Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I thought it was just fascination, and then obsession, but…

Is it love when I can’t stop thinking about him? When I spend every minute with him and still yearn for longer days, then longer nights, just for more time together? When he laughs I think I go a little crazy. My head spins. I would do anything to make him smile.

Fuck, that’s love, isn’t it? 

I’m in love with the King.

That’s deeply inconvenient.

-- An excerpt from the journal of the royal advisor

-- 

Melini needed a Queen. A simple problem, which should technically have a simple solution-- “just get married, Laios, anyone will do ”.

After almost a year of looking, Kabru’s eyebrow was in a constant state of twitching, no matter how he tried to control his expression. Every suitor they brought through the castle somehow had something wrong with them. To be fair, it was only Laios’s fault half the time; they’re too quiet, she’s too mean, I didn’t actually feel like he listened to me, you know? (Kabru wanted to show him too quiet, too mean, and not actually listening, so he set Laios up on a blind date with Rin, just for his own amusement. Neither of them forgave him for a week.)

The other half the time, the suitors did actually have something wrong with them. Kabru had staved off two assassination attempts so far. (Laios had looked at him with drowning eyes while Kabru, awash with thrill and adrenaline and some other blazing feeling he couldn’t name, wiped his blade on a cloth napkin and carefully tucked it back into its sheath. 

“You killed them,” Laios whispered, ragged and a little bit accusatory. 

“I saved you,” Kabru said. “That’s more important.” 

And he meant it.)

So, when Kabru said, again, “please, Laios, anyone will do,” he really meant-- only the people who deserve it. Only the people who earn my respect, and my trust, and their place at this court, could even begin to be worthy of your affection. When Kabru said, “they’re just a warm body, Laios. A placeholder for the position. Anyone will do,” he really meant-- nobody could possibly live up to all our expectations. There’s nobody perfect, and I will not settle for less than perfect. 

When Kabru said, “Laios, you have to marry someone, literally anyone.”

Laios said, “I don’t want to.” 

And Kabru felt a little relief again that Laios wouldn’t listen to him. A small delight, that he was so stalwart he denied even Kabru. And definitely gratitude, that he could maintain the appearance of doing his job, while simultaneously wishing bitter, horrible fates on every suitor that sat at his king’s side at dinner. 

The idea that ruined everything came in the form of Laios barging into Kabru’s office. 

“I’m tired of these dinners and these dances and the courtly outings,” Laios said, appearing without knocking. Kabru felt his breath shorten at the sound of Laios’s voice, but was careful not to bodily react. He kept writing. He didn’t remember what he had been trying to write-- it didn’t matter, best to keep up appearances of being distant from Laios. Uncaring. (Who was he trying to fool? Himself or Laios? The eyes he presumed followed him everywhere, watching his every move, even when they were both alone in a room? What could be lost by giving up the performance, even for a second? But he knew he couldn’t think like that. It would feel so luxurious, being himself, he wouldn’t know how to stop.) 

“I’m sure you are, Your Majesty,” Kabru intoned. 

“I don’t want to do them anymore,” Laios declared. He started pacing in front of Kabru’s desk. Kabru still refused to look up, despite the distinct feeling of being in a room with a wolf. 

“What do you propose we do instead,” Kabru said. He tried to keep his tone light. 

Laios slammed both his hands on the desk and leaned in, forcing Kabru to look up at him with his sheer presence. Laios’s eyes were lit up, like candles, flickering and waxy. Laios was excited, Kabru distantly realized. He was excited at whatever dating prospect he was about to propose. 

Fuck, I’m fucked, he thought. Because Laios’s excitement meant he might actually find a match. Kabru found the thought so appalling he couldn’t even directly think it, because it made his whole body feel like it was turning to slime and he was melting into a puddle on the floor, where he would be miserable and mopey, forever. 

“A tournament,” Laios said. 

“A tournament,” Kabru repeated, trying to weigh the implications of it. 

“Anyone can enter--”

“There must be some vetting process, Laios--”

“ Anyone will do ,” Laios said, in a horrible impression of Kabru’s voice. Kabru took the point and stopped arguing. 

“And we host a series of competitions until there’s only one person left. Either people will drop out cause they realize I’m not worth all the work of the tournament, or they try really hard, and that way I know they care!”

“All of your problems with suitors so far have been based on personality,” Kabru said, pointing at him with the quill. “Not whether or not they cared.” 

“Well, I’ve-- I’ve thought about my friends, and how they’re all so different. And how they all have traits that frustrate me or we don’t really get along all the time, but I still love all of them. And I think it’s because we’ve been through so much together, that I know no matter what, they care about me enough to be my friend. And maybe that matters more than personality, to me.”

Kabru looked away from Laios so he could think, and tossed all of this over in his head. It would be a bit presumptuous, demanding people jump and perform for Laios’s affections. It would give off the impression of a horrible king, that makes games of his people, for his entertainment. But, with the stipulation that anyone could enter… it was as good as declaring he wanted good opportunities for everybody in his kingdom. Anybody had a shot at a throne. He was a fair king, at least. 

Okay, he could spin this. Their reputation could withstand this. 

It was, however, a logistical nightmare. Organizing competitions (concept, equipment, judges, venues), registration of competitors (housing, travel, background checks-- he was never free of the threat of assassination), establishing rules (getting Laios to decide on literally anything), it would all be an incredible headache. 

Not to mention, if anybody could enter, Yaad would have a conniption that not every suitor would be nobility. But the show of ability over the course of the competition would have to outweigh blood-- people loved action, over tradition. If someone could prove through trials that they were worthy of the crown, nobody would complain. It had put Laios in power, and it would put his partner in power, too. 

Then there was the matter of what they would do with the winner. Kabru supposed he could kill them, but that would certainly cause a national scandal. Maybe he needed to almost kill them, so they believed they were alive only by his mercy-- he would have power over them for their entire stay at the castle. Maybe that would turn them into his enemy, and he would lose his job. Maybe they would have the ear of the king, and Kabru wouldn’t. Maybe Laios would lean closer to them at meals to whisper jokes and share secret laughs. Maybe they would walk the halls of the palace together on the blue nights when neither of them could sleep. 

Kabru’s hands shook with the restraint it took not to snap his quill. 

“A tournament,” Kabru said again, voice perfectly controlled. Laios nodded enthusiastically, the smile on his face-- secretive? Sly? 

Is he hiding something from me? What am I missing ? Kabru wondered. When he thought over all of it again, there didn’t seem to be a catch. It was a good idea. And it was his job. He, supposedly, wanted very badly for Laios to get married. 

Call it off, a voice said in his head. It was an exceedingly selfish voice, and one Kabru thought would be very satisfying to listen to. Run off in the night. Bring him with you. Start a new life as pirates and trick yourself into being brave enough to hold his hand when there’s nobody on the whole ocean to watch you do it. 

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Kabru said, with a chipper smile. “I’ll start organizing it right away.” 

Fuck . 

--

It was, as he predicted, a logistical nightmare. They were under the impression that surely everybody would want to compete to marry Laios, so the early rounds of the tournament had to be able to handle a lot of competitors, and had to eliminate a lot of people, very quickly, while still being fair. 

Kabru was haunted by visions of horse races and log tossing and sword swallowing. Maybe he should make it impossible. Compete to see who could carry an oak tree across the continent. Compete to see who could survive Kabru’s sword. Maybe then there would be no winner and he wouldn’t have to worry about it. 

“Hmm, Kabru, you seem really stressed…” Falin said, when she found him ruining a training dummy even though he was using a dulled practice sword. He hadn’t realized it’d been beaten to multiple pulps. He hadn’t even been looking. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and tried to get his breathing under control. 

“I have no idea what we should do for this tournament,” he admitted. Falin hummed. 

“Put Laios in peril and see who’s willing and able to save him,” she suggested. “Like maybe get him eaten by a dragon, or something…” 

Kabru barked a laugh. “You’d wish that on him?”

“It taught me who my friends are!” Falin responded, with a smile. 

Kabru swiped his sword back and forth, thinking. 

“What about letters?” Falin asked. 

“What about them?” Kabru said. 

“Have everyone send love letters to the castle!” Her feathers fluffed as she started getting excited about the idea. “Laios can choose who he likes.” 

“That’s subjective,” Kabru argued. “He’ll be accused of favoritism.”

“It’s all subjective based on his judgements anyway, and if the letters are anonymous then it can’t be favoritism!” she said.

“If the letters are anonymous, how can we find who they belong to?” 

“Your spymaster should have tracking magic,” she said. Kabru tilted his head. Falin was right, the spymaster could, in fact, do that. 

“How can we possibly convince Laios to do that much reading? And then choose, what, his five favorites? Out of hundreds?” 

Falin shrugged. “I think he wants to. Find a partner, that is. You don’t have to motivate him to do this one.” 

The thought made Kabru ring hollowly, like a bell. Laios, lonely. Laios, looking for love. Laios, moving on from him (but that was unfair, wasn’t it? Cause they never had anything to begin with. It had always been Kabru’s one sided obsession, which Laios happily didn’t care about). It stung so bad. 

“I’ll think about it,” he said. Falin smiled at him-- sly? Secretive? What was going on?-- and left him on the training course. 

Kabru’s muscles ached, but he drank some water and attacked the training dummy again. It was already ruined. He might as well get the satisfaction of ruining it completely. 

--

The night the official announcement was made, Kabru couldn’t sleep. Letters would be pouring in come morning, and then it would start. Everybody vying for his king’s attention, and everybody would be getting it but him. 

And then Laios would marry one of the writers of those letters. 

Kabru stared at the ceiling of his bedroom with such a profound ache in his chest that he wondered if he had actually hurt himself without noticing. Maybe while sparring one of the knights--? 

Well, if he was hurt, maybe he needed someone to heal him. Kabru, stiff from lack of sleep, sat up and found slippers before he could think about it too hard. 

He thought of excuses while he wandered down the halls to the king’s chambers-- he’d gotten whacked in the chest while sparring without armor and it knocked the wind out of him. He’d eaten something bad and had heartburn. He got thrown from his horse and stepped on for good measure. 

He wondered if he was even fooling himself, as he stood at Laios’s door. 

But his chest ached, and ached, and ached, and he just couldn’t stand it. 

He felt extremely small and self indulgent when he knocked. 

Laios opened the door, eyes unfocussed and hair mussed up from sleep, and Kabru could hardly believe he was a king. The king. His king. 

Seeing Laios normally, in his tailored outfits and his organized appearance, made Kabru feel warm. He was pretty, but Kabru could handle pretty. Seeing Laios even slightly undone-- a way he shouldn’t be seen, a secret, a vulnerability-- made Kabru feel obsessed. Kabru’s eyes caught on Laios’s edges and tracked down every line of him. 

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Kabru asked, because he knew he should, but he was too distracted to manage his tone. He heard his own voice sound uncaring, because he truly didn’t care that he had woken Laios, he’d decided back when he put on slippers that he was going to demand the king’s attention and he didn’t feel the slightest remorse. But he shouldn’t show that. He held back a wince. He needed to get himself together. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Laios said, half through a yawn. Kabru hadn’t heard Laios’s voice like this before. Soft and barely conscious. The joy of learning something new about Laios curled up in his stomach and settled like a dose of tea at the perfect, slightly scalding temperature. He was truly hungry for everything about this man. 

“Did you need something?” Laios asked, because Kabru was just standing there, staring, which he knew was amateurish and he knew was making problems but how could he help himself when Laios looked so disheveled? 

“Healing,” Kabru said. The lie felt weak on his tongue. 

Laios’s eyes went wide and he stood back from the door, gesturing Kabru in. Kabru walked past Laios and sat down in one of the armchairs by the window, feeling Laios’s gaze skirt all over him. The satisfaction of it almost made Kabru tremble. 

“Why didn’t you go to Falin?” Laios asked. He came over to sit in the armchair across from Kabru. Kings got two armchairs in their rooms. 

Kabru hadn’t thought of a lie for this. The truth, then? 

“I wanted to see you,” Kabru said, shifting his eyes to look out the window so it wouldn’t feel too truthful. The night landscape was beautiful, like it was cut from sapphire and onyx. He pretended he wasn’t watching Laios from the corner of his eye. “And I know you’re less likely to be asleep.”

“I haven’t been sleeping much,” Laios admitted. 

“Then I’m sorry I woke you,” Kabru said, and the soft care he heard in his own voice made him feel naked. And here he’d thought he was remorseless-- but he didn’t like the idea that Laios had also been losing sleep. Over the tournament? Over the idea of committing himself to someone for the rest of his life? 

Kabru knew from experience it was a frightening choice to make. Fealty shouldn’t be taken lightly. It left you obsessed with men and begging for their attention in the dead of night with fake injuries.

“Where are you hurt? You don’t look hurt,” Laios said. He leaned forward in his chair, only inches closer to Kabru but thrilling Kabru nonetheless. Anything to be a little closer. Just a little closer. 

“One of the muscles in my chest,” Kabru said. “It aches all the time.” 

The heart was a muscle. He wasn’t lying. It was wonderful, not lying to Laios. Just admitting the truth. What next, his feelings? His desperation for his attention? His plans to whisk him away?

“Did you do something to hurt it? Are you swinging your sword wrong?” Laios asked, with enough worry in his voice to make Kabru lightheaded. 

“It must be something like that,” Kabru said. 

Laios stood and stepped up to Kabru, hand reaching but stopping right before landing on his sternum. Kabru’s heart rocketed in his chest, and he felt his breathing speed up in turn. 

When he looked up at Laios, his eyes were silky gray in the colorless night. Fuck, fuck, fuck . He’s so pretty I might explode. 

“May I?” Laios asked. 

“Please do,” Kabru responded. “I want you to.”

Then Laios’s hand brushed his chest and he whispered a spell and Kabru felt so much worse, why did he ever pretend this would make him feel better? The floor was out from under him and he was falling and this was already horrible, but then Laios pulled his hand away, and it was infinitely worse. 

The moment of elation at Laios’s touch was always going to end, and Kabru was always going to get addicted to it. He was always going to ache for more, with a ferocity that would destroy a thousand training dummies. 

“Thank you,” he made himself say, even as he cursed himself as harshly as he could. Kabru, you fucking dumbass. 

Laios smiled at him in a funny way and his eyes darted to the side. Kabru wanted to take his chin in his hand and lean in and make those eyes stay. He cursed at himself more. No impulses.

“You said you wanted to see me,” Laios said, all too pleased. Kabru was running out of ways to curse himself. Why had he settled on the truth? Lies protected him. This was unsafe. 

“Maybe I did,” Kabru said. 

“In the middle of the night?” Laios asked, still with that smile. Maybe Kabru should be cursing Laios instead of himself. 

“Is that such a strange time to be lonely?” Kabru said. “Such things are louder in the dark. Harder to bear. You have all your friends around you in the castle. And I have you.”

“You have friends here,” Laios said, eyebrows coming together. 

I have a million pawns, a hundred relationships to monitor and maintain, and thousands of things to overthink , Kabru thought. And I have you . 

But he wouldn’t for long. 

Kabru felt sick. He should ask for more healing. 

“Admittedly, I missed your conversation,” Kabru said. “Everybody else wants to talk to me about castle affairs. You can be counted on to avoid the topic.” 

Laios laughed, and Kabru felt something in him glow at the sound. 

Laios sat back down in the armchair across from him, too far, far enough that Kabru ached again. Laios was still disheveled, and was barely colored by the thin blue light from the window. He looked like a painting, all shapes and impressions that stole feelings out of Kabru’s chest. 

“Let’s talk, then,” Laios said. “About anything.” 

So they spoke of mysterious culinary affairs and fairytales and, after Laios saw a shooting star, they spoke of wishes. 

Kabru didn’t know if he wished, but he wanted .

He wanted so desperately. 

Why can’t we have this ? He wondered, at a lull in the conversation where Laios’s eyes were drooping (the king of all Melini looked frustratingly adorable). Am I so determined to deprive myself?

Kabru stood, and Laios became alert at the motion. Kabru excused himself, and when Laios insisted he stay longer, Kabru thought he might burn from the inside out. 

“You need sleep,” Kabru said, gently. Laios looked so disappointed, Kabru thought about sending for anti sleep magic, or an ocean of coffee, or anything to make him perk up again. He wondered why he was arguing with Laios, insisting on leaving. Again-- am I really so determined to deprive myself?

Instead, Kabru walked to the door. Laios drifted after him, catching Kabru’s sleeve as he opened the door a crack. Kabru froze and looked back at him.

“Thank you,” Laios said. “For wanting to see me.” 

Kabru felt himself crack down the middle, but he didn’t do anything. No impulses. 

“And I’ll see you again in the morning,” Kabru said, smiling. “Good night.” 

Laios didn’t let go of his sleeve. He was looking at it, very determined, and Kabru could tell that he was thinking. 

“Laios?” he said.

“I miss you when you leave,” Laios said. Kabru stopped breathing.

Kabru thought about killing him. It would be easier than hearing those words, in that tone, slightly broken and all too vulnerable and utterly, terribly tempting. Kabru felt like Melini had been plunged back into the ocean. He felt like he’d forgotten how to swim.

Am I so damn determined to deprive myself? He wondered again. 

But, no, he knew the truth. He was unsuited for love. Too obsessive, too broken, too analytical and controlling. It made him a good politician. It made him a bad friend, and a worse lover. It also meant he was too flawed for Laios.

Because when he said, anyone will do, he meant, they have to be perfect for you or I will bleed them, and he knew, that means I am also out of the running. 

So he said, again, “Good night, Laios,” and he pulled his sleeve from Laios’s grip, and he slipped through the door. 

--

Something had gone terribly, horribly wrong. 

Kabru looked at the missive in his hands, reading it, even though he knew what it said. He’d penned it. He’d penned five identical versions. 

It is my great honor to inform you of your advancement beyond the first round of the tournament to royal marriage.

…

What? What? What? What?  

The spymaster had walked it to his door themself. They even laughed at his expense. 

“You didn’t have to make me track you down, Master Kabru. But here you are. Your invitation to continue courting the King.” Then they’d handed the letter to Kabru, laughing, and walked away. 

It was an incredible scheme. Kabru could participate in the tournament, could prove his affections to Laios and to Yaad and to all of Melini, until they couldn’t argue he was a power-hungry advisor or a liar or an inappropriate match (even though he was, in fact, all of those things). He could fairly prove himself under the flag of “anybody can enter!”, and then Laios could marry him without scandal. It was genius. 

Except, Kabru hadn’t sent a love letter. He had not, in fact, entered himself in the tournament for Laios’s hand in marriage. He’d thought himself unsuited. Hadn’t even considered the idea. 

How, then…? 

Surely nobody could have imitated his handwriting, or claimed to be him? The spymaster’s tracking magic had to do with matching words to writers, as far as Kabru recalled. It had to have been something Kabru wrote, words from his own head, or the magic wouldn’t have traced back to him. 

Kabru stumbled back into his room, and sat on his bed without looking up from the missive in his hands. It was crumpling with how tightly he gripped the sides. 

Okay, someone had entered him into the competition, somehow, for some unknown reason. That was fine. That was a mystery to solve later. Right now, he had to decide, would he--

Yes . 

He was being hasty. He had to think it through before he decided. Would he agree to--

Yes, obviously, yes! 

He let out a long breath through his nose and closed his eyes, trying to calm down. He had to be reasonable about this. Was it really smart to compete? Would he agree to compete? Could he win? Or, worse, could he stand to lose? (The thought of being outmatched and actively, permanently, inarguably losing his chance to marry Laios made his throat fill with bile, and fury spit in his gut, so that was probably fine and healthy. Maybe he needed more healing.)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, oh, yes. I’m going to agree to this. In fact, I’m going to win this. 

Kabru knew, truthfully, he was far too stubborn to drop out, now that he’d been advanced to the second round. He had to win. It was the only way to keep anyone else from marrying Laios. And it was the perfect opportunity to squander all the political roadblocks between him and Laios dating. Nobody could complain if Kabru won, fair and square. 

Maybe Kabru himself couldn’t complain. A chance to prove his love, his worthiness , even to himself.

He stood up and hurried to get dressed, ready to bring the missive to Yaad and explain that he would be competing, and could no longer help organize the event. 

If he was being honest with himself, he was very excited to see the look on Yaad’s face. He could perfectly imagine the mix of exasperation and agony, but it would be much funnier to see in person. 

Oh, this was exciting.

Chapter Text

Marcille exploded into his room, which, it had only been a matter of time. He was officially, publicly courting the king, who also happened to be Laios, and Marcille would have loud feelings about each of those things in turn. He didn’t begrudge her that. 

He was a bit miffed about being distracted, though. The second trial was in an hour, and Kabru was preoccupied with trying to put together what he should wear. He felt wildly self conscious. Laios would be seeing him-- watching him, judging him -- in a romantic context, and if he didn’t look perfect he would never forgive himself (because of course appearance was a part of the competition, although an unspoken one, and he couldn’t be outdone by his competitors), but if he looked overdone he would feel foolish. He had to be effortlessly beautiful. He was tearing his hair out. And then Marcille was in his room. 

“REALLY? YOU AND LAIOS?” she said. 

“Marcille, trust me, I am also freaking out about it,” Kabru said, only glancing up before looking at all the clothes on the floor. “What do you know about the second competition? What should I wear?” 

“YOU???? AND LAIOS????” Marcille went on. 

“I didn’t enter into the tournament,” Kabru said. He picked up a shirt and immediately put it back down-- it was too casual. 

“WHEN-- wait what?” Marcille said. He heard the volume of the sentence start at maximum, and then scale down in her surprise. He almost laughed, but there was a bubble of stress in his throat. 

“Someone entered me, and now I’m competing,” Kabru explained. He picked up another shirt and then threw it across the room. It was too fancy. 

“What? How is that possible? Why would someone do that?” Marcille asked. Kabru shook his head. He finally turned to face her. 

“I don’t know, and I don’t know. But I need you to tell me what the second event will be so I know what to wear.” 

Marcille’s eyebrows did a complicated wiggly motion. “So you didn’t enter yourself, but you do care about winning.” 

Kabru closed his eyes and let out a long sigh through his nose. He could feel his eyebrow twitching. 

“Yes,” he said. 

“SO-- YOU AND LAIOS?!?!?” Marcille exclaimed, her tone crinkling with excitement instead of the bewilderment from earlier. 

Kabru rubbed a hand down his face, knowing he was ruining his hair. He was hopeless. He was going to show up to the competition looking like a slob and be eliminated at the door. His heart thudded in his chest, despairing at the thought. 

“Oh-- okay, okay. Kabru--” he felt Marcille’s hands on his shoulders. “We’re going to win this.” 

Kabru opened his eyes, looking at her skeptically from behind his hand. “We?” 

Marcille was looking at him more seriously than when they’d had a meeting about dissolving a war. He felt a little afraid. 

“I’ll be your coach,” she said. “I’m an expert at love. I won’t let you down.” 

Kabru should have felt relief to have someone in his corner, but he still wasn’t even sure he was in his own corner. Mixed in with his panic was a bitter edge of self loathing. Through gritted teeth-- this was more than he wanted to admit, but he needed to hear Marcille’s thoughts on this, as one of Laios’s closest friends-- he asked, “you don’t think I’m a bad match for him?” 

“Kabru!” Marcille said, aghast. 

“What?” he snapped. “I’m-- manipulative. And have a fair share of baggage. More than I want to put on him. I feel selfish just wanting his attention, let alone his--” 

She waved her hand in front of his face, like she was batting his words away. He was stunned into trailing off. 

“Shut up, shut up! No self doubt now. The second trial’s in an hour--”

“Less than that, now…”

“THE SECOND TRIAL IS SOON AND YOU’RE NOT EVEN DRESSED, KABRU!” 

“I know!” he exclaimed, laughing a little. 

“Pep talk later!” she declared, putting her hands on her hips. “For now, we’ll do a mini-makeover, and your confidence will skyrocket. Enough to get through this event, at least.” 

Kabru looked around at the discarded clothes. “I don’t even know what to dress for. Jousting? Etiquette? Swimming?” 

“The task isn’t so involved, it’s only the second round,” Marcille said. “Wear something casual.”

Kabru made an aborted gesture at all of the clothes in his room. He needed more guidance than just “uninvolved and casual.” 

“Make it blue,” Marcille decided. “To match your eyes.” 

This he could work with. Kabru started picking up his blue clothes and kicked the rest back towards the chest in the corner of his room. When he started deliberating between shirts in a panic, Marcille pushed him away and laid a seemingly random one on the bed, and tugged out a pair of pants from the mess. 

“There,” she said. She turned and faced the wall. “Now get dressed.”

Kabru started pulling off his sleepwear. 

“What else is worrying you? About the trial?” Marcille asked. It would be a touching question, if she asked it softly. She asked it with the force of a drill sargent. Kabru got the feeling whatever problems he admitted to were going to be exploded out of the air with a fire spell.

“I don’t know who my competition is, yet. All I can imagine is worst case scenarios,” Kabru admitted, stepping into his pants. 

“Like what?” 

“Well, someone from your old parties. Namari, Toshiro, Chilchuck… he’s just so fond of all of you, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Marcille hummed, and he pulled his arms through the sleeves, settling into the tirade. 

“There’s also the matter of a delegate from the Western Elves trying to worm their way into power in Melini. I’m trying to build a powerful kingdom for short lived races, and I would feel a little cheated if an elf came into royal power. No offense.”

“Some taken.”

“But also I’m a little wary of how easy it would be for an elf to outclass me. They’ve obviously got an advantage on anything magical, and could have hundreds of years more experience than me in any given discipline, not to mention all their goddamned effortless grace . I’d be doomed. How do I look?” 

Marcille turned around to a fully dressed Kabru, and immediately started fiddling with his outfit. Adjusting his belt to a jaunty angle. Rolling up his sleeves. While she worked, Kabru kept going. Talking about it was starting to make him feel better. He should try being honest about his overthinking more often. 

“The scenarios only get worse from there. What if all of the Canaries show up? What if my mom is there? What if everyone else is a monster, and I lose to a cockatrice?” 

Marcille played with his hair with a look of serious concentration, and he prayed she wasn’t making it worse. 

“Well, your mom isn’t there, I can tell you that much,” she said. Kabru just about had a heart attack on the spot. 

“That’s the only one you can deny?” he asked, panic coming back in full force. 

She stood arms length away from him and her eyes drifted over his outfit, and then she nodded. 

“You’re ready,” she said, meditative.

“I feel significantly worse!” he exclaimed. 

--

Luckily, they didn’t have to go far. The competition was taking place in the castle kitchens (much to the stress of their chefs, who nervously flitted around the counters). This meant Kabru could fiddle with his hair until the last minute, and wander down right before they needed to start. Punctual, but hopefully the last to show up. He would have a dramatic edge, leave a stronger impression, hopefully getting in the other’s heads with an air of superiority (although this, unfortunately, gave him less time to size up his competition). 

In the kitchens, Laios and a few of his advisors (now assistant judges) were in a jovial circle, and Kabru felt the urge to join them-- that was, normally, his role. That was the role he’d planned to play for the rest of his life (that is, if he didn’t snap and kidnap the king into a life of piracy). Even Marcille was there, since Kabru sent her down first so they wouldn’t look like they were in cahoots. 

But he carefully walked away from them, wrenching his gaze off of Laios like he was forcing a jar open. It took as much force. Maybe more. 

Did he imagine the feeling of eyes on the back of his neck as he walked across the kitchen?

They hadn’t spoken since Kabru was informed of his participation by the spymaster, but surely someone had told Laios the names of those competing for his affections. He had to know Kabru was among them. How did he feel, knowing that Kabru was-- courting him? How would it change the way they talked to each other? Would Laios happily claim it was a noble thing to do as a friend, or a coworker, and send Kabru into an endless spiral of woe that his feelings weren’t reciprocated? Or would Laios finally understand the force of Kabru’s obsession with him, and finally, finally, finally look back? Seek him out in turn? (The words “I miss you when you leave” hadn’t stopped circling the edges of his hearing, and it felt somewhat like an ear infection). 

He was directed to join a group of participants standing at the primary oven, a massive brickwork thing at the head of the kitchen. The heat became overwhelming as he neared, but he didn’t notice, through his cataloguing of the other participants and the harsh sinking in his gut. 

It was his absolute worst nightmare. 

At first, it was fine. Leed was there, and that was fine, although Kabru didn’t want to compete against her in any feats of strength. It would be best to get her eliminated now, during the event he knew wasn’t physical. He wouldn’t have the same chance to get rid of her later.

To his utter dismay, the next person he saw was fucking Senshi. Kabru blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, and then pinched himself to make sure it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real, and that was a problem that immediately set his brain running a million permutational strategies-- intimidate him, outmaneuver him, kill him… no, he had to convince Senshi to step out of the competition. Otherwise, Kabru simply didn’t stand a chance. The dwarf was caring, and impressive, and already had the advantage of Laios’s affections. 

But does he love Laios? I didn’t know that. I would have noticed if there was something romantic between them. 

That wasn’t so bad, even, as when he saw fucking Mithrun. Kabru vividly imagined a crack opening up in the floor and swallowing him whole, at the sight of Mithrun staring into the middle distance, seemingly uninterested. Not just an elf, not just a Canary, Mithrun specifically. Because the universe had it out for Kabru. That was the only explanation. 

Since when does he want to marry anyone-- let alone Laios? This was so horrific, Kabru thought about turning back and going to his rooms now, just dropping out of the tournament. He would have to outmaneuver and outperform the ex-Canary captain. He was doomed. 

Kabru made four, and the fifth participant hadn’t seemed to arrive yet. They were already five minutes past start time. 

Another five minutes, and none of them had spoken to each other. Kabru’s thoughts were racing. He needed a plan to beat each of them. It was clear this was about to be a cooking contest-- they were in the kitchens, and it was a clever way to prove someone had the skill or passion to care about Laios’s interests. He couldn’t hope to beat Senshi in a cooking contest, but he just had not to lose, not to be eliminated. 

He was trying to think of a foolproof food, something he could make that Laios would love no matter what (but was anything so unconditional?) Pasta? No-- Mithrun ran a noodle shop. He would be preparing a noodle dish, and Kabru couldn’t hope to outmatch him in something he did every day. What, then? He knew how to make a lot of tavern food, from his old landlord, but that wouldn’t excite Laios… 

What food was exciting? Instead of thinking about Laios, Kabru had a surprisingly personal answer to that. He still remembered, actually, the first food he’d eaten when he came to the Island. He’d bought samosas from a street cart, and after stepping off the boat, he was starving, and tired, and it was the most delicious thing he thought he’d ever eaten. He’d been hopeful, at the time, excited to be in a new place, and the food made him feel full and full of promise. 

He’d gone back to that food cart for months, watching enough of the process to piece together how the vendor made them. He could still remember each step. It was settled, then. He was making samosas, and ignoring the part of his brain that said every time he’d tried this before, it had gone horribly awry. 

He looked up at the sign of movement further in the kitchen. Laios and the advisors were coming to speak to them. Kabru’s heart started flittering around in his chest like a butterfly, and he couldn’t tell if it was panic or lovesickness or both. 

Laios waved meekly at the group of suitors. Fucking adorable. Kabru couldn’t keep looking at him. 

Yaad stepped forward and cleared his throat. Yaad so clearly hated this whole idea, which made it entertaining to watch him participate in it. He looked like he’d eaten a particularly sour pear. It briefly distracted Kabru from his panic.

“Since the final participant hasn’t appeared, we’ve decided to go forward with the event and consider her disqualified--”

“Sorry! Excuse me! Oh, I’m so sorry I’m late!” 

The voice came from the door of the kitchens, and Kabru automatically distrusted it. Hated it. She was far too sweet. 

Then, when the advisors stood aside and Kabru could properly see his competition, he thought about collapsing dramatically to the floor, or perhaps burying himself alive. 

In front of him was an elf (because of course she was an elf), with unnaturally fair skin and shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair. She had a round face, and wide eyes. She even wore a crown of ivy as an accessory.

She looked exactly like a dryad. A monster. (Although significantly less naked, thank god.) 

A quick glance at Laios’s face told Kabru he was thinking the same thing. He had that admiring look in his eye, and his chest was moving quickly, short of breath. It had been so long since Laios had seen a monster, he wouldn’t even care that she was only a humanoid who looked like one. 

Kabru was totally doomed. He barely resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands and just start screaming. 

She joined the group with a few more chiming apologies and hushed introductions to her competition, like they were friends, and Kabru could only scowl. He knew what she was doing. Making everyone wait on her, demanding their attention with a dramatic late entrance. Acting all friendly. It was exactly what he’d tried to do. Oh, how he wanted to crush her into the dust. 

His odds, though, were now significantly worse. Another glance at Laios proved his eyes were still on her. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Maybe Kabru needed to do something even more dramatic than a late entrance-- maybe he should collapse dramatically to the floor. Would Laios fall for a fake plea for healing twice? Maybe it would work better if it wasn’t fake-- he would have to accidentally spear himself on a knife. It’d worked in that one play, for that one pair of doomed lovers. 

Yaad was already droning something about the competition, and it was officially too late. Kabru just needed to make this work. He also desperately needed to sabotage the dryad-lady-- her name was Demdae, he’d overhead her whispering it to Leed. He’d replace her sugar with salt when she wasn’t looking. 

“You have two hours,” Yaad was saying. “And the chefs are here to answer questions or provide an extra pair of hands. If you ask them to do more than food prep, you’ll lose points in your final score. This is about your cooking, not your ability to delegate cooking to others.” 

“What are we being judged on?” Demdae asked, shyly raising her hand, voice still sickly sweet. Kabru felt like a veritable storm cloud. Thunderous.

“Quality, mostly!” Laios spoke up. “I’m not picky, so I won’t be judging based on taste, as long as it’s not, like, really, really bad… and you’ll get added points for using interesting ingredients, or being creative! Mostly, I just like being surprised, but nothing beats a good meal, so don’t be afraid to go classic.” 

Infuriatingly broad. But, to his horror, Senshi and Demdae were both nodding, as if these judgements made sense. Kabru was braced with the knowledge that he might actually be the worst cook here. He could be the first elimination in the tournament. 

But the thought made his determination rear up like a sea serpent, and he felt certainty settle in his limbs. It was the kind of control that came over him the moment before he killed someone. Assurance and competency. He would not lose. He had plans in place. All that was left was to act. 

When Yaad told them to start, Kabru practically ran to the pantry, while asking the first cook he passed to start boiling a pot of water. He grabbed three potatoes and a sack of flour, then went to the portion of counter where the cook he’d barked at had, indeed, started some water for him. Kabru efficiently peeled the potatoes and asked the cook to cut them into chunks, then jogged back to the pantry for salt and spices. 

On his way back to his station again, Kabru monitored his competitors. Senshi was happily cutting into what was probably monster meat, explaining what he was doing to the chef at his elbow. He made a jolly picture. Not at all affected by the pressure of competition. He was untouchable. 

Mithrun was watching a pot of water. Kabru got the sense he was waiting for it to boil. Okay. Kabru didn’t feel threatened by him yet. 

Leed was wandering towards the larder, so Kabru couldn’t get a real idea of what she was planning. He needed to stay on his guard, with her. He still thought it would be best to try to eliminate her now, if he could shape the competition at all, which he could (because he must).

Demdae was collecting a strange variety of fruits from the produce baskets, stumbling and asking the cooks to help her carry them. Kabru wouldn’t mind getting her eliminated, either. There was something to his earlier idea of switching her sugar for salt. He’d swing by her station later under the flag of curiosity and ruin something. 

He made it back to his section of counter and asked the cook to keep an eye on the water, and boil the potatoes. He started opening the flour, but he saw someone approaching from the corner of his eye. 

He whipped around, ready to snap at the interruption-- didn’t they understand how much pressure he’s under right now?-- but immediately calmed when he saw it was Laios. 

Then he tensed up again. Oh, shit. They hadn’t spoken since Kabru had entered the competition. It was as good as a love confession. What would he say? 

“Don’t tell anyone I’m doing this,” Laios said, eyes shifting. Kabru couldn’t help his nervous laugh. 

“Everyone can see you, Laios. Shouldn’t you be off judging?” he said. 

Laios, seemingly not deterred by any of this, held up a wad of cloth.

“I just… I brought you an apron. You’re wearing a nice tunic. It’d be a shame to get flour all over it.” 

Kabru wanted to laugh at the irony, that he’d put so much work into his outfit and here Laios was, covering it up. Or, valuing it enough to want to preserve it? What angle should he look at this from? How could he interpret Laios, standing this close to him, when there were suitors all around the room?

“All right, thank you,” Kabru said, a little impatiently, holding his hand out for the apron. He would humor Laios and wear it, but he needed to get back to work. They were on a timer, and he still had a lot of cooking and sabotage left to do. 

To Kabru’s dismay, Laios didn’t hand over the apron. He unrolled it and held the edges of the loop, and leaned in to hook it over Kabru’s head. The action probably ruined his hair. Kabru would be incensed if he could stop being distracted by the feeling of Laios’s hands running down his front, smoothing out the apron and making sure it hung correctly from his neck. 

It wasn’t just his touch-- although the little brushes made Kabru feel like he was flying. It was that some corner of his mind processed this as being noticed and cared about. It was almost unbearable, the idea that, to Laios, he was something worth preserving. 

“Can you turn around?” Laios asked. Kabru almost choked, but he complied. He felt the apron tighten at his hips as Laios took up the belt and tied it. He patted Kabru lightly on the back, to signal he was done. 

Kabru couldn’t get his horrible tongue under control enough to stutter out a thank you. He couldn’t slyly ask why Laios wasn’t tying aprons onto all the contestants. He couldn’t wink or giggle or anything, he was so overwhelmed by this simple action. 

“What are you making?” Laios asked, excitedly peeking over Kabru’s shoulder. This, Kabru knew how to react to. None of that strange uncharted territory. 

“It’s a surprise, go away,” he said, pushing lightly on Laios’s shoulders. To his shock, Laios’s eyes left the food to look at him, and the eye contact felt sharp as a knife to Kabru. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched Laios. Would it always draw his attention so severely? 

“The potatoes are ready,” his cook said, stopping them both. Laios smiled quickly and stepped back, walking away with only a single look behind him. 

Kabru forced himself to turn back to his cooking, to distract himself from-- all that, and get this win under his belt. 

No. No thinking under belts right now. 

He sent his cook to go find peas and finally picked up that flour. 

Kabru put the flour into a bowl with water and kneaded it into dough, adding salt and oil. Instead of watching the dough as he mixed it, he stared around at everyone else. Mithrun was boiling noodles. Senshi was barbecuing meat. Leed was frying bread. Demdae was cutting fruit. 

His cook came back with peapods and started shelling them. Kabru watched as Mithrun’s water nearly boiled over, but Senshi bounded over to take the pot off the heat. The two of them dove into a conversation Kabru couldn’t hear. Leed was slicing cheese and layering it on her frying bread. Demdae took a bite of watermelon hind, and cringed. Did she not know how it tasted? Had she been considering adding it?

“Master Kabru, you haven’t blinked in… several minutes, at least,” the cook assisting him said. Kabru’s gaze whipped around to them. He blinked once, purposefully. 

“Apologies,” he said. “Are the peas ready?” 

He massaged the dough into a ball and set it aside, covering it with a towel. If he finished the filling fast enough, he would still have time while waiting for his dough to set, and that would give him an excuse to go sabotage Demdae. 

He glanced over at her, while adding oil and spices to a pan. Demdae was collecting all the fruit chunks in a massive pot. 

He leaned over to the cook he was working with. “Do you know where the lid to that pot is?” he asked. 

The cook followed the line of his eyes, then nodded. 

“Go hide it, quickly,” Kabru said. 

The cook looked at him incredulously, and Kabru couldn’t believe they didn’t understand-- so much of competition wasn’t outperforming others, but ruining them. 

Apparently they saw no opportunity to argue in his expression, because they darted off to the cabinets, walking with enough tension to declare their delinquency. It couldn’t be helped. 

Kabru wafted the spices in the pan and added what he decided was missing. Ginger, fennel, slightly more crushed chilis. He left the pan on the heat and hastily crushed up the potatoes, while his spices cooked but before they burned. After about two minutes, he added the peas, shuffling them around in the spices and the oil, letting them sauté. When those were cooked, he added the potatoes. Seeing the proportion of everything made him add a dash more salt, and slightly more oil for the potatoes to properly cook in. 

His cook came back, looking guilty as treason, and Kabru wished he had a job to distract them. 

“Tell me what the others are doing,” he settled on. They would be his eyes while he attended the sauté. 

“Uh, Demdae is looking for a lid,” they said, clearly uncomfortably. Kabru couldn’t help the sharp smile that spread over his face. He was sure he looked insane. 

“Good,” he said. “What else?”

“Leed is assembling a sandwich. She looks like she’s done cooking, and started plating.” 

That was shocking, to be finished twenty minutes into a two hour contest. What was she thinking? Was she trying to lose?

“Senshi is cooking a sauce, and it looks really complex. It smells mouthwatering from here, but he seems unsatisfied with it. Oh, he’s consulting his cook. I wonder what they’ll add…”

“And Mithrun?” 

“Mithrun is boiling an egg.”

“He’s just watching it boil?”

“Yeah.”

Kabru took the filling off the heat, and sent his cook for lemon juice. They came back with a bottle of it, and he added a dash over the cooling mixture. 

“Okay,” Kabru said. “Come get me in about ten minutes, when the dough is ready.” He started untying the apron. Laios might be hurt that he was rejecting the gift, but he was done working with the powdered flour, and he needed to look presentable while rounding on his opponents. Sharp. Formidable. 

First, Leed. 

He approached as unthreateningly as possible, but she still scowled at him. He decided not to be offput, and put on a polite tone. 

“What have you made here? An appetizer? Are you planning any sides to go with it?” 

“Why don’t you go manage your own dish,” she sneered, showing her teeth. 

“I’m waiting for it to settle,” Kabru said, putting his hands up, palms out, in a small sign of surrender. 

Leed kept her eyes steadfastly on the cheese sandwich. She hadn’t even added a sprig as a garnish.

“Then go bother some other contestant,” she said. “Don’t waste your energy cheating me out of a win, you duplicitous bastard. I can get kicked out of this competition all by myself.” 

Kabru blinked against the sheer number of implications in that statement. 

“I’m really not here to sabotage you,” he said. 

“Liar,” she responded, with another scowl, and, okay, he didn’t know how she was onto him, but he wasn’t pressing the point. 

“Do you… not want to win?” he asked. Leed closed her eyes, tilted her head, and sighed. 

“No,” she said. 

“Then why enter?” 

Her eyes opened again. She huffed a piece of hair out of her face, and Kabru didn’t know whether that was a breath of affection or frustration. 

“My brother wanted me to. He thinks it would help our relationship with the citizens of Melini, to have an orc in such a powerful position. And while I love the idea of improving my tribe’s political standing, I… don’t want to marry Laios. At all. In fact, I refuse to.” 

Kabru leaned against the counter, thinking. “You could just ask for a place in our delegation. I’m sure His Majesty would be eager to strengthen diplomatic relations with you all, especially if it helps avoid internal social conflicts. No need to go through all the rigamarole of tournament and marriage.” 

Leed’s shoulders untensed. He hadn’t noticed them being tense in the first place.

“Really?” she asked. 

“Definitely,” Kabru said. 

“That’s good news. Will you tell my brother? He won’t be happy I’m giving up my chance at royal marriage,” she said, gesturing at the grilled cheese sandwich. 

“Absolutely, I’ll write to him,” Kabru said. Political dealings were a relief to handle, as easy and natural as breathing, a far cry from the panic attack catastrophizing that came from love rivalship. He was glad he didn’t have to push Leed out of her spot-- she was just walking out. His place in the tournament would be secure, at least for this round. Something restless in him settled at the knowledge. 

He stood up from the counter, but before he left, he had one last question. 

“Leed-- if you didn’t want to marry His Majesty, how did you write a love letter convincing enough to make it to the second round?” he asked. 

To his surprise, her face turned red. 

“I wrote it about someone else,” she said. 

Kabru, of course, wanted to ask who. But he was losing focus, getting caught up in this minutiae. He resolved to remember only that Leed had affections for someone, and he would investigate that further, later, if he felt it was politically or socially relevant. Later.

Kabru left her station with a nod and another task on his mental to-do list (he needed to remember to write that letter to Zon), and started towards Demdae. He dropped by his own station, first, to grab the bottle he’d left on the counter. As he walked across the kitchen, he passed Mithrun, who had finished cooking the egg, and was now watching a handful of mushrooms boil. Kabru shook his head and kept going. 

Kabru technically didn’t need to sabotage Demdae-- even as he thought this, he held the bottle tightly behind his back-- since, if Leed was throwing, there wasn’t a chance he’d get Demdae eliminated this round. But it would be nice to lower her standing in Laios’s eyes. Make her slightly less appealing to him. 

“Hey!” he said, purposefully overly casual, as he walked up to Demdae’s counter. She wanted to be friendly? He could be goddamn civil. He’d be downright sociable. 

Demdae smiled at him in greeting, continuing to stir her pot of fruit chunks. 

“Hello!” she chimed. Why was her voice so musical? Is that what Laios wanted? Kabru would have to take singing lessons.

“We didn’t get introduced earlier, I’m Kabru,” he said, with his signature charming grin. 

“Oh, I’m Demdae,” she responded. I know, he thought. 

“What’re you making?” he asked, leaning over her pot. It really was just fruit chunks in there. She was stirring them with a wooden spoon. Something syrupy seemed to be gathering at the bottom of the pot, bubbling slightly with the heat.

“Fruit soup!” she said. Kabru worked not to show his reaction to that ( what the fuck is fruit soup). He felt like he’d been presented with a gift horse to bring inside his city walls, and he was standing there, eyebrows raised, blinking at it. Skeptical at someone else’s stupidity. 

“Fruit… soup?” he asked. His charming smile was stuck in place on his face, that was good, that would keep him seeming friendly. 

“Yup! I don’t really know how to cook, but fruits are my favorite thing to eat, and most cooking seems to involve putting things on heat, so… I’m kind of making it up as I go!” she smiled and laughed, like this was fun, like the fate of the kingdom wasn’t in the balance (or a minute on the other end of Laios’s eyes, for that matter). Kabru couldn’t believe this was what he was up against. 

It had to be a farce. He decided to push it. 

“Doesn’t soup need broth?” he asked, looking in the pot again. 

“Aha, not this one! The fruit will boil down into a compote, and once it’s soft enough, I’ll mush it, so it becomes a soupy, syrupy fruit pudding!”

Okay, she was lying about not knowing how to prepare food, if she knew words like compote. He squinted at her. 

He thought back to her earlier behavior, asking what they would be judged on. What had Laios said? He valued creativity, and interesting ingredients. She was trying to stand out by making something outrageous, instead of something delicious. Damn it. That was clever. Knowing Laios, it would almost definitely work. 

“Have you seen my lid, by the way? The cooks mysteriously lost it, and the fruit will soften a lot faster if they can sit under covered heat for a few minutes,” Demdae said. Her eyes were also narrowed at him. She knew he was responsible for it going missing. This was as good as a declaration of war. 

“I haven’t seen it, sorry!” he said. Cue apologetic grin. He even closed his eyes so she wouldn’t see how clever he felt. 

“Aw, too bad. Hey, shouldn’t you be getting back to your own dish?” she said. 

Kabru nodded and started saying a goodbye, so nice to meet you, good luck, no really, when Demdae’s cook came back with what looked like a slightly-too-big lid. Demdae turned to discuss with her, and Kabru brought the bottle of lemon juice from behind his back, uncorked it, and dumped as much into Demdae’s pot as he could. 

He almost got the whole bottle in when he noticed them both turning back around, so he pulled back and stepped away, hiding the bottle again and giving a little wave as he walked away. Demdae watched him uncannily. It was probably obvious he’d done something. He didn’t let it bother him. It didn’t matter if she was clever, or ambitious, or beautiful. She’d have to work to come back from cooking watermelon in lemon juice. 

When he got back to his own station, he put the nearly empty bottle on the counter, and the cook looked horrified. 

“Master Kabru!” they hissed. “That’s dishonest!” 

“Technically they didn’t give us any rules, so I’m not breaking any,” Kabru pointed out. He started dividing the now-ready dough into smaller sections. 

“But the nature of the competition--” 

“--is to win,” Kabru said, with finality. Then he asked the cook to find him a rolling pin, and to start heating a pot of oil. To his relief, the cook listened instead of arguing with him, and even found a thermometer for the oil, without having to be asked. (Kabru had once witnessed Senshi check if oil was at deep frying temperature by sticking his finger in it. Yet another superiority Senshi had over Kabru, because, lovesick or no, he wasn’t putting his thumb in heated oil, in a bid to impress Laios. He shuddered in horror at the thought of what that dwarf was capable of.)

As he listened to the sounds of Senshi explaining his techniques to a growing circle of cooks, and Demdae’s distant exclamation of horror ( What could have gone wrong? he wondered. Evilly), Kabru busied himself rolling the sections of dough into ovals. He cut these in half and seamed the new edges together, resulting in lopsided dough cones. Then he portioned servings of the potato-pea sauté into each cone, and sealed them. 

When his samosas were assembled and the oil was the right temperature, he dropped them into the pot, and watched the floating triangles like they were prisoners that would escape if he looked away. The frying was the hardest part. As fun as it would be to wander around and pick at his competitors more, this would be the actual show of skill, from him. 

He turned over the first few early, but waited longer while they fried on the other side, and flipped them a second time to finish cooking the first. Once he’d adjusted to how long he needed to wait, it was a matter of strategic patience. 

Technically, he knew he should make a chutney to go with these, but he honestly didn’t think he could-- he was reaching the limit of his cooking skills by doing the frying by himself (he’d always found someone else to handle this part for him). Mixing together a yogurt dip would be a much more involved process when it came to flavors, and he didn’t know how to balance them all correctly. Instead of risking it, he resolved to serve the samosas dry. Knowing from his reconnaissance earlier that Leed hadn’t even put a garnish on her grilled cheese sandwich, he wasn’t worried. 

He broke his concentration only once, to glance across the room at Demdae and survey the lemon juice fiasco, and he put together that she was starting over. Then, her plan was to serve a rushed (and possibly undercooked) product, rather than a sour one. It was smart. Kabru was gleeful that he’d managed to set her back at all. 

The frying took the rest of his time, and then he was juggling samosas onto a plate while Yaad wandered around the kitchen and told them all to finish up and bring their dishes out to the dining room. 

As he picked up his plate, Kabru made sure to thank his assistant cook, and left them with a samosa. There were plenty. Then he walked out to the dining room, and set his dish in a line with the other plates, before Laios and his advisors. Marcille gave him a thumbs up. He tried to smile back at her, but only really managed a stressed grimace. 

Kabru stood beside the table with the other suitors, glowing in the knowledge that he was being actively judged. He knew the exact way to position his shoulders, how to keep his posture straight but relaxed, how to convey to the world that he was utterly condfident.

All of his competitors seemed similarly confident, to his chagrin. None of them looked nervous, at all. Don’t they know how much this matters? How much Laios matters? Kabru thought he might implode or explode or something, just from standing there. Maybe he was competitive. 

“Let’s start with Senshi’s dish! Senshi, what did you make?” Laios asked. His eyes were bright, and he was excited, but this was a normal reaction to Senshi’s food. Kabru didn’t know whether he should feel threatened or not. 

They went through Senshi’s bicorn barbecue with a side of mixed vegetables, and Mithrun’s fancy ramen (he’d added spinach, carrots, and green onion when Kabru wasn’t looking), and Leed’s grilled cheese sandwich (still ungarnished). Laios had nothing but sparkling reviews for each of them-- the flavors! The technique! The texture! It looked like he was mostly excited to eat so many fun foods (even if one was a plain grilled cheese). Each time, Kabru felt like he needed to flip the table. 

Then, it was Kabru’s turn. 

He resisted the urge to explain himself or his dish, just smiling politely and watching hawkishly as Laios picked up one of the samosas and took a big bite. His chest felt tight. Would it be okay? Scratch that-- would it be perfect? Would it be good enough? 

The advisors (assistant judges) were also eating, but Kabru couldn’t tear his eyes off Laios. Laios, who was smiling, even as he finished chewing and swallowed. He looked relieved, a little. Had he been afraid Kabru would be a bad cook? It was warranted-- Kabru never cooked if he could help it. Nonetheless, Kabru was offended. He could cook. He just had better things to do with his time and energy. 

All his offense wiped away when Laios went in for a second bite, and finished the samosa in a third. He felt extremely pleased. Damn right he was a good cook. Laios liked it, and that meant enough for Kabru to be satisfied. 

“Hey, that was really good! Good job, Kabru! I love the… kind of just everything about it! Flavors, texture, everything! And they fried really well,” Laios said. 

“Kind of dry…” Yaad muttered. Kabru vividly imagined strangling him. 

“I didn’t think so!” Laios said, with building enthusiasm, and enough force that Yaad didn’t comment further, only slouching down in his seat. Kabru released a long breath in relief. 

“I can’t believe I haven’t made them for you before now,” Kabru said, although it was entirely believable. 

“Me neither!” Laios said. “You should cook more, Kabru, you’re really--” 

Demdae interrupted by (musically, somehow) clearing her throat and nudging her dish forward. The fruit soup bubbled ominously, rocking to the rim of the bowl. 

Kabru barely stopped himself from glaring at the interruption, but let it slide. He was excited enough at the prospect of seeing her food criticized that he didn’t mind them moving on. 

“Right! Dem…da--” Did Laios not know her name? Kabru was darkly pleased at that-- “Er, what did you make…?” Laios said. 

He sounded apprehensive, and looked even more so, eyebrows coming together in the middle as he stared at the bowl of purplish reddish ooze. 

Demdae giggled, and the sound made Kabru grit his molars together. 

“I don’t know! I’ve been calling it fruit soup, but in reality it’s probably more of a jam,” she said. 

“Do you want us to eat it like a soup? Or should we send for some bread?” Laios asked, looking up from the dish to gaze at her. Laios’s eyes. Kabru missed the feeling of them on him. He sizzled under his skin, but calmed himself. Let Demdae have her moment, let her embarrass herself. 

 “Whatever you prefer, Your Majesty!” she said. Kabru smiled at that-- she’d already messed up. Laios hated being referred to by his title. 

Laios, however, didn’t so much as flinch at the words. In fact, he was still staring at her like he couldn’t get enough of her. Damn dryad appearance. Maybe Kabru would pick up the bowl of soup and fling it across the room like a discus. Maybe that would shatter a window. Maybe he would tear every wall of this castle down if Laios didn’t stop looking at her like that. 

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Mithrun, not even looking at him, not trying to whisper anything. The message was clear enough, though; calm down, you’re being so neurotic I can hear it from here.

The King and his advisors each had a spoonful of fruit soup, most cringing at the mix of flavors and sheer overwhelming tartness. Laios had an appraising face on, like he was sampling a fine wine. 

After he’d swallowed, he opened his eyes again, still looking at Demdae. Kabru wanted to jump and wave his arms around, throw a tantrum like a child begging for attention. But Mithrun’s hand was still on his shoulder, and Kabru knew he was right. Now was not the time to fly into a murderous rage/temper tantrum/coup d’état. 

“I saw you start over, halfway through the competition. Can you explain to me what went wrong?” Laios asked, taking another spoonful of fruit soup. No way was it good enough to warrant a second bite, but there Laios was. 

“Some of the produce we used in the first batch must have been bad! It was horribly sour, I had to start again from scratch,” Demdae said, with enough melodrama that even Kabru was impressed. 

Laios nodded. “It’s really impressive you were able to create such a great dish in half as much time as everyone else. And, it’s creative! I’ve never seen fruit prepared this way before.” 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Had he really just made Demdae more impressive by sabotaging her and giving her odds to overcome? Fuck. Kabru needed to strangle someone. After this he was going to go to the training ground and hit things. Or he was going to lie facedown in his bed and scream for an hour. 

Laios put down his silverware and stood, clearing his throat. 

“Okay, uh, thanks everyone for your efforts, umm, I hate to do this, but, uh, Leed…”

“Your Majesty! Shouldn’t we deliberate, as judges?” one of the advisors asked. Laios only raised an eyebrow at them.

“No? I think this one’s pretty obvious. Leed, thank you so much, I’m flattered, but…”

“You don’t have to say it. I’ll show myself out,” Leed said, eyes relaxing around the edges in an almost-smile. Despite her trying to make a graceful exit, Senshi walked her to the door, muttering unsolicited advice about how she could innovate her sandwich recipe. 

“Maybe by adding some tomatoes…” Kabru heard, before the door closed. 

He was officially advancing in the competition. 

Kabru’s knees felt weak with exhaustion and relief. His mind was whirring down, from all the overthinking he’d been doing for the past few hours. It was fulfilling, but exhausting. He looked back at Laios, to remind himself why he was suffering through all of this, but…

For fucks sake, he was still staring at Demdae. 

--

For the ease of people management, apparently each of the contestants were being housed at the castle until the tournament was over. Kabru fervently despised the idea of Demdae being that close to the King, but, at least it meant he could show Mithrun to his rooms.

As they strolled through the castle, Kabru felt a pang of nostalgia-- walking these stone hallways, with Mithrun, was very familiar. Sometimes dungeoneering felt like a whole other life to him, but he was remembering it vividly now. Strangely, it was comforting. Like putting on an old coat. 

“So, what prompted you to join the tournament? I thought you were still working on romantic desire,” Kabru said. 

He wasn’t even trying to scope out his competition-- his mind was still tired of all the strategizing he’d done earlier, so he was shutting that off, for now-- he was actually just curious. 

“Oh,” Mithrun said. “I thought it would be funny.” 

Kabru closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. He was out here fighting for his life, against a Canary with a sense of humor. And losing. 

“How-- did you write a love letter convincing enough to get to the second round?” he asked, for the second time that day. Knowing Mithrun’s general uncaring attitude towards other people, he doubted he could even describe Laios’s face, let alone any of his good traits. 

“Oh, I just wrote down all the things I remembered you saying about him in the dungeon. So generous, an amazing leader, more handsome than he knows what to do with… ”

That fucking smirk. Mithrun was making fun of him. And it was working. 

“Hey, hey, shut up!” Kabru laughed. He checked around them, but no servants, guards, or dignitaries seemed to have listened closely enough to embarrass him. Or reveal that he’d been greedy for Laios’s attention for a long time before his job here (which might reveal crooked intentions, manipulative habits, horrible vulnerabilities…)

“What about you?” Mithrun asked. He was quiet in a hesitant way, and Kabru could tell he was formulating a further question, so he waited. Although he was a bit suspicious of what the question would be, and what it might force him to admit. 

“It looks like you’ve finally worked up the guts to court him, but… you haven’t, have you? You’re still on edge about it.” Mithrun looked at him sideways, and then back at the hallway. Kabru sighed, feeling his feet drag a little. (A mistake which he quickly amended by walking faster-- Mithrun kept trying to pull ahead, as if Kabru wasn’t the one leading the way. He was the one who knew where Mithrun’s rooms were. Mithrun was just shatteringly self assured that he would be going the right direction.) 

“Well, yeah, I’m on edge about it. He’s the king of an entire kingdom,” Kabru said, trying to keep his tone lighthearted. 

“So? That doesn’t make him better than you.” 

Doesn’t it? Isn’t he?

“I suppose not,” Kabru allowed, despite his thoughts to the contrary. They walked into a side wing, residential, where fewer people were milling in the hallways connecting rooms of major activity. It was more private, and Kabru felt himself relax, further from scrutiny. 

“Kabru,” Mithrun said. 

“Yes?” Kabru said. 

“We aren’t defined by our worst moments,” Mithrun said. “Or our best ones, for that matter. We’re all something in between. Flawed and flawless describe two binary states, but they’re not really exclusive categories. People are so many things at once, it gets messy. Nobody is free of being messy. And that includes you. And that includes your king.” 

“Huh?” 

Kabru couldn’t begin to react to that. Mithrun had completely blindsided him with genuine feeling. Did he know that Kabru was still wracked with guilt, for a million things he could never have controlled? Or that Kabru held himself to an impossible standard of perfection? He was so wrapped up in wondering what had prompted Mithrun to say that, he almost missed the point of what he’d said. 

Was it fair to let himself be flawed? Or was it just lazy. 

“I’m saying you shouldn’t beat yourself up so much,” Mithrun said, interrupting his spiralling thoughts. “It’s bad for morale.”

They walked in quiet for a bit. Kabru stopped at Mithrun’s door. Mithrun opened it and stepped in, but turned around to address him again. 

“Kabru,” he said, with the same tone. 

“Yes?” Kabru said, much more hesitant this time. 

“Let me know if you need help killing that dryad. Maybe we shouldn’t do it in front of the others, though.” 

“She’s not actually a monster, Mithrun, she just looks like one.”  

“Oh. Then we definitely shouldn’t do it in front of the others.” 

Kabru stifled a laugh. It felt good having someone in his morally reprehensible corner. Even though Mithrun was still technically his competition.

“I’ll see you at dinner, Mithrun,” he said. Mithrun looked briefly skeptical at the thought of dinner, but nodded, and Kabru took him at his word.

Chapter Text

Kabru needed to talk to Laios before dinner-- but, not about anything in particular. No important business, no strategic posturing. He just wanted to see him. And, as a suitor, it wasn’t a temptation he had to curb anymore, for the sake of maintaining distance and keeping their jobs secure. Now, they were supposed to be dating. 

It was the time of day where the sun was going down and the air was cooling off, and the bugs would come out in droves to bite people on the elbows. Kabru knew this was Laios’s favorite time of day to be outside. 

Kabru wandered into the castle gardens, wanting to appreciate the flowers and peaceful breeze, but finding himself disappointed by all of the beauty if Laios wasn’t there to enjoy it with him. 

Truly, he was spoiled. To have such wonderful royal gardens and still be disappointed with them. What was wrong with him? Wasn’t love supposed to make him lofty and joyous? Everything he looked at reminded him of Laios, sure, but it wasn’t sweet. He’d look at a bush of fluffy white hydrangeas and think of the time Laios claimed they reminded him of sea foam. 

“That’s beautiful. Feeling poetic?” Kabru had breathed out. He’d been in a romantic mood. 

But Laios had scrunched up his face. “No. I hate sea foam.”

It seemed like a strong grudge for an inanimate object. “Why?”

“Because it looks so delicious! Like whipped cream! But it’s deceptive-- I know it would taste horrible. It’s just water flavored with fish feces and salt.” 

And Kabru was taken so thoroughly by surprise he’d had an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which made Laios laugh by sheer contagion, and Kabru had been so stupidly happy just laughing with him. And now, thinking about it, his Kabru’s heart twisted so hard in his chest it was painful. 

What was sweet about that? Or gentle? This was torturous. Maybe dating Laios was a bad idea-- seeking out the feeling, over and over, could probably kill him. But nobody had ever made him feel like this before, and it was addicting. 

He’d had flings and cute brushes of feelings and intense friendships, and he’d always stayed carefully removed from the equation. He monitored his reactions and kept himself under control. He’d thought it was silly how everybody fell headlong into things. 

But then he met Laios, and his careful emotional distance broke like a city under seige. Laios, in all his genuine feelings, swept Kabru up in the tide.

He walked under the shade of a tree, a bird singing in the branches above. It made him think of music, which made him think of dancing, which made him think, always, of Laios. 

Kabru still hadn’t actually told Laios about their real first meeting, which he was positive Laios didn’t remember. It was at some rowdy tavern, with a group of lively musicians in the corner. Laios saw Kabru sitting alone at a table and asked why he wasn’t having any fun. 

“No, I am, really. I like to watch.” 

“Well, don’t you also like to dance?”

“It’s fine enough.”

They’d danced. Laios had stepped on his foot and laughed in his ear. Kabru couldn’t smell any alcohol on him-- he was just like this. He spun Kabru and Kabru felt his head keep spinning even after he’d been stopped by a hand on his waist and swept into more steps. 

All of it had set him into something like a panic response. He was so positive this was dangerous. Engaging with all this liveliness, feeling it settle under his skin. He sternly told himself to stay removed. Not to get attached. He couldn’t risk something like that-- hadn’t since he was a child. He was only ever okay because he didn’t think about it. It couldn’t hurt him again because he wouldn’t let himself care again. Checkmate. Easy. 

That meant he could laugh with strangers all he wanted, but he couldn’t like it. It was okay as long as he was faking it, not feeling it. 

He’d tried to thank Laios for the dance and separate himself again, but Laios held onto his hand. 

“But, you look so…”

“What?” Kabru snapped. 

“Lonely.”

“That’s okay. I like being alone.” 

Then, as Kabru watched in dawning horror, Laios tapped each of Kabru’s knuckles, on the hand he was still holding. He traced the veins on the back of Kabru’s hand. He rubbed his thumb between the bones of his wrist. Then he flipped his hand over, and held his fingers on Kabru’s pulse. Each little affection made Kabru want to curl up in a ball. 

“No,” Laios said, after a second. “I just checked. You’re human. That makes you a pack animal. Which means you need other people, by default.” 

His heart ached (then, a new feeling. Now familiar). Kabru felt so choked up, by those simple words-- you’re human-- he couldn’t respond. So Laios kept talking. Of course. 

“What, are you scared of dancing?”

Kabru could hardly tell him he was scared of the ground opening up and monsters crawling out and laying waste to everything he loved. He was scared of being loved so much that he was sheltered and controlled, even reduced. Everything horrible that happened to him was a result of caring, and so he’d resolved never to care. Could he say that? He got the harrowing sense this guy would listen. And that, maybe, Kabru wanted him to. 

“Yeah,” Kabru said. “I’m scared of dancing.”

“Well, here, I’ll keep doing it with you. It’s less scary when you’re not alone.”

They’d danced until Kabru was laughing and they danced some more. When Falin came over to tell Laios the rest were going, Laios looked a little sad to tell Kabru goodbye. 

That was their first meeting. 

In the gardens, Kabru walked over a bridge. He saw the silvery backs of small guppies in the stream below, darting and disappearing almost as soon as he saw them. And it made him think of Laios. 

After that night in the tavern, Laios had disappeared off the face of the earth. Kabru learned, later, that his party had gone on a serious dungeon crawl. When they were back on the surface three weeks later, Kabru saw him across the room at a different tavern, dancing with a different stranger. Probably telling them beautiful things about how the nature of humanity is meaningful connection (which could only mean that to deny himself those connections made him more monstrous). 

Kabru didn’t mind that he wasn’t special to him. The more he saw Laios around, the more he got the impression he was just an open guy, who liked trying to talk to people, but was either too busy or too clueless to actually maintain relationships. The number of times Kabru himself tried to approach him, he was met without a glimmer of recognition. 

You told me I was human and it meant something to me, Kabru wanted to yell. You made me care about something for the first time in years, even though it was just a dance. Because it was you. Because you cared so much, and you cared first. Because doing it together made it less terrifying. 

Kabru, in the gardens, saw a magnolia tree. The buds were exploding into a flowery display, petals curling off of stems and scattered over the ground, the smell of sweet pollen overwhelming. There was one bud that was opened, but not fully bloomed, like the rest. It was still stiff, getting used to the idea of being a flower. It made him think of Laios. 

Rather than distance himself, back then, Kabru fell into how much he cared about this stupid stranger. He’d let himself become obsessed with Laios. Every time he introduced himself, Laios smiled and promptly forgot him. Kabru didn’t hold it against him-- instead, he found himself fascinated with the kind of guy that could connect with everyone and not actually connect at all. He supposed it reminded him of himself. 

(Their similarity in this still shocked Kabru. He’d figured out long ago that Laios craved human connection, due to his isolated childhood, but was afraid of it, due to the years of constant bullying. He dealt with this by connecting with people in short bursts-- the span of a dance, a drink, a stroll-- and severing their relationship before they could learn anything strange about him. Nobody could leave him if he left first. It reminded Kabru so much of himself-- don’t get attached-- that it was almost flooring.) 

It didn’t stop with Laios, though. He, hesitantly and with great pains, let himself care about his friends in the party. Rin told him one night that she was glad to have him back-- that even though they’d been within arms reach basically since they were kids, he’d been gone, for a while. They’d hugged while Kabru cried. 

Then he cared about people from his past. Dead friends, dead mom. He hadn’t let himself mourn them-- he’d stopped caring almost as soon as he realized his heart was still beating and would probably keep doing so for a while. Because he couldn’t afford to care. Because it would hurt. 

All of it had been scary-- in fact, it was fucking miserable. But he had Rin, and Holm, and Daya, and Mickbell, and Kuro, and even the shadow of Laios. He wasn’t alone, and that made it less terrifying. 

Bit by bit, Kabru learned that he was human. And he let himself be human, by engaging with the world and the people around him, instead of maintaining that oh so careful distance. It was a habit he was still in-- he cared about Mithrun, and Falin, and Marcille. 

He even cared about Melini, although he was afraid to ever settle in a place with any kind of permanence, again-- what if was ripped from him, again-- but Melini felt right. It felt like home. 

For the first time since he was a child, he kept his coat in a closet, instead of hanging it on the doorknob as soon as he got back. He didn’t leave his shoes by the door-- he had to search for them whenever he wanted to put them on. His bag was full of books, not survival provisions, ready to go at a moment’s notice. He settled. 

It hadn’t all been Laios. Kabru had done the legwork in bettering himself, in being brave every day and working to change his perspectives as he noticed them, and all the support was Rin and the others. Laios had tapped out almost as soon as he started. But damn if he didn’t get the ball rolling, and he had been the subject of Kabru’s obsession from that exact moment. 

Kabru, in the garden, walked by a bush of tubular purple flowers. Two butterflies flittered around, before landing on the same stem and relaxing, fanning their wings next to each other. 

Laios was the person he’d cared about the longest, now. 

He walked past a small fountain display, from a pond complete with ducks that chased each other in playful circles. 

(He’d thought the thing with Laios was just obsession, at first. He figured out, after actually working with Laios, he had a massive, massive crush. That had been a particularly embarrassing journal entry.) 

So, yes. A whole royal garden, and Kabru could only think of Laios. Some knot in him tightened at every recollection. He loved Laios in a painful, almost detrimental way. Because loving Laios challenged every survival mechanism Kabru had carefully constructed since his life was destroyed. Loving Laios wasn’t easy and fun, it had torn him open, rocked his world on its foundations, and fundamentally changed him as a person. 

And it was incredibly high stakes. Because Kabru cared so, so, so damn much. And had, for so long. 

But he kept walking through the shaded paths of the garden looking for him, so he clearly wasn’t all that worried (or he was just a lot more foolish than he liked to tell himself). 

When Kabru heard voices through the rousing cicadas and rustling leaves, he stopped, listening closely to the cadence to see if he could tell who it was. He heard Laios; excited, inquisitive, boyish. He knew who the other person would be by sheer intuition, even before he heard her uncannily musical voice.

It was probably because he was already in the habit of wallowing in his memories, from his walk. But when he stood in a gap in the trees and saw, 50 feet away, Laios and Demdae, sitting in the grass and surrounded by flowers-- suddenly, he felt like the years hadn’t gone by. 

He felt like he was back at that tavern, seeing Laios for the second time, briefly hopeful at the sight of this stranger he’d been enamoured with. And he was dancing with someone else. 

Gods above, I am so pathetic, Kabru thought, with the wave of agony that reared up. He steeled himself. Because he didn’t want to stand around and pine and yearn and do all the stupid shit that lovers do (all the stupid shit he had been doing for years, but that was beside the point). He was an important man with an important job and it was silly to whittle time away standing in gardens mourning what could be. 

All that to say, he walked right up to Laios and Demdae. 

The two of them had been sitting next to each other in a bed of wildflowers, Demdae leaning close to Laios as she spoke to him. When Kabru approached, though, Laios’s face lit up, and he stood, leaving Demdae leaning into empty space. Kabru felt a curl of satisfaction. 

Laios took a few steps to meet Kabru at the edge of the grassy spot, arms forward like he meant to grab him by the waist, or the forearms. Kabru blinked at that. 

“Hey! I can’t believe you can cook samosas,” Laios said, as if it were a hello. He did, in fact, hold a hand on Kabru’s hip for a second, as a greeting, before putting his arms down. Kabru thought about exploding, as he felt himself flush and wondered how much it showed. 

“Well, it’s never gone that well before. Usually I manage to start a fire, and burn the samosas, and then they still come out cold,” Kabru said. His voice was surprisingly under control. Laios laughed, and the sound made Kabru ridiculously pleased.

“Good thing we kept the cooks in the kitchen, then?” Laios asked. His hands were twitching, Kabru could see from the corner of his eye. Did he want to keep touching him? 

Don’t hold yourself back on my account, please, literally anything but that, Kabru thought. Lose control. I can’t afford to. I’d blame myself if I did. It has to be you. 

“Definitely,” Kabru said. 

Maybe he’s holding back because of Demdae. Is he embarrassed to be affectionate in public? Why is she still here?

“What are you doing here?” Laios asked, and for a second Kabru thought he was echoing his thoughts. But, it was to him, not Demdae. Right. He was the one interrupting. Kabru tried to keep his head in the present, and not in the fantasies of grabbing Laios by the collar and pushing him into a tree and seeing if those twitching hands land on his hips again. 

“Checking on you,” Kabru said. He leaned in to mutter, “I didn’t know you and Demdae were so close, Your Majesty.” 

Ooo, Laios hated that. His eyebrows pinched and he looked away from Kabru. Kabru had successfully made him uncomfortable (it was hugely unfair, but a part of him wanted to punish Laios for spending time with Demdae). And reminding Laios of his rank when they were alone like this always made Laios a little bitter. 

“A King is a public figure,” Laios would say. “I’m not King in private. Not behind closed doors. I don’t like that you see me that way.”

“I can’t help but see you that way; it’s the truth. You’ll go to sleep King and you’ll wake up King. You can dream the whole night about living in mud, and you’ll still be King while you’re doing it.”

“Kings don’t dream. They have everything.”

Kabru wondered if he hated the responsibility or the power. Maybe he just hated being the center of attention. Either way, Kabru was reminding him, kings probably shouldn’t be alone with dryad ladies in beautiful flower gardens. (Not that Laios noticed all that underlying implication. He probably just heard Kabru use his title and hated it.) 

“We’re not all that close,” Demdae chimed in, having heard Kabru even though he muttered. Damn elf ears. “But we’re getting closer. Isn’t that right, Your Majesty?” 

Kabru waited for Laios to flinch at the title but, just like during the taste test earlier, he seemed unaffected. Kabru felt it was viciously unfair that she could use his title and he couldn’t. 

He expects familiarity from me in a way he doesn’t expect from her. That feels like an advantage. Or does that expectation limit me in a way she doesn’t have to worry about? 

Laios turned to face her slightly more, and Kabru felt every inch he pulled away from him. 

“Yeah! We were just… talking,” Laios said. 

Kabru reminded himself Laios did not hear the implication of that hesitation. 

From the corners of Demdae’s smile getting sharper, he could tell she absolutely heard the implication. 

“Yes,” she said. “Talking. You have such a lovely voice, Laios, it’s nice and thick.”

Hm, Kabru thought. There’s that duck pond just down the path. I could drown her.

“Nobody’s ever described my voice as thick before. That’s such a weird way to say that. Why would you say that?” Laios said. His incredulous tone made Kabru smile, slightly. He felt wicked even as he decided to make use of Laios’s confusion. 

“I think it’s an implication, Laios. She’s describing you as thick in the head,” Kabru lied. He leaned in closer to remind Laios he was there for him. He spoke quietly so Laios felt like they were sharing something just for the two of them. He switched from his title back to his name so it would feel personal. 

He watched a blush start at the tip of Laios’s ears. Check, check, and check. It all worked. Such a fun game.

“But we weren’t talking about my head,” Laios muttered back, clearly confused. 

We were talking about one of them, Kabru thought. 

“Oh, is that what that sounded like? I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean that!” Demdae said, changing demeanor entirely from the evil smirk she’d had a second ago. A notable difference between when she was talking to Kabru and when she was talking to Laios. 

Kabru felt a spike of irritation that she’d denied she’d made any implication. Why couldn’t she just let him slander her?

“See? She didn’t mean that at all, Kabru,” Laios said, sounding relieved. 

Damn him, he was always ready to see the best in people. It was something Kabru loved about him, but something that gave him daily headaches. Especially in this moment-- when Kabru was telling him he was being insulted, and rather than believe him, he believed Demdae that it was an honest mistake, making Kabru look paranoid. Actively choosing Demdae over Kabru. Why was he so determined to like her? Couldn’t he just-- be insulted and kick her out of the tournament and never think about her again? It would be better for Kabru’s health. 

“My apologies. I’m glad I was mistaken. What precisely did you mean, then, when you called his voice thick?” Kabru said. He made his disdain for that particularly stupid descriptor obvious. Demdae didn’t even have the grace to look uncomfortable about having to explain herself. 

“Just that it’s so-- multilayered! I love listening to him,” she said. 

“Aw, well, it’s not all that special,” Laios said, looking embarrassed. 

Kabru would not let himself be outdone. Especially by a direct competitor. 

“No, it’s true, Laios, I could listen to you for hours, about anything,” Kabru said. Laios rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Anything?” he asked.

“But I wouldn’t just listen to you, Laios, I love talking with you, and really engaging with what you’re saying,” Demdae shot back.

“I don’t just engage with you when you’re talking, I do research about the things you tell me between conversations, because I want to learn everything about you, and everything that you care about,” Kabru said. 

“You’re so fascinating,” Demdae said. She’d stood and walked up behind Laios, leaning over his shoulder. Laios startled and turned his head towards her. 

Kabru took both of Laios’s hands and squeezed them in his own. Laios startled back into looking at him. 

“You’re more than just fascinating,” he said. “You’re perfect, Laios.” 

“Uh, uhhh,” Laios said, eyes darting between Kabru and Demdae. He was clammed up, still embarrassed. Kabru had gotten so distracted out-complimenting Demdae, he forgot it would overwhelm Laios to be blatantly fought over by two people he thought were pretty. 

Wait. Did Laios think he was pretty? 

Kabru reached up and held Laios’s chin, looking closely at his eyes. Sure enough, they dilated, and his breathing sped up. Yeah, he thought Kabru was pretty. That was good to know. 

But then Demdae trailed a hand into his hair and started stroking his scalp, and, this close, Kabru heard the breath suck out of Laios’s lungs. 

He didn’t see how he could one-up that one without leaning forward and breathing the air back into him, mouth to mouth. For an insane moment, he considered it. His head spun and his eyes focussed on Laios’s mouth and he thought, I could do it. He’d kissed plenty of people for reasons more useless than this-- something that supplied Rin with endless exasperation. Games on games. 

But he refused to let his first kiss with Laios be something so petty. Fuck, but it meant something. 

So Kabru looked back up at Laios’s eyes-- almost watery with want and embarrassment and confusion, poor guy, getting caught between two hungry predators like this. Then Kabru smiled, as reassuringly as he could, and he politely took his hands off Laios and stepped away. 

With the distance, he could see the full picture of Demdae latched onto Laios, could track the angle of her elbow as she kept her hand in his hair. It made Kabru see red. He briefly second guessed his decision not to… ‘mark his territory’ couldn’t be the right words, but those were the ones that came to mind. 

But Kabru was being reasonable, and he was being patient, and he was being smart. He’d briefly lost control, but he was pulling back. Thinking about his job. Thinking about keeping Laios comfortable. Thinking about how you don’t kiss people as a part of some stupid jealousy contest. 

Demdae’s continued attachment to Laios did make him shift his weight like he was about to draw his sword, though. Okay. No. Controlled.

He would get Demdae eliminated from the tournament soon enough. There had to be a way to drive a wedge between them in the meantime. Since he hadn’t helped organize her accommodations, he didn’t know anything about Demdae-- who she was here with, which continent she’d travelled from, things she found important enough to travel with. Nothing. 

He didn’t have any personal information he could lever against her, but he did have the advantage of his station. 

“Before I leave, Laios, Marcille needed to talk to you. Can I walk you back to the castle?” 

“Uh, o-of course,” Laios said.

“But Laios, I thought you were going to show me where my rooms were?” Demdae said. 

“If you ask an attendant, they’ll be sure to help you,” Kabru said. “Come on, Laios.” 

“I don’t even know the way out of the gardens by myself…” Demdae said. A ridiculous fabrication. She could easily see the castle through the trees. Nonetheless, Laios hesitated. 

“Your Majesty,” Kabru said, somewhat sternly. That got his attention. 

“Sorry, Demdae, it seems I have duties to attend to,” Laios said, stepping away from her and all her ministrations. Kabru could have crowed with victory. 

When Laios saw her looking… a little frozen (like she was shocked at her loss against Kabru, which was laughable. He’d been bidding for Laios’s attention for years, of course he could outdo her attempts at it), Laios offered; “do you want to walk back to the castle with us?” 

“No,” Kabru and Demdae said, at the same time. Laios looked between them. 

“Okay…” Laios said. Demdae was now officially glaring at Kabru. He didn’t care. He smiled at Laios, and even held out his elbow for Laios to hook his through, as he came closer. A quick bid at proximity, and one that worked. 

He didn’t even throw a smug glance over his shoulder, as he and Laios walked away, arm in arm. Because it wasn’t about beating Demdae. It was about winning time with Laios. As long as he and Laios were walking together, it didn’t matter who was behind them. 

The garden unfurled around them as they strolled down familiar pebbled paths, the cicadas louder now and the light less harsh than its full golden hour revelry. Kabru’s chest was buzzing pleasantly, as he was surrounded by blushing flowers and perfumey scents-- all of these natural wonders, and Laios. 

“Did Marcille mention what she wanted to talk to me about?” Laios asked.

Ah. This was the part where he either had to admit he lied (which would make Laios so sad) or bid on Marcille actually having something to talk to Laios about. He decided on the second option. Kabru hoped she took her self-appointment to his ‘love coach’ seriously, because he needed a wingman. He couldn’t fight this whole thing himself. 

“She didn’t mention,” Kabru said. Laios sighed, head lolling to the side in his apparent exhaustion. The motion made him faceplant into the leaves of a low-hanging branch, but he only flinched briefly. 

“It’s probably something about the tournament. She has so many opinions on my love life.”

Kabru wondered what that was like. Having opinions on Laios’s love life. He couldn’t imagine. 

“What do you like about Demdae?” Kabru asked, before he could stop himself. If he heard an edge of insecurity in his voice, that was his own business. 

“Uh,” Laios said, turning red again. 

“Does she actually listen and engage when you talk? Or was she just saying that?” Kabru said. 

“I, uh, I think she listens? She stares at me. Laughs at all my jokes, asks questions when I use terms that’re too specific.” Laios started muttering, voice trailing off. Kabru still heard. “Her eyes are so wide, she actually reminds me of…” 

“A dryad?” Kabru asked. Laios whipped his head around to look at him, wide eyed in his own right, like he’d been caught. 

“How did you know?” Laios said. Kabru barked a laugh. 

“She reminds you of a dryad because she looks exactly like one, it’s not a unique conclusion. I had to convince Mithrun she was actually an elf,” Kabru said. 

“She’s an elf?” Laios asked. Kabru rolled his eyes, mostly because he had to beseech the gods above for patience. He didn’t even notice she’s an elf. 

If anything, this was good. It meant Laios wasn’t paying as much real attention to her as Kabru feared. But…

Kabru smirked. “Laios, you dog. I had no idea you were so shallow.”

“I’m not!” Laios said. 

“You like more than just her appearance?”

“Of course!” 

“Do you know where she’s from?”

Laios paused for a long time. “Probably the West, right? If she’s an elf?” 

“How about her age?” 

Laios was carefully looking everywhere but at Kabru. 

“You like her because she looks like a monster,” Kabru said, looking up to the sky again. Gods, are you seeing this shit? 

“Can you blame me? It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything even vaguely monster related--” Laios was whapped in the face by another low branch, giving Kabru the chance to interrupt as he spluttered.

“I can abso lutely blame you for deciding to marry someone based on appearance alone. As your advisor, I actually have to forbid it, because it is such a ridiculously bad idea,” Kabru said. 

“Well, you don’t get to advise me on the tournament, since you’re competing,” Laios said, officially pouting. And, oh, shit, there’s the reminder that they were actually courting right now. Or, Kabru was courting Laios, and all he had in return was an offhand comment (“I miss you when you leave” was enough to make Kabru consider kissing him, apparently) and the newfound knowledge that Laios thought he was pretty. 

“Not as your advisor, then,” Kabru said. “Consider it advice from a friend. Don’t marry someone for a stupid reason.”

“Friend?” Laios asked, caught up on the single word. Kabru’s brain reeled back from the point he’d been making, latching onto this instead. 

“Of course, I mean, of course, what else…?” It was Kabru’s turn to be flustered. 

They were nearing the courtyard of the castle, but Laios slowed down, tugging Kabru back. Laios unhooked their arms and-- god, the audacity of it-- cupped Kabru’s jaw. 

What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck--

“You know, I saw you looking at my mouth, earlier,” Laios said, voice deepening. Kabru managed to process that Laios was now staring at his lips, a complete turn around from before, because now Kabru was the one who was frozen, and, oh god, was this happening? Was this about to happen? 

“And you’re the one currently competing to marry me,” Laios went on. His eyes moved up to meet Kabru’s gaze. “So, forgive me for asking, but, are we really friends, Kabru?” 

Kabru felt all the air in his chest cavity wheeze out. His heart was squeezing so tightly, and he could barely concentrate. If he was in his right mind, he’d be offended by that. Romance and friendship are not mutually exclusive, Laios! It’s actually much worse if you aren’t friends with your lover! 

Unless… Laios did hate when people said one thing and meant another. Did he think, all this time, Kabru had been playing at being his friend, while wanting something else from him? All Kabru had ever wanted was whatever Laios was willing to offer. His attention, in any way Kabru could have it. He never regretted being his friend. In fact, he loved it. Laios didn’t think it had all been pretense to bed him, did he? 

“We are friends, Laios,” Kabru said, with enough certainty to make it true. 

Laios raised his eyebrows and started lowering his hand from Kabru’s jaw. Every nerve in Kabru’s body sparked with an instinctual, ‘ no, don’t go,’ so Kabru lightly held onto Laios’s wrist, keeping his hand in place. He resisted the urge to nuzzle into it, or kiss the palm. It took a frankly masterful level of self control.

“But being your friend doesn’t mean I don’t want to kiss you, dumbass,” Kabru said. 

Laios paused, then rumbled a laugh. Fuck, that sound. It was enough to distract Kabru from what he’d just admitted to. Out loud, with his words, to Laios’s face. Some back corner of his mind was setting off klaxon bells and starting fires, but right now, in the primary part of his brain, everything was glowing around the edges and focussed on the golden image of Laios. 

Laios ran his thumb over the junction of Kabru’s jaw. Kabru thought about sobbing. 

“I suppose I’m confused,” Laios said. “Because you make me feel things that I’ve never felt about any of my friends. Sometimes just being in the same room as you makes me feel like I’m on fire. That’s not friendship, is it?” 

Kabru thought about his years of obsession, his begging for attention, his careful distance and his constant fear and his chronic overthinking. 

“No,” he said. “It’s not.” 

Laios nodded. “So, we are friends, but we’re also something else?” If this conversation went on another second, while his hand rested on Kabru’s cheek, hot as a brand and sending Kabru into a breathless freefall, Kabru might actually kill Laios. 

“Yes-- Laios, would you kiss me?” Kabru said. His eyes skirted over Laios’s face, drinking in every detail of him. “I want you to.”

Laios’s eyes relaxed, and his mouth curled at the corner, and he leaned in. As the tip of his nose touched the side of Kabru’s, he felt the knot in his chest that only ever seemed to tighten finally snap, followed by a rush of emotions-- love, joy, excitement…

Right before Laios’s mouth fit over his, someone called, “Laios!” from the castle. Laios kept leaning in, but Kabru pulled back harshly. His spine prickled. Right. Right. They were being watched. This was probably improper, considering he was one of many suitors at the moment, and if rumors spread of this interaction, it could be deemed some sort of unfair advantage, or seduction, or something. Maybe a longstanding affair. He couldn’t afford this kiss, in this moment. 

Besides, hadn’t he decided not to? That he couldn’t burden Laios with himself? What had happened to that conviction? He needed to reexamine it. 

Knowing Laios returned his feelings, he actually needed to reexamine everything. 

“Kabru…” Laios whined, looking at his mouth. Every muscle in Kabru’s body tensed, just about ready to pounce him. But, no. He had to think of the politics of the situation. 

“Someone’s looking for you,” Kabru said. His voice sounded dead, even to himself. Fuck, he should’ve made it-- longing, gentle, joking, something. 

“I don’t care,” Laios said. 

“You should. And you do. You’re just,” Kabru took a step away, although it was agony, and smoothed down the front of his tunic. “Distracted. And I apologize for that. You have duties to attend to-- go find whoever’s looking for you now, and then Marcille after dinner.” 

“Kabru…” Laios whined again. Kabru smiled at him. 

“I’m not going anywhere. I live here, you know. We can talk later.” 

Laios looked at him like he was-- hungry? No, starving. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Kabru didn’t know if he had the emotional capacity to deal with that. What had he been thinking, earlier? That loving Laios wasn’t sweet, and here was the proof, it really wasn’t. It was like an earthquake, a volcano, a natural fucking disaster. 

Laios turned on his heel and wandered into the castle. Kabru stood there and cooled down for a few minutes, before wandering in to find Marcille. Both to warn her that she needed to talk to Laios about something (to cover his own ass), and to go over what would happen in the next event of the tournament. Maybe he would ask her for intel on Demdae. He once again hoped Marcille took her position as love coach seriously, because she was about to sit through a major strategy session. 

Because now that Kabru knew what it felt like almost kissing Laios, he could not even begin to conceive of imagining the idea of losing. He was more determined than ever. He had to do this. He had to win that kiss. 

You can’t risk it, part of him thought. Get out while you still can, before you’ve even kissed. You’ll ruin it by overthinking it. You’re not built to love, Kabru. He deserves a better partner than you. 

Maybe it was true. 

But there was a jittery, excited feeling in his chest, and he felt like he was walking on air, and Kabru was a selfish enough bastard to continue pursuing Laios anyway. 

Maybe it’s not so selfish if he likes me back. 

Try as he might, Kabru couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. 

--

Kabru darkened the door of Marcille’s study. Marcille straightened in her chair ominously. 

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said. 

“No time for dramatics, Marcille, he almost kissed me,” Kabru said, bursting with the news. Marcille flailed hard enough she toppled in her chair. 

“WHAT? OH MY GOD! KABR-- wait what do you mean almost?” 

“We got interrupted,” Kabru said. He was surprised by how dangerous he sounded. 

“Okay, but still-- how did it happen? Why were you standing so close together? Who made the first move? How did you feel the atmosphere shift from friendly to romantic?” 

Kabru got the sense she was taking notes for her own escapades. Still, he indulged it. 

“It wasn’t… romantic, really.” He didn’t mention the moment Laios’s voice got scratchy, and how it immediately changed the air around them. There were some things Marcille didn’t need to know. “I was talking about how he shouldn’t marry Demdae, and--”

“Why were you spending your alone time with him talking about one of your competitors? Kabru? Are you stupid?” Marcille said. 

“He was with her when I found him. She was a germaine topic,” Kabru said, defensive.

“He was with her?”

“Are you all that surprised? Like you said, she is my competitor. We’re all technically dating him.”

Marcille sighed. “Not to mention she’s his type.” 

At that admission, Kabru collapsed into a chair and ran his hands down his face. It was basically his worst fear. 

“I have to get her eliminated, Marcille. I have to win this tournament. Or he’ll marry someone else and I’ll have to spend my whole life watching them be in love.”

Marcille nodded sagely. “I know the feeling.”

Kabru couldn’t help the skeptical look between his fingers.

“No, really! I have… a… crush…”

“On Falin, I know,” Kabru said. Maybe he’d usually be more graceful about it, or pretend he wasn’t aware, but he’d had a long day. Marcille turned red, and he could swear he saw steam coming off of her. 

“WHAT hahaha how did you know,” she said. Her hawkish gaze and harsh question were watered down by the way she was still blushing. 

Kabru just raised an eyebrow at her. 

“Kabru!” she said. He sighed. 

“You’re always standing in her personal space, you respond directly to her even when there are other people in the conversation, you steal her clothes--yes, I know it’s you, she mentions she lost a shirt and you immediately look guiltily out a window for the next ten minutes--you spend days with her at a time under the guise of sleepovers, and get pouty when she suggests you sleep separately for a night…”

“Okay! Okay! I get it!” Marcille squeaked.

“You asked,” Kabru said. 

“Please don’t tell her I’m the one stealing her clothes,” Marcille said. 

“I can be trusted with state secrets,” Kabru said, leaning back in his chair. “It is literally my job.” 

“Okay, well. All that to say-- when Shuro proposed to Falin, I thought the world was ending,” Marcille said. Kabru tilted his head. 

“You’ve had the crush for that long?” he asked. Marcille sighed in a way that made her whole body sag. 

“I think I’ve had this crush for… ever? I only really realized it after…” Marcille’s mouth flattened and she looked away. As much as Laios looked back fondly at his time in the dungeon, Kabru got the impression it was a lot more traumatic for Marcille. Laios could be comforted by the fact it worked out in the end; Marcille was still haunted by the weeks she’d spent uncertain whether Falin would live or die. It didn’t mean she loved Falin more. Just that she and Laios loved people differently. 

“Anyway, Shuro’s proposal was a rough patch for me. I would have actual nightmares about her being swept into the ocean. Or about eating dinner with a stranger, only to realize it was her, but she was someone I didn’t recognize… her hair was longer, and she dressed differently, and spoke differently… she’d been irrevocably changed by a million experiences I wasn’t there for.”

Kabru thought about what he would do if Laios changed that extremely, outside of his line of sight. The sense of lost time. His stomach dropped. 

“Harrowing,” he said. 

Marcille nodded. “It sounds silly out loud, but yeah, it was. I was really freaked out. So, I get it. Watching so many people court him, knowing at any second you could lose him due to his whims or your own inadequacy…” 

Kabru leaned his head back and groaned. 

“There, there. We’ll destroy them,” Marcille said. “Plus, it sounds like you have a good shot, if he’s almost kissing you.” 

“Who’s almost kissing who?” Falin’s voice came from the door. Marcille sat up ramrod straight and smiled sweetly at the sight of her. It reminded Kabru of his own smile, the one he used to charm people. 

“Falin! Do you need something!” 

“I came to get you for dinner,” Falin said, smiling. Kabru had the distinct sense he was third wheeling, which, as long as it wasn’t with Laios, was actually something he enjoyed quite a bit. He liked the opportunity to observe other people’s dynamics. For example, he didn’t know Falin preferred to eat dinner with Marcille (rather than without). He thought they showed up together as a consequence of the time they always spent together-- he didn’t know Falin actively sought her out. Interesting. 

He decided to interrupt, though. He wanted Falin’s insights.

“Laios almost kissed me,” Kabru said. Falin’s eyes went wide. 

“Oh!” she said. Kabru examined her face for surprise, and there was some. There was also excitement, which was a good sign. He also caught a hint of-- pride? She was narrowing her eyes now that the initial shock was gone, and she looked a little menacing. 

“Is that a problem?” Kabru asked. Falin shook her head. 

“Not at all,” she said. It seemed genuine. What was that look in her eye, then? And that sly look from days ago, he was remembering it now. Something was afoot. 

“Did you know he liked me?” Kabru said. Falin looked absently around the room. 

“He talks about you a lot,” Falin said. It wasn’t a direct answer-- was she dodging the question on purpose? 

“He talks about plenty of things a lot,” Kabru pressed. “Does he have feelings for Chilchuck? For the dwarven princess with a pet giant frog? What makes me special?” 

“Uhhhh…” Falin said. She still wasn’t looking at him. She definitely knew something. “I don’t know…” she said. 

“Falin, if you have information, it’s important you tell us,” Marcille said imperiously. 

“Why? Is something wrong?” Falin asked. She finally looked back at the two of them, seeming actually concerned. There was plenty wrong-- lots of mysteries still to solve, lots of tasks he still had to prove himself by doing (chances, still, to fail), with stakes high enough that Kabru had to crane his head to look at them. He didn’t know where to start. 

“Actually, I’m worried about Demdae,” Kabru said, steepling his fingers. She was his primary fear, at the moment. Everything else he could handle later. 

Falin shook her head. “Don’t be. My brother doesn’t actually like her.” 

Kabru thought about Laios and Demdae, alone in a patch of wildflowers. He thought about her hand on his scalp, and how quickly Laios became breathless at that. Was that reaction specific to Demdae? He’d have to scruff a hand in Laios’s hair and find out. 

“I have more reason to worry than you might think. What makes you say he doesn’t like her?” Kabru said. Falin shook her head again, more insistent. 

“When he stares at her, it’s like he’s working out a puzzle. It’s totally off. When he cares about someone, they make him light up, like, fwing! Whenever he sees them. Literally every time. And then he misses his people a lot, when they’re away from him-- he’ll look around corners like he’s expecting them on the other side, or doors like he’s waiting for them to walk through. And he goes, do you think so-and-so will show up soon?”

Kabru was familiar with all of those behaviors. He’d seen Laios do that plenty of times, for Falin, or for Senshi, and so on. She definitely had a point. Falin kept on;

“Demdae hasn’t prompted that reaction from him, yet. I just saw him, and he wasn’t talking about her. He is-- interested by her, but I don’t think he likes her. I think he likes the way she looks.” 

Kabru felt minutely comforted by this. It wasn’t to say that Laios couldn’t develop feelings for Demdae in the future, or that she couldn’t just win the tournament and marry him, feelings or no. But it did mean he didn’t have to worry so much about Laios’s monster obsession biasing the results of the judging. Maybe. 

He could still find problems to overanalyze, of course. 

“Then I guess I’m worried about her intentions. If she’s not successfully seducing him, maybe she’s not just here to marry Laios. What if she’s using the tournament as an excuse to get into the castle and steal classified information?”

Marcille gasped dramatically. “Maybe she’s going to attempt to assassinate him!” she said, distraught. 

Falin got a terrifying glint in her eye. “I’d like to see her try,” she said. 

“I would decidedly not like to see her try,” Kabru responded, carefully. Not just because he’d already staved off two assassinations, and he hated the prickly, uncertain feeling in the air afterwards, like the whole world could have been dislodged if he hadn’t been fast enough. 

But also the idea of Laios getting injured made him feel crazy, and not only in the concerned, protective way. Chest heaving, hair messy, eyes wide, covered in blood. Injuries made people weak, after all, and that made them vulnerable… 

Kabru shifted in his chair and got his imagination under control. 

“Marcille, you had to research the candidates for marriage, surely. What do you know about Demdae?” he asked. 

Marcille put her chin in her hand, humming. 

“She’s pretty boring, actually. Her parents were a part of some great scandal and moved from the West to Kahka Brud, and she grew up there, free of all those elven politics. Only child, had steady work making flower arrangements, favorite food is blueberry muffins. She likes music, which is a stupid point of personality, everyone likes music…”

“Sorry, you said her parents were part of a political scandal?” Kabru asked. 

“Weren’t everyone’s?” Falin said. Kabru could not physically sigh hard enough to deal with the Touden siblings. 

“Her parents’ life doesn’t necessarily affect her. Like I said, she grew up away from all of that,” Marcille said. 

Kabru shook his head. “It’s naive to think anybody is free of the influence of their parents’ actions. Marcille, I know you’ve read enough to be familiar with the concept of ‘sins of the father’. We’re all a result of the way we were raised. And Falin, even if political scandals were commonplace, it’s an external factor that people can’t control, and can’t escape-- it’ll chase someone for their whole life, if they’re not careful.”

“So you think Demdae’s parents… are pressuring her into becoming Queen? As a way to reconnect with the power they’ve lost?” Marcille said. Kabru shook his head and sat up straighter, feeling excitement as the threads started coming together. 

“Or that she was raised in the shadow of what could have been. Her parents were likely used to luxurious things, and probably adjusted poorly to living amongst commoners. Demdae would have grown up with a fierce hunger for a better life she was locked out of before she had a chance to live it.” 

“That’s a lot of assumptions…” Falin said. 

“Hardly. I’ve seen her in action. She’s cunning; she was definitely raised by politicians. And whatever she wants from Laios, she’s determined to get it-- if she weren’t, there are a few fights she would have backed down from, by now. Do you know what the scandal with her parents was?” Kabru turned to Marcille. 

To his dismay, Marcille shook her head. How could she have ignored an entire political scandal in one of the contestants’ pasts? This was why Kabru was the primary advisor. 

“Okay, okay, I’ll look into it myself. Do you know her family name?” Kabru stood and walked up to Marcille’s desk, vaguely scanning the documents. She flapped a hand at him. 

“No, I’ll handle the research. You need to keep your focus on the tournament. The next event is tomorrow.”

Kabru felt a spike of anxiety. “So soon?” 

Marcille nodded, sorting papers. “Laios insisted. He’s excited.”

“I wouldn’t worry, Kabru, you’re going to do great!” Falin said. 

“Can you tell me what this one will be, at least?” Kabru asked. Falin and Marcille shared a look. 

“Duels,” Marcille said. 

Kabru relaxed for a second-- I know how to fight, that’s easy-- and then immediately got tense again-- plenty of gladiator fights are against wild animals, and I do not know how to find the carotid artery on a grizzly bear. 

“Against each other?” he asked, nervously. Falin nodded, and he relaxed again. Then he tensed again as the implications started calculating. There were too many variables. 

“To first blood or to incapacitation? Do we choose our weapons or are they standardized across contestants? Is magic allowed?” he asked. Any of those choices would have a heavy influence on the outcomes of the matches. Marcille held up a hand. 

“You’ll hear the rules tomorrow,” she said. 

“Marcille, I need to strategize--” 

“You need to eat dinner, and sleep,” she said, firmly. “Now get out of here so Falin and I can research Demdae.” 

It was not a task Falin had signed up for, but she seemed comfortable walking into the room and sitting in a different chair than Kabru had been, nearer to Marcille’s desk. From the way she settled into it immediately, Kabru guessed it was her usual seat. 

He didn’t forget that there was some secret Falin was keeping from him, but she seemed to be on his side, so he wouldn’t push it for now. Besides, he had the feeling that her secrets were her brother’s secrets. The two were automatic partners in crime. And, as hungry as he was for Laios’s secrets, he wanted to hear them from Laios’s mouth. 

It was like how he didn’t kiss Laios earlier (when competing for his affections against Demdae). Making a less strategic choice because of his feelings. God. Kabru was a romantic. A bloody sap. What an inconvenient thing to learn about himself. 

“Are neither of you coming to dinner, then?” he asked, at the door. It wasn’t like them to skip meals. 

“We’ll grab something from the kitchen later,” Marcille said, and Falin giggled, glancing at Marcille. How often did they eat privately? Abandoning the company of an entire castle to steal a moment with the other? 

Kabru wished he and Laios had the luxury. But, as he was always quick to remind Laios, King was a public office. He’d go to sleep King and wake up King, and wouldn’t even have the chance to dream-- because everyone needed the King’s attention, and Kabru was only one of a crowd. 

Sometimes, Kabru wished he didn’t care so much about politics, or their jobs. He wished he actually had the guts to pursue that life of piracy, for freedom, for adventure, for kisses in the night with the sound of the ocean surrounding them. It was a lovely daydream. They would be free of all these hangups that Kabru obsessed over. 

He bid the mages goodnight and made his way to Mithrun’s room, to make sure he upheld his promise of coming to dinner. As he walked in the dark, Kabru strategized, despite Marcille’s instructions to give it a rest. He couldn’t help himself. 

Obviously, he would aim to get Demdae eliminated tomorrow. He hadn’t seen her fight, so he didn’t know how good she was. If he had to wager, though, he’d be putting money on himself and Mithrun. Demdae would lose against them both, and so would Senshi-- from what Kabru knew, he wasn’t very competent in battle, despite his dwarven physique. Meaning the elimination tomorrow would come down to who lost the fight between Demdae and Senshi. 

He had to think of a way to ensure that Senshi would win that fight. At least, if he married Laios, Kabru would eat well for the rest of his miserable life.

Chapter Text

List of ways to eliminate Demdae during the duels:

    - Release a wild bull into the arena

    - Give Senshi caffeine

    - Disguise Mithrun as Senshi & ask him to fight her twice

    - Kill Demdae 

            - That would get you disqualified, Kabru

    - Distraction-- find out who her mother is & invite her

    - Rig the arena with poisonous gas

    - Release two wild bulls into the arena 

Kabru sighed. He’d been working on this list for almost an hour, and had basically nothing to show for it. He was distracted, and that was throwing off his strategic thinking, as his mind wandered to bigger, blonder things. Maybe he could concentrate better if he organized those thoughts, too. 

He flipped to a new page in his journal, and dipped the quill in fresh ink. 

List of things that are distracting me:

    - Laios’s hands (how they felt on my hips, jaw)

            - What does it mean that he touched me there?

            - Hips-- intimate, much more so than shoulder or bicep-- was that purposeful flirting?

                    - Was it possessive? Do I want it to be? Stupid question-- Yes

                    - Hips guide where you move-- was he trying to bring me closer?

            - Jaw-- vulnerable-- holding my neck in his hands, and I let him

                    - Was it threatening? Trying to make me scared of him & more agreeable-- no

                            - He wouldn’t do that, never uses threatening posturing

                    - Control, vulnerability & trust, intimacy 

                    - Maybe he just wanted to kiss me

                            - What the fuck

    - Laios’s nose (how it felt against my nose) 

    - Laios’s laugh (different than usual; throaty)

            - People’s throats close up when they’re nervous-- was he nervous?

            - Was he getting worked up?

            - Totally reasonable explanation; muttering because of how close we were, just used that quieter part of his throat to laugh

    - Laios’s words (“feels like he’s on fire when he’s in a room w/ me”)

            - Possible nonromantic explanations; panic response, political pressure, getting sick

            - Combined w/ “I miss you when you leave,” I fear it may be a crush

    - Laios’s eyes (beautiful, expressive, intent, half-closed, looking at me )

    - Laios

    - Laios 

    - Laios

Kabru literally didn’t know what to do with himself. This was embarrassing, for one. Just writing Laios’s name over and over, like a smitten schoolgirl. He flipped to another empty page. 

List of reasons I should calm down & stop this madness:

    - My job could be jeopardized

            - Actually, marriage might be best possible job security 

    - I care too much; don’t know how I would react to getting something I want so badly

            - Immediate self destructive habits?? Push him away??

            - Easier to deprive myself-- safer, known results (pining eternally forever)

    - I am imperfect 

            - Manipulative / anxious / traumatized / bitchy / controlling / obsessive

                    - But aren’t I willing to change for him?

                    - If I know my own flaws, can’t I be better? 

Damn, his problem solving had kicked in. He’d started creating a plan to better himself and marry Laios without even realizing. The point was to remind himself why he and Laios couldn’t be together; their incompatibility would ruin them, the breakup would be messy, and Kabru didn’t know if he could stop caring about Laios. He had to be smart about this. So why was Kabru’s heart still racing? Why was listing all the reasons not to just motivating him to fix those problems and move forward?

Well, he knew the answer to that. Nearly kissing him had put Kabru on the scent. He was tracking Laios’s affections like a hunting dog that needed blood. 

Kabru sighed and leaned back in his chair. It was late, so he was writing by candlelight. He was supposed to be sleeping, per Marcille’s instruction, but he couldn’t turn off his brain, so he’d gotten up to do some potential plotting. He reoriented himself to that original goal. Whatever itchiness had been distracting him before was gone now that he’d written out Laios’s name eight times, had a few daydreams housed by parentheses, and then centered himself with self deprecative cynicism. 

He flipped back to the first list he’d started. 

    - Give Senshi a pep talk

            - Find out what’s motivating him; appeal to that

    - Interrupt whoever’s healing Demdae between rounds

            - Won’t fight as well w/ partial wounds 

    - There was something to that distraction plan

            - Release three wild bulls into the arena

            - Marcille-- harmless magic effects from crowd

                    - Loud noises, gusts of wind, shadows (to strike at or flinch from-- distract )

He put the quill down and stretched his hand. He felt good about this assembly of plans-- he really did just need to get his pining out of his system to concentrate again. Laios was bad for his health. And his work ethic. And his sleep schedule.

Now that he was thinking about him again, though, Kabru felt something warm settling between his lungs. He felt soft, and realized he was smiling. God, he was exhausted. 

He didn’t know if it was nostalgia or humor or the familiarity of the ache that made him flip back through his journal, to the first few pages. It started with political organizations, drafts of speeches, social webs. Then, about seven pages in, there was an entry where he’d just been-- trying to sort out his thoughts. Defining his feelings by putting them on paper. Quelling a whirlwind, because he could not handle just how much his brain thought, sometimes. 

As he’d organized his thoughts, he’d realized he was ridiculously in love with Laios. After the initial realization, he kept going back to that section, marking down different parts of Laios’s behavior and how he felt about each of them. It was like a longer, wordier version of the list of distractions he’d made earlier-- the love was a new development, and he analyzed it thoroughly as soon as he saw it. To the point that his journal naturally opened to those pages, if it was left on its spine on a desk. 

As he turned to those pages, preparing to see the familiar structured boxes he’d organized it all in, he saw a list that was supposed to be further in the book. A dinner menu, from a week after he’d realized his affections. Kabru blinked tiredly. 

Page on the left-- early notes on the job. Page on the right-- dinner menu, week later. 

He blearily focussed on the torn edge of papers down the spine of his journal. 

Aha, he thought. That’s what they submitted as my love letter. I get it now. 

He was too tired to panic, or feel real offense. He only got the sense of having solved an annoying question. Although, it raised a few more questions; who had access to my journal, who saw my journal unattended and thought, ‘sure, I’d like to know Kabru’s deepest secrets, this won’t betray his trust at all,’ who remembered these pages of love analytics when they saw the love letter competition and decided to submit them as an entry to the tournament (and why would they set me up like that), who had the audacity to rip pages out of my journal… 

He actually thought there was a very clear answer to all of these questions; Falin, obviously. Even exhausted, his head was putting the threads together. The love letter competition had been her idea. It was too convenient, both that she suggested the competition and that Kabru’s journal had been submitted. Whoever had known about the passages would have had to sneak back in to steal them after the contest was announced-- the timeline made more sense if they’d stolen it to begin with and then orchestrated the contest to put them to use. She had to be responsible for both. It could only mean one thing-- she was matchmaking. 

Could Kabru even be mad? She’d taken the thing he wanted for years and put it into his reach. 

Well, he supposed he could be a little mad about the snooping. But he would do that in the morning. For now, since he had a solid plan in place for the duels tomorrow, he could feel his brain actually relaxing enough for him to sleep. Not to mention, the background whirring of trying to work out the mystery of Falin’s secrets the past few days, and the intentions and abilities of the person who’d mysteriously entered him into this tournament, were all reduced. His mind felt wonderfully clear. 

He closed his journal and blew out the candle, then settled into bed again. 

If he imagined the warmth of Laios’s arm around his waist as he fell asleep, that was his business, and nobody else’s. 

--

That morning, Kabru rolled out of bed early and got ready quickly (without strenuous overthinking-- with the normal, regular amount of overthinking), knowing he had to start his machinations against Demdae if he wanted her eliminated today. That began with talking to Senshi, privately, which meant going to the kitchens before breakfast. 

Predictably, Kabru found Senshi at a kitchen counter making pancakes. Kabru’s mouth immediately watered, which, he felt, was an appropriate reaction. He was rarely hungry this early, but he couldn’t be blamed for falling victim to the smell of Senshi’s cooking. 

“Good morning,” Kabru greeted, as warmly as he could. 

“Good morning! Are you here to help?” Senshi asked. Kabru would usually refuse out of hand, knowing his penchant for burning everything, but he had some confidence since he’d managed the samosas (with the dedicated help of that assistant cook, but managed nonetheless). Besides, the look Senshi was giving him was undoubtedly paternal, and even if Kabru could identify the source of the feeling and recognize this guy was not his dad, he still didn’t want to disappoint him. 

“I actually wanted to talk, but I’m happy to help! What do you want me to do?” Kabru said. 

Senshi switched places with him, so Kabru was monitoring the skillet while Senshi mixed together more batter. Kabru kept poking at the edges to see if they were cooking, and Senshi kindly told him to be patient. 

“I’ll tell you when it’s ready to flip. You’re just a second pair of hands to do the hard part while I prepare more. Now, what did you want to talk about?” Senshi said. 

“The tournament,” Kabru said. He was unsure how to elaborate. Senshi closed his eyes and nodded sagely. 

“Ah, yes. A competition for love… very romantic. I’m not surprised Laios cooked it up. He’s a big softy.”

“Is that why you’re competing?” Kabru asked, unable to keep the incredulousness from his voice. “Love? Romance?” 

Senshi croaked a laugh, eyes going wide. He was so shocked he mixed the batter too quickly, splattering some over the edge of the bowl. 

“Heavens, no,” Senshi said, voice still gruff with laughter and-- an uncomfortable edge. A good sign for Kabru. 

“Why did you enter, then?” Kabru asked. He got a waft of something burning and rushed to flip the pancake, only to find it was still slightly undercooked. A splatter of batter had dropped into the fire and set off his senses by immediately burning. 

He glanced at Senshi, but he didn’t seem upset with Kabru’s impatience. He just looked over Kabru’s elbow and nodded. “Once this side is done cooking, flip it back for another two minutes, then it should be good.”

Then he sighed, cracking an egg into the batter and mixing it with an expert kind of ease-- like he wasn’t even thinking, but it was still so quick and precise. 

“I frequently write Laios to tell him my accounts from dungeons, as well as my best recipes from what I cook up that week. The letters stem from a kind of affection, yes, but not romance. I don’t think they could be conflated as love letters, so imagine my surprise when your messenger informed me I was competing!”

Senshi added a few handfuls of blueberries to the new bowl of batter, and took up mixing it again. Kabru poked impatiently at the edges of his pancake. 

“So you’re here on accident?” Kabru asked. 

Senshi shook his head. He pulled out a second skillet and dumped a pancake’s worth of blueberry batter in, setting it over another fire. “Watch that one too.”

Kabru shifted so he was standing in the middle between the two skillets. 

“At dinner, I asked Laios why he ever selected my letter and invited me to the tournament. He knew it was me. I signed it.”

Kabru ruffled at that. It was supposed to be anonymous. Laios was risking the integrity of the competition if he chose contestants based on knowing their identities.

Actually, now that Kabru thought about it, Laios would have been able to ascertain Kabru’s own entry from the notes in his journal. He couldn’t remember everything he’d written, but surely enough of it implied his station that Laios could realize it was one of his advisors. And-- was he flattering himself to assume Laios could recognize his handwriting? 

Had he chosen Kabru on purpose? 

“Flip that first pancake, leave that side for another two minutes,” Senshi muttered, looking over Kabru’s shoulder. Kabru rushed to do so. 

“So-- did he tell you why he selected you to compete?” Kabru asked. 

“Yes. He also explicitly told me not to tell you,” Senshi said, impartially. Kabru turned fully away from the pancakes. 

“What?” he asked. 

“My lips are sealed,” Senshi said, eyes resolutely on his batter. Like he knew that if he looked at Kabru, he might pull the secret out of him.

“Laios isn’t allowed to keep secrets from me. He knows that. I’m his advisor,” Kabru said. Senshi raised an eyebrow, and Kabru knew he had a point. Laios was definitely allowed to have a private life outside of Kabru, it was his own obsession that made him insist Laios tell him everything. 

Well, that and the very real possibility that Laios’s secrets could cause international fallout and the destruction of their entire kingdom. Maybe it was a little justified. 

“Anyway, I planned to get myself eliminated during the first round,” Senshi said. It didn’t escape Kabru that he was changing the subject to avoid revealing the secret. “While I do love Laios, I hardly want to marry the boy. And Laios made it clear I was under no obligation to stay. But then I saw it was a cooking competition, and decided to enjoy myself. I will be eliminated today, however, and you won’t have to worry about competing against me anymore.” 

This was absolutely disastrous. 

Maybe he should let the pancakes burn. Maybe he should fling himself out the window into the flowerbeds below. He would start a new life as a gardener. He would get to attack things with trowels and prune them when they were out of control and it would be extremely satisfying. He would make friends only with worms. 

His plan had been to understand what was motivating Senshi, and use that to encourage him in the oncoming duel against Demdae. But if Senshi had nothing motivating him forward-- or, even worse, he was actually motivated to leave-- Kabru couldn’t work with that. He had to convince him to stay, somehow. 

While Kabru thought all this over, Senshi chopped onions and parsley and added them to his newest batter bowl. Kabru hoped he hadn’t put sugar in that one. 

“Take the plain one off the heat and pour a new one from the plain batter-- after that the blueberry should be ready to flip,” Senshi instructed. Kabru listened, despite his frustrated conviction to burn the pancakes. 

“Do you have any preference who Laios marries?” Kabru asked, while he was juggling. 

“Whoever he wants,” Senshi said, with a deep sense of peace. 

“But it won’t be who he wants,” Kabru said. “It’ll be who wins.” 

“He chooses who wins,” Senshi said. He got out another pan and poured out the vegetable mix, setting it over heat. “Watch this one too.” 

He started cutting up more vegetables-- tomatoes and green chiles. Kabru kind of wished they could switch jobs, now that Senshi’s wasn’t about mixing and proportions. His eyes skipped between the three skillets, watching the pancakes brown lazily in the butter. He wished he could give them a sense of urgency. He hated waiting. 

“Not all the contests are subjective. These duels, for example, will have an objective winner. Laios can’t change that,” Kabru said. It wasn’t just about winning Laios’s approval, or his affections-- it was about proving themselves. They had to be the best or they were not good enough for him. 

Kabru got stuck in that same old insecurity-- what if he wasn’t good enough for Laios? Even if they loved each other, even if they chose each other, what if he was too fundamentally flawed for it to work? He wasn’t built for love. He just couldn’t do it. 

“Then I suppose the best shall win,” Senshi said. Kabru’s spiralling thoughts spilled out of his mouth before he could stop them. 

“But what if they don’t? Luck changes everything, and circumstance. The rules may accidentally favor someone. Or there could be an accident, and something could go wrong.”

“Hmm. It seems you have a preference who Laios marries,” Senshi said. 

“Of course I do! I’m competing because I care!” 

“Blueberry’s done, take it off the heat,” Senshi said. Kabru did. He refilled the skillet from the right batter, and flipped the plain one too, for good measure. It was undercooked again. 

“Do you want to win, Kabru?” Senshi asked. Kabru took a deep breath through his nose. It smelled buttery and warm and wonderful, and did nothing to calm his stress. 

“Yes,” he said. 

“You sound unsure,” Senshi responded. He’d finished with the vegetables and they were in a bowl to the side. He was cutting fruits now, strawberries and bananas. 

“I want to win,” Kabru repeated, resolutely. 

“You want to marry Laios?” 

Kabru made a strangled sound. “Yes,” he managed. 

“You’re struggling to admit it.” 

“Can you blame me? It’s been a secret for a long time. I’m not used to admitting it, yet.” And he was still terrified to believe such a thing was allowed. Himself, and Laios. It had to be impossible, too good to be true. But here he was. 

“Hmm.” Senshi’s knife slid expertly through slices of apple and peach. “You don’t think you’re capable of winning, whether or not he chooses you?” 

Kabru itched for a pancake to flip, but they were all happily partially cooked. He gritted his teeth. Stupid uncooperative pancakes. 

“I just want to be sure. Manage all the possible outcomes. I don’t like leaving things to chance,” Kabru said. Hearing it out loud made him think back to that list he’d written in his journal last night; manipulative, anxious, traumatized, bitchy, controlling, obsessive. He’d thought of this tournament as an opportunity to prove himself when he’d first agreed to compete, but now he wondered if it was just bringing out his bad side. Look, Laios, here’s everything that’s wrong with me! I dare you to try to love me anyway. Let’s see how explosively we can fall apart.

“You care about him very much,” Senshi said, interrupting his thoughts. He said it with the gentle assurance that it was a fact, and-- it was. Kabru thought about Laios’s smile, how excited he would be to see these pancakes, thought about how nice his hair looked in the sun. Kabru felt something in his chest calm. 

“Yeah, I do,” Kabru said. 

“That’s all that matters, then. The rest will work itself out,” Senshi said, imperiously. Kabru felt his stress rear up again. 

“Not in the slightest!” Kabru said. “Which is why I need you to win your fight against Demdae. Today.” 

Senshi shook his head. “I will be today’s elimination.” 

“Please, Senshi, I’d rather compete against you than her.” 

“Why?” 

Kabru didn’t respond to that. He couldn’t think of anything to say. It all revealed too much (she reminded him too much of himself-- cunning, determined, pretty. He was afraid all the qualities that differentiated him from a crowd manifested in her but better. He was afraid of his own flaws, which he knew made him incompatible with Laios, romantically. He was very afraid of the feeling of being second place). 

“Flip the vegetable pancake,” Senshi said. Kabru did so, albeit slowly. The onions weakened the structure of the batter, so it tried to fall apart as he flipped it. It smelled heavenly, though. 

“You know what makes somebody improve at a skill?” Senshi asked, while Kabru struggled with the quickly decimating pancake. 

“Practice,” Kabru responded, without really thinking. 

Senshi hummed, a pleased look in his eye. “And you said you’ve been keeping your affections secret for a long time. How long?” 

Kabru looked away to mutter. “Years.” 

“Ah. Then you’re the best practiced at loving him, surely? You have nothing to worry about, Master Kabru. Flip the blueberry.” 

Kabru did so. 

“I am going to compete against Demdae with minimal effort,” Senshi said. “When she wins, then you should be excited at the chance to compete against her further, and prove yourself. A whetstone to sharpen yourself against.”

“What if I lose,” Kabru said, scowling at the pancakes in front of him. 

“Let your actions reflect your feelings. Decide not to lose, fight like you mean it, and eat three square meals a day with plenty of nutrients. That is the surefire way to victory,” Senshi said. “Flip the plain one, it’s burning.” 

Well, that pep talk had gone about as badly as possible. Senshi wasn’t motivated to defeat Demdae. He’d turned it back on Kabru before he could even try to trick Senshi into caring. Maybe he could still level a bribe against him-- offer extravagant, expensive ingredients, or to sign off for Laios to go on a dungeon dive with him, or offer him property in town to establish a home or a restaurant or a cooking school. 

Kabru considered all of his options while Senshi whipped cream and calmly instructed him when to flip pancakes. It was nice doing something with his hands, and Senshi never scolded him-- even when another pancake got a little burnt, Senshi only said, “some people like it crispy. Put it on the plate.”

Senshi’s sense of calm about the whole thing, and his absolute assurance things would work out, actually calmed Kabru down considerably. As he replayed their conversation in his head, he even realized Senshi had made some very good points. 

Why was he so scared of an opportunity to prove himself? Shouldn’t he just-- abandon all his assumptions that he wasn’t worth it and give it a shot? Didn’t he owe it to himself to try?

God, didn’t he want to win? Then he should win. It was that simple. 

By the time they had six plates stacked a foot high with flapjacks, and massive bowls of accessory fruits, vegetables, syrups, and even whipped cream, Kabru felt extremely motivated about their tournament today.

Still;

“You’re sure I can’t convince you to win against Demdae?” Kabru asked, while they set the table. Senshi rumbled a laugh and shook his head. 

“Whatever happens, happens.” 

“And you’re also sure I can’t convince you to reveal Laios’s reasons for choosing your letter?” Kabru asked.

“Ask him yourself,” Senshi said. “He just might tell you.” 

Then people started yawning into the room, expressing delight and surprise at breakfast, and thanking Senshi and Kabru extensively. Kabru waved all of the praise over to Senshi, who waved all of the praise back to Kabru. He smiled and made himself coffee and tried one of the vegetable pancakes, having been convinced of their merit by how good they smelled while he cooked them. He piled tomatoes on top, and it was, predictably, delicious. He also split a blueberry pancake with Marcille, who claimed she didn’t have the appetite for a full one, but absolutely drowned her half in whipped cream. 

It was a warm breakfast, full of conversation, and every time Kabru looked at Laios, Laios was already looking at him. Every time, Kabru felt himself flush from his neck to his wrists to his ankles. Damn those eyes. 

Marcille pulled him aside once people were clearing plates and wandering out to organize for the duels, due to start in a few hours. Kabru noticed rings under her eyes-- the research had kept her up late. 

“Should we be talking here?” he asked. He didn’t want people overhearing and thinking he was paranoid, researching the other candidates. (Which he was. But he didn’t want people thinking it.) Marcille waved a hand. 

“Call it castle affairs. We could be discussing trade relations.” She was only worried about appearances, then. Not that people could listen. He supposed there was enough ambient noise from conversation and dishware. 

“But-- about Demdae--” 

Kabru waited for her, and when she hesitated to continue, he nodded a little and widened his eyes, prompting her. 

“...Okay, this sounds like a conspiracy, but I think she might not be after Laios at all.” 

--

Demdae had only been in the castle for one day, but she itched to steal into secret passages and find secret libraries, while everybody was at breakfast. She knew she should bide her time, to maintain appearances-- the competitors were all under natural scrutiny as marriage partners, and outsiders would always be suspect in a castle. If she could only win this tournament, she would have plenty of time-- marriage would earn her a permanent spot here. And as long as she was seemingly obsessed with Laios, nobody would inspect her true intentions. Who wouldn’t want to marry a king? Who would suspect her of wanting anything more? 

But, that was if she could win the tournament. The royal advisor was proving a pain. Much more cunning than she wanted to compete with. And territorial. 

She’d have to dispose of him today, which was a shame. He was fun to compete against, but far too real of a threat. 

If she thought she could learn everything she needed to by slipping into the mage’s tower now, she might have risked it. Try to grab all the research and run. But that was a childish fantasy of a heist, when she knew the real thing required years of careful deception. Earning a place at the castle, asking casual questions, showing casual interest, mounting into cumulative understanding over a decade. 

She couldn’t learn black magic in a night, or in an armful of scrolls, stolen on a whim. The magical advisor had been researching it for years, and still didn’t know everything. So she’d bide her time.  

And to buy herself that time, she was going to have to win. It wasn’t personal. 

--

“The scandal with her parents-- a lot of the documentation was elusive or completely unreported, but I was still able to learn a lot. Essentially-- her mother had a high position in the elven court as a translator, which put her in line for a promotion to be the Queen’s secretary. I guess the Queen was bored, or something, because instead of choosing her secretary normally, she tested all her potential candidates with competitive tasks.”

Kabru immediately noted the similarity to their current tournament. From the weighted eye contact, Marcille had thought the same.

“Reports show Demdae’s mother was a harsh competitor. Other contestants woke up with snakes in their beds. Or they’d have hunks cut out of their hair.”

“And they knew it was her doing all that? Was she so unsubtle as to sabotage everyone but herself?” Kabru asked. Marcille shook her head. 

“Apparently, the same things were happening to her-- she comes up in the security reports as a victim. She’s just the only one that didn’t file an official complaint. Could be pride. Could be that she wasn’t as affected because she purposefully only sabotaged herself in ways she could come back from. Make of it what you will. Either way-- Demdae’s mother made it to the final round.” 

“Which was?” 

“They had to magically seal a court document. A relatively underwhelming task, if you ask me, but magical espionage is like, a whole thing in the elven court, so it’s actually a pretty big deal if the royal secretary can keep information secure.”

“I imagine her mother didn’t win?” Kabru said. 

“Her seal was fine. Her competitor’s was better. I saw the magical formulas for both written out in the documents-- it wasn’t even close. I couldn’t crack the second one, even looking at how it was made. Part of me wonders if Demdae’s mother would have done better at the magic if she wasn’t so focussed on everyone else…” 

“So?” Kabru asked. He felt antsy. 

“Well, she took the loss hard, and became a little obsessed with bringing about her opponent’s downfall. Demdae’s father was a scholar and court magician, and they got close while Demdae’s mother investigated her opponent’s magic for possible foul play. Together, they veered into study of ancient magic, which is--” Marcille’s cheeks pinkened-- “obviously illegal. But the two of them were at it for years, trying to find some technical detail of the secretary’s casting which would retroactively disqualify her.”

“Was that what got them kicked out of court?” Kabru asked. 

“No-- the documents were really vague about the incident itself-- I think they were ashamed of the details. But, I’m pretty sure Demdae’s parents tried to kidnap the secretary to run an experiment on her? There’s some theories that use of ancient magic can have lingering effects on people’s mana, but… kidnapping her to test it is horrifying. Anyway, the elves at court can feign ignorance about a lot of underhanded stuff, but a direct threat against one of the highest political figures in the kingdom has to be punished. Demdae’s parents were exiled.”

“Are they still trying to prove the secretary’s use of foul play?” Kabru asked, calculating all of this. Elves worked on a different time scale-- if they could prove sabotage decades after the fact, Demdae’s mother might still reclaim her position as a secretary to the Elf Queen. Marcille moved her head, weighing the options. 

“I think so. And I’ve been less cagey about my research the past couple of years, so it’s possible they want access to my theoretical advancements, to bring about their rival’s downfall.”

Kabru’s eyebrows were bunched together, and he had a hand covering his mouth as he thought. He felt stormy. Although relieved he didn’t have to worry about Laios as much-- he still didn’t like the idea of someone in their castle after forbidden magics, or worse, after Marcille.

“But that’s her parents. We still don’t necessarily know what Demdae wants. Has she approached you at all?” he asked. Marcille shook her head, some hair falling over her shoulder at the motion. 

“She hasn’t said anything suspicious to me. I really thought she was just power hungry,” Marcille said. “You can hardly blame a girl for wanting to be a queen.” 

“It’s never so simple,” Kabru muttered. They needed to lock down servants passages into certain corners of the castle, especially anywhere he knew Marcille ran experiments or kept records. “I’m assigning you a guard detail.” 

“Kabru! She’s not-- dangerous!”

“But her parents clearly are, and I don’t trust her.” 

“It’s like you said, we don’t necessarily understand what she wants, just her parents. Depending on what she’s looking for, I’m not opposed to helping her--” 

“Absolutely not,” Kabru said. Marcille crossed her arms. 

“Why? Do you just dislike her because she’s pursuing Laios?”

He couldn’t deny he was biased against her for that reason at least, but--

“Well, if she’s trying to help her parents, we’ll be giving criminals access to ancient magic and a possible route to political power. And if she’s working against her parents--” he faltered, trying to think of a reason that would be bad and coming up short. He could only imagine being raised by people too desperate and obsessed with revenge to pay any attention to their kid. Instead of giving her the best childhood they could, always mourning that it couldn’t be better. Instilling her with a sense of ‘never good enough.’ He’d want to spite them, too. But, how? By learning ancient magic? 

“We just need to eliminate her,” Kabru landed on. “None of this will be a problem if she’s no longer a marriage candidate, and we can kindly ask her to leave the castle. That actually reminds me, Marcille, I need you to sabotage Demdae’s fight with Senshi later.”

“Kabru, are you stupid?” Marcille asked. He was very used to that tone and those words, from her. It was common during meetings. He sighed. 

“Nothing noticeable. Conjure gusts of wind to blow in her face or set her off balance. Shadows in the corners of her eyes to distract her. That sort of thing,” he said. 

“Did you not take that entire thing as a cautionary tale? Worrying about everyone else takes you off your game. And the person cheated could spend their whole life trying to get back at you. Not to mention, if there’s suspected foul play, the results will be nullified and we’ll have to redo the whole thing,” Marcille said. The corner of her mouth was tugged down, but that meant she was considering it. 

“Then don’t get caught,” Kabru said, with a cheeky smile. 

“Kabru, I am already an internationally wanted criminal--”

“You really think something this minor will make your reputation any worse?” he scoffed. Marcille actually frowned this time, so Kabru dropped the act. She was upset. 

“What?” he said. 

“Laios is one of my only-- Melini is my home, you know that?”

“He’s not going to exile you for interfering with the tournament,” Kabru said. 

“No, he’d never,” Marcille agreed. “But he’d mope. And lose his trust in me, which I value greatly. Our friendship would be strained. I’d stay, and he’d let me, but we’d fight, and that’s not great, either.” 

Kabru felt his mouth flatten as he looked away. She had a point, and he wasn’t going to insist. It was frustrating that nobody was cooperating with him (first Senshi, now Marcille), and he could feel the competition get harder with every rock of the boat. He would actually have to compete with Demdae, fairly. He would actually have to win. 

He knew he could. But it would be much easier to cheat. (Because that way, it was still a game-- he could focus on strategizing, not really trying. But if he was just giving it his honest effort, he’d have to admit that he cared. Still hard to do. Still worth doing.) 

Marcille put a hand on his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow at her, making sure his expression didn’t betray his frustration. She was allowed to deny him, and he wouldn’t hold a grudge for that, or try to guilt her into doing something she didn’t want to do. 

“Kabru,” she said. “You’ve got to trust that he’ll make the right choice.”

She patted his shoulder and disappeared to prepare for the duels. Kabru was left staring daggers at the ground where she’d been. 

Trust. Trust. What a horrible thing. Did he have it in him? To relinquish control for even a minute? The idea was terrifying. He’d much rather micromanage. If everything worked perfectly, he could affect the reactions of everyone around him-- people were predictable, which meant they could be manipulated. But; nothing worked perfectly. 

How could he trust the world to give him what he wanted when he had, in fact, never gotten anything he’d wanted? When nothing ever worked perfectly? 

Kabru thought about Laios leaning in, his nose against Kabru’s nose, their breaths shallow and mingling. He thought about Laios grabbing Kabru’s sleeve, agonized at the thought of him leaving. He thought about Laios’s smile, his eyes, the way Kabru could actually relax around him in a way he didn’t know how to with others. 

Laios mattered too much to risk losing. But Kabru couldn’t make the world slot together and work perfectly. He would just have to-- do his best, and try to win. That was the only option left. Fight like hell for the chance to hold his hand. 

It was like something straight out of a romance novel. He hated it. 

He’d still do it, though. Obviously. He wanted to kiss Laios so bad he almost felt sick just thinking about it, so, yes, he’d compete fairly against the entire world if he had to. 

His resolve clicked in place in his chest, and Kabru left to assemble his equipment. 

--

The contestants were gathered at a kind of fighting arena, the type with low wooden railings to act as walls, and a sandy floor that would cushion the blow of being tackled to the ground. Everybody was getting ready at different benches outside the arena-- Mithrun was doing one-handed pushups, Demdae was tossing a knife and catching it. Kabru showed up wearing his armor, so most of his getting ready involved stretching. 

He did a few lunges, rocked his hips, did high side steps over the bench. Then he stood in place and started stretching his arms, and his shoulders. 

Over the next few minutes he tried to focus on working his muscles, and not every doubt beating against the corners of his brain like a headache. It was starting to work, until he heard footsteps next to him, and looked up to see Laios, damn him. 

Laios was fidgeting nervously, and standing two paces away, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to approach. Kabru couldn’t believe him. 

“Can I help you, Laios?” Kabru said. His tone was playful, and he’d stopped himself from using Laios’s title and making him throw a fit. Although the drama was tempting (and it would be satisfying to get a rise out of him-- he liked knowing he could affect things in Laios), he’d focus better if he and Laios didn’t fight beforehand. 

He really hoped Laios wouldn’t try to kiss him again, in front of all these people. It would be a disaster, mostly because Kabru didn’t know if he could stop himself a second time. 

“Uh, can we-- talk?” Laios asked. He wasn’t looking at Kabru. 

He must have been thinking about yesterday. This was horrible timing for it, though. Kabru breathed out slowly, trying to decide-- have this conversation now, in relative public (where people could hear), and ease both of their fears? Or let the match play out, and talk later, in private? Kabru quite preferred the idea of privacy-- in fact, he really liked the idea of being alone with him-- but Laios had a tension between his eyes and a slant to his mouth that made him look upset. Kabru wanted to kill it. 

But… if this conversation went poorly, it would be bad to have it in public, and especially bad to have it before a competition. Kabru would just have to ensure it didn’t go poorly, then. 

“I don’t think we have a lot of time, but sure,” Kabru said, smiling warmly. 

“Right, yes. I just-- yesterday, when we…” Laios trailed off, face going red. Kabru nodded to show he knew what he meant. 

“You pulled away,” Laios said, voice steady, but undercut with misery. It was such a profound pout, Kabru actually felt his heart break a little. He distantly wondered if Laios was playing it up to make Kabru feel bad for him, trying to tempt him into another kiss to comfort him. He didn’t think Laios was playing him, though-- the King was just that dramatic. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Kabru said. “Really, I am. For what it’s worth, I didn’t want to. It wasn’t because I was scared, or having second thoughts. I’m quite sure of how I feel. And what I want.” He let his gaze linger on Laios, meaningfully. 

Laios breathed out shortly, harsh enough that Kabru heard it despite the space between them. Losing his breath just from a look? Was he so easy to fluster? Kabru wanted to play with him more and find a million surefire ways to fluster him. Payback for making Kabru blush at breakfast. 

“But you still pulled away,” Laios said. This time accusatory. Kabru probably deserved that. He knew Laios struggled with being rebuffed-- especially from people he cared about. He inevitably took it personally, due to his insecurity built out of years of social rejection. Kabru pulling away had probably stung like a snakebite. 

He needed to be honest, so Laios didn’t assume the worst. Laios’s comfort was worth his vulnerability, at least. 

“I was worried what people might think,” Kabru said. 

“You’re-- competing to marry me,” Laios said, eyebrows furrowing. 

“Which gives me all the more reason to show restraint. Even you standing here talking to me before the fight is showing too much bias. People may suspect you’re cheating the competition in my favor, and lose faith in your ability to be an impartial judge. This whole event could lose credibility with a single misstep from us. I’d rather not risk that-- with all the work that went into organizing it, and all the problems its meant to solve, having it devolve into scandal and failure would be catastrophic, don’t you think?”

Laios nodded, eyebrows still furrowed. “So it was just because we were in public?” 

“Yes,” Kabru said, warmly again, relieved Laios understood. 

“What if we were in private?” 

Kabru blinked, feeling his heart stutter in his chest. He worked to keep his face smooth, not show any strong reaction. 

“Well, sure, we could do whatever we want,” Kabru reasoned. 

“And you said you’re-- quite sure of what you want,” Laios said, hesitating, halfway between question and statement. He wasn’t looking at Kabru, which was as adorable as it was infuriating. He would never get enough of having Laios’s eyes on him. He craved it. 

“I am,” Kabru said. 

“And what, exactly, is that?” Laios asked. As if he could hear Kabru’s thoughts, he finally peeked up at Kabru, reminding him of a dog. In that instant, Kabru was inclined to give him whatever he wanted, although he balked at the request as soon as he processed it (which took a minute, because Laios made Kabru’s brain stall just by looking at him with those pleading eyes. Asshole). 

“I’m not just going to-- Laios, there are people everywhere--”

“I just want to be sure! I want you to tell me. Honestly.” Laios was still looking at him. Kabru had brought this on himself by cursing Laios for looking away-- what a fool he’d been, to think he could withstand this direct attention. It made him completely lose control of himself-- plans and consequences and strategic moves flinging out the window for him to fall headlong into his emotions. It made him stupid. It was addicting. 

Laios was gonna make him say it. Some soft part of him wanted to. 

(He would have to watch out for those puppy-dog eyes. He was apparently very weak to them. Laios was not allowed to find out about this.)

Kabru scanned around. There was nobody within earshot. He could afford to tell the truth. It was unfair that he’d looked away from Laios, though, so he caught his eyes again. He buzzed with nervous energy, but his voice was surprisingly assured when it came out. 

“You, Laios. I want you. However much of yourself you’re willing to give.” 

“Okay, that’s still-- a little vague--” 

“Damn it, Laios, I want to knock you against a wall and kiss you senseless. And listen to your voice break when I bite you-- in the interest of specificity, I just want to get my hands on you. If you’ll allow me.” 

The words lingered between them for a moment, but Laios spoke and quickly dissipated the tension. 

“Really?” Laios said, suddenly bubbly. Kabru huffed a laugh. He was getting a headrush from admitting so much, and would feel ashamed at his bluntness if it hadn’t been exactly what Laios was looking for. Still, this conversation had to end before he lost too much control of himself. 

“Yes, really. Now, go-- you have to greet all of the other contestants individually, so it doesn’t look like I’m getting special treatment.” 

Laios looked downtrodden at that, for a second, but he recovered quickly. That was strange. Shouldn’t he want to see the others? They were the people he’d specifically selected to compete. Theoretically, he should want to spend time with all of them-- they were all potential marriage candidates. (What was the secret reason he had chosen Senshi to compete? Why would Laios choose candidates that he didn’t want to marry? Did that extend to Kabru? No-- he was basically begging Kabru to kiss him, surely there was something between them-- was it the idea of marriage that frightened him? Kabru would have to find out.) 

“But I’ll see you later?” Laios asked. 

“Yes, I’ll see you later,” Kabru promised. He realized he was smiling-- the traitorous thing was resting naturally on his face, instead of him having to call it up to reassure people or control the tone of the conversation. Laios made him smile naturally. The thought was a little scary. 

Laios took an awkward step back, turning towards another bench, where Mithrun was stretching. He glanced back at Kabru once, and the feeling of melting under Laios’s gaze was worth the bad optics of the King looking back, longing for him. Besides, it was only for a moment. Maybe nobody noticed. 

--

Yaad explained the rules to them in the most disdainful tone of voice he could summon-- which, since he was raised by royalty, was actually pretty bone-chilling. Instead of being intimidated, Kabru was deeply entertained by Yaad’s apparent suffering. It should make him all the more grateful that Kabru usually handled this type of thing. 

According to Yaad; each fighter was allowed to choose whatever weapon they wanted, including their own magic. They were allowed to hurt each other, since Falin was on hand to heal, but obviously they were supposed to avoid anything permanently maiming, unnecessarily painful, or murderous. Each fight was to incapacitation-- the other fighter could be disarmed, restrained, or at the other end of a (projected) killing blow, and each of those would count as a loss. Whoever had the most losses at the end of six duels-- one for each pair-- would be eliminated. 

First on the docket was Kabru and Senshi. Kabru considered this his warmup round. He used his sword, of course, and Senshi stood across the arena holding an axe. Kabru made the note that he would have to dodge instead of block-- if Senshi put enough strength behind a hit with that thing, it could snap Kabru’s sword in half. 

Within two minutes, Kabru was able to dart around Senshi, kick his left knee in, then step back and aim a swing at Senshi’s right side. Senshi was forced to pivot to dodge the blow, putting his right leg off-balance. Before he could raise his axe or regain his footing, Kabru lunged at him, knocking his forearm across Senshi’s sternum and pushing, using his legs for added force. 

Kabru still had to lean his whole weight into the shove-- Senshi was a dwarf, and they were often too sturdy to stumble-- but Senshi landed in the sand with a heavy thud, loosening his grip on his weapon. Kabru kicked the axe away with a stream of sand, then readjusted his weight to his back foot and levelled the point of his sword to Senshi’s throat. 

Senshi smiled up at him, breathing heavily, and Kabru smiled back. The referee (one of the advisors) called the match, so Kabru held out a hand to hoist Senshi up. 

Next was Mithrun and Demdae. Kabru was excited for this-- he wanted to see how Demdae would fight, and was thrilled at the idea of watching Mithrun defeat her handily. 

Contrary to Demdae’s general tactics so far, when she was across from Mithrun in the arena, her strategy was to run at him head-on. Her weapon of choice was a dagger, which Kabru didn’t think was the smartest option-- obviously it didn’t have the reach to match up against the weapons the rest of them were using. But she was familiar with it, so Kabru supposed that made it the best choice. (He still judged her.) 

Mithrun easily teleported away as Demdae reached him, flickering back behind her with a sense of ease. A cat that didn’t have to bother pouncing on its prey. 

Demdae whipped around, slicing through the air and missing by a mile. Quick reaction, to the wrong spot. She was visibly disoriented, which was a common reaction to having to fight Mithrun. 

Demdae planted her feet in a wide stance and kept her wide eyes on Mithrun, waiting for him to move. Kabru squinted at this. She couldn’t win a chicken fight with a knife. She had to rush forward for a shot at him-- literally her only advantage was speed. 

Mithrun, aggravatingly, also waited. His gaze didn’t move, but Kabru got the impression he was sizing her up. Assembling a plan to win the match without hurting her mortally-- his fighting style didn’t adjust well to non-lethality. 

Mithrun blinked out of existence, and Demdae tossed the knife to her other hand. She started to spin and raise her arm for a strike, expecting Mithrun to reappear behind her, but she couldn’t turn faster than Mithrun could teleport. He did reappear behind her, and he grabbed her left wrist-- the hand that used to hold her knife-- but instead of disarming her, he was staring at an empty hand as the knife swept at him from the other side. The blade nearly grazed Mithrun’s arm, but he let go of her and teleported again. 

Kabru sighed nervously, as he watched. Demdae was tricky, switching hands like that, waiting until Mithrun teleported so he wouldn’t see her do it. She hadn’t used any magic yet, but Kabru was positive she knew some. Maybe she wanted to see how much she could do without giving away her tricks. 

Instead of reappearing behind her a third time, Mithrun was suddenly stood on top of the wooden railing surrounding the arena, at Demdae’s side. The extra height gave him the reach to grab her hair and yank it, bringing his knee into the side of her skull. Demdae lashed out, trying to strike him despite what must have been a wildly disorienting hit, but Mithrun teleported away again. He appeared on the side with the knife, easily twisted her hand to disarm her and take the weapon, and buried it in her guts. 

Demdae screamed, dropping to her knees, and the referee immediately called the match. Mithrun stepped back, a look of complete unaffectation on his face. 

Falin rushed into the arena, the air around her already sparkling with mana as she summoned her healing magic. She pulled the knife back out with a surgical professionalism, even as it made Demdae’s entire body seize up and she let out another noise of pain-- not as shrill as before, Kabru noted, Falin’s magic was already working to heal the injury. 

Mithrun broke off from that scene to wander over to Kabru, who was standing, leaning against the railing, milling outside to watch. 

“Well done, Captain,” Kabru said, as Mithrun approached. Mithrun nodded, not bothering to correct the title. 

“She’s light on her feet, quick to react. Good at getting close without getting hit.” Kabru didn’t mention Mithrun had teleported into her arm’s reach-- he could see from how she moved, that was exactly how she would have fought if Mithrun didn’t use magic. And she would have been good at it, if Mithrun hadn’t been better. “You’ll have a problem trying to fend her off with the sword when she’s already inside your guard. You should switch to a dagger for your fight with her.” 

“Knife fights are brutal,” Kabru responded. 

Mithrun shrugged. “You’ll be fine. She’s fast, but you’re good at reading attacks. She won’t land a hit on you.” 

Behind Mithrun, in the arena, Demdae was standing again, lightly holding a hand over her gut in the memory of pain. The way she stood evenly, with no discomfort, betrayed that there wasn’t any pain left. Falin was good at what she did. 

Yaad announced they were holding their first intermission, so each of the contestants could rest between rounds. It would be unfair if some of them had to fight immediately when others got a rest-- Senshi and Mithrun were up next, so really, the five minute break was for Mithrun to recover. Then it would be Kabru and Demdae. 

Mithrun stood next to Kabru with the simple determination of someone who’d chosen to spend time with someone else, and Kabru felt a hiccup of fondness. Mithrun should technically be using the rest to prepare for a fight against Senshi, though. 

“I need some water,” Kabru said. When he walked away to the bench where he’d dumped his stuff, Mithrun followed like a shadow. And when Kabru held out a waterskin to him, Mithrun accepted it without complaint, taking a drink. Kabru counted it as a win. 

They chatted, Kabru asking about Mithrun’s business, Mithrun responding that a lot of his customers were stupid. Kabru sighed affectionately, and listened to Mithrun’s dispassioned complaints. It was a good cool-down for them both. 

“They told me they didn’t want mushrooms in the dish,” Mithrun said.

“How absurd. How dare they,” Kabru said.

“Well, it was fine. But I gave it to them without mushrooms and they said it was missing something. Demanded a refund.”

“Did you give it to them?”

“No. I gave them mushrooms.”

Five minutes passed in a flash, and then Mithrun was being waved back into the arena. Senshi was already there, holding his axe with a relaxed grip. 

The referee counted down, and the fight started, Kabru watching with interest from his same position at the railing. He wanted to know how their fighting styles would interact-- they were both only good at killshots (or something equally devastating, like hacking off a limb), and both limited to not being able to kill the other. 

He was quickly distracted, though, by Demdae leaning against the rail next to him. He plastered on his fakest, brightest smile. 

“Hey! Can I help you?” he said. 

“I was just wondering,” she said. “Are you sure you’re fit to compete? It doesn’t seem entirely appropriate for a king to court his advisor, you know?”

Kabru felt his brain stall like a broken clock, as he tried to work out what her angle was. Psych him out? Distantly, he heard a clang of metal. When he glanced at the match, Senshi’s helmet sat on his head at a weird angle, but they were both still fighting. He looked back at Demdae. 

“It’s not entirely appropriate for him to court commoners either. The tournament was organized as a giant exception to the traditions. As per the King’s wishes,” Kabru said. 

Demdae hummed. “And you’re ‘as per his wishes’?” 

“Apparently so,” Kabru responded diplomatically. 

“Are you sure there’s anything special in how he feels about you? And it’s not just him,” she waved a hand vaguely, “liking that you’re nice to him?” 

Kabru blinked. The words cut into his insecurities cleanly, but he remembered the talk he and Laios had yesterday-- Laios insisting the way he felt about Kabru was so different from friendship that it felt like fire-- and decided to banish his doubt.

“I’m not going to forfeit before our fight, if that’s what you’re angling for,” Kabru said bluntly. Demdae shrugged. 

“I’m just trying to learn what he likes about you. I want to know how to attract him. But you just don’t seem to bring anything in particular to the table, so I can’t work it out.” 

Kabru should not feel like a peach with the pit ripped out, at those words. He shouldn’t care what Demdae thought-- especially knowing she was trying to get in his head. But it was words that echoed so clearly in his mind, they might as well have been plucked directly from his overthinking spirals and given voice. Made real. 

Even during a normal week, this wouldn’t bother him so much. But this last week had been-- riotous, and an emotional nightmare. He was overexposed to his feelings, undistracted by his job and the supposed impossibility of him and Laios ever getting together. The closer it came to real, the more unreasonable he became, the stronger he felt. He had gotten in the horrible habit of being vulnerable. 

Their small crowd gasped, and Kabru glanced back at the arena. Mithrun had teleported on top of Senshi’s shoulders and was currently crossing his ankles and throwing his body weight backwards. The two of them hit the ground in a painful tumble, sending up a cloud of sand, and Kabru winced. 

Truthfully, in a hypothetical relationship, Kabru knew he brought a lot to the table. He was fundamentally caring, whip-smart, and took care of his appearance. The devastating part was that he knew he also had his fatal flaws. And he was pretty sure those outweighed the advantages to being with him. He wrestled with it, even as he watched Mithrun and Senshi roll in the sand. 

It didn’t feel fair to subject Laios to himself, knowing Laios was-- so trusting, and valued honesty so much as a tool for communication. Kabru was too manipulative-- he was a liar, and a murderer. And he didn’t feel an ounce of shame about these things, until Laios looked at him like he trusted him, and he suddenly wondered if he was the scum of the earth. 

(When Kabru had killed those assassins in front of Laios, Laios had looked at him like he was surprised. Processing. Waiting for Kabru to take it back, even as Kabru stabbed his sword through their throat to make sure they were dead. Kabru remembered seeing a hint of betrayal on Laios’s face, and knowing, to his bones, that it wasn’t aimed at the assassin. Like Laios couldn’t believe Kabru would do such a thing. And, conversely, Kabru couldn’t believe Laios expected him not to. A fundamental difference in how they operated.) 

Mithrun had managed to roll on top of Senshi. With a small amount of struggle, he wrenched Senshi’s arm behind his back, and after holding the position for three seconds, the referee called it. 

They had to gear up for their fight. Kabru needed to get out of his own head. He decided to try one last barb at Demdae, at least attempt to throw her off, before they had to start. 

“I don’t know what he likes about me,” Kabru finally said to Demdae, while Mithrun and Senshi stood and started brushing off sand, and Falin walked over to ease their bruises. “But I do know what he likes about you!”

Demdae raised her eyebrows. Kabru smiled evilly.

“He couldn’t even remember your name, that first day, but he kept mentioning your hair, or your eyes. I hope you’re prepared to marry someone based entirely on vanity. Because that’s the kind of relationship you’re lined up for. Skin deep.” He sighed, making his voice sweet and uncaring. “Which is such a shame, considering your lovely personality.” 

While Mithrun and Senshi wandered out, Kabru and Demdae were waved into the arena, and Kabru turned back to his stuff to get a knife, like Mithrun suggested. 

He felt itchy about this fight. Nervous, maybe. A little angry. He was mad that she’d successfully gotten under his skin (mad at himself for letting her), and he intended to put effort into winning this fight about it. It would be satisfying to sweat it out. 

When he was situated, standing across the sand from Demdae, he reminded himself-- she charged head on, got inside people’s blocks, and preferred swinging to hit from angles you wouldn’t think to block from. He still didn’t know what kind of magic she was capable of, or how she’d use it in combat. He’d have to play distant and defensive. 

Would he try disarming her, like he had with Senshi? Or would he take a move from Mithrun-- a stab to the guts had ended the fight readily enough. 

Demdae raced towards him, running steadily despite the sand. Kabru kept his balance and watched her arm, gauging the angle she was going to swing from. He didn’t look at her eyes. They were wide and reminded him of a monster’s, and he couldn’t handle that right now.

She was in range in moments, and it was child’s play, dodging her first two swings, they were so projected. Kabru took a step back from one and side-stepped another, then tried his hand at a jab to her shoulder while she reared back for a third. 

She flinched away just in time, the dodge interrupting her own strike. Kabru settled into a defensive position again, and she tested it-- two quick jabs and a cut, which he blocked, dodged, and ducked under, in order. 

They went on like this for some time, Demdae working with speed, and Kabru reading her like a book. His reactions were faster than hers. She doged him as a reflex, like she couldn’t help it-- he dodged her because he decided to. He thought he could use that to his advantage-- especially with a feint, if he could get her to stop swinging long enough for him to get a complicated maneuver in. 

He grit his teeth, knowing his next move was stupid even before he did it. Instead of blocking the next jab with his own blade, he moved so it would connect with his shoulder. The knife went clear through his chainmail, white hot pain radiating from his shoulder. A shout pulled out of his throat, and sweat rocked over his body with a rush of agony. 

But, the match wasn’t over. It wasn’t to first blood-- it was to incapacitation. And unlike when Demdae had gotten stabbed, Kabru was still standing. And, since she’d let go of her knife in-- surprise, or anticipation of the referee calling it, she wasn’t swinging. 

Alright, so I’ve disarmed her, Kabru thought. His adrenaline was surging over the pain, helping him as he moved through muscle memory, sloppily spinning to stand behind her. Usually he’d need two arms for this-- one to hold her in place-- but he couldn’t move his left arm at all, and was wheezing through the pain, so he’d take what he could get. His right hand had the knife, and that was what mattered. Jerkily, he brought the blade up and under her chin. He gripped it hard enough to distract from the pain in his shoulder-- trying to get some in his hand. Getting the quiet to drown out the loud. 

He held the position, hoping to hear the referee counting or calling it, but he realized he couldn’t hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears. Instead of dulling and letting him get used to it, the pain was getting steadily brighter. 

Something was very wrong. He’d been stabbed before-- it hurt. This was beyond hurting, this was starting to melt his mind. He was choking on air, unsure of his body or the world or his alignment in it. He stumbled back, losing his axis and landing in the sand. He didn’t know if he’d won. He felt complete apathy towards all that petty competition, under the fire that roared in his skin. 

He was distantly aware of shouting, the feeling of hands against him. He felt sticky all over, sweaty and bleeding and in intense pain. Unconsciousness was creeping up behind his eyes, but he batted it away-- although it would provide relief, he balked at the idea of that much vulnerability. He was sane enough to realize he would be magically healed in a matter of seconds. He could hold out, and he would rather be conscious on the other side. 

As he slowly taught his closing throat to breathe again, riding wave after wave of pain, each second lasting an agonizing year, he felt the cool relief of a healing spell. The definite, stabbing pain in his shoulder dulled, but the rest still hurt in a nearly subconscious way, present but almost metaphorical, a profound ache all the same. 

It was magic pain. Not a physical wound. What the fuck? He felt liquid fire through his whole chest.

Voices swam around him, and although his eyes were open, they were watery. The pain was forcing him to dissociate, so he wasn’t aware of where he was or who was talking to him. He certainly couldn’t listen and respond. They took on a more desperate note, and he felt hands on his biceps, and there was a face in front of him. Falin or Laios. He couldn’t tell. 

“--him down?” he heard. He wheezed air into his lungs. He wished they’d just heal him already-- why was he still injured? What was going wrong? His whole body was wracked with chills, burning under his skin alongside the pain, and he thought about throwing up. 

A hand landed on his forehead, pushing his bangs away and uncomfortable against his oversensitive skin. Words he didn’t understand were muttered, and that unconsciousness reared up behind his eyes again, this time like a tidal wave. It took him over in a second, and he couldn’t even think about fighting it before he was asleep. 

--

When Kabru woke up, he was sore, and had a pounding headache. He processed that he was in a bed, then that he was in his room. Somebody had changed his clothes-- the sandy ensemble from the fights was in a pile by his door, thank the gods. The light through the window was burnt gold-- late afternoon. It highlighted the tuft of blond hair by his elbow. 

Laios was asleep in a chair next to his bed. His head on his arms, resting against Kabru’s mattress, careful inches away from his skin. Kabru felt his whole body seize at the idea of being touched right now, so he was grateful for the space. 

He stared fondly at Laios. His brain felt heavy, so he let it rest, not bothering with all his overthinking-- just watched Laios’s shoulders rise and fall with his breath. Kabru matched pace with his breathing, and it calmed him down. Purposeful breathing, grounding. Ease, ease…

The door creaked open, and Falin peeked in. Instead of smiling when she saw him, her whole face fell in relief. Kabru understood the feeling. The lifting of stress didn’t always feel like a smile-- sometimes it felt like an utter collapse. Getting to stop putting up a front. He wondered if even she knew whether or not he would wake up; if she was putting on a hopeful face for others, promising she’d save him without knowing if she could. It would be in character. 

He felt warm gratitude at the idea. She had saved him, hadn’t she? Bravely and purposefully.

“Thank you,” he croaked. He was surprised at how hard it was to speak. 

Falin rushed into the room, picking up the glass from his bedside and tilting water into his mouth. He drank gratefully, feeling the headache dull with how refreshing the water was. The bustle of moving people managed to wake Laios (still a light sleeper after years in the dungeon) who sat up ramrod straight, knocking into Falin’s arm and almost making her spill the water.

“Sorry, Falin! Kabru! How are you feeling!” Laios said. He reached forward like he wanted to hold onto Kabru’s arm, but Kabru stopped him by muttering.

“Don’t, don’t-- ah, can’t…” 

“Of course, sorry,” Laios said, putting his hands politely in his lap. He looked at Kabru like he was the most precious and most broken thing in the world. Kabru couldn’t stand it. He felt warm all over-- was it shame? Anger? Offense? Wouldn’t that be nice. It was love. (And a bit of lingering pain, of course.)

“Any idea what happened?” Kabru asked, voice still straining, as he leaned his head back on his pillow and stared at the ceiling. His head swam at the motion, and his muscles tried to tense against the subtle pain rocking through him. 

“You got stabbed,” Falin said. “Obviously, something else went very wrong. Marcille checked the knife, and found out it was cursed. There was a spell packed inside that activated in contact with blood. Demdae is claiming she had no idea.”

Kabru tiredly thought all this over. When he spoke, his words came out slurred and forced. “Can’t be true. Mithrun stabbed her with it. No curse then.” 

From the corner of his eye, he watched Falin open her mouth to say something, then stop, like she was still thinking. 

“She must’ve switched knives between rounds…” Kabru said, struggling with some of the consonants. He tried shifting in bed and groaned at how stiff he was, how much effort it took, and the fact that it still hurt a little. 

“You mean she aimed this attack specifically at you?” Laios asked. His voice was like a warm blanket, like the smell of roses, like the wet nose of a happy dog. Kabru nearly fell into the comfort of it. He almost didn’t hear the deep displeasure looped into it. 

“Maybe,” Kabru said. There wasn’t enough information yet. “What was the curse?” 

“Blood burning,” Falin said.

“Hurt like a motherfucker,” Kabru noted. 

“That was my fault for not catching it immediately,” Falin said, shamefaced. “I healed the physical wound, but didn’t know there was more to it than that-- sorry it took that extra time. We put you under to stop the pain. By the time we worked out what was happening, it was far enough through your body that it was nearly lethal. I was running healing on your nervous systems just to hold off shock and keep your heart beating, so Marcille had to cast the healing to get the curse out, so-- uh, that’s why you’re so hoarse.”

“I screamed in my sleep?” Kabru asked, amazed. He rolled his head over to look at the siblings. Laios looked like he was about to cry. Eyebrows knotted together, mouth wobbling. The sight made his heart break, so he inched his arm out from the blankets, palm up, and looked at Laios. 

“You said…” Even Laios’s voice was breaking. Poor boy. 

“Just the hand. Be gentle,” Kabru responded. Laios (slowly, gently) reached out, and intertwined his fingers with Kabru’s. 

Kabru decided he was strong enough to fold his fingers back over Laios’s. 

“It was… a powerful curse. It did a lot of damage,” Falin said. “So Marcille’s spell hurt… a lot more. It wouldn’t have been as bad if I’d caught the curse earlier, but I didn’t know what was happening, I’m so sorry…” 

“Falin, please, you saved my life. I don’t blame you for the time it took you to do complex magic,” Kabru croaked. He wanted to add; besides, you’re not the person who stabbed and cursed me, they’re really the one responsible, but didn’t, mostly because his voice hurt too much. 

Falin heard his voice ripping and held out more water, which he gratefully drank. 

“I’m just so relieved you were already passed out for the worst of it. After the curse was expelled, I had to heal all the residual damage to your physical body… it was a lot. You took quite a beating. Even if my magic was able to fix most of it, I can’t take away the soreness and oversensitivity that comes with overhealing.”

Kabru nodded. “I don’t blame you at all. Thank you so much, Falin. You saved my life.” 

“It’s the least I could do,” Falin said. She smiled, briefly. “You made me pancakes, after all.” Kabru huffed, and his ribs ached. He’d have to find a way to thank her more genuinely. Maybe he’d organize a day off for Laios, so the siblings could spend quality time in the wilderness somewhere. 

Falin excused herself, promising to bring Kabru hot tea and a cool washcloth. Kabru wanted to protest at being fussed over, but he couldn’t deny that both sounded like they’d provide some much needed relief. He let her go with another thank you. 

Then he was alone, with Laios next to his bed, still looking at him with a stressed, obsessed expression. Like he couldn’t bring himself to stop looking at Kabru. It made Kabru a little uneasy-- he was sure he wasn’t at his prettiest. 

“What of the tournament?” Kabru asked, his next most pressing question. He squeezed Laios’s hand. 

Looking at Laios was a loving balm to the subtle agony his body was in. Laios’s hair was still fluffy, mussed from the way he’d been sleeping, and glowing in the light from the window. His eyes were glassy, wide and caring. He was so pretty. So soft. 

Laios opened his mouth to say something, but Kabru cut him off. 

“Wait, Laios, lift my hand for me,” Kabru said. He was getting tired, despite all the sleep he’d apparently gotten. His eyes were drooping, and he wasn’t tracking his priorities correctly. Tournament talk could wait a moment. Laios was right here. Within arm’s reach. 

Laios’s eyes widened, but he listened, slowly and carefully holding up their intertwined hands. 

“Put it up to your cheek,” Kabru murmured. Laios blinked rapidly, but he did it, holding Kabru’s hand between his own and his cheek. The whole thing was too warm-- Kabru immediately flushed, which made him feel hot and nauseous. All the skin to skin contact was anathema to him, sticky and gruesome when his body was already so traumatized. 

But he had been right. Laios’s cheek. Was so soft. 

Kabru felt a little smile playing on his mouth, a little joy curling in his throat. This all felt like a dream. He almost couldn’t believe it. He was so happy, and that also hurt. 

He realized he’d been quiet too long, despite Laios humoring his odd requests. He tried to explain his thought process. 

“So pretty,” Kabru said. “So soft…” 

That seemed reasonable enough. He was too tired for more, he could feel his eyelids weighing down, staring at Laios with a lidded gaze. 

Laios blushed, which was also so pretty. Kabru would have repeated himself if his throat weren’t scratchy and painful. 

“Do you want to hear about the duels?” Laios asked. Kabru hummed an affirmative. 

“Let me go, please. It’s starting to hurt.” That wasn’t quite true. It wasn’t pain. It was just overwhelming contact, in a body that didn’t know what to do but interpret that as pain, after a miserable few hours. But Kabru couldn’t quite explain that.

Laios set Kabru’s hand back down on the bed and let go of him, then straightened the blankets, like he at least had to keep his hands near Kabru. Kabru didn’t blame him. Apparently, the man had watched him nearly die. Kabru would be much more incensed and neurotic, in his position. 

(He often thought it was easier, being the one in the sickbed. Selfishly, he was glad to have the easy position. He didn’t have the energy to worry about Laios more than usual. Much less to care so, so much and have someone ripped away from him-- even the thought made his chest tighten in that familiar, traumatized way. It was better this way. This way, he could just sit and wallow in his pain.)

“Once you were stable, a few of the advisors insisted we finish the event. I wanted to take-- at least the day, maybe launch an investigation, definitely try to avoid anymore accidents, but they insisted, since there was only one fight left, to just get it over with…”

“One?” Kabru asked. His brain was struggling, but he knew the numbers. There was supposed to be another intermission, with two fights after. 

“Yours and Mithrun’s was considered a loss. You won against Demdae, though. So you came second.”

Kabru had forgotten not to count himself. His mind was not computing correctly. He really needed to curl into a ball and sleep. 

“I don’t care about-- all that, who was eliminated?” he forced out. If Demdae lost against him, that was two losses, and Senshi also lost two, so in the fight between them, whoever lost… she could have been…

“Senshi,” Laios said, sadly. 

“...Did you want to marry him?” Kabru asked. Apparently, digging for secrets was habit enough he didn’t have to think to do it. He could manage even when ill. 

“I don’t want to marry any of them,” Laios said. Kabru sighed, even as his heart lightened. 

“Then what are we doing all this for, Laios? Fun? We should send them home if you don’t want--”

“Can you stop? Thinking like you’re my retainer, for just, two minutes?” Laios’s voice was shaky and high.

“As your advisor--” 

“Kabru, you nearly-- died,” Laios’s voice had tears in it, and then they were coming out of his eyes. The sight made Kabru stop breathing. 

He immediately understood Laios’s frustration. Here he’d watched his friend-- crush? Lover?-- suffer mortal peril, and Kabru was acting like it was all business. Political implications, event organization, mysteries to solve. 

Ah, tricky. All that time spent not caring meant he’d forgotten to care about himself. It was a bad habit, putting aside his worry and fear and trauma, so he wouldn’t have to acknowledge it. Here he was, still in the habit. Forgetting to process what happened, forgetting to let the feelings linger. 

“I’m sorry, Laios,” he said, as softly as he could. Laios shook his head, still crying. 

“You’re allowed to-- feel however you want about it. I’m sorry for reacting like this. You’re the one who almost--”

“I was minimizing my feelings, and that meant I minimized yours,” Kabru said. “It was unfair to both of us.”

Laios sat there and cried, and the sun finally went low enough that there was no more direct beams in the room. It was all ambient light, and darkening fast. Kabru felt the exhaustion settling over him, and, with no conversation occupying his brain, the soreness and oversensitivity was getting overwhelming. He let his eyes slide shut. Relaxation soared over his tense muscles, slowly lulling him into sleep. 

“Kabru?” Laios said. Kabru would be ticked at the interruption, if Laios’s voice didn’t calm him down more. He couldn’t help but love it, even exhausted and annoyed. 

“Yeah?” Kabru responded. He sounded remarkably tired. 

“Can I stay with you? While you sleep?” 

Some corner of his mind noted that it was the same tone as when he’d said, “I miss you when you leave.” The comparison was enough to make Kabru dissolve.

How did he not understand? Kabru never wanted to leave. He could be cursed and sent to the brink of death, and he’d still come back to Laios. With his caring eyes, and sad smile, and soft cheeks. The man who cared so much, about horrible monsters, and wonderful people, and doomed kingdoms. And Kabru. He cared about Kabru. 

“Please do,” Kabru said. “I want you to.” 

The last thing he saw before his eyes heavily dropped into sleep was a corner of Laios’s feeble smile in the easing light. Then he fell into a deep, healing sleep.

Chapter Text

“Laios wouldn’t like flowers.” 

“He would if they were edible!” 

“He likes beasties. That might be the best way to woo him.” 

“A unicorn!” 

“Not the most romantic gesture. Seems more… horny.” 

Four voices shouted around him in reaction to the stupid dad joke. 

Kabru didn’t know how he’d gotten in this situation. He took stock. 

Laios had left some time before the sun was fully up, pulled away to attend to some politics. Usually, Kabru would have demanded details-- he needed to keep track of everything, so everything would stay under control-- but his voice was still recovering, and Laios kissed him lightly on the knuckles as a goodbye, and Kabru’s brain stalled. He went back to sleep. He passively thought that he should be fired. 

His current predicament started when Senshi brought him breakfast in bed (yogurt and fruit, a small portion of scrambled eggs, all easy to digest with plenty of nutrients). Kabru flinched as he sat up to accept the plate, but it was the kind of pain he could move through, not the kind of pain that forced him to be still. 

“I heard you lost, yesterday?” Kabru said, letting the confusion into his voice, as he resituated on the bed.  

“I was eliminated, not exiled,” Senshi said. Instead of making some polite exit, like Kabru expected, Senshi hovered. (This was the moment he should’ve started being suspicious.) “Eat up. You’re not going to get better if you’re not eating properly.” 

Kabru’s stomach twisted, but he knew Senshi was right, so he took a small bite. 

Senshi started thinking out loud about getting him water, and, as if summoned, Falin came through the door holding a fresh glass. After smiling at him and putting the water on his bedside table, she also hovered, fixing his sheets and fluffing his pillows, while Kabru insisted it was fine. 

Then Marcille swooped in, looking for Falin, and instead of pulling her away to talk, Marcille plopped in the chair in front of his desk. They chatted about the results of some magic experiment they’d started yesterday-- maybe a way to track the caster of the curse, Kabru couldn’t really pay attention, because Senshi was egging him into taking another bite of breakfast. 

While Kabru was chewing, there was a knock at the door, and Senshi answered it. Kabru couldn’t see anyone, but Senshi’s head was tilted down slightly, and he was speaking. Then he heard Chilchuck’s brash voice, shouting at some random annoyance. Kabru sighed around his fork, then Chilchuck and Senshi were wandering back into his room. Chilchuck leaned against a wall, Senshi sat on top of one of Kabru’s trunks, Falin sat on the foot of his bed, Marcille still in the desk chair.

He was stuck and completely surrounded. And it wasn’t even his own party. He was outnumbered by Laios’s people, all chatting absently.

“What are you all doing here?” Kabru asked, with some volume and some irritation. 

“I always visit the castle when Senshi’s in town,” Chilchuck pointed out, flipping his wrist. “I couldn’t get away from the shop ‘til today. But I’m here today. Plus, all the tournament stuff seemed interesting, from what I saw in the tabloids.” 

“I want a short break from the dungeons,” Senshi said. 

“We live here,” Falin said, gesturing at herself and Marcille, as if Kabru was not aware. 

“All very reasonable, allow me to rephrase-- what are you all doing in my room?” Kabru said, hiding his clenched teeth with a smile. 

Immediately, nobody would look at him, gazes wandering to the (suddenly interesting) walls and ceiling. Something was up. 

“I needed to find Falin, you know…” Marcille muttered, forcibly casual. 

“Breakfast, most important meal of the day,” Senshi was humming.

“Laios put us up to it,” Chilchuck sighed. He cleaned his ear with a pinky, still looking away. “He feels bad that you’re alone in here.”

Marcille gave him a sharp look, but Chilchuck raised an incredulous eyebrow at her, and the two devolved into a conversation made entirely of faces and gestures. 

Kabru sighed. His abused muscles had enough mobility to put his plate in his lap and run his hands down his face, so he did so. 

“While I appreciate all of your efforts, I am perfectly happy on my own. Please don’t hang around for my sake,” Kabru said. 

“Well, it’s not entirely for your sake,” Chilchuck said. Of course, out of all of them, he would be the one with ulterior motives. 

“I thought we agreed not to do this now,” Marcille interrupted, which made Kabru sharpen up from his tired exasperation-- they were conspiring.

“There are only two rounds left in the tournament. Better now than later. It’s getting serious,” Chilchuck said. He looked at Kabru with his eyes half in shadow. Kabru shifted in bed, another motion which would have caused him pain a few hours ago, but he could do easily, now. That was good, at least, but-- the way they were talking was making him nervous. 

Marcille looked indecisive, but then Falin nodded seriously. Oh, gods, she was also in on it. Kabru was fucked. 

He took a small bite of eggs to hide his nerves. 

“Kabru, what are your intentions with our party leader?” Chilchuck said, arms crossed, tone artificially deep. He was trying to sound grouchy and intimidating. It almost worked. 

A shovel talk! Delightful, no national incidents over breakfast. 

“You’re not a party anymore,” Kabru said, feeling cheeky after they’d stressed him out for nothing.

“We’ll be the ones asking the questions here, bucko,” Chilchuck said.

“I didn’t ask a question,” Kabru pointed out. 

“Stop evading,” Chilchuck snapped. Kabru took a slow bite of yogurt to further stall and annoy the shit out of Chilchuck. If him rapidly tapping a finger against his elbow was any indication, it worked, which made Kabru feel deviously victorious. 

As much as he wanted to mess with all of them, and as much as a shovel talk was not quite high stakes, compared to daily politics-- he did actually need their approval. So, the stakes were, actually, kind of high. These were Laios’s closest friends, his party (although Kabru had contested the term, he knew as well as anyone that the mindset stuck). Coworker was too distant a word, and family too flimsy of one. They had died for and with each other. 

So, he wanted to be evasive and mean, maybe deceitful and charming. More than anything, he didn’t want to be genuine. It would be torturous to reveal how much he cared about Laios-- too vulnerable, too close to the heart. And it would be so fun to mess with them. But these people had to know Kabru cared, or he’d be chased out. 

(He briefly entertained the thought of courting Laios secretly, escaping the scrutiny of his friends. Clandestine meetings in alcoves, whispering lovely things in passing. It was alluring, if only for the fun of having a secret, but he knew Laios would immediately crumble under a situation like that. The idea of trying to get Laios to keep a secret from Marcille-- or, gods forbid, Falin-- was laughable.)

“My intentions with Laios,” Kabru said, testing out the requirements of the question. He thought of a million ingenuine things to say (“to push him down our tallest flight of stairs and take his place as king, obviously,” or, “to shake him by the shoulders so hard all the monster facts fall out of his ears,” or, “to perform unethical experiments on him--”), but there was only one truth, and he had no choice but to admit to it. 

“Well, I want to marry him,” Kabru said. 

“For what? Power?” Chilchuck asked. 

“Chilchuck!” Marcille said. 

“What? That’s the point of all this. We have to check,” Chilchuck snapped. 

“I-- want to marry him for his company, I guess. Permission to be affectionate with him, despite our offices. The occasional kiss would be nice.” Kabru said. He didn’t go into the politics of the millions of ways he could have wrested ultimate power over this kingdom (and multiple neighboring ones) by now. If only because it would make him sound more suspicious for having thought of the options at all. 

Chilchuck moved on efficiently, since Kabru proved sufficiently kiss-motivated and uncorrupt.

“Hm. Alright. Do you take care of him?” Chilchuck said. Falin tilted her head, like she was paying particular attention to his answer. 

“Pardon?” Kabru asked. 

“I know how he is,” Chilchuck said. “He’s been taking care of you, at least by making sure you maintain healthy habits. And the point of partnerships is covering each other’s weaknesses, yeah? So I’m wondering whether you watch his back, or if you just let him watch yours.” 

“I can say with confidence that I am the reason he’s able to function as king,” Kabru said. Chilchuck rolled his eyes dramatically. 

“We all know that. This isn’t about politics. I’m talking about helping him carry things up stairs. Grabbing a drink for him when you’re already heading to the kitchen. Comforting his nightmares.” 

“Y--yeah,” Kabru said, mouth cottony for some reason. “I do that.” 

Chilchuck looked at Marcille and Falin. Marcille looked like she was thinking. 

“I think Kabru is always helping Laios in some way,” Marcille said. 

“And Laios is usually helping Kabru in some way,” Falin agreed. “They make each other work.” 

Chilchuck squinted, but he nodded. “And-- you intend to marry him. Are you serious about that?” 

“How do you mean?” Kabru asked. 

“I mean marriage. I get that the two of you are backed into a corner cause of your public offices, but you’re not gonna-- get in a fight two years down the line and walk out on him, are you? Marriage is a real commitment. It means you stick with him. Thick and thin.” Chilchuck’s face was scrunched up, and he was looking steadily at a wall to the side. 

Kabru didn’t think he’d have any problem committing himself to Laios. He honestly thought he already had, and didn’t see any end in sight. He could stand the man becoming a monster-- literally his worst fear-- and almost bringing about the end of the world-- his second worst fear-- and his heart still fluttered at the idea of his smile. Whatever had lodged in Kabru’s chest was a permanent fixture at this point. 

But, horribly, simultaneously, he believed in his own ability to scare Laios off. Kabru was volatile. Nice because he felt like it, with often wicked impulses. It was possible Laios was in love with an ideal version of him; it was possible, the more of Kabru he was exposed to, the less he’d like. 

Kabru could not imagine walking out on Laios. He was terrified, however, of being someone Laios could walk out on. 

Kabru swallowed dryly. What did Chilchuck want to hear? How honest could Kabru be before he imploded? 

“I can’t predict the future, obviously. But I believe in patience, and I believe in work. Laios and I have proven we know how to be patient and work together, and we have the feelings to encourage that, besides. I can’t promise things will be perfect, or that they’ll be good, or that they’ll be forever. But I can promise to try.” 

Kabru waited as Chilchuck stared at him for a minute, eyes skimming Kabru’s face for signs of how genuine he was. Kabru knew he was being judged on the quality of his answer. Was it enough? 

Finally, Chilchuck shut his eyes, casual as anything. “That’s me, then. You all had questions?” 

Oh, no, they weren’t just letting Chilchuck run it? There was more? Individually? Kabru’s eyes widened, and he took a shaky bite of yogurt. 

“Oh! I’ve got one! Kabru, what do you like about my brother?” Falin asked. 

“His body exclusively. I hate his personality,” Kabru said, just for a break. 

“KABRU!!!” Marcille said, standing, her face turning red. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Kabru laughed, rubbing the back of his head to look guilty, even though he felt absolutely no remorse for his joke. “I’m just joking. Uh, if I had to choose-- his passion for things. I love how much he loves. There are other things, too, like how genuine he is, or how he can be serious when he knows the situation calls for it. He’s never just one thing-- he’s so much personality, packed into one person, and that complexity enamours me. A lot of people shrink themselves down, or settle for being less than they are, but he can’t stand doing that-- I don’t even think he knows how to. He’s almost explosive, with how thoroughly he is himself, he’s the loudest and brightest person in any room, even if he’s sitting utterly still and completely quiet. Am I making sense? Sorry.” Kabru stopped and smiled shyly in apology once he noticed he’d been rambling. 

Falin shook her head, though, with a matching small smile. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” 

“The-- monsters, thing,” Marcille said, sitting again, fiddling with a strand of her hair. The gesture reminded Kabru so starkly of Rin that he felt for a minute like he was having a heart attack. Oh, that was the emotion known as “missing somebody”. He’d have to see her soon. Maybe after the tournament. 

Marcille flinched, taking his silence and tension as a trauma response. He forced his shoulders to relax. He was honestly more upset about missing Rin than he was about Marcille bringing up Utaya. His past was miserable, sure, and still put ice in his veins, but he never tried to dance around it. 

“Do you really think I could be this close to him for this long if I couldn’t stand his talking about monsters?” Kabru asked, with some exhaustion. This whole ordeal was a lot of heavy emotions for first thing in the morning after he’d nearly died.  

“You’re evading again,” Chilchuck piped up. Kabru closed his eyes before he could send him a scowl that plainly said ‘you need to shut up,’ figuring that wouldn’t help his case at all. 

“Okay, to be honest-- and I hope you scoundrels appreciate the honesty, because under normal circumstances I wouldn’t admit to any of this-- it was hard to deal with at the start. But I’ve come to appreciate the scientific perspective… how do I put this--? Being around someone who can analyze my greatest fear like it’s a normal part of the world-- not something to be scared of, not something impossible or unstoppable, not something mythic-- calms me down a lot. When I see a monster, I can’t help but see all the death and pain it represents, but he talks about it like he’s just seeing a squirrel. It lets me look outside of my own perspective and adjust, so I’m not immediately catastrophizing. I don’t love the way he admires them, but that’s only really a mild problem. And-- admittedly there are days I can’t stand it, bad days, where my instincts sort of dig their heels in, or he starts talking and it gives me-- flashbacks, but-- we talked about that, and he told me to tell him when I can’t hear about it, we actually have a code word so I don’t even have to explain myself, he’ll just, change topic, no questions asked. Start talking about something funny he saw on the street, or something. So-- yes, it’s not ideal, but it’s certainly workable. We found a compromise.” 

Kabru took a deep breath after all that. And a small nibble of yogurt. The bare tartness was grounding. He chased a blueberry with his fork. 

The room was quiet, but in the comfortable way. They were giving his statement the appropriate thought. Not rushing past it or working to comfort him. Listening, considering. 

“That’s-- that’s good. I’m glad,” Marcille said, looking a little embarassed at the fact that she asked. He didn’t blame her, though. It would seem like a pretty major roadblock from the outside. But Kabru was more than his trauma, and Laios was more than his interests, and they both cared about the other enough to work it out. 

Kabru took another scoop of eggs, swallowed and sighed. 

“Anything else? Senshi?” he asked. 

Senshi hummed for a second. “What’s your favorite food?” 

Kabru blinked. The question was noticeably lower stakes than the rest had been. “Tomatoes.” 

Senshi nodded slowly. “And do you know his favorite food?” 

“Cheesecake,” Kabru said. Chilchuck looked vaguely surprised. Kabru was smug at the idea of knowing something about Laios even his party didn’t. 

Senshi rubbed his chin. “Tomatoes, cheesecake… the two don’t pair well.” 

Oh, shit. Kabru raised his eyebrows. Was that Senshi’s way of saying they weren’t compatible? 

“It will take creativity,” Senshi went on. “But things can be prepared in a variety of ways. Unexpected ingredients may work together perfectly, with enough persistence, and understanding of the flavor profile.”

Kabru was so relieved that Senshi wouldn’t classify them as doomed lovers based on their favorite foods, he almost sank down into bed just to curl up into a ball and relax, company be damned. But they hadn’t reached the end of the shovel talk quite yet. 

“Alright,” Kabru sighed, after a minute of nobody else piping up with another question. “Which one of you is threatening me?” 

“Oh, Falin, definitely,” Chilchuck said. Marcille nodded emphatically. 

“To be clear, I like you a lot. I don’t want to hurt you,” Falin said. 

“But?” Kabru prompted. 

“But, I mean, yeah, if you hurt Laios, you will die,” Falin said, a subtly crazed look coming into her eyes. “I want him to be happy, no matter what. You make him happy, so that’s good. But if you become a significant interruption to his happiness…”

Some base part of Kabru remembered that she had already killed him once, and shuddered. He smiled anyway. 

“I understand,” he said, to be polite. 

“Don’t just make him happy! You’d better-- treat him right!” Marcille chipped in. She was hilariously unintimidating next to Falin. 

“Right! So, bring him flowers!” Falin said, all murderous intent suddenly gone, replaced with determination as she backed up Marcille. 

“Laios wouldn’t like flowers,” Chilchuck muttered. 

“He would if they were edible!” Falin said. Marcille blushed wildly, for some reason. 

“He likes beasties. That might be the best way to woo him,” Senshi said. 

“A unicorn!” Falin said, pointing a finger out from her face, as if to demonstrate. 

“Not the most romantic gesture. Seems more… horny,” Chilchuck added. 

And then everybody was yelling at him and groaning in dismay, and Chilchuck had a shit eating grin. Kabru took a long drink of water. The room kept arguing around him about the best ways to court Laios, under the guise of giving Kabru advice. Silly them. He was the advisor. 

He quietly ate through the rest of his breakfast while they bickered around him. 

“What kind of gifts can you even get for a king?” Chilchuck wondered aloud. 

“Pastries…” Senshi said. 

“Hm. Cream filled,” Chilchuck said, in the self-satisfied tone of voice that meant he was making a horribly illicit statement. Besides Kabru, only Marcille seemed to pick up on this one, as she squawked angrily and blindly threw something from Kabru’s desk at a laughing Chilchuck. 

“Anyway! Dates at least once a week!” Marcille declared. 

“They’re together all the time anyway…” Falin said. Kabru thought this was either extremely self aware of her, or extremely hypocritical. 

“That’s the point! They have to go out of their way to date purposefully, or there won’t be enough romance,” Marcille said. 

“Take breaks from each other when you need it, then,” Chilchuck said. “Overexposure can build resentment. Don’t lose sight of being your own person.” 

“Kebabs…” Senshi said. 

Chilchuck nodded. “A good introduction to penetration.”

“CHILCHUCK! FALIN IS IN! THE! ROOM!” Marcille said. 

“Oh! Date idea! He mentioned he likes sparring with you, but because he really enjoys the feeling of relaxing with you during the cool-down afterwards. Maybe you guys should take a day off and go relax at the lake together,” Falin noted. 

“You’re a stress relief for him! That’s so romantic…” Marcille said. 

“Do you know how he interprets affection? Talk to him in his own love language,” Chilchuck said. 

“Soup…” Senshi pondered. 

Kabru waited for a sex joke, but it seemed Chilchuck couldn’t think of one. 

“No joke this time?” Marcille asked, hesitant. 

“I ain’t a jester, I don’t just do this on demand to amuse you,” Chilchuck grouched.

“You couldn’t think of one,” Marcille mocked. 

“I’m soup-rised at you,” Falin said. Chilchuck made an undignified noise, Marcille laughed too loudly, Senshi’s eyes crinkled with amusement, and Falin looked so proud-- she scrunched her eyebrows and her smile got crooked, it was the exact same face Laios made when he was extremely self-satisfied-- and Kabru thought it was lucky that he really did like all of them. They would be in-laws, after all. It’d be inconvenient if he had to fake his smile every time they came by the castle. 

“Alright, Kabru’s done eating. Can we give the guy some privacy now?” Chilchuck asked the general room. 

Falin nodded, standing up. Marcille stretched, and stood too. 

“Thanks for humoring us,” Marcille said, looking past Falin to Kabru. 

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Kabru deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. 

Falin pointed at him, intensely, drawing his attention like a stern teacher. “ Keep drinking water. You need to get better.” 

“I will, I will,” Kabru said, only a little scared. 

Senshi gathered his dishes with accompanying thanks from Kabru, and Chilchuck wandered out of the room ahead of the others, arms behind his head. 

Once everybody cleared out, Kabru realized the breakfast had given him much needed energy, and he actually felt well enough to get out of bed. He stretched gently, forcing his creaky muscles to move, then went about cleaning himself up-- bathroom, bath, change of clothes. It was amazing how much better he felt from yesterday, and inconvenient that he didn’t already feel perfect. He wanted to be ready to compete. He wanted to have already won. 

Only a little more to go. Two more events. Two more. 

There wasn’t an event today, of course, after yesterday’s disaster. But there was still plenty of competition to handle. 

--

Kabru didn’t know if he and Demdae were on speaking terms. Nonetheless, he was compelled to hunt her down and rip the story out of her, desperate to understand any of this. He wasn’t scared at the idea of speaking to her, but he got the sense that he should be. 

Did she know Falin would be able to heal me? Was she depending on my safety? Was the point to send a message? Or did she mean for me to die? Fuck, is my life so incidental? 

She would have shown signs of murderous intent, surely. Shaking hands, crazed eyes, skittishness while talking to him before the match-- nervous about what she meant to do. But she’d only been brazen and bitchy. Nothing out of the ordinary.

So either she was used to killing people, enough that it didn’t affect her, or she truly didn’t mean to kill Kabru. Or-- she was dedicated enough to whatever was motivating her that she didn’t balk at the idea of murder to get it. 

Kabru wished he had any definitive answers, but he didn’t even know why she was competing in the tournament. They’d worked out she wanted to marry Laios for possible access to Marcille, but-- for what? What could she want with knowledge of ancient magic? 

He didn’t have a choice but to hunt her down and talk to her, directly. But his blood had been boiled recently enough to give him pause at the idea of doing it alone. As he understood it, there were three options. He wrote them in the margins of his morning meeting notes.

• Confront Demdae alone
• Bring Laios (she will not be honest, but she will behave, for propriety’s sake, if she wants to maintain his apparent favor)
• Bring Mithrun (no clue how she’d react to Mithrun’s undefeated method of intimidating silence, but it would be funny, & it’d be safer w/ him around)

As the meeting went on and Kabru blathered mindlessly about dwarven tariffs, he cycled the options in his head. By the time the meeting concluded, Kabru had decided on talking to her alone, for the highest likelihood of honesty. 

But he wasn’t so stubbornly independent that he didn’t think to tell Laios what he was doing, just in case Demdae tried to kill him again. (The dungeon had a way of training those “heroic” habits out of people.) He found Laios going over internal affairs with Yaad. 

“Can we have a minute?” Kabru asked. 

Yaad sighed (heavily enough to turn himself to dust) and excused himself. 

“Kabru! How are you feeling?” Laios said. Kabru passively realized he’d missed his voice. He was focussed, at the moment, though, no time for romantic musings.

“I’ve decided to talk to Demdae,” Kabru said. 

“What? No, don’t do that,” Laios said, almost immediately. His eyebrows pulled together in concern. 

“I’m going to,” Kabru said. 

“Should you even be out of bed?” Laios asked, half standing, as if he was going to escort Kabru back to his room himself. 

“You understand the efficacy of magical healing better than most. Didn’t you walk on your leg minutes after it was bitten off, back in the dungeon?”

“I don’t know! Maybe the curse has-- resistances, you can’t blame me for worrying, can you?” Laios said. He gave Kabru a very long, very sad look, and Kabru had to look away before his chest exploded, or his thoughts exploded, or he tried to explode Laios with his mind. 

“Thank you, for your oversight. But I am fine, Laios. And I will be going to talk to Demdae.” 

“Maybe I should come with you,” Laios said. 

Kabru had decided against this option for two reasons; one, he wanted Demdae exposing as many of her secrets as possible, and she would never do that if Laios was there to judge her. Two, he, very selfishly and possessively, wanted Laios as far away from her as possible. He did not like the idea of her getting her hands on him again.

“I can handle it myself,” Kabru said easily, relaxing any stress out of his voice. If Laios heard he was frustrated, he’d interpret him as being nervous (because that’s what he expected from Kabru right now, so he’d see that no matter what), and insist on coming along. And then Kabru’s whole concentration for that interaction would be on managing Laios, and not picking Demdae apart. 

He was overthinking. He could feel that frantic edge to his thoughts that meant they were out of control and bordering on unhealthy. To be fair to himself, he’d almost died. Maybe he was allowed to lose some self control. 

“I know you can handle it yourself, but maybe-- you shouldn’t have to? It might be good to have some help?” 

Kabru held back the comment that Laios most certainly would not help-- because that was unfair. Laios would be helpful for some things (second pair of eyes, security in company, tempering Kabru) and unhelpful for others (finding out what made Demdae tick). And his priorities were going in a different direction right now, and that was alright. But Laios didn’t need to know that and take it personally. 

Okay, he really was overthinking. He had to go find Demdae, now, before he worked himself into a worse frenzy. 

“Take the time without me to organize the next tournament event. I’m looking forward to winning it, you know,” Kabru said. He winked, the practiced motion falling out of him. Laios blushed, his attention successfully diverted away from concern and into flirtation. Kabru was relieved. 

He left Laios and headed for the library. When he’d asked the servants about her general movements throughout a day, they reported she spent most of her time there. Kabru liked the idea of talking to her at the library-- it was an enclosed enough space where she wouldn’t feel watched, but it was public enough for Kabru to feel somewhat assured in his safety. 

He walked into the library with his skin itching, memories of the agony he’d been through barely a day prior. Bookshelves lined the walls, packed with tomes in all sorts of dusky colors. Tables spotted the open floor, variously populated with floral arrangements or well melted candelabras or, usually, studying people. Currently, the room was empty, except for a certain dryad elf. 

Despite being alone in the room, Demdae sat at the table in the most shadowed corner (tucked away closer to the library’s stacks), with a pile of books next to her. Interesting. What would she have picked up? He should try to glimpse at the titles. 

Kabru planted himself in the chair across from her, straightening his posture and staring unflinchingly. He tried to level his gaze as much as he could-- reveal nothing, complete neutrality, with a sense of judgement. 

Demdae gave him a bored glance, then looked back down at her book. 

“Heard you had about five people in your room earlier. Imagine the scandal if I told the newspapers,” Demdae said, passively. 

Kabru started to bristle at that, but he put together it wasn’t a real threat. She was just messing with him. Strange, to open with a joke after making an attempt on someone’s life. Was she really trying to get him to relax? 

“Who told you that?” Kabru asked, keeping his tone uncaring, instead of harsh. Using interrogation tactics on her would just make her defensive. 

“Do you really expect me to tell you?” Demdae asked. 

“No, I suppose not.” Kabru would check her attendants and see if any of them were known gossips. 

“Listen-- I’m sorry about the curse,” Demdae said bluntly. “It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.” 

Kabru felt a curl of offense in his chest, but he patted that out. No emotions right now. She was admitting that she did it-- on purpose, even, although she was claiming there was still a mistake somewhere. She was saying it in this curt manner, without any airs, the matter-of-factness she’d had since Kabru sat down. She knew he knew what she was; knew he could see through it. So of course she dropped the dramatic flair. 

But; that didn’t mean she wasn’t still lying. It meant she had set herself up to sound more convincing when she did. A lie was much more believable if it was told after a series of truths. Maybe she’d admitted that she’d done the curse-- a truth-- so that she could immediately claim she didn’t mean for it to nearly kill him-- a lie. It was smarter than lying outright and denying any involvement. It put Kabru in the subconscious habit of believing her. But, if he knew she was doing it, he didn’t have to let it work. 

“How was it supposed to happen, precisely?” Kabru asked, with an edge of a smile. Let her think he was warming up to her, or at least that he wasn’t intimidated. 

“Admittedly, it was meant for the dwarf,” Demdae said. This immediately made sense to Kabru-- he’d known the elimination would come down to the fight between her and Senshi, of course she’d come to the same conclusion. But, as soon as he thought that, he realized it didn’t make any sense, actually. He’d known his own and Mithrun’s fighting prowess, and Demdae shouldn’t have any background on them. Unless she’d asked around-- was she getting information from the same spy that’d reported on Laios’s whole party being in Kabru’s room? Or did she have a whole network of spies in the castle? 

“Killing an opponent is still a disqualifiable offense,” Kabru said. He’d decided to point out the obvious flaw in her plan, rather than the fact that she shouldn’t have the plan in the first place. 

“It wouldn’t have killed him,” Demdae shrugged. “Dwarves are sturdy. Iron in their veins, and all that. Curses that’ll put us on our asses will make them sneeze, at worst.” 

Kabru wasn’t sure that was true. Senshi would have felt the same pain Kabru had, and would’ve passed out all the same, since he’d been put under magically to stop the pain. Maybe he wouldn’t have almost died, but even then-- a heart was a heart. They beat until they stopped. That was true of all humans. 

Her story wasn’t exactly adding up. A plan she shouldn’t have the context to construct, with a paper-thin safety net that wouldn’t actually protect her if she’d managed to curse Senshi. But she was looking at him without a hint of remorse or fear, like she’d already been forgiven for her transgression, like she wasn’t even scared of there being consequences for such a “misunderstanding”. Her attitude was so unflappable, but Kabru didn’t believe it for a second. 

“Where’d you get the curse?” Kabru asked. He couldn’t ask any of his actual questions; she’d evade all of them. He had to ask adjacent questions and fill in the picture. He had to hope she’d let something slip. 

“What, you don’t know any?” Demdae asked, with a crooked smile. So-- she’d learned it and cast it herself, hadn’t outsourced the magic. Unless that was a joke. Kabru laughed and rolled his eyes, like he actually found her joke funny. It was empty; he hated her. 

“Did you go to school in Kahka Brud?” he asked, leaning a cheek on a hand. Relaxing into the question. Not pointed, not aiming for anything. Casual, conversational, maybe she’d fall for it. 

“Did you?” she shot back. Okay, she was evading. He decided to push this one.

“I’m just wondering what kind of magical education includes curses. Unless, you learned that from your parents?” He watched her hawkishly. At the mention of her parents, her cool exterior finally withered somewhat. Her jaw tensed. The rest of her face and posture stayed the same, even her eyes held the same wide open cynicism, but he still saw her break a little. 

“This isn’t about them,” she said. “I know how it looks.” So she’d heard the implied accusation, then, that she had joined the tournament at the request of her parents, to break into the castle and learn ancient magic, to reinvolve her family in the upper echelon of elven politics. Of course she’d deny it; of course Kabru still couldn’t believe her. 

“What, then? You just want to marry him? I have to laugh,” Kabru said.  

“Would you blame me?” Demdae asked. “He’s handsome. And kind.” 

The words weren’t strong enough. Laios was stunning (Kabru could feel himself get faint if he thought too hard about the lines of his nose, or his jaw), and maybe the most genuinely caring person in the world. Kabru was offended, seeing someone else’s performative love for Laios. 

“I’m going to assume the worst unless you tell me the truth,” Kabru said. “And after the cursing incident yesterday, I could drudge up evidence enough of attempted murder to at least get you kicked out of the country.” 

“Don’t,” Demdae said. There was just enough immediacy in her voice to hint at real alarm. Kabru raised an eyebrow at her and waited. 

“I just want--” Demdae paused and sighed a little, like she couldn’t believe what she was about to admit. “True love--”

“Bullshit,” Kabru interrupted, his real derision bleeding into his voice. With a statement as ridiculous as that, he couldn’t help it. 

“No, really. It’s theorized that’s something you can do with--” she cut herself off again, looking around the room like she was searching. “Ancient magic.” 

“Bull shit,” Kabru repeated. 

“I can explain the theory to you, if you like. Energy isn’t connected to every feeling, but it is connected to love specifically, and an alternate dimension of pure energy could lead you to someone who feels the same intensity of emotion as you--”

“It doesn’t add up,” Kabru said. “You’re marrying someone to find true love with, presumably, someone else, what, five years down the line? Ten, depending how long it would take to learn and how much you need to keep away suspicion?”

“I would give anything--” 

“I. Call. Bullshit,” Kabru said, tapping a finger on the table with each word. He stood. “And if you don’t tell me what you’re actually doing here, I will find a way to get you arrested or worse. I expect an honest answer before the next tournament event. Please understand, it would be much easier for me with you out of the way. I have every reason to get you out sooner, rather than later. My offering you this much patience is a mercy.” 

Demdae was scowling at him in a way that said ‘I wish the curse had killed you.’ 

Honestly, Kabru was grateful she’d tried to kill him. It was wonderful leverage. 

He tried to review everything he’d learned with this conversion, before he left. He knew Demdae had sources within the castle-- they were telling her things about him at least, such as his abilities in combat and who was going in and out of his room. 

She openly admitted to putting the curse on the knife, and didn’t outwardly deny that she’d learned how to cast curses from her parents. Theoretically, she knew the curse could kill a tallman. 

She didn’t want to lose the competition, and she definitely didn’t want to be kicked out of the country. 

He didn’t know anymore about her real motivations-- or, actually, she had admitted she wanted to know more about ancient magic. Considering what he knew of her past, that could be very real-- but he still didn’t know what she wanted the ancient magic for. (Even if she said it was for true love, Kabru thought that was stupid, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t stupid.) 

He’d also learned her parents were a sore point. He could use that, if necessary.

“Why me and not Mithrun?” Kabru asked, before he left. From her perspective, they should both be frightfully competent competitors. Especially if she had a spy, telling her their backgrounds. Ex-Canary was a terrifying thing to compete against.

“Anyone with eyes could see you’re the favorite to win, Kabru. It’s your tournament to lose. And you will lose, as long as I’m here.”

“Do you want to be arrested?” Kabru asked, offhand and curious, like he’d forgotten her favorite color and was asking to be reminded. Demdae’s scowl lightened, slightly, like she’d realized something. 

“No, you can’t have me arrested, Kabru. That’d be too public of involvement in the tournament results. You’d be discrediting yourself, as well as removing me, and your King would be forced to marry Mithrun,” Demdae said. 

“I never said I’d do it personally,” Kabru said. Even as he thought it over, he could think of several people he could have arrest Demdae for him. The spymaster, the captain of the guards, in fact, tens of the castle guards could at least take her into holding cells (although they couldn’t press charges)... 

“You think Laios wouldn’t find out you’d had me arrested in a bout of jealousy? You think he’d be okay with that kind of underhandedness?” 

Okay, that one-- hit much closer to a real weakness. Kabru resisted the urge to cringe at the accuracy of the goad. 

“You think he’s going to favor you after you tried to kill me?” Kabru responded instead. 

“Not you, the dwarf,” Demdae reminded him. Kabru barked a laugh. 

“That’s even worse. If you’d so much as scratched Senshi, Laios would lash out like a kicked dog, probably for weeks. Why do you think I wrestled and disarmed him? And Mithrun did the same. We know what’s off limits, to preserve Laios’s feelings. And--” Kabru put his hands on the table, leaning in slightly. “--if you’re hurting me and Senshi, you clearly don’t. It doesn’t matter if this is my game to lose, Demdae, because you’ve already lost.”

Kabru turned to leave, knowing this was becoming a catfight and, while satisfying, it wouldn’t be informational. Demdae spoke up to his back, though. 

“Is it really all that fair, then? The whole tournament? Anyone can enter-- but if people he already cares about are competing, they’re going to have an obvious advantage. Come to think of it, didn’t he choose the letters? So he already selected early winners out of pre-established biases.” 

Kabru froze, sighing through his nose so it wouldn’t be visible or audible. He knew, from the second Senshi had said he’d signed his letter and been chosen anyway, that Laios was going to be criticized for this. The tournament would only work if it was fair, and Laios had undeniably cheated in order to enter his friends. Well, Kabru’s entry wasn’t signed, but-- he was still playing with the theory that Laios had known it was his. 

Either way, Kabru already had a defense for this. 

“It’s still fair, because some of the contests are outside of his judgement. The fights, for example, couldn’t have been biased by Laios’s previous friendships.”

“But you said that I lost his favor by beating Senshi and stabbing you, during the fights,” Demdae said. “So his bias is still involved. Even though I wasn’t eliminated, I lost something during that contest for daring to lay a finger on you. And that’s a punishment for not knowing how he would react, something you have the luxury of.”

Damn her. She really was smart. 

Kabru turned a little to look at her over his shoulder. “Then you should’ve thought to ask your spy,” he said. 

As he walked away, she raised her voice to speak across the room. 

“If you have me arrested, I’ll give interviews from prison and expose the tournament for a sham performance that was fixed in your favor from the start. Laios will lose the public’s trust. You can’t afford that, with a king so young. You can’t let them know you’re lying to them.”

Despite himself, Kabru rose to the bait. 

“We’re not lying. It’s not a sham.” 

“Bullshit,” Demdae said, a curl in her voice that revealed she thought she was clever. Kabru reached the door, but stopped just before he walked through it. 

“I want to hear your reasons for competing,” Kabru said, stalwartly. “Your real ones. Or I will press charges for cursing me.”

“My reasons are the same as yours, Kabru. True love. And you can’t prove otherwise,” Demdae said, sickly sweet. 

Kabru scowled at her and pushed through the door. 

--

Kabru ran into Marcille while they were going opposite directions in the hall. Kabru was in the middle of thinking about Cithis, and ancient magic, and how hard it would be to get an international criminal into their castle. Maybe he could make do with their own mage. 

“Marcille, is there a spell that forces people to tell you things?” he asked, offhand, as they passed each other. 

Marcille gave him a look he could only describe as overwrought. 

“Yes, it’s called torture, and you’re not allowed to do it, legally.” 

--

Demdae was faced with a problem. 

The royal fucking advisor was an overly canny bastard. She was fairly certain she’d had the rest of the court fooled-- king included (Kabru had tried to make her feel bad for Laios’s uncomplicated attraction to her, but she quite valued the ability to make people stupid with her looks. It made them easier to manipulate).

But then Kabru had the gall to survive her assassination attempt, and, to make matters worse, he immediately suspected her. And everyone was following behind. 

Not only was she under suspicion, but he was also blackmailing her. She thought over his ridiculous request. He hadn’t asked her to drop the competition, he’d only asked her to tell him, honestly, what she wanted. It was, perhaps, the more political move, because it was much more tempting to agree to. All it would cost her was a little honesty, as opposed to dropping out of the competition, which might cost her everything. 

She leaned back in a chair, staring at the ceiling, playing absently with a quill. 

The thing was, she couldn’t trust Kabru not to get her disqualified, even if she did cooperate with his demands. He would have no reason to cooperate with her in turn. In fact, as he pointed out, things would be much easier for him with her out of the way. 

Maybe he was too naive to realize the opposite was also true. 

She hadn’t expected the palace’s mages to be so competent-- the curse she’d put on the dagger was a nasty one, and most people would be dead before they could find a healer capable of expelling it. But having two mages on hand, one skilled enough to keep him alive, and one skilled enough to get rid of the curse, was certainly enough to do it. She supposed this was the legendary party that had defeated the dungeon. She shouldn’t have underestimated them. She could hear her parents’ voices scolding her, telling her that the poor strategizing was her own fault. 

Right. Well. She needed Kabru gone, that was obvious enough. If she didn’t get rid of him, for good this time, he’d definitely find a way to stop her from participating in the competition, and she’d lose access to the greatest collection of research on ancient magic on the eastern continent (and, since she wasn’t permitted entry to any of the elven kingdoms on the western continent, that was pretty damning). Except, attacking Kabru directly, again, would draw further suspicion onto her. So she had to be sneakier than that. 

And, she had to make sure there was no way for either of the mages to save him. 

A plan started forming in her head. Two birds, one stone, and all that. 

--

Laios appeared in Kabru’s office again. Kabru was in the midst of reading over missives that he’d been ignoring for the sake of social engineering and almost dying. Reports on ongoing infrastructure projects, updates on diplomatic talks in other countries, official complaints from this company or that. Everything was working predictably, at least, which Kabru was relieved by. All the surprises were maddeningly confined to his love life. 

He wondered, again, how easy it would be to kill Demdae. 

He settled for neatly sorting his papers into their piles, checking boxes, writing signatures, and drawing up a schedule on dealing with each of these things in turn. There would have to be meetings, and investigations, and more reports. 

It was while he was dealing with all of this that the door peeked open, without someone knocking first. Kabru felt a draft from the castle hallway, very different from the musty air of his study, chock full of old papers that he stopped bothering organizing once they weren’t relevant (but couldn’t be thrown out), along with the stacks of records he called up from the library, the books he kept for reference and occasional entertainment, the worn down, sun-stained and curling butcher paper he had tacked to the wall for him to draw out complicated plans and social webs on-- it all meant his office was desperately lacking in fresh air. 

Without turning to check, Kabru decided Laios would be in the doorway. Kabru thought he would break someone for interrupting him, if it wasn’t Laios. 

“Kabru! I wanted to check on you. Are you still feeling okay?” Laios said, the sound of his voice even more refreshing than the air from the hallway. (So, it was Laios, so Kabru wouldn’t have to hurt anybody, which was honestly somewhat disappointing news, Kabru kind of wanted the satisfaction of hurting someone. He shook that thought out of his head. It was untoward, and there were better ways to deal with his frustrations, like training dummies.) 

“I am feeling much better, Your Majesty,” Kabru said, measured. 

“Kabruuuu,” Laios moped. He trudged into the room and the door closed behind him, and they were alone. “Don’t call me that.”

Kabru didn’t have to look up to see his pout, he could picture it perfectly, and hear it so plainly in his voice. 

He wondered if Laios was remembering what Kabru had said, about king being a public office, about how they couldn’t be seen publicly as anything close to intimate, and was using that insight in such things as walking into his office and closing the door and asking Kabru to call him by his first name. 

Kabru weighed whether or not he was feeling mean, and decided he definitely was. But he still had to positively reinforce Laios listening to him. 

“Alright, then; Laios,” Kabru said, drawing out the first syllable the same way Laios had drawn out the last syllable in Kabru’s. He kept his voice playful. He glanced up to see how Laios reacted to it, and the answer was with wide eyes and a blush. Ah, he must not have expected to get this far. He had no idea the lengths Kabru would go to humor him. Kabru had been far too good at maintaining his professional distance, this whole time. And then, his friendly distance. But it was withering now, and Laios clearly was ill-prepared for that. 

Good. That made it easier to tease him. He did still feel like being mean, after all. 

“Now that you’ve confirmed I’m not keeling over, did you need something?” Kabru asked. 

Laios hesitated, eyes skirting the walls, confident in entering Kabru’s space but apparently unsure what to do once he got there. 

“Uh, no, I really just wanted to see you. How did it go with Demdae?” 

We threatened each other. I learned some, but very little. I may have painted a bigger target on my back. 

“Has she told you anything about what she’s doing here?” Kabru asked, maybe a little sharply. His latent frustrations with Demdae were boiling over. He needed some way to press out the stress, like wrinkles from clothes. Some way that wasn’t snapping at poor Laios. 

“She’s been pretty vague on personal details,” Laios said. 

“What kinds of questions has she been asking? When you two talk,” Kabru said. 

“She just asks me about myself,” Laios said. Kabru reminded himself that Demdae wasn’t the type to rush things. She was careful. (Less careful than he’d thought, after publicly making an attempt on his life, but still as underhanded as necessary, which usually meant having the patience to naturally establish relationships.)

“What was in her letter?” Kabru asked. 

“I feel like you’re interrogating me. Can we talk about something other than the tournament?” Laios said-- not pouty, as expected, but a little rushed. Kabru immediately picked up on the fact that Laios was shying away from something. Alright, then, what didn’t he want Kabru to know? He latched onto the idea, pleased to have a goal, excited to have something to do with his meaner instincts. 

“This is awfully one sided, isn’t it? Let’s play a game, Laios,” Kabru said, tipping his voice into something some might take for teasing, but those who knew him should realize was sinister. 

Laios’s hackles didn’t go up, though, and he just said, “What kind? There are a few different board games in the drawing room--” 

“No, no, nothing like that,” Kabru said. He gestured for Laios to sit in the chair on the other side of his desk, and Laios did. 

“Secrets for secrets,” Kabru said, steepling his hands. “You can ask me anything you want, and I’ll answer honestly. But you have to do the same, when I ask you.”

“Okay,” Laios said. There still wasn’t any suspicion on his face, despite the dark tint Kabru was sure had come over his eyes. “It seems easy to cheat, though. What if I just lied to you?” 

Always so pedantic-- always so eager to do things the right way, know all the rules going in. Kabru honestly appreciated the chance to add more stipulations, more strings in the web to trap people in. 

He hummed. He couldn’t just say “I can tell when you’re lying,”-- because it wouldn’t be fair to Laios. He couldn’t tell when Kabru was lying. And, wicked as he felt right now, the feeling was mostly surface level-- he had no real desire to actually mess with Laios. He was excited to have Laios here, wanted to prolong the interaction, actually wanted to play some kind of fair game with him. So he had to impose something. How to ensure the other person was telling the truth… the whole thing briefly reminded him of his frustrations with Demdae.

“Do you know the signs of a liar?” Kabru asked. Laios thought about it. 

“Sometimes they get visibly nervous,” Laios said. 

“Correct,” Kabru said. “So when people train their reactions, theoretically, you can’t tell when they’re lying. But--” Kabru stood up and walked around the desk-- “They still have a physiological reaction, almost always. When people are nervous, their heart rate speeds up, or their breathing might speed or stutter, and they might sweat.” 

“Interesting,” Laios said, in the tone that said he wasn’t paying attention. Kabru thought that probably had something to do with the fact that he’d slid into the narrow space between Laios and the desk, and they were so close together that their legs brushed. Kabru leaned back against the desk and picked up Laios’s hand, placing it against his chest. Their knees bumped. Laios had to look up to hold his gaze. 

“Can you feel my heartbeat?” Kabru asked. While his voice was even, he didn’t feel like he could see straight. Laios’s hand was warm, and huge, and his sustained contact made Kabru feel bubbly. 

“Uh-- yeah,” Laios said, voice raspy (and didn’t that do something to him?). “It’s-- really fast.”

I wonder why, Kabru thought, tiredly. 

“Get a feel for it. Internalize the speed.” 

Laios nodded, eyebrows pulling together, but only so slightly. Seeing that little motion, subtle and unthinking, drove Kabru insane. It was taking every ounce of resistance he had not to just bend down and kiss the man, but he knew that would distract them both, and he really did want answers.

“Okay,” Kabru said, voice too breathy. He steadied it. “Ask me something.” 

“Do you wish you could leave more often? Your job keeps you-- pretty confined, here,” Laios said. Not quite the question Kabru was expecting. He thought Laios would start with something unassuming and easy, but when had he ever been able to predict Laios? 

What does it reveal about him that he would ask that, let alone first thing? Is he scared of me leaving? Or does he want to leave, and he’s checking if he’s alone in that? How often does this bother him?

None of that was the point-- he had to answer. That was the game. 

“I don’t really think about leaving, no, I’m too busy,” Kabru said. 

Laios’s eyebrows went together the whole way, instead of the slight pull they’d been sitting at. 

“Your heart sped up,” Laios said. 

“Because I lied,” Kabru responded. 

“So that’s not true? You do want to leave? Why did you lie?” Laios said, voice either panicky or pouty. Kabru patted his shoulder.

“I wanted you to see what a lie felt like, so you knew what to look for.” 

Laios still had an air of quiet. Kabru sighed, the act much harder with Laios’s hand resting on his chest. It made Kabru want to stay still, if only to ensure that Laios wouldn’t move away. Not to mention the comfortable weight of his palm, pushing down just enough to make breathing harder. It thrilled him. 

“I don’t really want to leave,” Kabru said, voice softening. “Sometimes I entertain the idea as stress relief, but it’s never serious. I love it here.” 

I love the work. I love the people. I love the place. I love y--

List of things he couldn’t say. 

“Your heart sped up again,” Laios muttered. 

“It’s not a perfect process. Sometimes telling the truth also makes people nervous,” Kabru said. Only twisted people, people who are afraid of admitting things. People who love to lie. Like me. More things he couldn’t say. 

“Well, don’t get nervous about telling the truth. I’m not gonna get upset at you for it,” Laios said. “I’m asking cause I wanna know. Not cause I want you to answer one way or the other. If there is-- something that would upset me, I’d rather just be aware so we could deal with it.” 

“Very astute, my liege,” Kabru said. 

“Kabru,” Laios said his name like a complaint. 

Kabru hummed a laugh and took Laios’s other hand, the one still on his lap, to hold two fingers on the inside of his wrist. He pressed lightly until he felt a fluttery pulse. It immediately made him think back to when he first met Laios, Laios’s fingers on the inside of Kabru’s wrist. 

He didn’t think he could handle Laios doing that to him again. The first time had sort of rewritten something in Kabru’s brain, and he figured his current reaction to it would be something akin to deadly (loving him was like a natural fucking disaster). Hence, Kabru leading Laios’s hand to his chest. 

He liked the feeling of doing it to Laios, though. He liked Laios’s heart. He liked that it beat. He liked that Laios was alive and real and touchable. 

“Your heart sped up again,” Laios noted, all too scientifically. Kabru looked up with just his eyes, not moving his chin. He felt the steady, workhorse pace of Laios’s heart tap tap tap a little bit faster. 

“So did yours,” Kabru said, with a sharp smile.

“This might not be the most effective method, y’know, if there are so many other things speeding up our heart rates,” Laios said. 

Kabru sighed. 

“Unfortunately, I’ve been informed the alternative is torture, so this is probably the best way to get the truth out of each other,” he said. Laios blanched slightly.

“It’s your turn,” Laios said. At least it meant he had no more complaints. 

Kabru didn’t think he should come out the gate asking about Demdae’s letter. It would be too strong, and Laios might flinch away from it. He had to warm Laios up to telling him uncomfortable truths. Besides, there were other things he wanted to know. 

Subconsciously, he adjusted to the feeling of Laios’s heartbeat, so he would notice if it changed pace. 

“Did you know my letter was mine, even though it wasn’t signed?” Kabru asked. Laios looked immediately nervous. Kabru wondered if this was, in fact, horrible methodology. Just about any question would make Laios nervous. It didn’t matter-- even without the pulse, he’d be able to tell if Laios was lying. At worst, this was just a good excuse to hold his heart, and have Laios hold Kabru’s in turn. 

“Yes,” Laios said, redfaced. His pulse was steady, and his eyes were flighty. That was the truth. 

“Interesting,” Kabru said. What tipped you off? Did I mention my job clearly, or can you really recognize my handwriting? Or, worse, can you recognize the patterns of my phrasing? Why does that feel so intimate? Why did you want me to compete-- how long have you returned my feelings? What made you realize that you liked me? What do you like about me? Do you like me enough to let me marry you? Will you marry me? Will you kiss me? Can we share a horse the next time we go out together-- I want to feel your arms around my waist maybe more than I want to breathe…

He wanted to ask a hundred follow up questions, but that wasn’t the game. He had to wait. 

“Your turn,” Kabru said, instead of all the other words stewing on his tongue. 

“Uh, I dunno…” Laios said, in aggravating contrast to Kabru’s overwhelming list of questions. Laios seemed to think about it. 

“Top or bottom?” he finally asked. 

Kabru choked on air, squeezing Laios’s wrist as he leaned back to support himself against the desk, trying to avoid fainting from sheer shock. 

“What? What? Is something wrong? Your heartbeat is going crazy-- oh my god, can you breathe?” Laios was saying. He halfway held Kabru up, with the hand on his chest. 

“I’m good, don’t worry, I’m good,” Kabru said, getting himself together. He was not prepared for Laios to be so-- so blunt , or crass , or direct about his flirting, although he supposed he should have expected it, or-- he felt lightheaded. He needed to ask a clarifying question immediately. 

“That’s a little broad. Can you be more specific?” Kabru said, forcing his mouth to work. 

“Alcohol! Y’know how the bartender will ask if you want something top shelf? But Chilchuck says that sometimes thing that are expensive are worse, and he likes cheap beer more than expensive beer. So I’m asking what you prefer.”

“If money’s not an issue, then top shelf, usually. I definitely have more expensive taste than Chilchuck,” Kabru responded, hearing himself as if from far away. He couldn’t believe he’d let Laios catch him so off guard, when the topic was so banal. But he was refocussing, now that he was back in a reality where Laios hadn’t casually brought up sex positions. 

“What did you think I was asking about? That was quite a reaction,” Laios said. 

“Bunk beds,” Kabru said, weakly. 

“Your heart sped up. You’re lying. Why are you lying?” 

Kabru put his head in his free hand. 

“Because I’m embarrassed, Laios.” 

“Why are you-- oh. Oh! I didn’t mean-- or, I didn’t think--”

Kabru waved off Laios’s stuttering and inevitable overexplanation. That would only make things worse, and fluster Kabru immensely more, and he wanted to be somewhat in his right mind. 

“Why are you using an opportunity to learn anything about me to ask about my alcohol preferences?” Kabru asked. “I’d tell you that anyway. This doesn’t count as one of my questions.”

“But it’s a question,” Laios said. 

“I’m just trying to understand how you’re playing the game. It’s not a part of the game.” 

Laios hummed lowly as he thought, eyes wandering. “I just want to know everything about you. No information seems more or less important than the rest.”

Kabru lost his breath, a little, at that. It was terrifying to witness such utter genuineness. Laios just loved with his whole heart. He was this way with monsters, and with his party members, and now, with Kabru. It made him choke up. 

“Okay,” Kabru said. He had to get himself under control. He was losing his mind. All those sappy questions from earlier seemed a lot more tempting to ask. Giving up on the whole thing and grabbing Laios’s chin to swap spit for an hour no longer sounded like a bad idea. 

Kabru cleared his throat. Laios looked at him happily, patiently. Kabru filed through all the questions he’d lined up earlier, and decided which one he thought would give him the most information. 

“How long have you had feelings for me?” Kabru asked. 

“I dunno,” Laios said. Kabru glared at him, and he laughed. “I don’t! It’s not like I woke up one day with a crush, out of nowhere. It’s been a million things, building over time. I’ve always liked your curls, though. And your hands. And your cheeks.”

“My cheeks?” Kabru had never been complimented on them before. He felt himself start blushing. 

“They make your face rounder, and it’s so perfect. Like-- like, a puddle. You’re so pretty,” Laios said. Kabru blinked roughly at that, heart thudding in his chest. 

“Like… a puddle…?” Kabru repeated. 

“I love puddles,” Laios said. There wasn’t a hint of shame on his face for the ridiculous comment. “They come with the smell of rain, they decorate otherwise boring stretches of ground, and they reflect the sky…”

“If you wanted to tell me I looked like the sky, why not just go for the eyes?” Kabru said. He’d heard it a million times. He privately thought it was a shitty compliment, and was endlessly enraptured by the fact that Laios didn’t say it. 

“Cause it’s not just the sky, and it’s not just your eyes,” Laios said. “It’s your whole face. It’s you.”

Laios didn’t comment on Kabru’s thudding heartbeat, even though he could definitely feel it-- and Kabru saw his smile turn smug. Asshole. Horrible man. Able to affect such terrible things in Kabru. Nobody should have this power and be this handsome while he did it. 

I have to kill him, Kabru thought. 

As he thought that, Laios’s eyes squinted a little at the corners, and with his smile still smug, he looked horribly mischievous. Kabru was suddenly afraid. 

“So… top or bottom?” Laios asked. His voice curled with laughter. It was a joke, but not entirely. Maybe he was misdirecting Kabru again, intentionally this time. 

“Bunk beds?” Kabru asked. 

“Not quite,” Laios said. He raised an eyebrow. “ In bed.” 

Kabru thought about shouting or passing out or strangling Laios, but he knew the only way to maintain his dignity when Laios had flustered him so thoroughly was to beat him at his own game. He composed himself, wondering how much his heart was giving away his panic. He could swear it was skipping every other beat. 

“I answered this already,” Kabru said. 

“No, you--”

“Laios,” Kabru said, voice lower, eyebrow arching, pacing down his speech to make it sound intentional, “I answered this already. Do you really want me to say it again?” 

Laios caught on this time. His face turned bright red, and it was Kabru’s turn to feel smug. 

“Uh-- no, that’s alright,” Laios said. His voice was nervous, but not enough. He’d made Kabru’s knees go weak, surprising him with this earlier. Kabru needed to poke back, at least a little. The slightest bit of sweet revenge. 

Kabru hummed, let go of Laios’s wrist, and was pleased when it landed on the desk next to his hip, caging Kabru in, slightly. “You have other pulse points, you know.” 

“Uh,” Laios said. He was entertaining when he was speechless. Kabru smiled and kept going. 

“Temporal artery, brachial artery, popliteal artery,” Kabru listed, brushing over Laios’s collar and up the base of his throat. He brought his hand up under Laios’s jaw, pressing two fingers to the side of his neck. “Carotid artery.” 

Laios’s heartbeat raced under Kabru’s hand, and he felt wickedly proud that he got Laios to react like that. (This had been Kabru going easy. There was also the femoral artery, located in the groin. He felt it was a bit early to mention that.) 

“That’s really cool,” Laios said, voice whispery. 

“Don’t lie,” Kabru chided-- not harshly, almost bored with ease. Laios’s breathing slowed when Kabru’s voice went like that. Interesting, interesting. Kabru thought he might go insane. 

“Sorry, yeah, I wasn’t listening,” Laios admitted, easily and immediately. Kabru hummed. 

“It’s my turn, yeah?” Kabru said. 

“Yeah.” Laios’s voice was thick and catching in his throat. Kabru loved it fiercely. 

Kabru wanted to ask a lot of things. Some were relevant to business. Some were relevant to the tugging feeling in his chest, reminiscent of a minotaur wrecking its way through a paper labyrinth, desperately failing to contain it. 

Kabru teetered on a choice. He could stick to his strategizing and learn what secrets Laios had been keeping from him about the whole tournament, or he could flirt. Both were very tempting. He decided to at least try to finish his business before having fun. Even though Laios made that choice very, very hard to make. 

“Why did you admit Senshi to the tournament when he clearly wasn’t trying to enter it?” Kabru asked. Laios blinked a few times, the sheen coming out of his eyes, which Kabru hadn’t even noticed getting there. Had it happened while Kabru was thinking? Leaving Laios to linger in his silence, hand against his throat? Once again; interesting.

“Hadn’t seen him in a bit, wanted him to visit,” Laios muttered. Kabru wasn’t even paying attention to his heart rate-- his speech was rushed, his eyes blinking too fast.

“You’re lying,” Kabru said. 

“No I’m not!” 

“Okay, even if it’s the truth, it’s not the whole truth. You’re hiding something.”

“How can you tell?” Laios asked, completely shocked. “There’s no way there’s a pulse for ‘half-truth’.” 

“If you don’t answer honestly, I’m not going to answer your next question honestly, either. The game will be over.” 

“No, no,” Laios let out a short sigh. “I’ll tell you. Just-- okay. Don’t be-- don’t overthink it.”

Kabru raised an eyebrow, both worried that it was something he could overthink, and knowing, instinctually, he would definitely overthink it. 

“I couldn’t bring in strangers, both as a-- security risk, and because the idea of theoretically committing to marry someone I’d never met before ever was… paralyzing. So I got through most of the letters by throwing them out if I didn’t know the person.”

The implications of that were-- staggering, actually, and made Kabru’s brain flip as his perspective changed. Firstly, it meant Demdae’s letter had been special in some way, to be chosen despite her being a stranger. Secondly, it contextualized Laios’s general disinterest towards the competitors, openly admitting to not wanting to marry any them, despite having selected them to compete. It was exactly what Kabru had coached him to think-- anyone will do. 

But what did that mean for the tournament in the first place? Laios had wanted it to be fair, by insisting that anyone could enter-- but he didn’t actually want anyone to enter? Why had Laios created a rule just to immediately subvert it? 

“They were anonymous?” Kabru asked, head still spinning. 

“I had the spymaster teach me the word-assignment spell. It’s relatively low-mana, and Falin shared her mana when I ran out, and I just, cast that for a few days straight to work out who wrote all of the letters.”

“That’s… so much work…” Kabru said. He was always intimidated by what Laios was capable of when he got in that single-minded mood. Kabru often forgot, because of how uninterested Laios was in clerical and bureaucratic and political bullshit, that Laios was only ever operating at 18% capacity, at most. This was the man that had slain dragons.

“It mattered a lot to me,” Laios said, shrugging, like it was nothing. “That’s how I got Mithrun and Leed, anyway. Senshi was an obvious choice, though I felt kind of like I was kidnapping him. And Demdae…”

This was it. This was the information Kabru wanted. 

“Was an exception,” Laios finished, after a second. Damn him, still keeping secrets. 

“Why?” Kabru asked. 

“Isn’t it my turn to ask a question?” Laios asked, looking up at Kabru with a sparky look that said he was playing unfairly. Kabru gritted his teeth. 

“Sure, yes, ask me something,” Kabru said. 

Laios paused to think again, and Kabru tried not to be irritated that Laios had insisted on a turn when he didn’t even know what he wanted to ask. 

“What don’t you-- hm.” Laios bit the inside of his lip. Kabru waited. Laios seemed to get his courage back up, but he didn’t look excited. There was a grim determination to his face. 

“What don’t you like about me?” 

Kabru blinked. That wasn’t a question he wanted to answer, and he doubted Laios really wanted him to answer it, either. 

“What makes you think I don’t like you?” he landed on. Laios shifted uncomfortably. 

“You-- pull away from me. Often. Won’t even spend the night with me if I ask you to, even though you went out of your way to come find me-- you publicly enter the tournament to marry me, but won’t publicly kiss me. You keep backing out, even though you-- uh. Like. Me? I feel like I’m missing something, but I don’t know what. So I’m asking. What am I doing wrong?”

With a sinking feeling in his gut, Kabru could almost see it written out in his journal, an addition to his list of reasons why he and Laios wouldn’t work. 

‘I’m going to push him away, and he’s going to blame himself.’ 

He really didn’t want to answer this honestly, when that would mean admitting to his insecurities-- that immediately felt too vulnerable. So his options were to call off the game, or to successfully lie. 

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Kabru said, starting with a truth. “In fact, you’ve been more than wonderful. Very receptive, very lovely. I’m-- hesitant, despite my feelings, due to our public offices--”

Laios’s eyebrows went together, and his hand pressed a little harder against Kabru’s chest. 

“Is that the truth?” Laios asked. 

Well, it wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth was that Kabru was at war with himself, torn between letting himself have one good thing, and being terrified that it would never work (and equally terrified that it would work-- caring, vulnerability, love, were all things he was capable of, but bad at, and uncomfortable with). 

And he knew, intrinsically, he could not talk about that right now. Things were still too new. It was too early for him to complicate things with his stupid, constant overthinking. 

Laios, at least subconsciously, had worked out that Kabru wasn’t admitting something. But Kabru could probably still fool him. 

“It is,” Kabru said. 

“You’d tell me if something else was wrong, right?” Laios asked. For a moment, Kabru considered it. Telling him-- I’m so scared to love you, I don’t know how to love. 

But what was Laios going to do about it? Reassure Kabru that he’d love him despite all the problems he’d inevitably cause with his own anxieties? Make promises he couldn’t keep? Kabru had sat through enough meetings with Laios, he knew how the man handled conflict-- with optimism, and an immediate strategy to start fixing things. What would his plan for Kabru be? “We’ll date one day a week, and once you realize it’s not going to hurt, we can gradually increase that to two days…” 

There was no way to fix Kabru. He didn’t want to worry Laios with all of it. He wanted to handle his own bullshit-- he wanted to not have bullshit in the first place, but if he was going to insist on having bullshit, he didn’t want to make that Laios’s problem. 

“It’s less scary when you’re not alone,” a past version of Laios chirped in his memory. And he thought about Laios sitting at the side of his bed, staying with Kabru while he slept, Kabru waking up feeling better. And he remembered Marcille saying, “You’ve got to trust that he’ll make the right choice.” Implied: you have to trust him. 

Kabru got choked up, and set the thoughts aside. Not now. He could try trusting Laios and being vulnerable, later. But for now, he’d nearly died, and his survival instincts had kicked in, and he needed to work out what was going on with Demdae, and he needed to win the tournament-- and his feelings would get in the way of that. 

“Yeah,” Kabru lied. “I’d tell you.” 

Laios’s mouth did a funny slide. “I think your heart just changed.”

“Remember what I said about telling the truth making some people nervous?” Kabru said. Gods, he felt so shitty, lying to Laios like this. Using his own words to convince him farther. All the more reason why the two of them could not function healthily in a relationship. (Or-- maybe it was a good sign that Kabru at least felt bad about it? Usually, he was pretty remorseless when it came to lies.)

“Why does being honest with me make you nervous?” Laios asked, so genuinely, wide eyes looking up at Kabru like he was the most important mystery in the world. Kabru cleared his throat, tired of being choked up on stress or tears or feelings. 

“I believe it’s my turn to ask a question,” Kabru said. He hammered his voice back to a neutral position. Laios looked a little hurt, again, probably because they’d been having a genuine, vulnerable moment, and Kabru pulled away from it, again. Right when Laios was asking him not to do that anymore. 

“Okay,” Laios said, apparently content enough not to push. Kabru felt cold relief.

“Demdae’s letter,” Kabru said. 

Laios’s mouth did another funny thing, and Kabru was a little obsessed with it. 

“Honestly, she’s been a lot more complicated than I was hoping for. I really should have just gone with the other person I knew instead of a stranger--”

“Which was?” 

Laios raised an eyebrow but let Kabru sneak the extra question in there. “Chilchuck’s ex-wife.” 

Kabru immediately burst into laughter, and Laios looked more relaxed, a mirroring laugh easing the edges of his face. Kabru let go of Laios’s pulse to hold his sides and laugh. 

“It’s--” Kabru couldn’t stop laughing as he tried to speak-- “it’s such a good thing you didn’t invite her, oh my gods--”

“I figured it would ruin a few relationships,” Laios said, with a smile. Kabru cackled some more. 

“No fucking kidding! Yeah! Fuck. Even knowing she’s dangerous, Demdae was definitely the better choice there. Holy shit. Okay. Her letter?” 

Laios looked pointedly at Kabru’s hand, and Kabru allowingly set his fingers back against Laios’s throat. It was good to know he liked the contact as much as Kabru did. 

“Demdae said in the letter that she couldn’t pretend to love me, and wouldn’t mind if we were married as friends. She just wanted access to the castle library to do research, and I thought-- that was really cool! A historian! Or, a scholar! I don’t know, I really enjoy when people are passionate about things, cause I can relate to that, and I liked-- that she was honest, up front about her intentions.”

Kabru felt like he was swallowing glass. Laios probably did not mean that passive aggressively. He had to remind himself, Laios didn’t play with words subtextually like that. Anyone else, that would be a blatant insult. With Laios, it was just an accidental one. Much easier to process. 

“Did she mention what she wanted to study?” Kabru asked. 

“This is like, your third question,” Laios said. 

“I let you ask me three in a row, before, now please--” 

“She didn’t mention, no. I can show you the letter, if you like. Honestly, the real deciding factor was that she mentioned in a post script that she’s been told her whole life she looks like a monster, and she wanted my professional opinion on the matter. I couldn’t tell if she was joking, but I was too curious to let it slide. How does a human look like a monster? A particularly scorpiony facial structure? Translucent slime skin? Covered in scales, maybe, like Falin’s feathers? Then she just looked like a monster that mimics humanoids, which-- is fine, just not as cool as I was expecting.”

Leave it to Laios to be disappointed that someone wasn’t a half-kraken monstrosity. Kabru shuddered at the thought.

So Demdae had to be researching ancient magic. All the best lies came from a seed of truth, and since the ancient magic kept appearing in her lies, Kabru could believe it was the truth she was basing them in. All her little allusions came back to that, as well as what they knew of her past. But for what? 

“I don’t know what to do with the fact that she might’ve tried to kill you,” Laios said. “I want to believe she didn’t know about the curse on the knife, but-- switching knives between rounds makes it look pretty intentional. And the only way she couldn’t have known about the curse is if she’d never used that knife before? Strange time to debut a dagger. I don’t know, I’m suspicious.” 

“She told me she knew about the curse but it was meant for Senshi,” Kabru said. Laios’s eyes went wide with panic. 

“What?” he said, tone tipping and angry. 

“Yeah. She claimed it wouldn’t have killed him since he’s a dwarf, and, while I’m not an expert in curses, I’m positive that’s not how biology works,” Kabru said. 

“Fuck,” Laios said. Kabru liked when he cursed. 

With all his most important questions answered, Kabru indulged a little and took his hand off Laios’s pulse, resting it on Laios’s shoulder instead. There was a piece of lint there he’d wanted to flick off for this entire conversation. And, once there, he could absently rub his thumb against the fabric. 

“Agreed,” Kabru said. 

“She’s-- I think I have to disqualify her,” Laios said. He started tapping his fingers, nervously. 

Kabru’s first thought was wondering if that was safe. After all, her parents were twisted on vengeance for a competition they felt snubbed out of decades ago. And, if Demdae wanted something out of the royal research, who knew what lengths she’d go to, to get it? Now that she was familiar with the entry and exit points of the castle, could she kidnap Marcille? Would she? 

All Kabru had wanted was to get her eliminated, and the opportunity was finally here, and he was suddenly very worried about it. The only way to really make sure she left them alone was to have her realize she couldn’t get what she wanted from them, or to make her feel like she’d gotten what she wanted, without actually giving her anything dangerous. 

And to do that, he had to know what she wanted. 

True love, his memory supplied. It was still bullshit. 

He supposed he could also kill her. If she became a real danger to any of them, he wouldn’t hesitate to (he decided his own almost-death didn’t count). But he should hold off on that, for now, if only because it was a severe reaction. (He’d been seriously considering it, earlier, but being around Laios was definitely tempering him. Kabru was feeling much more reasonable. And a little bubbly). 

“That might make things worse,” Kabru said, hating it as he said it. “Give me a little more time to find out what’s motivating her. We can’t just avoid her, I think. We have to resolve whatever problem she presents.” 

Laios’s mouth curled into a heavy frown. Both his hands shifted, resting weighty on Kabru’s hips. “Kabru…”

Kabru wanted so badly to think about what was making Laios upset, psychoanalysis and social engineering, strategizing and overthinking, all of it-- but his mind blanked the second Laios touched him like that. He felt prickly, but in the enticing way, all over his body. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Kabru said, voice rougher than he’d like. If he couldn’t work it out by himself, he had to resort to direct questions. He remembered-- so distantly, since his thoughts were currently trickling like a stream fed a few drops of water at a time-- what Senshi had said; “ Ask him yourself, he just might tell you.”

“I’m upset that you’re putting yourself in danger,” Laios said. His voice was, in fact, upset. Kabru shook his head. 

“I understand the frustration-- I’m not in danger, though.” As soon as he said it, he realized he was trying to convince himself as much as Laios. It’d be nice to ease the paranoia. 

Laios gave him a suspicious look. 

“I’m not!” Kabru insisted, following his own logic. “Really, as long as Falin’s around, I don’t think any of us are in danger of a papercut.”

“Demdae was willing to try to kill you-- or Senshi, which I’m not thrilled about, either-- once. She’d be willing to do it again. Probably more enthusiastically, because it didn’t work this time.”

Kabru shook his head again. 

“She won’t want to bring suspicion on herself like that. She can’t hurt me directly again-- she’d have to hire someone else who’d be willing to take the fall--” 

“So, what, an assassin in the night? Or another accident during the tournament?” Laios said. To Kabru’s surprise, his grip tightened on his hips. 

“What are you worried about?” Kabru asked, a slight laugh in his voice as he poked Laios in the cheek. 

“You,” Laios responded. When he looked up at Kabru, Kabru saw a hint of something in his eyes. It was the same expression as when Laios would insist an extra guard accompany Falin on an outing, or when Laios scared people out of the tavern for picking fights with Chilchuck. 

Protectiveness, of course. A man who had run desperately-- stupidly-- into a dungeon and tore it apart to save his sister. A man who had almost lost everything, who had gained everything, who had everything, now, to lose again.

Kabru had never expected those instincts to be aimed at him. He liked it, a little, as long as it meant Laios felt some desperate, clawing feeling towards Kabru (which, the hands on his hips were a promising sign). If it got any more doting or controlling, though, he’d inevitably snap at Laios for it. Milsiril couldn’t get away with it. Neither would the king. 

Besides, worrying and micromanaging was Kabru’s thing. They couldn’t both do it. 

“Laios, you’re not allowed to worry about me,” Kabru said, very firmly. 

“I can’t help it,” Laios said. His face was dark and thoughtful, and he turned his head, almost petulantly. His breath scattered over Kabru’s wrist, on the hand still resting on Laios’s shoulder. 

Laios muttered; “You’re so-- noble. You always run directly into conflict just to solve it. That’s plenty reason to worry. You’re also so--” 

Laios made a noise and cut himself off. Kabru had stopped breathing at some point. He picked up his hand to cup Laios’s cheek and turn his face back to Kabru. Perfectly reactive, Laios blushed at Kabru’s touch. 

“Finish that sentence,” Kabru managed. “‘So’ what?” 

Laios paused, eyes staring at the inside of Kabru’s forearm. 

“Human,” Laios said. After another pause; “Fragile.” Like they were the same thing. 

Kabru couldn’t hold back anymore. Whatever either of their concerns were, no matter how valid, Laios had just called him human again, and it made Kabru want to kiss the air out of his lungs. 

Without preamble, Kabru stood from his lean against the desk and climbed onto the chair, straddling Laios’s lap instead. It took a little bit of settling, but the sparking feeling in the air around them was worth it. Laios’s hands landed back on his hips, Kabru’s rested on Laios’s shoulders. 

Their faces were inches away from each other. Kabru felt himself melting in every single place their bodies touched. 

“Isn’t it my turn to ask a question?” Laios asked lowly. 

“I believe so,” Kabru said. He wanted to memorize the look in Laios’s eyes. Liquid gold like a sunset reflected in the sea, a color with infinite depth, locked obssessively onto Kabru. 

“Can I kiss you?” Laios asked. 

Instead of answering, Kabru leaned in. When their lips touched, Kabru immediately felt like he’d taken a drink of coffee barely off the fire. He was scalded, but satisfied. He moved his lips over Laios’s, and Laios kissed back eagerly, always eagerly. 

Feelings bloomed in Kabru like the spring. Happiness that lightened his lungs, a fluttering heartbeat that felt young and uncomplicated. He couldn’t help but smile into Laios’s mouth, which made Laios smile in turn, and then it was hard to keep kissing, so they broke apart and breathed for a moment. 

Even that moment was longer than Kabru could bear. He’d already controlled himself for so damn long.

He caught Laios’s chin just to hold him, and kissed him again, slowly, intentionally. Laios responded, a hum in the back of his throat that sounded like a moan with his barely open mouth. Kabru liked that. He kissed him harder. 

As their kiss got heated, desire washed through them like the tide, and they fell into a push and pull. Kabru worked Laios’s mouth open and licked-- taking long, suspended moments just to savor the feeling of him. Then he’d slow down, letting Laios push small kisses against his lips. Kabru had expected them to go together like oil and water, having to tease and test and find out how to realign themselves to the other-- but this was more like oil and fire. Opposites that worked perfectly-- explosively-- together. 

It was during one of those moments where Laios was handling the pace of their kiss where Kabru’s head (which had been mercifully clear, or at least distracted)-- finally clicked together the implications of something Laios had said during their game. 

He told me not to overthink how he chose the letters because he wanted to hide something, and he knew that would reveal it. Out of all the things that revealed, the worst one, the one I’ve been steadily avoiding thinking about, was that I wasn’t selected out of anything other than familiarity. 

And he couldn’t tell me when he’d realized his feelings. Maybe he was hiding the fact that he doesn’t have any. 

Maybe that was unfair, since Laios’s thumbs were currently pressed against Kabru’s hipbones and Laios’s tongue was inside Kabru’s mouth, but the second the thought occurred to him, it settled into his psyche like it was true. 

This is what I mean when I say I’m a bad lover, Kabru thought, even as he broke away from the kiss. 

“Wait, wait, when you said…”

Laios caught his breath while Kabru hesitated. 

“Is something wrong?” Laios asked, with obvious concern. 

“No, just-- about only choosing letters because--”

“Kabru, please, if this is more business, can it-- wait?” Laios’s grip tightened on Kabru’s hips. Kabru was barely thinking louder than his feelings, which were begging him to just let go, just stop thinking for twenty seconds, just let the beautiful man kiss you.

“This is important for me to know before we keep going,” Kabru said, calmly, trying to explain that he wasn’t purposefully working Laios up just to go back to business (hiding behind politics the second he was scared of being vulnerable, pulling away as soon as the emotions come into play, again and again and again). 

Laios’s eyes were huge and shiny and dilated, clearly distracted as he stared at Kabru’s mouth. 

“When you said you chose competitors based on knowing them prior-- is that why you chose me?” Kabru asked. 

Laios blinked, slowly. Kabru saw some focus come back to his gaze, as he replayed Kabru’s question in his head. 

“Didn’t I tell you not to overthink that?” Laios said. 

Kabru bristled, still frustrated at Laios’s evasions despite the heat running through him. “I overthink everything. I can’t help it.”

“Mmm, but you told me not to worry about you,” Laios said. “And I can’t help that, either.” 

“It’s-- different,” Kabru tried. Laios shook his head. 

“It’s not. And you’re being unfair.” 

“It’s not unfair to want to know if you-- if you’re only kissing me because you know me, if I could just as easily be replaced by Mithrun or Leed--” 

Laios’s eyebrows shot together. 

“What the hell-- gave you the impression that you’re replaceable?” 

“You said--” 

“I absolutely never said that you aren’t special to me,” Laios said. “You are. You are. Why don’t you believe that?” 

Because it was unbelievable. Because Kabru was a cynic. Because he didn’t know how to love, but he especially didn’t know how to let himself be loved, with all the vulnerability that came with that. 

“For how long?” Kabru asked, looking for evidence of Laios’s affections, something that might prove--  

“Forever,” Laios said, still slightly short of breath. “I told you earlier. I don’t know.”

“Then how are you even sure--”

“Kabru--”

“Stop interrupting me,” Kabru snapped. 

“Then stop saying stupid things! I’ll let you speak if it’s reasonable. But I won’t sit here and listen to you disavow yourself or my own feelings, which I should think I know better than you do, thanks.” 

Kabru had to reel this back. They were both getting frustrated. Back to the thing he needed to focus on before he could kiss Laios again, and then everything would be fine, because he could kiss Laios again. 

“I just-- I never-- I never… noticed,” Kabru measured out, thinking through it as he said it, and shameful at the admission. At the idea that Laios could hide anything from him, and at the idea that Kabru couldn’t believe him by word alone. 

Laios sighed, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Kabru’s collarbone, his face in his chest. 

“Honestly, that’s kind of a relief,” Laios said, and Kabru could hear the small smile in his voice. “I was trying to hide my feelings from you. I didn’t think I was doing a very good job.” 

Something he very much liked about Laios was that he didn’t dig his heels in when he was upset. No grudges, no lingering anger. If Kabru could shift the tone, Laios would happily go with him. It made communication-- and fights-- much easier, since he never had to coax him out of a bad mood. 

Kabru placed a hand in Laios’s hair to trace circles against his skull. He thought it over, still simmering with shame and insecurity and disbelief. He was pretty sure he had to be honest. And that meant sounding stupid. Or vulnerable. The idea was nearly gruesome, but any other option would be self-sabotaging, or blatantly unfair to Laios. Kabru took a deep breath. 

“I don’t know what you like about me,” Kabru said, quietly, because that was the only way he could get himself to say it. “You keep saying you do, but I-- can only drudge up reasons why you shouldn’t, and no reasons why you should.”

Laios peeked up at him with no small amount of alarm. 

“You don’t know why I like you?” he asked. 

“I just said that,” Kabru said, flatly. 

“Kabru, I-- oh, gods, where do I even start--”

“You don’t have to--” Kabru didn’t want to fish for compliments. Laios shook his head emphatically, sitting up now. 

“Talking to you makes me feel-- the way dungeons did, back when I still went to them. Explorative! And full of wonder! Because you know and understand so many things that I would never even consider, and you walk me through them, and it’s like-- like exploring, again. You let me learn, all the time. You speak a whole language I don’t, and translate it for me. You’re a gateway to layers of the world I could never explore without you.” 

So he’d just like anybody with social skills, Kabru’s brain unhelpfully supplied. 

“But you’re also terrifyingly competent at basically everything, which is so cool. You’re one of the best fighters I know, and you keep track of so many histories and languages and schedules and there were those few weeks where you decided to learn pottery so you could make a vase for your mom, and you were immediately good at it--”

“I’m just a perfectionist,” Kabru said. 

“Not a lot of people hold themselves to that standard! And not a lot of people can meet it!” Laios said. 

Laios just called him perfect. Kabru tried to process that. 

“Also you’re just-- nice to be around. I could talk to you forever, go anywhere with you, I wouldn’t hesitate to. All of this is-- honestly kind of hard to articulate. Cause when it gets down to it, I couldn’t explain to you why I like Marcille, or Senshi, or even Falin. It’s like, there are the reasons I know-- we grew up together, defeated the dungeon together, they’re dependable, likable, everything, but that’s all-- kind of surface level. Because in the end it’s about this gut feeling that you’re one of my people. You feel like-- like sitting by the fire after a long day, or the first bite of freshly made bread. You feel like-- ah, like home. It’s wonderful. You’re wonderful.”

Kabru was struck to silence. His mouth was open, trying to say something, but he only felt a faint wheezing of air in his throat. 

“Also, you’re really hot,” Laios said, a hand hesitantly cupping Kabru’s cheek. His palm actually felt cool, which was Kabru’s first indication that he must’ve been blushing like a maniac. “Like, really hot. I can’t stop thinking about you when you leave the room, and I can’t stop staring when you stay in one. Every time someone touches me, on the arm or something, I just find myself imagining they were you, wondering how it would feel-- sorry. Too much?” 

Laios was blushing now, maybe picking up on the fact that Kabru had been quiet for too long, maybe just hearing himself pining and feeling some embarrassment. Either way, Kabru had to say something. Laios had carried the conversation this far. 

“Not too much,” Kabru breathed. “Perfect. Just… perfect.”

He moved his hand around from Laios’s hair to cup his cheek in turn, so Laios put his own down to hold Kabru’s waist again. That was good. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Kabru said, trying to be clear and honest about his feelings but coming out formal. He didn’t think it could be helped. “I’m sorry for doubting you. You picked my letter because you knew it was me and you… wanted me? For those reasons?” 

Laios nodded, leaning in-- not for a kiss, just with his enthusiasm, just wanting to be nearer. 

“And more,” Laios said. “You have no idea.” Kabru felt the air shift with Laios’s breath as he spoke. They were so close he might explode. 

“I’m sorry,” Kabru said again. He supposed, he was so used to playing games on the world, so used to-- politics and strategized socialization, he forgot that people could act out of genuine feeling. With Laios, he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, kept waiting for the game to be revealed or the catch or the ulterior motive. 

But there kept not being one. It kept being his honest feelings. Laios kept leaning in. 

“I’d like to give you a few more reasons to believe me,” Laios said. Apparently, the mood was not entirely killed by Kabru’s impromtu interrogation and insecurity. 

And that was the catch, actually. 

Kabru remembered again, he was too ill-suited for romance. He couldn’t stop overthinking, or strategizing, even when Laios asked him to. He was bound to treat Laios like an opponent, their romance like a competition, was already interrupting their first kiss to smooth out his strategy. His stupid desperate need to understand Laios was getting in the way. He was getting in the way, when his own mouth was the destination. 

This isn’t going to work, Kabru thought. Even if he likes a lot of things about me. That doesn’t make me a good lover.

But, in a moment of weakness, when Laios leaned in with his eyes half closed and his mouth twisted in the corner with a happy little smirk-- Kabru let Laios kiss him anyway. 

--

Kabru woke up in a dungeon. For a moment, it was so reminiscent of his nightmares, he didn’t think he was awake. But he felt faintly nauseous, which was rare for dreams (they came with enough mental anguish that his mind didn’t feel the need to add physical pain) and he wasn’t wearing his armor, which his subconscious stubbornly kept him in for his dungeoneering dreams. 

He sat up, whole back aching from being asleep on flagstones with no bedroll. He felt like he hadn’t gotten a second of rest, which was disorienting, since he’d definitely been asleep. He blinked to adjust to the light, and saw the front of the room was slatted with straight-lined silhouettes. 

Bars, his mind supplied. Voices beyond. Hushed, angry. Kabru knew off the top of his head-- the castle didn’t have any other prisoners, presently. Whatever discussion was happening, it would be about him-- and whatever attempt at quieting themselves in an otherwise empty dungeon was to make sure he wouldn’t hear it.  

Kabru stood without making a sound, and crept to press flat against the front wall, a little section which wrapped around the corner and connected to the bars. They’d have to look into the cell at a sharp angle to see him. 

“He wouldn’t,” Laios said, lowly. “He didn’t.” 

Kabru noted he sounded rough from sleep and-- harsh emotion. What could have happened to make Laios feel so beat up? Kabru felt an unpleasant tickling under his skin, a wave of nerves next to the nausea he’d had since waking. 

There was a more important question; if Kabru was in a cell, and Laios was outside of it, why wasn’t he letting him out? 

He felt nearly ill at the idea that Laios would allow him to be arrested. In his sleep. Had he been sleeping? He didn’t feel like he’d been sleeping, but the last thing he remembered was blowing out his candle and going to bed. He’d stared at the ceiling for a mere twenty minutes, his lips warm from the flame, or maybe the kiss he’d shared hours earlier. 

“How are you seriously saying that when people are in the healing ward?” That voice was the captain of the guards. Kabru felt another press of panic. He was hoping for one of the normal nightguards, nobody high ranking. He was in deep shit, if they’d pulled her out of bed. Plus-- healing ward? What fucking happened? 

“It couldn’t have been him. It has to be someone else’s fault,” Laios said.

“We have multiple eyewitnesses from the patrols--” 

“No. Whatever it is they think they saw--”

The captain took on the stern tone that Kabru often had to adopt, himself, when Laios was being unreasonable.

“Listen, Laios--”

“You will address me by my title,” Laios muttered, steely. 

The whole room felt like the air had been sucked out. Silence pounded like a headache. 

“Of course, Your Majesty,” the captain said, with drawn out professionalism. The silence lasted another second, and then the captain continued. “Reports from squadrons A through F -- I can supply you the names of individual guards, if necessary-- clearly track Master Kabru’s movements from oh-three twelve hours to oh-three fifteen hours, at which point he was found--”

“Don’t--” 

“I am simply giving my report.” 

“I didn’t ask for a report. I told you, it’s not possible. He didn’t do it.” 

“Unfortunately, the report is necessary for you to understand; there is irrevocable proof it was him.”

Silence, again. Kabru tried to breathe as thinly as possible, tried not to make any noise. What did he do? The question stampeded through any possible rational thought. What did he do? What did he do? 

The quiet broke when the captain said, “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I liked him, too. But he must be exiled.” 

“Absolutely not.” 

“And if you’re looking to fill the advisor position--”

“Get out.” 

Kabru barely heard retreating footsteps under his cyclone of thoughts. He had been asleep. He didn’t have any memory, of anything. He didn’t-- 

Was it someone disguised as him? If that was the case, shouldn’t they be the one in the cell? 

“Oh, fuck. Kabru? Are you-- in there?” Laios asked. His voice was rough, closer, now, to the bars, and had the edge of exhaustion and uncertainty. Like he knew it was a stupid question. Kabru couldn’t have escaped the cell. Just as well, he couldn’t have done-- whatever crime he was currently accused of. 

Kabru, without saying anything, stepped out of his shadowed corner, into the light through the bars. 

Laios looked-- haunted. Ragged. The question thrashed in Kabru’s ribcage, painful next to panic. What the fuck did he do? 

“Uh,” Laios said. “You’re awake.” 

Kabru couldn’t help but notice-- despite defending him to the captain, Laios wasn’t unlocking the cell. He was standing well back from the bars, out of arm’s reach. Kabru felt torn up again, that Laios would let him be arrested. That Laios wouldn’t let him out. Gods, what did he do? 

It occured to him, in fact, this was probably his fault. Keeping Laios at a distance, refusing to tell him everything, in actuality gave Laios every reason not to trust him. Lying kept Kabru safe, maybe, emotionally, but here were the very real consequences of it. 

He wanted to ask, but he wanted to defend himself. There was too much to say at once. I don’t remember anything, that’s evidence of foul play, right--? Magic casting? Fucking shit, this was Demdae’s doing, wasn’t it? Laios, what happened?

“Is everyone okay?” Kabru asked, first. He felt tense, fear leaping in him. He didn’t like that Laios hadn’t already answered. He didn’t like not knowing. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

“Uh, they will be,” Laios said. His jaw tensed, he squinted, and he stared at Kabru with a distance Kabru hadn’t seen since they were strangers. He felt chills down his whole spine. Laios was terrifying when he was like this. He felt nearly sick that he’d managed to lose his trust so entirely, so quickly. 

“Laios, I don’t remember anything,” Kabru said, hearing the pleading in his own voice. Please, you have to believe me. Please, let me out of here. Please, don’t make me call you by your title. 

Laios tilted his head at that. It was such a familiar, disarming motion, Kabru almost sank to the ground in relief. He was noticing more things, without Laios staring him down. His hair was still rumpled from sleep, he’d tugged on a loose shirt instead of bothering with buttons and professional outfits so his shoulders were showing--

His mind supplied that these weren’t good things. It meant Laios had left bed in a hurry. It meant there was an emergency that Kabru had simultaneously slept through and caused. 

“I fell asleep in my bed, and woke up here. I have no idea what happened. Just from what I’ve heard, I suspect magical foul play-- possibly Demdae’s work, since she obviously needs me out of the way, and knew she couldn’t try to kill me again, so of course framing me for something was the next obvious move, I was stupid not to see it-- it makes sense, too, considering what I know from her past, I think her magical education came from her parents rather than a school, and they taught her things that are best for underhanded politics, like curses, which she put on the dagger to kill me-- it’s not ridiculous to believe this is the effect of some other curse, in which case we should adapt security in the castle to account for possible attacks on the psyche. There must be some way to prove this was her, maybe we can ask Marcille about tracing people’s mana, or the spymaster, or, Rin, or Holm, or anyone, but-- I didn’t-- it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. I would never-- I didn’t-- I don’t know what happened, stop looking at me like that, Laios, please, gods, say something.” 

Kabru felt like he couldn’t breathe. He grabbed the bars to hold himself up. Laios was frowning, and had stopped looking at him, by request. Laios’s eyes seemed shiny, but the lighting in the dungeon was so shitty, Kabru couldn’t tell. He felt like he’d completely lost his balance. 

“It was Falin,” Laios said, in a small voice. “Apparently, you slit her throat. Marcille was there, and healed her before she completely died, so she’s alive, but… then you attacked Marcille. The guards intercepted and brought you here.”

Kabru felt bone cold. 

“Laios, I didn’t,” he said. 

“I know,” Laios said, like he was reassuring himself. “You wouldn’t.” 

There was a long pause. 

“But?” Kabru said. He knew Laios’s speech patterns well, he could predict his pauses. And, sure enough; 

“But-- I’ve watched you kill people before, Kabru.” 

“Never our friends,” Kabru said, utterly betrayed that Laios thought he was even capable of that. “And never without reason! Why would I possibly want to hurt Falin and Marcille? I care about them, Laios, and that’s not an easy thing for me to do. They’re precious to me. I’m so--” he got choked up, but kept going, appearances and vulnerabilities be dammed-- “I’m so sorry they were hurt. I’m sorry I did it, even if it wasn’t my doing. I’m so-- scared. Fuck. Do you swear they’ll be okay?” What did I do? 

Laios looked at him with that distant expression still, and nodded. “They’re both with magical healers. None of the wounds were lethal past the first one. They should be good as new within the hour.” 

Kabru gave up and sat on the floor. He hugged his knees and put his forehead in them. 

“Kabru,” Laios said, and couldn’t that mean a thousand things? 

“Investigate Demdae,” Kabru said, trying to school his tone into something neutral and not panicked. “I understand if you can’t let me out until she’s proven guilty, but I can promise you-- it was her, not me. That’s the direction you need to look in.”

There was a suspended quiet, and then two scuffing footsteps. They stopped right in front of the bars. Kabru looked up to see Laios crouching, and he looked like a hunter, terrifying in his easy physicality. Kabru felt ill. 

“Give me your hand,” Laios said, staring somewhere at the ground in front of Kabru. Kabru, wordlessly, reached out, through the bars. Laios lightly took his wrist and flipped it, holding two fingers to his pulse. 

Immediately, Kabru stopped breathing. He thought back to their first meeting, Laios smiling at him, shy but exhilirated, telling him he was human, telling him to be brave, to connect with people and to feel things honestly and loudly. 

It was such a contrast, to now, when Kabru felt alone and wretched and maybe evil and he was telling the complete truth and still couldn’t be believed, couldn’t be believable, because he’d lied and manipulated and murdered so much in the past. This was what it had earned him. All that distance he wanted to keep between himself and Laios-- he’d successfully earned it. Exactly what he wanted. 

And Laios was still, again, bridging the gap. Meeting Kabru where he was at to bring him back to something resembling humanity. Holding his wrist and checking his pulse. Kabru wanted to start sobbing. 

“Promise me it wasn’t you,” Laios said, simply, staring down at their hands.

“Laios, I swear, I didn’t do this,” Kabru said. He hated the tears in his voice, but he couldn’t suppress them. He was so scared, for himself, and for Falin, and for Marcille. 

Laios nodded to himself, and dropped his wrist. Kabru missed the contact immediately, feeling cold and horrible all over again. He wanted back Laios’s warmth. 

Laios stood, and said, “your heart sped up.” 

Kabru remembered, vividly, the feeling of dying in the dungeon. It felt like his whole body seizing up, as his instincts immediately understood his world was ending. That was what this felt like. 

Laios walked away, and Kabru was mentally reciting every curse word he knew, with as much vitriol as he could, to stop himself from just breaking down. He was so involved in his distraction, he didn’t notice that Laios stopped at the door. The jingle of metal keys. The footsteps returning. 

He looked up when he heard a key jammed into the lock, tumblers clicking as Laios unlocked the door. 

“You get nervous when you tell the truth, right?” Laios said. The latch thudded, and the door swung out. Kabru blinked, wondering if he was actually so lucky that the world didn’t have to end, yet. (But he knew it would have to, eventually. Knew from the start that this was all inevitable.) 

He looked up at Laios, not quite trusting that he could move. 

Laios still had a dead look in his eye. He seemed to notice Kabru’s hesitation. 

“I’m not happy with you, mostly cause I’m not happy with anything. My sister nearly died. I’m exhausted. And not trusting you makes me feel like I’m being eaten alive. So. I’m deciding to trust you. We’re going to go back to my room, and I’m gonna read until I find a charm to ward against mind controlling curses. Then you can get some sleep while I check on Falin and Marcille-- although they’ll probably be healed and back in bed, by then. I still-- I still have to check. And if there’s more talking to do, we’ll do it in the morning. Does that sound good to you?” 

There was enough exhaustion in Laios’s voice to fell cities. 

He was waiting for Kabru’s response. 

Kabru nodded. 

Laios held out a hand, and Kabru took it, and used it to pull himself up. 

As they walked back to Laios’s room in silence, Kabru’s head pounded with the weighty implications of both his and Laios’s feelings-- fuck, what would he even say to Falin and Marcille, the next time he saw them?-- and Kabru shied away from it again. It was all too much, and he felt like he was putting drops of boiling oil on his tongue, purposefully straining his nerves. He had to stop thinking about his feelings when they hurt like this. 

He fell back into the politics, of course, the plot that had been revealed, and how he would counterattack. Kabru remembered what he’d told himself earlier; that if Demdae endangered any of their lives again, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. Maybe it was a drastic measure to jump to-- maybe Laios would follow Kabru’s advice and mount an investigation against her-- maybe she’d be found guilty, and maybe Kabru needed that, to clear his own name. 

But Falin had nearly died. Demdae was proving a very real danger to all of them, and the investigation taking too long or coming up inconclusive was too much of a risk to bear. Kabru loved politics, he loved shifting motivations and working the social web, but absolutely never at the risk of others. Sometimes, it wasn’t complicated, or infinitely nuanced, a knotted thread he could untangle with enough time and energy. Sometimes, it was incredibly fucking simple, actually. 

Kabru felt calmness overtake him, complete assurance settle into his bones, like he was utterly in control of every inch of his body. Every step, every blink, every breath. 

I’m going to kill her.