"I would burn the world for you" (OxO Closed)

"Oh–" Arlo quickly stops bouncing. "I'm sorry–" He looks though the glass of the balcony doors to the sleeping figure curled beneath the blankets on the bed. "Is that Bel?" He asks in a loud whisper, pointing to the bed lump inside. "I heard he's nice." The boy almost sobers. "Is he sick like me?"

Almost as quick as his emotion drained, his energy quickly replenishes. "Oh, yeah I don't worry! I'll make you your own crown soon. I think you'd like a blue one. I got pencils back in my room." A few birds roosting on the roof startle Arlo. "Oh. Oh, I forgot. I need to be back in my room before Bernhard notices I'm gone. I'm not supposed to be climbing out of my window anymore but it's just too much fun."

"Well all the doctors say I'm sick. That's why they don't want me on the roof." There are probably other reasons why the nine year old child shouldn't be on the roof of a massive palace. "And I have to take this stupid medicine every morning and it tastes like really sour grass and the doctors technically aren't allowed to let me leave the palace but Sella and the others still sneak me out. My older sister Ianna is sick too but hers is really bad. Sometimes she has to wear the mask for a whole day. My brother Olipher is also sick but he's lucky and he's never coughed up blood." Arlo sticks his bottom lip out in a pout. "My dad and my auntie Dionn were sick too but I think they're both gone now. I don't know if they were too sick or if it was a different reason. That's why Sella's queen now."

"Yeah it's fine!" His tone hardly wavers from its excited rambling. "I do it all the time and I've only fallen off once. But that was when Bernhard scared me and I lost my balance but I landed on a balcony so I didn't fall all the way to the ground." The boy speaks far to casually of his near experience with death. He probably doesn't even understand the concept all too well.

"They could at least make it taste better," Arlo responds, climbing on top of the thin balcony railing. "Maybe put some cherry in there. I love cherries. We try to grow some but the mountains are hard to grow cherries in." With an oomf, Arlo leaps from the railing and latches onto the gutter, using his thin little arms to haul himself back onto the roof. He scrambles around, laying on his stomach to peer over the edge at Nico. "I only sneak on the roof. Sella lets me go to the stables and to the town and to Misses Tate's bakery and to the mines–but she only lets me go a little into the mines. She says that there's dangerous creatures living in the mine and I'm not old enough to fight them yet."

The birds next to him chirp, and Arlo stares at them with a very serious look for a nine year old. "Margie and Peter are telling me that Bernhard is about to get to my room and I'll be in trouble if he finds me on the roof again. I gotta go but will I see you at breakfast, Nico? Sella's not back yet but Loven and the rest of my siblings will be there. They're all really nice. You should bring Bel too. I want to meet him. I heard he paints and writes and plays music and makes candles and all sorts of other things. Maybe he can teach me how to blacksmith. Then I could make myself a hammer. I've always wanted a hammer–" The birds squeal again and Arlo's mouth shuts with a click. "Sorry Nico I really gotta go now. I liked meeting you!" And with that, the boy is standing on the roof and sprinting across the precarious shingles all the way to another wing of the palace.

Nico's voice is nothing but wind behind Arlo as he scrambles across the roof, leaping off one segment to a lower one. He weaves around chimneys and steps expertly over loose panels. The kingdom may be ruled by his older sister, but Arlo's domain is clearly the rooftops. Eventually he disappears from sight, ducking through an open window to his room.

Inside Nico's own room, Bel stirs, reaching over to the other side of the bed to blindly feel around for Nico. When he only comes up with empty and cold sheets, he sits up. Did he hear Nico speaking to someone? Where? The prince blinks the sleep from his eyes as he takes in the room, just as cheesily lavish as he left it the night before. Standing on balcony at the far side of the room is Bel's blond king. His chest relaxes as he locates him. Bel stands, the marble cold beneath his feet. He quickly finds the bathroom and slips on a soft robe and wraps it around himself. "Good morning," he says as he gently opens the balcony door. "How did you sleep?"

Bel takes the offered hand and steps to Nico's side, resting his head on the other's shoulder. The sun is rising over the peaks, the sky pink and lavender with the promise of the new day. It hits the mountains and all of their metals, almost sparkling. Gods, has he missed the Blakkast sunrises. "Did the tonic work?" Bel asks, slightly nervous for the answer.

"Were you talking to someone?" Bel inquires, looking to the neighboring balconies at least ten yards away. Loven had told them the hallway was empty. There are birds on the roof. Had Nico been speaking to birds?

Bel sits up, staring at Nico with wide eyes and a smile. "It did?" He repeats, holding Nico's hand tighter. "Nico, that's amazing! Oh my gods, how are you feeling?" With one hand still entwined with Nico's, Bel brings his other up to squeeze his bicep. Treya's drought worked–it worked and that means Nico can finally sleep uninterrupted by nightmares.

However the mention of an adventurous prince causes Bel to turn his head in slight confusion. "Climbing the roof, you say?" He repeats, leaning forward to get a better look at the top of the castle. Then, he looks over the edge of the balcony and immediately jerks his head back with the vertigo. "We're quite a ways up." Bel takes a moment to cycle through all seven siblings on his mother's side of the family. The youngest two that he knows of are a set of twins, both of them girls. They should be maybe twelve about now. The last Bel saw them, they were only toddlers and Bel was eleven. Maybe his aunt and uncle had an eighth child and he wasn't aware.

"Odd," Bel says, shaking his head to bring himself back to the present. He brings a hand to run through his hair. Oh, right. He was going to restyle it today. "Do you want to come with me back inside? I think there will be a breakfast if we want to try and hit the town before it's mealtime. We need proper clothes."

"Sounds like quite the handful," Bel notes with a grin, shifting to look up at the roof as if he could catch a glimpse of the mysterious little prince who climbs them. He would have to be one of Sella's youngest siblings, perhaps one he's never met before. "I know I'll love him," Bel replies. Who couldn't love a child who sneaks out on rooftops at the crack of dawn.

At the affirmation, Bel smiles and stands, grabbing Nico's hand to help him to his feet. He notes the blanket and the fact that there's nothing underneath. "Did you talk with a child while naked?" He raises an eyebrow, a dimple forming from where he tries not to laugh. "Nicandros Callistar, I cannot believe you." He shakes his head as he laughs, leading them back through the balcony doors and into the room. Their dirty clothes still lay on the bathroom floor, Bels shirt sliced open down the middle from where the doctors had to get to his chest.

Regardless of their condition, Bel still picks them up one by one, handing them back for Nico to carry. "We'll hurry and get dressed and them to the market for new clothes. After will be breakfast and then we can come back here for whatever." A slight mischievous glint flickers in his eyes.

"We probably could?" Bel says, Nico's shirt still hanging from his hand. "The only issue is I don't know how. We could look for a bell or something?" He shrugs and hands Nico his shirt before leading them both to the main room. The room narrows to a hallway as it approaches the door, a long end table with a few vibrant flowers potted atop of it.

Attached to a long chord leading though a small hole in the wall is a silver chime hanging from a small hook. "This might be it?" Bel says, pointing to the small bell.

Bel shrugs in response, reaching up with his free hand to ring the bell. The chime echoes through the room, bouncing off the marble and walls. He sits for a moment as the sound fades, the silence that follows nearly deafening. Bel blinks. "Well, now I guess that we just wait." In the meantime he can brush his teeth and fix his hair. He wonders if Sella has any gold earrings to borrow; Bel gave his up all those weeks ago when he first met Nico.

Bel, hesitant to let him go, drags Nico to the bathroom with him. There are unused toothbrushes laying in one drawer of the excessive vanity. He hands Nico one to use, but only if he wants. Bel makes quick work if his teeth, scrubbing all the blood from his mouth and watching it go down the drain. Right. He needs his medicine soon. However, before he can think much of it, there's a knock at the door.

Quickly rinsing off his toothbrush, Bel finally detaches himself from Nico and scuttles to the door. After peering through the small peephole, he deems it safe and opens the door to show a young woman with black hair and a teal and silver uniform. "Hi," she says, slightly out of breath. "You called?"

The woman looks between Bel and Nico, her eyes wide and her face a little red. From what is the real question. "I– uh, I'm sorry for not introducing myself. I'm Lynn, a housekeeper here. I uh–" She quickly looks over the two men and then to the room behind them.

"Hi–" Bel quickly cuts her rambling off with a friendly smile, finding himself casually leaning against the doorframe. "My fiance and I arrived here yesterday in a haste. We left all of our belongings with our party and they won't be here for another day at least. Do you think you could grab us some proper clothes?" Her face reddens even more at that. Her dark eyes dart to the sides.

"Yes, I can do that–" she clears her throat into a balled fist. "Do you have any measurements I can quickly relay to the seamstress?"

Lynn nods, visibly commiting Nico's size to memory as she looks over his chest. "And you, uh–"

"Bel." A smile and then he rattles off some precise measurements that he's used since he grew into his height at sixteen. Lynn does not move her eyes from Bel's face. After he finishes the short list, Lynn looks to the ceiling to mentally recount the message. Once she has it down, she looks to both of the men with a tight smile before saying her thanks and scuttling off.

"She was awfully nervous," Bel says calmly as he watches her rush past a guard puma posted at the top of the stairs. He laughs and shakes his head, stepping back as Nico closes the door.

"Maybe she's new?" Bel supplies as he grabs Nico's hand again. "Or intimidated by your muscles." A pause. "Or very attracted to them," he adds with a scrunched smirk. He leads them to the massive couch sitting opposite of a fireplace sharing a wall with the balcony. "And while we wait for Lynn to return, I suppose we can tell each other our deepest and darkest secrets."

Bel flops against the couch and brings Nico down with him. "Ill go first," Bel starts in a lighthearted tone. "my favorite animal is a moose." He brings his free hand up to mimic their massive antler.

"I think they have kind eyes," Bel responds, leaning his head against the arm of thr couch. "And they can swim, which is impressive and terrifying." One of the main companions in his favorite bed time story had been a moose, and his mother sewed him a little plush when he was very young. "I saw one once when Val and I went hunting. He was a baby but we knew the mother would be near so we got out of there quickly."

He looks to Nico."That's enough of explaining myself and meese. I want to know something else about you."

"Meese," Bel corrects with a grin because it's clearly the superior plural. Mooses, Meeses, Moosi, Moose. They're all fun and Bel simply does not wish to abide by simple grammar rules this early in the morning.

Bel doubts he knows everything about Nico.He would love to, but there are a few simple things Bel wants. His favorite food, favorite hobby, best childhood memory, best missions, favorite animal, stance on grammar rules. All small, insignificant things that Bel can't wait to learn in the future. "What was his name?" Bel asks, interest piqued at the idea of Nico and a dog. The image in his mind is a sacred one–a smaller version of Nico weaving and darting through trees with a panting dog at his heels.

Bel squirms a little when Nico pinches his thigh, but then laughs as Nico maneuvers him to be at his side. He rests his head against Nico's shoulder and imagines Lucky the dog. "He sounded like a great companion," Bel notes with a soft smile.

"And no, the closest thing to a pet I had was Katya, but she's… well, she's a horse and often just fir utility. She's a wonderful animal, though, and the only one my father would allow." He purses his lips. "Ive always wanted a cat."