They met again. It was only a few months later this time, not a whole lonely year, and thick drifts of snow covered the grounds outside, piling up on windowsills and shimmering in the daylight. Alfred had never been much of a winter child, born in the middle of the summer as he was, but even he had to admit that it could be beautiful. The delicate way the flakes drifted down, and the glittering spirals of the icicles… Winter in the Kingdom of Spades was a sight to behold.

That night, though, as Alfred pulled the folds of his cloak tighter around himself and shivered slightly, the winter was only cold. He frowned into the fire, only barely listening to the conversation of the women reclining on the couchess around him. His mother really was starting to get desperate as his nineteenth birthday drew nearer and nearer. Hundreds of young women were being paraded in front of him, often under the guise of intimate little gatherings like this, his mother just hoping he would choose one of them. After the third try, he'd informed her that he had seen all these girls before and still wasn't interested, and wouldn't be no matter how many times they met up, but the Queen refused to give in. In some ways Alfred supposed he should have been thankful for that- she was doing it for his own good, after all- but it was just getting so irritating.

The warm fire crackled in the hearth, and Alfred finally looked up from his own brooding to gaze around at all his companions. They didn't seem to have noticed his lack of attention, or at least they weren't reacting to it, and were still chatting merrily away with his mother. Weddings seemed to be the main topic of the conversation, much to Alfred's dismay. Every now and then, a flirtacious glance would be cast his way, highlighted by the glow of the fireplace, and he would studiously look at something else as if he hadn't noticed. Those massive brass candleholders on the mantle really were marvelously detailed, and had the drapes by the windows always looked so soft?

"Alfred," his mother called suddenly, startling him from his in-depth perusal of the drapes, "what would you think about that?"

Alfred blinked at her, then at all the other young women who were looking at him, waiting for an answer. He cleared his throat. "I, well… Could you repeat that?"

The Queen frowned. "Alfred, are you feeling alright? You've been staring off at nothing for ages now." Her eyes roved across his face, searching for any signs of illness. "Should I call the physician? I'm sure one of those new bloodletting techniques he's been talking about would help. Or maybe I should summon one of those odd little witch women from the city?"

Both suggestions made Alfred's stomach churn. He'd had only one encounter with the royal physician, which had made him swear never to get sick again, and the so-called witches from the city were actually some of the most frightening people he had ever met. "I don't think I need either of those, mother," he said stiffly, shifting beneath all the women's worried stares. He had to get out of there. "In fact, I think I'll be just fine if I go outside for some fresh air."

"Outside?" his mother demanded as he rose to his feet. "Alfred, darling, it's freezing cold out there! If you're not sick now, you will be from standing out in that snow."

"Don't worry," Alfred assured her, smiling widely and falsely around at them all. "I won't be out there for too long." Before anyone could say anything else that could potentially have ruined his plans of escape, he ran- more like walked rather quickly- out of the little parlor and down the hallways to the nearest balcony. The lone servant who passed him in the hallway stared at him in shock. Alfred just waved briskly and kept on his way.

When he finally reached the balcony and threw the doors open, the cold air rushed in, nipping at his exposed face and ears. He didn't mind though, not if meant being able to escape his mother and her girls. Stepping out into the night, his boots sinking slightly into the gathered snow along the balcony floor, he moved forward until he could brush off the snow upon the railing and rest his arms there instead. He breathed out a long sigh and watched his breath steam in the air. It was nice out there, peaceful, filled with that soft quiet that seemed to slowly relax him.

"What do you think you're doing out here? You'll freeze!"

Alfred jolted upright, head whipping back and forth as he tried to locate the owner of that voice. "Who said that? Who's there?"

"I'm down here."

Now that he thought about it, the voice did seem to be coming from below. Alfred leaned forward against the railing and peered down at the ground-level balcony beneath him. The flickers of candlelight and fire illuminated familiar pale skin and pointed ears and a pair of vibrant green eyes. "Arthur?" he asked, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

Arthur immediately looked embarrassed, though the bright blush might have been from the piercing cold instead of any emotion. "I'm not entirely sure," he muttered, turning his gaze down to his gloved hands and not looking at Alfred. "I was curious, I suppose. I told myself last time that I wouldn't come back here again, and yet here I am."

"Couldn't resist my appeal, could you?" Alfred teased, and then froze, his smile falling away as he realized just who he was teasing. He and Arthur might have parted on better terms the last time, but he was still Human and Arthur was still Fey. This wasn't his brother or a friend or even one of the blushing ladies inside. He stared wide-eyed down at Arthur, not sure how to take his words back, waiting to see how Arthur would respond.

Unfortunately, Arthur seemed to be responding exactly the same way, staring up at Alfred with his jaw hanging open slightly. It was only after a few moments of the two of them standing there, the cold biting at them, that he finally managed to speak. "Your appeal? Very unlikely, because I don't see a single appealing thing about you." The words were brash, but his tone was hesitant, halting, as if he expected Alfred to start yelling or do something horrible in response.

Those words, though, set off a little spark of warmth in Alfred's chest, and he laughed lightly, an awkward smile settling on his lips. "Nothing appealing? I think the girls inside would beg to differ." He waited again with baited breath.

Arthur's eyes flickered across Alfred's face, lingering on his eyes and mouth. "Girls?" he said finally, less hesitant than before and with a slight quirk of his lips. "What do you have in there, a harem?"

And Alfred did laugh this time, really laughed. He leaned further forward against the railing, resting his elbows atop it and his chin in his hands. "Not a harem! Oh gods, no." The mirth faded away, and with it went most of the happiness in his smile. "They're all potential partners for me. My mother is desperate for me to hurry up and pick one of them to be my bride."

"Desperate?" asked Arthur, his thick eyebrows drawn together in confusion. "Why is she desperate?" He paused. "Unless that's something inappropriate to ask, in which case don't answer."

"No, it's fine," Alfred replied with a half-hearted shrug of his shoulders. "You've known since the beginning that I'm the Crown Prince, so these kind of things aren't really a secret." He sighed and turned his gaze up towards the sky, peering up at the crystalline constellations he knew so well. His nose and ears were beginning to ache from the cold. "It's a tradition here in Spades for the next King to marry his Queen on his twentieth birthday. I'm eighteen now, eighteen and a half really, and I still haven't found the girl I want to marry."

Arthur made a thoughtful sound down below, though Alfred didn't look back at him. "Why don't you simply choose one of the women inside and be done with it, then?"

"Because I'm a fool." Alfred finally looked down towards Arthur again, smiling crookedly. "You've told me so before yourself. Not about this, I suppose, but it still applies. It's just…" He lifted his head from his hands and laced his fingers together with another sigh. "I don't want to marry some random girl I don't know anything about. I want to wait and find the One, you know?" Then he chuckled and shook his head. "And I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. It's not like you can do anything about it." Not to mention the fact that Arthur probably had no traditions similar to this one where he came from.

"Maybe not, but I think I can understand." The firelight played in dancing patterns across Arthur's hair and skin, and set his eyes alight, and Alfred found him oddly distracted by that as he tried to listen to what Arthur was saying. "I can't say that I've ever been in the same position, seeing as I'm not royalty in any sense, but to want to marry someone you love instead of simply out of obligation? That is sound reasoning to me, at least."

"You really think so?" Alfred asked quietly.

"I do." Arthur met his gaze straight on for a moment. "If you're not finding the woman you love here, perhaps you're looking in the wrong place. Perhaps you should try searching someplace new."

"Someplace knew? Like where? I've gone through every girl in this Kingdom and dozens from each of the other Three." Alfred shook his head. "I don't know where else I could look."

Arthur's eyebrows drew together, his lips pulling back into a partially confused smirk. "Well,if that's the case, don't ask me. I was only trying to be helpful, not solve all your problems for you, and it's not as though I have any better ideas about finding a wife."

That last part caught Alfred's attention for some reason. "You're not married?"

"No. I'm perfectly happy with my flowers and my books, so why do I need a wife?" At Alfred's curious look, Arthur elaborated slightly. "I'm a librarian, in the palace library. The books there are the best companions I could ever want."

Alfred hummed lightly in response. He'd always assumed that Arthur must have been some kind of royalty as well, even though there had been no basis for it and he was probably just trying to fit Arthur into a category to try and understand him, but the idea of him being a librarian seemed to fit with his appearance and temperament somehow. Grinning, he opened his mouth to reply.

Right as he did so, a gust of freezing cold wind rushed past him, tugging at the ends of his cloak, forcing a cough out of his throat, and sending a wracking shiver down his spine. His hands began to feel a little numb, so he rubbed them together in hopes of bringing some warmth back. A burning sensation finally began to throb in the tips of his fingers. By then, though, he had completely forgotten what he'd been about to say to Arthur. It had been something about being a librarian, something amusing…

"Alfred." Arthur was frowning up at him, the expression highlighted by the light of the fires indoors. "Go back inside. You're not dressed properly for being out here in the cold. You'll get sick."

It was true, of course, and even Alfred wasn't proud enough to deny that and try to brave the chill for much longer, but he couldn't resist the odd appeal of speaking to Arthur. He leaned forward further over the railing. "Hey, you can't tell me what to do. I'm the Crown Prince, remember?"

Arthur shrugged. "You're not my Prince, so I think I can tell you whatever I want." He was still smiling faintly, though. "Now go back inside, your Royal Highness, before you catch too much of a chill."

"Alright, fine, I will." But even as Alfred lifted himself off the railing and brushed snow off of his sleeves and tunic, he hesitated and glanced down at Arthur again. "You have to do the same. You'll get sick if you stay out here too long, too."

There was silence for a moment, and Alfred was beginning to wonder and worry a little whether he'd just insulted Arthur somehow, when Arthur finally replied. "I will." Brilliant green eyes met Alfred's blue. "Good night, Alfred."

"Good night, Arthur." He wasn't sure what to make of the words- they sounded different than the way they had been speaking before, whether that was good or bad- but at least Arthur was still talking to him. Waving slightly, he tuned to move back inside, and paused right at the doorway. "Arthur," he called out again, not looking over the balcony and not even knowing if Arthur was still there, "we're going to meet again, right?"

A soft chuckle resounded from below. "If we've managed to meet so many times before without trying, I have no doubt something will bring us together again. Now get out of the cold, Alfred." Light footsteps, crunching in the snow, began and faded slowly away, and Alfred knew that he was alone out there in the night. He smiled as he stepped back into the warmer air of the castle halls and closed the balcony doors behind him.

When he reemerged into the parlor where the Queen and the young women were still waiting, his cheeks flushed with cold and a strange sense of sheer happiness, the Queen immediately rose to her feet. "Alfred!" she cried. "You said you were only going to be gone a few moments. You've left all these young ladies alone with your mother, of all things, when they came here for you." Then she seemed to take in his appearance, the obviously frosty skin and the wet patches on his arms and chest and feet where he'd touched the snow. "And gods, you look like you've been rolling around out there. You're going to get sick if you stay in those wet things, darling. Go change, we'll wait for you just a bit longer."

Alfred shook his head, smiling widely at her. "Don't worry about it, mother, I'm fine. It's just a little water." And it was just a little water, after all, especially when compared to the warmth that had bloomed in his chest and stomach.

She frowned, her eyes searching across his face, but if she found anything odd about him she didn't mention it. "If you're sure. Well, come join us around the fireplace and warm yourself up a bit, at least!" The other young ladies echoed the request, some of them giggling behind their lacy fans, but Alfred didn't find it quite so annoying this time.

As he sat down in his chair again, relaxing into the softness of the cushions, and basked in the warm glow of the fire, he began to chatter politely with all the women. But that politeness was second nature to a young man born into the royalty of Spades, and so even though Alfred seemed to be completely engaged in the conversation, his mind was elsewhere. He thought of footsteps in the snow, and pale moonlight, and bright green eyes.

The warmth inside him only seemed to grow stronger.

A/N- And chapter three. Another meeting chapter! Once again, I hope the pace isn't too fast- I was trying to keep everything from dragging, which is why there will only be ten chapters or so in this story instead of the fifteen or twenty that it could take.

Anyway, I received some questions about why Arthur was at the masquerade in the first place, and why Alfred didn't ask him about it. The answers are relatively simple. Arthur was curious, just as he is in this chapter, and just as he was when Alfred first found him in the woods. He wanted to see what the Humans were like. However, this isn't really that important to the story, as far as I can see. And second, Alfred didn't ask because it just never came up in their conversation. I'm very bad at forcing specific dialogue, as I feel it's clunky, so when Alfred didn't seem to have any inclination to ask, I didn't make him. Besides, it's unlikely Arthur would have answered him to begin with.

I do appreciate the questions, though! Feel free to ask more. I just hope I haven't confused anyone with what I've left out.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you keep on enjoying!