Work Text:
It is a sign of a good day, when my sister decides to visit me. A notification that she would be stopping by caught my attention in the morning, so that when, hours later, I heard the clack of her heels on the palace floors, I had already rushed to the door to greet her.
“Princess Nerissa,” I say with a smile and accent of royalty. Nerissa smiles politely in the way she’s learned to. Poised. I step out of the way of the door, allowing her to enter my room. “So what luck brings you to me today?” I ask, lifted by her presence.
“I hear there is to be a guard shift,” she says, scanning my room before smiling back at me. “I wanted you to not be the last person notified of this occurrence.”
“A new guard shift?” I ask, feeling a knot in my chest, before bringing a polite smile forth. “I had just gotten comfortable with Oliviae.”
“Did you ever talk with her?” Nerissa counters.
“I-- had just gotten comfortable with her presence.” Nerissa only gives me a knowing smile.
“Well, she gives her regards to you in making her job unchallenging. But Sweetheart,” Nerissa comes up to me, clasping my hands in hers, “Please do try to make a friend. Hush, not only are you a royal, but you are a charming person, having a circle will benefit you.”
“I can make friends,” I say, not quite defensively. “When the king holds his gatherings, I talk with people just fine!”
“Yes, you do talk with people. About the weather. You talk icebreakers yet keep the ice from breaking,” she counters. I open my mouth to speak again, but she continues first. “Do you talk with anyone like you talk with me?”
“Hell no!” I say and then catch myself. This only causes her to laugh lightly.
“You need more people that you can curse around. It’s good for the soul,” she says, before returning to her point. “You deserve to have people you can be yourself around. More than just wearing a mask in public.”
I look away from her imploring gaze, biting my tongue to ward off my discomfort. “Yes, but,” I look at her in my own attempt to be imploring, “assuming I try to make a friend out of, say, this next guard, I don’t-- I fear that a friendship will only be performative. Is it not a guard’s duty to be one’s,” I wave my head around randomly as though it could indicate the word I lack, “person? I don’t want someone to pretend to like me.”
Nerissa smiles and squeezes my hands once. “Have you been to the barracks?” I shake my head. “Though soldiers and guards alike are assigned locations, they are allowed to request to be moved. None of your guards have done that yet.”
“Yes, but--” She puts a quick hand to my lips, not letting me contest her yet.
“But Arlo? His guards change weekly.”
I pull her hand from my mouth, “I thought he scheduled it to be a week change?”
Nerissa’s smile is conspiratory as she shakes her head. “Definitely not.”
I can’t help but chuckle at that and squeeze her hand tightly. “Well, thank you. Hopefully, this next guard will stay then. For a bit.”
“So you will try to build a relation with your guard?” She asks, smiling proudly. It’s a look that books say is motherly, but I only see it from her.
“I’ll try, but if it goes poorly, I’m blaming you,” I say with the huff of a laugh.
“Well, that will probably be the nicest slander thrown my way,” she says before tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I want you by my side. Show me you can do this?”
I nod, I want to be by her side too. She brings change wherever she goes. Were it not for Fenris, for the majority of our family, things would be different by her hand.
There’s a resounding knock at the door then.
“Your Highness?” The Captain’s voice comes deadened from the wooden door.
“Make me proud,” Nerissa says with a hushed voice before lifting her chin and standing straight. I go to the door, attempting to hold a modicum of her poise.
“Captain,” I say, slipping into the mask of the befitting the role of the youngest Peg'asi. The one of blasé charisma worn at the social gatherings, when small talk is the only thing spoken.
The Captain is a graying Kitalphin, having been adorned his rank when I was a child. He stiffly gestures to the man next to him. Another Kitalphin I notice after a moment. “There has been a change in the guard rotation, Sergeant Oliviae Dupont sends her regards and gratitude in being able to have served you.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I say, smiling as I hear Nerissa’s words once again. It’s nice not being the last to know of these things. “And I assume this fine gentleman is to be my new guard?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the captain nods stiffly. “This is Lieutenant Vexx Serif, he has been assigned to your station as a personal guard until further notice.” At his introduction, Vexx only looks bored.
“A pleasure to meet you, Highness,” Vexx says, bowing his head for half a moment.
Seeing as his role in introducing Vexx has been completed, The Captain half bows at the hip before taking his leave. Vexx’s eyes shift from my face to looking just over my shoulder, and a moment later, I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“I shall leave you two for introductions,” Nerissa says, giving my shoulder a comforting squeeze. “I look forward to crossing paths with you in the future, Lieutenant.” And with that, Nerissa leaves to continue changing the world.
I watch after her until she turns the corner and only Vexx is before me. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant,” I say with a gentle bow of my head. With Nerissa’s conversation still fresh in my mind, I mentally kick myself. How am I supposed to talk with people without a mask?
“Right, my first shift is from now until the sun sets, is there anything you need me to know about you?” Vexx asks, apathy coloring his words. Curse promising to try to break ice with someone who will probably shift to any of my siblings by the week’s end.
“No, no. I hope to make your job as unchallenging as possible,” I say to him. Hoping that a breath of what-should-be good news to him will dismantle some of the perceived hostility.
When I look at Vexx, he only nods in response. I return the gesture if only to try and get a further response, but that garners me nothing. Plan B.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Would you rather I refer to you by your title or name?” I ask, figuring this is as good of a start to a conversation as any.
“Aren’t you only supposed to use my title?”
“Yes, but,” I feel my heart race in my chest. I’m making a fool of myself and have no way to reach the brakes. “Well, people generally don’t check up on me. Or if they do, it’s not people who would generally care. I figure since we’ll be spending time together, I would rather avoid causing you any discomfort.”
“Huh.” Vexx squints at me then, before looking me up and down once. “Then Vexx is fine,” he says, and he doesn’t seem quite so bored as he answers.
“Great, thank you, Vexx” I say, wringing my hands as I scramble to think of what to say next. “Would you like to come in?” I ask, suddenly realizing that we are still standing stiffly in the doorway.
“Sure. Thank you, Highness,” he says. There's a color of sarcasm when he uses the title for me. As he walks into my room, looking around and appraising it with an idle curiosity, it dawns on me that sarcasm has been an underlying tone in most of this interaction. Or if not sarcasm, a certain lack of formality.
“You can just call me by my name,” I say as I click the door closed behind us. “The titles are a bit stuffy, aren’t they?” I say with a breath of a laugh. Vexx hums in what I assume is agreement, still looking idly about my room. “So, Vexx. How long have you been a guard?”
“Two days,” he says flatly, finally turning to me. I laugh at the answer, pleasantly surprised by the joke.
“Right, funny,” I say with a smile, and when I see him crack his own smile of sorts, I feel a flicker of joy. It feels hard-won, rather than a sycophantic plaster of an expression. It’s real. “Well, is there anything you would need me to know about you?” I ask, assuming that since that question was shot at me, I should be allowed the power to ask it back.
An expression crosses Vexx’s face, as though he finds my echo of his words entertaining. He even lets out a sharp amused breath before answering, “No. Nothing at all. I am, however, more new to the castle, the layout still unfamiliar to me.” He says, seeming to relax into his environment.
“Oh, don’t worry about being late to a shift or anything, the castle is a labyrinth to even me,” I say with a wave of my hand.
“They are?” he asks, sounding mildly surprised. “You don’t even know your way around your own home?”
I shrug, grimacing slightly as I come up with an excuse. “Besides the main paths I take, the grand vastness of the confusing halls has stilted many of my attempts at adventure. I fear I must admit,” I say with a weak smile.
“If you are so unfamiliar with your own home, what is it you do with all of your time?” he asks, pulling out a desk chair to sit in.
The image of a royal guard lounging in my room, while on duty no less, is not something I would have expected to see. Vexx still holds onto an air of boredom, seeming to have decided that a conversation should pass the time if nothing else, but it is far from an unpleasant change of pace. Though I don’t know if he is the best candidate to make a friend of, his explicit lack of willingness to sycophancy is a comfort.
Again, I find myself shrugging. “Well,” I gesture to the room, “I stay in here often, reading or doing projects, but pass most of the time here. Or in lessons.”
Incredulity is the only word that comes to mind to describe Vexx’s expression. After a second, he lifts his eyebrows, as though he expects me to say more, but I only shrug. “What, that’s it?” he asks before scoffing. “You live in a fuckin’ castle, and you isolate yourself in a corner?”
I’m reminded of conversations I have shared with my siblings. Arlo was the main one to taunt me or anyone, truthfully. Ekko never pays me time of day, if he can avoid it; when he can’t, he only responds in scoffs, noncommittal noises, and in any sort of way to telegraph his impatience at me. Yet, Vexx’s words don’t seem to hold a hostility like theirs do, but rather hold an incredulity.
“I sometimes wander to the nearest garden when too cooped up,” I defend, “and for a time, I trained in one of the practice stations,” but the sense of being unwelcome wherever I go has always sent me back. “But if I am to keep my own company, I figure I should avoid encroaching on other’s space,” I say.
Again, Vexx is silent for a moment. Looking at me as though I was an alien. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it for a second, and then tries again. “Permission to speak freely?”
I almost laugh at his request. “I hadn’t realized that you weren’t before, but yes, please. Go ahead,” I say with a wave of my hand.
“You’re weird. Has anyone ever told you that?” he says, looking like he doesn’t know whether or not I’m joking.
“I have heard that once or twice before, yes,” I say, “though, never quite so nicely. Why, are you more of the adventuring type?” I ask as I approach the seat adjacent to Vexx.
Vexx smiles more fully then with confidence. “Absolutely. I plan to map every inch of this place by the time my work here is done at the very least. Maybe pull a prank or two on some of the people here,” he says all of this matter-of-factly. “Though, I trust you not to snitch on me?”
This time, I register that I am the one looking at him as though he were an alien. “I mean,” I give a laugh through my hesitation, “uh, sure. As long as it’s good natured, sure?”
Vexx appraises me again for a moment before nodding. “You might not be so bad to guard afterall.”