Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a dreary morning. The dark cast of night had faded to a dull pale gray with little variation, like a dusty wall. Light enough to tell it was daytime, uniform enough to not portend a storm. The sky hardly looked like it had enough ambition to rain, though it tried anyway, producing more of a mist than a drizzle.

She couldn’t shake the disappointment that a long time ago, she would have worried her hair would frizz in the humidity. Now she felt nothing instead. She dragged herself out of bed and sat at her vanity, forcing herself to brush the strands anyway. A small ritual of defiance. The rebellion against apathy itself gave her the satisfaction she missed, rather than the resulting hairstyle.

Marcille had higher expectations for the weather, though it worked out conveniently. The misting did offer her a reason to wear a hood.

She pulled out a simple but well-constructed blue cloak and tossed it on her bed, then picked out a blouse and skirt that could pass for casual. She did not have much in the casual section of her wardrobe anymore. She’d have to fix that eventually, but that would have to be a different outing. As Court Mage, Marcille was famous enough to be recognized by face alone, but royal tailoring would make her stand out like a sore thumb.

There weren’t any meetings planned for this morning, or at least none that required her presence. She had technically reserved the first few hours of the day to be locked away in her lab, but she was sufficiently caught up on her current projects that they could be neglected for now. Which meant she was free to do as she pleased. Which meant she was free to escape the castle without informing the guards first, as long as she was sneaky about it.

She’d already planned her route - she’d leave her room, pretend as though she was going to breakfast, pass through the private breakfast nook and down the service stairwell, then pass through the long lines of cooks focused on prepping for the next meal, and then - bam - she would slip out a side exit that emptied out to rows of smoke houses and roasting pits. From there, she could make her way around to relatively less guarded exits. The castle walls hid doors small enough an invading army would have to enter single file, mostly used by employees coming and going, and occasionally small deliveries. These areas were guarded by foot patrols that passed frequently, but not too frequently, and watched by archers in the wall’s towers. She made her way through without obstacles, sending quick and slightly guilty smiles to the prep cooks who pressed closer to their tables to let her pass. She slipped out the castle, and past the castle walls.

Nobody would be the wiser that the Court Mage was out for some much needed retail therapy.

Very specific retail therapy.

A type she had to do alone.

She’d researched to find The Many Maids of Lady Margot, pouring first through the business licenses to find booksellers, then poking around to the unlisted booksellers, then narrowing down which of those booksellers carried or could import Elvish books, and then she had to work up the courage to ask for the title from one of them, and she had to pray the bookseller would procure it for her without asking any questions. She’d first heard the title in passing between Otta and Cythis during the seven-day feast, but when an enterprising logging maven’s daughter mentioned the series at the Kingdom’s last ball, in an attempted flirtation Marcille would otherwise rather forget, her curiosity was piqued.

The story was straightforwardly indicated by the title. The books were about the relationship between the Lady Margot and her maids. Maids, and other maidens that came into her life. Maids and maidens that Lady Margot inevitably seduced. Her understanding was that the series was explicit lesbian pornography couched in historical fiction.

She’d ordered two copies of the complete series, just in case one was damaged in transit.

Small puddles had formed on the street by the time Marcille reached the shop. She was two minutes shy of their opening hours, so she rocked back and forth on her heels at the door, watching caravans and carts and horses pass on the main road. It still surprised her, how similar this part of the capital looked to the commercial section of the once-island. In those first days, the area had grown in tendrils, connecting the castle to the only area that had been above the surface over the past thousand years. The earliest constructed sections used the same imported brick the island had, before Melini established its own brickworking industry. Sometimes when she snuck out, Marcille thought, up on her toes, it didn’t seem any different than passing a normal day on the island. Almost like the Red Dragon had never swallowed Falin in the first place. Almost like she wasn’t shirking her obligations as a Court Mage to buy pornography. Marcille rocked back on her heels. Almost. In seven hundred years time, she hoped she’d still have that same feeling, every once in a while. Maybe by then there would be more commercially accessible girl-on-girl novellas. Maybe by then she would even have the guts to order them to the castle directly.

The bookshop’s door swung open, accompanied by a light bellchime. “Good morning!” said the shopkeep, a cheery-faced, full-figured tallman girl dotted with freckles. “Please come in! The weather is dreadful!”

Marcille ducked inside and shook her dripping cloak in the doorway with an apologetic smile. “Thank you! I’m sorry to catch you right at the hour, but I’ve been waiting for an overseas delivery, and I’m impatient to read it now that it’s here,” she said. Impatient was certainly one word for how she was feeling. Marcille cleared her throat. “Would you have a moment to retrieve it for me?”

The shopkeep stepped behind the register and retrieved a thick binder. “Of course, I understand completely! Let me just -” she paused. “OH! Yes, of course. We’ve had a few foreign orders arrive this week, but, um…” The shopkeep glanced at the side of Marcille’s head, where her ears poked against her hood. “Not to be presumptuous, but there was one in Elvish, from the North Central continent, that came in yesterday. Would -”

“Yes!” Marcille said. “That one!”

"Two anthology copies of The Many Maids of Lady Margot?” asked the shopkeep.

It was her job, Marcille reminded herself, for the shopkeep to confirm orders from customers. There was nothing weird about this at all. It was just a title. One that wasn't even that revealing. Marcille cleared her throat again. “Yes.”

“I’ll fetch them for you right away! Our default packaging is discreet, but we have options available for gift wrapping as well, if you’d prefer.” She grabbed each side of her skirt, in contemplation of a curtsey, but abandoned the idea, clapping her hands instead. “I’ll be just a moment!”

Marcille nodded, and the shopkeep scampered away to another section of the store.

Discreet packaging?

Marcille turned to look at the tall rows of books. There was quite the selection in here, she thought. Books were an expensive endeavor, as businesses go. A bookshop was a sign of prosperity for an area, let alone multiple bookshops. Melini was doing well. All their hard work was paying off. Marcille ran a hand along the closest shelf, skimming the titles.

An Eight-Legged Secret,

In Deep,

Tangled Up in You,

The shelf had a small label: “Aquatic.”

What kind of theme was that?

She pulled a random book from the selection and flipped through -

                             Leda shuddered as the cold, wet tentacle coiled upwards around her pale thigh, its suckers leaving a trail of bruising pleasure. She gasped as the tip slid between the cleft of her virgin-

Marcille immediately shelved the book and opened another. And another. And another - and without fail, no matter where she opened the story, she’d find some form of intercourse within the next few pages. Marcille scanned from shelf to shelf, and there was a category for just about everything, in alphabetical order, no less - bugs and insects, corpses, doppelgangers, eggs and egg laying…

Good thing she wasn’t planning to stay here very long. With every other fetish they had, she half expected there to be dedicated homosexual sections. May as well check. She approached the “L” area, and there were labels for lamias, love potions, lumberjacks (wasn’t that just a normal job?), and lycanthropes, but there was no “lesbian” in sight.

Maybe it was better that homosexuality wasn't lumped in with the rest of this stuff. Given the broad range of categories, homosexual romances probably ended up somewhere among the stories about corpses and love potions…

She moved along to the second, connected room. Larger signs labeled each half of the room - half of the books were under “gay”, the other half under “lesbian".

I don’t know what I expected, she thought.

She followed the direction of the shopkeep to a set of floor-to-ceiling curtains. There were sounds of rustling behind them. Marcille placed her back against the wall and peeked behind the edge of one curtain.

The shopkeep was standing on her tiptoes at the top of a stool, reaching for a package on a high shelf. The stool looked a little unstable, but well, if she wanted help, she could ask for it. There was another full room’s worth of books in here - assuming books were all that was in the large crates that lined the back of the room. They must do book repairs, she thought, scanning the long desk just past the curtain. There were binding materials and leather scraps, ribbons and pressed paper…

Huh, she thought, glancing at a pile of journals. Didn’t see those for sale. They were separated into three different colors - a pinkish white, a brighter pink, and a purplish blue. They looked cute, even if they were small and a bit rustic, but they also looked pretty flimsy, and definitely didn’t have enough pages to suit something for her needs. Unlike most journals for sale, though, the covers already had writing on the cover.

Given the rest of the selection here, it was probably something weird, but… The shopkeep was still failing to reach her shelf, so Marcille stuck an arm through the curtain and grabbed one of the bright pink journals. No harm in a little snooping -

King Laios x Lady Marcille, vol. XVI

What the hell was this?

Laios? And her?

Multiple volumes?

What on earth was the “x” for?

Oh no.

She’d heard that abroad there were independent spinoff works of the Dalatian Clan series, and people would come together at small but lucrative events to sell and swap stories. Some placed the characters in a different time period, or changed their race, or wrote sequels. Some of them were stories focused on individual characters, and others still about couples, canonical and speculative - And those … those couples were denoted by the characters' names, separated by an “x”.

“Oh my god,” she whispered.

Marcille reached and grabbed the top journals of the other stack-

The whitish one read King Laios x Reader, vol. XX. And the purplish one-

The purplish one was-

Oh, no way.

The shopkeep leaned forward just enough to knock the package down into her arms. “Got it! I’ll be out in one moment,” the shopkeep called over her shoulder. She paused when Marcille met her eye. “Ah, this area is for employees only, Miss -”

Then she looked down at Marcille’s hands. The shopkeep gasped and nearly tripped off the stool. “Oh! Oh my, um…"

“Are you, um … do you sell these?” Marcille asked, glancing between the shopkeep and the stack of journals.

Her face had gone sheet white. “Um…” she said, playing with the brown paper corners of Marcille’s delivery. “Yes, but…. Um… They’re not for display, I promise you. They are only available if a customer knows to ask for them…”

“And … people buy them?”

“My Lady,” she said, offering a one handed curtsey. “I assumed you didn’t want to be recognized, but …” She dipped into another curtsey, lower this time. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I assure you, it’s nothing nefarious. The position of our store, as you can imagine, is to encourage and support authors that may write, um, unconventional romances…”

Unconventional was one way to phrase it, even if Marcille expected the stories to be far off any reality of - god forbid - Laios’s yet undiscovered but likely horrific methods of flirting. But did people really think she was shacking up with Laios? Or even… She looked down at the purplish journal -

King Laios x Ser Kabru, vol. VIII.

As if.

“I understand if you would choose to confiscate them all, but please be merciful, My Lady!” The shopkeep held the package out to her with both hands, head bowed. “It is only a hobby, shared between friends.”

What the hell was she supposed to do? She’d never so much as issued a fine before. What was the protocol in a situation like this? She was basically the top of the ladder in the kingdom. She could do whatever she wanted. She should have SOME idea of what she was supposed to do right now.

On one hand, it was completely insane that even one volume full of romances between Laios and anyone else existed. But what was the appropriate reaction for a Court Mage in this scenario? Should she confiscate the whole pile? What the hell would she do with all of them?

“I’ll take one copy of each,” she said.

Chapter Text

His door was tucked away into the castle walls, one of many nearly forgotten rooms in the once-neglected castle. The hall was difficult to find, narrow, damp, cold, and generally unpleasant. The room connected with the door, Kabru had explained to her, was originally intended for the rotating King’s guard to sleep and store equipment. An essential little spot to keep additional weapons and additional guards, should a threat ever unexpectedly make its way to the King’s chambers above, he said. It was never intended for permanent occupancy. Nowadays, the remaining guards without similar temporary posts elsewhere in the castle stayed in the main guard tower in the bailey. Back then she’d told him it was hardly necessary to choose such a miserable spot for himself, when plush-lined walls with gold trappings sat empty, but he’d insisted on his selection anyway. Marcille knocked.

A chair squeaked across the stone, and footsteps followed. A short pause, then the door opened and Kabru emerged, half-closing the door behind him. “Lady Marcille! To what do I owe this pleasure?” He smiled, head tilted, eyes sparkling as much as the lighting allowed.

Marcille, like Kabru’s companions before her, had become thoroughly inoculated to this maneuver designed to keep intruders away from his room. “Oh, cut it out and let me in, will you?” Marcille twirled her staff. “This hallway gives me the creeps.”

“As you wish,” he said, swinging the door open just far enough to let her through. It was about as far as the door could open at all, before it hit resistance from the pile of laundry behind it.

“Are you ever going to let a maid in here?” Marcille asked.

“Around sensitive documents? I couldn’t!”

It sounded like a joke, and it was intended to sound like a joke, except she knew that it wasn’t. Long ago, Kabru had suggested employees granted access to any court member’s chambers should preferably be illiterate - though literacy among the population shouldn’t be anything but encouraged, of course! It could even be part of an initiative - it was just something to consider, as a security measure - maybe they could hire dyslexics, instead? 

Marcille scrunched her nose up at the memory. Sometimes Kabru gave her the creeps, too. 

Kabru cleared off a pile of books from his spare chair before taking his own seat. He gestured for her to join him. “So, what brings you here?”

Social as he was, Marcille knew Kabru loathed to expose his perpetually unkempt quarters and was eager for her to leave. But she wasn’t going to try to have this conversation in the course of his normal working day, where he spent most hours in the office he shared with Yaad. Cornering him like this was her best and most discreet option. She sat, and squirmed, and twirled Ambrosia. Her sleeve pocket felt heavier as Kabru’s gaze upon her intensified.

She’d practiced her opening remarks a few times in the bathroom mirror but the effort was instantly wasted. The awkwardness of the whole thing was sinking in, and words left her.

He waited, with an easy smile.

“Marcille?”

She absolutely did not want to have this conversation right now, or ever. Maybe he would figure out exactly why she was sitting here through osmosis or something instead. He seemed focused enough for it. Pleasant. Neutral. Unblinking. 

God, this is why they’d promised him first crack at torturing prisoners. The opportunity hadn’t come up yet - maybe that’s why he looked like he was ready to start torturing her right now, in his own, very specific way, undetectable to the untrained eye. As if he wasn’t doing anything at all. Nobody would even notice it was happening, if it wasn’t happening to them.

The longer he stared, the more nauseous she felt. 

He could be so creepy.

“I don’t have all day.”

“Um,” she said, pulling Ambrosia into the crook of her arm to twiddle her thumbs instead. “So there’s this thing …”

“Go on,” he said.

She might as well just get on with it. Marcille took in a deep breath and drew out the journals from her sleeve. “I was browsing a book shop in town the other day, and I found some… surprising publications.” She placed the little stack on the desk between them, with the purplish one on top. The main feature. 

She watched as Kabru looked from her, to the stack, and back to her again. “Oh, yes. Fascinating. Is that all?”

“Is that all?” Marcille repeated, frowning. “I - What do you mean, ‘is that all?' Did you know about these?”

“Ah, one moment -” Kabru pulled a keyring from his tunic. He reached down and opened a drawer, then used the key to open a drawer within the drawer. He grabbed a handful of similarly crafted journals, and tossed them on the table. “I’ve amassed a small collection. They’ve been selling these in for the past, oh - half a year or so? Would you like to borrow any?”

Borrow any? The thought sent a shiver up her spine. Marcille shook her head. “Um, no.”

Kabru tsked. “A shame. Did you read any of them? Some of these auteurs have quite the imagination. They’re no Dalatian Clan, but there are a few multi-part series, which – ”

“You’re not worried about this?” Marcille interrupted. In a way, the journals, handwritten and handcrafted as they were, represented strange and deeply personal thought patterns of a human mind. Which, she realized, probably did fascinate him, in some similarly disturbing way. She glanced up at his ‘network’ above his desk, that endless and ever growing log he kept of everyone in the castle, every dignitary that had visited and many who hadn’t, every fruit vendor in town and all of their children, and so on and so forth. The bookshop owner and the shopkeep were probably there somewhere, too. Kabru could probably spend hours speculating on potential authors. Marcille mentally kicked herself. Of course, she thought miserably, of course he’s eating this up. “They’re, well. I guess scandalous is the word. You’re not concerned this stuff might start rumors about us?”

Kabru tapped one of the journals strewn about on his desk. “Rumors? Once people start writing informal but regularly published works about you and I, let’s call it ‘getting to know’ our good King, there are already rumors.” Marcille frowned. Fantastic. “These are evidence of existing rumors, not fodder itself. His Majesty is young and unmarried. It’s natural for people to daydream about their chances with a royal, especially one who has been so open about associating with every echelon and race society has to offer. Imagine yourself in the shoes of a young woman of meager income, who, statistically, has had a good chance of taking in the sight of King Laios in public, unburdened by the usual royal dissociation from the common man, believing that one day he could spot her amongst the crowd-”

Marcille was starting to regret this visit. “He doesn’t really go out like that anymore.”

“But he used to! And that made him seem attainable. And to that point,” he tapped another journal - King Laios x Lady Marcille vol. XII - “the same principle of attainability applies to any fantasies about the King in a relationship with you or I. For example, you’re a half-elf, and a member of the court. I’d imagine that is significant to mixed-race people, or at least non-tallmen, who would want to envision themselves as a future Queen or consort. It shows that he does not possess the none-too-rare biases about mixed-race people that would prevent him from elevating anyone to a high station on the basis of their race alone. To have an elf as a Court Mage is a status symbol for short-lived races; smaller and less wealthy fiefdoms tend to hire gnomes. Half-elves, though rarer, would be considered less distinguished, I’m sorry to say. Optics wise, a pure-blooded elf mage would be the expectation for the first true tallman kingdom in a thousand years, and he’s defied that expectation by choosing you. Therefore, a non-tallman might believe they could have a chance with him because if there’s a mixed-race member of court, why would the King object to a relationship where the product would result in a mixed-race child?”

“Okay, I get it!” This was starting to feel gross. That covered the appeal of someone envisioning her with Laios, which, again gross, but - “so what about you?”

“A similar idea,” he said, and ran a finger along a ribbon binding King Laios x Ser Kabru, vol. IV . “If someone thinks a foreigner or a man could seduce a King, why not them? It’s all related to the fantasy of achieving a sense of equality with someone else beyond their station.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, all of us are foreign here, except Yaad and the Golden City people. This continent didn’t even exist a few years ago.”

“The Northern continent isn’t that far away.” Kabru held up one hand and pointed to it with the other. “And the fact is I look foreign.”

“Psychology of it all aside, what about, you know… actual rumors. Do people really think that Laios and I are…” She made a face, rather than having to actually say it out loud.

“Well, yes, I’m sure they do-”

“Ew.”

“Not in the castle, though, I assure you. You haven’t chosen to publicize your engagement with Falin yet -”

“We’re not announcing it until we’ve planned the wedding!”

“Of course, of course, I’m just saying - I’ve already given you the appeal, and you two are close, you are his chosen Court Mage, you are regularly seen together in public, and you were adventurers together before all of that. Why wouldn’t people assume your primary motivation in joining the Toudens’ party was to get closer to the dashing older brother of your childhood friend -”

Marcille shrieked, hitting Kabru square in the chest with her staff. “STOP!”

Kabru only laughed, interspersed with coughing. “You asked,” he said, his voice hoarse from impact to his lungs. 

“Fine! So what are you doing to give everyone the impression you’re sleeping with Laios?”

Kabru cleared his throat, rubbing the sore spot on his chest with the heel of his hand. “Me? Well, as far as I’m aware, he has no history of romantic relationships with women - or anyone, for that matter. At public forums, I stand next to him and assist him. Not to brag, but I’ve been called handsome before. Speculation has been started on less.”

“I think you’re enjoying this a bit too much,” Marcille sighed. She sunk back into her chair, tapping herself on the head with her staff. This was all ridiculous, and giving her a headache, but at least, in his own way, Kabru was making her feel a little better about it, his misplaced enthusiasm aside. His weirdly detailed analysis managed to make it sound like a normal consequence of notoriety, as if this stuff was a universal principle and not uniquely embarrassing.

“If it’s any consolation, these journals are the only written accounts of any gossip about our respective relationships with the King. They’re not widely circulated, or openly marketed, or presented in a disparaging manner. What is there to do? If we censor their little operation, what would people make of the Crown if word gets out? It makes us look weak, unwilling to tolerate any speculation - let alone criticism. It’s hardly worth worrying about, and making any effort to do anything about it would only draw attention to it, which would defeat the point entirely.”

“So that’s it then? We just leave it alone?”

“That would be my recommendation, yes. Especially since at least one vendor is aware you now know about these journals, they may be so scandalized they stop publishing them - or at least selling them - altogether.”

“They didn’t stop when you started buying them,” she said.

“That’s because I procure them indirectly.”

“Why didn’t you just buy them yourself, then, if you think me buying them might make the whole thing go away?”

Kabru shrugged. “It’s more useful to know what people are saying, and it’s easier to know what they’re saying if they’re not afraid to say it. It’s part of my job to help gauge public opinion, after all. I’d prefer my assessments to be accurate.”

“Yeah, but…” Marcille’s words faded in her mouth. Everything he said made sense. It was all perfectly rational. But… still. Maybe he was right that the whole operation may stop since she discovered it. The shopkeep did ask if she wanted to confiscate them all. The fact that they existed in the first place, however… as Kabru said, if people are writing about it, there must be rumors already. The limited circulation of the journals didn’t clarify how prevalent those rumors were.

“I’m glad we could have this conversation. I hope I’ve assuaged your concerns.” Kabru gathered her three journals and presented them to her. “Now, would you mind letting me finish prepping my reports for the Prime Minister? I have to meet with Yaad soon.”

Marcille took the small stack. “Um, there’s one last thing I wanted to ask you.”

“And that is?”

“Do you think we should tell Laios?”

“No.” Kabru began to clear his collection of journals off his desk, returning them to the drawer from whence they came.

“No?” After all his blathering about the sociology of pornography featuring the two of them, that was a much shorter answer than she expected. She thought he’d have a pros and cons list, at the very least. “I mean, this stuff is about him as much as about us. As rumors go, this is a soft ball. He’ll probably hear worse ones eventually.”

“It’s not like telling him would make any difference. Why upset him over nothing?”

“It was different when you were the only one who knew. Now we both do. If he’s the only one that doesn’t know, it’s like we’re keeping it from him.”

“We haven’t bothered to tell him about the few cults of basement dwellers that worship him as a god, either. How would that knowledge help him? He’s insecure enough about how he comes off to his subjects. We shouldn’t let that insecurity extend to interactions with us.”

“Yeah but… how worried could he get? Any worries he has will pass, and then we won’t feel guilty for leaving him out of the loop…”

“Why should we feel guilty?” 

“Well I’ll feel guilty! Is it really that embarrassing to you? You’re the one who seems to be having fun with it.”

“And you’re not embarrassed?” Kabru snapped his drawer closed. “And I didn’t say it was fun. I said it was interesting.”

“It’s obviously embarrassing! He’ll be embarrassed too! But he’ll know it’s all unfounded, so why does that matter?”

“You don’t have much to worry about. You’re engaged to be married, to his sister of all people. I can’t say the same.” Kabru drummed his fingers against the table. “You do realize that we’re in completely different positions in this scenario, don’t you?”

“So what? Just because you’re not seeing anyone doesn’t mean you’re -“

“Let me put it this way. You will be the King’s sister-in-law, in optimistically a year’s time, assuming wedding planning goes smoothly. You’re in a permanent position as Melini’s Court Mage, a position you had the benefit of observing your mother fulfill for another tallman government for decades. You’ve received a formal education in your field and have been recognized for your research and accomplishments.”

Marcille furrowed her brow. “Okay? So?”

“Meanwhile, I’m a student and secretary to the Prime Minister. I am only in my second year of proper study under his tutelage, since the first year was a total nightmare. My mother tutored me growing up, but I’ve had no previous formal education outside the home in political science, economics, or international relations at any institution that I can list on paper. I have no fixed title in this administration, no family name to lean on -”

Where the hell was he going with this? “So? Laios knighted you the minute he learned he could do that!”

“A knighthood is a ceremonial title, not a court position. The point being, I am of service to the King and the Prime Minister at their pleasure. Should I fall out of favor, I’d leave no formal vacancy. If they think it’s best for the Crown’s image for me to leave my post-”

Marcille’s jaw dropped. “Kabru! You don’t seriously believe they’d - what, try to kick you out? Over something as stupid as this?” Who cares if he didn’t have a title? He’d been there when they defeated the demon. He’d been essential in the formation of their government. He’d eaten part of her fiancee. He was Yaad’s only and therefore favorite student, and Laios’s second best friend, after herself. He’d been in every position since the beginning - Laios’s bodyguard, his valet, his advisor, his lifeline next to the throne. She could hardly imagine what the kingdom would look like without him. “You’re - that’s completely ridiculous!”

“It might not be entirely up to them. The King has been resistant enough to finding a wife already. There are all sorts of advisors, magistrates, village leaders that have sent letters inquiring about-”

“You think YOU are in the way of Laios getting married?” Marcille flung out her arms to their full wingspan. “HELLO? To who?”

“I never said that, but it doesn’t help that he’s made no effort to entertain any prospects. I’m just saying rumors about his sexuality won’t do him any favors-”

“Kabru come on, he’s the one who won’t dance with anyone at the balls other than Falin-”

Wait.

Something was coming back to her. She had tried to teach Laios how to dance ahead of Melini’s first ball, but she’d given up pretty quickly when he wouldn’t stop stepping on her feet. They’d considered getting him a private tutor, but Kabru volunteered to teach him instead. His patience must have been unmatched, because Laios managed to look almost graceful twirling Falin around on the dancefloor. Most of the missed steps were Falin’s fault, anyway.

But right before that -

“Go dance with someone!” Marcille hissed, behind her fan.

Laios balled his hand into a fist in front of his face. It covered his mouth, but was only so subtle - not that anyone could hear them up on this platform anyway. “Do I have to?”

“Yes! You have to go talk to people! It's the easiest way! Go out there and act gracious!” she whisper-shouted back. 

He sighed and slumped lower into the throne. “Regular talking is bad enough,” he said. “I scared off those Dozahk representatives already.”

“It’s a ball! You’re supposed to dance! At least once, to prove you can! Just pick someone! Anyone would be honored to dance with you!”

 Laios rolled his eyes and tipped his head towards the other side of the throne. Kabru stared out at the undulating crowd with his hands behind his back, as prim as ever.

“Psst, Kabru,” Laios said, waving his free hand to urge him closer. Kabru leaned down accordingly. Laios cupped a hand around his ear. 

Marcille watched Kabru’s eyes widen, then narrow, before he straightened up to his original position. “If you don’t want to dance with a stranger, then ask Marcille.”

“Hey!” She said. 

“She never got through a full song with me,” Laios said. “Please?"

“You’ve improved a lot.” Kabru glanced over to Marcille. “He’s improved remarkably, in fact. You should go and find out for yourself.”

Marcille scoffed. “He’s supposed to try and meet new people at this thing-” she gestured out to the diplomats, scions, and magnates below. “Dancing with me isn’t going to help that!”

“Well maybe if you get him down there long enough to show he won’t trip, people will invite themselves to dance with him.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Laios said. 

Falin came back from the buffet table shortly after, and that was that. She and Kabru watched the Toudens dance. Aside from occasionally reflecting on how gorgeous Falin’s dress had looked on her that night (and even better off of her later that same night), Marcille had never thought about that interaction again. In her view, it had been a completely unremarkable, even typical, exchange.

So why was she thinking of that right now?

Kabru continued to prattle off without her input. “- the political benefit of a marriage isn’t only to secure a worthwhile alliance abroad, or to line the coffers of the treasury while we’re at it. Think of it this way: would you invest in a company with no long-term future? Probably not. You might remember most monarchies have a succession based on bloodlines, and the fact is, people are more likely to consider Melini a worthwhile investment if there’s a foreseeable-”

Marcille’s eyes wandered to his network on the wall. A sketch of Falin and Laios from an old advertisement for party members rested at the center, yellowed and curling at the edges. As she remembered it, the paper was yellowed and curling when he first put it up.

How long had he had that picture?

She’d never really understood why Kabru and his party had tried so hard to help them in the dungeon when they’d only just met - and they’d been massacred shortly thereafter. 

As soon as the demon was gone and the world had fundamentally changed, their friends had scattered. It felt strange to be apart so long from everyone else in her old party, even if they were all still in contact. Chilchuck wasn’t far off in Kahka Brud. You could never tell how far Senshi and Izutsumi were until they popped up to visit. Their government had contracted with Namari’s shop in the capital to help her restore her family’s reputation in weaponry - though she was so busy she rarely visited. Shuro had gone home with his retinue. Even Falin was only at the castle a few months of the year, the rest of her time spent traveling.

So now, it really was just Marcille and Laios left from their party - and Yaad, because where else would he go?

And then Kabru. A tag-along. 

Though her first response had been to be suspicious of him, they became fast friends in putting the kingdom together. She had her specialty (setting up barriers around the kingdom, establishing her lab to better plan large-scale spells for crop growth, wastewater treatment and the like) and he’d had his (public relations, navigating diplomacy with Laios and a man who’d spent the last thousand years trapped in a dungeon). It was a mess, but their roles fell into place, and she’d stopped wondering why he’d shown up in the first place. 

She didn’t question his presence in the castle anymore, and she’d also stopped questioning wherever he was at any given time. And at this point, she just expected to see him with Laios. Within that first month after the continent emerged, the two of them became almost inseparable, and they’d stayed that way ever since. She expected to see Kabru coaching Laios in court during the day, and she expected Laios’s evenings to be spent with Kabru in tutoring sessions, either in the library or in Laios’s room. 

Marcille had learned to spot when Kabru faked his smiles, played at flirtation, and offered false flattery. She was accustomed to it, and learned to expect it. 

But what would it look like if he actually meant it?

Would she be able to tell the difference? 

All those times Kabru made the slightest unnecessary adjustments to Laios’s collar, his doublet, his cufflinks. The way Kabru seemed to always touch him - his shoulder, his hand, his arm - to get his attention. The way Kabru always sat a little too close to him, leaned in a little too close to whisper to him, lingered a little too long after their conversations ended…

He was just always like that. She’d never thought anything of it.

But thinking about it now…

What the hell had he said earlier?

Why wouldn’t people assume your primary motivation in joining the Toudens’ party was to get closer to the dashing older brother-

Ah, shit.

“Um, so I actually have another question.” Marcille twisted Ambrosia in her hands. This was almost as bad as asking him about porn about himself. Actually, it might be worse.

Kabru sighed. “Marcille, we can always continue this conversation another time, but I really should be going. I appreciate that you came to me first about this, and I hope you can understand that this matter is best kept between us.” He stood, dusted off his pants, and gave her a weary but genuine smile. “You know where to find me if-“

“Kabru,” Marcille interrupted, as carefully and gently as she could muster, “do you… maybe…” 

It would be insane. Completely insane. 

But Kabru was completely insane, as much as he liked to pretend he wasn’t.

“Do you… have a crush on Laios?”

He scoffed a laugh and gathered a few papers and folders off his desk. “Oh, please. You’re not that bored.”

“What do you mean ‘bored’?”

“What else would bring this on, all of a sudden? Are the rumors not scandalous enough by themselves? Are my explanations not interesting enough? I’m sorry I couldn’t offer anything more exciting. I had fun sharing my theories, anyway.” Kabru walked to the door, turned the handle, and held it open. “But now it’s time to go. If you have anything else to discuss on the topic, I’ll be available after dinner.”

“I’m serious.”

“Are you?” He tsked. “Well, so am I. You’ve made me late already.” He checked his watch for emphasis. Marcille grabbed the edge of the door to shut it, but even one handed, Kabru kept it in place. “I’m not trying to be rude, but I do have somewhere to be.”

Marcille slammed her staff into the floor, muttered a few words, and a shimmery film covered the doorway.

She’d gotten really good at making barriers.

Kabru reached at the film, and small ripples formed under his fingers when they made contact with the wall of mana. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I’m dead serious.”

Kabru shut the door. He crossed his arms and leaned against it, rolling his eyes. 

“So? Do you?”

“I said no.”

“You did not say no.”

“No,” he said. “How’s that?”

“So why don’t I believe you?”

“I don’t know where this came from,” he said, “but believe me or don’t. I’m not going to argue with you.”

“What? So that’s it?”

Kabru shrugged. “I don’t know what you want from me. I get questioned like this enough. How do you expect me to prove a negative?”

“Excuse me? Questioned? By whom?”

“I said there weren’t rumors about you in the castle. I wish the same could be said for me. How would you feel if every half-wit grain inspector blamed you for their inability to secure a contract because of their own incompetence? That because I’m the King’s whore, I’m responsible for their inadequate, inaccurate reports. Please.” He cast her a sidelong glance. “So what? Should I argue every time? Or would arguing raise suspicions further? I’d think the latter.”

Marcille slid down along the wall to sit on his laundry pile. It was nearly impossible to believe anyone, let alone multiple people, would have the gall to say such a thing to his face - especially when, for better or worse, Kabru bent over backwards to stay on everyone’s good side. “How… how often does that happen?”

“Once a week, maybe? ” 

That often? Good god. How long has that been happening? Since people started publishing those stupid stories, or even earlier? “Have you told Yaad?”

“No, but I get the feeling he knows anyway. Those ghosts are awful gossips.”

Marcille tipped her head back against the wall, tap, tap, tapping. “So if you don’t have a crush on Laios, and you think Yaad knows people accuse you of sleeping with him, and it’s bothering you, why not just tell Yaad directly? Why not tell Laios?”

“What are they going to do about it? Put out a bulletin? I just have to ignore it. I’ve made an effort not to be alone with him behind closed doors lately, but that hasn’t seemed to make a difference yet. May still be too soon to tell.”

That was news to her. “Since when?”

“The past month or so? He hasn’t noticed. Or if he has, he hasn’t said anything. He’s been too wrapped up with that giant owl pellet.” Kabru grimaced. 

“What’ll you do when he notices?”

“I’ll tell him I’ve been busy.”

Marcille twisted Ambrosia in her hands. “You sound mad.”

“Why would I be mad? He’s not supposed to notice. I hope he doesn’t.”

So the rumors were bothering him, not enough to say anything, but enough for him to try to do something about it. He didn’t sound too concerned about Yaad knowing about them, but maybe that was because he assumed it was out of his control.

He’d already said he didn’t want to tell Laios about the journals because he was worried about hurting their friendship, but he didn’t seem to think avoiding Laios would hurt his feelings - or maybe he thought it would, and hoped Laios would ask him about it. He could be passive aggressive when he wanted to be.

Laios really had been spending a lot of time on that giant owl pellet. Unsurprising, given that he rarely got any monster remains he could mess around with for more than a week. But eventually he’d run out of ways to fool with it, and then what? Assuming Kabru kept it up, Laios would only buy that Kabru was too busy to see him for a week, tops, whenever he did notice. Or maybe Laios had already noticed and didn’t want to say anything. That was doubtful, though. He was awfully sensitive about that sort of thing, and he’d gotten better about proactively asking if he was doing something wrong in social situations. That fight with Shuro did a number on him.

But maybe his own feelings about it were complicated. It wasn’t that she seriously thought Laios had any romantic interest in Kabru… but he also asked Kabru to dance with him at a ball with half the kingdom’s nobility in attendance. Laios was awkward, but he wasn’t naive. He could guess what sort of assumptions people would have about their relationship had Kabru actually agreed, and he didn’t seem worried about it. It wasn’t every day a man danced with another man. She’d danced with Falin at the every ball, but it was more common to see girls dancing together as friends. Now that she thought about it, she’d never seen two men dancing together at a formal event, even through all her years growing up in a tallman kingdom. At the time, she just assumed he’d asked Kabru because Kabru was his practice partner.

But then again… “So what would you do if Laios liked you?” Marcille asked.

“I’d turn him down gently, I suppose.”

“Why? You could give it a shot. He’s a good guy, even if he’s a weirdo.” 

“No, I could not ‘give it a shot’. You know better than that.”

“Why?”

“I ran through a whole list of whys with you two minutes ago.”

“Because you don’t have a proper title?” Be serious, she didn't say.

“Among other things,” Kabru grumbled.

“So is it that you don’t like him, or do you think you can’t like him?”

“Both can be true. Everyone is entitled to their own feelings, but mine happen to be rooted in some semblance of reality. Why entertain the impossible? It would be delusional on one hand, borderline treasonous on the other. It would be a doomed exercise to even consider it.”

“So you think - what, that it’s stupid for anyone beneath his station to have feelings for him?”

“More like futile.”

That was pretty harsh, especially considering his extensive analysis earlier about people beneath Laios’s station wanting to bone him, or bone him by proxy. “Then what if Laios wasn’t a king? He was just some guy until a few years ago.”

“But he’s a King now, and will be, until he dies, barring the unthinkable.”

“But what if he wasn’t?”

“That’s not a realistic scenario.”

“We’ve seen plenty of unrealistic scenarios play out,” she said. “It’s a hypothetical. Would you give him a chance, if you weren’t worried about the opinion of the whole kingdom?”

“I’d still have to worry about Rin’s opinion. And my mother’s, god forbid.”

“Your first worry is still what other people think?” Marcille snorted. “Neither of them were thrilled about you sticking around and starting a government, either. Answer the question.”

“I doubt you’d be happy about it.”

Would she? Kabru was his own brand of nuts, but she had been around him enough to get used to it. He had his fortes and faults like everyone else. Truthfully, she liked him. She had sway with him and she enjoyed his company. She was already stuck with him - the devil you know, and all. And for what it was worth, Kabru made Laios happy. She could see that, at the very least. “You’re not so bad.”

Kabru stared out the sliver of his window at the other side of the room.

“…I might think about it,” he said.

That might be as good as she was going to get. It sounded honest, at least. Marcille moved to stand, but he kept going - 

“But I’d still say no. Laios has never had his heart broken before, and I don’t think I’d be able to resist that temptation.” He looked down at her and smiled.

Kabru put on a good show for her, anyway. That smile was almost convincing.

At any point, Marcille thought, he could have just said the monster obsession is a huge turnoff. 

She’d always thought of Kabru as a vain creature. He had to practically beat women off of him whenever the two of them went shopping together in town. Yaad had chided him more than once that he needed to quit charming young ladies and send them Laios’s way -

Oh. Maybe he really was in the way of Laios getting married.

The more she’d gotten to know him, the more she uncovered that his personality was a finely constructed thing. His true feelings or opinions were almost always second to getting whatever he wanted out of any particular conversation, and he relied on the fact that nobody would get to know him well enough to discover what he actually felt about anything in time to realize that he was manipulating them. Marcille counted herself as one of the few who could now recognize the disconnect in the things he said in front of her to other people and the things he shared with her in private. He was popular, but the more she saw him talk to people, the lonelier he seemed.

Of course Kabru still had limits on what he thought he could say, even to her, when he admitted he placed limits on what he could even think about. Maybe he’d refused to think about it so well he fooled himself. Over the most oblivious man on earth, no less. Maybe Kabru was the second most oblivious man on earth, if only to his own feelings. She hoped he could at least admit it to himself, if he couldn’t tell her.

Poor thing. 

Marcille stood up and threw her arms around his neck.

“Ow, hey-”

She released him, dropping her heels to the ground, and grabbed his free hand. “I’m not going to tell anyone, you know.”

“Tell anyone what?” he asked, rubbing his throat.

“Nevermind.” Marcille tapped Ambrosia to the floor to release the barrier, and flung the door open. “If Yaad complains, blame me for making you late.”

“I was planning on it,” Kabru said.

Chapter Text

The King had a special appreciation for time alone in the castle. His opportunities to avoid the constant demands for his attention were few and far between, and became fewer and further between with every influx of new citizens carrying their competing interests with them. His opportunities to center himself, to cling to the threads of his personage beyond his title, were most often in late nights and early mornings - but this afternoon, he had been gifted an unexpectedly long break for lunch, as conditions at sea had delayed a planned meeting with a party of diplomats from Sadena for another two days. So after King Laios of Melini, first of his name, Devourer of All Things Horrible, had eaten to his permanently imposed threshold of unsatisfaction, he retired to his chambers for the the few hours before he was expected to hear local complaints: gripes against neighbors, their undeveloped townships, and the weather. For now, he hid in his study, away from judgemental eyes of friends and foes alike, reconstructing skeletons of small rodent-like monsters from a giant owl pellet gifted from Izutsumi and Senshi during their last visit.

He’d made decent progress on assembling a yet-unidentified ribcage when a knock came at the door. Laios frowned and turned his eyes to the clock, which reassured him he had plenty of time to tinker with bones before he was expected to be anywhere where he wasn’t supposed to have bits of undigested fur and the scent of chemical preservatives clinging to him. “Who is it?” he called, wiping his hands on his pants. His old clothes, back from when he was just any old tallman from an irrelevant and distant village, were reserved for this purpose. He appreciated them far more now than he ever had before.

“It’s Yaad,” Yaad called, in his borrowed voice that was both simultaneously too old for him and much younger than he actually was. Should’ve guessed, he thought, as the ghosts that tended to accompany him passed through the doorway to usher in their corporeal companion.

“Come in.”

As Yaad entered, Laios turned back to his project to scrutinize the little pile of drying bones in front of him. Yaad wouldn’t mind if Laios went back to his preferred work. He could listen and place ribs into position at the same time. Yaad, luckily for him, lived long enough among monsters to not be disturbed by his efforts. He’d even offered some constructive criticism.

“I see you’re back at that owl pellet. Any new findings?”

“Nothing surprising yet. Izutsumi said they picked up this one in the northwest portion of the Eastern Archipelago, so I’ve been reviewing common rodent-like monsters in the area,” Laios nodded to a few open pages of reference books, “but I haven’t decided which one these are yet, exactly. They’re pretty hard to distinguish even from normal rodents. I might need to do some cross referencing with regional surface rodents. Of the portion I’ve sorted, it looks like there’s about five complete sets of bones of the same type. When I laid them out all the femurs were the same length, so…” he sighed. “I might ask you about it later. Maybe you can help me with posing them all when I’m done?”  

“If there’s five skeletons, I can at least come up with something for one of them.” Yaad said, pulling a chair up to the desk, at a distance far enough to set down a pile of papers without the risk of any chemicals touching them. “Do you still have the book of squirrel taxidermy I gave you?”

Laios slid a wire through one of the slender bones. He did. While the book did a good job of showing the range of motion squirrels (and by extension, other small rodents) had, the arrangements in the book were anything but natural. He didn’t like that the majority of the illustrated poses included putting outfits on the subjects, and he didn’t want to arrange his haul into a jousting scene, or a wedding.

Laios clipped the wire. “Yeah. I do. So what do you need?” 

“There’s a bit of an … unexpected development I’ve stumbled upon recently. One I would rather not have to discuss with you in too much depth. We’ve talked about your relationship with the press, your Majesty…”

He normally wasn't too worried about that sort of thing. It must be serious. “Oh. What have I done now?” Laios set down his clippers and the bone, wiping his hands on his pants again. He had been hoping Yaad would just make him sign something.

“You haven’t done anything, really. It’s not necessarily negative, either. Perhaps this is only my age talking, which is why I wanted to discuss this with you privately.”

“Um, okay.” 

“Remember when we discussed the role of the press? That it’s inevitable that people will make nursery rhymes, playground jokes, and all sorts of mockery about you?”

How could he forget? He got to shoulder collective blame on just about anything. That was sort of his job. But despite the regular verbal thrashings he received from Yaad, Marcille, Kabru, and their cadre of rotating advisors at every turn, nobody had told him he was getting any major complaints in the newspaper yet. To him, things seemed pretty alright, but maybe they weren’t. He picked at a tuft of fur caught on his fingernail. “Yes.”

“Well, I think this is one of those sorts of things, though it might just be prudish of me. I’ve heard of comedies produced about kings during their reign, but romances are a new one.” Yaad extracted a folder from the lower half of his stack of papers, and opened it to reveal three thin, inartfully bound journals.

“A what now?”

Yaad sighed. “You are a young bachelor King. It isn’t surprising the public would speculate about potential courtships that may face you.” He lifted the journals and closed the folder, tapped the journals to even them out on the bottom, and laid them in a flat stack atop the pile. “Your Majesty, I’ve learned of a handful of publications that produce dirty stories about you, on a monthly or bimonthly basis.”

Laios looked at the journals, then up to Yaad, then back to the fur in his fingernail. He chose the fur first, and when he pulled hard his fingernail partially came off with it. Laios swore, put his finger in his mouth, then grimaced at the taste of formaldehyde. He extracted his finger from his mouth and wrapped it on the corner of his shirt, pressing down with his thumb to stop the bleeding that way instead. He looked back to Yaad. “What do you mean? Dirty stories, like…?”

“Like pornography, intercourse, yes. Some of them are merely tales of you sweeping presumably fictional young maidens off their feet. Those aren’t the ones I’m worried about.” Yaad dropped the first journal in Laios’s lap. It was held together with ribbon and stiff white stationary.

King Laios x Reader vol. XX

“Wait, huh?” 

“I’m more concerned with the ones written speculating on the relationships between you and certain members of this court. I imagine this is just the boredom of housewives, but they’ve written romances about yourself and Lady Marcille.” Yaad dropped King Laios x Lady Marcille vol. XVI atop the first journal.

The vivid memory of that succubus - or was it The Winged Lion? - wearing Marcille’s face, the implication being… Well. He didn’t like that at all. His feelings on that idea had been settled a long time ago, and Marcille’s feelings for his sister were more recently settled. She would take no pleasure in this development. “I am absolutely not reading that -” he started, and moved to stand, before Yaad threw the final journal in his lap.

“There are also stories depicting you with Ser Kabru.” 

Huh?

Laios looked down at the topmost journal. 

King Laios x Ser Kabru vol. VIII

His silence must have lasted long enough, because Yaad spoke again. “It is only out of an overabundance of caution that I’m bringing this to your attention, your Majesty. I’ve seen nothing in their contents that indicates that, for example, there is a spy within our walls.”

“You read them?” Laios felt the color rise in his face. “Why?”

“Laios, son,” Yaad started, slowly. He placed a firm hand on the King’s shoulder. “I am your Prime Minister, for god’s sake!” One royal to another, Yaad shook him, hard, jostling the journals in Laios’s lap. “Do you really think I have time for this!? Of course not! But I made the time to read them, because who, exactly, would you have preferred I pass along the task to?” The hand that wasn’t on Laios’s shoulder pointed to his lap. “The other subjects of these works!?”

Ah, right. Laios tried to shrink back away in his chair, but Yaad’s grip was iron. “So… uh… you didn’t tell anyone else about this?”

“I thought I’d spare you that.”

Between the strength of his grip and the steel in his eyes, Laios assumed Yaad was telling the truth. He glanced back down to his lap, at the little purplish journal threatening to fall off its place on his knee. He could move to re-center the journal with his hands, but he might get monster hair and chemicals on it. Something about the thought of staining it made him feel guilty, so he left it where it was. 

How did Yaad even find these? If anyone was prone to digging up worthless indications of Laios’s popularity as a leader, it was Kabru. Kabru made sure to tell him every adjective used to describe King Laios I and the land of Melini in political cartoons, foreign ad copies for real estate, and on sweaters at the gift shop near the dungeon’s entrance. Kabru had to know about these, um. Stories.

And knowing Kabru, he would have certainly read them, no matter how repellent he found the subject, out of both (entirely self-imposed) duty and morbid curiosity. 

He, himself, did not possess that brand of morbid curiosity, Laios thought, with a glance at the pile of bones in front of him.

“Well!” Yaad clapped Laios’s shoulder, and stood - too fast, evidently, judging by the loud pop of his spine realigning. He rubbed at his lower back with a grimace. “I would regret to leave you to it, but considering I already had to read them...” He sighed. “I will say some of these writers have a certain talent, though whether that talent is wasted I’ve yet to decide.”

Laios didn’t know what to say, so he didn't say anything, and frowned instead.

“Ah, the pains of being a young man, burdened by prospects, real and imagined!” Yaad gathered the other materials he came with, tutting to himself. “Things could be far worse for you, boy. You’d fare even better if you stopped smelling like formaldehyde all day.”

And with that, he left. The ghosts, however, lingered, and watched as Laios awkwardly shuffled the purplish journal to the center of the pile with his knees, so he could lift the whole stack by the bottom journal. He didn’t care about ruining that one, he thought, which was the normal reaction to have. He placed them on his desk, away from the bones.

Laios washed his hands in his bathroom, watching the little tufts of feathers and the rainbow sheen of chemicals flow down the basin with the water. As he dried them, he met his reflection in the mirror.

His own face had always felt like a foreign thing. More so now that he’d been given the chance to see the world through six (eight, counting his tail) eyes, on three (four) sets of faces. He tilted his head, and his mirrored version tilted with him. The mirrors in the castle were of a much better quality than he had been accustomed to. His mother had a nice hand mirror, but she never let him use it. It still surprised him to see each individual eyelash, every small freckle. He’d always assumed he looked something more like what he’d seen captured on shop windows or tin can lids - a handful of blurry shapes arranged on an oval. That was part of the terror of being attacked by thousands of versions of himself. He’d looked different from what he imagined. He hadn’t realized that he was, in lack of a better word, detailed. The same way other people were.

It took him a while to get used to the idea that people cared how he looked. He shaved daily (against advice) and avoided cutting himself in the process. He got his hair trimmed every so often. He tried to avoided overeating, with some success. Aside from that, he tried not to give it much thought, even though he was the metaphorical and literal face of Melini.

He was the most powerful man on the continent. Or was supposed to be. It was still hard to believe. He was nearly three years in at this point, but aside from the fact that his position consumed his every waking minute, he really didn’t feel like much of a King. As far as he was concerned, the King of Melini was just an idea, and he was just Laios.

Laios had to assume any interest in him came from his title. After all, he didn’t live under a rock. He’d heard fairy tales when he was young, and most of them involved some royal figure. There was a natural allure to wealth and power. It had nothing to do with him personally.

He was not someone that people would imagine running away with. He had, for a long time, been someone to run from.

Some of the ghosts had tagged along with him to the bathroom and joined him in the mirror. They had been instructed not to follow people into restrooms - mainly by Laios and Falin, because they could see them - but since they were already dead, there was no way to punish them for their indiscretions.

He watched himself frown next to phantoms of decayed corpses, and walked back to the desk, retrieving the journals and throwing them into a rarely used drawer, where he hoped they would eventually disintegrate. 

If he felt a little bad for wishing that the purplish paper cover would fall apart one day, that was his business. It wasn’t the paper’s fault what was written on it.

Chapter Text

The morning’s rain lingered in rivulets between cobblestones and aches in his joints. Yaad had all but forgotten his grandfather’s complaints about how changes in barometric pressure affected his knees in the thousand intervening years since he’d last heard them, but experiencing the sensation himself was far from nostalgic. 

The sign on the shop door read “closed.” He tied up his horse to the post outside and fumbled through his keyring. That one was to a closet, this one to another closet, this one to a store room…

He pushed open the door, locked it behind him, and hung up his cloak. The place reeked of smoke. It wasn’t even dark yet. They always start early, he thought.

A rush of loud footsteps greeted him. “Lord Yaad!” cried Edda, her freckled face almost bursting with joy. “You made it!” She offered a clumsy curtsey. 

Edda was a sweet girl, all of nineteen. Yaad had developed a soft spot for the genuinely young. She minded the shop, and Yaad couldn’t help but find her friendship with his fellow ancients refreshing.

“Has Genie saved me enough tobacco for a pipe, or did she smoke it all already?”

The titter of familiar voices got louder as he followed her. It wasn’t always the same group who stopped by, but there were plenty of regulars.

Edda curtseyed again and pulled back one of the curtains that cordoned off the store room.

There sat a circle of his old friends - old, old friends - deep in their cups, by the looks of it. They waved and cheered hellos, sloshing wine out of their glasses.

One always grows up too quickly, or so the saying went - or it went something like that. After years of being a preteen surrounded by other adolescents, he’d had a shift into a body that wasn’t even his, while everyone else was just starting to age. They were all growing taller, their teeth separating and twisting and yellowing, their hair popping up in new places. He remembered that the puberty process could be uncomfortable, and it looked like it was. It was terrifying to gradually lose the faces he knew, and to see their bodies replaced with slightly different ones every few months. How strange to think these things should have been happening to them centuries ago.

Yaad wished his changes had been more gradual, but the rest would look like him soon enough, if they had truly resumed a normal tallman lifespan. Too bad he probably wouldn’t be around to see them wrinkle.

He didn’t want to die, and never had. But he had to admit it was thrilling to have a real prospect of keeling over at any moment. He could hardly stop thinking about it. Whether he’d make it to tomorrow alive was controlled by his own will and chance - not by Thistle or the Winged Lion. His newfound mortality felt like independence, in a way.

He was, on one hand, horribly jealous of the ways the other Golden City residents were choosing to live out the remainder of their lives - finding and flirting with other “young” people, taking up new hobbies, pretending to be children to see what modern schooling looked like.

On the other, he’d chosen his own path. If he was put to the sword, he’d admit he was having fun himself.

Yaad was lucky a few of them stubbornly stayed the same insufferable people they’d always been. Chief among them -

“Yaad, you old bastard,” Genie said, stepping over Meital and Hilja’s dice game. “We’ve got business to discuss.”

He extended his hand, gesturing towards her pipe. She handed it over, and Yaad took a few long drags. Edda, the thoughtful thing she was, brought him the wineskin and a glass. She filled it to the brim. He had to slurp past the surface tension until it was safe to lift off the crate posing as a table. “It cannot possibly be urgent enough to start before I’ve had a few,” he said.

“But it is,” Genie said. She dragged over two stools. Yaad settled into his. 

Eugenia, or Genie, as everyone called her, was a saucy girl with a chip on her front tooth and red hair that never stayed contained. For the first few decades under Thistle’s rule, she was the only one brave enough to share her erotic fiction in the Golden City. She was also their most prolific author. She’d written hundreds upon hundreds of short stories, including tales about their eternal group, some semibiographical and some entirely fictional, all invariably raunchy. They’d all had a lot of time to get to know each other, after all. 

He wasn’t surprised she wanted to follow her passion of passing around dirty books in their new life. She, like the rest of the Golden City residents, had been cut her share of the kingdom’s cash to do whatever she wanted with no oversight by the royal treasury. She’d made a bookshop out of it, and met all sorts of friends that liked to read downright filthy stories. That was how she met Edda, and Edda’s circle of young women who liked to speculate on relationships in the castle through prose. Amused, Genie had taken the stories to Yaad.

Who was he to police gossip? Besides, it wasn’t like Genie hadn’t financed (and written) worse publications. The girls at least tried to be tasteful. 

And more importantly, Yaad was going to die soon enough. He didn’t have the time or the sperm count to make his own family, even if he wanted to. He may as well entertain himself with gossip about his charges. Those girls had quite the imagination.

Yaad sighed. “It must be awful news.”

“Depends on your perspective,” Genie said. “Hope you liked the latest crop of stories. They might be the last ones.”

Edda was bobbing up and down on her heels. She looked ready to burst out of her skin. 

Genie took her pipe back and puffed a ring of smoke. “We’ve been caught.”

“Lady Marcille came by the shop this morning!” Edda shrieked.

“She bought one copy of everything,” Genie said. “I mean, this month’s copies.”

Oh, perfect. Yaad tipped his cup and let a little of the wine dribble down the side of his mouth. He killed the cup and wiped it with the back of his hand. Edda was still jumping, but she did the kindness of refilling his glass. Yaad pinched the bridge of his nose. Well, she would have found out eventually. “Did she come in for them?”

“No, she ordered two collections of the Many Maids of Lady Margot, apparently. Maybe she plans to share one with the Dragoness?” Genie said, taking her pipe for her turn. “She should have borrowed your first edition. They had to take out all the references to the real royal family in the reissues, you know. Luckily our censors aren’t nearly as thorough,” Genie said, kicking Yaad under the table. “Almost like they’re encouraging it.”

“I guess you jumped ahead of me, then,” Yaad said, kicking her harder. “I told Laios about the journals this afternoon.”

Edda shrieked again. “THE KING IS GOING TO READ OUR STORIES?”

God love her, his poor ears were ringing. A few partygoers stopped to stare.

“Edda, give us a moment in private, please,” Genie said, sparing Yaad from dismissing her himself. 

Edda curtseyed and fled, probably to go scream somewhere else.

“Did you really?”

“Yes,” Yaad said. He took another drag before passing the pipe back to Genie. 

“And what on earth possessed you to do that?”

“Because,” he leaned in just enough to look secretive. The sounds of revelry were loud enough that nobody else would overhear them, anyway. “My student is driving me nuts.”

Genie laughed. “What else is new?”

“He won’t leave my office. He used to finish up reliably early and get out of my hair, but now he spends his days staring out the window and spends his evenings inventing work for himself. I used to have time to kick up my feet with a cup of tea or something stronger, but now I’m creating my own work just to look like I’m working while he tries to think up problems that could happen eight hundred years from now. As if I wouldn’t know, I’ve lived eight hundred years! But all of this means,” Yaad pointed for emphasis, “whatever he’s trying to do, he’s not spending a second with Laios if he doesn’t have to.”

“You don’t say?” Genie bit the pipe between her teeth and covered her smile. “Lover’s quarrel?”

“I think Kabru is trying to start a fight, in a sense. I just don’t think Laios knows it. I think he’s feeling unappreciated and wants some attention, but his bait isn’t working. Laios has been fixated on an admittedly impressive giant owl pellet as of late and either isn’t picking up that Kabru is ignoring him, or he’s buying the same bullshit Kabru is selling me. I’m getting tired of watching it. So I gave him a swift kick in the pants. It was the easiest way to tell him he needs to take a good, hard look at their relationship without spelling it out for him. He’s smart enough to put it together from there.” Yaad shook his head and took a healthy swing from his glass. “They’re both idiots. Kabru would sooner kill Laios than tell him how he feels, and Laios couldn’t read a room if his life depended on it.”

“They’re so young. Isn’t it a shame to mess with them like that? Romance should bloom on its own time, don’t you think?”

“You can tell me that when you don’t have a lovesick young man sulking in your office. I’d like to see them settle the matter before I turn to dust, if only to have some quiet evenings to myself again…” 

Chapter Text

“Kabru, would you be so kind as to bring the final versions of the mining contracts for His Majesty’s signature?”

Kabru lifted his head from his hand. He’d somehow gotten lost gazing over the palace gardens to the rolling hills and rooftops of town. Wispy white clouds dragged along the sky like brushstrokes. Seagulls called in the distance from the shoreline.

It wasn’t like him to get distracted like that. 

It was a nice day outside.

Kabru had to half-stand to peer over the piles of papers on his desk.

Yaad wiggled the contracts above his own piles, and laid them down at the edge of his desk. His head was still buried behind his own papers. Yaad was probably still marking up ideal aqueduct routes on tracing paper over his ancient atlas. Kabru thought he was getting a little ahead of himself, since the capital’s present aqueducts weren’t even halfway complete. He’d been at it all morning.

Kabru approached to collect them. “I thought you brought those to him yesterday.” Yaad had left with quite the stack of paper to visit the King after lunch.

“It must have slipped my mind,” Yaad said to his atlas. “I had other matters to discuss with him.”

Interesting. Well, it wasn’t like there was any shortage of topics. Their calendar was planned out for the next full year, almost down to the hour. Yaad liked to plan far ahead, and with his sense of time, any event on the horizon could seem pressing. “And what were those other matters, if I may ask?”

“You may not ask, but since you’ve already been so bold, I suppose I should fess up.” He sighed and rubbed his neck as he looked up to his student. “I believed it was finally the time for us to address the situation in Nunya.”

Kabru glanced at the atlas. The atlas itself was in Dwarvish, as all the best were. It was a wonder that the dungeon had managed to preserve everything in and around the castle. Books like this one, which should crumble to the touch with age, had only suffered from a coating of dust. Otherwise Melini’s records remained just as they were a thousand years ago. This atlas had been a tremendous help to them before proper surveys could be done of the continent that had been entombed in sea water. It was still pretty accurate - enough for Yaad to make use of it in most matters, anyway. But they had done new surveys, and for his money, the new atlases, incomplete as they were, were better for planning a water system. As the continent rose, the sea water had become trapped in a few valleys. Naturally, this wasn’t reflected in the old atlas. Kabru thought that saltwater intrusion would be worth factoring in, but he was no hydraulic engineer. Yaad, also not a hydraulic engineer, wasn’t hearing any of it. Kabru mentally filed this project as just one of those things they’d fix in post, after they’d formed a clear enough idea of what they wanted to do to consult an actual hydraulic engineer. A lot of their projects followed that trajectory. 

Yaad had lightly scribbled Common translations under the place names in pencil (for Laios and Marcille’s benefit), but they were all but invisible under the tracing paper. Kabru was familiar enough with the region and Dwarven script to know that none of those places labelled in this section of the map could be read the way Yaad had pronounced it, in Common, Dwarvish, or otherwise.

But Yaad’s discussion yesterday didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the map presently in front of him. Kabru prided himself on his knowledge of geography. He mentally ran through the nascent towns of Melini, but none matched. Maybe he’d misheard. There was Nunez on the Eastern continent, Ynugcia further west from there, Inoyo in the Archipelago, the twin cities Brunba and Blinba in the Southern Continent… He gave up. “I’ll bite. What is the situation in Nunya?”

“I’m glad you asked. It’s Nunya business.” Yaad waved a finger in his face, obviously satisfied Kabru had fallen into such a sophomoric trap. 

Kabru held his eyes closed for an extra quarter of a second when he blinked, to prevent himself from rolling them. “Noted.”

“Now begone! You could stand to stretch your legs. You’ve been sitting all day.”

He was never really sure what to make of their relationship. They combed through hundreds of reports together every day, tossed considerations and factoids back and forth like a game of catch, traded minor digs, nitpicked each other's verbiage on drafts. For all his wisdom, Yaad seemed to regard adulthood more as a conferred status than an air of maturity, or a biological process. He never insisted that he trumped Kabru because he was Prime Minister. Instead, any stalemate was settled with ‘I’m older than you, so I win.’ It was a different type of infantilization than he felt talking to elves; rather than a strictly paternalist view, looking down on Kabru from above, Yaad treated him as an equal, then pushed him lower when he felt it necessary, like a sibling in a pool.

Kabru liked that about him. “On your orders,” he said.

Kabru made his way towards the King’s chambers. He was hardly in a rush, and he had to agree he could use the chance to get out a bit more. He spent his walk exchanging a few words to any person in his path -

Good afternoon,

Oh, hello, how are you?

I’m well, thank you, how have you been?

Yes, of course I have.

No, did he? You don’t say!

You know what I heard?

Please! You would have loved it, if only you could have seen - 

“Ah, Ser Kabru! Just who I’d like to see!” 

Oh, great.

Kabru gave a small bow, not much more than a nod and a hand over his heart. It was more than he deserved. “Ser Ileif, how are you? I believe we expected you to arrive for the maritime law conference two weeks from now,” Kabru said. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your early visit?”

“I had business in the area, and I thought to pass along a short proposal for his Majesty ahead of the meeting. Would you do me the courtesy? I was told he was unavailable, but I know he will accept your call at any hour.”

On one hand, it was counterintuitive to insult someone from whom you asked a favor. On the other hand, he understood the message. From a man like this, that was just how you treated servants.

This was how most insults came to him - barely concealed, but with just enough plausible deniability to not be openly disparaging. It was the Tallmen aristocracy who had the greatest problem with him, after all, and those of a certain class were trained from birth to have barbed and silvered tongues. Ser Ilief didn’t stress any syllables, nor spoke them notably louder or softer than the remainder of his sentence. He drew no sort of attention or emphasis to them. That was about the most Kabru could expect from self important assholes who thought of him as an exotic pet. Without context, a passerby may believe he merely implied that he, Ser Kabru, was an important and valuable member of the King’s cabinet, and as such was afforded a degree of professional trust befitting of the King’s innermost circle. Horseshit. 

He thought he escaped the worst of that sort of treatment when he left his mother’s house - though long lived races just tended to be like that. The Island’s shadow governor, a dwarf, had thought him a charming point of interest, and regarded him well, relatively. Kabru was the last person to be naive to human prejudices. He expected them. The nativist superiority he so often encountered among the Tallmen aristocracy did not surprise him, but the frequency outpaced his expectations, primarily because none of them had any claim to Melini’s land. When the continent rose, factions split in Khaka Brud. Despite the fact the rest of the Eastern Continent was under primarily Dwarven control, Khaka Brud itself, while diverse, had a Tallmen majority, and that included the ruling class. Whether or not that itself was a remnant of Melini’s influence, Kabru couldn’t say. Some of the wealthy and powerful, at first adversarial, had resettled their families to Melini’s capital while maintaining their footholds from whence they came. Despite their self interested nature, their sycophancy and tax contributions made them useful to the Crown. They were eager to impress and to ingratiate themselves to a new untapped investment. They bought land, still partly salted from eons underwater, at sums beyond their worth. They rehomed industries or expanded their existing industries - logging, fishing, mining, smelting, construction, animal husbandry, manufacturing - to the benefit of Melini. 

Prime Minister Yaad was the only native nobility to this land. King Laios was adopted as native nobility by honor, heroism and carefully fluffed legend. His circumstances of birth could not be called highborn, though he was the most highborn he could be in his little village. Marcille could call herself noble, even if that nobility was relatively humble. And Kabru himself was raised by nobility, Elven nobility, even if he could not claim it.

Realistically, Kabru knew he was worth more to Melini than Ser Ileif’s shipping empire. There were other shipping empires. At first, he had to admit, he somewhat enjoyed that their outside consultants found him a mysterious and distrustful figure, only because it insulted their entitlement that an elf-raised foreign orphan had more say than them. Marcille got her own share of skepticism, interestingly not because she was half-elf, but because she was half-tallman. She was also only in her sixties, which, for a tallman’s evaluation of elves, wasn’t much better than his now twenty six years. It probably didn’t help that they spoke Elvish together when they walked the castle, to keep their conversations mostly private.

He had worked harder for the cause of Tallmen, for this particular Kingdom, than these lazy titans of industry ever did, resting on the laurels of their father’s father’s father’s father. They were a proud group, and expected fresh laurels now that there was a Tallman kingdom, simply because they were wealthy tallmen. In his estimation, they were envious. While Kabru only had a ceremonial title, he’d had a proper knighting ceremony, makeshift as everything was in the early days of the kingdom. These other Sers were extended the title out of benevolence alone. Sure, some held on to ancient claims and their representations of being viscount of this, baron of that, and those were honored in designation, but they had no formal, existing Tallman royalty to tie it to; before, maybe, they could have represented they were an old family of Melini. In current times, Yaad had never heard of them, and records since Yaad’s time were recreations at best. Yaad himself had little interest in them beyond the connections they could encourage through proximity and the industries they funded. Laios certainly had no interest in flattering people by offering them any distant chance at inheriting the throne.

The problem came when these people wanted to throw their daughters in front of Laios like lambs for the slaughter. They were just trying to get ahead. Kabru understood their motivations, but he was almost ashamed to watch. It visibly pained these ambitious fathers to present their eligible girls in low cut dresses to a King who staunchly avoided looking at their bosoms and instead pressed them for every last detail about their family’s centuries old koi pond, which is exactly what happened to this guy. Kabru had to badger the King to return even the most innocuous letters from suitresses, and usually Kabru drafted those responses himself. Part of Laios’s problem was that he did not know how to distinguish politeness from expressing romantic interest, and so he went out of his way to avoid interactions completely so as not to create the wrong impression.

“It’s actually favorable to create the wrong impression,” Kabru had told him, time and time again. “Even polite engagement confers status to their families, and it's not like they will come knocking at your door without an invitation. There’s no commitment in returning a letter.”

“Leading them on isn’t very nice,” The King replied.

Kabru had just started returning letters himself, sending regards from the King instead, with Yaad’s blessing.

And that was probably where all the suspicions started. Because honestly, why was he the one to write back to these women saying the King appreciated their letters? 

And here Ser Ileif was, coming to the castle without invitation. Maybe he was only emboldened by the dismissals he mailed to his daughters.

At any hour. He knew what that meant.

And once again, he knew it was only envy - envy that Kabru had Laios’s ear, his attention, and his free time, and that they wished that they, or their daughters, had those things instead. They didn’t know it was because Laios had difficulty associating with anyone he didn’t already know. They didn’t know how long it had taken for Kabru to earn his trust.

But because he had those things, they made the wrong assumptions about him, and about Laios. He would tolerate the slights against him much more if they were not also at the King’s expense.

If only they were accurate.

Kabru skimmed the draft proposal. A redirection of some of their trade fleet between Detzveil and Godho. Instead of imports from the Southern Continent departing from Godho and stopping at Iganbord in the Southwestern portion of the Eastern Continent before moving on to Khaka Brud and entering Melini, the boats would depart from Detzveil, much further south, and stop once in Shamdoiz, on the northwestern tip of the Southern continent, and then travelling from that point to Khaka Brud directly, avoiding any other stops on the Eastern Continent. Ostensibly, it would save a day’s travel time and the tariffs that came with exchange at Iganbord, since Khaka Brud and Melini had entered a reciprocal trade agreement.

But a day’s delay would be offset by more important considerations. This would only make trouble with the dwarves of Godho and the half-foots of Iganbord. And if he wasn’t mistaken (he wasn't), Ser Ilief’s second eldest son Jorgen had just purchased a slip at Shamdoiz. It was only his own family who would benefit from the proposal.

As much as Kabru resented the way these aristocrats spoke to him, he hated how they perceived Laios. Laios had a common man’s interest at heart, because he considered himself a common man. Laios had the sensibility of a true king: noblesse oblige. And they mistook his kindness for slowness.

He thinks he’s fucking stupid, Kabru thought. He knew better than that. Everything to be presented to Laios went through Kabru and Yaad first, and often Marcille, depending on the proposal. That had nothing to do with Laios’s aptitude, and everything to do with their spheres of governance and individual strengths. “Thank you for your planning and research, I will take this to the Prime Minister as soon as I am able.” Kabru smiled. In court language, that translated to: Do you think I’m fucking stupid?

“You have my gratitude,” he said, with a nod.

Kabru pushed open the door to the Prime Minister’s office, and closed the door behind him. He dropped the two pages in front of Yaad, letting the air buoy them as they floated onto the desk. “Ser Ilief the Audacious dropped by. He wanted me to pitch to His Majesty we redirect our trade routes and dash our goodwill with Gondo and Iganbord to enrich his son.”

“I hate that guy,” Yaad said. “Why are you still holding my contracts?”

“It is beneath His Majesty to bear witness to such a disgraceful, egomaniacal proposal,” Kabru said. “Only half-joking. I figured you’d want to take a look at it, and I didn’t want Laios to see it.”

Yaad put down his pencil and picked up the papers, snapping them straight. Kabru watched his eyes dart across the text. And then he looked over the papers, into the middle distance.

Those ghosts again, Kabru thought. 

“I hate that guy,” Yaad said, dropping the pages. “Go get my contracts signed!”

Chapter Text

Laios squinted and tried to steady his breathing. This was one of the simpler parts, in theory: threading the wire through the bones. But with samples this small, and the holes carefully drilled through either end even smaller, he had to get it just right. He had to close one eye and hold the longer bones - in this case, a femur - to a light to spot the opening, and push the wire through once he could no longer see the light on the other side. He inhaled slowly, filling his nostrils with the smell of formaldehyde and damp, regurgitated fur, and tried to stop his hands from shaking. And - there! He exhaled, now able to push the femur next to the ischium without straining his eyes. When the wire poked through the other side, he took his pliers and pulled, bringing the joint right into the socket. Internally, he cheered.

While he appreciated taxidermy, there was an entirely different appeal to a skeletal mount. He missed seeing monsters in life, sure. Every day he did. But as he’d expanded his collection of monster taxidermy (some procured, many fashioned by his own hand), he had found himself wondering what was possible beyond lifelike imitations, and he’d become interested in displays that could only be possible in death. 

He’d liked that in some monster guides there would be complete renderings of monster skeletons, in poses as if they were reanimated. How neat was that! Drawing the monsters as living bones was a clever way to show how everything fit together. It provided a particular sort of context. But in reality, skeletons never came that way - bones arrived in a jumble, and to examine them all, you’d have to arrange the skeleton flat, as if it was a pelt. Unlike taxidermy, where you could make an artificial structure to hang the skin in the right shape, the bones were the entire structure. And so his bone collections had been languishing. Until, one night, he was staring at an anatomical drawing of a big bat skeleton and wondered if he could make the big bat’s bony wings flap. And then it hit him - he could string up the bones! When he brought up the idea, Falin told him medical schools strung together human skeletons with moveable joints for display. It was the same thing, in principle. He didn’t know why it wasn’t as commonly done with animals, let alone monsters - but his tastes had always been considered a little eccentric.

He hadn’t had a good excuse to try doing it himself until he got the giant owl pellet. The stakes were low, as he’d cleaned and assembled at least five complete monster rodent skeletons that were nearly identical - if he messed one up, there’d be other chances to try the same creature. Laios made a rather sorry job of the first rodent, but he felt more confident this time. He'd taken plenty of notes.

As he started to bend the wire downwards, preparing to put the tibia in place under the femur, he heard a knock. Laios knew that knock so well he could see it - two light raps from the back of his hand, with only the second knuckle of his pointer finger making contact. He set the bones down, wiped his hands on his pants, and stood to look for his quill. “Come in,” he called.

The door pushed open. “Good afternoon, your Majesty,” Kabru said. 

He’d complained enough about Kabru calling him by any of his titles that he’d realized sometimes Kabru chose to use those titles expressly to annoy him. He didn’t like it, but he sort of liked the way it bothered him, knowing the annoyance was intentionally inflicted but without any malice. A friendly jab. Kabru had gamed him into the same conversation over and over again that way - don’t call me that / oh, but I must, your Highness / quit it!

It always gave him an itchy feeling. It was a weird thing, to look forward to hearing his own name, to ask to hear him say it. He stopped trying to argue about it, but that itch came back every time. “Hi,” he said back.

Kabru approached, with a stack of pages in his hand. Of course. That’s why he got his quill, after all. Laios held out his hand.

“A rat?” he asked.

Laios looked down to his desk. There was one headless spinal column and a ribcage with half a leg on wire. The remaining bones for this skeleton sat next to it. Well, the skull would be a dead giveaway, he supposed. “Um, yeah. From that giant owl pellet Senshi and Izutsumi brought, remember? I’ve been putting together what I’ve been able to pull out of it. This is only from the first half of the pellet. I had to try to split it in two to work through it...” he said, feeling - strange. More distant with every word. Hadn’t he talked with Kabru about this? He talked about it enough that Kabru shouldn’t be surprised to see a ratlike skeleton on his table. He’d definitely mentioned it at their collective dinners, because Marcille had begged him to stop talking about his endeavors with the pellet while she was eating. Had Kabru forgotten about it? No, he wouldn’t. Kabru never forgot anything. He had a mind like a steel trap. Besides, he was surprisingly alright with Laios’s monster taxidermy and preservation exploits. It turned out he was tolerable of monsters, as long as they were dead and he didn’t have to eat them. That, or he kept getting better at hiding how he felt as time went on. Either way. 

Maybe he was just making conversation. Kabru would occasionally pretend not to know things he otherwise should know to push a conversation along. It was a technique Laios never liked to watch. He hoped Kabru wasn’t trying to use it on him.

“I see,” he said. “Let me grab a chair.”

Laios sat down and watched him pull a chair over to his desk. It seemed familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. How many times had he seen him pull up the exact same chair next to him?  He was probably reading into it, but he felt like he was missing something.

Kabru scooted forward in the chair. “You’re getting ink on your pants, you know.”

Laios looked down. He was, in fact, holding his quill right against his pants, and a small black dot had formed under the bit. Oh well. These were his project pants anyway. 

When he looked up, Kabru was separating out the pages with a satisfied half-smile on his face. Laios didn’t think he should be embarrassed about something like getting ink on his pants that were set aside specifically to accept staining, but Kabru’s expression seemed to indicate that he should be, and he was usually right.

Itchy.

“So, the rat.” Kabru pointed. “It’s a monster rat?” He slid over the topmost paper in the pile, with a prominent area for his signature. Oh, right. These were those mining contracts they’d settled on last week.

“Honest answer? I can’t be entirely sure, but I hope so,” Laios said, trying to watch his penmanship. “Rat and rodentlike monsters aren’t uncommon, but they haven’t been studied with any particular gusto. They’re a lot less flashy than larger and deadlier monsters, and most of them look very similar to surface rats. For example, fire-breathing rats have an extra stomach valve that traps flammable digestive gases they use for fuel. They live in mostly lightless areas of the dungeon. They can only produce so much fire with one breath - they only have enough room in their bellies for one burst to surprise predators and provide a distraction so they can escape. They bloat if too much gas accumulates, so they have a shorter ribcage to allow their torsos to expand. Vampire rats have longer and sharper incisors, but their internal structures aren’t any different, though they're likely to have different balances of digestive enzymes to aid their blood-based diet. For those monsters, the skeletal differences are pretty minor from normal rats. Regular surface rats live on every floor of the dungeon in pretty significant numbers, even the lowest floors. Rats follow people, and they can sustain themselves on plants and seeds, carcasses, and whatever rations adventurers leave behind. Rats are a cosmopolitan species above ground and in dungeons. They actually fare better in the dungeon in some ways, because they’re not threatened by human efforts to poison or cull their population down there. For larger monsters, individual rats are hardly worth the trouble to catch, so the ones that do make it further down might actually have a better chance of surviving to adulthood than rats closer to the surface. Anyway, I don’t think these are fire-breathing rats or vampire rats. And unless they were still in the embryonic stage, they’re way too small to be giant rats. I’m still in the stage where I’m trying to rule out options.”

“Hm. Sign here too, please.”

Laios did as instructed. With another person in the room, the faint scratching of the quill sounded louder. He usually felt that way when he had to sign anything in front of a room of waiting ministers and foreign representatives. Not usually when he was just with Kabru. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time when he was just with Kabru. Laios realized he was holding his breath.

Kabru didn’t mind his monster rants. Laios knew that. He sometimes got pretty into them. Kabru didn’t lie when he told him he was interested in hearing what he had to say. He was oddly quiet this time, but it wasn’t odd because he was quiet. Laios often pelted him with far more information than he knew what to do with, and he would chew it over before following up with any questions or moving on to the next topic. That was fine. The quiet just felt different than usual.

He wanted to make conversation. He had more monster facts he could add, but Laios wasn’t sure how long Kabru would want to listen to him talk about monster or not-monster rats uninterrupted. He used to have a better gauge on that sort of thing, didn’t he? Kabru was always patient with him, so he didn’t understand why he felt so tense now. 

How are you? felt wrong to ask, in the middle of the afternoon. That was the sort of question he’d save for the end of a particularly grueling meeting, or the rare occasion either one of them left the castle for more than a few hours. His tongue felt thick. He pressed it to the roof of his mouth and clenched his jaw. How Kabru was doing was something he thought he should know already - and shouldn’t he? He saw him every day, had seen him every day, had been seeing him every day. Laios had seen him already today, more than once.

But how was he, really?

Laios didn’t know. Fine, probably. He tried to think of normal things Kabru liked that he could ask about - any books he was reading, any new teas he'd tried, any new stores in town he wanted to visit… but he couldn’t think of any specifics. How long had it been since they’d just sat around and talked? How long had it been since Kabru had last come to see him here? It couldn’t have been that long. Why did it suddenly feel like he hadn’t seen him in so, so, long?

Kabru turned the page and tapped his finger next to another line. “And here.”

Laios glanced over at him, but Kabru had already refocused on the rat skeleton. His gut twisted a little as he scratched out another signature.

“Can I tell you something?” Kabru asked, eyes still trained on the rat.

In Laios’s experience, you only really asked if you could say something before you said it if you didn’t expect the other person to like it. It sounded like a warning signal. Kabru didn’t usually tip his hand like that. “Yeah, go ahead,” Laios said.

“I don’t really know what to make of your uncertainty.”

Laios blinked. “About what?”

“About the rats.”

He wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not. “Well, as I suggested, the skeletal differences aren’t very obvious. You know how hermit crabs kinda look like regular crabs? One hides until it can regrow its own shell, the other molts and picks a new shell from their environment. Hermit crabs and regular crabs aren’t closely related, they only look similar, and one has a noticeably different defense mechanism. You can tell the difference when they’re dead and desiccated because a hermit crab will still have the shell on. Surface rats can’t breathe fire. But aside from the fire-breathing rats’ shortened ribcage, all the adaptations that allow them to breathe fire are differences in soft tissue. So when the soft tissue erodes, you don’t have obvious cues that it could breathe fire. And like I said, surface rats exist on every floor. Giant owls tend to be on lower levels. Fire breathing rats also tend to be on lower levels, but so do regular rats, so I can’t narrow it down by floor alone. The other thing is both monster and surface species differ around the world. Populations vary. This pellet is from the Eastern archipelago. I’m as unfamiliar with their rats as I am with their endemic monster fauna. I’ve been looking into ordering monster guidebooks and rodent guidebooks of the area, but even if I got them I wouldn’t be able to do much with those without a lot of translation work…” Laios sighed.

“I’m not saying you’re not making the effort, or that you aren’t doing a good job of explaining it,” Kabru said. “It’s just strange to think someone like you, with all the monster acumen you have, still can’t immediately tell the difference between a surface creature and a monster. I don’t know what to make of that.”

By his estimate, Laios had done a pretty good job explaining why he was having that trouble. His pen was drying out. Laios pulled the inkwell over and stuck the quill in. “What do you mean?”

“Just that the line is unclear, I suppose.” 

Laios realized he hadn’t seen him blink at the skeleton, even with the slight sting of the chemicals hanging in the air.

Ah. It was tapping into his own monster issues. All over his eye color. He’d said before he considered asking his mother - his elven adoptive mother (Mil... something?) - to teach him an illusion spell to change them from blue to brown, back when he was younger and more self conscious. He didn’t get what the big deal was. A lot of people had blue eyes. Besides, Laios couldn’t picture him looking any different, and didn’t want to try. He liked Kabru the way he was, and that included how he looked. He was handsome the way grass was green - he just was, and he didn't think about it very much.

Laios shrugged. “For me, the interesting part is guessing at the giant owl’s diet anyway,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter whether they’re monsters or not, though monster rats would be way better.”

“Right,” Kabru said. “Of course.”

He probably didn’t appreciate that.

“Um, well, did you know that no monsters have the same brain structure as humans? Even humanoid monsters. For example, if you found the upper half of a mermaid, you’d be able to tell it wasn’t human if you opened up their skull. Well, I guess structure is the wrong word, but… they’re more akin to sheep brains, they’re much smaller and flatter than a human brain. But I guess with mermaids, even without their tail, you’d also be able to tell by their teeth…” Laios tried to think of better examples of humanoid monster skulls. Harpy skulls had the same teeth problem. He wasn’t sure if it would work with succubi mosquitos, since they were temporary transformations and did not always appear human, anyway. Plus, succubi tended to decay quickly, like other bugs did, so there wouldn’t be much of a chance to perform an autopsy. Mermen skulls couldn’t be mistaken for human… Now that he thought about it, human corpses and skeletons could technically become monsters anyway (see: ghouls, skeletons). Laios wasn’t doing a great job at reassuring him. Wrong train of thought to follow. 

“Thank you. You don’t have to do that. It’s okay. I was just thinking… in Utaya, there were rats. There were much larger monsters to be concerned with, but there were rats.”

Kabru rarely mentioned anything about the Utaya dungeon collapse, and Laios had enough tact never to ask about it. It always made him uncomfortable, how Kabru described the way the earth split open, the flood of monsters across land and sky, the rapid transformation of humans into cannibal grotesques… that was how he knew monsters. That was just how it was. It wasn’t his fault. Laios couldn’t blame him for trying to share his own experiences. Kabru never tried to make him feel guilty for appreciating monsters, he just didn’t have any better material to draw from. Laios hated to think that Kabru brought it up to entertain him, but that was a selfish way to think about it. Maybe Kabru liked having the outlet. It’s not like the topic came up organically in conversation very often. 

“I hid in the cellar in our tavern on the first night.”

A likely place for rats, Laios thought.

“I don’t remember how long I was down there. It was so dark. But rats started coming in, after a while. So many rats. Too many to count, like it was one large mass. It felt like hundreds. They kept squeezing under the door. Some of them started chewing holes through it - through more than three inches of wood. Some of them were abnormally large and deformed, like their bodies had split open from rapid growth. Their flesh was distended, bubbling out. But most of them,” he said, “looked like regular rats.”

Laios nodded. Kabru wasn’t looking at him. He didn’t even seem like he was in the same room.

“Unlike almost everything outside, they didn’t seem to have an instinct to attack me. They were going after the food. They ate fruit peel and all, spilled open bags of flour, devoured oats. I realized, watching them, all piled on top of one another, crawling and writhing and squeaking, that if nothing larger got to me first -” he paused, closing his mouth tight and pursing his lips together. “I was going to starve.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He never did know what to say when Kabru spoke about Utaya - condolences and reassurances felt empty. It happened nearly two decades ago. That was another reason Kabru didn’t like talking about it, Laios guessed. It made for rather one sided conversation. “But you didn’t,” he settled on. A fact.

“But I didn’t,” Kabru repeated. He turned his body in Laios’s direction to offer a small smile.

Laios didn’t have any follow up. He thought it would probably be a good idea to squeeze his hand, or his shoulder, or his knee, all things Kabru has done to reassure him before without words, but his hands were covered in chemicals and bone dust, so that was out of the question. Laios put his own hands together instead to quell the impulse. Under the table, he bobbed one knee up and down.

“I thought that might interest you, given your taxonomic challenges.”

What the hell was he supposed to say to that? Was Laios supposed to admit that he thought one of the most destructive events in modern memory, that personally tortured him and robbed him of a normal life, was kinda cool? Kabru already knew he felt that way. That was part of why he brought these things up, and why Laios always felt guilty when he did. Laios bit his cheek. Humans transformed into monsters there, it shouldn’t be surprising to hear the same happened to rats. But his current mystery rodents hadn’t been dramatically changed in any way that he could detect. It wasn’t helpful information to him. “I appreciate that.”

Kabru breathed out a little laugh. “I know your rats don’t match that description, but I’m trying to segue to a different point. You intend to display your skeletons, yes?”

That was much safer territory. “Oh, yeah. That’s the plan, eventually.” 

“I saw the other one you made.” He tipped his head backwards, towards a bookcase by the door, where his first effort of rodent skeleton construction sat on a lower shelf. “It looked a little stiff.”

Laios frowned. He hadn’t really expected criticism, from him of all people. “Hey, I’m self-taught.” 

“I know,” Kabru said. “But I imagine you’re trying to do lifelike poses for them, like you would for your taxidermy, right?” He tipped his head left, towards a stuffed dire wolf arranged with its teeth bared.

“Right.”

“So I was thinking, with a small creature like this, especially without its skin, it might be difficult to capture its … physicality? For lack of a better word.”

“Um, yeah,” Laios said, casting a quick look at his unfinished work. “I think I was going to do this one in a similar sitting position, because I didn’t like how the first one turned out.” He could admit he wasn’t entirely happy with that one, but he didn’t think it was bad enough that Kabru would notice the pose was awkward from halfway across the room. He was kind of sore about that. “I’ve already pulled a few complete sets of skeletons. I was going to try and do different poses for all of them. Like, one up on its hind legs, one more like it’s walking…”

Kabru’s eyes shone. “That’s what I thought you might say,” he said. “They’d look a little more lively if you set them all up together in different poses, wouldn’t they? The dynamism of a group would make up for the flaws in the posing of any individual. And that’s how a group of real rats would look, right? Looking at an anthill, or birds flying in formation, none will have all its limbs arranged exactly the same as all the others.”

“Yeah,” Laios said. He didn’t really know where Kabru was trying to go with this, but he seemed excited about it, so Laios was, too. Kabru was a good listener, but he almost never offered any detailed feedback on Laios’s projects. It was a little alarming, actually.

“How many of them do you have?”

“Well, there were five skeletons in half the pellet. I assume the giant owl stumbled upon a nest of these rodents, since there weren’t any different creatures in this half of the pellet, I guess the other half will be similar… there should be at least ten, total. But I won’t know until I’ve finished picking through it.”

Kabru clicked his tongue. “Only ten?”

Only ten? It was a pretty good haul, as far as he was concerned. “That’s what I’d bet on. Around ten. Why?”

“Well,” Kabru said, “rats are social creatures, aren’t they? I don’t know if that applies to many rodents, or monster rats, so you can correct me if I’m wrong, that’s not really my area of expertise.” He drummed his fingers. “But I was thinking about how you arranged your dire wolf. You weren’t just trying to show its range of motion, but what it was capable of, right? You wanted it to look like something dangerous.”

Dangerous, huh? Isn't that what he liked about them? Even when they didn't pose a threat, they could, at the right provocation. Laios clasped his hands tighter together. His knee bobbed faster. He leaned forward. That was exactly what he’d been trying to do. “Yeah,” he said, voice suddenly hoarse. “I did.”

Kabru leaned closer too, mirroring his pose - hands clasped, elbows on his knees, head bowed just low enough to look up at him. “It’s hard to make one rat look dangerous,” he said, voice lowered, barely above a whisper. “It’s not much easier to make ten rats look dangerous.”

He should used to Kabru looking at him, and he was used to it, so long as he didn’t think about it very much. His eyes scared his village enough to disown him, even as an infant. Again, Laios reminded himself, blue eyes weren't uncommon. But he had to agree that his gaze felt very… intense. Laios never figured out exactly why Kabru thought his eyes were supposed to be reminiscent of succubi. As far as he knew, he’d only made that connection because he thought they could sire human children - though that was in error. He meant incubi, which only existed in folklore as demons. The succubi bugs, of course, had no consistency in the form they took. He’d read what little there was on the topic available in Common, and most accounts of so-called attacks by incubi of legend were more akin to sleep paralysis. Scary, maybe, but not monstrous in the slightest. Regardless of the veracity of those rumors, incubi were hardly the only monster that could paralyze by a gaze. Basilisks and cockatrices, cotablepas, gorgons and their ilk…

In all of those cases, the effect was, well…

Stunning.

“Um,” he said.

“I’m saying that if you want to make your rats look dangerous, you don’t want ten of them.” Kabru’s grin stretched wide enough to show the edges of his canines. “You want a horde.”

He knows, because he felt that fear. 

And he knows I like it.

Laios felt a dull, rhythmic thud in his ears.

Does he really trust me like that?

Maybe that’s what always terrified him when Kabru talked about Utaya. Laios could make peace with his own guilt, but he couldn’t tell what Kabru wanted him to feel, what he wanted him to say or do with what he shared, and that’s what gnawed at him. It always felt like Kabru was gifting him some irreplaceable, precious thing, and Laios was convinced he would drop and shatter it into a million pieces every time. He hadn’t yet, at least not in a way Kabru ever acknowledged.

But Kabru had never goaded him with it, either.

Does he trust me enough to let me enjoy it?

Does he want me to?

He was offering it up for the taking. 

What does he get out of it?

Laios’s gaze fell from his eyes to his mouth, to the edges of his pointy white teeth.

Dangerous, huh?

That was the difference between monsters and people. He was bad at guessing what provoked people. As for Kabru...

Laios looked back into his eyes.

Kabru really is stunning.

Then Kabru’s smile faltered, and he pulled back. “Well, I thought it was a good idea.”

Laios blinked. Wait, what? He shook his head. “No! No, that’s a really good idea!”

Kabru leaned back in his chair and sighed. “That’s what I get for offering my creative insights…”

“I do think it's a good idea! It is a good idea! It’s a really good idea! I just, uh, got lost there, for a second. I don’t know how I’d make that work, either, if I only have ten skeletons… it’s not like I have a second pellet lying around.”

“I was imagining you could make models. You have enough reference material.”

That… that was also a very good idea. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “You’re right, but…”

“But you’re running out of space in here?” Kabru gestured to either side. Laios had packed the room with every monster remnant he could get his hands on. Skins, bones, teeth and wings lined the walls and cluttered the floors.

There was that. “Yeah.”

“This is my better idea,” Kabru said. “You need another place to move your collection.”

A storage unit, or a basement. Laios had made his peace with the knowledge he would one day have to clear out at least some of his projects. As they were now, he tried to display them nicely, but they’d started spreading to the floor and across any piece of furniture on which he could balance a claw. “I know…”

“Don’t sound so glum. I’m not suggesting you hide them away.” 

Well, there were any number of unused rooms in the castle. Not as many in this wing, but he could clear out a room somewhere and make himself a gallery. That could be nice, right? Laios pushed the nib of his pen into the rough wood of his work table. “I know…”

“Stop moping and look at me.” Kabru snapped his fingers in front of the King’s face. 

Laios looked over at him and back down at his pen. He didn’t want to get stuck staring at him again. 

“Do you want to hear my idea or not?” he asked. Laios peeked in his direction. Despite his tone, he looked more amused than anything. “Are you familiar with museums?”

Familiar probably wasn’t the right word for it. He knew of them, but he’d never been to any. As far as he knew, they were reserved for wealthy patrons in wealthy, distant cities. They kept collections of art and pottery, and that sort of thing, usually old stuff. There weren’t very many of them. “Sorta. I know what they are, anyway.”

“Think of it as a library of stuff. They usually house art and historical artifacts for educational benefit, and many of them are also sites of research. Imagine a potter trying to rediscover ancient glazing techniques by examining sherds buried in ruins of abandoned civilizations. But that’s a narrow view of what a museum could be. Universities store all sorts of objects of research. If you wanted to become an ichthyologist, you would go to a university with a program in biology, and inevitably they would wheel out preserved specimens of sharks and minnows so you could study their anatomy. I imagine they might also have living fish for behavioral observation, but that’s untenable for my proposal. I suggest you put together something like a museum of your monster specimens for permanent display. Instead of hiding your work in the castle, where no one could see it, or behind steep tuition, where only a privileged few could see it, you could make it public, funded by taxes and donations. I think there could be a lot of benefit to that. You have enough knowledge to fill a monster museum all by yourself, and your displays could be larger and more elaborate than what you could possibly fit in here. You can have plaques displaying their biology and role in their ecosystem, the violence they’re capable of, how best to kill them, how best to cook them… you could even have Yaad contribute from his years using them as livestock - though those would have to be described as theoretical uses for monsters…” Kabru kicked at Laios’s foot under the table. “Adventurers could find use in it, as could dungeon researchers. Common people would be better able to deal with any roaming pests that make it out of the dungeon. It could even draw in people who simply want to admire monsters, like those giant mushroom fanatics. I'm sure there's other like minded people out there. If you can’t travel anywhere, you can bring those people to you. Wouldn’t you have liked a place like that, when you were little? Wouldn’t Marcille have liked that, for her studies? We don’t know what will happen in the future, now that the dungeon’s infinite mana source is gone. One day there might not be monsters anymore. Don’t you want to leave a record of them? Besides, you’re already known as the Devourer of All Things Horrible. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with reinforcing that image with horrifying and educational public works.”

Laios stared, mouth agape.

Could something like that exist? Was that possible?

It felt like the first time he’d met the Winged Lion, in his succubus-induced slumber. Back then, the Lion guided him through a fantasy world - his own dungeon, where monsters and humans lived together in perfect harmony, the way the Golden City people lived with them, only so much more. A place where monsters were respected and revered, where people’s lives were improved through their coexistence. Where children could play with walking mushrooms and treasure bugs, where wyvern eggs could be bought as freely as chicken eggs…

Wasn’t that a little like this?

He didn’t have to limit his projects to shelves and corners. He could fill walls, rooms, hallways, atriums -

He imagined a place where the dungeon could be recreated. He could see the second floor - vaulted ceilings painted like the sky with tree trunks that disappeared into the rafters, with one spot here for a stuffed cockatrice, with a clutch of recreated eggs that looked and felt like the real thing, another spot there, where stuffed big bats hung upside down in hollows. Mock Bareselia plants could be surrounded by creatures modeled on various stages of decay. There could even be a little mandrake farm, with models triggered to scream (at child friendly decibels) when extracted from the ground. And throughout, plaques and labels that could tell you about everything - every monster fact too niche and too irrelevant to share aloud, he could leave for people who wanted to know more. 

It didn’t have to be faithful to the dungeon he knew. He could make a floor of only skeletal creatures, a floor of only dragons, a floor for cooking demonstrations… It could be better than a recreation. He could design it any way he wanted. 

All the hard earned practical knowledge from his adventuring days, all his academic knowledge he’d only compounded with access to a royal library… all available, to whoever wanted it. And it would attract those people, those interested people who could contribute even more, and it could grow so elaborate that he would have to start forgetting old monster facts to make room for new ones.

Laios didn’t know what to say. He felt like his whole body was vibrating. “That… do you really think that’s something we could do?” 

“I wouldn’t be telling you if I didn’t believe you could do it.” Kabru’s wide eyes darted around, as if he was drinking in every bit of Laios's expression. His smile looked a little bashful, the way it always did after he spoke interrupted for more than a minute. “What do you think?”

Laios wanted to run laps around the castle. He wanted to scream. He wanted to hug him and spin him and throw him in the air. He wanted to grab him and dance with him! He wanted to shake his hand! Still covered in bone dust, still can’t touch him. As much as he wanted to. Kabru had boundaries he wanted to respect. 

But how else was he supposed to show him how he felt? 

Laios flexed a hand, grasping at air.

He could just… he could just…

Kabru stared back at him, expectant, smiling.

He has a nice smile.

A really nice smile.

He could…

He could…

He could just-

…

……

……………

What?

Laios shot out of his chair so fast he sent it clattering behind him. He braced himself against the table. He watched the floor spin beneath him.

He could WHAT?!

“Are you alright?”

“I - Yes! Yup! That’s, uh, that - that’s the most awesome idea I’ve ever heard! Ha ha!” Laios shouted to the floor. He did not just think about what he thought he just thought he thunk. He did not think anything at all. It did not count if he didn’t verbalize it in his internal monologue, because that way he technically did not even think it. And he definitely couldn't still be thinking about something he never thought in the first place, so he was not currently thinking about it, not in the slightest, and never had ever thought it to begin with. “A monster museum, yup, that sure would be something!” He needed to forget he thought the thought he didn’t think. He needed to refocus on the actually totally awesome idea Kabru had so kindly presented to him because he was genuinely very excited about it and should tell him so. “That is so cool! Ha, ha. Wow! I’m very grateful!” Laios offered a thumbs up. “You’re the best!”

He was not impressed. Laios heard him step out of his chair. “You don’t look so good. Maybe you’ve finally inhaled too many fumes in here…”

“I mean, um, I’m just overwhelmed, I think it’s all just, uh, hitting me now, you know? It’s, uh… life changing! World changing!”

“Uh huh,” he said. He sighed. Laios watched his feet come into view, directly in front of him. “Hey. Look up at me?”

“Uh…” he did not want to do that.

Kabru placed his hands on either side of the King’s face and tilted him upwards. His fingertips rested just under his jawline, right where Laios could feel his arteries pulsing under his skin.

“I… um…”

“Stop talking and look forward.”

Laios wanted to shrink into a puddle. Anything but that… 

He did as he was told.

Kabru held his head still and stared.

Despite the fact that several species of monster are able to inflict paralysis through eye contact alone, the paralytic mechanism wasn’t well understood. They really need to work on that, Laios thought, frozen in terror. Maybe that could be their first monster museum sponsored research investment.

Kabru dropped his head. “Your pupils are the same size, at least. You look feverish. Are you feeling dizzy?”

Laios was very dizzy. His ears were ringing. “I think I just stood up too fast.” 

“You might want to go lay down for a bit.”

Laios nodded. 

Kabru stepped away and righted Laios’s chair. “I hope you’ll give the museum idea some thought, anyway,” he said. 

“What?! No, I said - I mean, yes, one hundred percent! I want to make a museum! We should get started as soon as possible!” Laios punched a fist into the air. “I have so many ideas I don’t know where to start!”

“Don’t get too excited. It will inevitably be a long process. Budgeting and real estate would be the first concerns. And sit down, please, until you think you can get yourself to bed. I’m still worried about you.” Kabru piled his papers together, pausing to blow air over the King’s signatures to ensure they were fully dried. 

“Are you leaving?”

“Do you need me to help you get to your room?” He asked.

“No? I meant… I feel like you just got here.”

“Time flies with monster talk, doesn’t it?”

There was some sarcasm baked in there. “Well, yeah, I really liked your idea, and I really want to talk about it more with you, but… it also feels like I just haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Really? You saw me less than two hours ago.”

Yeah, at a very boring meeting about whether or not they should send an envoy to Bonnario about a planned dam. “Not like this, I guess. When was the last time you came to visit?”

“What do you mean?”

He didn’t think the question was that complicated. “When was the last time you were in here? Just to talk, not about work stuff.” Not that Kabru had been here for work stuff recently, either.

Kabru tapped a finger over a page, to test the ink. “Isn’t everything work stuff?”

That couldn’t possibly be true. None of what they just talked about was work stuff. Did he think it was? Laios would hate that. He would hate that. “Does it feel like work?”

“What? No,” Kabru looked over at him. “If you’re asking if I meant that talking to you feels like work, the answer is no. I’m sorry, I was being flippant. I just meant that it all does circle back in a way, doesn’t it? We don’t have the luxury of leaving a job at a worksite and going home. We eat, sleep, and breathe to better the kingdom. We live what we do. It bleeds into everything. Don’t you feel that way?” He asked. “You don’t get to hang up your crown.”

“I’m not wearing it right now,” he said.

“Very funny, your Highness.”

I hate when he does that. Laios bristled. He reminded himself not to rise to the bait. If he wanted to talk to Kabru, he just had to do it. Make conversation. “What have you been up to? Have you, uh, done anything fun recently?”

“Is there anything more fun than running a country?”

Ah. Laios realized that Kabru was doing another one of those things that he did that Laios didn’t like. When he didn’t like where questions were going, he just asked a different question. Laios thought his questions were pretty innocuous, though. Why would he dance around them? All he asked was the last time he was here, and what he’s been doing… why wouldn’t he want to answer that?

When it first occurred to him that Kabru hadn't come around in a minute, he had assumed that Kabru had been busy, or that he didn’t really want to hang out around his giant owl pellet. And Laios hadn't noticed because he was wrapped up with the pellet. He'd been (in his view, justifiably) distracted. But if Kabru didn’t want to be around the giant owl pellet, he could have just said something. They were close enough for that. But if it was only because the pellet was grossing him out, he didn’t act like he was very offended…

Oh yeah, he also wasn’t even here on his own time right now. He didn’t come to say hi. Kabru came here to get him to sign contracts, probably at Yaad’s behest.

All of this felt a little strange.

First Kabru seemed off, then vulnerable in a way Laios never knew how to deal with, then he turned that conversation in a direction he knew Laios would like. And he did like it! A monster museum was quite possibly the closest thing to a paradise he could create under his current circumstances. But he was having trouble enjoying it, because it was all strangely forced. If he’d planned to tell him about his museum idea in advance, he wouldn’t have done it that way. Usually Kabru saved his big ideas for after dinner, when they could sit and talk about them for a few hours. On one hand, Kabru probably wouldn’t be able to share all of his enthusiasm for a monster museum but… it wasn’t like him to present something like this and just leave. He probably hadn't planned to say it. He didn’t really seem too eager for conversation at all, at the beginning.

Laios felt like he’d forgotten how to talk to him earlier.

Did Kabru feel the same?

He didn’t want to acknowledge that he hadn’t been around. He didn’t want to say what else he was doing, either.

Does he not want to talk to me?

He'd thrown him a conversational bone to chase.

Laios felt his bottomless stomach grow a deeper pit.

Is that why he hasn't been here?

“Well, thank you very much for your signatures, I’ll see you-“

“Have you been avoiding me on purpose?”

“What?”

Kabru looked surprised, but he was good at acting when he wanted to be. Laios scuffed his foot along the floor. “You stopped coming by, and I didn’t say anything. I’m sorry.”

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Where is this coming from?"

More questions. “Are you mad at me about something?”

He set the papers down and sighed. Kabru pinched the bridge of his nose. “What reason would I have to be mad at you?”

This was getting annoying. “I don’t know. That's why I asked you.”

"I'm not mad at you, Laios."

Laios scuffed his foot again. He didn't entirely believe that, but he could try to. He was at least trying to sound sincere. At least he dropped the titles.

"Hey, chin up." Kabru placed his pointer finger under the King's chin and tapped him twice. Laios frowned, but looked down to meet his eyes anyway. Kabru smiled. "I couldn't avoid you if I tried."

That was probably the last thing he wanted to hear.

Kabru gathered his things and walked towards the entrance of the lab. Laios followed after, after reassuring Kabru his balance was just fine, and got the door for him. Laios walked him through the bedroom and to the front room.

Why would he be mad?

Why would he want to avoid me?

Oh yeah. Yaad said something yesterday -

Kabru opened the first door of the vestibule to exit the King's chambers. He half stepped inside. “I apologize for the interruption, thank you for taking some time out of your leisure, I hope it wasn’t-“

“Is it because I smell?”

“What?” Kabru’s eyebrows knit together. “I’m sorry. What do you mean?”

“Yaad said I smelled. Do I smell? Is that why...?”

“You — do you mean right now? I wouldn’t expect-"

“No, I mean… I always try to wash up in the morning, and then again afterword, or at the very least wash my hands really well if I don’t have time to shower… Is that why you haven't been coming to see me?”

“You’re talking about that owl pellet,” he said, as a statement, a touch louder than before.

Obviously they were talking about the owl pellet. What else would he be talking about? Who would he be raising his voice for? The guards? They couldn’t care less about his hobbies. “Yeah, um. I was wondering if you stopped coming over because I smell after messing with it.”

“They’re unrelated. I’ve just been stuck catching up on paperwork recently. The smell is really not all that noticeable.”

Laios frowned. Fuck. “But it’s noticeable.”

“Yes, I noticed, but it wasn’t noticeable enough to remark on. I’m closer to you throughout the day than most people. I’m surprised that Yaad picked up on it at all.”

“Well, that’s what I’m talking about. After Yaad told me, I figured you’d get the worst of it. I can spend a little more time in the bath, if that would help…”

“It’s fine, honestly. I wouldn’t worry about it, I know it’s been awhile since you’ve had a monster carcass to play with.” Kabru fluttered his eyelashes. “I don’t want to take that away from you.”

Kabru was such a nice guy. Somehow that made Laios feel even worse. “Yeah, but… I can do that whenever. I’ve already spent a lot of time on it. I know I should’ve said something earlier, so I understand if you’re annoyed with me — ”

“I said it’s fine.”

“I know but… I know you’re busy, you’re probably exhausted by the time evening rolls around, and it’s not like I really help with that when I keep you up so late…”

Kabru tightened his grip on the door handle. He was definitely annoyed, even if his face didn't change. “It’s not a big deal — ”

“I’m just saying, it’s not like I need to do it every day, and if you can make some time — ”

“I- can we talk about this later?”

“Sure, I guess, if you’re free tonight, we could-”

“I can’t make any promises right now, I’m sorry. I’ll let you know when I’m free, okay?”

“Yeah, I get it. I just, ah…” Laios licked his lips and twisted his fingers around the hemline of his shirt. “I miss you, is all.”

“Right.” Kabru let out a quiet sigh. The papers in his hand crinkled softly where his grip tightened. He released the door handle to run his fingers along the King’s bicep, ending at the crook of his elbow. “I’ll see you soon,” he said. 

He was trying to be reassuring. Why did it not feel reassuring? 

What else did he want?

Laios's heart skipped a beat.

"Oh, wait, I wanted to hug you earlier, but since I'm all gross, I didn't, so later -"

"I'll see you soon, your Majesty."

Kabru closed the door behind him. It felt like he slammed the door in his face, but that was his own fault. He was the one who decided to stand right at the threshold. Laios leaned his head against the door, staring at his feet. 

Shit. 

He really did miss him. He missed him already. 

He hoped Kabru would say he missed him, too. Laios didn’t realize that he wanted to hear him say that until he didn’t say it. And he felt stupid for wanting him to. It wasn’t fair to want Kabru to say that. He was the one who didn’t notice he’d stopped coming around.

Kabru was always busy, he knew that. It shouldn’t be surprising that he didn’t know if he could come tonight. That was fine. He could wait. Couldn’t he?

But wasn’t he surprised? He was. Why was he surprised?

Because Kabru always came to see him anyway. Kabru always had something to talk to him about, either reviewing the day they’d just spent together, or looking forward to the next day they’d spend together. Even though Kabru was constantly working, always focused and diligent and organized and thinking three steps ahead of everyone else, including him, he’d made time to sit with Laios, every night and whenever else he wanted.

I shouldn’t expect that, he thought, I shouldn’t expect that at all. 

He did, though. He did expect it, because he never had to ask for it.

He just didn’t think Kabru would say no.

Because that was actually a 'no', wasn't it? 'I can't make any promises' was a polite way of saying 'no.'

Shit.

Why did that bother him so much? Kabru could say no for any reason he wanted. He could say no just because he didn’t feel like talking to him. Laios would appreciate that honesty. Laios got socially drained much faster than Kabru did, but he still ran out of steam sometimes, even if he didn’t let it show. He was only human. He said he’d been busy, so when wasn’t busy, he could stand to take a night to himself. He’d earned that a hundred times over. 

Had he always been this needy?

Laios grunted, and traced the ornate wooden carvings on the door with his finger. 

That might be part of his problem. Maybe he had been needy, and he didn’t notice, because he never got the chance to miss him. Hadn’t that been part of Shuro’s problem with him? They’d spent so much time together in the dungeon. They didn’t get many opportunities to be apart down there, and there wasn’t much of a gap in time between expeditions, so Shuro never got a break from him, but he also didn’t have the heart to tell him he was sick of him. Shuro just silently put up with it until he couldn’t anymore. 

But Kabru sought him out! At least, until recently. Kabru was the one who made the effort. Sure, it usually started out with Kabru guiding along his preparations for any and everything, but unless Laios was really struggling, their time together turned into regular socializing pretty quickly. Laios didn’t have to invite him, and he didn’t force him to stay. But maybe Kabru felt like he had to.

I couldn't avoid you if I tried.

Shit.

He couldn’t stand the thought. Kabru had expressly told him he wanted to be his friend. Kabru liked spending time with him. Kabru liked him! He said he did! And Laios believed him.

And Laios…

He picked at the raised edge of a carved vine. He left a small dent in the wood with his fingernail.

Laios liked Kabru. He liked Kabru a lot.

What was all this? That wasn’t news to him. Laios liked him. He’d always liked him. He never thought anything of it.

How much did he like him, really? He didn’t know what he was supposed to compare it to. He’d never had a friend like him.

And what was that, earlier? 

Did I… ?

It was the most passing of thoughts. Barely a thought at all, really. But it was a thought. That he had. About Kabru.

Did I think about kissing him?

Maybe he did. Just the one time.

It probably wouldn’t happen again.

Chapter Text

Kabru was going to have to kill him. It was always a matter of sooner-or-later, and it was increasingly looking like sooner, if only for his own sanity. 

Inside his mind, he ran in circles, screaming and tearing at his hair. Outside of his mind, he made his way back to Yaad’s office, wearing a coached expression that was good natured without being inviting.

Why? Why why why why why did he do this to him? Why was Laios so completely dedicated to making a fool of him? Why did he insist on imbuing innuendo into conversations that no other human could fathom turning in that direction? How did he master that ability subconsciously? How could he not hear himself? How could he possibly frame ‘do I smell like embalming fluid and dead monster’ to make it sound like they were fucking each other?

You’re probably exhausted by the time evening rolls around, and it’s not like I really help with that when I keep you up late…

It’s not like I need to do it every day — 

To be fair to him, these really weren’t the worst things to say, in context. He’d said worse. But Kabru knew the words that prying ears pick up.

And he always had the worst possible timing - he couldn’t just save it for his own rooms, he had to do it right at his threshold where his guards could hear every word. The set of doubled wooden doors kept out most noise from his chambers, but sound within the vestibule itself may as well echo. After all this time, Laios had never managed to figure out conversations were supposed to end before Kabru tried to leave. It was hardly the first time. Laios was an absolute wordsmith when he wanted to be, and as it turned out, he wanted to be one every time Kabru opened the door.

When Kabru told Laios that his bedroom wouldn’t be a very good secret location to plan Falin’s birthday party (she has a key, after all), it was ‘Well if you think getting together in my room is too obvious, where do you want to do it? Your room? Your room is pretty out of the way. There are some empty rooms around the castle… maybe a hallway? There are a lot of places people wouldn’t find us. Oh, hey, there’s that gazebo in the garden - what’s that face for? Too public?’

When Kabru insisted that work had to be done at a desk or a table, and they could NOT spread out original documents in Laios’s bed and kick their feet in the air like schoolgirls, it was ‘I get why you like the desk but I don’t know why we can’t do stuff in my bed sometimes. If you’re worried about getting anything on the sheets, we can get new ones. My back is starting to hurt…’

When Kabru tried making Laios worksheets to memorize the Elf Queen’s family tree and their titles, it was ‘I know you spend a lot of time prepping for me but it still takes me forever to finish when I have to do all these positions, can you go a little easier on me next time?’

And those were only a sampling. Truly, how could Kabru blame anyone else for the many, many misunderstandings? It was no wonder everyone thought they were sleeping together. Laios had done more than his share to further this misconception entirely on his own. 

Kabru was at a loss for how to correct the narrative at this point. Even with the efforts he made to avoid him, Laios managed to seize what opportunities he had. 

All that was left to do was for Kabru to wrap his hands around his throat, press his thumbs into his Adam’s apple, feel the way his pulse raced against his carotid artery, relish the resistance of his airways as he gasped-

Maybe not that method. 

That was the other problem. No matter how much he wanted to fall back on killing Laios in his mind to ease his frustrations, his fantasies didn’t seem to want to follow that train of thought.

He never used to think of killing a person as an intimate act. In his opinion, murder was a decision that should come without hesitation. If someone deserved to die, he stabbed a vital point, flicked the blood off his blade of choice, and never thought about it again. 

That was what had originally agonized him about Laios. He was never a fundamentally bad person, he had just been poised to make choices that would bring the downfall of humanity. And he was damn close to doing it. Kabru did not make the choice to spare him easily, but he never dreamt up elaborate torture plans for him either - that was a more recent hobby. If it had come down to it back then, he would have found a way to dispose of him without any fanfare. 

He didn’t want to kill Laios. Not really. He never had, and now he had far fewer reasons to do it. Laios was a good king. He never gave himself enough credit for how hard he worked. None of the posturing and politicking came naturally to him, which was part of why he was an ideal fit for the job. He was humble, sincere, straightforward, kind to a fault. He didn’t think of himself differently than he did any of his subjects. He could be misanthropic, but only in an abstract sense - he never looked for flaws in individuals. He was blisteringly intelligent, and more importantly, he was wise, despite his sometimes oblivious demeanor. He was decisive when the moment called for it, but only after taking to heart all the considerations laid before him. Even if it was due to his naturally serious resting face, he had a commanding presence, especially when he remembered to sit up straight. But when he slouched, there was still something arresting about him - it made him look poised to strike, even if he was just bored.

In short, Kabru shouldn’t be thinking about killing him at all. And yet, he felt the urge to do so boiling under his skin more intensely with every passing day. 

Bloodlust. Maybe Kabru had become so accustomed to dungeon life that he missed having the fates of lesser men in his hands. He’d given that some thought, but he couldn’t find anything he missed at all from dungeoneering, aside from spending time with his party and meeting a constant stream of new people. The dungeon was otherwise revolting. He’d only been there to fulfill his wish to uncover how dungeons worked, and to determine how Tallman could use that knowledge to protect themselves without Elven overseers. And with Laios’s party, they’d surpassed even his wildest dreams - a Tallman kingdom with a real stake in a world where dungeons were doomed to fade into memory. Besides, those dungeon days were long over. Unless he was projecting all of some hidden desire to cut through monsters and marauders alike onto Laios, it wouldn’t make sense for that sentiment to be concentrated solely on him. 

There were still people he was tempted to kill. But he’d have the thought the world would be better off without them and move along with his day. He lacked this sort of passion for anyone else.

And those cases were at least moderately justified. Laios made Kabru want to murder him over the mundane. Like his poor phrasing, or his needy nature, or the way his voice sounded when he was tired, or the way he looked up at him from the throne with those big, pleading honey colored eyes-

All of which had nothing to do with value judgements on his character or whether he deserved to live. They were nonsensical reasons to want to bury him in a shallow unmarked grave in a distant forest so the monsters he loved so much could dig him up and tear his corpse limb from limb, per his wishes.

But how he put Laios in the ground was constantly subject to editing, because inevitably in these mental exercises, he’d hit a point where he was choking him, or stabbing him, or smothering him, when his mind would wander somewhere else, and the sensation that he hoped would be cathartic only frustrated him more.

Regular lust. Kabru wasn’t normally subject to those sorts of desires. He liked flirting. He flirted all the time. He flirted with foreign dignitaries and their offspring of marriageable age, with maids and cooks and groundskeepers, with girls in town that had a natural curiosity into life in the palace. Flirting was a social behavior that engendered positive relationships better than other equally superficial conversations. It involved personal flattery that implied a certain depth of interest with no promise of consummation. Regardless of whether there was any genuine chemistry, flirting offered some insight into how an individual's attraction may manifest. There were some set patterns to flirting - compliments, physical touch, vocal inflexions, and the like - that could be recited in varying orders. He was good at flirting. He was even good at dating.

Sex was less utilitarian. There was no doubt sex was interesting as a human biological drive, but it wasn't worth the trouble. Sure, there was information to be gained, and weaknesses to be exploited. He liked seeing people naked, if only to sate his unending curiosity for the human form. But there wasn't much of anything useful he could extract from sex that he couldn't otherwise get through more convenient means. He rarely saw any need to take things that far, though he was never short on offers. He’d taken advantage of that when he had to, but he had also taken pains to prevent anyone getting too invested in him. That was the other thing about sexual interactions - it fostered a sort of attachment he never cared to build. Ideally, he wanted people to like and trust him, but not so much that they would feel betrayed if he never saw them again. It wasn't that he didn't find people sexually attractive, but that the expectations that accompanied sex were complicated and irritating. Sex made people feel entitled to access him both emotionally and physically. He didn't mind pleasuring someone else, but he had no desire to let anyone else attempt to pleasure him. He could do that just fine on his own. He didn't want to learn anything new about himself with another person watching.

He did like the idea of watching other people have sex, as the dynamic of coordinating movements while effectively communicating was an interesting balance of adaptation to a partner. Curiously, some people even seemed to find sex itself boring - usually in cases where those movements and communications became repetitious over time with the same partner.

Kabru normally didn't think about sex very much. But he thought of Laios all the time. He had to. It was part of his job to think of him, and ensure that his needs were met.

And sex with Laios seemed like it would be incredibly interesting. He wasn’t as clumsy physically as he was socially, though he often had an awkward sense about occupying his own skin. He seemed hyperaware of the space he occupied, but he was uninterested in the way he presented himself, or adjusting that presentation. Laios was not as shy about exposing his body as Kabru had expected him to be, but the dungeon didn’t foster modesty. Kabru hadn’t once seen him express any explicitly sexual interest in anyone, though Laios had regarded Shuro with a kind of interest that bordered on romantic. He was approaching a similar relationship with Kabru. Laios liked him, relied on him, had a long pattern of spending free time with him, and would talk his ears off if he let him.

Some of that was Kabru’s own doing. He’d wanted Laios to like him. He’d gone through great pains to foster a friendship with him, both on the surface and in the dungeon, and redoubled his efforts after the dungeon collapse, both to ensure he would be involved in establishing Melini’s government (for everyone’s sake), and for the simple reason that he wanted to. Kabru wanted to get to know him better, to understand the way he thought, to learn more about what Laios wanted out of life, particularly now that he could not pursue his passion for observing live monsters. He wanted to watch Laios’s daily routine and hear Laios’s commentary on it. He wanted to watch him eat normal food, take a normal walk, have a normal conversation. He wanted to watch him sleep and wake up and brush his teeth and bathe and change his clothes. He wanted to watch him retire to his room and do the same things in reverse. And Kabru had watched him do these things hundreds of times over, but it never stopped holding his attention. Laios was a uniquely fascinating human.

So naturally he would want to see Laios have sex, for the same anthropological reasons. It just so happened that Laios, consistent with his disinterest in most interpersonal relationships, did not have any prospects to entertain. He could picture him masturbating just fine, though he didn’t expect Laios did that very often. However, sex was a two person (at minimum) activity, and an additional person introduced a set of variables that was difficult to project on a generic dummy stand-in. To have a good idea what sex with Laios would look like, he’d need to have a grasp on the predicted behavior of his sexual partner. And there was no one else Kabru could picture Laios reasonably having sex with, given the limits with which he was presented. 

So that left Kabru with no other choice than to picture what it would be like for Laios to have sex with him.

The problem was Kabru enjoyed it when he imagined having sex with Laios. He would anyway, because again, he thought it would be interesting to think about from a strictly anthropological perspective. Unfortunately, it was also sexually gratifying. And worse still, he’d started imagining having sex with Laios at inopportune times, especially when Laios pissed him off. At least in those cases he could pretend he was just blowing off steam. 

Initially he didn’t think Laios was capable of having sex in any normal way. He wasn't sure if Laios was sexually attracted to humans at all, so his first efforts to visualize what it would be like to have intercourse with Laios were very strange. Laios always surprised him in ways he was never able to predict. Kabru had the feeling Laios would want to try out monster mating rituals that could hardly be called sex, but Kabru lacked the monster knowledge to guess at what sorts of actions Laios would want to imitate. Somewhere along the way, those deviant scenarios devolved into something far more stomach turning: scenes where Laios would pull him close into his strong, soft, body, press his lips to his neck, then Laios would stare at him, eyes half lidded in an expression he’d never seen him wear before, and he’d tilt Kabru’s chin up, and he’d murmur softly in a voice just for him that he — 

And so on and so forth. Unrealistic, out of character bullshit like that.

He wished he could blame it on those stupid journals, but he’d had these nightmarish visions long before they ever started publishing. Maybe it was better that way. It would be humiliating to discover he was physically attracted to Laios from pulp porno.

Still, they were undoubtedly poisoning his brain. They reinforced his delusion that Laios could one day see him as anything other than a friend, and implanted fantasies where Laios courted him, seduced him, cornered him in a dark hallway and unceremoniously shoved his tongue down his throat.

There wouldn't be any problem if Kabru just thought he was a good looking man. Laios was what people called 'conventionally attractive.' What was considered conventionally attractive varied by race and regions, but there were some commonalities. Laios met all the standard markers for what an attractive Northman would look like - he was tall, well-built, broad-shouldered, fair-haired. His teeth aligned the way they should. His eyes were spaced apart within the average range. He had no obvious asymmetry, beyond a few freckles. Kabru overheard what other people thought of him physically, in those many early attempts to trail and befriend him, and those thoughts were overwhelmingly positive. Some people characterized him as princely, even before he became a King. Kabru's assesment of Laios's appearance was not abberant. He was hot.

It would not be a problem if he just imagined having normal, mutually satisfying, casual sex with Laios. That would be fine. He could live with that.

But Kabru didn't want that, because more than any genital stimulus, he wanted to kiss Laios, and he wanted Laios to kiss him back. Not just because that would be a normal thing to do in the course of his increasingly vivid sexual fantasies. He wanted to roll over and kiss Laios first thing in the morning. He wanted to feel the roughness of his stubble, to taste the sour flavor of his morning breath. He wanted to learn the divets of every one of his teeth, to memorize every ridge of his hard palate, to know every bump of his papillae. Kabru wanted to kiss his forehead in a gesture of reassurance, to kiss his cheek in gratitude, to kiss his knuckles to say hello. He wanted to take any possible excuse to kiss him in every possible way. He wanted to know every single improbable combination of events that would allow him that opportunity. By now, he'd assembled a few thousand fictional scenarios where he kissed him. He added new ones every day.

For all of the secondhand embarassment Laios inflicted upon him, for all the verbal stumbles he made, for all of his insensitive comments and inexplicable non-sequiters and strange analogies, for all the ways Laios drove Kabru up the wall, Kabru adored him. He wanted to show him how much he adored him so, so badly.

And he was getting worse at hiding it. Laios doling out double entendres was one thing, but Kabru hadn’t been helping his own case. Kabru had caught himself making the slightest adjustments to his clothes to get just a little closer to him. He would belatedly realize his gaze lingered on Laios far longer than appropriate. In rare, private moments, Kabru had shamelessly attempted to flirt with him - though from all outward appearances, Laios was unaware Kabru's growing infatuation with him.

It was slow, senseless, self-inflicted torture.

It was bad enough village girls had enough material to string together, but if Marcille could figure it out, he was well and truly fucked.

He knew, from the philosophical texts Milsril had shown him, that there were different categorizations of love. It was a complex emotion. There was a disproportionate emphasis on romantic love in Tallman culture, she'd said, all those years ago, directing him to a passage of a book half his height. Maybe, she mused, it was because Tallmen were so short lived, and thus had more urgency in their need to multiply.

Love, in any of its iterations, was a major driver of human decision making. Kabru knew how to love. He loved his friends. He loved his deceased mother, who existed only in memory. He loved his foster mother, as exhausting as she could be. By and large he loved the human population. He loved his homeland of Utaya that he’d never see again, and he loved Melini, the home he never planned to leave. 

Lovesickness. So what if Kabru had a small crush on him? He was due for one, at all of twenty five. It was a perfectly normal situation to find himself in. Before, he felt like he’d been missing out on a major human experience. It wasn’t that he couldn’t empathize with people experiencing romantic love. Rin had a perpetual crush on him that he’d observed up close for many years. Some cruel part of him enjoyed watching it, though he tried not to feed it. He wished for her sake she could place her affections in the hands of someone who could return them. He’d seen the upsides to love when it was requited — Daya and her husband had a beautiful wedding two years ago, and he was looking forward to helping Marcille and Falin plan their nuptials. 

There was hardly a work of literature without a romance incorporated. He’d read the stories and absorbed the descriptions. He could identify what it looked like. He was able to map out manifestations of romantic love and follow the patterns of those who exhibited symptoms. 

Love was downright average. And now he got to experience it firsthand.

He hated it.

He’d known that love was supposed to be stifling, painful, nauseating. In particular, the first experience with love was supposed to be the worst. Like many other illnesses, one gained immunity after repeated infections. He reasoned his body hadn’t built any defenses yet, which is why he felt horrible all the time. He’d tried to cut off his exposure to the pathogen, but he was stuck working with Laios for most of the day anyway, so eliminating his social visits wasn’t helping as much as he hoped it would.

The seperation he'd managed to achieve was tearing him apart. During the day, he took pains to steer clear of paths anywhere near the King's frequent haunts, for fear that he’d make an excuse to squander a few minutes talking to him about everything and nothing, just to take in the sight of him, just to make himself feel that much worse when he left him again. He’d catch himself daydreaming constantly. Hell, Yaad caught him doing it today. 

Kabru wanted to believe he had better things to do in the evenings than hang out with Laios, and really, he could invent ways to occupy himself if he wanted to. Instead, he spent his time moping. As if he didn’t have enough trouble with nightmares when he did fall asleep, he could hardly lose consciousness anymore without a nightcap and a few rounds with his hand and his imagination.

He reasoned if he could just bring himself to tell Laios how he felt, he could be done with it. He was certain that if he ever confessed his feelings to Laios, they would not be returned, and he could squash that hope and move on. He knew that. That would be for the best. Because, realistically, any romantic relationship between them would be a disaster. Kabru was plagued by enough scandal based on their friendship alone. He could not allow Laios to shoulder that mockery with him. He would not bring shame to Melini for his own selfish desires. In a few hundred years, another King of Melini could philander with a few paramours. The first King couldn't afford to do that. At this stage, they weren't ruling a kingdom, they were making one. Melini's reputation for the next millenia would be driven by the decisions they made today. Kabru wouldn't let himself go down in history as an embarassment.

But love famously made people irrational. He was no exception. That could partially explain the murder fantasies.

He couldn’t tell Laios how he felt for the obvious reason that it would be improper to do so. But the reason he actually couldn’t bring himself tell him was much less noble: he did not want Laios to turn him down.

How pathetic. The thought alone made his throat close. How pathetic. How childish.

He was already being childish, doing a poor job of ignoring Laios and telling himself it’s to quell the rumors about the two of them. Of course he’d wanted Laios to notice. Kabru wanted a reason to be mad at him, so made one. He wanted Laios to pay attention to him. He wanted Laios to make an effort to see him, the way that Kabru had made time for Laios almost every day for the last few years. He felt that Laios was taking him for granted, and he resented him for it, even though he was the one going out of his way. He’d taken advantage of Laios’s social weaknesses to rope him into spending time together reviewing etiquette, dancing, insignias of notable houses, and the like. It wasn't like Laios ever asked for him to do that. It wasn’t fair to Laios at all, and he knew that. Laios didn’t know how he felt. But that irrational part of him insisted he should know already. That he could least take an educated guess.

All of this was underpinned by the spiteful assumption that Laios would never notice or care that Kabru stopped visiting him. That he wouldn't even wonder why. Kabru knew that wasn't true, and he knew it was wrong of him to think Laios didn't value their friendship, even if it would never be anything more than that. Because he did think Laios would notice eventually. Eventually turned out to be one month, six days, thirteen hours, forty minutes, and fifty-four seconds, give or take. 

He wanted to hurt Laios's feelings just enough to get some satisfaction out of it. Just enough so that Laios would say that he missed him and would ask for him to come back. That was all he'd wanted, originally.

Kabru had overestimated his own willpower. He couldn't stand to see Laios so uncertain around him. He hated to see Laios visibly questioning how to talk to him. More than anything, Kabru wanted to see him happy. He wanted to make him happy. Kabru was afraid to know how far he would go to make him happy. So he wanted to give Laios something else to think about. Something that wasn't him. Something that would make Laios look at him like he wasn't a stranger.

That was a mistake. Suddenly, Laios decided he had missed him all this time. Really? After more than a month? Now he missed him? Only when he dangled a monster theme park in front of him? It was laughable. Infuriating.

Of course all it took to get his heart racing was monster talk.

The way he blushed, the way he looked away when Kabru held his face...

Kabru had seen him squirm like that many times before. Every time, Kabru secretly wanted to believe that it meant Laios might harbor a deeper affection for him.

And every time, he had been wrong.

How lucky. It was for the best that Laios never returned his feelings. Kabru needed to believe he never would. He needed to swallow his feelings down, say nothing, and wait for them to pass. Laios would never feel the same. He needed to believe that. It was the only hope he had to save himself. The only way he could keep himself sane.

But it felt different this time.

It always feels different this time, he reminded himself. It never was.

But the way Laios looked at his mouth - 

Kabru had gotten what he wanted, didn't he? Laios said he missed him. That's all he'd wanted. Just a little bit of appreciation.

He feared he may have gotten more than he bargained for.

You didn't, he told himself. It meant nothing. It never means anything. You're delusional. You do this every time.

He figured that once Laios aknowledged his absence, things would go back to the way they were before. Kabru would go back to spending his evenings fawning over Laios, and Laios would go back to inventing new ways to break his heart every night.

But Kabru was so tired of it all. He couldn't keep playing this one-sided game with him. He couldn't keep letting himself be strung along by a guy who was totally clueless he was doing it.

Distance would be the best thing for the both of them. They could still be friends, but Kabru had to stop blurring the lines of their friendship. It was masochistic. It was sadistic. He'd been doing it for so long for his own cheap thrills. It had never been a problem in the past, because Laios never knew any better. He didn't have enough friends to know what Kabru was doing. Kabru toyed with him for his own amusement, and occupied his time to keep him from finding something better to do. It was a nasty, horrible thing to do to someone. Laios didn't deserve to be treated as a vessel for Kabru's fantasies. So Kabru had to stop acting like he was. Staying away from him was the only way to avoid that temptation.

In the end, they were coworkers. Kabru knew his place.

But Laios never cared about that sort of thing.

He doesn't want you. He never will.

But if he did -

He won't.

But if he did -

If Laios, pure-hearted, awkward, Laios -

He wouldn't.

If Laios ever did develop feelings for him -

He imagined Laios would look at him exactly the same way he did earlier.

Butterflies danced in his stomach. Kabru covered his mouth. He wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or retch. A combination of sensations only Laios could evoke.

Back to his original thought: he had to kill Laios.

Because if Kabru had to reject him for the sake of Melini, it might kill him first.

Kabru returned to the Prime Minister’s office and sat the pile of contracts on his desk. Yaad was still playing around with his aqueduct plans, but it didn’t look like he’d made much progress. “Your contracts, M’lord.”

“Ah, there we are, thank you. How was his Majesty?”

Captivating. Darling. Awful. Unbearable.

“The same as always. Did you tell him he smelled?”

The sky was still a dark blue, but lighter in the distance, promising dawn within the next hour. The patrolman paced his posted spot by the castle walls, a stretch not more than a few hundred yards, with only one entryway to worry about. He yawned. It was a half decent salary, but the work was mindless. Nobody ever came through this entrance.

He took a detour to the stables. The lamps were still on. The stableman brushed out a chestnut steed, who whinnied and shook his mane in appreciation. “Settle down, Hanson-”

“Good morrow!” called the patrolmen. He leaned over the fence and clicked at the horse, who wandered over to inspect him. The patrolman gave him a friendly pat on the snout. “I’ve no carrots for you today, unfortunately.”

The stableman followed after. “He’s unruly enough on his own, you don’t need to distract him to make my job any harder.”

The patrolman laughed. “I can’t help that he just likes me better.”

“Then you should join the cavalry,” the stableman said, picking up a stalk of hay and placing it between his teeth. “Bother your own horse.”

“I would, if I could ride. Did you see any of the King’s guard yesterday?”

The stableman idly chewed his hay. “Out here? Why would I?”

“Don’t be coy. I know Gareth comes to steal your whiskey before his shifts,” the patrolman said.

“And he’s likely to get fired for it. Why? Are you aiming to replace him?”

“I’m far from first in line for that role. But listen, I was in the bailey yesterday after shift change. I overheard some of them gossiping. Have you heard that recently Ser Kabru has stopped lingering in the King’s chambers into the late hour?”

“What, did the King get himself in the doghouse?”

“Sounds like it. They were saying Ser Kabru hasn’t called on the King any time after dinner in almost a month. It must be driving him mad. I heard Ean say the King asked him if it was because he smelled.”

The stableman roared. “Oh, that’s brutal! I shovel shit for a living, and my wife hasn’t complained in years. It just goes to show, crown or no crown, men are all the same. Desperation will bring the best of us to our knees. To the brink of hallucination, even...”

“Beyond desperation. I can’t even imagine what sort of spell he’s under to beg like that.”

“You can’t? I certainly can! They say Westerners are pretty flexible...”