>>5658586Ekaterine nods, and places her hand upon your chest.
“I am so sorry, Wang. You deserve so much better than… That difficulty. I will make sure you never face such conditions again. I promise you that.”
The two of you share an embrace which deepens and, in time, becomes a kiss. The guards who once attended to you so closely are now well outside the chamber, affording the Princess and her fiancé their privacy. When the kiss is broken and the two of you are snuggled tight together upon your long seat, however, the Princess looks troubled.
>18>Voice of the MetatronIn vague and veiled terms, you elaborate upon the philosophy which has brought you strength. You tell Eka of the virtues of darkness—of how those with strength and resolve—like adventurers, like paladins—must use violence to shape the world into a better place, and to protect those close to them.
"It issn't a kindnessss for godsss to shelter and coddle their children from thisss truth," he tell her, "it isss cruelty. The weak SHOULD fear the sstrong. It sseemss to me that these... Monsssterss in the mountainsss recognize thisss, and that the damage they inflict isss ass much a product of humansss and dwarvesss forcccing them to demonssstrate that sstrength asss anything elssse."
“I think I understand what you are saying,” she says after a time, though you can tell she doesn't much like it. “But I still cannot forgive them.”
She looks up at you, tears in her eyes. Her surprising, uncharacteristic bloodlust is dissipated, and illusion that crumbled under your mastery of pathos, ethos, and logos.
“The shapeshifting lizardfolk, whatever gods they follow. Even if I do not… HATE them, or SHOULDN’T do so, they’re our enemies, aren’t they? Yours, and my family’s, and our people’s… And yours. Their victory endangers us all. We should use OUR strength to... To protect ourselves, no matter what it means to them, right?"
You wipe away her tears with a thumb—a tender gesture which your temporary human guise, with its soft, padded fingers, allows. Ekaterine cps your hand to her cheek, and leans heavy against you.
“They nearly took you away from me,” she whispers.
She is repeating your own lies and propaganda as truth, fearing for you as you taught her to fear for you, hating those whom your own lies have conditioned her to hate. Even as you work to rhetorically dissolve those feelings of fear and enmity, the lies themselves remain. As far as she knows, Long Wang—her husband, her one true love—is a human man, nearly killed by a demon-reptilian conspiracy.
But in dreams… In dreams, when she believed that Long Wang and Theral of Bloodrise were one and the same—as they in fact ARE—she loved all of you. She really even seemed to UNDERSTAND all of you.
Maybe… It’s time?
>Reveal your true identity>Keep the secret until after the wedding 