So - in the female!Ardyn 'Taur 'verse, how does the romantic relationship between Cor and Ardyn develop? (Nox, meanwhile, is having - slight hysterics in the background, because The Immortal and the (formerly) literally Immortal Accursed? It's like a bad joke). And, for that matter - how does everyone *else* react to that relationship? (Regis is. Not sure how to feel. On the one hand, Cor is going to be *literally his brother*, squee! On the other, Cor is *dating his sister*.)
*cackles evilly* oh THAT’S easy-
They start dating out of Pure Spite.
See, Cor has been doing everything he can to get out of formal events WHENEVER he can for years because he’s the Marshal and the Immortal and all the widows and older bachelorettes seem to think they can win him over with enough makeup, perfume, primping of their fur, and fluttering of their eyelashes and Cor HATES IT. Always has. Regis has told him that if he actually GOT A DATE with someone maybe they’d back off, to which Aulea just rolls her eyes and says that they’d turn into sharks and shred whatever poor soul Cor tried to take as a plus one. Cor agrees, he’d have to find a Plus One that was even more deadly in the political and verbal arena, as well as one of high enough status to survive the gossip, and frankly it’s not worth the effort to look for such a wonder woman.
Then Ardyn happens. Then Ardyn is revealed as female in private, and after much discussion agrees to be revealed as female in public as well and the bachelors start calling. Cor watches for like- a year at least, probably closer to two as Ardyn deals with the same issues he does only in male form, as she tears them apart with a smile and leaves them thinking they’ve been complimented and not mocked to death. He watches, and knows that Ardyn is watching him too.
Then one day, on the cusp of YET ANOTHER Gala (okay there aren’t that many but they ARE annoying and Cor dreads each and every one with a passion), he comes home to find Ardyn IN HIS APARTMENT, lazing on his couch, all four paws in the air, and staring at the ceiling as she plays with her hat. “How did you get in here?” Cor scowls.
“Picked the window lock and opened it enough to shove my knife through, then I warped.” She says casually like that isn’t the most impressive form of warping there is, to be able to slide through a space that her mind should have told her was impossible to fit through and thus prevented the warp. Before he can demand she leave, she rolls off the couch and lands on her belly and paws on the floor like she’s the felinedaetaur and not him, “Court me,” she says with a manic gleam in her eyes, so manic her blue eyes are now bright gold.
Cor wonders if Regis will forgive him if he ends up drawing a sword on the king’s half-sister because this is like all of his worst nightmares in one, minus Gilgamesh being there, “No.”
“I’m not interested.” He manages past stiff lips.
Ardyn hisses, low and feral, tail lashing in annoyance and wings mantling there on the floor before she settles with bland, “I’m not either, obviously. Come now, Immortal,” he growls at the hated nickname, “I thought you were the smart one of my brother’s troupe. The Gala is three days from now and we both know what that will mean, you’ll spend all evening choking on rote niceties to all the female nobles you can’t insult without it reflecting on your king and I will spend all evening wasting time verbally shredding all the male idiots who come with dreams of being a prince instead of letting me drink my fancy wine in peace.”
Cor senses one of Ardyn’s mad schemes on the horizon. Unlike Clarus and Titus, this actually makes him relax. Ardyn’s schemes are usually brilliant in a brutally unorthodox way, and if she has a plan to get them out of the Gala... “So?”
“So,” she parrots as she frisbees her hat to him, making him catch it on instinct, “court me, and we’ll have the perfect excuse to tell each other’s crowd of respective blithering stalkers to go skin themselves.” Cor’s eyebrows shoot up as he finally lets himself stalk into the living room, tail swishing in thought as Ardyn grins, her fangs glinting in the light, “Think about it,” she purrs low and seductively, tail waggling like she’s making a proposition and not plotting to help him out of all his propositions, “No woman will have a prayer of competing with me in status or prestige, I’m the king’s sister, a dragontaur and former Chancellor of an empire. At least half of them will leave you alone knowing they have no chance and the other half will be easy for me to scare off.”
Cor’s mind begins working overtime as he unthinkingly settles on the carpet in front of her, paws tucking under his chest as he crosses his arms, “And your suitors will thin enormously as well rather than compete with me, the King’s favored and Marshal of the Crownsguard.” And the famed Immortal, he doesn’t say, because he hates that nickname with a passion.
Ardyn’s grin grows bigger, “Exactly,” she rumbles seductively, looking far less like a mortal Taur and fare more like a tackily dressed succubus trying to talk him into selling his soul for a night’s pleasure, “So? What do you say? Want to give all of Lucian high society a nice heart attack?”
Cor feels his lips twitch and passes her ugly old hat back to her, a deal as good as made in blood, “We’ll need to match clothes and be seen entering the Gala together,” He says after scrounging in his brain for all the things Regis did to announce his courtship with Aulea. He paused, then held up a finger and padded off to his room. A few minutes digging through his chest of knickknacks and junk found on missions and he returns with a glittering tail-band of gold, engraved with lions and with sapphires for eyes. A prize found when wandering through old ruins, he’d only kept it out of boredom. Ardyn smiles viciously as she accepts the “courting gift” and slides it onto her tail, then pulls a shimmering ebony foreleg bracelet out of her armiger, engraved with the symbol of Lucis and with rubies set in the eye socket and outline of the skull. Cor raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t question where it came from, just slides it on to make sure it fits. It does, perfectly, and he suspects she had it commissioned for just this scheme.
He expects the tailors to throw a fit over having to provide matching outfits on such short notice and in secret, but instead they start crying for joy (“No checker patters or plaids!” one sobs as he carefully cuts out the silk pattern, “Only three layers!” wails another for joy as he alternates between taking a bemused Ardyn’s measurements and dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief).
They don’t tell anyone else in the Citadel, and Cor just tells Regis and Clarus that he’ll be a bit late for the Gala (Regis eyes him suspiciously, like he thinks Cor is going to play hooky, but Cor just blinks solemnly and Regis lets him go with a sigh).
The utterly dead, stunned, horrified silence that falls over the Gala when the frazzled goattaur herald announces, “The Marshal Cor Leonis and the Princess Ardyn Izunia Caelum.” and everyone watches as they stalk slowly, languidly down the stairs in matching finery, Ardyn’s short hair done up with tasteful gold ornaments, hat nowhere in sight, the golden lion-engraved band on her tail glinting like an executioner’s freshly sharpened axe while Cor’s foreleg band of black and rubies stands out sharply against his golden fur.
They don’t have to announce a thing or say a word. Everyone present knows what this means. To bear each other’s colors and symbols, to arrive openly together, Ardyn’s arm linked delicately through Cor’s, to be wearing matching attire-.
Cor decides instantly that this entire charade is worth it when he sees several of his more annoying stalkers straight up faint and Clarus choking on his wine while Regis gapes.
(Of course, after gloriously and shamelessly fake-dating for three months, Ardyn gets bored and asks Cor out to coffee somewhere public, to really sell the whole courting thing. After that, Cor, as thank you for the help against all the harpies in his life, drags a willing Ardyn off on a prolonged mission out in the wilds where there are no people and no rules, just him and Ardyn hiking through the wilds, spying on the Nifs (blowing up the base like Regis expressly told them not to do without backup) and pushing each other into the nearest body of water when one or the other gets too cheeky/sarcastic and-
You can see where it spirals from there. XD. Nox is losing his mind a little because his Uncle and his Aunt are DATING. But also yay? They’re dating? Regis is a Crisis because how do you Shovel Talk Cor? You can’t! And he can’t Shovel Talk Ardyn either because that’s his sister dating the lion Regis raised as a little brother figure and oh no think of what those two will get up to Clarus. Think of the chaos. Aulea, literally the only person other than Nox and Titus to realize this is fake dating, is very gleeful in carefully nudging them into REAL dating with Titus’s help. By the time Cor and Ardyn realize the trap it’s too late).
