Beauty.
A BlackIce Tale;
A twist of fate was not what one would call being shoved together and made to dance by a King with a foul temperament and a peculiar (putting it kindly) sense of humour.
General Pitchiner was not an avid enthusiast of the pass-time, but he observed with great care the delicacies of Court and adhered to them willingly and without complaint. His natural elegance served him well in this respect, despite his body and mind being made for the battlefield. The General was a well-respected man and loved by all for his skill, chivalry and diligence. Fourteen years was a long time to be away from home, fighting a war for King and Country. He had been a simple foot-soldier when he had been dispatched abroad, and although only six-and-ten years of age he had already been marked for a promotion. It was the eventual fall of the previous General that had led to his rising to the position at the mere age of thirty.
His dance partner however, while noteworthy was of a different calibre all together, and not at all in a positive sense. The aforementioned partner went by the name of Jack - and a fine creature he was. Jack was a favourite of the King's, in the sense that the pale-haired boy made a most agreeable bed-warmer. To put it plainly, Jack was a concubine, one of many in the King's personal Harem (although to call it such in the king's presence was a grave mistake indeed - after all, the King could not be accused of whore-mongering).
"Have you nothing to say to me, Sir?" The concubine asked, his voice nowhere near as gentle as one would expect from such a marvel.
The General looked at Jack, careful to keep in time with the music. Jack's hand was in his own and he himself had his hand upon Jack's waist.
It was a cruel joke on the king's part to force the pair to dance. Jack was a pretty thing, meant to be looked at but never touched. It was the King's vanity that allowed Jack to be present this particular evening…after all, who doesn't like to show off such fine toys? The fact that Kozmotis Pitchiner - General to the King's Royal Army was to be seen dancing with some up-jumped strumpet was an embarrassment. It was scandalous. It was NOT done.
Now Kozmotis was not usually one to care for gossip, but he knew how important image was to the masses. It didn't matter that Jack looked enchanting in his flowing robes of white and blue, with fabric that seemed to float with every twist and turn that he and Jack made upon the dance-floor. It didn't matter that beneath the ever-present veil someone had taken great care to frame Jack's eyes with the finest diamonds using some adhesive that was as yet unknown to Pitchiner. It didn't matter that Jack almost literally shone when the lighting caught him just so, covered from head to toe in silver and diamond jewellery as he was
Did he have something to say to Jack? What could he say? Something superfluous. What else could be said when one did not want, or rather could not attach themselves to their present company.
"You look…" Pitchiner started.
"Beautiful?" Jack interjected when the General trailed off, trying and failing to keep the disdain at the notion from his voice. Either the boy had grown tired of his perceived beauty or he had heard the same words one too many times that night.
That set the course of the conversation in Pitchiner's own mind. "You look as you always have." He finished at last.
"And how is that?" Jack replied just as the dance required them to swap partners for a moment, taking the hand of the person beside them and spinning before they weaved away and back to their original partners.
As their out-stretched palms met, Kozmotis stepped to the right and Jack to the left, following one another in a slow circle. Once through, the pair stepped towards one another, palm to palm and gazes matched.
"Suffocated." Pitchiner replied at last, his voice nothing but a low murmur filled with understanding and sympathy, before he took a step back and turned to walk away from both Jack and the dance-floor abruptly.
(( A/N: To those of you who are familiar with my fic 'Save The King' (an RP), I thought you might like to read this. This is something I wrote before my partner and I even had time to begin RPing this. I just had some creative juices and they needed to flow, you know? So, if you've read that, and wonder why this is inconsistent with that story, then that is the reason why. I suppose you might call this a side-fic. Sister-but-unrelated-fic, or estranged-family-fic.
I hope you enjoy it all the same! ))