The Strangers in the Palace (Closed)(Fantasy)

“I do not want… talking about what occurred is not necessary.”

He brought his hand up over his eyes, and in the darkness his mind brought up a memory of his father. Everyone had always said that they looked alike. The same black hair, the same blue eyes, the same strong jawline. They even had the same type of voice, deep and hushed and colored with that Anvillean accent.

The memory grew more vivid. He could hear his father talking to him in the back of a carriage on one of their trips—he wasn’t sure which—and smell the bitterness of his cologne. His father had been telling a story. Something about women and one of the times he’d visited Muria’s family. Arquis hadn’t been listening. He wished he had; it pained him that his memories weren’t complete.

A cool breeze from outside brought him back to the moment. He lowered his hand and looked to Rinlos, embarrassed despite the fact that he’d probably only zoned out for a few seconds. He wasn’t sure what expression he was wearing. He felt bone tired and much older than he had in a long time, as if by remembering his father he had stolen his years.

"Alright." Rin's voice was gentle and calm. He wasn't going to press Arquis for answers or for stories about his father; it wasn't his place to do so. He himself did not have many memories of his mother; she had died when he was 5 or 6, and even before that he had not seen her often. She hadn't really loved him very much. She had loved the pull it brought her with the king, to have bore him a son, even if the son was a secret. She loved how she could use him as a way to manipulate the king, but she didn't love him. Most of their memories of his mother were of her visiting him, every now and again, and then turning around and making some demand from the king.

Arquis let an uncomfortable silence fall over the room. Clearing his throat, he went to his bedside table and poured himself a glass of water, which he drank slowly. He’d already started to sober up. He drank another cup to reduce the chance of a headache, then set the glass down nervously.

“Rinlos,” he said. He didn’t think it was the first time he’d actually said the musician’s name, but it felt strangely significant nonetheless. “You’re in my room.” It wasn’t accusatory, more curious, like he was just now realizing what that might mean.

Rin blinked at him, cocking his head for just a moment. "Yes, I am." they replied slowly, unsure where Arquis was going with this. "Is that a problem?" he gave a quick smile, taking a step closer to Arquis, a step deeper into the room. This was…slightly unfamiliar territory, if he was honest. Usually he was on at least semi-even ground, normally, with whoever he was interacting with. Out wandering as a bard, everyone was a commoner and everyone treated each other the same. Back home, as the king's "nephew" he held a higher rank than most, and they were the ones bowing to him. This sort of thing, where he was, for all intents and purposes, the lower rank? It felt strange and unfamiliar.

He didn’t answer for a lengthy moment, instead shifting from one foot to the other. A thin patch of moonlight appeared on his right cheekbone, likely reflected off the glass of the balcony doors. His mouth twisted slightly to the side as he registered the musician’s step forward.

“It is nighttime, and we are alone in my room.” Subconsciously, his hand rubbed over his exposed neck, then ran down to try and close his shirt collar. He shivered. This time it was from nerves, not the cold. “If I have, ah, misled you in any way…”

Rin's eyes flickered slightly. "Oh. Yes. That. I did not see anything you had said as, ah, sexual advances, if you were worried I came here expecting that. I did not come here with that in mind." Not that he would necessarily be averse to it, he just had come with a conversation in mind, and maybe finding out a bit more about Arquis and his family, but not sex or romance or anything of the sort.

The tension bled from his shoulders and he sighed, relieved. His hand strayed back to his forehead, where it pushed that stubborn lock of hair out of his face again.

“That is good to hear. I did not wish to disappoint, and as host it is required that I, ah, assist you with any issue that you might encounter, but I’m afraid I’m rather tired tonight.”

Rin suddenly wondered whether that was meant as a double entendre or not; it certainly came across as one. "Of course." he replied, inclining his head. "If you're tired, I can leave if you would prefer it." he added after a moment, shooting Arquis a soft, quick smile.

He tilted his head to one side as if in deep thought. That bright patch of moonlight was now on his neck, dipping into his collarbones whenever he took a deep breath.

“No, there is no need for you to leave, not unless you so desire. It isn’t that type of tired,” he said after a moment. The trees rustled in the forest beyond the balcony doors, and the breeze that had stirred them blew gently into the room. Something fluttered inside. He walked to it, stooped, and tenderly scooped it up. It was a single flower, the kind that blossomed in the gardens after sunset. The petals actually glowed golden orange.

He walked back around his harp with the flower cupped in his palm and offered it to Rinlos. “I imagine you haven’t had the chance to see very much of these yet. It is gorgeous, isn’t it?”

Rin carefully took the flower, looking at it and smiling a little. "It's lovely." he agreed, looking at Arquis and then down at the flower again. "I've never seen these before, are they a local thing?" he gently ran a finger along one petal, taking in the soft glow that emanated from the petals. "Or are they just so exotic and far-away that I simply have never before encountered them?"

Arquis watched quietly as the musician studied the flower. His mind tried to memorize everything—the reflection of the orange glow in their eyes and the dark blue shadows it created in the areas it couldn’t reach. The sight made warmth bloom in his chest, and he realized that he was smiling.

“They are a local specialty, but they only grow at night. They tend to die in the winter, though they always come back in the springtime.” He moved closer to Rinlos and delicately pressed his thumb in the spongy center of the flower. The glow in each of the petals raced from their tips down into the middle, turning his finger a vibrant red, before exploding outwards in a puff of sparkling pollen. It fell down around him like a drizzle of shining glitter.

He couldn’t hold back his laughter. The last time he’d done that had been ages ago; the flowers were so commonplace that he forgot how wonderful they were.

“I should have warned you,” he said once he caught his breath. All the smiling was making his mouth hurt. “Are you alright? Not too startled, I hope.”

Rin jerked very faintly at the puff of pollen, and then he started to laugh too, looking over at Arquis with that smile still on his face. "A warning would have been nice, but it's…that was amazing." he carefully set the flower aside, dusting off his pollen-covered hands on his pants. "What are they called?" he asked. Perhaps he could send some seeds home to Ari to plant. The other would find them quite amusing. "And could I have some seeds to send to a friend?"

He shook the glowing pollen from his dark hair wildly. The combination of his lopsided grin, flushed cheeks, and messy locks probably made him look wild; he felt young like he hadn’t in years, and he wondered if it showed.

“They have a few different names, depending on who you ask. The gardeners would refer to them as aphavluin lossis, which roughly translates to the flower of lost love. But nobody else refers to them that, not really. Most people prefer to call them flaming primulas. I’ll have you a packet of their seeds by the morning, but, ah, can I ask who you’re sending them to?”

"His name is Ari Montelbano, he's a good friend of mine." he replied. He couldn't give too many details without raising questions of how he knew a Kevran nobleman so well. Sure, he was Kevran, but there was a difference between a Kevran noble and a Kevran commoner, and his alias as a bard was that of a commoner. There wasn't a real reason for him to know a nobleman. If Arquis knew who Ari was, then Rin would have to come up with some sort of cover story as to why he knew Ari.

“Montelbano?” Arquis furrowed his brow, trying to recall why the name sounded familiar. He didn’t know very many people from Kevra. That left historical figures and nobility. But Rinlos was a traveling bard, not royalty, so he’d have no reason to know the latter.

Besides, he didn’t care about the specific identity of the person as much as he did the nature of their relationship to the musician. A good friend could mean a lot of things. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him that the friend might be something more, but it made him toy with his hands, pinching the fabric around his fingers one by one. He hoped it looked like he was cleaning the pollen off, but he doubted it.

“Do you miss him?” It wasn’t what he wanted to ask, but he figured it would do the trick.

"Yes, but we exchange letters. His magic enables us to send messages back and forth without the letters being forwarded for months because of how often I move around." Rin explained. He and Ari were only friends; they had never been interested in each other like that. Ari enjoyed flowers, though, and Rin sent him flowers whenever he found any that they enjoyed.

“It doesn’t sound as if you visit him often. Is there a reason why? You wouldn’t necessarily have to interact with your father or his wife on the way to see your friend, I imagine, though I apologize if I’m incorrect.” Arquis paused, thinking over the clues he’d gathered about the bard’s life. The fact that they regularly exchanged letters made him a little jealous. He wondered whether it was because he himself lacked a close friend—he couldn’t even get along with his sisters, and they all lived together—or whether he was jealous of Ari. Though that wouldn’t make sense. Why would he be jealous of a stranger? Was he jealous that he received gifts, or was it something else? The fact that he didn’t know was worrying.

"It is a long distance, and he lives near my father and his wife. It would be…awkward, to go see him and not see my father." Rin replied slowly. He could not fully explain it without explaining everything, and he could not do that. "Plus there are a few other, ah…complications." one being the man he had gotten into a relationship with. If it could be called that. Rin had been groomed as a teenager and abused, and everyone had turned the other way. Ari had tried to help, but there hadn't been anything Ari could do to help.

“Complications?” His flippant, youthful air dropped, and he examined the musician’s face carefully. There was something about their tone that set alarm bells off in his head. He anxiously plucked at the wristband of one glove and shuffled his feet.

“A few moments ago,” he began, making his voice as soft and kind as possible, “you offered to talk with me about my father. I would like to extend the offer back to you. If there is anything weighing on you, Rinlos, then I would be more than glad to assist you with it.”

Rin blinked at him, shaking their head faintly. "It, ah, is not a pleasant topic and I would not want to burden you with it." They replied, eyes flickering away before returning to Arquis again. "We can talk of other, more pleasant things." He didn't wish to tell Arquis, knowing the nobleman would look at him differently afterwards.

“You would not be burdening me, I assure you, and we do not only have to discuss pleasant things. But I understand if you do not wish to talk about it. Sometimes it can be hard to, ah, trust others with painful memories. They have a tendency to overwhelm.”

Somebody outside began to hum an unfamiliar tune. Arquis tilted his head backwards and let the cool night air wash over his skin. It was getting late, and he knew if they didn’t get to bed soon then they’d be exhausted for the party. But he didn’t want to end the conversation at such a place.

Rin took a deep breath. "It is not…it does not matter." They said slowly, looking over at Arquis. "And I would rather not speak of it right now, and mar this moment of time with…such things." He looked down at his hands for a moment, then up at Arquis.

“We do not have to speak of it, then. Know, however, that it does matter if it is upsetting you. As you said of my father, it is not insignificant just because it occurred in the past.”

His eyes stayed on Rinlos as he walked over to the balcony doors and shut them. He went next to his bedside table, picked up the tray of matchsticks, and struck a match. Smoke curled around his face as he bent to light several candles. Most were unscented—the kind used for lighting rather than pleasure—but there was a cream one that smelled of champagne and honey. He lit it last and blew out the match, which had burnt down to his fingertips.

“You suggested that we talk of something else,” he said, heart beating fast again. A flush ran up his neck and reddened his cheeks. “I have an idea, if you’re not too weary.”

Rin nodded faintly, then tipped his head at Arquis, eyes flickering to the candles before running over the nobleman, taking in the blushing young man before them. "And what would that be?" he asked, taking a step closer, but doing his best not to get too close or seem like he wanted something Arquis did not want to give. It was fine, that they would not do anything of the sort together; Rin did not mind in the least.

(sorry if my phrasing is a bit weird; I'm working on my NaNo project rn and I get very wordy lmao)

(you’re good! sometimes that happens to me when I write essays, I start to speak all weird lol)

Arquis moved around Rinlos to his wardrobe. He leant forward until the sleeves of shirts brushed his temples, then lifted something out from behind a pyramid of glove boxes. It was a rectangular box with a squished wax stamp on the lid. He carefully brought it to his bed and gingerly lifted the top. Inside was a stack of papers divided with thin sheets of glass.

His hands shook as he picked up the top paper and flipped it around. On the other side was a watercolor painting of a village at night. The sky was a dark navy, and the buildings and sidewalks were all tinted light blue. There was a brightly glowing lantern off to the right that illuminated a tangle of ivy clinging to a bakery.

He set that painting onto his bed and took out another. This one was showed a log settling into the floor of a forest. The wood looked damp though not yet rotting. Poking out of the end of it was the curly tail of an animal; its yellow eye peeped through a small hole in the bark.

There were over twenty paintings in total. He laid them out one by one, hands still trembling, and then took a big step back.

“As an artist, I thought you might… I… I do not know. Perhaps this was silly.”

(lmao yeah)

Rin moved over to the bed, looking down at the paintings, but not touching them. "Did you paint these?" he asked quietly, looking over at Arquis as he spoke, then looking at the paintings again. "They are lovely." he still did not know whether it would be acceptable to address Arquis by his given name, and so continued to avoid it, even though he wished to use it. He smiled a little, leaning closer to get a better look.

“I did. Thank you,” he said, genuinely touched. “I haven’t shown them to anyone but my old painting tutor.”

He remembered the older woman fondly. She was a snappy, stubborn lady with nearly a dozen bad habits: smoking, swearing, sleeping late, and slouching were her most common, but she told him once in private that she also gambled like a fiend. She was also perhaps the most honest person he’d ever met, even more honest than Quirisa or Marsiquia. He wouldn’t have gotten better without her there to push him; his future art tutors were all too soft, praising him for mistakes just to get on Muria’s good side. One of them, he’d been convinced, had wanted to marry her—he’d moved their lessons later in the day on several occasions just to see her on her way to the tea room.

He picked one up and held it out to Rinlos. The image was of a tiny waterfall that spilled out into a puddle of a pond. The water was frozen over, and snow had bunched up around the edges like a blanket pushed to the end of a bed. Glimmering ice stiffened the grass nearby; he could remember the crunch it had made as he stepped through it.

“This one is from last winter. It is always pretty in the fall, but the winters are gorgeous. I am not supposed to go out much in the cold, but I just had to so that I could paint this scene.”

He carefully took the painting that Arquis had held out. He wanted to ask why Arquis wasn't allowed to go out in the cold, but held his tongue for the time being. "It is lovely." he said again, taking in the images. "You have talent." he looked over at Arquis again, smiling a little bit. "You should show these to more people, they're wonderful. I'm honored that you showed them to me."

He smiled back, his face flushed a rosy pink. “That is very kind of you to say, but I’m afraid I simply cannot share them. It would be odd for a host to bluntly show off their work, and I do not have the ability to travel and sell them.”

An idea came over him. He began to nudge a few into a pile. One was a scene of the flaming primulas in their garden at night. Another was of the nearby village in the springtime. There were vibrant blooms growing on buildings and young green weeds sprouting from cracks in the ground. He put in two of different seasonal forest scenes, one that was done from his balcony in the summer, and one of the Palace in the winter, then brought them to his wardrobe to wrap them with a spare tie.

“For you,” he said upon his return, passing them to Rinlos. “You cannot stay long, so perhaps these will give you a taste of how beautiful the area can be at different times in the year.”

Rin took them carefully. "I can't take these." he said softly. "They would only lay in my pack and get damaged from weather or from simple wear and tear." he gave Arquis a soft smile. "I'm sorry. I would love to, but I really and truly cannot." he held them carefully, wishing he could bring them, but knowing the paintings would only get damaged and broken if he put them into his pack.