Two weeks passed, and the two of them fell into a rhythm. Magic lessons in the morning—always incorporating Yuuri's dancing in some way, though never quite reaching it—lunch outside in the summer air, evenings in which Victor would vanish into his office to take care of whatever it was he did—Yuuri still wasn't completely sure—and Yuuri would steal away to the library for research. Then, nights of dancing alone in the ballroom. After that first time, Victor never showed up again. Yuuri wondered if he should be offended, but somehow he wasn't. In fact, he was practicing harder and harder each day in the hopes that he would get to dance for Victor again soon.

Yuri was there sometimes, too. Usually yelling, sometimes helping with the castle repairs. Often pulling Yuuri to the side to ask if he had made any progress on the Victor situation, to which Yuuri always answered no, he wasn't sure how to get a good look at the tattoo. He wasn't sure, exactly, how to go about asking Victor to take his shirt off in a way that seemed natural. He would get to it, he promised. He would figure it out.

Even with the fae youth around from time to time, it was a quieter life than Yuuri was used to. He missed the traveling, the performing. Part of him even missed the brightly ridiculous clothes Phichit would convince him to wear for shows—clothes that somehow made him feel both confident and foolish at the same time.

Their pleasant routine lasted until one late summer day, when something finally shifted.

The repairs on the castle were going slower than Yuuri had anticipated. His magic wasn't improving quite as fast as he would have liked it to. Sure, he could do way more than he could when he first arrived, but when Victor told him that he had already build up a hefty amount of magic, Yuuri had been sure he would get better fast. But something was still holding him back.

The sun was out and blinding the day Yuuri decided to dance for Victor again.

He set up a chair in the rose garden, on the edge of the freshly fixed-up stone area, and Victor took a seat politely. Upon Yuuri's request, the god magicked the enchanted piano outside, although it was Yuuri who would be making it play today.

He had been practicing.

To the god's delight, the roses had finally begun to bloom somewhere around the time Yuuri had first danced, although it was happening remarkably slowly; the buds had swollen to various sizes but the petals had yet to unfurl. Still, the flowers were beautiful even like this, and Yuuri thought the midst of those roses would be the perfect stage for his performance. Most of the flowers were red, but many were pink or white or even blue—most, in fact, were blue. Yuuri could only imagine how stunning the garden would be if they ever fully bloomed.

Yuuri stood in the center of the roses and took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of the flowers and attempting to relax his shoulders. He knew it was stupid to be so nervous, especially since it was his idea to do this in the first place, so he pushed the feeling down. He imagined his anxiety pouring out of him through his feet and down into the ground, well below the roses and the castle and the stone.

When he opened his eyes Victor was grinning, and Yuuri was no longer afraid.

The piano began to play—a quick, airy melody that reminded Victor of sunflowers and soft grass; striped blankets and picnics by the sea; white clouds that hang so low in the sky it feels as if you might reach out and touch them. It reminded him of the most playful part of the night—the part that pushes the clouds to the side and fills itself with millions of glittering stars.

If Victor had been impressed with Yuuri's performance in the ballroom all those weeks ago, this was on a whole different level.

And it wasn't just how Yuuri moved, but why.

Even the tiniest shift—the twitch of a finger or the soft incline of his neck, the angle of his jaw or the subtle change in posture. It meant something. All of it. It was a story, unfolding in front of Victor like a half-remembered dream.

It was the story of a boy, lost in the forest but certainly not scared. A boy, wide-eyed and dark-haired, who put his life in the hands of a silver-haired stranger.

It was the story of a man with a heart made of sunlight, who performed for kings and who performed for himself simply because he loved it, simply because he couldn't fathom a life without that music. A man who performed, now, for Victor—a performance that was made for the god the same way the sun was made for the moon and the stars were made for the sky.

Victor felt his skin grow warm. He felt the air between him and the dancer shiver and glow, some form of delicate lighting created in the wake of Yuuri's storm. The god reached up, slowly, to touch the pendant hanging round his neck. It was warm, too.

Being so wrapped up in watching Yuuri move, Victor didn't notice, at first, the way the flowers trembled around them. He didn't notice the petals swelling, dew dropping from them like the flowers couldn't help but cry at the way Yuuri was moving. He didn't notice the tension in the leaves, the way they shook and shivered. But when the first rose burst into bloom the god's eyes were drawn toward the movement immediately.

As he watched, another flower burst open, and another. The garden was painted to life, slowly, with every move Yuuri made; an abundance of brightly colored petals opening to the sun. They filled the spaces that had been empty before, petals overlapping petals until the colors blended and pressed together like a multitude of rainbows. They twisted and grew to heights which the god had never before seen his roses grow.

His eyes widened. This was it.

This was Yuuri's magic.

He fixed his eyes on Yuuri, heart thudding. If he had been a younger man he might have cried, but he held himself together. The dancer's eyes were closed, and it was clear he had no idea what was going on around him. He was following the music at the same time that the music was following him; he spun, dipped, turned, never missing a step—never missing a beat. Each fall of his feet on the ground was like a punctuation of the beat of Victor's heart; every arc his arms made in the air seemed like a gesture meant solely to take Victor's breath away.

And all around them, the roses bloomed.

Then Yuuri's eyes opened—deep, rich, lovely brown meeting Victor's icy blue—and it was like something inside of Victor cracked. Something that had been frozen for a long time. His hand tightened on the pendant.

Yuuri's movements slowed along with the piano's melody until both had stopped altogether, and he ended his dance with both hands over his heart, eyes still locked on Victor's. He was breathing hard, and his cheeks were pink. Something passed between them, some sort of electricity that neither of them quite understood, and Yuuri was the first to look away.

The dancer's brows rose when he took in the garden. "You made the flowers grow," he said.

A slow smile, edged with disbelief, spread across Victor's face. "I didn't."

"What?" Yuuri looked around, adorably confused, and it finally registered to Victor that Yuuri didn't realize. He had no idea how capable he was.

"Do you really not know," Victor said, standing, "how amazing you are?" He took both of Yuuri's hands in his.

Yuuri's eyes widened fractionally, and his cheeks flushed darker at the close proximity of the god's body. "You're telling me I did this?" he asked, sweeping his gaze over the flowers once again before finally meeting Victor's eyes. "I didn't mean to."

A small laugh escaped Victor's mouth and he suddenly wanted to pull Yuuri closer. He wanted to wrap his arms around him and smile into his dark hair, nestle his nose into his neck and hold on to him for hours and hours. Instead, he released his hands and took a step back.

"I can't go easy on you in our lessons anymore," the god said, still smiling down at Yuuri. It seemed he was unable to stop. "Now that we know you can do things like this."

Yuuri frowned, and at first Victor thought he had said something wrong. But then the dancer looked up at him with blazing determination in his eyes. "Victor," he said. "Is there somewhere we can go swimming?"

Victor blinked. Swimming?

"Well, there's the river," he said, scratching his head.

"That's perfect!" Yuuri shouted, grinning. "I'll find something to wear."

The man practically sprinted from the garden without another word, excitement shining from him as bright as the sun.

The god watched him leave, chuckling quietly to himself. The blue pendant remained warm against his chest.