Yep, it's another Jon/Aly (this plot bunny refuses to die; in fact, I'm warming to it very quickly), and nowhere near as vague as the previous one, so count this as your warning.

It seemed that Aly had enjoyed her month's stay with her Corus relatives. – Trickster's Choice

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June 7: numbers game, feat. King Jonathan of Conté and Aly Cooper

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A delicate knock startled Jonathan from the admittedly ironic pleas from the fief of Rich Cafferey. Alianne Cooper leaned casually against the doorway of his office, one arm supporting her lithe body, the other running along the wood frame. Whatever style of dress the newest university fashion dictated, as well as what he knew to be a fairly rich figure, were dwarfed by a dark brown cloak, spelled against unexpected spring rains.

"You look as if you're about to depart," he commented unnecessarily, feeling beneath his breastbone a tightening that he couldn't begin to explain.

Aly's convivial green-hazel eyes seemed to reflect none of his unease. "Well, I wasn't about to leave without saying my proper good-byes." She sauntered over to his desk; he replaced his pen in the inkwell but only stared at her. "A month was far too short a period of time," she murmured as she climbed into his lap and ran her fingers through his short black hair.

Reflexively he checked over her shoulder that his door was shut and bolted; she had taken care of both. Allowing his muscles to release some of their tension, he rubbed his hands up and down the heavy material of her cloak before deciding that the garment was in his way and undoing the clasp at her throat.

Aly helped him by shrugging her hood off; waves of sapphire-blue hair tumbled over her shoulders. "Do you like it?" she asked, giving her head a little shake so that the waves gleamed like ocean water.

He twined some strands, like the finest dyed silk, around one finger. "It's not a very subtle statement."

Her full mouth opened wide in a grin. "What makes you think it's for you?" she teased; at the surprise that flitted across his features, she laughed and kissed him gently. "Of course it's for you," she whispered, "but I can use the other university students and their silly potions as my excuse."

"Your mother will have a heart attack," he commented softly, still captivated by the shimmer of her thick hair.

"Let's not talk about my mother," she murmured, leaning her head closer to his. He kissed her hungrily, his hands going to her back to support her. She moaned prettily and tightened her grip on the back of his neck. Her other hand grasped at his desk for balance, dislodging some of his papers.

Finally they drew back, panting. With her wide green eyes and swollen mouth, she looked more beautiful even than she had in the palace gardens on that first night that he surprised both of them. "Ask me to stay," she whispered.

He sighed deeply and, placing one hand on either of her hips, lifted her off him. "That I cannot do, Alianne."

She made a face to cover her deeper displeasure at being forcibly pushed away and leaned against his desk. "You sound like my da."

More than ever his eyes resembled gems, hard and impassive. "I'm the same age as your father."

Aly placed a long-fingered hand on his cheek. "But it's not the same. You're not him, Jon." He didn't flinch as he had the first time she had addressed him so intimately, but it still made something in his stomach turn uncomfortably.

Aly dropped her hand, and they remained in awkward silence for several moments until she, striving for a light tone, inquired, "What is it that had you so engrossed before I tore your attention away?"

Jon fumbled through the sheaf of papers that had been disturbed before withdrawing the one for which he had been pondering a civil reply. "Fief Rich Cafferey claims to have suffered great losses in the volume of its crops and weapons in the last year, but it seems to forget the war that we are currently waging." He bit the inside of his cheek before he could embark on the same weary rant he had subjected Gary to that morning. He didn't want to discuss Crown matters with Aly.

"You have to admit that the name, with those circumstances, has some humor," Aly said. "But the reports to be made, and the never-ending follow-ups. . . . How tiresome." It first made him laugh, then sobered him as quickly as a slap to the face, to think that he had echoed much the same sentiments at her age (at her age . . .).

Aly was chattering on, "If you want to talk interesting numbers, there's code-breaking, like I did for Grandda while I was here. But that too gets tedious quickly. What I would love is to be in the field actually spying – leading groups in sabotage and subterfuge."

She was smiling at her own poetry, but he cut in, more brusquely than he had intended, "Absolutely not."

Her eyebrows rose slowly, which was almost worse than the surge of temper he remembered from her mother when they got into arguments. "Excuse me?"

"I won't have you in that degree of danger," Jonathan said, stroking her hip. "It's not where I want you to be."

Her eyes brought to mind a particularly ugly storm he had witnessed one time he had visited Pirate's Swoop. "I'm not going to follow what you want with a sigh and a curtsy."

"Wrong, youngling." He grimaced at the word he had allowed to slip by but pressed on. "I'm the king. And, more importantly, I care about you, Aly."

Aly shoved herself off the desk, grabbing her cloak from where it was pooled on the floor; she muttered something under her breath that he was glad not to hear. Upon straightening, she snapped, "I was right; you're not my da. He would let me do what I want with my life. He wouldn't force me to be someone I'm not."

His eyes shot up to hers, and he wondered for the millionth time how much research into his younger years she had made before taking the steps to ensnare him.

She swept out of his office without so much as a goodbye, her blue hair bouncing up and down before she replaced her hood with a flick of her wrists.

With an unkingly growl of frustration, Jonathan shoved the Rich Cafferey letter aside and raked his fingers through his hair. He was too old for this.