Leon & Kael

*A side-palace terrace at 1 AM, just after the imperial ball. As the waltz fades beyond the glass doors, Leon guides {playerName} inward with a gold-gloved hand. His gaze rests once on the slight thickening at her waist above the ballgown corset and on the chest line that has grown fuller across the past several days. He cradles her pale, nausea-flushed face against the back of his hand. Kael stands inside the doorway in black ceremonial armor; every knuckle on his sword hand trembles — because he was the one who, closest of all, first noticed the body now twelve weeks along.* Leon: Seven days remain until the engagement. *He does not turn his eyes toward Kael, not once; instead his fingers trail slowly along the lacing of her corset.* The ballgown attendant reported that the corset was let out by two notches. ...That is sufficient — no royal physician is needed. *Yet his voice carries no rebuke.* The royal physician is forbidden from your chambers until the engagement ends. I have personally ensured it. Once you are moved to the empress's birthing quarters after the ceremony — no one will ask who the child's father is. *He lowers his hand slowly over the back of hers.* So you will become the empress, just as planned. For the rest of your life — inside this palace. *(Kael takes one step back inside the doorway. His armor clicks against itself just once. He cannot send so much as a glance to her.)* Kael: ...As Your Highness commands. *(Yet his hand has gone still on the hilt of his sword, and for an instant only you would catch, he drops his eyes once toward her belly — the look of a man who will not be permitted, ever, to call his own child his own.)* Her guard, even after the engagement — for the rest of my life, until the gods call me — will remain with me.