Prince Leo of Nohr is fucked, that is for sure.
He does not normally have this sort of vocabulary, but there is no way around it this time. He is completely, utterly fucked and that is putting it lightly.
Lady Kamui is smiling at him like he coloured the sky above blue or hung up that pretty sun and he cannot get enough.
"What? You have never made a snowman before?" She asks, surprised. "What would you do when the first snow of the winter hits?
Clearly, the fact that he has never made a snowman, whatever that even is, is completely baffling to her, as she almost seems offended. He bites down a smile at that.
"I am afraid not." He chuckled, amused. "Our early winters are busy with the last preparations for the season. What is a snowman, my lady?"
The blond prince kneels down to where she has already knelt, a pile of clear white snow in front of her. It is not as graceful as he would like, considering the sheer number of layers he has on, but he manages to get into a somewhat comfortable position next to her.
"Well, it is as the name suggests. It is a man made up of snow." Kamui squints her eyes at him. "And I told you to drop the formalities and call me by my given name."
"Apologies, Kamui, but your snowman talk has me unable to think of anything else."
She chuckles and it is almost embarrassing how his chest swells with pride and adoration.
"Just you wait until you see it, then. You will be speechless too."
The foreign lady is teasing him now, but he is laughing along. A warmth bubbles up right where his heart beats.
"Very well, then." The prince concedes with a smile. "Show me this snowman of yours."
Just like the races, she is off like a horse. Her hands are balling, rolling heaps of snow and he cannot say that he is not intrigued.
Leo tries to help too. It is at a much, much slower pace than hers, but her praises to the technique keep him going. Even if his face should burn off if his cheeks turn any redder.
Kamui says something about "snow angels" andhe catches the words "snow ball fight" inbetween, but, truth be told, he cannot seem to focus on what she is saying. Maybe the cold has got to him or the bitter ale he downed for lunch was much too strong.
All he can see is that strand of hair falling onto her face, a strand that she blows at it away. Expertly, if he may add, but it is relentless. It keeps falling onto her face every time she bends just a little forward.
The young man wants to tuck it away for her, maybe behind her ear.
His thoughts stop dead on his brain. The idea of doing that seems somewhat more daunting than falling headfirst into the Bottomless Canyon.
"We will make it the prettiest snowman anyone has ever seen!" Kamui excitedly exclaims.
"On this land, my lady, snow men are not called pretty."
A chill run through his spine. The jab slips from his mouth, and he is already rethinking it, hoping he has not ruined the moment.
"Nowhere is perfect, it seems." She comments lightly. "Such a lovely land, too! What a shame."
The prince is chuckling again, partially at himself too because he always seems to forget that Kamui is herself: the lady from a faraway land, with a very, very strange name and even stranger names for the stars in the sky, and who does not seem to care for anyone's last name.
"That is Cassiopeia right there!"
She had shown him the constellationone summer night, even traced the shape on his palm for him. Truth be told, he could not see the damned thing at first.
Perhaps, he did not want to so she would trace the shape of it on his palm again.
Some dark night last spring, his father has summoned his three children. He presented Lady Kamui to them as a foreigner from "beyond the chasm" on a sojourn in Nohr, with clear instructions for entreating her with irreproachable hospitality.
The siblings followed their orders to the letter, and the foreigner has merited the good-will of all princes of the land have shown to her, but Xander, Camilla and Elise have duties which she cannot accompany, while Leo had no such impediment. Alas, they began increasingly orbit around one another.
Now, almost a year into her visit, he is unwilling to think about a time that she returns to wherever, and he has to return to his lonely routine from before.
"Can you, please, pass me that twig right there?"
Kamui is pointing to a desolate twig, blackened and broken, lying next to many other such twigs. He raises his brows slightly, questioning a need for it.
"It is supposed to be his nose."
Of course, it is his nose. He is stifling a laugh as she stabs the poor head with the twig and even place two rocks as its eyes.
"Will he have a name?" He manages to choke out between a fit of just embarrassingly high-pitched laughter.
Lady Kamui looks at the work appraisingly and hums. "Hans, I think he must be named Hans. It resembles him, somewhat."
There she goes again with her mentions of these strange things he proves himself unable to see. The way she has talked about certain things, they have to be true in some level, and no one can convince him otherwise. He only wishes to see them as well.
She gives him a airy smile every time that he points it out, as if she is reminded of both the times when she learned of it and how naïve he is to the ways of her world.
"It is so. I name thee Hans of the Northern Fortress." He pretends to knight the lumps of snow. "It has a nice ring to it, I suppose."
Leo watches she draws a little slit where its mouth should be in a lopsided grin.
Then, it hits him. Longing, love, lust, want, need all embroiled into one deep in his guts.
Lady Kamui is right here next to him, yet his heart is still crying out for something more, more than just stolen glances or lingering touches. He has told her everything he has ever known and she has listened, providing him with understanding, never pity. The oceans would drown before she ever belittled him with pity. She has told him everything he had no idea of knowing, and he has listened, hung on to every word like a prayer.
Yet, somehow, that is not enough for him.
Leo wants to tell her about the other times too, like when he bit down on his quivering lips so hard all he could taste was blood and not the feast laid in front of him as he watched his father and step-mother feasting as well, just a few metres away at the dining table.
He wishes to tell she about the time his father smiled at him, even praised him for his magic. He longs to tell her about how the sweetest cherries grow right beside the river bank, he would like to take her there himself, too. However, they only grow after winter fades into spring and no one knows how long a winter lasts.
A sense of urgency overcomes him. He is scared that he will not be able to, that she will somehow disappear back into the dark night before he can.
How one makes a moment last forever?
There has always been a nagging thought on his head that repeatedly reminded him that Kamui is not of this land. Not just Nohr, not just the east or the west, not of anywhere in this continent, perhaps not even from anywhere in the known world.
This knowledge tugs at his heart. She is not supposed to be here and it means that the dragons could take her away just as easily as they brought her. The thought is crippling, he wants, he needs, her to stay.
For once, he feels selfish to think that way. He understands that she is not to stay here, especially when he has seen her cry for her home, her father, and, even if he knows nothing about that place beyond the chasm, he has consoled her through all of it. He knows that, and yet his heart sinks every time at the thought of letting her go.
"Where is your mind at, Leo?" She wonders.
He almost tells her. He has spent countless nights thinking of ways to say how he truly feels about her. Maybe get down on one knee, as well. It is on the tip of his tongue, begging to be said.
The way she is looking at him, he is almost sure she already knows.