#sorry kori and zuri. today’s emotional torture is over you don’t have to worry

[idrisofficial]

i don’t think you’ve posted enough about the fucked up love square between adrian brinne kori and zuri. also kori and zuri deserve to hold hands and blush

ohh this is true. i will now begin to explain it to my audience of probably one (1) who already knows everything about it.

heartbreaking: mentally ill star crossed noble lovers are betrothed to absolute cinnamon rolls who don’t understand why their fiancés don’t love them.

in all seriousness it is pretty messed up. brinne and adrian went through an abundance of childhood trauma together and latched onto each other like the codependent traumabonded almost-gays that they are. despite being the children of the most respected people in the entire country, all of the other nobles hated them during childhood, and honestly still do, so they’re all each other has ever had. after brinne started distancing herself from adrian following artemis’s massacre, she practically lost her mind from the sheer isolation without him. even when she warms up to adrian again, it takes time for her to be able to genuinely open up to him like she did as a teenager. they both just kind of vaguely angst and then fuck nasty about it in the castle’s chapel.

and then right in the middle of her healing kori enters. and it gets So Much Worse. brinne adopted naturally hostile responses to most people even before the trauma of the massacre, so you can imagine that her reactions to new people are not so welcoming. yes she was somewhat prepared to meet the person she’s been betrothed to since childhood, but she was not expecting him to be seventeen. she was not expecting him to be a golden retriever boy who everyone fawns over. she was not expecting him to fall head over heels in love with her two seconds after seeing her. he’s the perfect guy, and she’s pissed. she has no trouble making sure kori knows that the sight of him repulses her. kori isn’t entirely oblivious (brinne is blunt as hell), but he stays optimistic through all of this. he’s definitely upset that his fiancée doesn’t love him, but wants to do his best to make her at least like him, so he keeps shooting his shot. he does not have the mind for politics, and while most of the nobles love him, none of them care about him enough to really get to know him. he’s extremely lonely and misses home. he just kind of wanders around confused most of the time, making it look like he’s happy and well-adjusted. kori also knows nothing about brinne’s affair with adrian, even though the entire noble court knows. none of them have the heart to tell him.

zuri is adrian’s fiancée. she’s a little different. she’s reserved and sweet and disciplined, and has tried to foster a good relationship with adrian for years. they just…don’t click. they’re too similar in too many ways for their relationship to truly be comfortable. zuri was also extremely shy as a child, and adrian was usually busy, so the two never developed a relationship early on. she knows about brinne and adrian’s affair, and has been aware of it since only a little while after it started. brinne and adrian were by no means subtle, and the nobles’ whispers about it became much louder over time. everyone pities her deeply, but no one wants to actually say anything about it. zuri tries to ignore it. she seeks adrian out and does nice things for him and tries to make herself attractive to him in all different ways. girl has tried everything at this point. it’s not working, and adrian feels awful about it. unlike brinne, he has a real connection to his obligations, and he also just values zuri deeply as a person. he can see how hard she’s trying and he wants to like her so, so bad. his demisexuality gets in the way of a lot of it, too (not that he knows what that is). zuri has no comfort, no real friends, and no support. she is putting everything into a relationship she knows is doomed to fail. adrian and zuri are a tragic couple and if they were given time and a little more anger inside, they would probably end up something like the alpha couple from tmg’s tallahassee album.

see, brinne and adrian are deeply in love and ultimately have no romantic interest in their fiancés. and kori and zuri are both the sweetest people ever and are distraught that their fiancés don’t love them back. in addition to this, kori and zuri’s personalities would match completely and they would likely give way to a relationship that helps them grow as people. the age gap between them is also smaller (still not great but it’s a fantasy story what do you want from me) and their life ideals match so much better together. i should just pair them up and let them be happy together, right? right? that would solve all the problems? or at least a lot of them? right?

well. i refuse to let anyone be happy. hope this helps :)

#they are all hopeless!!! #i love thinking about their hypothetical relationship but it gives me so much joy to make them suffer #sorry kori and zuri. today’s emotional torture is over you don’t have to worry #anyways thank you for the ask this took a long time to write it was good for procrastination :) #oc: brinne alistair #oc: adrian kaldaver #oc: zurielle tessing #oc: koriandarius twyvek