[ Does he need to drink blood and yet denies it? It seemed something terrible to him, even if she didn't completely understand what he meant by it. But did she need to other than to say he was afraid of it in some for.

Another question, later, later. One day perhaps she will ask. ]

If I am dead, then I am dead. That is the way of all beings, great and small, and I have no intention of fighting it. My people deserve my end, they have suffered enough. As you say. Regret does not stop the retribution deserved, and I deserve it and more.

[ But that is not what he is really asking, is he?

She rolls back, she cannot look at anyone and face the truth of, simple as it is. Looking up and up and up at the foreign sky. ]

What would I go back too? A life where you fail in all you set out to do, where all cower in fear at you? I am the most powerful woman in fourteen lands, and I am alone, and I am unloved. At least here, I am afforded pretence. I am no one. I am nothing. Then perhaps, I can find to do what a ruler should, and lay myself down so others may prosper. It will be quiet, it will be unmarked because I have lived a quiet, simple life.

[ It isn't as simple as death that she seeks: it is an undoing, to be cut back to a place that had never existed for any child of royal blood.

To where there was no consequence, no stakes, just the quiet, the peace, to be and that would be enough. ]