"No, never resign. Hope, you must hope. I spent so many months locked in the tower, they can strip anything and everything else off you. Your title, your wealth, your friends, but until they take your life, no one can relinquish your hope but you. Even if you don't know what you're hoping for any more." Bold with the drink she reached for his face, both hands either side of his face, meeting him the eye and being completely intent on him. Perhaps she was making a fool out of herself, but anything to make such a burden bearable.

At that though, she let go of him, looking away completely, quietly for a long while. "I do not expect you too, fear not... but I couldn't do that either to him. Suitors are politics that like to kiss and touch, treason in pretty packages. They're just a pull to -- to keep this army from moving, that Lord from voting, this country from trade to some other region. Then I push them off, because nothing will come between me and my country again." There was a cold vehemence to her words that wasn't usually, she wasn't looking at him, just away, at the far great country only she could see in her mind. This was what she was, raised to be, Queen, a lion's child. "And until I can find a man that respects that in me, I cannot want for one. They are immaterial wishes. Even here, it's still... there. It's changed me. I don't know when, but it has. I could no more stop it, then you could from recording history."