And yet another chapter :D I'm just having so much fun writing this... and I guess I'm also trying to get as much writing done as I can before school starts on Thursday when I may or may not be able to update as often as I like... either way, it's good news for you readers XD
Part 8
It was a cloudy morning and Prince Tadashi was having a crisis. His mind was reeling and his mouth could barely keep up with his musings,
"So you really believe there is only one perfect mate?"
"As a matter of fact I do." Senior de Vinci said from his cart. They were by the riverside and de Vinci had wished to test one of his inventions. Tadashi, naturally, had readily agreed to accompany him. Not only did he revel in any chance to get out of the palace ("confined to the palace grounds" be damned) but he sincerely enjoyed Leonardo and his company. The lively old man always had something to say and boldly kept his unique opinions no matter who opposed them.
"Then how can you be certain to find them?" the Prince asked, walking along the shoreline with flat pebbles in his hand, "And if you do find them are they really the one for you or do you only think they are... and what happens if the person you're supposed to be with never appears- or she does and you... but you're too distracted to notice?" Tadashi turned to Leonardo for input.
"You learn to pay attention." was all the man gave as he dug something out of his cart.
Tadashi huffed and turned back to his pacing, "Then let's say... God puts two people on earth and they are lucky enough to find one another- but! One of them gets hit by lightning! Well then what! Is that it?" Tadashi rubbed the back of his head, which was starting to ache from the thought process, but he continued because it felt so good to have someone just listen to him ramble, "And then per chance if you find someone new and marry all over again is that the one you were supposed to be with all along... or was it the first?"
Leonardo was walking up behind the Prince, happy and entertained at the young man's trail of thought. The Prince was clever and smart, but, if this conversation he was almost having with himself was any indication, he was wiser than most gave him credit for.
Tadashi barely noticed the inventor-artist coming up behind him, "And if so, if the two of them are walking side by side are they both the one for you and it just happened to be the first one first or was the second one supposed to be first..." Tadashi scrunched his face up and rubbed the stones in his hand together. This was getting way too complicated. He sighed to the clouds and skipped a stone across the water. Finally noticing Leonardo beside him, he asked, "Or is everything just chance or are some things meant to be?"
"You can't just leave everything to Fate boy!" Leonardo almost smacked the Prince upside the head, "She's got a lot to do- sometimes you must give her a hand!"
"Well, what if it not only applies to lovers, but to friends as well?" Tadashi now moved his thoughts from the Ghent girl- Jacqueline (he made sure he remembered her name) to Daniel. If he found the elusive boy again, he was set and determined to become friends, "Is there a best friend fated to be yours somewhere and you might find them or you might not, or do you just go through friends and maybe one of them sticks with you... as you grow older. But what if age makes little difference and an older can be best friends with a younger... even though that means that one will more than likely die before the other. And if that happens is the younger left with no best friend because they have already left or can a new best friend just come along and be just if not more close than the last?"
Leonardo just shook his head and set down his invention at the Prince's feet. Finally snapped out of his philosophical moment, Tadashi looked with sparkling curiosity at the... thing at his boots.
"What's this project?" He smiled, eyeing the two small boat-like contraptions.
"Care to see if they work?" Leonardo asked, taking off his shoes and looking as eager as a five year old on Christmas morning.
A short ways upriver, Hiro was leading one of the black hogs through the forest by a thin leash. The hog stopped and shuffled its snout through the leaves at the roots of a tree. Hiro put his basket down and dug through the dirt for the truffles the pig had sniffed out.
Putting the truffles in the basket, Hiro paused and looked at his hands. Callused, rough and scarred from years of chores and pain, they were also filthy. Hiro rubbed at his nails, grimy and chipped- half of one was completely gone from a harvesting accident last year. How could hands like these ever hope to put on the utterly wonderful outfit left to him from his Master? Even back then, it was pretend and both he and Master Auguste knew it. It was always pretend. Hiro was getting tired of playing a kids game. He was a servant and born a servant so he should stop trying to rise above who he was. He was never going to be happy pretending to be something he was not... right?
Hiro glanced at the river, flowing silently and softly by. Well even if he was a servant, it didn't mean he had to be filthy all the time right? He smiled to himself and ran down to the shore, stripping off his outer shirt and shoes, he dived right in in his shorts and undershirt.
Hiro really had more right to fear the river than to love it like he did. The first winter without Auguste had been the worst seen in the Kingdom for hundreds of years. Wasabi had caught a dangerously high fever and Max had not only been charged with taking care of him but also doing most of Wasabi's chores. Because of this, Hiro had to step up as well. The farm hands and the servants already let go, Hiro had to get the water from the well every morning. One frozen morning when the snow was coming down heavy and silently the well was too frozen to break, forcing Hiro to go further into the gentle storm to the river's edge. The river was also too thick right by the shore, but Hiro could see the dark current through thinner ice a little ways ahead. The boy had cautiously moved onto the ice to where he could break it and retrieve the water. So concentrated was he on the spot where the ice was thin enough to break that, in his ignorance, didn't hear the telltale cracks until they surrounded him. Hiro only had time to gasp before being submerged in the frigid water. Adrenalin and instinct taking over, Hiro's feet had felt the mushy bottom and shot him back up again. Bursting through the water and snow, Hiro slipped and coughed back to solid ice. Finally able to register what had happened, Hiro's small form had began to shiver violently. His body beginning to shut down in self preservation, Hiro crawled to the shoreline. Rolling in the freshly fallen snow, Hiro managed to dry himself off enough not to be dripping. His clothing already stiffening over his aching and numbing little body and heart irregularly and faintly throbbing, the boy walked back to the manor trembling so much he could barely see. When he returned, Max, who had been looking for him at the well scooped the deathly pale boy up. Hiro remembered a worried face through crystallized eyelashes and huge arms encircling him then no more. The baroness had been furious he had lost his bucket. To this day, Hiro still had numb spots at the tips of his fingers and could not fully hear out of his left ear.
Letting the firm but gentle current take him a little ways down the river, Hiro dove under and splashed out into the air again, flipping and somersaulting in the water as happy and at home as an otter. Sighing and allowing himself to float on his back with closed eyes, Hiro allowed himself a moment of tranquility before getting ready to swim back ashore-
"It looks like rain!" A voice exclaimed over Hiro's head.
Hiro let out an unmanly startled scream and splashed into an upright position. The person also let out a yelp as he plummeted into the water.
Hiro shook his head and swiped his long hair out of his eyes. Why it was an old man! An old man walking- on the water?! Hiro paddled over to the two tiny boats and noticed straps inside. Boat shoes! Hiro grinned, "Boat shoes?" He asked the man, who was also treading water, now over his scare as well.
The man grinned, "The balance appears to be a little off."
Hiro examined the shoes, also holding onto it for support. They floated marvellously, "Perhaps if you moved the center towards the back more and add a small counterweight to the front, they wouldn't come off balance when you walk."
The man looked at Hiro curiously, then his face changed to one of delight and he laughed, "My boy, you are clever aren't you! Come, let's get to shore and examine that hypothesis shall we?"
Hiro grinned and nodded, his brain kick-started and moving a mile a minute with these amazing water walking shoes. It had been a long time since he had worked with an invention.
By the time they reached the shallows, Hiro learned his swimming companion was none other than the Leonardo de Vinci. Fred was going to flip when he found out. He was about to introduce himself when a voice that caught Hiro's words in his throat called from the shore,
"Senior de Vinci! Are you all right?" Prince Tadashi came running down the bank and into the water to meet the soaked duo coming out of the river.
"I should leave walking on water to the Son of God," de Vinci chuckled as he helped the small form beside him up to the shore, "fortunately for me, I tripped over a cherub."
Tadashi finally got a good look at the second being with de Vinci and his voice rose an octave in excitement when he saw the face and tooth gap, "Lord Daniel!"
Hiro could only stutter in surprise, "Y-your Highness! Oh!" and tripped over his feet back into the water. Springing back up, Hiro tried to regain whatever was left of his pride after appearing before the Crown Prince in his underclothes soaking wet and tripping on his face, "Careful..." he muttered, "It's um quite slippery right there."
"No no, please," Tadashi quickly came to his senses and wrapped his heavy cloak around the boy's wet form, "allow me."
"Thank you." Hiro smiled, almost lost amid the long, thick purple cloak.
Dried off and sitting on the grass by the shore, Tadashi watched Daniel talk with de Vinci about the water shoes. The boy's eyes were lit up and de Vinci appeared fascinated that the boy could offer such insight to invention. Tadashi smiled. The boy's hair, once dried a little, was extremely wild when not tied back like it was the other day. Fluffy and sticking out in all directions, the boy was constantly pushing it aside but he did it in such a fleeting way that it was obvious he barely noticed it anymore.
Rising up and walking over, Tadashi looked around, "Where are your servants?"
Daniel looked caught off guard as he turned to Tadashi, fiddling with the cloak still around his small shoulders, "I um- decided to give them the day off."
Tadashi raised his eyebrows in surprise, almost laughing out loud, "The day off? From what? Life?"
"Don't you ever tire of people waiting on you all the time?" Daniel asked, a frown beginning to form on his face.
Tadashi frowned back, "Well yes but... they're servants, it's what they do. And I would expect someone so young as yourself would have, I don't know, a nanny or guardian close by."
Daniel seemed to bristle at that- or both points probably, "I can take care of myself in these woods."
Tadashi smiled, "How would you know? You're only visiting your cousin."
Daniel looked away, eyes darting like he had been caught doing something he shouldn't, "Well I just wish I could dismiss my servants as easily as you do yours." He muttered and shrugged off Tadashi's cloak, "I must be going." He said shortly and moved to walk away.
Tadashi jumped in his path, "You're angry with me?"
"No."
"Admit it!"
Daniel finally looked him directly in the eyes and Tadashi almost wished he didn't, "Well yes if you must know."
"Why?" Tadashi begged.
"Because you are trying to bate me with your snobbery." was the lad's insolent reply.
Tadashi put his hands on his hips, "I'm afraid, my lord, that you are a walking contradiction and I find it... fascinating."
"Me?" Daniel looked like he was deciding whether or not to be insulted or complimented.
"Yes!" Tadashi exclaimed, happy that he had finally stumped the bold boy, "You support the idea of a Utopian society yet you yourself live the life of a courtier."
"And you own all the land there is yet you take no pride in working it!" Daniel exclaimed, "Is that not also a contradiction?"
"First I'm arrogant and now I have no pride, however do I manage that?" Tadashi teased.
"You have everything the world can give yet it yields you no joy and then you make fun of those who would see it for its beauty."
Tadashi's mouth hung open. Daniel had done it again. A boy. Backing him into a corner and telling him with no remorse his shortcomings, "How do you do it?" he finally asked.
Daniel seemed taken off guard, "Do what?"
"Live each day with this level of passion! Don't you find it exhausting?"
Daniel's eyes narrowed, "Only when I'm around you." His eyes glimmered with a smile, "Why do you tease me so much?"
Tadashi bent down to his level, "Why do you rise to the occasion?"
They both glared at each other for a moment before bursting out laughing.
Tadashi rubbed his eyes. He hadn't laughed like that in a long time. When he focused again on Daniel, the boy suddenly seemed antsy and made to leave.
"Erm, excuse me sire but I have lost track of the hour." Daniel started running up the shore to the woods.
De Vinci suddenly popped up, holding some kind of contraption with wings, "But the wind! It's perfect!"
Daniel seemed extremely tempted but whatever spooked him got the better of him, "I am sorry!" He exclaimed and it sounded like he meant it as he ran around the bend.
"I-I'm playing tennis tomorrow with the Marquis de la Mogue, will you come?" Tadashi called at the boy's retreating back.
"I must go!" He waved without looking back.
Tadashi let his hands flop to his sides and asked a dejected looking de Vinci at his side, "Why does he always do that?"
A/N: And there you are! More Tadashi-Hiro banter- I love those two :D
Guest Reviews:
seems-pretty-legit: I am so glad you're liking it so much! I always eagerly await your quick reviews after every chapter- they're always so awesome :D
