Distractions in the Lower City
originally written for springkink on lj; obviously, I own nothing
It had been all too easy to leave behind the white and gold silk of the trailing wedding dress, the endless wedding preparations, the anxieties of her unsure position, and most of all, the grasp of her dark-eyed, scheming fiancée. It had been harder to leave Agrias. The knight was eagerly attentive to her position and Ovelia had the feeling she couldn't lose her beloved guardian for long. Agrias knew these streets better than she did and was bound to find her sooner or later, especially if she kept wandering aimlessly like this. Being found was one thing. Being found too soon was another.
Covered by a heavy green-gray cloak, Ovelia was able to hide some of her rich appearance, but her regal bearing was not so easily disguised. She had made a point of wearing the simplest clothes she owned and no jewelry to tone herself down as much as possible. She kept the hood up to cover her long hair.
"It isn't running away if I plan on coming back," she thought. The problem wasn't whether it was an escape or a simple walk, it was deciding what her intent was in the first place. Her impending marriage to Delita loomed ominously over her. Sometimes her veil felt like a shroud.
"Perhaps all I need is a breath of fresh air," she assured herself, trying to fight off anxiety with a smile. This smile had been her armor- perchance it could also be her sword. The charged political atmosphere at the castle was stifling. Delita was all peace and patience with Ovelia, but she knew his mind still raced with schemes. He felt as insecure in his power at this point as she did, though he was poised after their marriage to be crowned king.
As she strolled down the street, heavy thoughts in her troubled mind, she passed a junk dealer, his bag of assembled bric-a-brac poured out for examination by a scruffy, grease-stained young man. Something about the wrench sticking out of his back pocket seemed vaguely familiar, but she was too preoccupied to give more than a fleeting thought to the blonde. Pulling the edge of her cloak closer, she continued wordlessly on.
"Princess Ovelia?" came a breathy gasp.
An initial shudder of shock ran down her spine, afraid of who had recognized her, but then the familiarity of the voice rang true. She stopped and turned, and her arms were wide like her smile. "Mustadio!"
"What a surprise seeing you here! And all alone too! Where's Agrias? Isn't your wedding coming up?" Mustadio asked cheerily, questions spilling thick and fast.
"Umm, do you think we could keep our discussion clear of politics? I wish to turn my mind away from such troubling matters for the time being. ...Perhaps you could do me the honor of showing me the... sights of the lower portion of the city. This region certainly has a character all its own."
The mechanist certainly hadn't expected a request of that sort, but when he considered it, after the surprise of running into Ovelia on the scrapdealers' street, no request she made could be seen as particularly strange. "Sure," he agreed, "I don't think there's much that will please you down here, but the change of scenery could be refreshing. Shall we then?" he held out his arm, beckoning for her to step in front of him.
Ovelia boldly took his arm instead, delicately holding onto him as though he were her date at the ball. The gesture was oddly incongruous with their grimy settings.
Mustadio, who had never been very good with girls, blushed at her gentle touch. He was sure that the mushy look on his face had already completely destroyed his street credibility. So much for any reputation as a good-humored tough guy who stuck to machines, avoiding any trouble with girls or the law. ...Oh, who was he kidding? The only real reputation he had was as Besrodio's loud-mouthed son. And even if there had been something to his wild imaginings, wouldn't he gladly give it up to show himself as a gentleman in front of sweet Princess Ovelia?
"This is just one of the places I come to buy gears and other parts for working on machines," he explained, leading her down the alleyway, in search of more open, picturesque parts of the town to show the princess. "It's a bit far from home to come all the way out here, but I've seen most of the parts being hawked in Goug a good three or four times already by the time a merchant's been selling there for a week. Different things pass through this way."
He turned to look at her pretty face. He was surprised by what he saw. Ovelia's eyes were bright. She appeared quite interested in what he was telling her. He would never have expected her to care much about where he and his father bought their supplies. Most non-mechanists he tried to talk to about his work were practically bored to tears within minutes unless they thought there was some way his machines might benefit them personally. Ovelia just looked like she wanted to know more.
"Does anyone bring items excavated outside the country?" she asked. "Do certain areas tend to yield more of a particular type of item?" Even Ovelia herself had not expected her own response to his comments. She had little contact with any of the resurrected technology being reworked in Goug and had never felt any particular interest in learning more about it before, but her desire to find something else for her worried mind to linger on than her own problems lead her to latch onto this topic and turn it over and over, examining it from a variety of angles.
"Uh..." Mustadio gaped. Taken by surprise, he couldn't quite formulate a coherent answer as quickly as he would've liked to. "Yeah, I think some of it does come from other countries. I don't really pay that much attention to that part... I'm too busy thinking about how much things cost and how I'm going to use them. I guess it makes since though, that you'd think about things on the large level, while I just think about what matters to me."
"You give me too much credit," she spoke modestly.
"No, you're smart. And it's inevitable that you would be that way, you're a princess. People like you have to be able to see the world in a wider sense," he insisted as the turned off the scrapdealers' street and into the market square.
Some of the girls who helped out at the tavern were sitting beside their fountain nibbling at their lunches as he passed by with the princess on his arm. They pointed at the strange sight, wondering what would possess such a lovely woman to go about with Mustadio. "Probably his cousin," one of them suggested. Mustadio, feeling himself puffed up with pride, winked at them over his shoulder, causing the pair to break out in a fit of raucous giggles.
"This is a lively place," Ovelia observed, unaware of what her companion had done to provoke the outburst.
"It usually is," he agreed. There were people selling and others buying in a mess of mercantile activity, as well as travelers just passing through, and locals chatting or working on any number of projects. The tavern, which also rented out several rooms, one of which he was occupying on his short trip here, loomed before them across the plaza. Several tan workmen were perched on a scaffolding, repainting the signs.
"Would you like to sit down and have a drink?" he offered, "My treat."
In a funny little place like that? She nearly had to agree just for the sake of seeing what it looked like inside. "Yes, please."
The tavern was dim. Most of the windows were of an off-colored orange glass, which tinged the room a deep amber tone. Mustadio paused, stopping himself from striding straight up to the counter and instead heading toward a round table set off to the side. Although he often sat at the bar himself, it just didn't seem quite right to place Ovelia there. She was receiving a few curious looks, but overall, she was felt pleased with her ability to render herself nondescript. If anyone had recognized her so far, they had felt no need to come straight out and approach her about it.
He pulled out a chair for her, which she took gracefully, smoothing her skirt as she sat down. During the short time she had traveled with Ramza, Ovelia had found little time to speak with the mechanist, although he had appeared to be a kind and good-natured person. Now that she had found an opportunity to observe him up close and be around him at some length, she saw that he did have a certain peasant charm. And despite his tendency to want to joke around, he was a gentleman at heart. Nothing about him swept her off her feet the way Delita did, in a way that frightened her for her inability to fight the flow, but he honestly was quite cute. One could come to love someone like this.
Mustadio sat down in the seat across from her. He felt a little awkward striking up further conversation with the princess. Earlier he had just babbled on without much thought about who he was dealing with, but now he had come to his senses (at least he thought he had- maybe this really was just a dream- it was unusual enough), he found himself unable to speak up, so he simply sat and enjoyed drinking in her elegant features as she continued to keep to her own thoughts.
When a serving girl came to take their order, he fumbled for a moment, trying to decide whether to suggest his manliness by ordering some kind of hard liquor or not, but when Ovelia asked for a glass of milk, reminding him so much of Ramza, Mustadio clung to his true self and only inquired if they had any apple cider- they did.
Even the way Ovelia drank was dainty. Mustadio forced himself not to wipe his lips on his dirty sleeve like he usually did. This would be a rather embarrassing time to end up with a large smear of grease above his upper lip. "So..." he said stupidly, unable to take anymore silence.
"Yes?"
The way she regarded him made him feel as if whatever fragment of flippant small talk he tried to introduce to the table would be far below her expectations. She seemed serene to Mustadio's eyes. He had no idea that she was still troubled inside. She relished his words, whatever they were. They helped her turn away from the internal storm, allowing her to believe, if only for a time, that she was not a princess, but a peasant, just like him, enjoying a day with her lover.
He didn't see that side of her. "...Nevermind," he mumbled, taking another quick swig of cider.
She was disappointed. More silence. None of the conversations she heard going on in the background were of any interest to her. "Rely on yourself, Ovelia!" she chided herself for expecting him to do all the work, "You must be strong enough to support yourself!" She would heed her own advice. It was the same thing she had told herself so many times before.
"If I asked you to do something for me, would you?" she queried, well-trained at keeping her nerves from sounding in her voice.
"Of course," he answered. He was glad she had spoken up.
"Then kiss me," the princess commanded. She did not mean to make the demand as a princess to her subject, but as a girl to a boy. She hoped he wouldn't misunderstand.
His eyebrows seemed to jump up his forehead as his eyes widened. He didn't immediately respond, taking a moment to make sure he really believed what he had just heard and that this wasn't a dream like he'd been considering because that really seemed a lot more like what would happen in a dream than in his real, waking life.
Ovelia felt herself growing shy and almost regretting her words during the seemingly unbearably long pause as Mustadio thought over her request. Why had she asked that in the first place? ...To bother Delita because she had never kissed another man than him? ...To put another piece in place within her idle fantasy of a commoner's life? ...Or just to humor her unexpected guide?
Her glass slide a little as Mustadio leaned his arm on the table, stretching across its wooden diameter until his face was close to hers. Though he and Delita were both commoners by birth, they had very different faces, she thought. "I will," he declared. He had been unable to solve the question of whether this was a dream or reality, but had decided that it didn't make any difference. She was beautiful, she was here, she was asking him to do this.
"I'm glad," she whispered, "Agrias could catch me anytime."
Was it the thrill of the forbidden? To Mustadio, it didn't matter. He smiled and kissed her.