"The idea of propagating one's name through descendants was one that only appeared relatively recently, when people started attaching more importance to names than merely something to identify one another with.

When the idea started to take hold, it was mostly widespread amongst those that placed themselves above others, amongst the so called kings and nobles, who justified their rule every which way, from saying that deities themselves had chosen them to more honest admittance that they simply have the biggest stick to whack others with. It is quite a folly of mortals to get attached to such meaningless things, yet on the other hand, given their ephemeral lives, I sort of understand why they did so." - Nec Aarin, The Bone Lord.

As awkward as it sounded, Aideen was the first woman who got close to Artair without actively pursuing him or trying to get his attention. Even with his issues with being a mongrel, his mere circumstance of birth had caused many to approach him with ulterior motives when he was younger, something his own mother had encouraged to further her own ambitions.

Even after they discovered that he was incapable of siring children, some still pursued him - often just daughters of rich merchants of lower nobles trying to gain a connection to the Dux's house - which caused him to view relationships with trepidation. They had all just wanted him for what he was born into, and never for who he was as a person.

Aideen was different. By now, his status - be it as the son of a Dux in the now fractured warring empire or as Myrddin's grandson - was utterly irrelevant to her. If anyone were to accuse one of them of approaching the other for status, they would be accusing him of that, since Aideen was pretty much the Bone Lord's favorite "grandchild", as tenuous as that status means.

She was simply comfortable with his presence, and since she is an unliving herself, his research was something they could converse about for hours since both of them have a vested interest in it. More than a few times they had forgotten the time as they were too deep into their chats and only stopped when one of them realized that the hour had become way later than they expected.

It was not a physical attraction he felt towards her. As a therian his sense of beauty differed quite a lot from her as a human. One of his stepmothers, the mother of his youngest half siblings, a Jarl's third daughter from the eastern Jarldoms had said that she was considered quite ugly in her homeland, whereas to Artair she had looked quite decent for a human, with stark features that stood out, though he still found the lack of fur an oddity.

On the other hand, Aideen had much softer features in comparison. It was not in line with therian aesthetics, though if he recalled right by human considerations she would be considered a beauty. Even her scent, which was more of a light floral fragrance instead of the more pungent smells most humans seem to have - probably something to do with her being an unliving - was contrary to how therians preferred a stronger musk which indicated one's fertility and strength.

Even if he didn't find her conventionally attractive, something about her makes him feel drawn to her. He felt comfortable in her presence, and the way she just treated him like an ordinary person, without ulterior motives or plots, just seeing him as who he is, was a refreshing breeze after so long.

He knows she would not care about his status and whatnot. Her being a human and not a therian, she would not balk at him for being a thrice-mixed mongrel either like most therians in the empire would. Neither would she look down on him being unable to sire a child… as he knew that the unliving also shared that ailment. Something those unliving with loved ones had found out quickly and come to accept over these years.

Probably those factors combined together and allowed him to feel comfortable in her presence as it was. He knew that she likely didn't find him attractive the same way he can't really appreciate human standards of beauty. By therian standards his strong features and powerful build would be considered attractive. His non-therian stepmothers on the other hand just said that at first they found his father - who looked much like him other than fur coloration - intimidating and fearsome instead.

Over the past few months, he realized that he valued those moments he spent in her presence, and found himself yearning for more, but dared not push further in fear that she would reject him instead. So he just basked in her presence whenever he managed to instead. He also noticed that she seemed to have developed some attraction to him, yet he dared not act on it in fear that he had just imagined it.

In the end, he just found comfort and happiness in the closeness and slowly deepening bond they shared, as they met with each other more often and spent more time together. At first he only consulted her occasionally for research related questions, maybe once a week or so.

Later on they met more often, at times just because they coincidentally ran into each other in town, then sat down for a chat or a meal together. These days he looked for her every two or three days actively, and was glad that she didn't seem to mind spending more time with him.

He found that he could stop thinking about his worries when he was with her, the largest of which he had in a way inherited from his mother. While the way his mother had tried to use him to further her own ambitions had been something he grew to dislike, he had never truly hated her, for no matter what, she was the one who gave birth to him. Instead, her last worry that she had often mumbled on her deathbed was a somewhat valid one. Her mother had never managed to have other children, and from his grandfather he also learned that he never had other children besides his mother. All this left him as the last member of their bloodline, with no way to further propagate it, an issue that had often haunted his sleep before.

While the issue itself remained, he found that he could temporarily stop worrying about it while he was in her presence.