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aesterium · 1 year

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thorn, meet rose

a xornoth-centric fic in which they are forced to hold a debuttante ball and attract the eye of one particular Empire’s ruler.

word count: 6,732

relevant tags and notes: a jornoth romance (just the flirting stage). royalty au, xornoth is not corrupted, scott and xornoth have an agreement re: succession; he/they pronouns for xornoth with he/him only in narration for ease of reading. background flower husbands. a few innuendos thrown in at the end, though nothing worse than what’s in empires s2

read on ao3 || read below

Xornoth is going to kill his brother. He’s going to reach down that smug asshole’s throat and rip his tongue out of his mouth. He’s going to punch that horrible self-important smirk off of his face. He’s going to go back in time and eat him in the womb.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit too far.

The person staring back at him from the mirror has his cheekbones, his bright purple hair, and his burgundy eyes. They have the long-healed scar on one of his hands from the last time he attempted to carve something out of wood and the still-healing burn on the other hand from when he tried to make eggs the other day and hot oil sprang out of the pan onto his palm. Their hair is braided back in an intricate style that he decidedly does not style his in and their face has been subtly powdered and contoured to polish it into a sharp-eyed weapon, soft as rose petals. Rivendellian gold sparkles from their ears and their neck and their wrists and their fingers, and their formal silks are carefully dyed the violet-silver of their chosen deity. The only thing Xornoth recognizes is their dark canvas pants.

Xornoth scowls. They scowl back.

“Bitch,” he says at them. Their lips curl to spit the word simultaneously.

“That’s not very nice.” Xornoth watches the figure of his brother come up from behind the false version of himself in the mirror. In stark contrast, Scott looks far too at ease with the ceremonial robes he wears, gold dripping from his body and doing more for his modesty than the cyan-white silks he wears.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Xornoth grumbles.

“You talked yourself into it,” Scott corrects, straightening out the fabric on Xornoth’s shoulders. “I’m surprised you were able to hold out for this long, honestly.”

“A century and a half of service to this wretched kingdom, and yet I’m still being dressed like a doll and paraded in front of the very rulers I’ve fought to be here.” Xornoth glares down his reflection and fantasizes about tearing his hands through his hair, sending jeweled hair pins flying across the room, and he imagines ripping these robes off and clawing the delicate gold that rests on him and disintegrating it all with a single thought—

He doesn’t do any of this. He just gives himself one last baleful look, awkwardly dusts off the robes that Scott is still artfully arranging on him, and turns away.

“If I stand here one more second,” he declares, “I think I’ll set this palace on fire.”

Scott has the audacity to laugh at that. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”

•♚•

Xornoth of Rivendell is the firstborn of his mother. He was born as a spring storm subsided, and five minutes later he was joined by his brother Ascorith. When his hair colored, he gave his claim to the throne to his twin and threw himself into training with the castle guard. While Scott’s tutors drilled him in the native languages used by Empires across the lands, Xornoth was being nearly run through by enthusiastic knights who would later brag about how any who tried to attack their princex would find themselves bleeding out in the dirt. At their maturity, Scott was declared Crown Prince of Rivendell and Xornoth was declared Commander of its forces. Scott prayed to Aeor for guidance in his diplomacy, and Xornoth sought out Exor for his overwhelming force and dominance on the battlefield. For more than a century, their kingdom spoke proudly of its twin kings, the Dark Stag and Ice King of Rivendell, of how they balanced each other out perfectly, of how the kingdom was stronger for it.

And now, that same kingdom excitedly cracked the foundation of that strength and dressed itself up to serve Xornoth on a serving platter to some other Empire.

“Stop whining,” Scott says.

“I didn’t say anything,” Xornoth bites back.

“You didn’t have to; I can practically read your mind.” Scott stops walking, and after a couple of confused steps, Xornoth turns to look back at him.

For the first time in a while, the confidence that usually bleeds from Scott slows to uncertainty. “Xornoth, we don’t actually have to do this,” he says. “We can work through whatever political quagmire calling this off so abruptly will cause, but Rivendell isn’t more important than you are.”

“Where was all of this a week ago?” Xornoth asks.

Scott shakes his head slightly while slowly taking the last few steps that would bring them next to each other. “Honestly, I didn’t think you hated the idea this much. Stupid of me, I know, but I thought you were playing it up just to complain.”

Reluctantly, Xornoth could understand. He would be the type to do something like that. He shrugs. “It just feels stupid to give up what makes us so powerful like this. It feels like trading our stability for dependence on another Empire.”

Scott looks at him strangely. “Xornoth, tell me the truth. Do you think my marriage to Jimmy weakens us?”

Xornoth can see where this is going. “No,” he grumbles, rolling his eyes.

“Does my marriage to Jimmy mean I put the Codlands before Rivendell in any political maneuvering?”

Xornoth tries not to look too grumpy. “No.”

Scott doesn’t look as smug at this admittance as Xornoth would have thought he’d be. “So why would your being married do anything worse?”

Xornoth picks at one of the golden chains around his neck. “It just feels wrong,” he says. “I’ve given so much of myself to Rivendell. I can’t imagine giving as much for somewhere else.”

“You’ll always be of Rivendell,” Scott says firmly. “You don’t have to do this ‘for Rivendell’ if you’re going to be unhappy.”

“Everything I’ve ever done is for our kingdom, Scott,” Xornoth says, “even being sold off to some ruler with a superiority complex.” They stand in front of the doors to the grand ballroom.

Scott sighs. “If you’re sure.”

He lifts his hands to the doors, and with one last second of hesitation, he pushes them open.

•♚•

It takes Xornoth half an hour to feel like his smile is beginning to peel off.

“You look like a plucked goose,” the ruler of the Grimlands tells him. He looks ruffled, his hair all flyaways and his face covered in a thin layer of redstone powder except for two perfect ovals around his eyes. His red tie is crooked, the blazer thrown over his button-up open and its pockets filled with something that ruins its silhouette. He’s wearing a pair of chunky leather boots that Xornoth deeply envies.

“Be nice,” Scott admonishes from behind a glass of wine. “They look far better than you would even if you’d actually cleaned up for once.”

“He’s got you there, fWhip,” the woman beside him says. She’s got matching red hair, though hers is less vibrant (perhaps because it isn’t filled with redstone), and she’s wearing an elegant green dress and a simple purple cloak. The rulers of the twin Empires of the Grimlands and the Crystal Cliffs had run up to them almost immediately upon their entrance, deftly cutting off the more pompous looking nobles who seemed prepared to descend on them. Xornoth makes a mental note to ask Scott whether they all became friends over being twins, which sounds like a really stupid reason to make friends with someone.

“Just because you all don’t have my rugged good looks doesn’t mean you have to be this obviously jealous of me,” fWhip says, preening slightly. “I don’t need to try to look good.”

Scott turns a withering gaze over to the Archwizard of the Crystal Cliffs. “Gem, if I managed to wrestle my meathead brother into something suitable for this, you should have at least gotten yours a new suit or something.”

She gives him an equally disparaging look. “Do you think I could force this lug to do anything?”

“I’m glad you’re here,” fWhip says to Xornoth in a stage whisper. “Usually, they just team up against me.”

Xornoth doesn’t think he’s said anything outside of the occasional “yes” or “no” to him before, but he just gives fWhip an awkward nod and hums in assent.

“Stop flirting with him,” Gem says bluntly.

fWhip makes a series of unflattering sputtering sounds. “I wasn’t flirting, I was commiserating,” he says defensively.

“Sounds like someone who was flirting would say,” Gem fires back. She turns an apologetic gaze at Xornoth. “Was he flirting?”

Xornoth blinks. “Um. If he was, he was doing a piss-poor job at it.”

“Xornoth wouldn’t know flirting if it smacked them on the ass,” Scott says to Gem. He glances back at his brother. “And don’t say ‘piss’ at a formal gathering.”

“You just said ‘ass’.”

“I never said I couldn’t say ‘ass’.”

“Don’t say ‘ass’ at a formal gathering, Scott,” Gem says in a shockingly good imitation of the elven king’s bored drone.

“Fine.”

Silence settles over them as they sip on their drinks. “Aren’t you supposed to be meeting people?” Gem asks Xornoth. “If you’re supposed to be getting married for politics or whatever?”

“Hell if I know.” He ignores his brother’s shushing. “I’ve met you two, haven’t I?”

“No offense, but I’m not interested,” she deadpans.

“None taken. I’m gay.”

“Glad we’ve cleared this up.” Gem glances around the room. “I mean, if you’re going husband-searching, you’ve got a nice selection here, I guess. No one came with me from the Crystal Cliffs, but I see a few of the higher nobles from the Grimlands and Mythland, if you want to be introduced.”

“Absolutely not,” Scott cuts in. “I’m keeping Sausage far away from this one.”

“Oh, he’s not that bad,” Gem says. “Just a little ambitious, but who isn’t?”

“Ambition is fine, but I think Xornoth would set Mythland on fire if he had the slightest inkling that Sausage wanted to attack Rivendell, and that’d be too many political nightmares in one event.”

“You have to be exaggerating,” Gem says.

“I would,” Xornoth adds helpfully.

“He would,” Scott echoes.

fWhip’s eyes are sparkling— actually sparkling, as if they’re ocean waves reflecting the sunrise. Xornoth didn’t think human eyes could do that.

“We’re keeping them away from your Empire too, then,” Gem says, jabbing fWhip’s cheek. “I’m not letting another pyromaniac by that powder keg you inherited from Dad.”

He pouts.

Scott notices Xornoth’s fidgeting pick up about now and sends him off to the table of unfilling finger foods to nibble from whatever stack of cheese and fruits and crackers he’s prepared for this event. He rolls his eyes at the suggestion but still makes his way over, making stilted conversation as various strangers come up and titter over him. At one point, he stuffs an entire bunch of grapes into his mouth to avoid responding to one particularly pushy woman’s questions about his place in Rivendell’s succession. It becomes a sea of faces that he doesn’t quite absorb, relegating himself to nodding vaguely as people jabber at him and drift away.

“Vultures, the lot of them.”

Xornoth glances at the latest interloper and has to hold himself back from a double-take. The man who joined him is somehow wearing even less than he and Scott are. His outfit almost completely relies on a sheer crimson cloak to preserve his modesty, and his pants stop mid-thigh, though a string of turquoise pendants circles his waist, holding up more crimson fabric fashioned into a mockery of a light skirt that flows to his knees. Bronze pauldrons shaped into feline paws grip his shoulders, claws out, and a pair of bright scarlet parrot wings peeks out from under his cloak.

Xornoth quickly looks away before he’s caught staring at this stranger’s legs. “It’s what they’re taught to do,” he says. “Cozy up to whoever’s available and powerful.”

“Mm, I guess that’s true.” The man shifts closer, a wing twitching, and Xornoth feels a stray end of his cloak brush against his arm almost imperceptibly. He wonders if he can get away with grabbing a handful of walnuts and absolutely sprinting out of here and back to his room. “I can see why they’d be interested in you.” He pokes a cheese cube with a toothpick and carefully slides it into his mouth. Xornoth quickly looks away.

“I don’t,” Xornoth says. He ends up taking far too many crackers and backing away. The man shifts over again.

“There you are, Xornoth.” He feels his shoulders sag in relief as Gem walks up to join them. “Scott was wondering why you hadn’t come back yet.”

“He’s been getting accosted by everyone’s courts,” the man says to her. He’s still leaning against the table. “I don’t blame them, of course. If I had any fewer manners, who knows what I’d have said?” He winks at Xornoth, who glances away to give Gem a pleading look.

“Joey, you’re scaring him,” Gem says, sounding amused. Xornoth wonders if his mortification is what’s amusing her or if she’s just used to the antics she’s seeing

The man— Joey— laughs with an abandon that would better fit the top of a tree than the ballroom that they’re currently in. “Am I?” he says, and his words resonate like a cat’s purr more than a human voice. “What a shame— and I hoped we would get along.”

Xornoth wonders if he can get away with the grape trick again.

“You can be a lot,” Gem says, sipping on a glass of wine.

“I’m sure he doesn’t mind,” Joey says, chin tipped back to look up at Xornoth (and when did he get so close that he had to look up at him?). “I can’t be the scariest thing that he’s ever met.” He winks.

Xornoth hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels like it is.

Gem takes pity on him (finally) and draws Joey in a conversation about alliances and trade agreements and whatever else it is that rulers of nations discuss, and Xornoth is able to slink away and flee back to where Scott and fWhip chat idly amongst themselves. They’ve been joined by a few other rulers: Katherine of House Blossom, who smiles at him sleepily, and Scott’s own husband.

“Hey, Xornoth,” Katherine says, idly brushing pollen off of her shoulder. “You look frazzled.”

“Do I?” he says distractedly.

“You do,” Scott says, eyeing him critically. “Your gold is all off and your silks aren’t symmetrical anymore.” Exasperation spills from every gesture as he rearranges Xornoth’s clothes.

Xornoth lets him fuss over him for a few seconds before irritably waving him off. “Honestly, I think I’m done for today,” he says. “I’m going to get out of all of this and head down to the stables or something. Go for a ride.”

“Won’t that be seen as impolite?” Jimmy asks. He’s foregone the usual clay mask he wears, but he’s wearing the illusion of a human man with bottomless black eyes rather than his typical somewhat monstrous appearance. There’s a violently red poppy tucked into his lapel, and as ill-fitting as it is, Xornoth knows he will at best ignore anyone who points it out. “Some of the nobles here are pretty stuffy; they might kick up a fuss.”

“Let them fuss,” Scott declared, tucking his hand into the crook of Jimmy’s elbow. “They’re here for us, not the other way around. If they aren’t interesting enough to make Xornoth want to stick around and talk to them, then they don’t have a leg to stand on.” He glances at him. “Just try to make it back by sunset, I think.”

Xornoth nods to Scott gratefully before walking out of the hall, uncaring of being seen. He doesn’t bother cleaning the makeup off of his face while he pulls on a silver tunic and black surcoat, leaving the flimsy gold and silks in a pile on a chair rather than figuring out how to hang them up properly.

He catches his reflection in the mirror as he pulls his boots on. His face looks strange, as softened as it is especially juxtaposed with his far coarser clothes, and he rubs the color off of his mouth as he heads out. It stains his hand red, but that’s a far more familiar sight so he doesn’t bear it any mind. He flings on a black cloak just in case the wind gets too biting.

Xornoth doesn’t realize he’s being followed until he’s leading his steed out of her stall and he hears a quiet gasp. He whips around to see a wide-eyed Joey, his mouth slack-jawed.

“What is that?” he asks.

It’s a reasonable question, Xornoth supposes. He runs a hand through stiff silver fur, shushing her as she shakes her head at the interruption.

“This is Calliope,” he says, his voice low so as to not startle her. “I raised her from a fawn.”

“She’s beautiful,” Joey says, cautiously stepping forward. “I think I expected her to be—”

“Darker?” Xornoth snorts quietly. “I have no idea who came up with that stupid moniker, but it wasn’t me.”

“I don’t know, it’s kind of a sexy nickname.” The coquettish tone is back in his voice. Xornoth chooses, once again, to ignore how his throat dries. “The Dark Stag of Rivendell. It sounds like something out of a novel.”

“Not the kind of novel I’d want to be in,” Xornoth says, saddling Calliope with practiced hands.

“It’s the kind of novel I’d read,” Joey says.

Xornoth sighs, tightening one last strap before glancing over his shoulder at him. “Look, Joey—”

“Ooh, say my name again.”

“Can you be serious for just ten seconds?” Xornoth asks. He doesn’t know if he sounds more exasperated or frustrated, but he sees the smirk slip off of Joey’s face, replaced by confusion and, for some reason, concern. “I need to explain something to you, and I just need ten seconds of your serious attention, and then you can go back to whatever the fuck this is.” He gestures vaguely towards Joey.

The sly light leaves Joey’s gaze, replaced by something more… curious isn’t the right word. There’s a cautious interest, along with something far sharper than he’s worn all evening, and underneath it all, a thinly veiled level of desire that marks his expression. He cocks his head to one side and stands up slightly straighter, and Xornoth can finally recognize how this man might lead an entire population of elemental mages.

“Go on,” he says.

Xornoth busies himself by finding Calliope’s brush and carefully working out tangles in her coat. “I’ve never done this,” he says, gesturing vaguely between the two of them. “It’s not that I don’t want to or anything. Scott and I were raised on the same histories of all of the Empires, and practically every one has their own version of a tragic romance somewhere in their royal genealogies. The Grimlands and the Crystal Cliffs and their Empires reunited after being sundered thanks to the love of a noble and a princess. The stories that Mezalea was once an island ruled by a man who loved the ocean, who died of grief when it retreated from his shores. Even now, Scott and Jimmy are writing their own story— when they married, all of the nobles clung to the tragic romance of two star-crossed lovers separated by their political duties to different lands. It isn’t like that, as you’re well aware; theirs is a respectful and trusting and, yes, loving marriage, but they’re just as aware of the politics required to convince both Rivendell and the Codlands to allow it. Nothing is as romantic as it first seems, and I feel like you’re being swept up in an image you conjured of me from my reputation and whatever Scott wrote on the invitations to that stupid ball.”

Xornoth takes a moment to gently dissuade Calliope from eating his hair. “I’m not a romantic person. I’ve never dreamed of marriage, I’ve never courted anyone, formally or not; hell, I’ve never even had a sweetheart or anything more than a momentary flitting attraction. I’ve never sought it out the way Scott dreamed of that sort of domestic nonsense.”

“Is there a reason why not?”

Xornoth hesitates over his initial impulsive answer before sighing. “It just never felt like something I’d get, I guess,” he says. “I’m the soldier of the two of us. My lot in life is leading armies into deadly battles and coming home either victorious or on my shield. Seems like a waste of someone’s time to court them and promise my life to them when it could be cut short at any point.”

“I don’t think it would be,” Joey says. He cautiously steps forward, eyeing the deer, but Calliope is an intelligent creature and simply lowers her head to look right back at him. “Your life doesn’t have to be defined by your death. Isn’t it better to know what love is, at least a little bit, than to live in fear of hurting someone for your entire life?”

Xornoth drops his hands. He does not turn to look at Joey. “Maybe,” he says through a dry throat. He shoves the bubbling half-thoughts forming in his head, the dangerous ones that want to hope and believe in Joey’s words, especially given who’s telling them to him, and swings himself up onto Calliope’s back.

“Do you want to ride with me?” he asks Joey, a hand stretched towards him. It’s an offer thrown out somewhat impulsively, though it’s also one he’s given hundreds of times before and been denied each time. Calliope is faster than Scott’s mount, sacrificing comfort and ease for a whirlwind of speed that takes one’s breath away and exchanges it for heart-pounding adrenaline. It’s visible in every single one of her wiry muscles and in the way her eyes seem perpetually widened with glee. Xornoth wouldn’t insult himself by saying his reputation isn’t built on his fighting prowess, but he’s not sure how much of it is thanks to the sight of him pounding onto a battlefield, axe held aloft as Calliope soars across land to deliver him unto his enemies. Even the saddle he draped on her is steeped in war, the wider make of it designed to help cart an injured person back to a medic tent.

Knowing all of this, it’s a complete surprise when Joey says nothing, takes his hand, and hoists himself onto the saddle behind Xornoth after only a moment of hesitation.

Xornoth chooses not to read into this. Instead, he realizes just how violently Joey is shivering and unclasps his cloak to throw over the other ruler’s head.

“What?”

“Just take it. In case you, uh, get cold.” Xornoth glances over his shoulder at Joey, who’s awkwardly holding onto the edge of the saddle. “It gets pretty brisk up here.”

“Tell me about it,” Joey says, his voice clearing as he quickly puts the cloak on. Xornoth tries to ignore the feeling of his breath against his neck. “Honestly, I wish the guy that founded my Empire thought about other climates when he decided that this is what our formal wear would look like. The funny part is that it’s still almost too much to wear in the jungle sometimes.”

Xornoth adds this to the list of Things Joey Says That Should Garner Further Thought But Won’t, At Least Right Now. Instead, he focuses on gently leading Calliope down to a well-trodden path. She snorts excitedly.

“Let’s take it a bit easy for a bit,” he whispers into her ear. “Wouldn’t want to lose our passenger.”

“What?”

Calliope takes off as though her hooves summon the winter wind itself.

The wind bites just as much as Xornoth knew it would as it whips into his eyes and past his ears. Calliope leaps through the mountainous forests surrounding Rivendell with an ease that Xornoth has only recently begun to share, and she revels in long, soaring leaps rather than her typical death-defying speeds. A blessing, perhaps, especially for the Emperor who had immediately latched himself onto Xornoth’s waist and tucked his face into the crook of his neck as soon as Calliope started forward.

For once, there is nothing sensual about Joey’s gesture; Xornoth could tell that the rapid rise and fall of the chest pressed against his back is due to some combination of panic and surprise rather than the desire or interest he had worn earlier, and the grip around him begins to choke him as it becomes immediately clear that Calliope won’t be slowing down at any point soon.

“Joey, you realize that you’re fine, right?”

His arms tighten even further in response.

Xornoth winces. “I really need you to let go a bit.”

“Why? Are you going to throw me off?” Joey’s much better at showing emotion in his voice than hiding it; his terror is practically palpable, as much as he’s attempting to veil it in indignance.

“Of course not,” Xornoth says. “I just can’t really breathe.”

Joey huffs. “That sounds like your problem. My problem is that I’m on your hellbeast and she’s going to throw me off if I don’t hang on!”

Calliope seems to take a bit of offense to the ‘hellbeast’ comment. She abruptly ducks her chin down and begins flying across the ground, her feet a blur as she tears through the snowmelt. She becomes a smoke-smudge more than a beast, pelting up mountainsides and leaping off to thunder through gullies with a single-minded pursuit for speed, soaring off of cliffs that lurch into forests only to pound back into the ground a handful of exhilarating seconds later.

And, to Xornoth, it is exhilarating. It’s oddly comforting to feel the air whip against his face and his hair fill with mist as Calliope strains against herself, refusing to accept that she can’t fly. Scott’s always called him crazy for encouraging his steed’s sprinting (“She could break her legs, Xornoth! What if you’re stranded miles away from the castle, with a deer with a broken leg?” “Well, I don’t know what you would do, but personally I would just pray to Exor for an hour of his greater blessing, be imbued with godly strength and wings, and fly back with her.” “Oh my gods, you’re so annoying.”) but Calliope runs like she was born to do nothing else, and Xornoth can’t begrudge her that.

He can, however, begrudge Joey the grip around his waist that he hasn’t loosened at all.

“Joey, do you trust me?” Xornoth shouts back at him.

“I don’t know! Will you throw me off if I say no?!” Joey’s words are muffled by Xornoth’s surcoat.

“Of course not! That would be the height of impropriety.” Xornoth gently guides Calliope to dashing up one of the steepest cliff faces, and she tenses in anticipatory recognition.

Joey laughs a little too desperately. “I mean, I’m trusting you with my life right now, aren’t I?” he says.

“How incredibly romantic.” The words come out teasing rather than sardonic. Surprisingly, his flowery expectations don’t bother Xornoth as much as it had in the stables. “If you trust me, look up.”

There's hesitation. Then, miraculously, Xornoth feels Joey’s head tip up, his chin sliding against his shoulder. His body tenses around Xornoth’s as he registers the white-silver sky and the slate that makes up the mountain range Rivendell’s castle is built in.

And then Calliope reaches the zenith of the peak.

And leaps and begins to dive down.

Joey shrieks, but when he squeezes Xornoth again, he doesn’t try to avert his gaze. Xornoth shouts something wordless as well, the sound spiraling into the air as Calliope maneuvers herself through the air and begins running almost vertically down the other side of the cliff. She somehow manages to keep her balance while fluidly moving down a vein of quartz crystals that grow out of the side of the rock, splintering off bits of the clear mineral as she goes.

“This is insane!” Joey yells in Xornoth’s ear.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Xornoth yells back.

Joey smacks his chest painlessly before returning the hand around Xornoth’s midsection. “Don’t make fun of me,” he says, and Xornoth can just imagine his pout.

What the hell. Xornoth chances a smirk over his shoulder and catches startled green eyes. “Don’t make it so easy for me, then,” he says.

He feels more than he hears Joey’s breath catch in the back of his throat, and then Calliope is leaping into a waterfall and racing along with the spray and Xornoth turns his attention back to her and whatever crazy idea she’s gotten this time.

Calliope leaps out of the waterfall in time to land rather gracefully on solid ground and slows herself to a careful trot, breathing heavily beneath Xornoth. He pats the side of her neck gently. “One of these days, you won’t exhaust yourself doing some crazy stunt,” he says to her, fondness creeping past the chastisement in his voice. She brushes his words off and calmly walks through the sparse trees as if she hadn’t just run straight down a vertical surface moments before.

“Does she want to do that every time you take her out?” Joey asks. His grip on Xornoth has slackened a lot, but he keeps his arms wrapped around Xornoth and at this point, he thinks it would be strange if he moved them.

Xornoth sighs. “Usually she wants to do much worse. She thinks she could run on the clouds, if only the mountains were tall enough to let her reach them.”

“To be fair, that would look super magical,” Joey says. He rests his chin on Xornoth’s shoulder. “I bet Calliope would be the only deer brave enough to find out.”

Calliope perks up slightly at that.

“No,” Xornoth says gently, swatting Calliope’s ears when she irritably huffs at him.

They make it back to Rivendell in decent time. Xornoth’s heart sinks a bit when he realizes that the ball is still somehow going on.

“How haven’t they left yet?” he mutters to himself, sliding out of Calliope’s saddle with a practiced ease.

“We were only gone for like twenty minutes,” Joey says, an edge of sympathy leaking into his words. “I’m sure Scott didn’t want to start actively clearing everyone out until half the party left of their own accord, as well.”

Xornoth sighs. “I hate politics,” he grumbles.

That prompts a laugh from Joey, the most genuine one Xornoth’s heard all day, and he turns to see the Lost Emperor sitting side-saddle on Calliope still. “That was wild,” he says. “I had no idea what I was supposed to expect and somehow you still exceeded my expectations.”

“Is this where I say ‘thank you’?” Xornoth says. He goes to put a footstool down for Joey to jump down on, but instead Joey somehow maneuvers himself into Xornoth’s arms with a delicate flourish and gets down from there. He unclips his borrowed cloak and holds it in his arms.

“If you want to.”

Joey falls silent as he turns to Xornoth. It doesn’t escape him that Joey’s eyes are absolutely wandering. After a few seconds of bewilderment, it finally occurs to Xornoth that his traitorous mount ran down a waterfall with him leading her, and he wonders just how much the stupidly fine clothes that Scott insists on are clinging to him.

Might as well own it. “Like what you see?”

“Mhmm.” Joey’s eyes finally meet Xornoth’s, and the sly smirk from the canape table sneaks back onto his face. “I know you were basically shirtless before, but somehow this is better.”

Xornoth rolls his eyes. “I’m going to choose to ignore that,” he says, reaching an arm out for the cloak. Joey hands it over but lets his hand linger on Xornoth’s forearm as he takes it, and at this point Xornoth is wise enough to his flirtations that he lets this roll off of him without any fuss. “Do you need help getting back inside?”

“I’ll take help from you for anything, anytime,” Joey replies with a purr.

“Noted,” Xornoth says drily. He hangs Calliope’s saddle on its hook, gives her one last handful of clover, and ushers Joey back inside.

“I did want to ask you something,” Joey says, the coy tone mostly gone but his voice still light.

Xornoth hums in response.

“You seem— I guess, more relaxed now? You’re not snapping at me for saying anything.” Joey raises an eyebrow. “I’d ask you to my marital bed to see how far I can push it, but I have the feeling you’d take that far too seriously.”

“Do you not want me to take such a request seriously?” Xornoth asks.

For the first time, Joey stutters to a halt, his eyes wide as he stares at Xornoth. Xornoth takes a moment to admire them; they’re the same shade as the moss that lines the room the Rune Blade is kept in along with Rivendell’s other ancient artifacts. He patiently waits for the Lost Emperor to regain his senses.

“Okay. I can’t say I was expecting that.”

Xornoth raises an eyebrow. “To answer your previous question,” he says, “I hate these sorts of events. Half of the reason I let Scott take the throne after our parents abdicated was because I didn’t want to have to deal with these things, and he’s always enjoyed them more. Frankly, I wouldn’t have shown up to this ball if it wasn’t technically for me.

“And if you actually meant the implications of what you were saying— I grew up with Scott. I’ve known him for more than a century. I’ve heard him say practically every innuendo under the skies, and the ones he hasn’t said Jimmy’s wandered into on accident. Just because I’m aware of them doesn’t mean I myself am fond of making them.”

“But you can.”

“Of course, I can.” As they step into the castle, Xornoth dries them both off with barely a flicker of thought and a rush of warmth through his veins. He wonders what Exor would think of all of this as he offers the crook of his arm for Joey to take and leads him back to the ballroom.

“My my, your highness,” he says, the sly tone back in his voice as he leans into Xornoth’s arm. They’ve reentered the ballroom at this point. “Making a statement?”

“Yes, a statement that visiting royals should be accompanied by a chaperone so they don’t find themselves with particularly sticky fingers.” Xornoth doesn’t catch what he says until he’s standing next to his brother, who at some point ushered his group to sitting at a table set up for both kings on a dais at the back of the room.

“Who’s got sticky fingers?” Scott says. He’s clearly had at least one more flute of champagne from how he’s leaning into Jimmy, who for his part is glancing around a tiny bit nervously but diligently holding his husband by the waist. Gem and fWhip are still with them, though they’re now joined by the third member of their historic alliance, a man Xornoth has definitely led armies to threaten when Scott was still wrangling the final details of his nuptial agreements with Jimmy. Katherine isn’t there currently, but a small plate of grape stems and apple bits implies her lingering presence.

“Definitely not me,” Xornoth replies.

“Well, I’d hope so,” Scott says. “Even if you were gone for long enough.”

“I was wondering where you went off to, Joey,” Gem says, delicately cutting into whatever Scott was about to say next. “What were the two of you doing?”

“Xorny was taking me for a ride on their magnificent beast,” Joey says with a wink, arm curling more firmly around Xornoth’s bicep.

“Do not say it like that,” he says deadpan as Jimmy chokes on a half-eaten cheese cube and Sausage barks out a startled laugh that soon turns into an out-of-control cackle.

Joey actually flutters his eyelashes at him. “What do you mean?” he asks with a slight pout. “It was the longest, roughest ride I’ve ever been on. I could barely keep up.”

“He’s being crass. Calliope ran us down a waterfall,” Xornoth says to Scott, who gains a calculating gleam in his eye that Xornoth has learned to fear.

“Sorry, did you say that your deer ran down a waterfall?” Sausage says. “How the heck did she do that?!”

“On her hooves. Very rapidly.”

“Your deer can do that here?”

Xornoth is beginning to feel the prickle on the back of his neck from nobles staring at his far drabber clothes, at the flyaways of his hair, and at Joey, who is burrowing into his side far less subtly than he must think he’s being. A buzzing is settling into his ears, a sharp sound that slowly digs into his head. He carefully extricates his arm, nods to the group, and quietly dismisses himself for the night.

•♚•

Xornoth expects that to be the end of it, to be honest: a single night of mostly one-sided flirtation followed by nothing truly happening, leading to Scott’s council of stuffy advisors throwing their hands up in defeat and leaving him alone for the rest of his life.

So when Scott walks into his room with a parrot holding a letter and the smuggest grin that Xornoth has ever seen, he barely holds himself back from throwing something at him and snatches the letter from the bird’s beak. Even without seeing the seal on the letter (it’s intricate and detailed and just on the knife’s edge of being ostentatious), Xornoth knows who sent this.

“Has Joey always been like this?” he asks with a grumble, idly whisking a sliver of his gift from Exor into a thin claw that effortlessly slides through the wax.

“Yes and no,” Scott says, sitting on Xornoth’s desk. “Yes, in that he’s an outgoing and flirtatious guy. No, in that he’s never sent a follow-up letter.”

“This is when you try to convince me to give him a chance, isn’t it?” Xornoth can’t keep the mild bitter tone out of his voice. He doesn’t open the letter. He considers just setting the letter on fire without reading it.

“Of course not. You don’t need to hear that from me.” Scott gestures towards the letter. “What did he say?”

Xornoth glowers at him half-heartedly before slowly opening the letter and glancing through its contents.

“Well?” Scott prompts.

“Don’t you have laws to write?” Xornoth mutters.

“That’s after lunch,” he says. “I get the whole morning to bother my favorite big sibling.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Xornoth ponders the letter, walks over to his desk, and takes out a sheet of paper (decent quality, not as amazing as a formal invitation would be but not of such shoddy make that it’d be taken as an insult), a wax seal (his personal one, not one of Rivendell at large), and a pen. He stares at the writing materials for a second longer.

“I’m growing old here,” Scott says with a sigh, sliding off of the desk and onto the sofa a few feet away.

“He thanked me for taking him to see Calliope and wants to meet for dinner sometime,” Xornoth says distractedly. “That’s all he asked for. No mention of politics or beneficial partnerships or uniting families or anything.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “Just… unexpected, I guess.” He begins penning a response (short but not curt, with none of the innuendos of the previous night but enough of the implications to make one pause).

“Unexpected sounds good enough,” Scott says. “You need unexpected in your life.”

There’s an odd tone in Scott’s voice, one that Xornoth resolves is far too sly, a joke bubbling in implications and sideways glances. Xornoth raises an eyebrow at him as he dries the ink with a single thought, seals the letter, and hands it off to the parrot, who gently takes it from him and flies out an open window.

“He’ll be good for you, Xorny.” Scott lingers on the bastardization of his name.

There's nothing holding him back this time. Xornoth pegs him in the forehead with his wax seal.

#empires fic #empires scott #empires xornoth #empires joey #empires season 1 #jornoth #empires shipping

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