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Cobbleston was peaceful again today too.
These days, it was the most that Olberic could ask for. After all the peace talks and meetings and all-around political discord that he had little patience for, he made his way back into the quiet little village that his heart now called home. It was warm here, where the residents welcomed him back with open arms. His heart, still heavy with the weight of eight silent years, couldn't hope to be more grateful.
It was autumn now, nearing Balogar's Moon, and Cobbleston was once more blessed with a good crop. Every able hand in the village was out in the fields now, every farmer coaching the younger ones in the art of harvest. Only the youngest children (aged four summers and below, and not a day more – this had been the way of the village and will stay its way until the end of time) and the elderly stayed out of the way, preparing refreshments and offering encouragement to their more capable neighbors. The air was thick with the scent of root crops and beans and the sweat of the workers, toiling away in the rolling hills – tired, but smiling bright.
Olberic's own hands were full of dirt and potato spuds, a pile of the brown crop beside him in a basket. He wiped his brow, heaving a sigh. This was nothing new to him, having been trained in Hornburg's military. In his mind flashed memories of his former comrades, covered in mud and hauling carts full of fresh carrots and turnips through the gates, cracking jokes and making plans for the tavern after the day's work was done. Farmers and ranchers would drink with them, the merry laughter of hard workers echoing endlessly into the night.
For a moment, it seemed like he was back in those valleys further south from here – where the winds blew eastward, looking to the sun. Old squadron chanting filled the air around him for brief moments –
"Sir Olberic!"
– and he opened his eyes, breathing in the lower airs of Cobbleston around him.
He took another breath. He was elsewhere now, building a new home.
Olberic looked up, seeing Philip running up to him with a flask and towels. The boy was similarly covered in muck and stray silks of sweet corn, a grin adorning his face. "Great work, sir!"
He returned his smile in kind, accepting the flask. "And you as well, my boy. How is everyone holding up in the eastern fields?"
"Very well, sir! We've got quite the haul this year, all set for when winter comes! Here's to hoping none of you lot'll get sick of eating beans though,"
"Beans, eh?" Olberic chuckled. "I'm sure Minze and your mother can do something about that."
Philip made a face, handing him the towel. "I'll hope. I know beans are good for me an' all, but I can only take so much every winter."
"Well, you're a growing boy –"
"Young man."
"Man now, is it?" Olberic raised an eyebrow, placing a cleaned glove over Philip to ruffle the hairs on his head. "Though even men have their reservations, they're not going to be picky forever. Best eat those beans if you know what's good for you, lad!"
"Yeah, yeah – I've got it! Stop messing up my hair already –!"
"Boys! How's about you all take a rest!" called a feminine voice, and they all looked to Miss Geneva on top of the hill, accompanied by the other ladies of Cobbleston. Heidi was among them, and they all carried in their hands a basket rimmed with cloth. "We've got the snacks ready!"
Her words were met with a resounding cheer from the fields, farmers left and right setting down their equipment as they made their way uphill to get their share. Olberic smiled to himself, and nudged Philip along. They were never in danger of running out – Miss Geneva had too big of a heart for such a thing to ever happen – but there was no harm in wanting it fresh, a sentiment shared by the farmhands when they eagerly bit down on the handmade sandwiches and drank out of tankards. Light ginger ale this time, so as not to upset the stomach – they still had to clean up for the day, after all.
Heidi was waiting for them, her hands quick at work as she gave him and Philip two sandwiches each, wrapped in cloth. "Great work today, you two!"
"'Tis nothing," Olberic replied, though he gratefully bit into the snack, sighing with content as he let their flavors soothe his tongue. "Rather, your snacks never disappoint. You have my thanks,"
"No, no! The pleasure is all ours," she said, waving her hands dismissively. "Least we could do for leaving today's haul to you."
"You're working on the north fields tomorrow, aren't you, Ma?" Philip asked, barely coherent in between larges bites of rye bread and lettuce. "You're trying out tea leaves an' all –"
"Slow down, you! What have I told you about talking while you're eating?" Heidi cut him off, rolling her eyes as she took out a handkerchief to wipe the crumbs off the side of a bemused Philip's lips, who swallowed his food to answer.
"I'll choke, an' I'll probably die –"
"And we don't want that now, do we lad?" Olberic chuckled, earning himself a small glare from the boy. He then turned to Heidi once more, who was now fixing Philip's hair with a comb that she pulled out from somewhere – Olberic had long since ceased to question how deep the pockets of her apron truly were. "But I'm curious as well. Are the teas growing alright?"
"Well enough! We'll have ourselves a fine-smelling collection of bushels by the month's end –"
"Heidi…! Heidi, there you are," Miss Geneva ran up to them, her six year-old son tottering close behind her. "I need a hand with the tea and the muffins – oh, hello there, Sir Olberic!"
"Miss Geneva," Olberic nodded in her direction. "Thanks for all your hard work today,"
"Think nothing of it!" she replied, though something phased past her features. "Though, if you really want to thank me – and if you're up for the task – could I ask you to help us give the children up in the northern fields their share of the snacks? They haven't come down for them just yet,"
Heidi gasped. "Ah, that's right! How could we forget – and the Professor's up there with them, I'd feel bad if he were to miss these,"
Olberic blinked. The harvest must have tired him out more than he thought – he had his hands too full with farming tools and carrots and grain to remember that Cyrus was visiting for the week.
The Professor, burdened as he was by Congregational duty and mountains of papers concerning Galdera, had somehow eked out enough time out of his schedule to come down to Cobbleston for his cursory visits to Olberic. Olberic, too weak to Cyrus's whims to deprive him of anything, redirected him towards Chief Garreck when he excitedly asked if there was any task that he could help with.
"You are a kind soul indeed, Scholar. We're always happy to receive any help we can in these busy times…" the elder said when he stroked his beard earlier that day. Olberic remembered now, the way that the old man looked at Cyrus – wiry, eager, impassioned even past his own limits Cyrus – and then looked at Olberic, who held a silent plea in his eye. "… and as it turns out, we need someone to watch over the village children. Those particular young'ins, you see – full of energy, they're adorable, and it makes it hard to dissuade them from touchin' the farm tools. You're good with children, right?"
And that was how Cyrus had landed himself a place among the five or so children who weren't quite old nor big enough to carry a rake or a sickle. Olberic did not doubt that the scholar would somehow worm his way into the fields sooner or later, and while Cyrus was of Flatlands birth, he has admitted to not knowing much about the art of growing crops.
An image of the Professor covered in grime and stray chunks of hay crossed his mind for a brief moment. Olberic thanked his own sense of restraint for suppressing the noise that threatened to leak from his throat.
He was shaken out of his own thoughts by Heidi, who had pushed a basket full of freshly-made sandwiches into his hands. “We’re counting on you to get these to them, Sir!”
With that, she turned on her heel to help Miss Geneva with the other snacks, with Philip following her close behind. The boy stopped in his tracks for only a moment to wave him goodbye for now, before disappearing into the crowd of farmers.
Huffing to himself, Olberic finished off the last bites of the bread and lettuce, and tenderly picked up the basket to head to the northern fields.
>>>
The trail to the north side of Cobbleston’s humble farmlands was marked with a road less-traveled, and the distinct lack of the scent of cow dung in the air. It was an elegant spot, all things considered – grassy mounds among the harsh rocks facing north towards the Coastlands, though the sea could only be seen in the clearest of days. This was one such day, the glittering horizon in the distance cutting through like a comet trail in the stark light of an autumn afternoon.
He looked around in the fields, and it was just as Heidi had said – the teas were holding up surprisingly well, and he chalked it up to the weather of this year being kinder than all those that came before it.
Indeed, the year was 1620 – the year where Orsterra may breathe a little easier, where the scars of Galdera were stitched shut only a few months ago. It still felt surreal to Olberic, just how real the feeling was – but he was here now, breathing in the aroma of fresh, untouched tea leaves and the flowers blooming by the vast wayside. He held not his grand, unbending blade in his hands today, but the lighter weight of the sickle and rake, shoveling hay into the carts and plucking out fresh crop from the soil.
It was not a glamorous life, but it put food on the table and brought smiles to the people of Cobbleston. That alone was enough to set his own heart at ease. If he thinks about it enough, whatever this life was now – the death of a god in fresh in his mind, the aching pains of merely remembering, the ease at which he could languish in the company of rolling hills and the promise of a good winter – it was not bad at all.
He spotted the children further along the trail, their stubby legs and swinging arms letting the edges of his mouth curl upwards. From the looks of it, they had been careful not to play too close to the fields, just as they were told to do. One of them spotted him, and waved with his hands wide in the air.
“Sir Olberic! It's Sir Olberic!” the boy yelled, and Olberic recognized the voice as Filbert’s. That got the attention of the other children, who raised their heads in unison in a motion that vaguely reminded Olberic of meerkats in a prairie.
It was unfathomable to Olberic, even several years into his life in Cobbleston, that the mere sight of him could elicit joy in the minds of these children. Some part of him felt that he still did not deserve to see those bright, wide-eyed smiles, or to hear them cheering like something fun has come along to make their day.
‘You’re better at this than you think, Sir Olberic,’ he heard Ophilia’s voice chastise him, in the ringing sighs of a recent memory in Goldshore. ‘It simply means that they see you as someone they can trust. Please take their feelings to heart.’
He had only enough time to soften his voice as he knelt to greet them, but one of the girls – Rue, he thinks – was already running up behind him, trying to push him forward with all of her feeble might.
“Oh, perfect, perfect! Just what we needed!” Another girl – dark-haired and wearing blue, this must be Salvie – caught up to them, and started squeeing.
“Hm? What are you kids doing?” he asked right as the rest of the children gathered around him – the air of expectation palpable among them.
“We're playing Castle!” The last of the girls answered. Blonde and doe-eyed, so this was Aster. “But we were missing a Prince...”
“We wanted to make sure it matched the teacher's story this time!” Rue piped up from behind him, still trying to get him to move, but to no avail.
He took pity on the girl’s efforts, so he stood once more – but not without a wobble, when he felt the girl’s hands on the back of his legs. The gaggle of children followed along with his stride as he walked to wherever direction Rue was trying to push him towards. He noted that all of the children had a few flowers and grasses stuck to their hair and clothes, sticking out of their pockets and from behind their ears. “Ah, I'm sure it's a good story then. Did you need me for something?”
“Play the Prince, please?” Salvie asked. “We just got to the fun part with the Princess, but...”
Filbert puffed out his chest, giving it a proud knock. “I wanted to be the dragon! And Micheal's bein' weird, says he wanted to be the Prince's trusty sidekick!”
“Nothing weird about it!” The last child, Michael, pouted in Filbert’s direction. “If the Prince is Sir Olberic…”
Olberic let out a hearty chuckle. “Haha, I doubt I'm very princely... but I'll try my hand at the role. So, what does this Prince do?”
Excitement began to buzz about the children once he gave his answer. He could almost stomach the fact that he does not – in fact – know how to act, and that he may yet disappoint these children with whatever performance he was about to put on.
“He saves the Princess now, right?” Aster asked, and everyone around her cheered in agreement.
Rue, who had seemingly gotten tired of throwing her entire body weight into each fruitless push, instead ran in front of Olberic to hold his hand – or, whatever she could, as her tiny fingers could barely envelop even one of his fingers. “Yeah, yeah! The Princess is waiting, come on!” she said, tugging on him harshly.
“Hang on, are none of you the Princess? What is –”
The rest of the kids ran back up the highest hill, to where the trail ends – leaving multicolored petals and leaves in their wake as Rue made a noise that sounded vaguely like a whine. Olberic, still holding the basket, balanced it in one arm as he picked up the girl in the other, letting her ride as he resumed his walk. Pleased with her position, the girl started weaving flowers into Olberic’s hair and stems into the gaps of his shirt and tunic – sprigs of what he recognized to be fall-blooming Columbine flooded his senses.
“These are the Prince’s symbols,” said Rue, when Olberic shot her a quizzical stare. “The teacher told us so!”
Speaking of Cyrus, Olberic wondered where he was while all of this was happening – he was meant to be watching these children, last he checked. He had little time to speculate when he heard a commotion brewing on top of the hill, so he muttered a small warning to the girl in his arms as he kicked his feet into the ground, ready to face and smooth out whatever was waiting for them on top –
“Oh, Olberic! So glad you could come play with us!”
And nothing could have ever prepared him for this.
In hindsight, he should have known who would be playing the Princess in today’s session of make-believe, but not even that could have saved him from having the breath knocked out of his lungs at the sight of Cyrus – hair down and lacking his large, billowing scholar’s cloak, letting Olberic see all the curves that were kept hidden from the world on most days.
The children had surrounded him, wearing proud grins on their faces as their hands gave way to reveal the halos of blue, white, and purple wrapped around the crown of Cyrus’s head. Olberic felt his throat go dry, he recognized those flowers – they were everywhere, if one knew where to look, simply now a part of life in the Highlands that people paid little mind to. But sat upon the curls of Cyrus’s midnight-black locks, Olberic had half a mind to drop to his knees and pray – thanking Dohter, thanking Draefendi, thanking all the gods above for giving them this humble gift, if only so this moment could come to be.
Perhaps he was already halfway there, when Rue had managed to safely leap down from his arms and onto the grass below, and in her hands was the white cloth Heidi had used to blanket the sandwiches.
“One more!” she yelled, running up the hill and right up to Cyrus. “We need one more thing…!”
It may have only taken her a minute or so to affix the cloth to the back of Cyrus’s head, but to Olberic it felt like an eternity, simply waiting with bated breath for her to finish and move away – unsure if his heart could bear the weight of what he was about to inevitably see, because today he was playing a Prince, and Cyrus a Princess –
“Done!”
“Teacher! Teacher, you look so pretty!”
“Rue, you’re a genius! He looks just like a Princess now!”
A gust of wind rolled through the hills at that moment – not strong, not unkind, simply fluttering through the area like a flock of butterflies had just taken flight. Petals flew in its current, the golden afternoon kissing their hues and painting them in the colors of autumn. The makeshift veil, stark white against the abyss of Cyrus’s hair –
'Why... do you smile at me like that?'
Pure, blinding starlight. Like a god of harvest descended from above, in that very moment Cyrus had looked frighteningly ethereal – like a deer caught in the wild, prepared to escape in a flash with that maddening, incredible smile. The sun was still firmly above the horizon but all the light in the world was caught in that smile, like the ray of a star, shining outwards, enveloping everything in its loving glow. Olberic felt his stomach churn with thoughts like smothering ash, his hands burning with swirling embers and every resounding scream of his heart –
'I need to keep you here. Keep smiling at me like that and all will be right in this world. Nothing else can touch you.'
“Here's the part! Alright teacher, just stay still there...”
Filbert’s voice snapped Olberic out of his ogling. Michael came up to him, and in his hands were two sticks that were longer than he was tall. The boy handed the larger of the two sticks to Olberic with a resolute look on his face.
The girls, having donned their own sets of flowers on their heads, sat to the side to watch whatever was about to unfold with rapt interest, seemingly waiting for their own cues – but not without Filbert running over to tug the basket of sandwiches away from Olberic’s arms to then hand off to the girls.
“Hehe. Should I ask for help now?” Cyrus giggled. Its cadence threatened to send what remained of Olberic’s sane heart to the stratosphere.
“Yeah! Just yell or something, teacher – you know the lines!”
“Very well... ahem,” The flowered scholar cleared his throat, then raised a hand to his head to pose in a dramatic fashion. “'Oh, will there be no end to my suffering? Is there no freedom in sight for me... I fear I may waste away in this tower forevermore! What a cruel hand that fate has dealt to me!'”
From the corner of Olberic’s eye, he saw Rue nod in satisfaction, petals falling off her crown with every bob of her head. “Prince, it's your turn! Say something cool...!”
Before panic could shut down his better senses, he heard Cyrus call out to him. “She means recite a vow of fealty!”
“Yeah, that!”
He doubted that these children knew what the word meant, but while theatrics were beyond him, sworn oaths were not – so he swallowed down his building discomfort to grip tight at his blade for the afternoon. Olberic did not trust himself not to shatter the wood in his hand with how fast his pulse was – because how could he be breathing normally, when Cyrus sat there looking like some sort of forest deity – focusing on regulating his strength and not on the way that every flower the children chose brought out the beautiful blue of his eyes –
“'Fair Princess, I swear on this blade – no further harm shall befall you. Fret no longer, for I have come to deliver you from pain.'”
He surprised himself with how steadily the words came. He could never admit to anyone present just how much truth those words held.
“Woah...”
“The line almost matches!”
He elected to ignore the awed sighs of their audience, instead giving Michael – blessed boy, truly playing the part of an apprentice in the moment – what he dearly hoped was a straight enough smile.
With all the flair of a child who takes a game too seriously, Michael gave Olberic a heavy nod. He then pointed towards Filbert – who was now clad in sticks. “'That's right, there is no need to fear, Princess! Rescue is but moments away!'”
Filbert raised his arms, the branches dangling from them precariously. If Olberic squinted, he could see that they were tied together crudely with long strips of hay and rye. “'Mwahahaha! Fools! This Maiden is part of my hoard! Come take her from me if you dare...!'”
Michael screamed in a pitch that Olberic struggled not to wince at, charging forward and using his wooden blade as a wooden lance – the blunted tip of which Filbert, the wooden dragon, ran straight into. “‘Prince, I’ll hold the fiend down! Strike him down with all your might!’”
And he would do exactly that, had Filbert not suddenly swiped at Michael with his arms, lightly smacking the other boy in the nose. “I’m not gonna make this easy for you…!”
“No fair, that wasn’t in the script!”
“I’m an evil dragon! I’ll do what I want!”
“Waugh!” Michael yelped when Filbert tackled him, sending them both tumbling into the grass. “‘C-come on, Prince! Strike down the evil dragon!’ Agh – Filbert, don’t bite!”
If nothing else, it was impressive how Michael managed to stay in character. Idly, Olberic thought that he would make for a good actor one day.
“Filbert! Stay with the script, or we’ll never see the Princess get saved!” Aster yelled from the side.
“Then I guess you’ll just have to slay me faster!”
“Fine, if you’re gonna be like that…!” Rue gnashed her teeth, and rose from her seat, dragging with her the hands of the other two girls as she stomped over to where Olberic waited for his cue. “Sir Olberic, we’re fairies now! We’re here to help!”
“Hey, that wasn’t in the story!”
“Yeah, it was! You just stopped listening after teacher said the dragon died!”
“Was not! You just made that up!” Filbert pouted, and looked in Cyrus’s direction. “Hey, teacher! There weren’t any fairies, right?!”
Cyrus simply put a hand to his chin in thought. “Hm… well, I do believe that some versions of the story exist where fairies were thought to have been involved, though their existence is a hot topic of debate in the –”
“Whatever, they’re real now!” Salvie cut in, digging into her pockets and tossing crushed flowers and leaves all around herself – and right into the face of Olberic, who then batted away whatever petals could get into his vision. “Here, Sir Olberic – I’ll give you power!”
“Wait, girls –”
“Me too, me too!”
“Me three!”
He could hear Cyrus’s wind-chime laughter echoing in the air as he watched over the whole display with that shining twinkle in his eye. Olberic was no longer sure what to truly make of this ordeal, when he found himself smelling of Columbine and the combined musk of dirt, sweat, random petals, and crushed leaves, gnarled branch in hand and forgetting completely how to breathe when Cyrus called out in an amused voice, “Do try your best to save me, Prince! Everyone’s counting on you!”
Olberic willed himself not to stumble over his next steps, nor his next words when he dusted off the last of the stray petals, clearing his throat with a rumble. “‘Yes, with everyone’s power – in the name of their beliefs, I will see this through!’”
He’d like to say he was embarrassed. Having such lines in his pocket was the effort of long-suffering Impresarios and – more damningly – Primrose – and despite the valor woven into each word, his solution to the problem was rather mundane, not even requiring the branch he was gifted. He tucked that beneath his arm. He shuffled over to the two boys wrestling in the grass, picking both of them up by the scruff and pulling them away from each other.
“That’s enough of that,” he muttered, setting down Michael first. Filbert put up more of a struggle, still waving arms and sticks around and roaring unintelligibly. It was a good enough impression, for something that the boy has never heard before. “You still mean to continue this futile struggle, little dragon?”
Filbert bared his teeth, kicking his legs in the air with a laugh. “‘Foolish mortal, your only choice is to strike me down! Give it your best shot!’”
“Yeah, whack him dead, Sir Olberic!” Aster cheered, pumping her fists in the air. Salvie and Rue were jumping beside her in anticipation.
“Let him have it!”
“Give him a good smack!”
Chief Garreck had not been exaggerating. They really did carry more energy with them than they looked.
With a sigh, Olberic simply took the stick and gave Filbert a light whack on the forehead.
The boy then spasmed and convulsed, the branches still attached to his arms rattling rather disturbingly – an act so convincing that Olberic had thought he’d done something horrible for just a second – before the boy hung limp in his grip, still breathing.
“‘Hah… ha… the power of mortals… it is more amazing than I’d ever imagined…’” he gritted out, in ragged breaths. “‘The Princess is yours… for now…’”
Filbert closed his eyes after that, with his tongue hanging open. He was unresponsive even when Olberic shook him, though when he shot Cyrus and the others a look, they remained unconcerned – so he settled for simply laying the boy down on the grass.
Silence hung over the area for a few seconds, before Olberic coughed into his hands. “So… What happens next?”
The reactions were instantaneous.
Rue leapt in joy, throwing her arms up in the air wide, with the rest of the children following suit. “‘The Prince has done it! He has slain the evil dragon!’”
“‘The land is saved! The Princess is saved!’”
“‘Hurrah, hurrah! Long live the Prince!’”
“‘I knew he could do it! I never doubted for even a second!’”
More petals were thrown into the air. Olberic now wondered just how bottomless the pockets of Cobbleston skirts could be.
Filbert snorted from his place on the grass, though his eyes remained closed. “Hey, are you guys gonna make them marry already or what?”
Olberic did not trust the look on his own face when the words left Filbert’s mouth, and he had little time to process them when the other kids swarmed over him in seconds, nudging him to the top of the hill where Cyrus was sitting. He felt as though all his strength had left his body, with nothing but the peer pressure of mere children pushing him forward.
“Right, right! The second-best part, how could we forget?!” Rue chattered.
“Wait, children – I don’t think –”
Salvie cut him off before he could get an argument out, the intensity in her stare becoming somewhat unsettling. “No! That’s how the story goes, a Prince saves a Princess, and they live happily ever after!”
Before he knew it, he was sat down next to Cyrus, who wore an apologetic smile on his lips. “Now, children, this is a rather sudden arrangement, don’t you think? Princes and Princesses don’t get married so easily – not even in fairy tales, I reckon.”
“They don’t?” Michael echoed, tilting his head in confusion.
“Indeed, several arrangements have to be made before such a ceremony can even –”
“B-but,” Aster cut in, with a somewhat warbly voice, and Olberic simply knew that this won’t end well for him. “They kiss at the end, right? That’s a thing they do in fairy tales?”
Olberic knew not if this was due to the adult instinct of not wanting to see a child cry, or if the tale they shared amongst themselves really ended with such a damning act – but to see Cyrus put a finger to his chin and thought brought him no end of unreasonable expectations and the familiar struggle against that irritating inkling of hope that he really should not be entertaining at the moment.
“I suppose…? It’s a dated practice, though maidens often imparted upon their saviors a kiss, when pulled out of a bind…” Cyrus muttered. “Was that what you were expecting?”
The children’s collective nodding may as well have been a death sentence for Olberic. Cyrus was silent for a few seconds longer, before he shrugged lightly.
“I would rather not reinforce such an antiquated line of thought, though I suppose for make-believe… it should be alright,”
He could swear that his heart leapt out of his chest, when he felt Cyrus’s familiar, searing touch upon the sides of his face.
“Cyrus –?!”
“Is this acceptable to you, Olberic?”
This was not a foreign position to either of them. Countless times already has Cyrus breached the boundary that most did not dare cross, carrying with his soothing embraces and gentle words only good will – devoid of any intentions that most would consider typical. Even the feeling of his lips upon Olberic’s skin was a known – if inexplicably, insurmountably, adoring – sensation, betraying no pretense but simple comfort.
But all those moments were shared in the privacy of the moment. Olberic simply had no idea how his heart could ever recover if Cyrus were to do anything similar now.
He forced himself not to look anywhere at Cyrus while he ruminated over these thoughts, thinking nothing of the maddening feeling of each individual fingertip, not the way the magic at their ends sizzled with some unknown thing, not the way that Cyrus smelt more fragrant and flowery than usual nor even simply how beautiful he was –
It was an exercise in futility, but it was the only thing that could save him now.
“… do you not think this inappropriate, somehow? You’ve said so yourself, this is antiquated –”
“Yes, well…” For one moment – one single moment – he caught Cyrus’s voice wavering. Did he know? Does he know now what it meant? “… I’d hate to put a damper on their game. I’ll pull a little trick for now. So, if you’ll excuse me…”
Before he could ever have the time to question what any of Cyrus’s words could mean, his heart stopped – focusing completely on the softness of lips on his cheek, what was unmistakably, impossibly, a kiss.
A kiss from the most beautiful man in the world.
Olberic would later consider it a miracle that he was able to walk back to the village proper, five satisfied children and a giggling scholar who smelt of flowers in tow. He would learn even later that Cyrus was well-versed in the art of theater and that he’d learned the art of faking kisses – something that beget even more questions that Olberic was simply too exhausted to ask. Many questions regarding the flowers stuffed into their outfits and all over their hair were asked, as were the questions concerning the perpetual rosiness of Olberic’s cheeks for the rest of the afternoon.
He blocked most of the noise out, in the aftermath.
But he knew that the warmth that Cyrus left on that spot will continue to haunt him, that innocent smile that still, still could not grasp at the full depths of Olberic’s feelings, the twinkle in his eye as they walked back into Olberic’s cottage together to await the next day of the harvest – all of Cyrus, continuing to consume all of Olberic in raging flame and all-encompassing, ever-elusive love.
Cyrus kept every single flower from that day. Every bluebell, every meadow anemone, every daisy and harebell and columbine stalk that was stuck on their person – he kept it all close, and Olberic drowned in their scent.
>>>