#otp: desire really is the most exquisite agony

[terapsina]

Are they even an OTP if they don't have a visually stunning training sequence against the background of a colorful and inspiringly gorgeous sky?

[terapsina]

I mean you know that the flute worked as a conduit for Graydon because of the the emotional meaning it holds for him.

And they're DEFINITELY going to have Elora using it as a conduit next season (fingers crossed 🤞).

So. If Graydon's flute works for her (which it definitely will), then that would kinda automatically mean that this object which is kind of the only thing Elora has left of him means so much to her that it works as a wand for her too.

boorman giving elora graydon’s flute 😢

[terapsina]

But if the destinies refuse my vow,     And no remission of her his doom allow;        Know, I’m determin’d to return no more;            So both retain, or both to life restore.

--- Ovid.

[terapsina]

A Heart's Tether - graylora fic

-

ao3

-

"You've been having nightmares," Willow says. His voice is soft but Elora's back still freezes in the middle of uncurling her sleeping mat on the ground, her mind overcome with flashes of fire, of Graydon screaming, of-

She suppresses an involuntary shudder.

"It's nothing, I'm fine," her voice edges on a coldness her friend and teacher doesn't deserve. But she needs him to stop talking.

"We all miss him, Elora. He wouldn't want you to bottle it all up like this, you can talk to us, me or Kit, or Airk-"

"I'm fine," she snaps again, this time not trying to hide the shortness.

Willow sighs, tired and sad, and she blinks until the threat of tears passes; waits with her back turned until he goes back to his side of tonight's camp.

Guilt claws at her but she can't afford to tell Willow about her nightmares; can't afford to let herself get convinced that they're not real.

More importantly, Graydon can't afford it.

-

"It's not real," he reminds himself; repeats to himself under his breath. "You're not her, I'm not going to betray her."

The monster wearing Elora's face gently moves a sweaty curl of hair out of Graydon's eyes and he flinches at the way his heart wants him to lean into that caress. He clenches his eyes shut, trying to banish the illusion but her scent strengthens in response to his closed eyelids and he opens them again.

"But the real one doesn't need you, doesn't love you, Graydon. I do, I need you." She smiles sadly at him, red hair surrounding her face like fire.

It hurts looking at her. She's so nearly a perfect imitation. Same face, same scent, same smile, same warmth licking over his skin at her touch. It hurts the way his missing scars once hurt as they were placed - as they were burned into his skin.

But if he looks at her he can at least see the thinly veiled cruelty that has never existed in the eyes of the real Elora. Can see the hollow darkness that wants to swallow the world. When he looks away, there is nothing to remind him that she's only an illusion.

An illusion the Wyrm has conjured for him because it knows how weak Graydon is. How pathetic. How easy to manipulate.

But he can't let himself be.

If he lets himself start believing the illusion he's going to become a monster again, he knows what the Wyrm wants. It failed with Prince Airk so it's moved on to Graydon.

"It's not real," he says again for the innumerable time, this time not daring to look away from the copy of the face he loves most in this world... or rather the world he left behind. "You're not her. I'm not going to betray her."

"Don't think of it as betrayal. Think of it as coming home to me. You do want to come home to me don't you?" her voice turns sweet as she coaxes him, leaning forward, her chest pressing against his closely drawn knees.

Her hand moves lower, grazing her fingers against the stubble on his jaw, her thumb running with torturous slowness over his lower lip.

She feels so real.

But the real Elora would not be doing it. The real Elora loves Airk. Graydon accepts it, he does. He wants Elora to be happy.

And she might not love Graydon, but she is his friend. He cannot hurt her by returning only to help the Wyrm destroy everything she's ever cared about.

He knows how this works. The Wyrm won't have hold of his mind unless he gives into the temptation.

So he can't.

Just this once he needs to be strong enough. Just as long as he remembers that the real Elora-

"-has already forgotten you," the Wyrm finishes for him, plucking the incomplete thought from his head and twisting it to its ends. The imitation of Elora shakes her head in pity. "I mean she moped for a day or two. But then her prince came to give her a shoulder to cry on and you know how these things go, don't you Graydon?"

His breath catches despite himself.

He knows it's a lie.

Elora wouldn't just forget him, just like she would never have forgotten anyone else from their party if it had been someone other than Graydon that were caught. But he also knows that she will move on, and of course, Airk would try to be there for her. That only makes sense. The prince of Tir Asleen loves Elora too. So if she was sad because her friend had... died, it would only be natural for Airk to want to comfort his fiancée.

He tries not to imagine it. Knows it's what the Wyrm wants. But it's already too late, in the blink of an eye there's the picture of the prince she'd gone through so much to save kissing Elora's tears from her cheek.

Or maybe it's not even a lie. Graydon doesn't truly know how long it's been since the Wyrm had caught him. Maybe it's been years for her.

Maybe she's already Airk's wife. Maybe Graydon is already an old memory, a sad story she remembers only occasionally. Someone she might mention in passing as an old friend to small children with beautiful coppery-red hair and unfairly charming grins when they ask her for the story of the time she went to save their father from monsters.

His heart nearly tears in half at the imagined possibility.

"Oh, Graydon," the monster wearing the face of his love whispers, "you are only hurting yourself, just let me give you everything you've been longing for. It will be real for you, I promise. There won't even be a difference."

Of course, there wouldn't be.

Graydon would be allowed to swim inside a delusion where Elora loved him, where those children would still have her blinding smiles but would also take on Graydon's darker complexion, where he'd have everything he'd been too smart to really hope for.

And somewhere out there in the cold hard reality, his body would be puppeteered into being the Wyrm's lapdog. Facing the real Elora across battle lines where she'd look at him with the same kind of horror she'd worn after she saw him pushing his brother out of the tree. In the real world he'd be fighting the love of his life, and turning into reality the vision Willow had tried to keep from them all.

He would have a lie. And the Wyrm would kill Elora.

Graydon would rather walk Elora down the aisle toward Airk himself.

"No," he says, making himself have the faith in his own strength that Elora did. "I won't betray her. Even if she forgets me. Even if she never loves me. Even if the Wyrm tears everything I am apart until there's nothing of use to it left. It can hold me here, torture me, but it can't make me give up my soul to its whims."

Elora's stolen face hardens into a rage.

"We'll see," she says and in moments fire consumes Graydon's every last thought as flames engulf his entire body.

For a long time after, he can only scream.

-

Elora dreams of Graydon.

Every night she dreams of him. And it's always the same scene. Graydon with his knees pulled against his chest with Elora herself - or rather something that looks like her even as Elora knows it to be something... other - hovering beside him, caressing his cheeks, whispering into his ear, very nearly kissing him as he pulls away from her, every time with something more haunted in his eyes.

She can't hear him. Or her- it?

Only sees the refusal that eventually blooms across his face. And then... then the fire, the eternity of fire that follows as Elora herself screams herself hoarse trying to get to Graydon. To reach him, punching and clawing against the veil that seems to separate him from Elora.

She can't hear him and yet she feels his agony anyway. Feels the tiny sliver of a tether that's keeping him to sanity, like she's holding the other end.

She's started to suspect that she might be, she always wakes with his flute clenched in her fist, and once she even thought she saw it glimmer with the fading echo of his purple magic instead of the flash of green she's taken on herself.

Elora knows what she's being forced to watch.

The Wyrm is trying to turn him. To seduce him to its side.

And every time that it fails to, it punishes Graydon by burning him alive.

And every time the Wyrm seems to eventually take notice of Elora's presence. Because it turns away from Graydon convulsing on the ground and smiles at Elora. This time though- this time it speaks too.

"He's almost mine, you know," the Wyrm says using Elora's voice.

"Get away from him," she snaps, still clawing against the veil, trying to find a pulled seam; a crack in the glass; something to find purchase against.

"He had no hope to begin with, so it should have been easier, I'll give him that much. But this face makes him weak, he wants me to be you, and he's not going to remember that I'm not for all that much longer."

"He's not weak," she seethes.

"Oh, but he is. You all are. So much potential, all of it wasted because of your hearts. You should really feel relief at my release from this prison, I'm coming to end this suffering you're doomed to."

"I'm going to stop you," she promises to it.

"You won't," the Wyrm shakes its head and drops on its knees reaching within the flames that still cover Graydon to run fingers over his burning scalp. "And if you do... well that would mean that my Harbinger would be staying here too. With me."

"Don't touch him!" Elora feels the same rage that had overtaken her when the Crone had made Graydon vanish in front of her eyes return now.

Green lightning crackles at her fingertips as she smashes her hands against the veil. Again and again. Again. Again. And for the first time, the air in front of her grows hot and she feels a crack.

It's tiny, the size of a grain of sand. But suddenly she can hear Graydon too, and the Wyrm's satisfaction is wiped clean off the face it has stolen from her.

He's screaming and for a moment Elora feels it like a gut punch, - the sound worse than the one he let out when he'd been losing ground to the demon possessing him, - but she doesn't have time for horror or heartbreak. Whatever it is she just did won't last long, she knows that, so instead of letting his agony tear her heart to shreds she screams his name.

"Graydon! Graydon, look at me! Graydon! Please, Graydon!"

It takes an eternity but he does- he does, she feels the tears that had momentarily halted during her rage at the Wyrm begin running down her face again. But she smiles anyway, exhilaration at getting through overtaking everything else just for a moment.

"Elora, " she sees his lips form her name as light flickers to life in his eyes.

She sobs, clawing against the invisible wall separating them, her eyes pinned in place by the agonized awe in his, ignoring the way her palms burn upon contact with the veil she's trying to pierce to get to Graydon.

"I'm going to get you out of here. I will, I promise. I know you're alive. I'm going to get you out. Just remember she's not me. Just for a little longer, remember she's not me."

His lips begin to form the syllables making up her name again when she feels the waking world trying to assert itself.

'Elora, wake up, you're having a nightmare,' comes Willow's voice echoing around her as Graydon begins to be encircled in mist.

"No!" she screams, she almost had him, she was nearly there.

"No," she gasps again as the cool night air replaces the heat from the flames. And then she swallows a pained whimper as her palms graze against the rough-spun material of her blanket.

"You're hurt," Willow exclaims and cups the back of her palms to pull them closer to the light from the campfire to inspect the damage.

She stares at the burns on her skin and begins to cry the way she hasn't let herself cry in anything but her dreams since they left the Immemorial City. She burned her hands trying to break through the veil. It was real.

"He's alive," she sobs and then laughs as relief and terror fall across her shoulders in synch. "The Wyrm has him. But Graydon's alive."

[terapsina]

Question of the hour. Can someone figure out what my shipping type is through ten of my all time favorite OTPs?

I ask because I can't.

1. Swan Queen.

Enemies to Friends to Lovers. Angst. The Evil Queen and the Savior. Divorced Moms Feeling. Co-parenting their kid plus town. Battle Couple. Obsessed With Each Other's Happy Ending.

---

2. Elejah.

Tragically Opposite Sides. Mirrors of Each Other. Loyalty. Family. Betrayal. Humanity. Mutual Respect. Regret. Cruelty. Inherent Understanding of What Makes The Other Tick. Full of Weirdly Reciprocated Awe. Casually Dropping 'Always and Forever' in Basically a Love Letter.

---

3. Pardison.

Utterly Fluffy. Sweet. Friends to Lovers. The Hacker and the Thief. Each Other's Safe Space. Good Communication. Rock-solid Foundation. Completely Without Problematic Aspects and Yet Extremely Interesting.

---

4. Hizzie.

Enemies to Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers. Squabbling Like an Old Married Couple. Bitches Against The World. But Also Very Soft. Actually Kinda Obsessed With Each Other. Would Kill For Each Other. Would Also Occasionally Want to Murder Each Other. Right Person, Wrong Time. More Romantic Than They Think They Are. Multiple Jealousy Scenes.

---

5. Bellarke.

The Sloooooowest of Burns. The Head and The Heart. Everyone Including Their Friends, Their Families, Their Antagonists and Their Separate Love Interests Sees It. Completely In Love With Each Other. Being Apart Breaks Them. Each Other's Weak Spot. Also Each Other's Strength. Absolute Idiots. Not Actually Unrequited.

---

6. Graylora.

My Newest Babes. The Prince Turned Mage and the Destined Empress. Initially Unrequited. Friends to Future Lovers. Inspire Hope in Each Other. Find Strength Through The Other's Faith. Awkward Turtleducks. Seeking Purpose and Fearing Destiny. Torn Apart and Longing To Reunite. Tragic "Death" Scene and Savage Vengeful Reaction.

---

7. Clizzy.

Tactile Agony. No But Seriously So Much Touching. Meet-cute Head Bump. Constant Overt Flirting. BFFs to lovers. Falling For Her Brother's Girlfriend. More Chemistry Than The Canon Wants to Allow. Delicious Vibes Of Undercurrent Longing. Just Kiss You Fools.

---

8. Spuffy.

Enemies to Reluctant Allies to Squabbling Children to Nearly Frenemies to Almost Friends to Doomed Lovers to Actual Friends to Lovers. They're a Comedy. They're a Tragedy. They Don't Work and Yet They Do. They're a Rollercoaster of Pain. They Can Be Alone Together. They Trusted Each Other Even Back Before They Liked Each Other. They've Seen The Best and The Worst Of Each Other. No Other Ship Has Hurt Me As Much as This One. The Slayer and The Vampire Who Got His Soul For Her.

---

9. Kahlan/Cara.

The Mother Confessor and The Mord Sith. Reluctant Allies to Enemies to Friends to Lovers. The Confessor Who Chose to Spare Her Sister's Killer. And The Trained Killer Who Couldn't Make Herself Kill The Confessor Even To Save Her. Even Though She Has Magic Resurrection Powers. TWICE. Sexual Tension Oozing Through The Screen. Kahlan Wouldn't Be Able to Confess Cara Either, Fight Me.

---

10. Green Queens.

Two Sociopathic Queens In Love. Would Totally Enslave The Galaxy If Their Families Didn't Hit Them Over The Heads With Rolled Up Newspapers and Say 'NO! BAD QUEENS! No family dinners for you'. Would Do Cold Blooded Slaughter For Each Other. Kinda Have Actually. Sharing Immortality Because What's The Point of Living Forever if They're Not Together.

---

So that's it. Ten of my favorite ships. Do they have a common element? I don't know, I'VE certainly never been able to identify one.

[terapsina]

I get your point but considering the fact that Elora was revealed in the literal first episode I don't think Graydon had TIME to start making moves.

...it does make me consider an AU where for whatever reason it takes longer for Brunhilda to be revealed as Elora Danan, and I'm very sure Graydon would have absolutely tripped into love just as quickly in that scenario too.

Rewatching Willow and I'm peeved Graydon didn't start making moves until AFTER Willow revealed Elora

Like bro, come on... Bet that's your dad's conditioning right there

[terapsina]

I have a bunch of reasons I need Willow to have a second season but ONE of the utterly superficial very important reasons is that I need there to be more Graylora scenes where Elora has red hair because as soon as she became a redhead all the scenes where she's a blonde started looking weird to me for some reason.

Also I need to see full facial hair Graydon

to meet THIS Elora!

for... for reasons.

[terapsina]

A King’s Mistake - graylora fic

- ao3 -

Grief was a funny thing. There was an ebb and flow in it, the push and pull of a moon adding gravity to the water, burying that pain in one moment and exposing it to the scalding sunlight the next.

Elora’s pain had bled into the air around her when she’d killed the Crone for snatching Graydon from her before she’d had a chance to truly acknowledge all that he’d come to mean to her. And it had felt the searing touch of saltwater as Boorman had given her Graydon’s flute.

The sting had eased - just a touch - as they traveled back, as every new responsibility had taken precedence over the cracks forming over the beating organ in her chest; as every small struggle took attention away from the memory of the last look he’d sent to her before he’d taken her place in the fight and was blasted into dust - full of love and conviction and the heart that she knew was so much stronger than he thought it was. She forced herself to feel every bruise she’d received in the fight, every new blister on the heel of her foot. Because when she made herself focus on the physical, it granted moments of relief from the emotional.

It carried her over the Shattered Sea all the way to Tir Asleen.

Right up until they stood in front of King Hastur and gave him the news of his younger son’s death.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Your Majesty,” Kit announced in the room that held their group, Queen Sorsha, and Graydon’s stone-faced father.

There was a beat of silence as the king of Galladoorn took in the news and Elora did her best to look somewhere over the man’s shoulder so that she wouldn’t have to see her own grief echo back. 

“So the quivering failure of a son couldn’t even manage to live long enough to give me the heir he promised,” the king said, voice as empty as the eyes Elora was now staring at “how disappointing.”

She felt the blow from the cruelty of those words like a slice across the veil she’d constructed between herself and the tearing sensation she’d felt a heartbeat before she had realized the Crone was about to murder Graydon in front of her powerless eyes. And like then, the moment was followed by the roar of magic burning through her veins, hissing through her soul until all that remained was the blood-thirsty haze of power just waiting at her fingertips.

It had felt good back then. Had woken a part of her that had been sleeping for years, content with the little sparks of intuition that had made her cooking phenomenal and kept her otherwise utterly below notice. Brought her alive with rage and agony and something that she knew Graydon would have found beautiful.

If he'd been alive to see it. 

“Elora,” she heard Willow caution her somewhere just past her notice.

“Shit!” came from Kit who suddenly appeared in front of her, cutting Elora’s eye line off from the man it would be so easy to tear into pieces just now. She twisted her wrist, green lightning throwing Kit aside and into Jade’s arms. She knew she’d feel bad about that later, but just now all that mattered was to clear the way between her and the monster who didn’t deserve to call himself a father.

On the other side of her, she briefly caught the sight of Boorman grabbing Airk by his shoulder and hauling him back from interfering. And that was the last thing to happen before she was in front of King Hastur with her hand around his throat and her nails cutting into his skin.

“How dare you-”

She cut him off mid-word with a snarl. 

“How dare I? How dare you speak of him as if you deserve to breathe the air he no longer can, I could burn you alive for those words.” Rage was coursing through her veins as she brought to mind the way Graydon had flinched when she’d questioned him about his brother, the way resignation had swallowed the light that always rested in his eyes when he’d looked at her. As if that had been an often-trodden over blame he’d become used to listening to, and for the first time, Elora wondered from whom he’d been hearing it.

“Who do you think you are to-”

She smiled, something vicious overtaking her as she ran her eyes over the face that held elements of Graydon in it, - something in the shape and color of the eyes and line of the nose - but lacked the purity of the soul and the bravery of the heart she'd found in his son.

She knew his like; he was a worm who used his luck of birth to get away with any number of atrocities. Elora wondered how many of them had been against the youngest son who'd gotten possessed as a child and had lived with the terrible consequences of it for years since those unfixable moments in the tree. 

“I’m Elora Danan, and if I were you I’d stop talking for a minute,” she said, verdant sparks running over her skin all across her body as she hovered over the abyss. 

There was the careful touch of another hand coming to rest over Elora's, and making her aware of the room around her once more. 

"You know he wouldn't want you to do this, Elora," Kit told her as Elora reluctantly took her eyes away from King Hastur, and the blood draining from his face at the revelation of her identity. 

"You don't know that." Her mind was conjuring pictures of that younger Graydon she'd seen in the vision, imagining him dwarfed by this man who would have been so much larger than him, with the eyes filled with the darkness Elora could see in them. Just a boy who hadn't been able to fight off a demon.

"Yes, I do. And so do you." Kit's voice was kind, so different from the way she'd spoken to Elora at the beginning of their quest before they'd reached the point of friendship and something very near to sisterhood. Before they'd taken a leap of faith off the edge of a cliff. 

"He doesn't get to speak of Graydon like he wasn't- like he wasn't important to- to-"

"To you?"

"Like he wasn't priceless. Like he wasn't his son. Like he didn't give his life to save the world, to save me." Elora felt something break anew inside her. He'd died for her. And he wouldn't have had to if only Elora had been able to touch the power that was only a thought away now before she'd seen him scatter like ash in the wind. 

She didn't want to let go - wanted to go through with her threat - but she let Kit pull her back with a sob.

For a moment hatred flashed over King Hastur's face and it looked like he was about to backhand either Elora or Kit for this slight against his person, but he froze back in place as Elora's hand was at once replaced by the edged blade of Jade's sword. 

"That's a bad idea, Your Majesty," Jade told him, coldly. 

But Elora only barely took notice of it, instead pulling her hand to press it against the center of her stomach, trying to push the gushing agony back into place, where it couldn't quite touch her. She failed. Instead, falling to her knees, she began to sob like it was only now that her heart was getting torn out of her chest. Kit's arms wound around her and she cried harder because despite their warmth, - despite the comfort Kit was offering - they weren't the hold Elora wanted to feel soothing her. 

She wanted it to be Graydon.

He'd be uncertain and awkward, and he'd ask her if she wanted him to hug her or to go get someone else. And he'd be able to read her answer even if she wasn't able to get it past her lips. He'd be so very perfectly Graydon about it. 

And Elora wanted him to be alive for that comfort more than she'd ever wanted anything else. 

But bringing the dead to life seemed to be the one thing that was out of her power. Not even the great Elora Danan, Semprum Sorceress of the Nine Realms, Daughter of the Sun and Moon, and Last Blood of Kymeria could cross that final barrier. 

[terapsina]

Too Little Too Late - Graylora Fic

- ao3 -

She didn't speak in anything but single-word sentences since leaving Immemorial City. Crossing the Shattered Sea didn't take nearly as long in the other direction though so her friends had mostly left her alone. Knowing without needing to be told that she needed solitude.

Once they were back on dry land however she knew her time was running out. She sat on the beach, staring at the horizon hiding the city which had torn open her chest and stolen something precious, something that had taken root so recently she hadn't been ready to see it. And yet losing it had made her see what had been ripped from her.

Airk sat down beside her and Elora felt a knot forming at the back of her throat.

She'd gone through so much to find him. To get him back. And yet now she could barely look at him. Looking at him just reminded her of the gentle understanding on Graydon's face when he'd given her his already broken heart, expecting nothing from Elora, just wanting her to know that he loved her.

"So," Airk said, awkwardly trying to open the conversation Elora had hoped to avoid for a while longer.

She pulled her knees closer to her chest. Her eyes were on the water straight ahead, burning as she stubbornly refused to close them. If she started blinking then the tears she could feel fighting for escape would fall. And if they started, she wasn't certain she'd ever be able to stop them.

She was Elora Danan, there was an entire world depending on her to protect it; she couldn't afford to break.

"What?" Her voice was exhausted.

"I've missed a lot. I thought we should probably talk about it." Airk's voice was kind and gentle, the voice of the boy she'd loved with everything in her. No trace of the slick smugness that had possessed it when he'd been under the influence of the Crone and the Wyrm.

He was Airk again.

Guiltily she almost wished that wasn't the case. It would have been easier to abandon the dream she'd been telling herself if the Airk she'd loved was still gone. The dream where she was his Dove, the world was simple and without complications and she was a baker who ran off to elope with the prince.

She wasn't Dove anymore though.

And she'd already seen the cracks in that dream. She remembered who her eyes had strayed to as she'd walked down the aisle - remembered the waver that had gone through her even before the pretty lie had broken fully.

Now she imagined what it would be like to marry Airk for real and felt only numb.

Maybe if Graydon hadn't- maybe if she'd managed to touch her magic fully before she'd watched him pick up Cherlindrea's wand so that he could take Elora's place in the battle she'd already nearly lost; before she'd seen him be torn apart into gruesome mist and agony had joined fury - when her need to make the Crone suffer smashed through that last mental wall which had been holding her back. Maybe if Graydon had lived to return to-

But then she imagined Graydon watching her marry Airk for real and the numbness was replaced by something sharp slicing a line over her heart.

He'd have smiled at her. His eyes would have been soft and his pain would have been hidden out of Elora's sight. She imagined that world and wanted to scream.

More than anything, Elora wanted to go back to that exhaustive endless travel across the Shattered Sea, where they'd spent hours, days, maybe weeks honing their magic for the fight ahead. To the charged feeling of his magic washing over her own as it clashed against her shield.

To the sound of his laugh when she slipped and fell fully into the water. The sensation of his hand sliding in place to embrace her wrist as he helped her back onto her feet.

She wanted the feeling of Graydon's eyes meeting Elora's, the quiet awe he'd never quite hidden and she'd never quite failed to see. To feel like she could actually save everyone - keep everyone safe - because Graydon's faith in her calmed the terror that washed over her in increasing waves.

"D- Elora?" Airk stumbled over her name and she startled in place at being pulled back into reality.

"Yeah?" she asked, voice hoarse from lack of use.

"You haven't looked at me since we left the city." There was a trace of hurt in his voice and Elora's chest twinged with guilt. "Is it for how I acted when-"

"No," she said.

"Okay," he nodded, uncertainly "but then why-"

"I can't be with you Airk."

Out of the corner of her eye, Elora saw him still and finally forced herself to turn her head to face him. He deserved that much at least. In truth he deserved far more, she had promised him her heart after all.

But the promise had come from a girl who later, during one of Willow's lessons, couldn't find anything other than his kindness toward her as a reason for her love. Her feelings might have been real, but the pillars they stood on had proven to be less than stable.

Or maybe it was just that the girl who'd loved him wasn't the same person she'd become. It wasn't just her name that had changed.

"Is this about..." here he halted and then visibly switched his chosen words, avoiding using the name that he'd clearly for the past few days seen making Elora flinch as if burned every time she heard it "the flute Boorman gave you?"

Her eyes closed and her hand slid into her pocket to clench around Graydon's magical focus; the flute was warm in her palm, and she could nearly feel the purple magic she'd been beginning to know almost as well as her own - nearly feel him, as if he was still alive; as if all that separated Elora from him was a pane of glass.

"Did you love him?" Airk's voice wasn't angry, more resigned than anything. If she hadn't suspected that it would set off the tears she might have smiled at the irony, she'd been hurting Graydon for weeks only to hurt Airk now.

"No," she said and opened her eyes again, "I do love him."

And more than anything, she wished she'd known this in time to be able to tell that to Graydon.

[terapsina]

Also, there's a certain power imbalance that I actually think Graydon would be very aware of? He's a prince (not loved or respected by his father but still a prince) and awkwardly starting to try to get to know a baker who wouldn't know him well enough to know that she could turn him down safely without being retaliated against? Not a good look. Especially when he's there in the first place because of a planned arranged marriage (I mean it's very quickly, very clear that this marriage isn't going to be happening but in the first episode at least that's still the plan).

But yeah, there's potential for an interesting scenario here. For example, if Willow had decided not to reveal Elora publicly to the entire group and instead later pulled her aside to tell her personally. Or if the attack from the Crone hadn't happened but the 'wedding' was still postponed and Graydon and Elora had time to have a number of meet-cute run-ins with each other in the palace.

So honestly I don't think it's so much snobbery that stopped Graydon from developing feelings for Elora while he still thought her as part of the palace staff, as the lack of time and being cognizant of how showing interest in someone who might be uncomfortable and not in a position to express it would be actually really shitty of him (it's actually why Elora's relationship with Airk made me a bit uncomfortable, like yeah Airk's not a bad dude and wasn't using Elora at all, but he also showed less awareness about this than I would have liked).

Anyway, there's even further angst potential for Graydon to go through in this kind of scenario. Which would be... fun honestly 🤔

Rewatching Willow and I'm peeved Graydon didn't start making moves until AFTER Willow revealed Elora

Like bro, come on... Bet that's your dad's conditioning right there