Kapitel 111: Arthur 38
293AC
I set the bowl and the knife down on the table carefully, ignoring the stares from the girls in the room.
Had I known they would pressure me into this I would not have come here, but if Ariane truly needed security, wanted to be able to trust in me completely, then I was willing to do it for her, even with the risks present.
"So," I said turning to meet her hazel gaze. "Here's how this is going to work. First, both of us cut our hands with the blade of the other, while we bleed into the bowl, we swear our oaths, then the two of us drink from our mixed blood." I pointed to the bowl. "This part isn't particularly dangerous, at least as far as I know."
"That sounds fairly simple for some great magic," Tyene said, and I turned to her with a flat gaze.
"The dangerous part isn't the blood mixing, though it is a bit painful. It's the words we speak to each other. We need to decide on that before we do this." I turned back to Arianne. "Arianne, what is it that you would like us to promise each other?"
Arianne who had looked a bit nervous since I brought the knife in, seemed to be only more nervous in the face of questioning.
"Well, uh, I guess… not to take any other woman into your bed until we're married, um, without my permission of course."
"You probably also want a clause to let him out of that if the marriage doesn't go through."
Both of us turned to Tyene, who defensively raised her shoulders. "What? One of you could die, it would be bad if you were both permanently banned from sleeping with others as a result."
Though Arianne looked about to say something mean I nodded. "That probably is something we could think about," I said, cautiously nodding towards the Sand Snake, who seemed to puff up with pride at the agreement. "Think of this like a contract binding our souls together Arianne. This is already more binding than most people's marriage vows can ever be."
The girl stared at me for a moment before a dark blush made its way across her face. "I uh, okay…" she said, suddenly looking down at the table, "I, I think maybe a promise to love each other then, romantically."
I swallowed, nodding. I could do that, I wasn't quite sure how much of what I felt for Ariane was that now, but it wouldn't be a bad way to change myself. "I can swear that you'll be my only romantic love, that I will have no other woman until we are married or one of us dies," I said, to a renewed blush on Arianne's face.
Asha made a gagging sound. "You know that you can save the lovey-dovey stuff for your actual marriage right. Just say that you're betrothing each other and get it over with."
"Ah that's a good point," I said, "neither of us can decide when we'll get married, that's up to our fathers."
Arianne paused for a second, apparently not having thought of that.
"That, that's true." She said. "Maybe it should just be an oath of love, instead of a betrothal then? Since we can't really set the terms ourselves?"
I nodded, that would keep the wording, and thus the potential risk to blow ourselves up with magical bullshit, to a minimum.
"That sounds good to me, I'm ready when you are." I offered Arianne the handle of the Dragonglass Dagger.
She hesitated only for a moment. Then she took the knife and handed me her pocket dagger. I nodded, a little conscious of the audience, which was looking on intently, before nodding. It didn't matter who saw it, because I meant my words.
I pulled the bad along my palm, blood pouring out into the bowl.
"I, Arthur Baratheon, swear on my blood and on my name, that I will love Arianne Martell, romantically, above all others" I breathed deeply, before nodding, the next part was the dangerous one." through the rest of my life. She will have no equal in my heart. I will take no other woman into my bed sexually against her wishes or without her permission until the day that one of us dies."
The words were technical to a large extent. I couldn't spare romance for showy purposes here with so much at stake. My piece said, I turned to the blushing Arianne, who looked between the knife and her hand. My part was done, I could not violate it. All I could see was her reaching up, and wincing as she cut her own palm. Our blood crackling with lightning as it mixed together in the bowl.
I felt a jolt of fear surge through me, however, as Arianne spoke, for she did not choose technical words as I did, opting instead for the romantic, but I could not stop her, for somehow I knew that they were spoken of her heart, and some magic held me unable to warn her.
"Ah… I Arianne Martell, Princess of Dorne, do swear on my blood that I shall love Arthur Baratheon, Prince of Dragonstone, above all others, I shall keep him in my heart now and forevermore, and I will keep my faith to him for eternity."
The lightning surged up in the bowl with the end of her oath, crackling around the edge and filling the air with the smell of Ozone.
With shaking hands, I reached out, lifting the thing to my lips. This was binding, binding and dangerous. I worried if Arianne had a grasp on just how true that was.
After I tasted the metallic taste of our mixed blood and felt the joined lightning crackle in my mouth, Arianne did the same. I was conscious of the change in my mind this time, actually feeling my love for Arianne grow as I felt the mixture of our blood sink into my gut.
As she set the bowl down on the table, I reached across it, standing from the table, and she moved to match me, our lips meeting in the middle for a long moment, I could feel her heartbeat somehow, and it beat the same as mine.
I drew her into a hug, tightening my arms around her shoulders heedless of the now-empty bowl being knocked over. We stayed like that I'm not sure how long until Asha cleared her throat to the side.
"Well, you certainly didn't do that for me."
I felt my own blood flow into my cheeks in embarrassment as I pulled back from the embrace, coughing into my hand slightly. "Uh… ehm…"
"Personally I'm a little jealous." Tyene said, "I'm probably never going to have a prince come off a boat and magically swear to my eternal lover."
'Oh god I did that in front of people,' I thought, stepping back just a little bit from the table. 'Fucking magic.' I turned towards Arianne, to see how she was doing as I stumbled into a seat on something like a sofa near the edge of the room, and I found my bride to be whispering something in her cousin's ear, which had the both of them giggling.
I found personally, that I couldn't muster the mental energy to be worried.
I just hoped that whatever the oath's magic did to Arianne that she would be alright.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein