"Will this satisfy Lashay?"

You snapped your head back around and saw Mary holding open a door. Inside was a small room with a few bookcases, a lounge and a cart with some platters of finger food and another with a collection of drink waiting on it. You'd honestly been expecting this to be a whole thing, like you getting dragged around the whole palace for the day.

"Yes this will be fine." Lashay said walking inside.

"Excellent, I'll let Anastasia know where you are when she and mother have finished talking." Mary said then gave you a pleading look but you didn't know why. "I need to return to look after the other arriving nobles."

"Do you need anything else?" You asked Lashay, she must be wanting to get away as soon as she can for likely the same reason as you and was looking for some support on that subject.

"Oh no I'm fine," he said sitting on the delicately sitting on the lounge.

This had gone a lot better than you expected. No chance of you accidently mentioning how often you are sleeping with his fiancée. Nodding at Mary you start saying, "Then we will see you la-"

"Would you mind keeping me company until Princess Anastasia arrives?" Lashay asks looking at you from the lounge.

"I'm sure Christopher would love to." Mary sounded extremely relieved and mouthed a thank you as she hurried away.

You wanted to shout 'coward' after her but resisted. "Of course." You said to Lashay instead walking into the room. "Would you like something to eat or drink?" You approached the carts and looked them over. The food wasn't of much interest since you'd already eaten and the drinks were largely of the alcoholic variety but you did see a pot containing tea leaves.

"Is there anything strong?" He asked through a laugh.

You looked at the ****. swirling around the liquid was the vision of you drunkenly discussing all the ways Ana loves the feel of your cum being pumped into her holes. "Tea work?" You asked opening the pot of leaves and looking for the pot.

"Oh no thank you." Lashay said then lapsed into silence.

You kept looking at the drinks knowing better than to have any yet firmly believing **** would make you feel a lot less nervously awkward.

"So, you and Ana are betrothed." You said not turning to look at him.

"Yes. And you and Mary are as well. So we'll be brothers soon enough." He said with a **** joviality confirming you weren't the only one feeling awkward. "Do you know Ana very well?"

Did he know about you? "We met two years ago and exchanged letters until I turn eighteen then she brought me to the capital." You figured you should play this vague and safe. It's been proven you suck at politics so the less involved you are with it the better.

"Oh wow, I only met her a few weeks ago, at our betrothal ball, but I had to leave quickly. You danced with her after I left."

"Yes you mentioned earlier." You turned from the drink cart, feeling stupid standing there but not touching anything. He was sitting upright hands on his lap fidgeting awkwardly. There was a return to the silence of **** discomfort before you figured out he was waiting for you to talk since he'd broken it last time. "What did you and Ana do over the week?" As soon as you asked you regretted it and braced yourself for the awkwardness to increase.

"Oh she just taught me about the fashion of the capital." He fiddled with his toga, showing you his nails and looked around the room so you could get a better look at his feminine facial features. "She said I looked better like this. I guess Princess Mary prefers you to look like that."

You looked down at your outfit and the lack of effort you'd put into it. Was he making a dig at your fashion skills or Mary's fashion skills? Or was just pointing out how different the sisters are. "I don't think Mary cares what I look like."

"Oh." He said looking up at you. "Then do you mind if I?" He gestured his face again. You shrugged not sure what he was getting at. Sighing the illusions over his face fell away. The soft features harden slightly, his cheeks were still delicate but they were a bit broader, his chin a bit wider and lips slightly less puffy. Also the purple around his eye left. He didn't look all the much different in terms of symmetrical looks but he did look less pretty and more androgynous attractive. "Edin showed me how to look for Princess Anastasia."

"Did you and he spend much time together?"

"Oh no he was with Anastasia hand maiden most of the time."

He must mean Blue. You should ask him if she told him she loved him, possibly without doing it like that in case she hadn't. "So you must have spent a while with Princess Anastasia then."

"Not really, she spent most of the time talking to the noble women. I just helped the other husbands serving drinks and food." He shrugged as if that was perfectly normal, probably was truthfully. "Would you like to sit down?" He looked at the rest of the empty lounge. You'd been standing in front of the drinks for so long he might be expecting you were guarding them from him.

Sitting down next to him you asked. "How long are you in the Capital?" You didn't want to sound too invested in the question.

"I'm not sure." He crossed his legs and the two of you went back to silence sitting next to each other waiting for the other to talk first.

The silence really started to stretch, to the point were you weren't sure if he had fallen asleep or not. You looked over and saw him staring at you. Your eyes met and the awkwardness spiked.

"What happened to your arm?" He asked.

"What is the tattoo on your back?" You asked at the same time.

"Sorry." You said together.

He laughed awkwardly and turned away from you showing you his back. "It's a family tradition," he pulled his toga off his shoulder exposing what had been hidden. His dark skin and the tattoo were very close to being indistinguishable outside of directly light. In the room the other light was from the window which he was turned away from. You did your best but couldn't see it very well.

"Could you move into the light?" You asked, getting off the lounge moving to put your back to the window. He obliged, shifting until he was kneeling on the lounge facing away from you.

The tattoo was stunning intricate. Consisting of thin lines sprouting from a thicker column running the length of his back. On his right shoulder blade three spindles broke from the column forming a signal spiral, in the centre they wound around each other forming a tree about the size of your thumb nail yet never touching. His left shoulder blade held two sprouts, these one forming a connected circle, the centre was empty so your presumed it was incomplete.

Below his shoulder blade was the same on both sides. Four sprouts that moved to his sides forming a wreath of flowers that looked like it wrapped around to his front.

On his lower back there no sprouted but looked like they would be filled just based on how the upper half looked. His toga was bunched up at his waist but you could see there was something there at the base of his spine.

"What do they mean?" You asked.

He reached over and tapped his right shoulder. "This is my families crest." He tapped his left. "This will be marriage crest." He reached all the way over both his shoulders and ran fingers along the wreath. "Each flower represents a family that is loyal to my mother. When I get married each flower with a leaf will owe their loyality to my wife before my mother." He sounded proud of that and there were a lot of leaves around those flowers but to you its sounded more like a physical brand to show the value to his wife than something to be proud of.

"What's at the bottom?" You asked.

"Oh um." He pulled the back of his toga a bit higher. "It's um, about my wife and I, or future wife and I." He fixed his toga on his shoulder and sat back down.

"Sorry if it was rude." You said, he shook his head and said it wasn't it was just personal. You could feel silence threaten once more so you said. "I lost it last week." He tilted his head at you unsure so you waved your stump. "Not worth the story since it'll be back to normal soon." Since you are at the palace you'll even be able to drop by Gabrielle to check up on that after this.

"Did it hurt?" He asked looking up at you with curiosity in his eyes.

"At the time yeah." You looked at it and felt a phantom itching at the attention it was getting. "But only for a second." 'My spinal cord was severed right after so I didn't feel anything' was not added to the sentence out-loud but it **** its way into your mind.

"Was it a fight? I heard you dueled someone at Princess Mary's parade."

"Oh, yeah, ah sorta, as I said, not worth the story." You looked down at him and silence stretched once more. You hadn't thought about Hanna for a while, drop by Asune's estate after the palace or tomorrow but had to do it this weekend. Your eyes met as you were looking down at him and for the life of you all you could think of was how often you'd been in this position with Edin, who you also wanted some time with this weekend.

The awkward silence returned and you sat down next to him again.

"Do you want a drink?" He asked after a bit.

You know what, drunkenly telling him every detail of all the things you'd done to and with Ana would infact better than more awkward silence. "Sure." You both stood and went to the drinks cart.

You did however reach for different bottle, both **** but his choice stronger than yours. Looking at each other's hands then at each others faces you both started laughing. "You're the guess so I'll serve." You said taking his choice of drink out of his hand.

"Oh thank you." He said setting up two glasses. You poured out the liquid and put the bottle back. Picking up your glasses you looked at each for a moment then together took a decent drink.