@gloriousncss | Gisela and Elias, Late Evening at The Balcony of the Hatzfeld Apartment's

He's been subject to gossip and speculation since infancy. Elias knows better than to let the words of others cause a tailspin. Besides, Gisela adores him. She's proven as much, leaving scorched earth where her friendship with his sister once existed. So why, then, was Elias simmering with discontent? The image of his new wife and Queen in nothing but a sheer bathing dress for the eyes of another (even if that other is Alistair) replays in his head like a taunting joke. He returns from his own bath, curls slicked back and damp with a robe knotted around his abdomen. Emboldened on whisky and jealousy.

"Call me old fashioned, but..." Elias begins, finding Gisela settled on the small balcony of their modest apartment. "One would think you'd sooner bathe with your husband than his sister's faithful guard." There is enough basis in this rumor to know it to be fact. So it's not a matter of if, but a matter of why. "What game are you playing at, G? Do you mean to spur Eleanor's rage even more? Or do you just wish to make me jealous? Prove to me what I have been to busy to see?" He places both his hands on the railing, keeping Gisela's back against the cold iron. Everyone thinks it is simple; Gisela sought to seduce Elias, and Elias is but a mindless man who falls. But he knows what Gisela knows, too. Nothing about their romance is that simple. "You know I love it when you play your games." It's what made him fall for her in the first place. Being toyed with never felt so fun. "Just tell me which one you hoped to play."