resignation, but also of understanding.

"I was your last resort," she said through her smile, her words pained. In every sense of the phrase he'd been her last resort, too, so she had no right to be upset with him. "I've never been in love before. I hoped I would be, but—" She let out a shaky breath that nearly turned into a sob in her chest. Ari was a faithful man, one who rarely said anything to her he didn't mean. He was honest, he was good, he was everything she would have said she wanted in a husband five years ago, even if back then she was sure she would never have one at all. She didn't doubt for one second that his love for his mystery woman would ever fade, if only because he'd said so. "I suppose it wasn't meant to be." She chuckled then, allowing herself to relax against the bookshelf behind her.

A few moments passed, and she allowed herself to breath to avoid any unnecessary tears. It was a relief in a way, she tried to tell herself. No longer would she wonder the state of their marriage and what was to come. She would no longer wonder whether they would add another son, or maybe a daughter or two, to their family over the next decade. Elliott would be her only child—his only child. It confused her, but she wouldn't question it. Questioning his love for Elliott would likely pain him more than anything that could be said about their relationship.

"I don't blame you," she said finally, moving her arms across her chest. "You used me. I used you. It was the best for both of us in that moment." It had been the best for her, at least; she could not speak for her husband's regrets. "But if you don't mind me asking, I'd like to know. Why couldn't you marry her?"

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   Ari Fisk, Elladora Black

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There were a thousand things he wanted to say to her. That she was good and loyal and true, and had been through enough. That she was so young, and he had barely known her then, and that in so many ways he should not have blindly condemned her to this. Most of all, that she deserved to know love as much as anyone - and if there was anything he could do to fix this, he would.

But it was the way she smiled and seemed calmly defeated, the way she settled back against the bookcase in that practical manner, the way she refused to blame him even now that ruined him. He covered his face with a trembling hand, trying to blink back the welling tears that were guilt, all guilt. 

He had to move away from the door. Ari had not meant to trap her so, and before he could say any of those things he wanted he had to answer her, had to tell her the whole truth, and he was not going to force her to stay after that. So, numbly, he paced away to give her space, got to the shuttered window and then turned back to her, looked around at the contents of his room and his life and readied himself to reveal the last part of it. Having told people before did not make this easier - though God he wished it did. Telling Katia alone had given him hope, almost too much of it; telling Ben the first time had nearly destroyed it again. Dionisia might take it with the same peculiar calmness or this might be the moment the betrayal hit her. She might open that bedroom door and be gone. She might go to his family. She might never meet his eye again. To think he might lose Elliott too.

Still, better she found out here and now than by mistake, like stumbling across he and Ben in the stables as Mr. Holm had. Better she found out from him than someone else. He had left her in the dark for an unforgivably long time already.

His breath hitched before he got out the words. “Him, Dionisia,” Ari said hollowly. “Why couldn’t I marry him.”

That, at least, explained itself.

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The following 3 users Like Ari Fisk's post:3 users Like Ari Fisk's post
   Dionisia Fisk, Elladora Black, Fallon Gillespie

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In any other situation, Dionisia would not have stood to see Ari in this state. He'd never been especially open with his emotions with her, for reasons that seemed obvious now, but she'd also never seen him so... so despondent. Her heartbeat quickened as he moved away from the door, and for a brief moment she thought he was preparing to leave. Years as a mediwitch had taught her that people did strange things in panic; she'd subdued a number of patients who tried to run away from their own help.

Only Ari did not run away. He paced towards and stopped suddenly, and then turned around to stare at her with an unidentifiable conflict in his eyes. Dionisia had heard sad love stories before. Perhaps his love was already married with three kids. Perhaps she'd fallen from grace and was living a life that was no longer compatible was his. Maybe she simply didn't love him back. Dionisia found it difficult to believe that someone wouldn't love Ari with his gentle tone of voice, kind disposition, and undeniably handsome features. He was the type of man that Hogwarts schoolgirls hoped they would marry. Someone who took care of them and their families, and who truly cared.

When the words left his mouth, Dionisia did not register the meaning for a moment. Five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen seconds passed, and Dionisia's concerned stare began to morph into one of realization. Her brows creased and her mouth parted to ask a question that died on her tongue. Him? Ari was unable to marry... him. Him. Him. Him. She thought it over and over again until the word didn't seem like a word anymore. Her sad smile had dropped into a frown. She struggled to meet his gaze without blinking away. Finally she managed to do so, her arms tightened across her chest.

"I didn't know," was all she could manage, and she felt stupid immediately afterwards. Of course she didn't know. There was no way she could have known. He'd—very understandably—kept that from her in the early stages of their engagement, and in the nearly two years that had passed since then. She felt a sting in her chest, a pain—only it was not for herself, but for him.

She had, at one point, known what it was like to feel an unnatural attraction, but never had she been condemned to loving someone who she could not, not ever, have. She had not imagined that such attractions could ever turn to love, anyways, and now Ari was standing before her, admitting to having been in love with a man. She supposed she ought to feel angry, to feel betrayed. He’d married her, knowing fully that he would never grow to love her beyond the mutual fondness they’d cultivated in the year and a half since their marriage. But she didn’t.

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   Ari Fisk, Elladora Black

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“Of course you didn’t,” Ari answered sadly. “How could you have known?”

His eyes were bright with regret as he studied her, waiting patiently for some reaction that he could read. The confession had shocked her, certainly. Disappointed her, no doubt, too; her arms were still folded around herself, more, he thought, for comfort than anything else. It was a sorry embrace.

He thought about dropping onto the edge of his bed in exhaustion or remorse - but until he knew for sure how she felt about this truth, every breath seemed to shudder on its way out of his chest. So, instead of retreating, he took a step towards Dionisia again, and then another; his movements hesitant, his eyebrows knitted, waiting for her to flinch, or cry, or rage. Ari would extend a hand to her - he felt like she might need a tether while it all sank in - but he wasn’t sure if she would want it now.

“It was selfish of me to marry you, even when I thought that,” Ari continued softly, “and I’m so sorry. I should have told you at the start, shouldn’t have put you in this position -” he frowned at himself, at his failure to face the fear of his family or society finding out who he was if he did not marry, have a child, be the person they expected, not to mention his selfishness at being with Ben behind her back all this time too... “and there is nothing to excuse me for it. If you -” he bit his lip for a moment, swallowing the lump in his throat and finally finding the calm, the steadiness he needed to lay it plain. “If you would like to leave, I don’t blame you. I know a divorce is not ideal, any more than staying with me would be...” He opened his hands, despairingly. “If you want to be held, if you never want me to touch you again - if you want someone else, whatever you want - I don’t mind, I’ll do anything.”

But it was too late, the damage was done, and he didn’t know what to do for her. He could have wept, if only he’d had any right to. “I know it might not seem like it right now, but I do care about you - I love you, more than I imagined I could - and believe me, you deserve to know that kind of love, too. You deserve to be so much happier than this.”

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She couldn't have known, and yet somehow, she felt she should have. It seemed obvious in hindsight—the lack of affection, the out-of-place stiffness when they were together in public or with his family. In the early months of their marriage, he'd made an effort to hold her a little tighter, a little closer, but it was necessary at the time. They'd needed to give the illusion that they were so deeply in love that they'd gotten engaged without a proper courtship and were so desperate to marry a mere few months later. With every month of their marriage they grew closer as a pair, but not as a couple; they grew to know each other better, and developed the fondness he spoke of, but nothing romantic had ever come of it. It only made sense if he didn't want a woman.

It was still difficult to process: Ari, her Ari, wanting to hold a man's hand, wanting to kiss or touch or whatever he'd dreamed of doing with this "him". He seemed like the perfect man to be married to a softer, more delicate woman who needed reassurance and affection. She couldn't imagine him cradling some stone-faced Ministry official, or even a burly quidditch player. And yet—it was who he was. What he wanted. Just as she yearned for love and affection, he did the same, only his dreams were much farther out of reach.

Still, she didn't think he would voice it aloud. Her eyes widened as the words divorce came up, and every word after that seemed muffled as tears began to well up in her eyes. As much as she hated the prospect of being an unloved wife, being a divorced woman—a divorced, poor woman, with one child that was legally Ari's and bore his name, and no family to take her in—was far scarier. Terrifying. It was only a step-up from being an unwed mother, and that was the life she'd been trying to escape when she'd married Ari.

It was not that that made her heart give, however, but what came next. The admission of fondness, of love, and the unmistakable remorse in his voice as he spoke. Tears began to drip down her cheeks, and her hands fell to her sides. Though she knew he was not giving her one, every word that left his lips felt like an ultimatum—and, it seemed, he was expecting the worst.

"What would Elliott do without his Papa?" she sniffled through her tears. What would become of him as the son of a failed marriage? She'd long decided that her son would never know his true origins, if only to provide him with the normal life he deserved. Not only would it be impossible to manage the facade without the image of a happy household, but she would have to make the choice to either raise her son as a single mother or leave him with Ari. Neither were ideal.

"If my life were different, and you were any other man, I would go," she admitted, struggling to keep an even tone as the tears continued to fall. "But I have no family that claims me. You are my family." The Fisks had been her family since her Hogwarts days, when she and Zelda would share a room during the summers between school. "I can't leave. I won't. I'm lonely, but I'm much happier being lonely with you than I would be elsewhere." She had always been lonely, she supposed. A lonely child, with a family who would rather see her dead than a witch. A lonely mediwitch, living with a roommate in Pennyworth who she never saw. And now a lonely wife, with a husband who wished to be with someone else. What reason did she have to think she would be less lonely elsewhere?

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   Ari Fisk

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“I really am sorry,” he murmured, as she began to cry.

Ever practical as she was, down-to-earth and resolute - she pretended to not be a natural mother, but who had been her first thought here, whose happiness would she sacrifice her own for, so unthinkingly? - the tears were proof that this had really hit her. She had been fighting tears that day in the Fisks’ sitting room. The day he’d told himself he was fixing things for her, and not making them worse.

(It might have worked if Ben’s perspective hadn’t changed, if he hadn’t remembered and come running. If Ari’s hope for anything between them had remained ash and embers, he might have tried harder with Dionisia, been a little better at pretending. He might have settled, truly tried to be happy with her. And yet - the last year and a half had been happy for him, perhaps the happiest. The whole period of his marriage was inextricable with that happiness with Ben, and Dionisia had suffered for it all the while. If he had been better, he might have sacrificed that for her sake. He knew he should have.)

Ari still didn’t know if she wanted him near her, but with her tears falling like that he couldn’t just stand and watch; he stepped back up to her, brushing the wetness from her cheeks with hesitant hands, trying to offer her a quiet smile of sympathy but not certain she would see it through the sobs. He could see she was trying to be strong, but he was too grateful to her for words, so at first all he could do was fold her into his arms and hold her tightly, just in case it helped.

“You and Elliott are mine,” he murmured, in answer of being family. “And you will be as long as you want to be.” It was small consolation for the hope he might have destroyed tonight, but not being entirely alone in the world had to be something. If he hadn’t had his family growing up - he didn’t know who he would be. Perhaps that was why he was so terrified at the idea of losing them. Speaking of - “Besides, you know more about me now than most of my family do,” he added, with a weak attempt at a laugh. And it had not made her leave.

There was still a niggling strain of guilt in his mind that he still had to tell her the whole truth about Ben, that the love he’d always thought he couldn’t have was his now, and had been for some time - but he hadn’t worked out how to say it yet. “And you won’t always be lonely,” Ari reassured her in a soothing tone, as if to make up for it in the meantime - although he hadn’t any good way of ensuring an end to her loneliness, either. “I promise you won’t.” But it was true, wasn’t it? Love didn’t respect boxes or boundaries, not in their world. Man, woman, married, not - he did not know how or when or to who, but one day in her life she would fall in love.

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She leaned into his touch, allowing her tears to be swept away as they continued to fall. She was not angry or disappointed in anything specific; it was the overarching emotional turmoil that she'd been juggling since Ari had proposed to her on a whim that one fateful day years ago. It was crumbling of the facade, the fear of how they would handle the reality moving forward. She had been so used to ignoring the more intimate aspects of their marriage and instead focusing on keeping face for his relatives and their coworkers. It was as though she'd unlocked a truth she wasn't prepared for, and now had no idea how to handle.

As critical of Christian values as she'd always been since her pastor father had disowned her, her view of how marriage should be—man and woman, in love and loyal, until the day one made the other a widow—had remained in line with those values, and was now crumbling before her. Ari did not love her. He did not want to have her as a man ought to have his wife, and now he was openly expressing that he hoped she would find love somewhere. A world where the chance for love meant seeking it outside of her marriage was not a world that Dionisia was prepared to handle, nor one she knew how to navigate. She wasn't ready to, even despite knowing with certainty that she would never find that fulfillment in Ari.

She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his middle, pressing her face into his chest. She had never felt uncomfortable around him, and for that she knew she should be grateful; many women, even who had originally married their husbands for love, could not say the same. He had a healer's touch, even when he was the source of her turmoil. It was who he was.

"When I spent the summers at your family's home as a student, I used to dream of marrying one of the Fisk boys. I wanted to be Zelda's sister. I always wanted a family as big as yours." she murmured, unashamedly using his shirt to wipe away her remaining tears. She used to think she would marry Nemo; he was young and handsome, and easy enough to talk to. But like most childhood crushes, nothing had ever come of it and it had eventually faded away. "I know you think you've ruined my life or my chances of happiness, but in a way, you've also given me what I once dreamed of." It would be silly to pretend she was a romantic, even if she'd grown to desire such a connection. It was only two years ago she'd been committed to the idea of dying a spinster, but it turned out that being the wife of a comfortable healer-in-charge had some perks.

She allowed herself to hold onto him for a few moments more before pulling back to look at him. "But if this is going to work, I need you to promise me something." She sniffed, took a deep breath, and straightened her back, trying to reign in her emotions and self-respect. She could not go to bed crying. She would not allow it. "You won't pity me. You'll pretend you never saw me cry." A bark of laughter escaped her, as she wiped the remaining tears from her eyes. Part of what made her marriage to Ari so comfortable was how well they handled their boundaries and personal business, and she'd need it to stay that way. "And I'll keep your secret. I won't treat you any different."

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