In Which Sparron Is Disappointed and Disappointing

April 6, 1167

Sparron didn't usually mind being chaperoned while he visited with his betrothed. The presence of a third party provided an excuse for Sparron and Camaline to more or less ignore each other on the grounds of not wanting to cross any socially-imposed lines in front of another person, particularly if said person was an adult. Of all the chaperons, Florian was Sparron's personal favorite--by sheer virtue of being himself, he managed to provide enough of a distraction that Sparron could almost forget that Camaline was even in the room.

Almost.

But today, he wished it had been his stepmother or his father instead. He didn't think either of them would have given him the nod when Camaline had asked for a kiss out-of-the-blue, much less laugh at the fact that he hadn't given her one before and tell him to get it over with already. And even on the off-chance they had, he doubted that they would be able to spew a whole parade of taunts with nothing but a blank glance upon seeing Camaline's less-than-impressed reaction.

"Uh... all right?"

She looked as if she was about to vomit. He couldn't say he felt much different himself. Upon observation of his father and stepmother, Sparron had assumed that kissing left a pleasant sort of lingering sensation upon the act's completion, but this had been... nothing. Less than nothing. He had just wasted five seconds of his life and would eventually have to waste a lot more on this same girl, for whom he now realized he felt nothing but sheer apathy. She was beautiful, clever, and almost ethereal, or at least she had seemed from afar; now, he might as well have been looking at a marble statue. He supposed all he could do at this point was hope that at the very least, sex would not be quite so disappointing.

Camaline swallowed, as though trying to rid her mouth of a vile taste by forcing it down her throat and into the recesses of her stomach. "I'm going to guess you've never done that before."

Sparron raised an eyebrow, then cast a quick glance at a silently amused Florian--he would get an earful when Camaline left, he was sure of it. "And you have?"

He received for his trouble a non-committal shrug; she hadn't even granted him the courtesy of a nod. "Maybe you'll improve with some practice."

Not that you were anything spectacular yourself, he thought bitterly. Was this what women did with men they did not love? Pick them apart a fiber at a time until the day they looked in a mirror to find nothing but a pair of eyeballs and a pile of dusty old bones?

Sparron remembered little of his mother, other than the fact that she and his father had led a coexistence so miserable that she had sunk into complete mental decay; if there was one thing he wished to avoid in life, it was a marriage like his parents'. He didn't think Camaline disliked him, nor did he dislike her, but... well, it would have been nice to love her. Hell, it would have been nice to like her. He could hardly even put his opinion of her to words; she might as well have been a stranger.

He looked her over again, trying to ignore Florian's gaze as it burned mocking thoughts into the side of his skull. Her skin was like the soft petals of a lily and her hair gleamed like the pale morning sun. Her lips were dew-kissed rose petals and her eyes put the night sky to shame. She was a pretty thing to look at; he only wished there could be more.

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