Fjord deDamali was what some people would consider painfully shy.
He was quiet and mostly kept to himself growing up due to the relentless bullying he faced until the gods smiled upon him, and decided his adolescence should be his reprieve. His jaw shaped up quickly, widening his face and setting his features into something more fitting, and his mouth began to curl a bit; pouting his lips slightly.
His adoptive father, Vandran, called him pretty.
Fjord only felt embarrassment at the attention he received. It was different, but still the same in some ways.
The accent doesn't help, he thought bitterly.
Fjord spent most of his childhood in the UK. He found himself soaking up other children's mannerisms in the orphanage in an attempt to make himself the same as everyone else.
Needless to say, this didn't work, but it was a good try on his part.
It was a dreadfully welcome change when Vandran had been assigned as the resident seafaring historian to the nearby museum. He had seen the young boy outside tending to the orphanage's garden as some sort of punishment that was very much undeserved.
"What'cha doin' out here in the cold, son?" there was a cold gust of wind just then. The older man wrapped his overcoat around himself even tighter to retain some of his heat.
The young boy wasn't faring any better.
"You should be inside," Vandran continued with a smile. "Don't wanna catch a cold, right?"
Fjord smiled too.
*
Falling into being a museum historian's assistant was easy. The routine helped Fjord, and even more so when Vandran moved across the sea to land in California.
"We got a new deal on the way," Vandran reassured his boy. "We'll be partnered directly with a museum owner. Can you believe that?"
"No more middlemanning?" the young man teasingly mused.
The older man laughed warmly as he turned onto the parking lot of the Museum of Creative Arts.
"The owner has a very pretty daughter, I heard," he said cryptically towards his son; who only rolled his eyes in response. "Make friends, son."
Vandran always worried about the boy's tendency to keep people at a distance. It was how he survived the orphanage.
The world isn't the orphanage.
His father's words echoed through his mind.
Fjord sighed.
"Aye oh aye!" a tiny young woman crowed a friendly greeting as the duo entered the lobby.
She had cerulean blue dyed hair clipped up with stars, a generous sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks and nose, and her eyes shown warm and grey. Donned in a yellow dress that matched her star hair clips, she bounced from behind her desk, and clasped Vandran's already extended hand in a deceptively strong grip.
"I'm Jester! Marion's assistant and daughter!" her accent Russian, and almost… flirtatious?
Fjord's throat suddenly went dry.
A pretty daughter.
He nearly wanted to strangle Vandran.
"Aye oh aye, yourself," Fjord heard himself say wryly.
Then Jester smiled at him.
Oh. This is bad.