AN: Set immediately after the arrival of the nobles.
He's gorgeous.
Of course he is. Not in the way Smithy is dependably handsome, but truly, effusively, effervescently handsome. Profile peddling his beauty like it's the last-catch kippers handsome. Kiss your maiden and you'd thank him handsome.
Jester wasn't sure what charmless ogre he'd expected to receive—someone akin to their own pugnacious princeling, perhaps—but it certainly wasn't a bastard child of Apollo and some glassy-eyed water nymph; if not golden ichor, then dark glamour—a consort of fae!—alchemizes his veins, diluting mortal blood to concentrate his winsome looks. He's divinely attractive, but fatally so; a mortal god; a living Adonis! He languishes among the waterlilies, coddled by the supple, honeyed bosoms of naiads, dining on the fragrant tubers beneath the silt, perfuming his breathe with the ambrosial waters of myth. A child of nectar!
A youth of Olympus! He's a curation of ancient ideals and Olympian athleticism, theatrically sensual, classically composed and unfailingly, annoyingly contrapposto. Yet even the most skilled sculptor would fail to release from stone Prometheus' flame, the light of man, the flush of sin, the sweetness of mortality that breathes spirit and defiance into his celestial form. He does not charioteer the sun, but, grounded among men, dares to trace its course across the sky; a heliotrope, face welcoming the beaming rays of Sol that dance across his agonizingly straight nose.
Empyrean man! Aurora's rosy touch blooms in his countenance to break dawn across Luna's bright complexion, while his eyes, a clear Roman sky shimmering with heat, is where Caelus resides. In his hair are Terra's fertile lands and Pluto's unearthed riches woven into a gleaming tapestry of wheat, earth, and gold. Hunter and hunted! He's the tawny-maned lion, predator and protector, feared yet admired by men!
Algernon! A name elegant yet dignified, it rolls off the tongue in a continental cascade of soft consonants. It's a name of intimacy, a name to be whispered by bitten lips through a curtain of copper curls, a name to be scented with smoke on fine cream card and sent that-a-way and o'er yonder for private correspondence, thank you. It's a name to be immortalized as he who enchanted the lady knight, while Jester's own nomen, an unfortunate and cacophonous amalgamation of exaggerated gestures, is best for choking one's opponents in a battle of wit.
And oh, oh sweet, seraphic moustache! A fine line of soldiers mar his mouth—and what secrets do they guard?—with a comedy of intentful errors, with imperfection, with nonchalant sprezzatura that coolly claims I am one of you. He's not, that is evident, but this conscious defacement is a calculated coulé to straddle stratums between manhood and adolescence, nobility and plebedom, beauty and the grotesque. It's genius, comedic and strategic, and Jester is utterly, incredibly, consumptively ENVIOUS of his station, looks, name, and moustache.
It's a development that's dampened his performances: there's little amusement in mocking someone who will, post-jest, remain just as mathematically proportionate and intent on pursuing your beloved. Jester's only comfort—fleeting, yet welcome—is his wit (it would be unfair for someone that attractive to also be well-versed of intellect) and that Jane isn't the type to pursue a pretty prince: after all, she's sparred with Gunther for years and the two have yet to display romantic interest.
He is good looking, Cuthbert supposes.
Lavinia's been prattling all morning about the depth of his eyes and the strength of his arms, as if it mattered to him, to her newest obsession, or to anyone else forced to listen. She'd liken him to a prince, which makes absolutely no sense. Algernon looks nothing like him. He's tall, for one, with wavy brown hair and really blue eyes.
And no spots, Lavinia helpfully pointed out.
He apparently also rides and writes and plays several instruments. Cuthbert doesn't really do those things. To be honest, he rarely does anything, with true effort, other than bother his sister and hide from his tutor; he supposes it wouldn't be too terrible to pick up a sword or learn to ride. Perhaps it wouldn't be too terrible for Lady Turnkey to apply one of her sulfurous compacts, either.
Oh he's so handsome, Pepper had exhaled of Jane's new suitor over her cold oats, and elegant and strong and gracious and kind! Rake agrees.
Well, he agrees with Pepper. She has excellent judgement, especially when it comes to distinguishing the most tender pea shoots, the juiciest strawberries, or the most perfumed petals for her famous cream soup. Yes, he does give these prized pickings to her, meticulously dusted, arranged, and presented by hand, but Pepper always comments, so surely she can perceive the differences in quality as he?
And Rake knows little of beauty—well, he knows Pepper, but surely everyone thinks she's beautiful?—or at least that of the human variety. He knows the feeling of freshly tilled earth under his fingers, the lace of lettuce brushing his shins; he sees the youthful energy in burgeoning buds and admires the beauty of flushed roses. He knows plants, not words nor graciousness nor art, and Pepper's been so enthused as of late, and maybe she admires the suitor as he admires her cooking?!
But Pepper did say But I would prefer a grounded man afterwards, and she complimented his carrots and Rake doesn't really know what that means means, or what a she means, and he doesn't know much, really, but he knows plants, and he supposes Jane's suitor is very symmetrical in the way Pepper is very symmetrical? But if Pepper is the night-blooming rose symmetrical, then Jane's suitor is the sunflower symmetrical, tilting his golden head attentively to beam at Jane, at the Queen, at Lady Turnkey, at Pepper?!
He's handsome, Smithy concurs.
He's handsome.
Of course he is. Nobly, unobtrusively, innately handsome. Has a post on every coast handsome. Save your maiden and she'd run away with him handsome.
Algernon wasn't sure what boorish highborn brat he'd expected as a contender for Lady Jane's hand—really, the jester's spiteful digs were comical only in their insignificance—but it certainly wasn't a dark and tortured merchant's son with familial instability, as he learned from the jester.
He probably writes poetry, secretly, under the moon.
It's probably very good.
From one of the castle's turrets, he observes the squire assisting to erect tents for additional personnel. While the knights exhibit a frightening spectrum of crimson hues and various stages of shedding, the squire is tinted a honeyed bronze, dark hair pulled back to heighten his cutting cheeks and aquiline nose. He's a tumbled stone, polished not by the gentle hand of an artist but the rough and rugged jostling of other rocks; it's worn on his face in the textured turn of his mouth, the steely gaze, the dappled shadow of an oak under his eyes. He's someone who hides the marks of his struggles, and in that deception, bares all: it's an intense and intoxicating concoction, an otherworldly brew.
God, what maiden hasn't tried to kiss away his troubles?!
AN: Just some castle bros giving Algae and Gunther a lil' shallow love before y'all wreck them at the ball. I'm sorry, I'm a shallow person who's too scared to develop the plot. Sue me.