"The Shadows on the Wall"

[Arvælyn]

"D'aww..." Arry replied, pressing his grin against the tumbler as he tipped another sip between his lips. The smile faded as Aurin waded through the practicalities of their intention. Hearing it aloud, one could understand how the pattern of distance between them came to pass. Separate lives, different priorities than they used to have...

"It really isn't easy for me to leave the realm and certainly not if you want anything approaching privacy. I made it out with just my two guards today, because this was unscheduled, but... Well, my Chains were tightened after the assassination attempt. There are so many variables abroad and, outside of Atraxia, my people lack the sort of control that makes us Solunarian. I am not like to get away with this again." He pursed his lips,

"Are you asking because you feel at a disadvantage in Solunarium, or because you fear that you won't be able to avoid tempting Fate?" The prince didn't imagine his prior caveats made it seem like the most welcoming place for one of Aurin's bent, but it was the reality. He was well aware that many saw Solunarium as a sort of arcanist dystopia. He might have been among them in another universe, but having seen it from his place on the pyramid... having literally felt the conferral of faith and fealty into his Emblem... he could not see it as anything but a beautiful, pragmatic paradise. Whatever unhappiness he brooked in his position, he considered to be a worthy sacrifice to the Varværyn ideal.

"I guess I chose an auspicious day to visit. So, if Kalzasi has fallen out of favour, where are you most enjoying these days?"

[Aurin]

Aurin frowned. He couldn't sense past those wards, but he knew Arry; at least, he had known Arry. It didn't seem as though Arry was bothered by the restrictions on his person, and certainly he had wanted to abscond with him the evening of the assassination attempt whether he wanted to flee his princedom or not.

A brow quirked up; he hadn't recalled asking anything, more positing, ruminating. He shrugged.

"You know I hate oversight. Chaperones. Pomp and circumstance are just theater..." He shrugged again. He hated that Arry's fucking mother would know the instant he set foot on Solunarian sands, not because he had any ill intentions but because he didn't like being watched, being known. He felt like that dumbass in that stupid play full of idiots, climbing Arry's balcony. It wasn't like he was angling for a kiss.

He just wanted those moments again where it was them against the world.

But he smirked. Tempting fate, indeed.

"Have you ever turned me down and found me overruling your boundary?" he asked. Of course, he meant sexually, but then did some quick calculations of other things Arry might bring up. He had always tried to guide rather than force Arry into anything, but perspectives weren't always identical. "No sex. If you are just too pretty, I'll excuse myself and rub one out."

As for locations, "I don't know about enjoying them, but I have been bouncing around Karnor. Infiltrating Zaichaer. Some business in the Imperium. Might find myself in the land of your ancient enemies before the year's out. Don't ask me to do a genocide, though. They probably have their own version of your Sentinels."

[Arvælyn]

"What's wrong with a bit of theatre?" Arry mused, raising his free hand to gesture at their immediate surroundings. At the question posed, he sighed and shook his head.

"You don't overrule boundaries, you just test them. Like Green Dragons gathering at my borders, taking no aggressive action but cocking eyebrows." He paused, "Oh. That reference may have been a bit obscure. We had Green Dragons gathering at our borders during the Eclipse and a bit after. It was a whole thing." He waved it off as he sipped his drink.

At the suggestion of Aurin visiting 'the land of his ancient enemies', Arry's lips curled into a dark, wry smirk.

"Stardew Valley?" He chuckled inwardly at his own snark, but didn't let silence linger in its aftermath. "It is difficult not to correspond with the ancient enemies of Solunarium. We're quite controversial. I'll forgive you as long as corresponding doesn't give way to conspiring." He didn't personally bear any great animosity toward Sol'Valen... and he did assume it was of Sol'Valen, not the Commonwealth, Aurin was speaking. He'd spent the better part of his life assuming he was descended of Sol'Valen. In truth he'd been right, he just didn't realise how far removed his maternal line actually was.

"Have you secured box seats for us, or are we to slum it with the groundlings? I can always exploit your bequest, to blend in..." He didn't entirely object to the notion. In many ways, he missed the stalls. There was an austerity to viewing from a box in the distance. It separated one from the action to a point that, for him at least, reduced its impact.