Doryn [3]
Dolls and Dances
The Arabellan Palace
When Doryn Blacksteel, fourth born heir of the Blacksteel dynasty awoke that morning with a headache and craving for blueberries. Half awake, he put on his small-clothes and a pair of pants, and shuffled his way down from the straw-filled loft into the scholars study.
“Good morning, my prince,” The elderly, yet surprisingly spritely scholar chirped.
“Oh, ah, good morning…um,-” Doryn began, shirtless and unashamed of the fact.
-“Rheymar. I taught, well, attempted to teach you arithmetic when you were but twelve. Tea?” The scholar offered a dainty china cup of sweet smelling pink tea.
“Oh yeah,” Doryn said, quickly accepting as he sipped the tea, sitting down at the wooden bench with a sprawl of fruit and fresh-made bread.
“…Strawberry flavored tea?” Doryn remarked, resting his feet up on the bench, watching the old man go about his work, tinkering with strange looking copper and silver devices, staring at them through his interchangeable spectacles that would occasionally magnify his blackish eyes, and scribbling down notes into books of ridiculous volume.
“Yes, yes, an old friend of mine loved the stuff, heh, she loved anything to do with strawberries,” Rheymar chuckled.
Doryn squished a black grape between his two fingers in boredom.
“This woman, how many hundreds of years old was she exactly?”
Rheymar cuffed the prince over the head with a tome as old as he.
Doryn only laughed, and took a sip from his tea.
“No, really, how many wars has your woman been through?”
The scholar scoffed and said, “Ah, lad, she’s been in more battles than you probably ever will be. Besides that, she is not my woman, no, no, far too young for me, boy.”
Doryn lent back on the bench and fed himself grapes.
“So she’s not a magical gargoyle sucking the soul from young men? You’re not actually twenty years old?” Dorn smirked.
The old man just chuckled to himself, twisting a screwdriver into some sort of device that ticked.
“Ah, unfortunately nay, I am but an old man. And, there, lad is no such thing as a bloody magical gargoyle.”
Doryn flicked a grape at the Scholars back.
“How would you know, ever not seen a bloody magical gargoyle?” The prince retorted.
The scholar flicked a tiny screw at Doryn.
“No, and for good bloody reason. Listen, I understand that you’ve lived a life cushioned in phoenix feathers, but magic doesn’t exist.”
Doryn sat up, coughing on his strawberry tea.
“Hmm, that doesn’t sound heretical in the least. You realize that goes against one of the three, oh you know, greatest laws of our people.”
The scholar simply sighed, “Oh, please enlighten me my prince, you’re most certainly the first to do so.”
With the gravity of the conversation weighing heavy, Doryn sensed the seriousness and put a black shirt on. The prince held up three fingers.
“Three laws.
One, we follow the fire.” Doryn lowered his pointer.
“Two, we live by the steam.” Doryn lowered his ring finger.
“Three. Magic runs through our veins.” Doryn left his middle finger to make his last point.
Rheymar closed Doryn’s hand back into a fist and held it in his ancient, calloused hand. The scholar smiled almost as condescendingly as the prince and simply said, “It’s archaic.” He spun and picked up two copper hilts from a wall filled with multiple models of hilts, swords, shields and random assortments of strange looking devices. Doryn instinctively weighed it in his palm and spun it between his fingers.
“-Archaic. We have laws, we have those to enforce those laws, and those who break them. We haven’t a need for such laws with fifteen words to interpretively live by. We already worship those two bloody birds like gods anyway, why must we live by the words of men three hundred years dead? Egh, besides that, the fact still stands. Magic, lad, does not exist…But, I will not deny that monsters exist.” Those few last words he spoke softer than the rest, eyes darting to the floor as if remembering some long ago memory.
Doryn sighed and twisted around on his heels and took the tiny blue china cup and plate, and sipped the tea, sitting on the table next to the platter.
“Monsters?”
“Monsters.” Rheymar restated.
Doryn nearly dropped his tea when the scholar tossed him something wrapped in dried paper
“This was hers, as well. Used to make them as some sort of bestiary, not sure where she got the materials or the know-how, but they’re pretty anyhow,” Rheymar grunted.
The prince opened the package, revealing a stack of tarot-looking cards. He pulled out a random card from the stack, and held it between two fingers, examining it with an odd sense of curiosity.
It was a water-colored painting of a strange, winged beast. It’s wings were leathery and bat-like, but crimson as the purest drop of blood, the tips of its wings lined with what looked to be iron blades. It’s two legs were tipped with iron claws, which looked more like meat-hooks, it hovered just over a field of golden wheat, roaring, flashing a mouth filled with elongated fangs and spiked tongue, it’s tail almost as long as its body, armed with iron right down to the spiked tip.
At the very top of the card, in arched words it said, bête de l'aile et le cœur.
“Bête de l'aile et le cœur?” Doryn mumbled aloud.
“I believe it translates to, beast of wing and heart, if memory serves,” Rheymar remarked.
“The creature itself is Wyvern, if you were wondering. They’re almost non-existent in the North, but are quite nuisance in the south-west coastal town of Tamia, which is just a few miles off their nesting cliffs of Wyvern Crest. They don’t tend to bother the townsfolk themselves, just go after their live-stock, the young’n cubs take a special delight in tearing up the vegetable fields, thinking to practice their new found flight out on a defenseless cabbage.”
“At any rate, we both have to go about our day at some point. Keep those blasted cards, maybe they’ll be of some use to you, here, they’ll just collect dust,” Rheymar waved him off. Doryn obliged, finishing his tea he left with the cards wrapped in paper and a small stack of books to read from Celeste. As he left the library, the old man remembered to shout, “Oh, and next time, find somewhere else to have fun with your maids!”
Doryn just grinned and waved goodbye.
On his way back to his room he crossed paths with Gareth, who informed him that the royal dresser would be fitting him for the evenings ball and princesses arrival. Whilst ‘Gary’ prattled off all the appropriate mannerisms for the ball, what to say, what not to say, what definitely not to say, Doryn gnawed on the cold metal of his oddly shaped necklace absent-mindedly.
When Gareth realized the prince had practically started eating the metal and staring at a scuff on the white floor he cuffed him over the head and pushed him on his way. Returning to his chambers, he found the seamstress was not yet there, so he went to the bathroom and stripped his simple clothes and smallclothes off, and splashed a few handfuls of cold water over his face and body. The prince placed Celeste’s stack of books on his table and tied a ribbon around the stack of cards and tucked it under his pillow to explore later.
Doryn heard the young seamstress shuffle through the twin doors with her cart of needles, balls of wools, a measuring tape, pins and cloth, and walked out the bathroom door completely, utterly naked, saying, “Alrighty. Clothe me.” The seamstress squealed, using her wild tangle of fiery curls to cover her eyes.
Doryn walked over, all casual like as he gently brushed the curls from her eyes and said,
“I could almost say you haven’t seen one before.”
Wide eyed, she gawked at him, up and down, before tossing a cloth at him, over his lower region as she pushed him away.
Defiantly, the seamstress tried her best to keep her voice from shaking, but her quivering eyes betrayed her, “My lord, I am going to call your sister Myrcia here to watch me work, as she has taken an interest to my craft.”
At that she lifted her head, trying to maintain some of her pride. Doryn squinted at her and surrendered, putting on a pair of rough-spun breeches.
He stood on a step-up whilst she took his measurements, Myrcia sat on his bed playing with her sewn, black-button eyed dolls. The seamstress left for a moment to collect more string, and Doryn looked to his sister, completely enveloped by her dolls.
She looked up to him and smiled, almost giddy as she said, “I get to marry a lord!
How could she be so…happy about that fact she was being forced into a marriage? How she could be so Haine damned ignorant about it all irritated Doryn more than it should of. He bristled under his own alabaster skin, despite the sun pouring through the window and warming his back.
His mouth twisted into a crooked smile that matched the dark of his blue eyes, “Myrcia…dear sister, do you know what your lord will do with you?
On your magical wedding night, and every night thereafter?”
He stepped down from the step, the metal of his necklace brushing against his bare chest as he stalked towards Myrcia, her face now pale and her blue eyes wide. Doryn’s crooked smile had faded away.
“He’ll pin you down. He’ll do things, say things. Touch you in places that aren’t so romantic. Do things to you that aren’t so romantic. So if you think for one fucking second that he’ll sweep you from your feet and you’ll ride off into the fucking sunset together you couldn’t be more mistaken. Because the only thing you’ll be riding is his coc-” Doryn was cut off when a number of voices sounded from outside the door, passing the room.
Doryn backed away, realizing he’d being holding one of the stuffed dolls by its neck.
Myrcia furrowed her brow and snatched her doll back, biting back, “At least my fiancée will want me. I believe your marriage will go something like mamma and papas marriage.”
Doryn returned to the step and sat on it, hunched over whilst he rubbed his eyes.
“By Haine, what are you talking about, what about their marriage?” he grunted.
Myrcia returned to playing with her dolls as she said,
“They don’t want each other. Tara, mammas handmaiden says so. Tara says a lot of things, especially when she thinks I’m not listening, or when she thinks I’m asleep. She talks all the time with the black haired guard…Archer? I think his name is. She likes saying his name a lot, when they’re together, like he’s hurting her, but he says her name too like that, so I’m not sure.”
For a girl of fourteen, she was ignorant as a child.
“Tara says her sister is special, cause papa visits her in the kitchens all the time. Well, he used to, now he likes that French girl.”
French girl. There…there was only one girl from the French colony in the entire palace. Celeste. And his father was…visiting her in the kitchens…His stomach twisted, and everything became numb as a wave of sickness washed over him.
“But they don’t talk to each other like Archer and Tara, papa calls her a bad word, and I can never hear what she says, because it sounds like there’s something covering her mouth,” Myrcia said, innocent as she was ignorant.
All that ran through Doryn’s mind was curses, he crawled inside his mind and cursed violently into the blackness. His insides were twisted, palms sweaty and his breath ragged and even. Yet he sat in silence, even when the seamstress returned to continue to measure and decide on what he might wear. She decided on a military-style suit of dark navy blue and gold.
The rest of the day, he spent wandering the halls, mindlessly avoiding the frantic servants, restless guards and excited noble’s daughters gossiping in hushed whispers, giggling with their hands covering their mouths as he passed them. Doryn took no notice, and instead gripped the hilt of his white-spiral sword, clenching and unclenching his hands. The prince even sat on the sidelines of a practice tourney between two royal guards, chewing on a piece of celery, practicing for the day of Doryn’s royal wedding.
The prince played cards with Gareth and the captain of the garrison, Archer. Munching on a carrot stick, Doryn eyed the smoke-filled room of drunken guards, some with giggling hand-maidens and kitchen girls on their laps, a hand slipped down their corsets and the other up their white and blue skirts, but he found no sign of the brown-haired Tara.
He shifted the carrot in his mouth, his legs crossed up on the table and arms folded behind his head, Doryn studied the Captain.
Black, spiked hair, sharp hazel eyes, square jaw and large build. Doryn supposed he would be popular amongst women, which explained his meetings with Tara, the most sought after handmaiden in the palace, second only to Celeste. The prince bought another round of ale for the whole barrack hall, and slid a tankard Archer’s way.
With a smirked, the prince asked, “So, Captain, what’s your favourite pick of the palace gashes?”
By midday, the two left the barracks and returned to the palace. Striding down a white-marble hall, glittering in the midday light, Doryn crossed paths with a particular good friend. The red cloak and jerkin laced with gold, boots and leather breeches had earned at least half of his title. His dark skin matched both his eyes and hair, his neutral look carved from the same obsidian as the Obsidian throne. The Crimson Knight. Without meeting his eye, the prince placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.
“Tara Alweave. Archer Ramsay.” Doryn whispered into his ear.
The Crimson Knight didn’t say a word, but the muscles in his shoulder tensed, and he continued on his way. His armor and garb was responsible for half his title. However, his skill set was responsible for the other.
~ ~ ~
By the time the sun began to sink below the horizon and the stars came out to play, nobles had flooded the grounds, foyer and mingled in the ballroom. In the ballroom of white and gilded gold, a glass circle hovered above them where a lone violinist played and sung a popular song from the German Colony. The trail of her dress of crimson silk flowed so wide and long that it fluttered over the glass circle, held up by streams of red cloth hung from the railings of the uppermost floor. The nobles didn’t dance, but instead laughed, drank and chatted amongst their circles, showing off their carefully, expensively crafted masks. Even the male servants wore blue masks of swallows, and the female servants wore masks of blue butterflies paired with their uniforms of blue dyed boiled leather, studded and sewn with Amor and Haine on their breast pockets and backs.
That night, all had their masks, fancy dresses and masks beneath their masks of sweet smiles and sickly politeness. Doryn only had one of these things. And his dress wasn’t that fancy. A relic of his great cousin, a military suit of navy and gold had been fitted for his measurements, and a cape of blue to match with pauldrons of oily black. Yet the prince missed a mask, so instead of using his senses and stealing one, he simply walked the length of the garden. It was circular, partially walled of from the rest of the grounds, with a large, white gazebo lit fairy lights strung around it’s beams and railings.
The night air was crisp, and the scent of the hundred thousand flowers crept into his uniform and seeped into his skin and nose. Dragging his feet he stopped, tilting his head back and closing his eyes, letting the cold nights wind wrap around his body.
Doryn hadn’t trained that day, but his heart still raced.
He’d eaten and drunk plenty, but his head burned.
A glowing red burnt in his belly.
But a snaking purple bound his flesh and weighed his bones.
Together, it formed a chain of green that tangled his thoughts.
His forced marriage to the princess…whatever his father was doing to Celeste…and that strange girl, Red-
“Are you asleep or something?” A familiar voice called from the wall beside him.
When Doryn opened his eyes, he wasn’t surprised to see her, blonde hair shifting in the night wind and blue eyes sarcastic and judging.
“Red, how is it you made it so far into palace grounds without being shot on sight?” Doryn purred.
Red lent casually against a raised pillar arms folded.
“Heh, I’ve got my ways, my prince.”
At that, Doryn lost the sly squint to his eyes. He opened his mouth to snarl a warning, but Red cut him off by tossing a strange, white mask at him.
Ungraciously he caught it, and examined it with a tilted head.
Well, it was white. There wasn’t much else to it, it was without string, so he needed only to press it to his face and it’d stay positioned, with two rectangular eye cutouts.
“How sweet, you cut out some paper for me. Will you be attending the ball, my good gentleman?” He asked.
Red waved him off with a pursed smile, and turned to the direction of the city.
“No, no. Don’t believe I got an invitation.”
“But you felt no need for an invitation to come into my home, invade my garden?” Doryn smiled.
“This isn’t your garden, though. So I suppose I only really offended your father, aye?” Red grinned a twisted grin, before jumping over the wall, disappearing into the night.
You traveled all this way, to give me a mask? The girl just gets stranger, and stranger.
And how is it you worked out who I was? Truly, an annoying girl.
He was almost tempted to go after her, out into the night. Doryn took a step forward, but a hand on his shoulder forced him back.
“My prince. Get your ass out of the cold and into the ballroom,” Gareth grunted.
Doryn turned to him, and Gareth titled his head and smiled a thin, sickly smile.
“You might catch a cold, dumbass.”
The prince patted him on the shoulder, and said, “Don’t worry, friend. If I catch a cold, I’ll be sure to make you my maid and wait hand and foot on me.”
The ball was grander than he’d imagined. In his eighteen years he’d attended his fair share of balls and banquets alike, but this one he was sure to remember for years to come. Doryn exchanged small talk amongst nobles, smiled and lightly flirted with the richest nobles daughters (and wives.)
Despite the bright colors and spectacular gowns and heavenly voice of the violinist, time passed in a slow, grey daze. That was, until he spotted Celeste. In the mask of a pink butterfly, he only recognized her perfect, gold-auburn hair. Abruptly leaving a thoughtless exchange with a young, blonde noble, Doryn shouldered his way through the crowd. She smiled so sweetly, offering a tray of drinks to three young nobles.
He reached the center of the room, only to stumble and freeze when chatter and violin fell silent. Doryn held his breath, as each and every one of their heads turned to the grand staircase. The violinist began again, but this time the notes were long, low and somber. When he saw her, standing at the very top of the staircase, dressed flowing silks of white traced with silver, the prince understood. The song was the Ghar’ish anthem, each note telling a piece of their history. Her raven hair coiled over her shoulders and back, not a hair or curl out of place. Her dark skin suffered no imperfection, smooth and she moved with an impossible grace, similar to that of the silk that wrapped round her skin and flowed out around her.
The only voice that broke through Doryn’s daze shouted, “Welcome and hail her most gracious and beautiful, first born princess of King Ohbhar Anatori of the sister Kingdom of Terraghar, Pandora Silvtress Anatori!”
The mask she wore was almost identical to his, but black as night. He noticed the two a few steps behind her, both also dressed in official Ghar’ish military uniforms of white, one female and the other male, both donning a mask of blue lions. The woman watched the princess carefully, daring any one guest to come too close. Doryn supposed she would be the princesses’ bodyguard, as Gareth was his. The young man was much easier distracted by the grandeur of the ballroom, especially fascinated by the glass circle where the orchestra began to organize themselves.
Even if he wanted to, Doryn found he couldn’t move. The nobles and ladies that had once crushed around him cleared the floor, gathering at the walls to watch the first meeting between the prince and princess. Like a wraith, hauntingly beautiful Pandora approached him, and from what he could see, she smiled behind her mask. Almost on instinct, he offered a gloved hand. There was a heartbeat, but a single heartbeat she hesitated before taking his hand and placing the other on his other arm.
And then, the music began. A man took the violin this time, and led the orchestra on a journey of notes and sound faster than Doryn’s heart could beat or even step in exactly in time.
Swing Mary, swing, swing Mary
First, in time, they stepped back and forth in a zigzag pattern across the floor. Doryn’s sea of blue met the ocean of her amber-gold eyes.
Oh, how presumptuous of me
Doryn spun her to the same time as the violins sharp climb and drop. Despite the hazardous trail of silk and cloth she kept pace easily with him as they spun, waltzing slow as they could to song that must’ve been written by a composer on his deathbed to the rate of his heart when he learned his wife had been cheating on him for years.
But I tell you my Mary
Doryn’s surprise only further when he felt her hand begin to inch further down his back.
For once, I’m not the one searching the terrain, Doryn thought with a brazen eyebrow raised.
Swing, just swing Mary, Mary swing
Oh how predictable of me to sing you how to swing
There wasn’t a challenge in her eyes, like Red’s.
Or innocence, like Celeste’s.
Doryn couldn’t quite work out what flickered so in depths of those amber pools.
But my sweet Mary swing, oh swing, Mary swing
They danced as one, cloak and trail whisking about the marble floor, a vortex that flew them away from reality and into some otherworldly place where there only existed amber, blue and the limitless sky above. And of course Mary, who refused to swing.
Swing, just swing Mary swing
The storms a blowing, the ghosts are singing, and their wooden swords aflame but oh my predictable Mary…
Not once did they break their locked gaze. As they swept across the floor, Doryn tried his best to get past the guard in her eyes. He slid his fingertips down her spine, gliding slowly. Yet unlike the others, she didn’t arch her back, not in the slightest, neither did she sigh or gasp.
Oh Mary, Mary
Sweet little merry Mary
At this point, she began to lead him in the dance, stepping back and forth in a zigzag pattern. The crowd cooed and applauded as Doryn lifted and spun her around.
Just swing, Mary, swing Mary, Mary swing, swing to my hearts content
Then, they ended it all with her in his arms, arched and lent over, smiling behind her black mask. Behind his white mask, he smiled in return. And then, they applauded, singing praises and cheers.
Doryn helped her stand upright, and she wrapped her arms around her and held her face an inch from his.
“Nice to meet you, my prince.” She whispered, slowly gliding her fingertips around the edge of his mask.
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