Is this what having friends is like? Takayoshi had to wonder as Claudia set her most recent stack of research volumes onto their designated table. It had only been a week, and they had not done much more than greetings and farewells, but Takayoshi felt a certain kinship to the girl. Granted the only experience he had with friendship was his sister, and Cricket. But then Cricket was more than just his friend. Cricket was his— No. Now was not the time to think of that.
"Good morning, Your Highness. You're up early." Claudia dropped unceremoniously into the chair across from him, her bag of study materials thumping against the floor.
"Yoshi," he said on impulse.
"I'm sorry?" Claudia looked up from where she had been trying to put some order to the chaos that was her own unique filing system to frown at him. "What was that?"
Takayoshi sat up straighter, he did not shift in his seat that would have been undignified. "We are friends. You may call me Yoshi."
"We're friends?"
Takayoshi nodded, resisting the urge to duck his head and fiddle with his papers. He wished he had gotten some proper lessons in making friends from Cricket before they had parted ways.
"Then you can call me Claudia!" Claudia laughed, her smile widening.
"I do call you Claudia." Takayoshi frowned.
"Yes, but now you have permission. You didn't before." She winked at him, and then held her hand out in an oddly familiar gesture. "Let's shake on it, yeah?"
"Yes." Takayoshi held his hand out to her, and resisted the urge to yank it back when she wrapped her fingers around his palm, and gave their joined hands one oddly jerky shake. "Friends."
"Friends." Claudia nodded, then dropped the hold, and turned back to organizing her papers. "Like I was saying, you're up early."
"I hoped to get more research done before the library became..." Takayoshi pressed his lips together, searching for a polite way to say what he wanted to. When nothing else came to him, he simply said, "noisy."
"Noisy? You aren't talking about me, are you? Because if I'm bothering you, Your Highness, all you have to do is say so, and I'll go somewhere else. I don't want to disrupt your research on... I'm sorry, what was it you're researching?"
"Curse magic." Takayoshi placed a finger under the line he had been reading so he did not lose his place. "And you are not the person who I find noisy."
"Oh, well, that's good then." She offered him a hesitant smile, and then went back to work. It was silent as she laid out all of her supplies, and then settled into her research.
Takayoshi relished the peace to be found in this. In having a companion that he could sit and research with. He imagined it would not have been this way with Cricket. The young prince seemed forever to be making noise. Even when he was thinking, he was muttering constantly to himself, and Takayoshi found himself missing it more and more these days.
"No. I'm telling you; my sister saw him turn into a dragon. Prince Cricket is definitely some kind of demon. And she says that he's got scales all over his—"
Takayoshi did not have time to stop and think, he rose from his chair, strode toward the voices, and stopped abruptly before the two people taking up valuable study space to gossip. Their words had died on their lips the moment they saw the prince coming.
"Your Highness?" The one who had been prepared to talk about all the places where Cricket's scales had grown, squeaked.
"Gossip is rude. Libraries are silent. And spreading vicious rumors about the heir to a well-respected kingdom can be considered treasonous. Choose your next words carefully." Takayoshi was not sure when he had gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist, but he felt the grip digging into his palm.
"We were just leaving," the one who had not been speaking said, grabbing their friend's wrist and tugging them from their chair. "We apologize, Your Highness."
"I am uninterested in empty apologies. If I catch either of you spreading lies about the prince again, I will personally escort you from the city. Have I made myself clear?"
"Yes, Your Highness," they said as one, bowing deeply before making a hasty escape like thieves in the night.
Takayoshi took a deep breath, loosened his grip on his sword, and forced himself to return to his table where Claudia was staring at him, unblinking.
"You said your research is in curses?"
"Yes."
"You weren't planning to curse those two idiots, were you?" Her eyes shifted nervously, darting over his face as if looking for a tell. She would find none, but he would not lie to her either.
"As satisfying as that might be, no, I do not intend to curse those two idiots." He felt his lips threaten to twitch at the word idiots. It was strangely gratifying to call someone a name, even if it were petty. He tried not to look too closely at that emotion.
"Oh. Okay. Good." Claudia let out a whoosh of breath, seeming to deflate. "You had me worried there."
"No need." Takayoshi moved to take his seat again, and return to his research. He was just about to settle back into his work when Claudia cleared her throat awkwardly. "Yes?"
"Do you umm... Do you maybe want to talk about what happened back there? You seemed pretty upset about what they were saying about the prince of Lunette. Is there like... a reason?"
"I do not wish to discuss that with you at this time."
"Right. All right then." Claudia nodded. "But if you did..."
"I could talk to you?" He hazarded a guess. Takayoshi had never had anyone other than his sister offer to listen to his worries, and he found he was not quite sure how to respond. It was a kind gesture, but there was too much wrapped up in all that to share with Claudia. Even if she were his first friend.
Claudia nodded.
"I will keep that in mind." He took a deep breath, wondering if perhaps he should say something else. What would Atsuko say in this situation? What would Cricket? "It is very much appreciated," he added after some thought.
"That's what friends are for!" Claudia offered him a toothy smile, and they fell back into their research without another word.
It was a few days later when Claudia arrived late for their usual library hours, and slammed her bag onto the table. Takayoshi was certain he heard an ink well smash, but he was distracted from that by the look of sheer frustration carved into Claudia's face as she all but threw herself into her chair.
Takayoshi was very sure he was going to regret what would come out of his mouth next, but they were friends, and friends cared for one another's well-being. Or so he had been told. Still, he had built a life on not prying, and leaving what was not his business well enough alone, so the words stuck a little in the back of his throat before he managed to force them out.
"Is something the matter?"
Claudia released an exaggerated exhale through her nostrils that sounded remarkably like how Lily sounded when he forgot her snacks.
"Perhaps you would like to talk about it, with a—" he took a breath, trying not to stutter over his words, "—with a friend."
"Do you really care?" Claudia tilted her chin down to her chest to narrow her eyes at him. "Or are you just trying to be polite?"
"I would not have asked if I did not care," he said, which was mostly true. He would have asked just to be polite as well, but they were friends, and he did care, so he supposed it did not matter.
"It's my sisters."
"Are they unwell?"
Claudia barked a laugh, shaking her head. "Far from it."
"Then what is the problem?"
"Not that you'd understand this, both you and the queen are..." She gestured with her hand as if to point out the over all of himself and Atsuko.
Takayoshi was not sure he understood, but he folded his hands over the pages he had been reading to wait.
"But my sisters are all perfect. Seven beautiful, strong, capable Durante weapons masters. And I'm just... I'm just... Well, I'm just me. Claudia."
"You are not a weapons master?"
"I'm good. Don't get me wrong, I could probably put anyone in this city on their ass, Your Highness included, but I wouldn't call myself a master."
Casually arrogant, is what Takayoshi would call that, but he did not say as much. "Then why did you not become a weapons master, if that is what you wanted?"
"Because it's not what I wanted."
"Then it was what your family wanted?"
"Ugh! No." Claudia dropped her head to the table, smacking her forehead against it hard enough to make a soft smacking noise. Takayoshi winced. "I wasn't ever told what I had to be. Our fathers were very clear on that, the Durante daughters would do whatever they damn well pleased."
"Then I am afraid I am not understanding the problem." Takayoshi let out a slightly larger breath that could almost have been mistaken for a sigh of frustration, if he were one to do such things. Which he was not. "If you did not want to be a weapons master, and your family did not try to force you to be one, I do not see where comparing you to your siblings would make any difference."
"Our parents don't compare us. That's not it."
Takayoshi tilted his head a little to one side, his brows creasing in the middle. What was it then? He could certainly understand the rivalry between siblings. Although he and Atsuko had never had it, he had seen a number of other siblings who did. Especially in noble families where children were competing not just for affection but for titles. But that did not seem to be the case with the Durantes.
"It's just... they don't—" Claudia said, her voice muffled against the table as her hands waved in vague patterns above her head, "Get me."
"Get you?" Takayoshi asked, blinking a few extra times to try to make sense of the phrasing. No. Still confusing.
"It's not that I don't love them, don't get me wrong. They're all amazing." She sat up, pushing her round glasses up her nose where they had slid down. "But they keep asking when I'm coming home. How much longer my project is going to take. Why I couldn't study history in Hermes."
"Ah." Takayoshi nodded. Now, he understood. Probably far too well.
"Ah?" Claudia's brows pinched together, and she frowned. "What does "ah" mean?"
"It means, I understand. Perfectly."
"You... umm... you do? But you're... all of this." Claudia's hand flapped through the air again, gesturing to the "all of this" that was Takayoshi.
"Believe it or not my family and I do not always see eye to eye. I have done some... things throughout my life that they do not exactly understand nor approve of."
"Right." Claudia snorted. "Like what?"
"Abdicating the throne, for one."
"Oh. Yeah. I imagine the Duke didn't love that idea. He seems particularly—" She stopped, pressing her lips together to keep from saying more. Likely for fear of offending him.
"Traditional."
"Yes, that's exactly what I was going to say."
"Of course." Takayoshi nodded. He felt the corners of his lips twitch into what might almost be a smile. "What is your research topic?"
"Oh! Well, it's really just the history of how magic influenced the wars between the kingdoms through the ages. Because if you notice as our magic has kind of... mellowed out, so have we."
"Mellowed out?"
"Yeah. Like back when the kingdoms were first— Hang on." Claudia twisted in her seat to grab the forgotten satchel, and pull it onto the table where she promptly dumped it, spilling its contents—as well as the leaking bottle of ink—all over the table. "Styx. How did that happen?"
Takayoshi pulled a cloth from his own bag to sop up the mess instead of reminding her how she had flung the bag at the table earlier.
"Oh, thanks." She grinned at him, and then went back to rooting through her papers as Takayoshi finished with the spilled ink, and righted the little bottle. "All right, so see here? When the kingdoms were first created, they were constantly at war and in flux. Even though each kingdom had been created by a god, we were always at war with one another. I think it's because the magic was so wild. Things settled down gradually as the magic did."
"That is a reasonable hypothesis," Takayoshi said, tucking the cloth away again. "But what will it change for the future?"
"Maybe nothing." Claudia shrugged. "But it'll be good information to have, won't it? If we know that wild magic has an effect on the wielder's temperament, then we can look for a solution should wild magic become an issue again."
"I see." Takayoshi nodded. "That could be very beneficial."
"Exactly!" Claudia clapped her hands, and leaned back in her chair again. "I'm going to go grab some books, you need anything?"
"No. Thank you."
Takayoshi narrowed his eyes at the page Claudia had turned to show him. Wild magic. He had to wonder if this idea had anything to do with Cricket and his new powers. Had that been what he had called upon to bind them together all those years ago? If it were, could it be used to break his own curse. Or at the very least sever their connection? And would wild magic change Cricket's temperament?
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