Guy Talk
POV: Lucien
The ladies had gone to the room that I had set up for Jess to have her slumber party so the guys decided to stay in the ball room to hang out. We decided to play cards and have a chat about how the day went since many of us were interested in each other’s dates. We each poured ourselves some heavier drinks since we decided this would require a little liquid courage to talk about the respective ladies, we were interested in. Derek started off, “So I had the date with Litha. It was a delicious brunch that was candle lit. She wasn’t really into me though. She complained the entire time that Alesha was on the date that she really wanted and how Blake only ever notices Alexandra.” That was not off brand for Litha since she made it very much known that she had a big crush on Blake during the first competition event. Blake shrugged, “I think in another time and place, I might have considered her but there are factors making me not want to look her way.” Derek stared at him, “Such as?” Blake sighed, “I’m not really at liberty to say, just know that I don’t trust her.” I nudged his leg under the table indicating to him that we needn’t reveal that the secret ops team from the Citadel was investigating her family lest it should leak to her directly. He nodded at me to let me know he understood what that meant. Blake looked back at Derek, “Let’s just leave it there. Ask no more questions.” I nodded at Derek, “It’s best you leave a man’s tastes to himself in this case.” Derek shrugged, “Sure, I don’t really care. I’m just saying to keep your options open." Derek looked back at me, “How about you Lucien? How was your date with the birthday girl?”
I smiled, remembering how lovely Jess looked picking flowers in the meadow. It was like watching a graceful angel in her element. I looked at Derek, "She was in her element for sure. She was very relaxed and we just talked about life. She advised me on the ladies in the competition. She let me know that she wasn’t interested in winning but let me know who would likely be suitable.” Derek leaned in, “She’s not interested in winning? That’s interesting.” Meldon smiled at his sudden interest in what I had said about Jess. I had a feeling from that action that he was more interested in Jess than he let on. I nodded at Derek, “She told me she likes someone else very much and that she wouldn’t be able to handle the day-to-day duties of a Queen. She’s practical in her approach to life. It’s a very admirable trait. Any man would be lucky to have her in his life.” Meldon spoke, “Indeed, that’s all Alexandra would talk about on our date. We talked about our best friends over sandwiches and honey wine. It was a good time. Hanging out with her is like hanging out with one of the guys.” Blake sighed, “I don’t know how you believe that. She’s much more than ‘one of the guys.’ She’s witty, kind and caring.” Both men made perfect sense in what they were saying. She had that best friend element with a side of a woman that you could love. Meldon shrugged, “I’m just telling you that I don’t see her as a romantic interest. She’s just a good friend for me and I like that I can talk to a lady the way I could to Derek. I’ve never had that with anyone outside of Alesha and I can’t very well discuss Alesha with Alesha. Right? Speaking of…”
His sentence trailed off and then he looked over at Blake who rolled his eyes, “Fine, I’ll talk. We took a basics class from an ancient arts master. He taught us a few moves and then had us try it on each other. I didn’t appreciate that she was going easy on me either. I found it rather annoying.” Blake had always been this way about any lady not named Alexandra. He brooded any time my mother would have us hang out with any of the noble girls when we were little. He would always ask when House Batiste would come back to Vellum, how he’d rather play with Alexandra. He would run off to a corner with a sour look on his face and stood as far away from the girls as possible. Every once in a while, he would talk over his shoulder about how the girls in this kingdom were “annoying and troublesome.” It was irritating to see that, for the most part, he hadn’t changed much. I saw him warming up to Jess though because Alexandra had treasured her so much and he had remarked before we came out to the retreat, “Jess has the ability to not be annoying so that is a redeeming quality to her personality.” Meldon rolled his eyes at him and said, “She was making sure you didn’t get hurt further. Trust me when I say, House Baltilliard could kick someone’s ass very easily. It’s called sympathy, you should try it.” Blake shrugged, “Not my vibe.”
We played a few more rounds of cards and spoke about the ladies and life in general. Derek spoke about how it was to see Alexandra handle the revelation of her uncle being Zero and the news that she was cursed. We all spoke about how her strength was such an admirable trait but that she needed to lean on others more to help handle the burden. It dawned on me then that it would likely be beneficial for her to have someone to talk to that would remain a secret. Knowing her, she wouldn’t want to be counseled per se but she would be okay with talking to an authority figure about her thoughts and feelings. As the Headmaster, I would offer her an ear to listen to her problems without judgement and it would stay in that office. I felt that this could likely help her to keep her sanity should anything else arise. I would have to run this idea by Grand Pretre later when I got back to Tarn. She would know if it would help her in the long run. Blake spoke about how he would hire the ancient art master to come to Mesha to teach him some more so that what happened to him when he was undercover at The Order. Derek had asked if it would be possible to come visit for a session. Blake agreed to let him come on the understanding that he would spar him seriously. They agreed that it would happen once he was fully healed. Meldon was invited as well but he didn’t commit to it because of his family. He would have to check in with his father. Knowing House Maigny though, they would encourage a close relationship with someone of royal blood.
We finally wound down and packed up the cards and cleaned up our mess. I had insisted that the servants would clean it up but all the guys had insisted that they could clean up their mess. We all went to our rooms; all the guys chose to take the long way to their rooms in the hopes of catching the ladies talking about us. As we walked past their room, you couldn’t hear anything and the light was out. The other men were bummed they couldn’t catch their chat about them, especially Derek since he had asked Jess out on the extra date. My room was next to Jess’ so I was very much aware of the silence coming from her room as I got ready for bed. I had decided to take a bath to wind down from the long walk I had today. My legs were far sorer than initially thought so the hot bath was nice on my legs. I sat in the bath for a long while as I let the heat permeate the tight muscles in my legs. After my bath, I had been drying my hair with a towel when I heard a small gasp coming out of the room the ladies were in. I thought maybe one of them had a nightmare but I didn’t want to burst into the room on a feeling. There were enough of the ladies in there to soothe whoever it was that was having a bad dream. I heard the door creak open and tiptoes across the floorboards.
A small knock on the door startled me as I hadn’t expected anyone to come to me in the middle of the night. I was wearing my towel on my waist so I quickly slipped on a pair of sweat pants and walked over to the door. I opened it a creak to look onto a face with a pair of violet eyes staring up at me, “Can I talk to you? I feel like you’re the only one who I can talk to.” At that moment, I thought that maybe my idea about her talking to me as the Headmaster wasn’t such a far-off idea after all. I opened the door further and let her into my room. Normally, I would not let her in then lecture her on propriety but she really looked like she needed to talk to someone. We sat down at my sitting table next to my window that overlooked the lake. The half moon was shimmering off the lake which would have made this moment so perfect, if she could only feel what I was feeling for her in this moment. I poured her some water and handed it to her. As she took a big gulp, I asked her, “What’s the matter, Alexandra?” She looked up at me with sad eyes, “I think I had a dream about the God who cursed me.”
