In the days since the coronation at Brodia Castle, there hadn't been much in the way of anything to do, no visitors to escort through the halls, no meetings to take part in; it came as a huge surprise to Diamant that things were as calm as they were, but he was not one to complain about such a fortunate turn of events. He'd had a lot weighing on his shoulders regarding taking the crown, and even as recently as the night of the coronation he'd begun to feel some of that stress beginning to melt away, and the lack of engagements for him to be consumed by had given him more of an opportunity to let those worries fade than he'd anticipated having. Sure, there had been the usual people milling around, and he'd had to do some commanding and planning in his new role as king, but overall things had been going fairly peacefully for him, which meant that he knew things wouldn't stay so calm for long.
Or, at least, that's what he kept telling anyone around him who was willing to listen, which the only people who'd been around to hear him out were his retainers. "This peacetime just feels suspicious, that's all," he said as they gathered around a crowded table (which was crowded with papers, not other people) in a private room of the castle late one evening, him sitting across from them both as they gave him their attention. "I can only suspect that something will go awry soon enough."
"Come on, what's even there to go wrong?" Amber asked, leaning in closer to his king, his hands bracing himself on the tabletop and pushing papers around from their disorganized stacks. "It's peacetime, you don't think some grand evil's going to pop up and make us all have to jump back into war, do you?"
"That wasn't what I said in the slightest, but I suppose that you could take it—" Diamant abruptly stopped talking when he heard the tell-tale scratching of something being written down, and when he looked at Jade he saw her furiously writing on one of the papers in front of her. "—what are you doing? That's important documentation I'm supposed to be keeping track of!"
"It's actually not, I did my research before using it to jot down some notes." Finishing her word with a flourish, Jade looked up from the paper, seeing Diamant's narrowed eyes and the way he was giving her a judging stare. "You need to loosen up a little, you've got the same role and responsibilities you had before the coronation, just with a new title attached. At this rate, you're going to stress yourself into an early grave, and where will that leave Brodia?"
He was sure that he'd been asked that to get him to relax, but all Diamant could think about was how if he did indeed work himself to death, the country was going to be left in his brother's hands, and while Alcryst was just as much of a savior of the world as he was, the difference between them was stunning. "Under the control of a monarch who doubts himself too much, which I know isn't what the country needs. At least no one would dare pick a fight with Brodia these days if they knew their king wasn't going to fight back, then they'd be seen as the ones in the wrong."
"King Diamant, I don't want to think about you dying right now," Amber admitted with a shudder, his hands banging against the table for a few seconds before he stopped, lifting one of them to reach toward the king. "Can we please change the subject to something better? Something happier? Something a lot more heroic? I could go for the heroic stuff right now."
Without missing a beat, Jade moved one of her hands under the table, leaning over and putting it on top of Amber's leg, her fingers tapping on as much of his inner thigh as she could reach. "You need to calm down," she told him in a low voice, Amber meekly nodding and pulling his hand away from where he'd been trying to reach for Diamant. "You're working yourself up just as much as our king is, and what good is it if you're dead, too?"
Amber nodded again, before giving a whimper that turned into a bit of a scream. "What are you doing down there, Jade? I don't think this is the time or place for that!"
"Just…giving you something else to focus on," she replied, zero hesitation in her voice as she retracted her own hand and began writing something down again. "I think I've bought us a few more minutes of discussion before someone will need to step away. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about, dear king?"
"Er, not particularly, I merely wanted to discuss the idea of our peace being as brief as I feel it's going to be, which completely derailed itself in multiple ways." Diamant seemed to be struggling to find his words usable in a way that would further the conversation, and he ended his statement with a sigh. "I feel that perhaps this would have been a conversation best had without either of you around, given that…"
He trailed off, eyes landing first on Jade who was once again more focused on whatever it was she was writing down, then on Amber and how he looked like he was incapable of staying in his seat for much longer. "The people of Brodia have no idea what's going on between the three of us, it would be more suspicious if the king suddenly excluded his retainers from all meetings than it would be to hold private meetings with us," Jade pointed out to him, realizing that she had the opportunity to speak in the king's silence. "Perhaps that's a problem that needs to be solved in some way, before this crisis you're fearing descends on the country."
"What an excellent idea, and you're just the person to solve it." With a firm shake of his head, Diamant's sarcastic response was enough to get Jade to look up and stare at him with malice in her eyes for a moment, before returning to writing. "I see that there's no issue with what has taken place between us three, and I'm certain everyone else would see it the same exact way. After all, I am only romantically involved with one person."
"As am I. And there's the problem." Tilting her head to the side to gesture in Amber's direction, Jade wrote down a few more words before lifting her pen and pointing it toward Diamant. "The two of you," she said, moving the pen in a line between where Diamant sat and where Amber was actively squirming, as if he had something very important to say or do, "being together is no concern at all for the people of Brodia. The two of us," now she moved the line so that it was between herself and Amber, "being together is also no concern at all. These two things happening concurrently? That's the place an issue can form."
"I think I'm doing a good job being with both of you," Amber announced, before finally jumping up from his chair, his legs trembling underneath him. "I'm really sorry but I can't just sit here anymore, I'm going to…go now, you two play nice!" He gave them both a wave and then burst out of the room as fast as he could, leaving Jade looking at Diamant, who closed his eyes and sighed.
"He went out the wrong door. I'll go make sure that he doesn't end up anywhere that could pose an issue." Rising from his chair, Diamant reopened his eyes to watch as Jade returned to writing on the paper yet again, something that prompted him to shake his head. "You really cannot control yourself when it comes to writing, can you?"
"Living this life I'm currently mired in, I think I'd be doing myself a disservice if I didn't write down the strangest things that I can use in my stories." She sounded so sincere, so honest in her answer, that Diamant didn't think twice about it until he was just about out of the room, where the reality of those words hit him and he turned to comment on what Jade's intentions were with her notes. The second he opened his mouth, she cut him off. "I'm not going to actively write about Amber having a boyfriend and a girlfriend in these stories, don't worry. I have enough sense to keep it down to one significant other, something that he himself seems incapable of."
He pursed his lips together, realizing that whatever he'd been intending on saying, it wasn't going to matter after that assurance. After giving it some thought, Diamant decided that he did need to at least tell Jade that he wasn't asking her to quit working. "Right, well, please continue writing whatever you please, but do keep in mind that your favorite character's actions might impact an entire country at this point." With that, he headed out the door, leaving her alone with her paper and her thoughts until she grew tired of working in that room and went elsewhere in the castle for some new atmosphere.
The next time she saw the others was when she went to retire for the night, her hand aching from the amount of drafting she'd done based on the notes she'd gathered from the evening, and found that Amber was solidly in her spot in their shared bed, sleeping with arms and legs both splayed wildly and a blanket haphazardly covering him. "I…must have missed something," she yawned, pulling her shirt off over her head in preparation of climbing into the bed anyway. "It's not usual for—"
"Oh, Jade, you're in here," she heard Diamant's voice say quietly, and she looked at the bed again, the king laying there right in front of her eyes the entire time. She'd been so enamored with the sight of her boyfriend in all of his muscular and unclothed glory that she hadn't been even looking on the other side of the bed for his boyfriend laying there. "I can go, if you'd prefer sleeping in here with Amber tonight. I do have an early morning and don't want to cause too much of a headache for others if they cannot find me in my room, so switching off would be easiest for me, personally."
She froze, her nightshirt half on her body as she looked between where Amber was clearly laying illuminated by moonlight, and where Diamant was speaking to her from the much darker side of the bed. "If you want to get up and do that walk of shame through your own castle, then I fully support your decision. But if you want to sleep here and I'll go elsewhere, that's fine with me too. You're the king, you make the call."
"Somehow I knew you would say that." Even with their conversation happening in the same room as the sleeping man, he seemed completely unaware that there was anyone else awake in the area, as he softly snored to himself, and just hearing how peaceful he was made Diamant's decision that much harder for him. "I…think I would prefer sleeping here tonight, if you're truly fine with that. I've been having a hard time getting to sleep in a timely manner as of late, and I think being able to be next to someone might help me find the ability to sleep."
"Look, there's no need for making excuses or justifying your choice. If you want to sleep with Amber, then you get to sleep with Amber. I get him most nights anyway, so it's only fair you get him on the night you want him." Resuming getting changed for the night, Jade only sounded marginally upset with the decision, but she didn't let it become too obvious as she left the room, calling behind her for the two to have a good night.
She ended up in a room that had been set up around the same time she'd come into employment as one of Diamant's retainers, which was specifically meant as her room in the castle. There was a desk that she'd never found herself comfortable sitting at, a chair that she'd spent plenty of time debating her worth and her ability in, and a small cot that had been her first bed there. On nights where Amber made his decision to share a bed with someone that wasn't her, this was where she ended up, and no matter how much the cold room reminded her of why she wasn't in her actual bed, she didn't find herself dwelling too much on it.
Well, no more than she usually found herself entrenched in thoughts about her boyfriend and co-retainer being romantically involved with the very king that they served, which was an awful lot all things considered. She'd made a promise long ago to Diamant that she wouldn't allow that to affect anything professional between the three of them, and she definitely wouldn't allow it to become public knowledge in her writing, and she was hell-bent on keeping that promise. Even when it had just been her and Amber who were together, the promise had been there that they'd be able to love each other and still do their jobs well, and that hadn't ever changed for her, although he might have been a different story entirely because he'd fallen in love with the then-prince, now-king as well. Rather than do something sensible, Amber had delved deep into his myths and legends and found multiple instances of the hero having multiple loves, and after much begging and bartering with the other two he'd convinced them that they could share his love and his time.
With a soft chuckle, Jade tucked herself into the handmade blankets on top of the cot, gifts she'd received from Amber back when they'd first gotten together—gifts that still meant the world to her, despite everything. She knew that she was the less interesting of his two loves, and even though it stung to know that she was second-best to the person that she'd sworn to protect, she wasn't going to give up part of her happiness in order to feel better about things. There was only so long that this situation was going to work out, and her mind had been running wild with all of the possibilities of when that power would shift; she knew that Diamant couldn't maintain a relationship with Amber forever, not when much of Brodia already knew that she was in a relationship with him.
"This is almost like the plot of a novel I once read…" she mused, her head settling onto her pillow as she pulled her blanket up under her chin. "The adventurer, torn between the call of romancing royalty and romancing his closest friend, decided to settle things with a flip of a coin. Of course, as he threw the coin into the air, it was caught by a passing bird and he spends the next twenty pages chasing after the bird, only to find that in the time he'd spent hunting for it, the coin had been discarded and the princess and his friend had decided to court each other instead."
The room was frigid, but just thinking about how it was all but fated (in terms of how it worked in stories) that she'd end up with Amber all her own, it was enough to warm Jade's face and body up as she drifted off to sleep that night. Her dreams were all of the battlefield, as they usually were, and she noticed a distinct lack of their army fighting under the Brodian banner as she cut through enemies on rocky terrain. When she saw Amber in her sleep, slumped over on the back of a horse with a spear lodged into his back, she'd acknowledged it but didn't go to investigate, leaving him to be someone else's problem as she took glory in the battle on her own. Whether he was dead or merely injured, she didn't seem to care, and she woke up to the sunrise with a bitterness in her mind that she hadn't anticipated feeling.
Amber was awake as well, sitting in the chair at the desk in the room with his clothes back on and a large, even if sleepy, grin on his face. "Good morning, Jade! Did you sleep well?" he asked, waving at her with both hands as she sat up, shaking out her long hair and cursing herself for not making sure she'd secured it properly before sleeping. "I slept like a rock, in case you were wondering. King Diamant was already gone when I woke up, unless he left way before I woke up, in which case…why were you in here?"
"He was in the bed with you, he had an early meeting this morning." Trying not to sound like she was still mentally grappling with what she'd been dreaming about, Jade looked at Amber and immediately found herself melting a little at seeing his goofy expression there at her writing desk. "How long have you been in here waiting for me?"
"Uh, since right after I woke up. When I realized you weren't in there with me, I knew you were either in here, or you were hiding away somewhere getting some writing done in secret, so I came here and here you were!" His grin somehow growing, Amber stood up and came to crouch down in front of the cot, putting his hands on Jade's legs as they remained under the blanket. "Man, I can't believe you still use this thing, I would've thought you would've put it aside and never used it after the first night."
"I happen to like it," she admitted, putting her own hand on the fluffy fabric and grabbing it, feeling the individual fibers and how they all worked together to make the softest blanket she'd ever gotten to use. "Plus, you're the one who gave it to me, and why you did that means something to me too."
"Oh yeah, this isn't the blanket I gave you when we first became retainers, is it? What happened to that one?" Amber looked straight into Jade's face, his eyes expressing a curiosity that matched how he spoke, and when she shook her head and said she didn't know, he laughed it off. "That's fine! I think this one's better than that one was anyway. Do you know why that is?"
"I cannot say that I do," she replied, knowing that even if she did say she knew, Amber was going to tell her anyway. "Is it because of when you gave it to me?"
He seemed to think for a moment before confidently grabbing the end of the blanket that was furthest from being used, pulling on it until he'd gotten almost the entire thing in his hands, leaving Jade shivering a little in the cold of the room. "No, you see, if this isn't the blanket I gave you as a promise to be a good retainer buddy, then it's the one that—yeah, right here! Look, I can't believe you haven't noticed this before." He was holding up that edge of the blanket, nearly shoving it into Jade's face as she tried to focus her eyes on what was now in front of them.
Carefully stitched into the hem was her name, over and over again, with little hearts in between each time it was written. It only went for a dozen or so repetitions, but the fact that she'd been using that blanket in her solitary room every time she was in there and hadn't noticed it until it was pointed out to her made her feel a little bad about things. "I guess I didn't know I needed to be looking for such a thing. Amber, did you ask for this to be done like this?"
"No way! I stitched it myself."
"Yourself…? Really? And you didn't bother telling me about it until well after the fact?" She was amused at how proud he was of the craftsmanship of the job, but she still felt slightly sickened that she hadn't seen it before. "I'm so sorry, Amber, if I'd known it was there I would have told you how much I appreciated it sooner."
"Nah, it's okay if you didn't see it was there, the letters really could've used to have been bigger, but I didn't have a lot of thread for the job and needed to make every stitch count. My folks back home thought I was going a bit overboard with it, but as my first real gift for the woman I love…I thought it was appropriate." He set the blanket back down, only realizing after he'd pulled his hands away that Jade was still partially uncovered where she'd been covered before. "Oh, sorry about making you freeze in here. It's always been really cold in this room, hasn't it?"
She shook her head, trying to make it clear he had no reason for apologizing, as she tossed the entire blanket aside and got off of the cot, stretching down so that her head was close to his body as she did. "It's part of why I've always referred to this place as the dungeon. Only makes sense that the king puts his romantic rival in such a room on the nights he gets the conquests and she doesn't."
"I think you should talk to him about it, I think he'd be able to find somewhere better for your little room to be," Amber said, completely missing the point behind what Jade had said. "Look, I can help you with that conversation if you'd like, King Diamant usually listens to me when I have things to say."
"I'm sure he does. There are quite a few things I'd prioritize saying to him before mentioning anything about my dungeon room, but then again, you and I have much different lists of priorities." Lifting her head slightly to look at Amber, Jade felt herself getting rather red in the face looking at him, not just because of how she was causing all of her blood to rush to her head in that moment. "Personally, if I were to bring up one issue with him, it would be about something only slightly related."
Amber's mouth opened slightly, him recoiling at the statement. "Huh? What would that be? I didn't know there was anything related to where your room is, unless it's where our room is, which I guess I could understand wanting to bring up. We definitely need more space in there, don't you think?"
Not wanting to actually say what her biggest issue to discuss with Diamant was, Jade merely resumed her stretching, leaving Amber without an answer until she'd straightened back up, only to come behind him as he continued squatting and laid herself out over his back and shoulders. "I suppose more space could be useful, but there's plenty of space in there already for the two of us. Which is what the room is intended for."
"Yeah, you're right, forgot about that. Maybe I should ask him if we could move into his room, since he's got all the space in the world in there! That bed's big enough for all three of us, easy." Amber remained hunched over for a few more seconds, before standing up and bringing Jade with him, her wrapping her arms around his neck to keep herself from slipping in the time it took for him to reach behind himself and securely hold her in place. "I have an idea, we should go in there right now and check the place out!"
"Amber, I don't think that's a very good idea." Immediately coming to mind was one of the stories Jade had written, in which the Amber character had done that exact thing and had walked in on his liege being serviced in his bedroom, which had been played for laughs; which that was certainly impossible in that moment, she still had zero interest in being taken into a bedroom she had no business being in. "I guess I'm just thinking that perhaps, maybe, the two of you can keep your things to his room, and the two of us can keep our things to our room. Separate those situations and whatnot."
He hummed for a moment, before one of his hands came loose from where it had been holding her in place, only to reattach itself right inside of one of her legs, his fingertips tickling her inner thigh and making her have to strongly resist squeaking. "I see your point, and I can't promise it, but I know that he's not in our room right now and you've got to get back in there for your clothes and I'm coming with you anyway, so…"
Right as Jade tried to argue against the idea, Amber's hand crept upward a bit more and she couldn't hold back the squeak a second time, her teeth immediately biting down on her bottom lip in order to keep herself from making any further noises due to where he was now touching her. "I'm taking that as a yes," he teased, carrying her toward the door, which he kicked open and took her into the hallway in order to walk her back to the other room. The whole way, she found it impossible to bring herself to resist being carried like she was useless, given that she was actively getting tickled in places that only Amber was allowed to tickle her. And when they got back to their own room and he carried her over to the bed, letting go after turning around so that she could fall backward down onto it, she finally found her voice again, just to tell Amber to get down on the bed with her, regardless of what they were supposed to be doing with their morning.
He had zero hesitation as he flopped down next to her, immediately wrapping his hand in her hair and tugging it tight. "You're getting better at getting me in here seductively," she told him, him chuckling as he pulled her closer by way of her hair. "Still not as good as the you in my stories, but there's always room for improvement."
"I'll get there someday," he assured her, leaning in to kiss her forehead gently, an act at which her eyelids fluttered. "But right now, I'm going to be the best I can be as I am."
"Then show me what you're capable of. I'm taking notes, mentally."
A light flickered in Amber's eyes, as he kissed her again, and again, and again, his lips hitting all over her face until they met her own, and as he pulled her in further, she found herself wanting to get the upper hand on what he was doing, like she wanted the control. When she wrapped her legs around him and rolled him over on the bed to get on top, he broke their lip-lock long enough to grin at her, before she came back at him with unmatched force. Hands began flying, clothes removed with speed, and before too long, they were wrestling around on the bed like it wasn't the middle of the morning with roles for them to both be filling in their professional lives.
There were…other things that they needed to be taking care of in that moment, so work could wait a little while for them to get caught up.
When they'd finished up and felt satisfied with their behavior, they stayed in the room for a few extra minutes, just basking in the presence of each other. It felt wrong to try and say anything right then, given that just before they'd been calling out each other's names, heavy breathing and gasping punctuating every syllable that was spoken. But something did need to be said, and once she'd collected herself enough and had started getting herself cleaned up, Jade went ahead and said it. "I think that's something I could use more of," she told him, not even bothering to see what Amber was doing while she was trying to talk to him. "I understand that you consider me a lesser priority but—"
"Whoa there, where'd you get that idea?" Sounding surprised, Amber scrambled to his feet from where he was still laying on the bed, coming to stand behind Jade and putting his hands on her shoulders, despite her trying to get dressed. "I consider making you happy my top priority, all the time!"
"—there's no need to lie to me right now, I'm fully aware of how the hierarchy works in terms of your interests." After all, there was no way that Jade could compete with a literal king when it came to someone's affections, and she was more than aware that she was the lesser person in the situation. "I'm just saying that I would enjoy it if we got to spend more…personal time together, if possible."
"I don't think I'm understanding, I've been with you longer and I like being with you more than I like being with King Diamant. Well, uh, sort of?" There it was, the admission that Amber wasn't being fully honest, or so Jade thought. "I like being with you more than with him, but I like spending time with you both equally as much. So I guess I've got to work on making sure that my time with you counts more than the time I spend with him."
Jade stood there, Amber's hands still on her shoulders, as an idea crossed her mind, something that she immediately dashed as being completely unreasonable. "I take it that you've told him that then, yes?"
"Are you kidding? If I tell him that I have more fun in bed with you than with him, he's going to take that away from me and I…do like it, just not as much as I like when it's me and you together!" As he spoke, Amber's grip tightened, until Jade thought that he was about to try lifting her with his hands on her shoulders and nowhere else, but he soon relaxed and released her entirely, stepping away and allowing for her to finish getting dressed while he kept talking. "This whole thing is so hard to handle, because I like King Diamant. I really, really do. But I like you too, and I know that I can have both of you like I do but…"
"How long is that going to last, do you think?" She knew that it was something that she'd been thinking about, she knew it was something that Diamant had on his mind, she just didn't know if Amber had ever put much thought into the matter. "All of Brodia knows we're together, they saw us at the coronation, some of them even saw us coming home from the war. If they see that you and the king are together, they're going to suspect that you're actively going behind my back to be with the king, and that's a problem straight from the pages of a novel."
There was a second's pause, before Amber loudly came to a decision. "Then I'll just tell everyone what's going on, easy as that!"
"I don't think so. That puts the king in a tricky spot, and jeopardizes our roles as his retainers, which I don't think you want to risk losing." Buttoning up her shirt so that she could then tuck it into her skirt properly, Jade looked over her shoulder to see Amber, still nude and still muscular and still—standing there in the middle of the room, looking like her pointing those things out had just giving him an epiphany from the gods. "You hadn't considered that before, had you?"
"It might've never been something I thought about before, yeah." He scrunched his face as he continued thinking, while she snorted in laughter and turned back to check her buttoning, having to fix part of it as she'd gotten a buttonhole off. "Hey, Jade? Why is all of this love stuff so difficult? Why can't I have the people I want and everything work out just fine for me?"
"Because unfortunately for you, you're not actually the protagonist of a book and therefore you have to live by the real rules of the world." Before he had a chance to remind her who she loved writing about, she spun around, lifting her eyes so that she couldn't see anything lower than Amber's bare chest. "Don't take that as me saying I'm writing you with multiple lovers going forward. Until you can find a suitable way to handle this, I can't risk someone reading that and assuming that it comes from real life."
"Man, it's at times like this that I wish I was an alpaca. No one's going around the alpaca farm asking all of them who they're dating and who they like and stuff like that. They're just looking at the alpacas going 'wow, how cute!' and whoever's there is like 'yeah, they're adorable, why don't you touch them?' and…" Trailing off, Amber threw his hands up in the air. "I just don't get why I have to be a human, that's all."
Rather than try to speak any sense into the man, Jade decided that her time could have been better spent doing things that paid her. "Well, while you think about why you have to be human instead of an alpaca, I'm going to find our king and see if everything's going well with him. He's probably been expecting us for ages now, and both of us can't let him down."
"Oh! Oh that's right! King Diamant had a meeting this morning, that's probably over by now and we should go see what's going on." Nodding sagely, as if he hadn't just gotten that idea from the other person in the room, Amber took all of two steps in the direction of the door before gasping and heading to grab his clothes to put them on. He certainly wouldn't have actually tried leaving while undressed, but it was amusing that he'd gotten even that far before the idea to put clothes on had crossed his mind.
Jade left him while he was in the middle of getting ready, swinging by the closest sink to dab some water down on her flyaway hairs that had gotten loose in all of her bedroom roughhousing. She'd have preferred it if she'd had time to bathe before rejoining her liege and getting back to work, but any time she could have used for that had been spent getting pleasured in ways that didn't involve warm water. After getting her hair as manageable as possible, she was on her way again, her mind racing with thoughts related to what she was leaving behind as she went. Most of the time, she was able to separate her work thoughts from her feelings, but at times like the current one, how she felt about Amber had a tendency to bleed into other things.
If nothing else, she was able to keep a level head about her when it came to handling being one of Diamant's retainers, but the moment Amber showed up and started making looks at either of them, things didn't go as smoothly. Between how deeply and intimately she wanted to get to be with the man, and how much love and admiration he carried in his gaze when he was looking at the king, it was often difficult for her to keep a neutral face when in the presence of both of them. She managed it as well as she could, to the point that she wasn't sure if the others knew she was harboring such mixed feelings about having to share her boyfriend, but she knew there was going to be a limit that she'd reach eventually.
Her thoughts stayed with her as long as she was walking through the halls of the castle, her final destination being the throne room where the king stood in the doorway, waving off whatever people he'd been meeting with. "What a surprise to see you in here," she remarked as she came into the room by way of a back entrance, Diamant turning to look at her when he heard her voice. "I take it that things went well?"
"Peace is still the intended direction we want to take with Elyos as a whole, and while I'm completely on board with Brodia being part of that peace, I still can't shake the feeling that something's going to make that impossible." Diamant shook his head, as Jade came to stand by his side, her arms crossed in front of her in lieu of the shield she traditionally would have carried. "Where were you and Amber for all of that, anyway? There weren't other retainers present, thankfully, but your absence was felt."
"I…shall spare you the details, but we got caught up in something," she replied, casting her eyes downward to keep the king from being able to infer anything based on her gaze. "Amber should be finding us shortly, but I was able to come to your side sooner."
"Of course, allowing him to wander the halls on his own is a wonderful idea. You've seen how easy it is for him to get lost in your little wing of the castle, getting from there to finding us in some unknown location just seems like a recipe for disaster." Chuckling, Diamant looked back out of the room to make sure that everyone had left, then closed the main door, striding toward the throne and motioning for Jade to follow him, something she did without question. "I don't know what we'd do without him here to provide us entertainment."
"Entertainment, and other things, you mean." The correction wasn't necessary, but it was one that Jade made without so much as cracking a smile, although the tone she spoke with was just humorous enough that it was clear she was trying to be joking. At the same time, though, she was being quite serious—for every thing that Amber did that was entertaining, there were at least two things he did that fit under other categories, and both of them knew how valuable his companionship was.
Diamant, picking up on that, nodded as he came up to the throne, sitting down on it without flinching at what being there meant for him personally. "Jade, can I ask you something?" he started, looking at her as she continued to keep her eyes away from him. At first, she didn't want to respond to him, knowing that him choosing to ask her a question so casually could only mean the worst, but a glimmer of hope rose in her chest that prompted her to respond that he could, indeed, ask her something. "Right, so, this meeting today put a bit of an idea in my mind, and I was wondering if you'd hear me out about it."
"That's not a question, but go on." Kneeling down next to the throne so that keeping her head down was easier, Jade waited for what Diamant had to ask her. With every passing second her chest grew tighter, almost like she was beginning to suspect that she knew why he was hesitating, but before she hit the point of needing to lift her eyes and look at him, he cleared his throat to speak again.
"Peace isn't guaranteed if the countries stay as they were before everything. Yes, I know that Elusia isn't going to be trying to raise fell dragons with Queen Ivy on their throne, but even the shakiest of political alliances can fall in a second in this world. I…I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that matter." He cleared his throat again, finding that Jade wasn't saying anything at all, and he nodded. "I expected as much."
"I know that wasn't your real question either, your majesty," she replied in her normal, flat voice, finally lifting her head to look straight at Diamant, his eyes having widened slightly at her using a formal title for him. "You see, I know that one of your particular quirks when talking with me is that you try to hide your true questions with ones that are more relevant to our working relationship. That means that you want to talk to me about Amber."
Grimacing briefly, Diamant ended up nodding again. "That would be correct. I just worry about the appearance it would give if the other royals, or anyone that we'd fought alongside in battle, found out about the arrangement between the three of us. They are all quite aware of your fondness for each other, it could get dicey if anything gets out about myself and Amber being involved."
That was all Jade needed to hear, as she ceased kneeling and came to stand at her feet, an arm bent in front of her to mimic her shield. "Thoughts on that same matter have been crossing my mind as of late, I'll admit. This is the sort of situation that I could handle with ease in a story if it came up, but in real life? I'm afraid I don't know the best course of action."
"Personally, I'd think the best course of action would be for him to pick one of us over the other, but…" Diamant chuckled quietly, shaking his head as he did. "Something tells me that he won't be making that choice for himself. It would have to be one of us giving up our time with him, not him picking which one to lose."
What Amber had said to her before she'd left their room crossed her mind, and Jade knew that Diamant spoke nothing but the truth—but she also knew that if he did have to pick, she would have been the choice, not the king. "So, since I know neither of us are going to budge on this matter, and he's not going to be helpful in any way, what do you propose we do?"
"That's the issue, I'm not sure where I want this to go." Sitting there on his throne, it was clear that the weight of his own choices and the life he'd begun leading was beginning to press down on Diamant more than ever before. "I want to ensure that Brodia never comes into harm again. I want to bring long-standing peace to my land, in the wake of everything that's happened as of late. But to do that, I feel that…ugh, this sounds too stupid, forget I've said anything at all."
"No, no, keep going. The worst that can happen here is you give me inspiration for my next novel." Jade didn't exactly want to say what the best could be, given that she wasn't genuinely sure what it was. "There's no guarantee that we'll be able to talk like this again for a while, you may want to take advantage of the time while you can."
Diamant did not look confident in what he was going to say, but after swallowing down reservations and moving past his doubts, he came through with his thoughts. "Perhaps, just as an idea, I maintain my relationship with Amber in private, but have a public-facing relationship for the people of Elyos to see. The other person would need to be in on the secret, for however long it may last, whether it's no longer being something to hide happens because he and I drift apart, or because the two of you do."
"I never took you as one to suggest the plots of romance novels, but I can see how this would work. You'd just need to find someone that you work well with that would also tolerate this level of secrecy." While she personally didn't believe in the possibility of things working out in any way, Jade wasn't about to suggest her actual idea for how everything should be settled. "It wouldn't be easy, I'm sure of that, but perhaps there's at least one person out there who would be okay with being courted by the Brodian king, no matter what the drawbacks are."
"You seem to be thinking on the same wavelength as me on this. Funny how we can see eye-to-eye on romantic issues when they're not involving you." There was still obvious trepidation in how Diamant was speaking, but he was getting more comfortable with the topic at hand. "I want to entrust this task to you, Jade, if you're fine with it. At this point, I think you're the only person suited for this sort of work, given what you know about me in ways that go beyond professional ones."
"Er, are you certain that's the best idea?" she asked, taken aback by the offer. "If I'm on the task, then Amber will know, and do you want him involved from the start?"
His eyes shifting all around before they settled on Jade's face, Diamant took a moment before firmly nodding. "There isn't any way around it, whether it's you doing the searching or me doing it. As long as it's romantic and it involves me, it will need to involve him as well. In fact, he's going to need to know that this is not me cutting him off before it goes anywhere."
"King Diamant! I found you!" As if perfectly timed, Amber's voice cut through the air, the king and his retainer turning to see him running into the throne room with his hands waving wildly above him. "Oh, and you're here too, Jade! My two favorite human people in the whole world in the same place!"
"Let me guess, you want me to break the news to him?" Jade muttered through a forced smile, hoping that Diamant alone heard her question with her speaking so quietly.
"Perhaps I can handle that much, now that I think about it." A second later, Diamant was talking at full volume, standing from his throne to greet his boyfriend at full height. "I was beginning to suspect that you'd gotten lost in the castle, Amber. Did you make any wrong turns on your way here?"
Amber couldn't quite answer that question without getting into a long-winded explanation of what he'd been up to that morning, and the moment that Jade heard him start at the point where he'd come into her room, she knew she wanted no part of things. Without any warning, she stepped away from the two men, heading out of the throne room from the same door Amber had entered in, quickly making her way back down to the area of the castle where her little dungeon-like room was located. If nothing else, she could pass the time writing and getting plans drafted for the novel-like quest Diamant had just thrust onto her, so that she could at least have some semblance of an outline on what to do.
Writing was her release, it always had been and she was sure that it always would be, and when she opened up her current book of stories and notes, she was immediately met with the reminder that the very men she'd just left behind were the men that mattered most to her writing. Amber's name was all over the pages, him being the main character in every story she'd written since they'd gotten to know each other, and there were plenty of notes jotted down next to paragraphs about what Diamant's thoughts were on what had happened in those sections of the story. The three of them were quite the trio, even before the romantic feelings had begun to crop up between them, and Jade wanted nothing more than for their dynamic to be able to continue going forward, no matter how difficult it could get with the required changes in their lives.
Admittedly, she lost all track of time there in her little room that day, re-reading through things she'd previously written before continuing work on drafts of novels that she was deep in the creative process with. Her current focus was a story in which her hero (Amber, naturally) had stumbled into a conspiracy to turn the population of some fictional country across the sea into animals, and how he was struggling with the idea of stopping people from becoming cutesy animals just because he liked animals. When she'd first pitched that idea to both Amber and Diamant, they'd laughed about it for quite some time, but they came around to it after she'd allowed them to read the beginning of the story. Jade was fully aware that the premise was even more bizarre than her usual stories, but the opportunities for laughs in the text were just too good to pass up.
She wasn't aware of how much of the day she'd spent writing until Amber was there in the doorway again, banging on the door like he desperately needed her attention. "Hey, I know you don't like being interrupted while you're working, but King Diamant asked me to come get you and—"
"How long ago was that?" she asked, closing her book and looking over her shoulder just as Amber gave a shrug. "Of course you don't remember. I hope it wasn't too pressing of an issue that he needed me for."
"Just a walk around castle grounds, he wanted us both with him in case his fears of being attacked came true or something. Sounds to me like he's getting really, super worried about things going badly right now." There was a tone to Amber's voice that was more serious than usual, something that caught Jade's ear and had her right in front of him in seconds. As she looked up at him, she watched his eyes shift around her, not wanting to lock with hers, and she understood that the conversation she'd walked out on must have gone places that she'd discussed with Diamant.
"We don't want to leave the king waiting," she reminded Amber, gently pushing him back out of the doorway so that she could leave the room, and together they made their way to the throne room, where the king as well as several attendants and other people who called the castle home were standing around. At the sight of them both, Diamant shooed off a lot of the people attending to him, coming to greet his retainers with open arms and a pained smile that spoke volumes.
He didn't even give them the chance to properly greet him in return before he was herding them like cattle toward the door out of the room. "We're going for a walk, please do not follow us," he called back to the others, murmurs raising at the bluntness of the statement, but he didn't stop to try and clarify anything. In fact, he didn't stop moving his retainers along until they were just outside of the castle, in a statue-filled garden that felt warm in the afternoon air. "Sorry to pull you both out like this, but…"
"There's no need to apologize to us, your majesty," Jade assured him, bowing her head. "In fact, I should apologize for shirking off my duties to get some writing done, forcing you to send your other retainer to come retrieve me for this task."
Amber, who seemed to have gotten distracted with a bug that was flitting around one of the statues, took a moment to snap into the conversation. "It wasn't any big deal at all, Jade. You know that I love getting to come spend time with you."
"My apology was for the reason why you're both out here, not because of needing you both to come with me." Diamant shook his head, turning away from his retainers as he looked back at the castle. "We're having guests of a somewhat political nature soon. From Solm. Prince Fogado and his retainers will be here for a quick visit, mostly to build rapport between him and Alcryst as the younger royals of their respective nations, but…" He trailed off, lifting a hand to his forehead and pushing his hair back. "I feel that, as king, it's my place to be a part of these meetings. But I have no interest in doing it, they're friends from the war and I don't think I necessarily need to be part of their time together. It could give the wrong impression, so to speak."
Jade looked to Amber, who was once again focused on something going on around them, then looked back at Diamant. "Let me guess, you want us to play the role of liaison between yourself and them, to keep an eye on what happens in case it does turn into country politics instead of just a friendly visit."
"In an ideal world, I wouldn't feel this necessary, but…yes, I would like one of you with them at all times if possible." Turning to face them both once more, there was an expression of thankfulness on Diamant's face as he locked eyes with Jade, his feelings on her calling out his intentions on full display with his narrowed gaze. "There's just something about the timing of this that feels off to me, and I simply cannot shake this worry that if we don't do this, something could happen that jeopardizes the peace we're building."
"And us being there isn't going to jeopardize things anyway? They know us, they know that we're a package deal, they know that if one of us is suddenly hanging around, then it's because you asked for it." Normally Jade would have been less vocally against her liege's request, but she felt that following along with what he wanted was only going to create the problems he was trying to prevent. "How about we have Lapis or Citrinne be present for it all, since at least their presence can be expected."
Letting where he stared linger for a moment, Diamant closed his eyes and gave a firm nod. "Right, how could I have overlooked that detail and forgotten all about calling on either of them? Of course, letting them know that I want them present lets Alcryst know that I don't trust his friends, but…some battles have to be lost, I suppose." As he reopened his eyes, Diamant seemed like he was uncertain about that decision, blinking frequently as he glanced around aimlessly for a few seconds before resuming staring Jade down. "Thank you, yet again, for your insight and reasonable take on a situation."
"Someone here has to have a strong head on their shoulders, and when it's not you that falls on me." Raising her arm to salute her king, Jade watched as he cracked a smile at her, which was all she could ask for in such a moment. "I can do the honor of approaching one of them to see if they can do it. I've been meaning to speak to Lapis about something for a novel, I could use that as an opening to get her on board with this plan."
Like he hadn't been present for anything that was being said at all, Amber jumped into the conversation at the worst possible time. "We're getting Lapis involved now? Do you think that's a good idea? I mean, she likes Prince Alcryst, doesn't she? Wouldn't that make things a little…weird between you and him?"
"What in the—Amber, we're not talking about anything like that." Her saluting arm turning into one waving dismissively in her boyfriend's direction, Jade felt almost embarrassed to have heard something so off-base from what was happening. Once he'd barked out an apology and backed out of the conversation again, she resumed speaking to Diamant like nothing had happened, even with the reddened tint in her cheeks. "I'll go find her and see if I can get her to agree to keep a closer eye on Alcryst during the visit from Solm. Would you like me to do that now, or…?"
"Let's go on the walk I arranged for us first. I don't want to send you off on yet another quest to calm my fears without at least a little reprieve." It took a solid minute for Jade to realize that he was referring to his request of helping him find someone to give a public cover for his relationship with Amber, and when she remembered that she felt herself sinking a bit into the rocky ground. Yes, she was fully committed to finding someone to take on that role, but she still wished it wasn't necessary, that she was able to keep Amber entirely for herself without the need for him to be someone else's secret lover at the same time.
Their walk across castle grounds wasn't nearly as long as it could have been, two of them not feeling particularly down for small talk and the third so enamored with the views of the world around him that he didn't mind the silence at all. When they looped back around to the entrance they'd come out from, Diamant thanked them both for their time before heading back inside on his own, something that he insisted he be allowed to do in that moment. "I can tell something's really getting his goat," Amber remarked as the king disappeared from their view. "It's probably something to do with this Solm visit, but it's something that I wish I could help with."
"I don't know if there's much you could do to help him on this one," Jade replied in the flattest, most neutral tone she could muster. "The problems he's facing are a lot deeper than what you can see looking at him."
"Oh, well, I know how I can fix deep problems." Shaking his head to throw his hair out of his face and maintain its mussed state, Amber smiled at Jade before following in the footsteps Diamant had just taken, calling for his king as loudly as he could. That left her standing there, watching as he retreated back into the castle, her chest rising and falling with every deep breath she took. She knew what he meant by that, even if she wished she didn't, and the mental note was quickly made to avoid their shared room for as long as she could that evening. Amber meant well, he really did, but he wasn't understanding that what he desired and his way of going about things was beginning to rub her the wrong way, just a little.
After one final, shoulder-throwing exhale, Jade turned away from the door and went to do another lap around the castle grounds for herself, just to gather her thoughts and plan her route of attack for getting Lapis involved in things. She couldn't let her personal feelings dictate how she approached the situation, because as it currently stood she knew she needed to stay true to helping Diamant, but sabotaging things and getting the delegation from Solm to do whatever they pleased would have potentially torn his attention away from romantic pursuits and therefore given her more time with Amber. At the exact same time, though, sabotaging things could lead to another war so soon after the last one had been finished, which was the exact thing Diamant wanted to avoid right then.
She had to play the role of good, perfect retainer to a king that was stealing her boyfriend from her, and she couldn't let anyone know her true feelings on the matter. And if that meant getting someone to do some spy work so that she had the time to start drafting a solid list for who to reach out to on the "who would romance a king" front, then so be it.
Freezing mid-stride, Jade sighed and shook her head. "This is, quite literally, the plot to a trashy romance novel, and I cannot say I'm actually here for living through this drama myself. There has to be some way to make it more my speed. Inject some humor into things. Make it all nothing more than a big joke." She knew, with absolute confidence, that no one would be laughing in the end, but she could certainly hope things would turn out that way.
A/N: so I've been working on this off and on for a while and thought it was finally time to get around to posting it! c: there are two more chapters coming soon!