Chapter VIII

If anyone asked, Dominic would have said that he had seen it coming.

It was like a sucker-punch to the gut, a swift move of uncanny and probably unplanned-for deja vu (because surely King Alfred wasn't that cruel). Same room, same people, and a King.

But suddenly so different.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing at his fellows beside him. There was an array of emotions on display, ranging from perplexed to anxious, stonily calm to curious. Dominic worried at his lower lip, trying to calm himself. There was, strictly speaking, no reason for him to be this nervous. The new King had a very big thing about keeping in close contact with his court, and regular meetings like these weren't uncommon.

Yet there was something about everything. The way the messenger looked harried, and gave them a shorter notice than usual. Tomorrow morning, first thing, he had panted, before hurriedly bowing and moving on to the next house. King Alfred, no doubt with the logistical help of Queen Arthur, always gave them at least three days' notice in advance of any meeting.

And he never held meetings at eight in the morning.

The Jack, Yao, made his way up onto the podium, before clearing his throat. The chattering masses quietened, redirecting their attention to him. Scanning the room cooly, he waited for everyone to settle down. "King Alfred," he annouced, lightly accented voice carrying clearly over the room, "and Prince Matthew will see you now."

The room was set amurmur again, for a good reason this time.

"Prince Matthew," muttered Lord Daeyan next to him. "What a rare sight." And it certainly was. Physically weak, Prince Matthew had never been a very consistent presence in court. Even early into two princes' adolecesnce, Prince Alfred had appeared in court more than Matthew had, faithfully shadowing their father, taking classes and the like. Admittedly, no one had been surprised when Alfred was appointed King. And after his appointment, the new Queen Arthur was usually by his side for the most part; rarely did Prince Matthew make an appearance.

"I wonder what the occasion is," murmured another lord to his left, "to even have the Prince come see us."

"Perhaps it is of financial or archival concern? I hear that Prince Matthew is the one who handles such matters nowadays..."

"Surely the King or Queen could have presented it on his behalf." The disdainful clicking of his tongue. "The Prince looks like he could faint at any moment, sometimes. Surely he knows that keeping himself healthy is important." A pause. "If anything were to happen to King Alfred-"

"God forbid!" Another voice came in, shocked. "Lord Emile! Something happening to King Alfred what-- What on earth are you hinting at regarding-"

"I am just addressing a fact," Lord Emile hastily cut in, "that... That those things happen. Have happened in the past." A few more Lords around them, no doubt having eavesdropped on their conversation, quietened at that. Dominic felt his stomach turn over three times more.

Yao cleared his throat again, and this time, pin-drop silence. Dominic watched the abortive twitch of his left hand, as Yao's right tugged at his clothes. "Presenting, my Lords, King Alfred and Prince Matthew."

Dominic's head turned with the crowd, as they rose with the entrance of the two brothers. Coming to a halt in the middle of the raised platform, behind the carved podium, Dominic watched Alfred's face, resolutely set, fiercely determined, and felt it hit a little too close to home.

(Dominic could feel it, feel the iciness creeping up to him from the tips of his fingers, working their way up the minute groves of his skin, creeping, crawling up his arms to come around his neck, wrapping and choking, like he just knew they would all those years ago, when Alphonsus had that same look on his face. That exact same look of sudden clarity and determination, resolve cast in stone for all the wrong reasons.)

"Please be seated," his voice was measured, stonily cordial and completely unlike the brash King the rest of the court was used to.

(He wanted to run, to get away from this room, from this entire Kingdom, but time waits for no man, and is merciless to all and so-)

He sat with the rest of the court, eyes fixed on the King and Prince.

"Thank you for congregating on such a short notice." The King's gaze swept over the room, cordial. Dominic felt another lurch within him. Times have changed, he thought to himself, vaguely recalling the form of three-year-old Alfred and Matthew being presented to the court for the first time. Oh how they have changed.

(A part of him- the part which quietened with the bustle of work for fifteen years, but which in turn, pulled at the ends of his mind in the depths of the night- reminded him that he helped that change. That he was that change, or at least part of it.)

"We understand that some of you had to shift around important appointments to be here, but," King Alfred swallowed visibly, "but this is an issue of utmost urgency, which we cannot afford to delay any further."

(The other part of him startled, as it habitually did for a decade and a half, startling at everything including his own shadow, because god knows- he knows- that all lies eventually unravel one day. In the past, they had all been false alarms but a worrying voice at the back of his head tells him no, Dominic, not this time, not today, today is it, it's the one you've been dreading in the dead of the night, so just-

Just breathe and know that you've known that this was coming.)

King Alfred cast a quick sideways glance at his brother, who nodded, short and curt, an understanding passing between them.

"I'll cut to the chase," Alfred said, licking at his lower lip nervously, before straightening, palms flat on the podium and-

(And here it comes-)

"It has recently come to our attention that there has been a cover up of a committed act of genocide on the Time Mages of the Spades Kingdom fifteen years ago."

(Ah.)

"An act committed by the late King Alphonsus of the Spades Kingdom."

The room errupted into flurry. Dominic could see now, as he remained seated. There were those who jumped up, screaming outrage and disbelief and how dare you sully the name of your late father, the late King, and what sort of disgusting joke is this-

(Those who do not know then.)

A third of them remained seated, in various states of quiet, remaining in their seats as if there wasn't a cacophony of noise and disarray around them. He watched as Alfred's eyes rested on each one of them in turn.

(And then there is us.)

"PLEASE SIT DOWN!"

Everyone seemed to be momentarily thrown off at the unfamiliar voice, blinking disorientedly until they noticed Prince Matthew, who had come to stand in front of the podium, eyes flashing.

It was a startling look on a boy whom half the court had never even heard speak before.

"Please," his voice was more restrained this time, but still startlingly loud for a young man who had been ordered seemingly permanent bed rest since birth. "Return to your seats, and listen to what we have to say. Contrary to what you might think, this whole meeting isn't based on unfounded facts."

The whole court stared at him even more, as Alfred cleared his throat audibly, making Matthew wince, as he returned to his position behind the podium.

"Please be seated," he repeated. And so they did.

Alfred spoke again. "We... Are definitely not making baseless accusations." He worried at his lip momentarily, and in that moment, looked so young that Dominic was reminded that this wasn't his doing at all. He's just trying to fix it, he thought to himself.

(Fix the problem you willingly helped to create.)

"The truth came as a shock to us as well," Alfred continued, as Matthew darted a half-glance at him. "However, we have gathered what seems to be... Very solid evidence to prove of the fact." The King paused to clear his throat.

"For one, the Time Mages themselves have testified to the massacre." Murmuring in the room began.

"They would be understandably bitter about a relocation," murmured a Lord behind Dominic. "But to the extent of saying that there had been a massacre?"

Another clicked his tongue, disapproving. "I've never quite liked them, all a little too," he sniffed his nose disdainfully. "Uppity. As if they were better than us, just because they had the gift of magic."

A few others muttered their assent for his opinion, while one bit back. "Well, Lord Rhyes, if I'm not mistaken, you owe your current standing to The Great Movement, do you not?"

Silence, on Lord Rhyes' part, and Dominic felt himself shift on his chair uncomfortably for the upteenth time. It was true. Many of the Lords were only in their current positions (and current wealths) due to The Great Movement, when the Time Mages relocated. With their absences, there was a rather large vaccum in the court, which the lesser Lords streamed in to fill. It was the main reason for the greatly upset state the court seemed to fall into, upon receiving news of the Time Mages' return. What would become of the court? The Kingdom? They had murmured in corridors, in the strictest of confidence.

What would become of us?

(If pressed, Dominic would admit to have felt the telltale slip of thread when he heard that the Time Mages would be coming back. The slip of thread between his fingers, suddenly so slick and slippery that he couldn't hold on to it anymore, couldn't help it from passing through his fingers anymore than he could help breathing.)

Prince Matthew stepped forward, continuing his brother's speech. "We have further evidence," he stated calmly, pulling forth a sheath of papers from a small bag he had brought in with him. Beneath it, a bound tome of leather and wax. Dominic stared at it.

It's been a while since I last saw you, he nonsensically found himself thinking, eying the familiar creamy brown, now dully faded to a matte, worn finish.

"This book contains the records of the year before The Great Movement, kept by the court scribe, of all official court meetings and decisions made and passed in that year," Matthew stated. "As you all know, by standard procedure, the book's pages are collated through the year, and compiled right after the Winter Festivities, then put away, to begin a new book for the new year."

Matthew bit his lip, thumbing at the cover of the book idly.

"However, after looking back onto the old records, I have discovered that some of the pages in the annual had been physically removed from the back of the annual, of the last few months of Winter." He paused. "This quite 'coincidentally'", and he said the word with no little amount of dryness, "coincides with the Time Mages' testimony of the genocide."

"One cannot simply claim genocide through a lack of documents and un-evidenced testimony, Prince Matthew," a voice said from the far corner of the room, as everyone else murmured their assent.

"Also," Matthew continued, as if he had never been interrupted, "I have found critical documents in my-" he swallowed, "-The late King's old belongings." Dominic could hear the voices around him pick up in volume, muttering of inappropriate conduct and trust, while Matthew himself tried to look as if he couldn't be any less bothered by their comments.

"These documents, after much research and detailed study, have been found to be the true originals of the year of The Great Movement, along with the removed records of the years past."

Matthew swallowed, looking slightly glassy-eyed and unsure for the first time, as Alfred shot him a wary look from the corner of his eye.

"They detail the proceedure of the massacre, down to the guards who were involved in guarding the chambers where the Time Mages had been brought in, in audience of the King, to the disposal of the bodies." This was not at all easy for the Prince, Dominic could tell, forcing himself to ignore the queasy unease in his stomach at the images the words conjured up. He forced himself to focus on the expression on the Prince's face, torn between disgust and a strangely masked modicum of pain and discomfort. How sharp of him, he thought to himself, to do all this. He is only but nineteen, after all.

(Won't be long now.)

"My father had assumed that these documents would be his to keep and hide forevermore, and thus kept his own personal records and journals with these incriminating documents," Matthew continued, tone a forced-calm. "In the interest of full disclosure of the truth, as is our new policy-"

(And here-)

"-We would like to notify all of the Kingdom, of the fact that certain members of the court were indeed, involved in this act of genocide, as clearly detailed and sealed by the late King Alphonsus himself."

The room fell into silence.

Alfred stepped forward to Matthew's side.

"Lords of the Spades Kingdom, we know that this may be a shock to some of you, and a- A terrible thing to others, but please, rest assured that today's meeting was not of intent to persecute the individuals who had a hand in this... This great travesty of our Kingdom." Dominic idly registered the similar nervous tic in Alfred, as his index finger rubbed distractedly on the wooden grain of the podium.

"My father," he finally continued, after a long pause, "has made a great number of mistakes in his time, especially in his final decade and a half as King. Matthew and I, of people, have come to understand this the best and..."

"And we understand that a great deal of you would have acted under the late King Alphonsus' direction."

Dominic felt himself harshly suck in air through his nose, eyes widening because oh, the boys are their father's sons after all, so brilliant, even in the thick of it, so bloody brilliant-

But this time for all the right reasons.

"Our father was an influential, inspiring man," Alfred stated. "He was a powerful man and... Due to certain circumstances, he had choosen to lead the Kingdom in a certain... Direction."

Dominic could taste the censorship in the King's words, the truth, closely euphamised behind neutral words, crafted around a barbed history fresh from the grave.

"And the court then would have felt the obligation and the need to support and follow their King despite the nature of his decisions." Alfred stopped again, eyes sweeping across the rest of the room before glancing once at his brother. If there was uncertainty in his eyes it was gone too fast.

The rest of the court was unsettlingly quiet.

"The Time Mages are returning in a week. They are citizens of our Kingdom who have had to suffer injustice to the people of their own race. We owe them much more than the truth, but we will have to start with it. For this, I would like to call the Court to step forward. To be part of the first step in righting our wrongs as a Kingdom." Alfred exhaled, deflating slightly, before - as if readying himself for the final spurt of a marathon - taking in a deep breath, "And so I ask of you - is the Court with me?"

"You have used a dead man to the best of your convenience, Queen Arthur." Isaac snorted, leaning back in his chair. Arthur tried to hide his flinch, but judging from the way Isaac inclined his head and quirked up an eyebrow, it was a futile attempt.

"What Alfred and I feel about Alphonsus personally has nothing to do with this situation." Because surely it pained Alfred too, to use the death of his father in this way. "It was merely the best way for all sides involved in this matter to come together and take a step forward. We can't-" And Arthur had to stop at this point, because he knew of the irony of the words that would slip past his lips the next moment, "We can't help the history that has already past."

The edge of Isaac's lips quirked upwards ever so slightly, a condescending nod to the words that had just left Arthur's mouth. "And you are proposing to us that-?"

Arthur breathed in dust and the musk of too many histories in one inhale.

"Come back." he tried, and found his words cracking at the edges, "Come home. Alfred - the King - all he wants to do is to rebuild the Kingdom. He's a kid in all aspects of the word but because he is one I think he can..." Arthur dropped his gaze to the wooden floorboards of the shed Isaac had proposed they met in, before catching himself and firming his resolve, because these were not empty words, "He can do the right thing. For the Kingdom. Maybe not for us. Not individually. But look at what he has done so far."

Isaac was still watching him, his eyes travelling to his face, slowly.

"He is truly trying to fix what he can of the past. What Alphonsus did - what his father did has nothing to do with him. They aren't the same person." Only after Mathilda left, his brain reminded him, the words a whisper that caught at the ends of all his thoughts, because Alfred was just like him, just like him before everything went wrong-

"Come back and be a part of this if you're worried. Make sure he doesn't go down the wrong track if you doubt him. There's no need to-" Arthur faltered, not entirely sure of his own words. "There's no need for revenge. Not when the Kingdom is rebuilding itself already."

Isaac was considering. Arthur knew that look on his face. But he knew that he wasn't fighting a losing battle here. Isaac was wise; the older Time Mage had walked through more distant times than Arthur himself, and surely he would understand what Arthur was trying to say.

"Help build it up rather than tear it all down and pick up the pieces once more, Arthur? Very practical of you."

"Alfred is doing nothing that he should be persecuted for." That, Arthur thought to himself a little belatedly, came out a little too fiercely than he had intended it to sound.

Isaac watched him for a moment with steely eyes of calm, before snorting into his hand. "I see you're quite fond of your King."

"I didn't mean it in that way." Arthur bit down on the inside of his mouth, trying to keep his voice as level as possible, because he could already feel the ghosts of a blush threatening to creep up his neck, and really, that wasn't supposed to come out like that-

Isaac laughed. It wasn't the laugh that he would laugh many years before, back when Alphonsus and him would sometimes share a cup of wine in the cooler evenings, but it was still one, and Arthur was willing to latch onto that thin strand of hope.

"Very well." Isaac smiled as he leant forward, eyes appraising Arthur's face once more. "Even though I have reasons to doubt your judgement of a King's character, Arthur, it is true that this Boy King of yours has yet to do anything that he should be punished for. We have been watching, and I personally think he should be praised."

Arthur tried not to relax too visibly.

"However." And this time the smile slid off his face like it was never there before. "People change."

Arthur closed his eyes, letting those two words wash over him along with the flash of memories that seemed to come wrapped within the innocence of a common saying. He had no good retort for that.

"Returning a group of Time Mages to the Kingdom will not be easy. Surely you have to first formulate a plan regarding things like relocation and reassignment of jobs."

"We know it's a fragile matter." Arthur felt his brow furrow slightly, because surely Isaac didn't think that he would not have realised. "But at the same time Alfred doesn't think we should be making decisions like that without input from the Time Mages themselves."

Because that was what Alfred was like, and even though Arthur had clicked his tongue in annoyance that they were not going to have a proposal or a contingency plan to fall back on if he chose to do things that way, he also realised that a part of him had grown to respect Alfred for what he tried to do.

Isaac started for a moment, eyes widening almost comically (because Isaac rarely allowed himself to display overly outward expressions of his thoughts or emotions) and Arthur found himself smugly relishing in the fact that even Isaac could be shocked by Alfred and his silly ideals.

"This King..."

"I know." Arthur tried not to smile. "... but give it a thought, would you?"

"Arthur." Alfred said, for most probably the tenth time that night. "You really need to stop acting like someone's going to jump out of a nearby bush and stab me or something." Arthur's head snapped over at the mention of the word "stab", eyes wide and alert. "See what I mean?"

Arthur clicked his tongue and stopped his rather manic pacing (thank god) for a moment, tapping the sole of his boot on the tiled floor of the balcony instead. "It's a complicated time alright? I have the right to worry."

They had, afterall, just told the Kingdom about The Truth. The reactions from people varied; there were the ones that fell into various different states of loud confusion, the ones that muttered curses under their breath about how the Kingdom had been long gone, and didn't they always say that Alphonsus was mad and not in the right mind? There had been talk, according to Yao, of a few factions that were doubting the Royal rule and planning on using the Massacre as one of their main reasons, but as far as Alfred was concerned, no rocks were thrown on the day of the announcement, and for now there were no big riots or mass revolts.

Alfred didn't see the need to worry because he knew that there were also people who were extremely sympathetic of the Time Mages' plight, a few that had actually stayed, after the announcement, to bow their heads in silence in front of Arthur and smiled small smiles before they left, and many more that had thrown their fists into the air and swore to make the Welcome Home festival their token of goodwill towards the Time Mages' return.

The number of people that actually turned up on the night of the festival was proof that everything was okay. The streets were filled with stalls and people who joined in the festivities, and most of the lords of the court had turned up too. Perhaps it was due to the Way Out that Matthew and Alfred presented to them - not a single member of the Royal Court protested against any of the proposals Arthur had presented to them regarding the Time Mages.

And the Time Mages themselves-

Alfred knew that it was naive and idealistic of him to be happy about it so early, but the Time Mages themselves had chosen to return. Two days after Arthur's meeting with Isaac the group of them turned up at the castle - most of them looked slightly grumpy, Alfred noted, but that couldn't be helped - and very awkwardly agreed to be part of the discussions regarding the future of the Time Mages in the Spades Kingdom.

"It'll be fine, Arthur." Alfred grinned carelessly, leaning against the balcony railing. The excited chatter of the crowds and the various lights that decked out the main street that ran from the castle down to the lower towns muffled and blurred by the distance. As the King, he had to make a speech at the beginning of the festivities, and stood at the head of the crowd when the carriages from the Diamond Kingdom arrived. The rest of it was a blur of handshaking and smiling and more speeches and loud declarations of Welcome Home before he retreated to the castle to meet Arthur at the balcony and watch over the rest of the celebrations.

He breathed in the cool night air, feeling it brush through the rawness in his throat and the fog at the back of his head that was still there, no matter what.

If he were to say that there was no sense of disorientation at all from the events of the past week he would be lying. Because it was Alphonsus, his father, and the ghost of the Kingdom's history that he should have never needed to face. And yet it happened, and Alfred learnt that sometimes it was all about how you used the momentum you gained from a stumble - resist it and you'd have to fall down and start again, but if you went along with it sometimes things surprisingly sorted themselves out quite well.

When he looked at it from another angle though, the past week was simply just one long stumble.

"It's a festival!" He continued, gesturing at the lights and the people and the rest of the Kingdom beneath them, "You should be celebrating, not pacing around me like my bodyguard wondering when someone's going to stick something pointy into my side." He could hear Arthur's drawn out sigh next to him, and for a moment he found his grin faltering a bit. "They'll be alright won't they? The rest of them."

There was a pause, before he felt Arthur step up next to him to lean against the balcony railing as well. "They're back home now." He started, sounding a little distant, "And even though it's probably not going to be too easy, trying to fit in again, dealing with the slight alienation due to what happened before- at least they're home."

"... We'll be alright won't we?"

Arthur turned to look at Alfred with a raised eyebrow.

"I mean," Alfred frowned a little, as if he himself wasn't too sure what he was trying to say, "Isaac and the others are going to be part of the discussions, but the treatment of the Time Mages from now on... Getting them jobs and places to stay... I'm not going to... You know, screw up am I?"

Arthur looked a little bewildered, if anything, and Alfred wondered to himself if he had only started learning what uncertainty really was after he met Arthur. What he knew was that for some reason, Arthur would be the person he would look to when he started to feel a little lost. What he should make out of that, though-

"Isaac and the rest are here. As much as most of them don't look too happy, if we make decisions after consulting the Time Mages it can't be too bad." Arthur looked a little troubled too, "... Of course, no matter what we do the fact that this entire thing is a sensitive issue doesn't change." He shot Alfred a sideway glance at that, "... And if anything, we screw up, not you." Arthur cast his glance away almost immediately, redirected it at the crowds below, and the silence that followed was of a strangely familiar quality, like all the pauses that snuck into the gaps of daily conversations in the past week. Of unsaid words and incomplete sentences and everything that was too close to the heart of the matter.

Deja vu, Alfred's brain thought, and he felt the disorientation in his brain swing back to that night when Arthur had told him everything-

"Arthur!" Alfred found himself blurting out instead, "I'm done with all my Kingly duties right?"

"What?"

"I mean, I did the speech and I welcomed them back and then I smiled and waved like a good King talked to Lords and Earls and stood on this balcony like a decorative centrepiece for the past hour but I'm technically done with my responsibilities today right?"

Arthur shot him a funny look. "I suppose you could say so..."

"And you? You're done right? The fact that you're able to idle next to me means that you've cleared all your Queenly duties?"

"Yes, Alfred," Arthur rolled his eyes, "All that is left for me is to stand here and be an ornament for the rest of the night."

"So we can leave right?"

Arthur blanched slightly at that. "What?"

"The festival!" Alfred gestured with his left hand, "What's the point of a festival if we can't go?"

"You're not thinking-"

"I wanna go meet my friends too?" Alfred added, throwing in a hopeful look with a smile that said 'I'm really not going to ask for too much, so surely it'll be alright', "I mean, the people in the Lower Towns - I've not really met them much lately, and really it's been too long, and you know what the past few weeks were like-" He rambled on, vaguely aware of how unhelpful his rambling would be, because why in the world would Arthur say yes? And besides, as much as he did want to go for the festival the true reason for bringing this up was something else entirely, so even if Arthur said no it wouldn't be too much of a problem-

"... I suppose it'll be fine if I went with you."

"Oh well guess it can't be helped- wait, what?"

Arthur blinked at him. "I am going with you?" He restated, although pitched higher like a question.

"But why?" Alfred asked, puzzled. Arthur never showed much interest in Alfred's life outside of the castle. After the incident with the healers, the matter was never brought up again by either one of them. Alfred took the hint Arthur had given him, and had generally made his trips down to the lower towns in the guise of Alex. But even so, the trips he had made were few and far between, and Arthur never showed any more interest than was professional.

"It'd be safer, of course," Arthur frowned, as if Alfred were purposefully trying to be difficult.

"Arthur," Alfred began exasperatedly. "No one's going to-"

"Stab you, yes, I know, I heard you the first five hundred times." Arthur rolled his eyes, before leaning back against the cool marble of the banister. "Still, it's considerably safer in general for us to go together."

Alfred eyed him, semi-wary. "I'm not going to do much you'd likely to be interested in though."

Arthur matched his look, raising an eyebrow. "Oh, well then, what were your plans for the evening then, my King?" He said, in a tone of voice which Alfred found unnecessarily dramatic and dry.

He huffed. "I dunno, visit Will and Josh, get some candy, maybe some nuts, walk around the lower towns or something."

Something brief flashed through Arthur's eyes, which Alfred barely caught.

"Sounds fun," he smiled, gentle and warm and Alfred was not expecting that at all.

"Really?" He asked, incredulous. Because sure, it was fun to him, but he never expected Arthur-

"Yes, surprise surprise, the one hundred and fifty-nine year old time mage knows how to have fun, hooray," he said sarcastically.

Alfred blinked at him more. "You're a hundred and fifty-nine?"

"That's not the point." Arthur turned to squint at the pink-orange skyline of the evening. "Are we going or are we not?"

Alfred was surprised, that was quite an understatement. But it just seemed to be what Arthur did to him, continually, every other day. "Yeah," he finally managed, pushing back from the banister. "You sure you can take uh, peasant clothes?" He grinned.

Arthur laughed, turning to follow Alfred.

"Quite sure I can handle it."

Arthur seemed to be having actual fun. Alfred couldn't believe it, not really.

Their first stop had been Will and Josh's workshop in the Lower Towns. It had been a while since Alfred had last checked in with them, and he had been wondering of how they had been getting along for a while now. The answer was, not too surprisingly, swimmingly. Alfred was pleased at the new looking pots of cocoa in their pantry, and fresh bread laid out for dinner.

As he had explained to Arthur on their way down, he had known Will and Josh since he was twelve, one nice, bright day when Alfred was hit in the head with a breadroll by Will (long story). They were close to him in a way which none of his peers in court were, as Alfred empathetically gestured, "they see me for, y'know, me. Alfred. Not The Prince or The King or The One Who Needs To Be Sucked Up To". Arthur had nodded, thoughtful and listening, fiddling with his own hat as they made their way down the gently sloping hill the Spades Kingdom was built upon.

Somewhat to his surprise, Arthur seemed to get along with his two friends, asking them about what they did in the workshop, and how they had been doing. Josh had explained to him the mechanics and uses of the parts they manufactured here, in their workshop, which were then exported to larger companies who made the actual machinery. Demand was on the rise, Will had happily added, handing over mugs of hot chocolate, with the Royal mandates for machinery in the bigger factories.

"Quite a good job with that, getting the different private factories to manufacture the machinery for the Hearts. A lot better than what King Alphonsus had done," Josh murmured, after a sip. For a second, Will seemed to balk slightly, almost elbowing him into the side because you don't just say that to the King and Queen, not after all that.

But Arthur just cracked a smile, seeming pleased. "Thank you," he had replied, sipping at his own drink, as Alfred blinked, surprised, in tandem with Will.

They had left the workshop, after Alfred had a second mug of hot chocolate, and had promised Will and Josh to visit them when he could. Things aren't going to be that easy now guys, he had laughed, rubbing at the back of his head in the doorway. Still, Will had stubbornly persisted, you have to come down more often, okay? He had darted a glance at Arthur, before grinning. Just remember to tell your Queen first, yeah? Alfred had laughed, the tips of his ears warming up, as he saw Arthur cough discreetly and turn away from them, looking interestedly at another store down the street.

The evening was turning out really well, Alfred was pretty sure even Arthur would have to admit. The weather was nice, somehow the perpetual mist-smog of the city had cleared, to reveal a pink-orange sunset. The streetlamps were all lit, pre-empting an extended evening of festivities and long dinners between families and friends.

This happens way too little, Alfred found himself thinking, walking past yet another restaurant with groups of people sitting around broad tables brought right into the street, laughing and eating perhaps a little too much. People who love each other should eat with each other! Always!

"They should," Arthur agreed, and Alfred blinked, disoriented, before realizing that he might have been verbalizing his thoughts.

"Yeah," he supported, finally catching up to matters, leaning over to grab another handful of cashews from the bag in Arthur's hands. "Everyone would totally be happier that way!"

Arthur looked at him sideways, suppressing a grin. "Maybe they would be."

In the spirit of Trying New Things and Having Fun, Alfred had cajoled Arthur into forgoing his standard, 'boring' impressions of what a dinner should consist of, and had talked him into submission to just eat whatever they wanted, just for one night.

Arthur had drawn the line at having spun-malt first though.

"No, absolutely not," Arthur had frowned, from the safety of a secluded alley, a corner away from Alfred's favoured candy store.

"Why not!" Alfred had whined, pouting. "You agreed! You agreed that we could eat whatever tonight, that we don't need appetisers or potatoes or whatever!"

"Yes, but having your dessert first just doesn't make sense!" Arthur had pointed out. "It shrinks your appetite, and you won't be able to eat anything else!"

"Who cares, mother?"

"Don't go crawling to the kitchen at three in the morning if you're hungry then," Arthur shot back. "And yes, I saw you the last time you did that. You shouldn't be waking the maids up at three in the bloody morning to make you something to eat!"

"They were already awake," he mumbled, scuffing the toe of his linen shoe into the cobbled street. And they had been. "I was just going to go in and get some bread or something but then they saw me and insisted that they do it, and I tried to stop them but-"

"Not the point, Alfred," sighed Arthur, exasperated and perhaps a little fond, and didn't that make Alfred look. But then it was gone again, and Arthur was already out on the street again, taking a turn in the other direction.

"I saw some nuts and dried fruits about two corners ago. Let's get some of that first." Still walking, he looked over his shoulder at Alfred, smiling. "Spun-malt later, maybe. If you behave," he teased, almost-laughing.

Alfred jogged to catch up with him, his own laughter lost in the cloud of noise of a busy evening, and irrationally felt himself sink a little deeper into things.

"Go fetch my ale, my good Queen!" Alfred laughed, putting on a fake, stuffy accent (which Arthur had a feeling was in mockery of him), tipsy on malt-candy and the cool evening breeze.

Arthur rolled his eyes, perhaps a touch too good-naturedly for his liking, but he told himself that the goodness of the evening was getting to him too. "Go get it yourself, git."

"But you're closer!"

Arthur squinted at the man walking around, selling ale by the glass, a good twenty metres away at least. After wandering around aimlessly, stuffing themselves with foods and snacks of varying deliciousness (Alfred had been, obviously, a huge fan of the spun-malt, while Arthur found a strange fondness for the fried butter-dough fritters), the two of them had eventually found themselves in a half-filled square at the upper ends of the Lower District.

Tables had been set around the dusty fountain (might have to get some maintainance teams down when the water sanitation projects are done...), and groups of people had happily sat themselves down, waving down the servers sent in by the shops in the area. The residents of his neighbourhood had even taken the effort to string up a few lanterns across the two trees in the square, giving a weak, accompanying glow to the gaslight lamposts.

Arthur tilted his head back, blinking at the darkened sky. The evening wasn't so ridiculously perfect as to give them a clear view of the stars beyond the smog of the city, but he had to admit that it was definitely a... Strange, unpredicted kind of happiness he had never associated with planning this evening.

"Only by a little," he belatedly replied, after realizing that Alfred had been staring at him for a while now. He returned the gaze, blinking from the spots in his vision from staring at the gaslights. "What?"

He watched as Alfred's mouth opened, then closed again, before gaping open once more. Arthur found himself snorting a little.

"You look like a goldfish," he remarked.

"What?"

"Goldfish," Arthur repeated, smirking at the look on Alfred's face, as he reached to grab more chestnuts from the bag. "The orangey-gold fish you had as a kid?"

"Hey, I know what goldfish are dammit!" Alfred frowned, throwing a chestnut at Arthur's head.

"Did you know that they have short memory spans? A couple of seconds, if I'm not mistaken-"

"I'm not like that!"

Arthur laughed outright this time, tilting his chair back on it's back legs in effort of it. "I never said you were either! You drew the link so..."

Alfred paused for a moment, just a little dumbfounded. Quite priceless, Arthur found himself thinking, doubling forward this time in soundless chuckles, and quite a relief.

To say that Alfred had undergone a lot of stress in the past week or so would be a gross understatement. It most certainly had not been easy on the man. Aside from festival preparations and settling the Time Mages into their temporary quarters, Arthur had caught Alfred in one of his Moments. Quite a few of them, actually. He would be sitting down, in the middle of doing something, or anything at all really, and he would just space out for a moment, before snapping back.

It had been, Arthur admitted to himself, a little beyond worrying. The decision to "use" Alphonsus had been mutual, jointly conceived by the both of them, before being approved by Yao and Matthew. But Arthur couldn't imagine Alfred not being personally affected it by the decision. He had done a swell job of hiding it during the past week. Alfred had been nothing but professional and an utterly responsible King, going to all meetings and events without complaint or procrastination.

It made Arthur wonder about the Alfred he had come to know, made him wonder if by making this decision together, for the better of the Kingdom, Arthur had somehow sealed off that part of Alfred. The part of him which went into the kitchens at two in the morning to filtch pudding, the part which wanted to talk to every single citizen about everything.

It made him realize that he might actually miss that Alfred. That he might miss the procrastinator in him, the silly child who wanted to have dessert before dinner, the part which made him a great King, and just as great a man.

"What are you staring at, old man?" Alfred grinned at him lopsidedly, all loose limbs and wind-tousled hair.

An arm nudged at Arthur's back before he could answer, an old woman grinning down teasingly at Arthur.

"At you of course, boy. Don't ask silly questions. As if you haven't been staring at 'im all night too," she laughed, nudging him playfully.

"W-What-"

"We've been placin' bets on you boys, us folk from the bakery on Wester Lane," laughed the man who was selling ale, as he walked past. "Bettie here was trying to put things in 'er favour, a'course," he mock-frowned at the woman, who just shrugged, grinning.

"Doing nothing wrong 'ere, mind your your mouth, Mason," she defended, patting Arthur on the shoulder comfortingly. "Just helping love along, the gods won't have me for that, would they?"

Arthur watched as Alfred blushed bright red, right to his hairline, and by the warmth of his face, he figured that he wasn't that far off either.

"Been wondering how long you two would take," teased another girl, younger this time, around Alfred's age, a she swept past with a tray of fruit strudel. "Thom was the only one who thought we were all crazy, but," she snorted, "he's a a senile old man, so don't listen to him." She looked between the two of their red faces, grinning. "Not that you boys seem like you would," she smirked.

"We're-" Alfred spluttered, "He's not like that- I mean-"

"Yes- I mean no, I- But we're not-"

The waiters and waitresses around them laughed racourously, obviously a little tipsy on the ale as well, slapping each other on the back and slipping each other pennies and folded notes, as they all seemed to congregate around the table, as Arthur felt himself flush even redder under the scrutiny.

Suddenly, Alfred pushed away from his seat, tugging his thin coat around him, still red in the face, but frowning deeply. "C'mon Art- Er. Adam." He left abruptly, not bothering to push the chairs back in or anything of the sort, leaving Arthur with the crowd of laughing men and women, nudging at him meaningfully to follow his "lover", or so they were hinting at.

"We're really not-" He tried, but gave up half-way, seeing as his efforts seemed to be futile. Instead, he huffed and pulled down his cap further, jogging after Alfred.

"Hey," he breathed, a little winded, as he caught up to Alfred, who just made a non-committal noise at his presence. Arthur rarely saw Alfred this upset, he realized. The set of his frown was telling, the same way he had looked when Arthur had put down his proposal in front of the court. Frankly, he didn't like it.

"Don't let them bother you," he found himself saying. "I mean, they were just joking- A little drunk on ale, if you ask me," he half-laughed. "I-I mean, the idea of you and I together a-aha, we'd be a right pair, wouldn't we?" Arthur rambled, "I mean how would we even- We'd be terrible together, much too different and- It's just ridiculous and-"

"IT ISN'T!" Alfred suddenly shouted, stopping mid-step, as Arthur's inertia caused him to crash into Alfred's back.

"W-Wha-"

"It isn't!" Alfred cried, spinning around to grip a very stunned Arthur around the shoulders, pulling him upright. "You're my Queen, we're partners, and we're pretty damn different yeah but- But it works, why can't you see that?"

But I do, Arthur thought, the words caught in his throat, but Alfred barreled on at his own rushed pace of words.

"They weren't- It isn't ridiculous, it just isn't!" He petulantly repeated, eyes flashing with dead seriousness, and Arthur felt his breath catch, still slightly winded from the jog over. "You and me, we-" Alfred seemed to deflate in that moment, his eyes darting across Arthur's face (possibly registering what Arthur thought would be one of the most bewildered looks that had ever graced his face in the past fifty years or so), and then he faltered. "We... could."

"Do you..." Arthur licked his lips nervously, staring at Alfred's collar, trying not to let his voice shake, "... Want to? Want to... Want us to work? In... That way?" His hand flapped vaguely between them, helpless because how on earth was he supposed to do this?

"I-" Alfred pinked, and - as if that wasn't enough of an answer on its own - made a strange noise in his throat as he looked away for a moment. "I don't know, I mean, all sorts of things have happened, and then dad and all that- but I-" Another moment of faltering before-

"AUGGGH! YES! GODDAMNIT YES, OKAY I LOST!" Alfred snapped, shouting now, in the low-lit alley between the Middle and Upper Districts. "I don't need to want it to work, Arthur, it's already working! You know it, I know it and we're just hovering in this weird limbo and you just won't admit that- "

(Hand on his shoulder that night in the room, and Alfred's gaze was so utterly clear and piercing and blue it wasn't even a funny cliche anymore, not to Arthur. And there had been that morning at the Hearts Kingdom, defences worn down by sleep and good food and the fresh morning light making Alfred's hair practically shine in his sleep and the realization that maybe they were both that far gone.)

(And wasn't that kind of world-shakingly, mind-blowingly amazing.)

"You're right," Arthur said.

Alfred blinked at him, slightly thrown off at the immediacy of his response. "Really?" He blurted. "I-I mean," Alfred ammended, taking his hands off Arthur's shoulders to flap around half-convincingly, as his face started to pink again. "I am, of course I am, ha ha. But I mean- I didn't think you would... I mean I did, I thought so but I didn't think you would admit that you were um- Wait. what are y-"

After a few long moments, Arthur finally released, him, hands still in his hair, as he held Alfred close.

"Just shut up, Alfred," he mumbled, slightly smug and altogether far too deliriously happy, but he genuinely thought that the flushed, bewildered and also altogether-far-too-happy expression on Alfred's face was the best thing that he had seen in a long time.

A/N:

Jeez yes, we know, long hiatus was long. Sorry about that. But here's the new chapter, and we hope you've enjoyed it!