Ok, well I just up and died everyone. Sorry 'bout that, "real life" got a bit demanding, what with my frenchie being here, then getting in medical camp stuff, then getting working papers...sorry to those I haven't answered, and for the person I owe the one-shot to, I will get to it...eventually.
Matilda sat on her bed as Lilli brought her some food, trying to wrap her mind around what she'd been told. Marry Francis. Her uncle, the man who had held her after her mother had died, the man who'd played dolls with her and didn't even look embarrassed, even making them talk and move. Francis was the man she had always looked to as a second father when her own was too deep in his own mind to realize he had children, let alone that Matilda existed. Francis had always been the one there for her, and she'd actually felt guilty at times when she'd lie about Ivan around the man. Turned out that man wasn't all that she expected, and now she was to marry him.
Lilli rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. "Come now, you've been so odd these past couple of days since the announcement, even my brother has gotten worried. If everything happens as it should, the worst won't happen."
Matilda just stared down at her food for moment, then picked up the fork. "I know you're right, but it—it seems like everything so far has been a lie with…Francis. I trusted him like I trusted my own father, what does that mean about other people? A part of me just wants to lock myself away and wait for everything to pass by without me. But I think I just have to get back up and busy until Ivan gets back, and we can see from there…what I would give for a distraction from my own thoughts!" Matilda sighed, and Lilli sat down next to her with a huff of her own.
Lilli smiled and leapt up after a moment as an idea popped into her mind. "Well, if you pardon my talk of 'below stairs' activity, but we had some excitement this morning!"
Matilda nodded for her to go on, pushing her food absentmindedly around her plate, not giving it even a cursory glance.
"Well, this morning, Chef Feliciano's brother and his friend turned up on the entrance to the servant's quarters! Apparently, Feli had some estranged twin sibling who he lost touch with in his home country after they fought over something unimportant, and then the twin, out of the blue, just sent him a letter and Feli invited him here! They're here for the wedding and a little while afterwards, as Sir Ludwig's guests!"
She put down her fork and actually started paying attention to Lilli's pleasant conversation that was supposed to keep her mind from things much less pleasant or happy, but not meant for any real substance or news. "Really? I never realized he had a twin! Now that I think of it, he always would be the first to tell me to forgive Alfred when we would fight."
She could see in her mind's eye herself, around the age of eight, running down the steps to the kitchen in her nightgown to the nearest source of comfort and solace that late at night, having just gotten in a row with Alfred upstairs in the nursery, wanting to hide away, when she'd knocked into the little chef, who'd consoled her, gave her some cookies, and told her to go make up with Alfred. He'd said something about family being the most important, and that it was better to forgive than anything else. It made some sense now.
God, she missed Alfred. Not a day went by when she didn't stop in the middle of whatever she was doing and try to hold back tears at the thought of him lost, gone, never coming back, or never being the same again. But would Alfred, still out there (hopefully, she didn't dare to think otherwise), have sulked for days on end about something he couldn't do anything about for the time being? No, and she needed to pull herself out of this ditch, and she could see no better way than distraction.
"Well, I should make it my duty to greet these guests. It would do for common courtesy to head down to the kitchen for a bit." Matilda pushed all other thoughts away and stood up, smoothing her gown out before walking purposefully out of her apartments. No use dwelling on what couldn't be helped, Lilli was right. She would do as Feli had once done for her. She would try her darnedest to help those brothers get back what they had, to forgive, if she needed to.
Lilli followed her down the steps, fretting about her not eating, to which Matilda laughed at the irony. "Lilli, we're going to the kitchen, and you're worried about my eating?" Lilli just smiled in return, and followed once more.
They made it down to the large kitchen that was full of goods and ovens, and workers, and those who saw her showed some acknowledgement, tipping caps, nodding, asking how she was and if she needed anything. She was directed to the chef's room over near the rear of the kitchen, and a man went before her, sweeping away flour that had tipped over so she wouldn't spoil the hem of her dress, but she just walked on, thanking him.
Knocking on the door, she tucked a curl of hair behind her ear nervously. What had she been thinking? She'd never been good around strangers and had always avoided uncomfortable or different situations since she was little. Why did she act on impulsive inspiration?
Matilda didn't get much more time to think as Lilli caught up with her, squeezing her forearm reassuringly before the door opened, and Feli peeked out at her.
"Oh, Highness! I just-a sent up your lunch! How are you? Come in, come in, please! There are some people I want you to meet, ve!" And she was pulled into the room.
There was a man sitting in a chair that seemed to be almost an exact copy of the cook except his hair was a little darker and his curl was on the other side, and against the wall was a handsome olive-skinned man, both who immediately stood up straight at seeing her.
"Lovi, Antonio, this is Princess Matilda! Highness, this is my brother Lovino Vargas, and Antonio, his little friend!" Lovino looked down at the ground bashfully as he took the hand she reached out and gently, but quickly kissed it before speeding away back to his chair, having only murmured a quiet "the pleasure is mine, your highness".
Antonio, on the other hand, took her hand and looked so deeply in her eyes behind her glasses with his green ones that she had to look down. He kissed her hand a bit seductively, bowing, before standing up again, yet holding her hand still in his. "It is a great pleasure to meet such a lovely flower here, and to be here in this gorgeous place, princess, your highness." Lord, was he handsome.
Feli then burst right back into whatever conversation they'd been having after Antonio stepped back, hovering right near Lovino, a little to close unless they were…more than friends. Oh, Antonio, Lovi's "little friend".
"So, the question you are not answering Fratello, who told you where I was? ! Did you go on a pilgrimage home? Was it a passing merchant?"
Matilda sat on a cushioned bench, and Antonio joined her, Lovino explaining about a journeyman in a very subdued manner, not looking his brother in the face as he recounted what should have been one of the happiest parts of his story.
Matilda realized there was a little flour on her glasses, and without thinking, pulled them off to clean them, looking up when Antonio laughed at something Lovino had said, the conversation now switching into a language she didn't understand, but the three seemed to speak very fast paced and passionately.
"What was so amusing, Mr. Ca—"
Antonio was smothering his laughter as he turned to her, "Antonio, please, your Majesty, call me Anto…" he stopped as he caught sight of her face. "Your…eyes… they glow!"
Matilda realized she hadn't kept her head down while not wearing her glasses, and she quickly slid them back on. "Oh, um, I'm very sorry, I…"
"The last person I saw with eyes like that were…"
"The lion had them…, except his were blue" Lovino said quietly, staring at her with curiosity, Feliciano now out of the loop, looking back and forth between his guests and Matilda, trying to think of how to distract them, no doubt, from Matilda's peculiar eyes that had long been a palace secret .
"Lion…you met a lion with…blue, glowing eyes? Was he the one to tell you where your brother worked?"
Lovino flinched, and Matilda knew she was dead on. "Please, where is he? I need to find that lion!"
"The land of the magicians, but its too late to find him now."
Antonio was looking at her with such an expression, she couldn't believe it. "N…onono. He…he's still out there. My broth—" she stopped herself, but she saw Antonio catch on to what she'd been about to say. His eyes widened.
Lovino sighed. "He's dead."
Matilda just stood in the middle of the room, looking around her, as if she was lost, before, once again, fleeing back out the door, except this time, there was no way out of the pain. Feliciano ran out after her, calling out confusedly, and Lilli was racing after her, the two of them tripping over a bag of apples, sending them out across the floor and causing Matilda to step on the hem of her dress and tear it a bit as she raced far away from the kitchen and the two men who had just turned her world upside down.
Ivan walked back into a quiet palace, and immediately he froze. There was a whispering group of servants down the hall, a woman sweeping up a courtyard, everything very quiet and tranquil, but that was the problem. The palace was never like this, at least not here.
Ivan walked up to the woman sweeping up the leaves in the courtyard. "What is the reason behind the…quietness around Princess Matilda's chambers? Has something happened?"
He'd paid off this woman numerous times for information about Matilda's well-being or location, and he slipped a coin into her apron pocket as she bent to continue sweeping. She frowned and continued sweeping while she began to speak.
"You won't be likin' this, sir, not one bit. She been up there for days, takin' her meals up there, ever since they sent his Lordship the Earl off in shame. Had a dance girl taken-up with child, he did. And now she's to wed too close to home, a shame, no one ends happy."
Gilbert knocked someone up? How could he make such a stupid mistake? "Marrying too close, what do you mean, woman?" He asked hurriedly, bending down right beside her, subtlety be damned. He wanted information, and he was going to get it.
"The Regent, Bonnefoy, is the default. He and his advisor Miss Natalya made the decree last month, and now its so quiet here after the princess done locked herself up there. She'd come out a few days ago to greet the Cookie's brother and his escort, then done locked herself up again, and sent a torn dress down to the tailor."
"Can you get her a message for me, that I'm back?"
"Will try, sir. Come back at sunset, and I'll have given the message."
And so, Ivan returned at sunset, and waited down in the courtyard for the woman, making it seem like he was interested in a bed of flowers, not that he was waiting for someone.
He heard shuffling, hesitant feet, and immediately turned to greet the old woman, but instead found two arms thrown around his neck.
"Oh, Ivan. It's hopeless now." The hooded figure whispered quietly into his neck. "He's gone."
He stiffened. "How could you possibly know, my little sunflower?"
"Someone knew him, but apparently, he's dead."
Ivan nodded, trying to think of what they were going to do. Then he took in Matilda's appearance. A cloak, a satchel, an old brown dress that seemed almost like it came from the maid… "Matilda, why—"
"I'll go. With you. Only you. I wake up with you on my mind in the mornings, I think of you all the time. You are now my everything, my all, and my heart races at just the mention of your name. I love you, Ivan, I can't ever even imagine being with anyone else. Only you, me, us, together, and if that means I have to give up everything, so be it. I never have done taken my life into my own hands, but I'm going to start." A delicate hand caressed Ivan's cheek as those violet eyes peered into his own, and he leaned into the touch, bringing his own, large, calloused hand over it. "It may be selfish, but I must follow my heart. I've lost too many, I can't stand to lose you. Once, you asked me if I would leave with you. The answer is yes."
"Yes…" he looked down at her, a little shell-shocked at her admission, letting it sink in. "Yes, yes of course! But we must wait until darkness falls. I must signal my people to leave quickly, and get out of my wear, but then, then it shall just be the two of us. We shall make our own happiness without anyone else getting in the way." He leaned down and kissed her fully on her lips.
They spent a few minutes in each other's arms, hidden in the corner of the courtyard as darkness began to come, then Matilda reluctantly went and hid in her room, waiting for the signal, and Ivan rushed off to order his men to quickly pull out. This might start war, it might be a death sentence on himself, but he didn't care. Nothing had ever mattered so much to him, ever, as this. This girl, this woman, who'd given his life meaning and loved him in return…
"Well, come now, I must pack, as should you. Be sneaky, I must stress this to the extreme. We must be past the river by midnight. Your maid, she is faithful, tell her to tell anyone who comes looking you have some sickness that would not be serious enough for the physician but would not be suitable to visit during."
"Yes." She leaned up on her tiptoes, and kissed him forwardly and fully, and everything was alright at that moment.
Alfred sat on the large boulder that lay at the edge of the rise. Yao's home was halfway up a mountain, a celestial pool/shrine/hoop-lah whatever at the peak, shrouded in mist. Yao was there now, as he would go every morning to meditate now that Alfred no longer was an invalid. This gave Alfred his own time to think.
After most of the urgency that had filled Alfred morning, noon, and night for Arthur began to ebb as he realized that he would be no help in any situation, and that Arthur was fine if Yao said so, he began to think more about his last conversation with the blond wizard, remembering more about that night than green eyes and wisps of dialogue.
"What? What, so now you're just going to leave? What was all that 'I'm your spirit whatever and I'll be with you always and will make you great'? Is everything you ever promised me a lie?" Arthur had said. He'd called him greedy, idiotic, selfish, and a liar. Alfred now allowed the thoughts he'd pushed to the side, the emotion, the hurt and memories, to flood forward. Why did he want to go back? What was pushing him to face Arthur once more, to meet him face to face, hear Arthur tell him that everything was all his fault, or even worse, to simply turn away from him altogether?
Alfred wrapped two long, tan arms around his knees, and tried to comfort himself with memories of what the two of them had had. Before the jealousy, the hurt, the deceit, they had lived such happiness that Alfred now found the thought of life back at the palace without those long evenings of talking, of companionship, friendship, daunting. They would want him to marry, and Alfred knew then why he was willing to give everything up for that one man who had called him everything short of a whore's son because he'd caught the man with someone else.
He was in love with Arthur Kirkland, and there wasn't anything he could do. The grudge that Yao had tried to avoid was there, at least for Alfred, but it didn't dim his feelings. Alfred was hurt, but yet he would set off to meet the man who had turned him upside down and made life with anyone else unacceptable.
Alfred couldn't go back to that palace, not without Arthur, even if Arthur left him the first moment he could, Alfred couldn't bear the idea of traveling there without the magician, knowing that he was only to spend the rest of his life unhappy and alone, watching as others got what he would never have.
Yes, he'd been hurt, but he wanted to go back for Arthur. He wanted more memories of them laughing, of them rolling down hills or of sitting by the fireside, of Arthur poured over a book, his tongue sticking out of his mouth just a little bit in concentration, of just them, being together, no tension, no pain. God, he was so lovesick, so heartbroken.
But what if he never got those memories, what if Arthur was stiff and formal with him, his new self, his living self? What if what they had was ruined?
Being around Yao must have been keeping these feelings at bay for so long, the magician being able to quickly read his face and reassure him before his doubt could even begin to form a sentence. But now that Yao wasn't here, it was like being a crossroad, not knowing which way life would veer.
Later in the week, Alfred's eyes snapped open as he heard faint shuffling in the darkness of Yao's home. Alfred's room was also the storeroom, so any noise in the main room was noticeable through the open door without him easily being seen.
A figure then was in the doorway, the faint outline in the dark so unlike Yao's, smaller, slightly wider, stronger, less feminine. Alfred kept his breathing slow and even, as if he were asleep. If this guy had gotten in without Yao knowing, he would need the element of surprise.
Suddenly, before he could move, the figure was crouched over him, its hands on either side of his head, and he could feel breath ghosting his forehead. He flinched, and the figure stiffened slightly.
"Who are you and why are you here?" The figure, male, questioned him in a low whisper, venom and disdain clear even in the darkness.
"I should be asking you that." Alfred replied at the same volume, a frown crossing his features, his eyes giving off a faint glow in the night.
"Your lack of aura is familiar, as is the strange eye condition, have we met before?" The man asked with curiosity, sitting back a bit, suddenly undermining the situation they were currently in. Who was this guy?
Alfred met the man's eyes, and instantly both men saw a flash of memory, of a small magician who invaded minds and a lion who was forced to attack his own friend.
Alfred quickly sat up, the covers slipping down his bare chest. "You're Yao's nephew!"
The man blinked, then sighed. "Oh, you're just the lion. Pity you didn't stay in lion form, it was cooler, much more interesting than whoever you are now. Whatever. See you tomorrow, unfortunately." And the boy, rolling his eyes, just got up, and walked out of the room, leaving Alfred in a true state of confusion. Was he just dismissed like he was some uninteresting garbage?
"Sorry about him, Alfred, he's always been a bit of trouble." Yao was now in the doorway, a candle hovering next to him, lighting up his face. "He thinks I favor Arthur over him just as his parents favored another sibling over him. He was some emotional issues, including distain for everything not him. Anyway, he was sneaking around, trying to figure out who else was in the house, so I decided to let him try and sneak up on you. The other three will be here in the morning, and then we'll talk again."
Alfred blinked at the concise explanation Yao gave, straight forwardly answering most, if not all his questions before he could even ask them, yet holding onto a bit of eccentricity that Yao seemed to radiate. "Uh, ok. Do they have a grudge against me for any past—"
"No, they shouldn't, it was my assignment. I think you and especially Kiku will get on well. He's going to work with you on hand to hand combat and sword fighting. Rest up now, it will be busy tomorrow."
And then Alfred was alone to ponder what exactly just happened, why he finds it "the norm" and just ends up dismissing it to fall into another fitful sleep.
He dreams of empty hallways, running down the passages after a figure, only to realize as he turns the corners that it had been Arthur, and that the imaginary man he so loved had disappeared.
So, um...yeah.
Fun Fact: Humans are the only mammals who have the ability to choke because a larynx that lowers between 3-5 months after birth (precisely the same time Sudden Infant Death Syndrome occurs), sharing the same canal as the lungs, but also allows us to have more accented and inflected speech. (AKA why you can talk and your dog can't.)