Legend of Ransera

"True," he acknowledged. "They did put your skinny arse upon a throne."

But that was as far as he teased, not wanting something worse than spit in his snack. Perhaps he watched Arry like this was some mummer's farce of domestic bliss, though aside from Arry's presence, he didn't truly know what bliss would look like.

When the seeming elf sat, Aurin did sit up, laying a cloth napkin over his lap. No shoes, no shirt, but he still got service, and he rubbed elbows at enough fine tables these days, he could pretend to have been well brought up. Under the table, though, his foot rested upon Arry's. He didn't acknowledge it. He wasn't playing footsie, but there, where nobody could see it so there was a flimsy excuse for it not actually happening, he was in some sort of physical contact with Arry, or at least Arry's boot leather.

Aurin had learned to have a bit more of a discerning palate, but he merely thanked Arry and ate. Food was fuel that he forgot to eat more often than not, and sometimes scarfed down with feral abandon, a nod to his own troubled and sometimes hungry youth. He held his napkin up to his mouth so as not to give an unwanted show as he laughed.

"Happy? Me?" He brought the napkin down when it was safe. "You know I don't believe in that horse shit." But after a moment, he answered with less coarseness. "Best to take a moment present as a present for the moment."

Aurin had always paid attention to the music and theater he had seen, even if he pretended to drag his feet and roll his eyes. There was a magic beyond his seeming tricks to what Arry had done on the stage, and he had craved it like the smallest blue flame before nothing in a freezing room.

Aurin would be the first to admit that he himself was unqualified for any sort of throne, and would disdain any country who saw him fit to rule. He wasn't exactly building himself a financial kingdom, either, but more of a web of intelligence and opportunity spanning much of Ailizane and now with a foothold in Solunarium, but if he was the spider in this analogy, most of the movement he felt from that line was too dangerous to risk.

It was mostly because he couldn't let go of Arry, even as he pushed him away.

A brow arched at the mention of religion.

"Just because I call out Talon Novalys doesn't mean I'm a stan of your twins." He had also fucked a godling, but didn't want to kiss and tell. From what he understood of Torin's goddess, Arry likely already knew, but he had agreed to secrecy so as not to be an impediment to Torin's rise to lordly status. Sometimes he wondered if Torin, too, would leave him for greener pastures. The smith loved the tranquility of his valley, and there was a romanticism between him and the elf he had persuaded to take him to Sol'Valen that was certainly missing between him and Aurin.

"Anyway, if I wanted someone to trick me into being happy, you're the one I'd ask. But best I don't settle in your desert oasis. I'd just fuck everything up for you. And I wasn't complaining about the food. It's my larder, my table." He paused, suddenly frustrated. "I'm trying to say that... fuck... this... you, here..." he indicated the tremulous moment that was, in his experience, as delicate as a soap bubble on a breeze. "This is my version of happy. Until one of us gets pissed or just pissy and sets it on fire."

His face cracked again, just for a moment.

"I don't know how to be happy. I'm just happy you're here. But I also hate the idea of you... thinking of me, pitying me... from far away. Whatever. I'm going to ruin this." That said, he began to shovel food into his mouth to keep himself from talking.

"It's a portmanteau," he said sententiously, but a deal after the fact. Arry might not know every dark detail of his past, but he knew he had little in the way of formal education. "Stalker and fan, which is just short for fanatic, isn't it? So... hm."

For once, Aurin didn't argue. He found that the way they spoke, the way they communicated, seemed almost designed to irritate each other. Perhaps that was just the well-traveled road they had walked together, though, and old habits were difficult to break. If he made a point not to react immediately, Arry tended to leaven words that could be offensive on their own.

He had never given Arry enough: time, affection, support. He had given what he could, and often not in the way Arry needed.

Hazel eyes tracked the movement of the elf in dragon drag, then, finally, he rose, stretching languidly as he walked toward the bed. He still hadn't put more clothes on.

"Whatever shall we do until the show?" he asked innocently.

But it was innocent. He passed the bed for the armoire, dropped skimpy trou, but promptly dressed himself properly in case the princeling wanted to go out at any point. There were new scars on his skin, old bruises fading away. Everything he did was to stay safe, but he certainly weathered a lot of danger and damage for it.

"Do you need the guards? You're more dangerous now than you were before, and you know I won't let anyone hurt you."

Another Aurinian paradox: his main goal was to survive, but he would likely throw himself into the fire to protect Arry, even now.

Aurin was a touch disappointed to find Arry looking studiously away when he turned back around fully dressed. A shameful part of him wanted the now foreign prince to yearn for him forever; better unrequited passion than a lack of anything that had existed before. He didn't speak of it, though. And he would certainly not rat out the guards. It was just nigh impossible to sneak up on Aurin while on his home turf anymore. His magic was all over and in the Three Sisters and the plaza, and the alley was his domain almost as profoundly as Sivan's tower and garden. So many slipstream connections had been aligned so he could flee from there to anywhere on a whim, and while his Railrunner tutor had been the only one to ever actually teach him magic, association with the Zaichaeri covens had given him ample access to fonts of knowledge. Even his knowing trick was different now, having taken the Whispers under his wing and then reinserted them into Zaicher to focus those arcane senses upon that city.

"Oh, mists bugger your dignity," he said as he crossed the space between them and put his hand on the prince's shoulder.

With a twist of those strands of spatial connection, he pulled Arry out of his home and up into one of their places in Cloudhaven.

They stood upon a fine stone quay, old and aristocratic, but also lonely. A skeleton crew of butlers and maids remained to keep the floating manor clean and ready should its tragic lord return, but Aurin had easily burgled before and there were no guards here. He sat down at the edge, letting his legs dangle. From here, they had often watched the city below. Of course, that had required "borrowing" an air taxi to get up here. That was before space became Aurin's bitch.

He didn't pull Arry down to sit beside him. He didn't think he had to.

This place was nostalgic, and one couldn't beat the views.

"Aurin Kavafis," he said to the expansive sky, "royal kidnapper." He smirked, quite self-satisfied.

It was strangely galling that he couldn't even play a little joke on Arry any longer without his express permission. There was no spontaneity in that. Perhaps he was just a bully unused to having his claws removed. Perhaps he was the powerless one now, though his pride was such that he would rather die than cross the world to swoon upon Arry's grand doorstep.

Funny how those things went.

"I'm up here now," he said. In fact, he couldn't recall if he had been up here since the last time he had come, which had been soon after Arry had gone off to Solunarium with Finn and Aurin's blessing. He had wanted him to find some answers to his questions, even if he didn't like them. He had wanted him out of Kalzasi with the conflict brewing with Zaichaer, knowing his devoted lapdog would jump in front of a falling blade for him.

Once after Arry left, once again after he realized that—barring state visits and wild hares up his arse—Arry wouldn't return. He had shown Rivin quite a few of his "secret places" while training him how to parkour with and without translocational tricks, but the Lysanrin was an employee and a tool, not the sort of person he was going to show a chink in his armor.

"Nah, it's not the same without you."

Anyway, it wasn't like he was expecting Arry to sit closer so he would have Aurin to grab onto if his acrophobia kicked in.

"But you're here now, so I'm here now, and seems as good a place as any for a little nostalgia tour of Kalzasi, you know?"