The first time he realizes she exists, she is reading a book in the library.
Well, not as much realizing. Cailan knew the Teyrn of Highever had two children, but he had never acknowledged Elissa before, but only her brother, and that was only on the odd occasion they spar together. As much as he respects their lineage and desires to be friendly, their paths rarely seem to cross, and so he finds it not worth much of his effort.
If the noble girl spends most of her time here, and it would seem that she does, it was hardly surprising that they rarely meet. The young prince does not value much the enterprises of the mind, while she seems to be more holistic in her endeavours, both intellectual and martial.
Her clear eyes are roving over pages, drinking a wine crafted from words. She is drunk on the flavour of knowledge, and he can nearly imagine the giggle that may leave her mouth if he probed her with questions. It would be a mockery, but he feels as if he would not mind.
Elissa licks her lips, as if gathering drops of consonants that spilled over the brim. Her pupils are blown, her fingertips are twitching, her lungs look like they quiver with each breath, as if they cannot understand the oxygen that enters them.
Calian needs to be closer.
He starts by switching tables. He is one, two, three, four feet closer, and it still feels like eons. She barely blinks, and he doubts she can even hear his movements.
The prince came to the library with a purpose. There is an essay assigned by his tutors in front of him, but it is irrelevant. What is much more intriguing is the faded leather of her tome. He picks out Virgilian Juvenilia and keeps it in his mind, just for a future reference he swears he will not revisit.
His chest feels light and his head feels cloudy. He is vinous with an unknown high, with a dry pleasure he knows not. The paragraphs on his page rise, reorder, recongregate into a format he can barely decipher. It would have been panic infesting his brain, were it not for the bliss that fogged his peripheral.
He mouths the words, tries to taste them as Elissa does hers, but it is to no avail, because all he swallows is sin and desire. He is intoxicated, but it is on something else entirely.
He has never met something so heady as the smell of her perfume.
After that, Cailan became a regular fixture at the quiet library, which came to a surprise for almost all its regular patrons. Aside, of course, for Elissa, who had not been in Denerim for long enough to know the movements of its inhabitants.
Alas, the prince is always there. Always silent. Rarely reading. He is a completely inoffensive presence, until he was not.
It is on the sixth visit that he spills his ink bottle. Right at her feet.
He has memorized her schedule at this point, the noble girl that has seeped past his skull and taken refuge inside his dreams. He wonders if Elissa feels safe there, tucked beside those unconscious wishes. He wonders whether he has disguised his coveting look well enough for him to continue his admiration unbothered and unopposed.
He was prince, yes, but he is no rapist. Despite his position, he would not want to impose his company on the lady. He wanted to cause no harm.
Cailan, she whispered the first evening, perhaps as a silent acknowledgement she would not be allowed to give until he greeted her out of his own volition. He swore she did speak with him, in blissful amicability, and it was what reassured him to remain in the library, afternoon in and afternoon out. The only question remaining is whether her voice is truly so sweet.
The black liquid splatters against her skirts, blends in with the brown hem of them, and she does not take notice until he begins apologizing.
"I am sorry." Cailan mumbles, pulling his handkerchief out and pretending the tremble in his fourth finger is coincidence.
He pretends everything about them is coincidence.
Elissa looks up from her tome to find him kneeling before her, handkerchief blotting at her shoes. Her brow furrows, and she does not even bookmark her page before setting the item down.
"Do you always carry a handkerchief?" She asks, and he feels a new rush in his blood, one that promised a hard crash.
It is saccharine.
He gives her the reserved smile, the tilt few see. "You never know when you shall need one."
It is her turn to smile, and she holds out a hand, asking for the cloth.
The blond teen obliges, and, to his great surprise, she shifts to wipe the three drops off the tip of his shoe. His lips part, and some part of him no longer feels like quite the majesty.
In fact, he almost comes to desire to have no blue blood at all. Alistair, hidden away in Redcliffe, comes to mind in envy.
"Thank you, milady." He breathes, and the words equate to a prayer he has kept hidden for weeks now.
"My pleasure, Your Highness." She says, and he could not decipher what she meant by it.
Elissa returns the handkerchief, and he imagines the touch that stays imprinted onto the material. He hears those things take days to disappear. It fills him with an odd sort of delight.
The prince nods, and it is as though the earth shifts. He is almost unsteady, drunk on a person he craved without inhibition.
"Cailan, please. At your service." He replies.
Her eyes shine in the sun, and Cailan thinks it is the only light he needs to guide him anymore.
Her laugh is like Orlesian sugar, and it tastes warmer than the sweetest of honey.
"I am glad we met, Prince Cailan." Elissa says as she toys with the rings that decorate his fingers. "It has been one of the finer things in life, I think."
"And why is that?" He hums, blue eyes flicking up to hers.
It never fails to evoke adoration in the form of heated cheeks.
"You are like poetry." The noble girl responds, but does not elaborate.
He does not ask her to.
Her fingertips trip over his skin, and while it is not rough by any means, it is the deepest massage he has ever felt. The grass is soft beneath them, the chessboard long since abandoned in the middle.
Instead, between them lies a new connection. He is the same as she is, and that means a magic he has yet to master dances a dagger's edge.
However, regardless of the direction, he is not afraid to fall.
It only takes two weeks of knowing her, of truly discovering her, for him to arrive at the library by himself, out of his own volition, for the first time in his life.
Anora looks at him in confusion. She is a woman of letters, like the Cousland girl, but unlike the Cousland girl, that seems to be her only domain. For that reason, her surprise was expected, especially since he is never alone anymore, but he pays it no mind.
Instead, he is walking to the back shelves, the ancient literature section, and he chooses a large, worn book, though, no matter its size, what lies inside holds much more weight.
Anora gives him a surprised look, but he ignores that too.
As she helps him check it out from the librarian's ledger, she drags a thumb over the title, and quiet dread blooms in her chest at the simple words engraved in gold against leather.
Virgilian Juvenilia.