<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ff99">"You drive a hard bargain," he teased back, but loaded his own spoon and -- with due ceremony -- took a bite.  Flavor exploded in his mouth -- he'd forgotten how talented the Palace cooks were.  Too, he suspected they were going above and beyond to attempt to coax their Queen into eating -- he was not the only loyal servant to her.<br/>
<br/>
Just, perhaps, the most loyal.  Over the stew, Cameron let his eyes meet Gwen's.  Things he daren't say and did not particularly like to even think loudly hovered there -- how beautiful she had become, how ethereal in her grief.  How much he'd treasured her as a child, and wanted to treasure her again.  His bone-deep devotion to her personally... not to the Crown, though his oath bound his life there, but to Gwendolyn Amauri.  How lonely he'd been in the years he'd been gone, separated from his friends and the ones he'd considered family, and how desperately glad he was to be home.<br/>
<br/>
"Eat," Cameron urged -- and all of the things he did not say remained unsaid. </span></span>