Faster than he thought it would, a large chunk of days flew by as he hung out in Siren's office. He was so out of sync with time that he hardly noticed he should have already written home; it only caught up with him once that dinner party rolled around. So he dressed up — even though, no matter how dressed up he got, he wouldn't look comparable to his hosts — and showed up, which was a big part of the job. There was a larger quantity of people than expected, which meant more small talk than he was prepared for. Of course, small talk came easy to him, so he drifted along in smiles and cordial laughter. 

As the night progressed, he had the sneaking suspicion that he was being buttered up for something. And, over dinner, it was confirmed. It all started when the younger princess, who seemed to be about Siren's age, exclaimed: "Oh, Laurel, I have a cousin your age…" The girl proceeded to shower said cousin in compliments, describing her appearance with seeming precision. From her wide gestures, she seemed drunk; the queen's concern with the impropriety of her behavior seemed to confirm that.

Regardless, Laurel managed to slither out of that situation. When he was spat back to the hallways in the early hours of the morning, he wobbled and shivered all the way to his room, getting lost a few times in his dizziness. Meanwhile, his thoughts spun. He was in no rush for marriage, though he was soon to be crowned. As long as his relatives weren't in a rush, neither was he. Still, the more time that passed, the more he got roped into unpleasant conversations. Though he was thankful for managing to slide under the covers at last, they were too thin to keep him warm enough.

Morning came with the news that even drinking socially was still too much for him to handle. Even though his head was pulsating, he managed — or at least tried — to straighten himself out before going about his day. Once he got to Siren's office, the nausea had subsided a little. Still, she smirked at him. "Mm, hungover?," she asked. "How'd you know?" The question made her chuckle, "You look like crap." The novelty of the phrase stunned Laurel, as silly as it was. He stood in place, looking at her like a frightened animal; that only made her smirk grow. "Has no one ever told you that, princeling?," she teased. "Actually, no," he said, laughing a bit too before sitting down. 

"I imagine you had fun mingling with your fellow elites," she mused, taking her eyes off him as usual. "Oh, yeah. I love when people try to marry me off." The gossip seemed to entertain her, which made Laurel's chest heat up. "Mm, let me guess. They used their second daughter's apparent naivety and excitement as an excuse for ignoring formality in order to present Duchess Cordelia as a marriage candidate to you," she said, speaking fast as if to keep him from growing tired. He wouldn't have. Actually, his mouth was agape. "What, how'd you know?! Is there a spying spell or something?" 

Siren lifted her head to raise her eyebrows at him in mockery. "Perhaps you should brush up on your geopolitics, princeling," she said, "That was, by far, the most predictable plot they could have engineered for that dinner party." Laurel felt his cheeks warm up and threw himself back on the couch. "No way. That was really out of left field. And random. A Duchess from some corner of the Lunar Bay?" Somehow, he couldn't seem to wipe the smirk off Siren's face, but at least he had her undivided attention in moments like these. "Isn't that the point? You get no substantial advantages but a faint tie to our country. And, you know… Every noble here is crazy for Ashen wine. We don't grow coffee either," Siren shrugged, "A bad deal for a crown prince, but a great one for them."

"You talk as if I should have predicted that," he said, averting his eyes. "You should have. For someone who, if I recall my dates well, will be king in a year, you're surprisingly uninformed," Siren replied, still looking triumphant. When it seemed like her words were about to make him feel insufficient, he saw a crack within them. "I think your worldview is warped," he said, walking over to her desk to rest his hands on it as he bent over in her direction; "It feels like you have sat here reading everything there is to read for so long that you don't know what's common knowledge anymore and what isn't." She staggered, forcing her back against her chair as if repulsed by his proximity. "It's not about me. It's about the fact that you have had all the free time and resources to study…" she started, but he cut her off: "No. Well, yeah. True. But you're minimizing yourself. You know more than you think you do."

Again, she took a while to answer: "Even then, there's much more information available to me than most people will ever dream of having." He smiled, happy to see her cowering like that. "But you interpret it. And you're able to put it into words that even some princeling like me can understand," he paused, staring right into her eyes; her pupils were quite contracted. "So… don't," he said. When all was said and done, they were gazing at each other with full attention, closer than usual. Though he'd been brave enough to back Siren up into a corner like that moments earlier, Laurel then felt his throat tighten, rendering him a bit out of breath. The room itself felt off. They didn't move for a while; Siren seemed as stunned as he'd been before. Finally, she cracked the ice: "Shut up. Flattery will get you nowhere." Just like that, she was back to work. That should be his cue as well.

In the past handful of days, he’d gotten his harnessing and transferring stable enough to make Siren proud. Though it tired him out pretty easily, he’d realized the small gesture of making and fueling fairy lights for her made him happy; he’d look at her gingerly and notice she was smiling in thanks. That was enough to motivate him to keep reading and learn something new. So, after he’d recovered from their tense conversation, he spoke up again: “Well… I could use a book recommendation from you at this point, I think.” It was easy to get her attention with such a request; “Sure. What were you thinking of?” Fortunately, he’d thought about it further. “I was thinking that that thing Wyvern did to keep us warm during the Solstice celebration was pretty cool,” he said. 

Siren got up, knocking on her desk with her knuckles for a bit. “That stems from basic thermodynamics… Which would be the principle of many other more advanced spells,” she talked as she walked out, Laurel in tow. “So it would, in fact, be useful. As for Wyves… She does that every year. It’s easy, except for the scale of the area she maintains.” She scanned the bookshelves, pacing slowly with her index finger tapping her chin. “Of course, the heat is transferred from elsewhere. So, an area that big… you were inside it, but if you’d been immediately outside, you’d have noticed how cold it was.” She handed him two books and, considering that she was seemingly done with talking, he felt free to speak: “Isn’t that a little inconsiderate of her then?” Siren dismissed the concern with a wave of her hand as she headed back to the office. “Mm, I’m pretty sure she forces the heat against its natural flow, transferring it down from above. When I said you’d have felt it if you were in that area, I meant hypothetically.”

Office doors securely shut, they both sat back down and got to it. During Laurel's reading session, someone knocked at the door. It was a person in white-ish attire motioning for Siren to come with. It was a bit of a regular occurrence and he’d come to expect it; still, being alone in the office during those moments felt weirdly depressing. She'd never taken too long to come back though, stretching her arms and hands out before going back to work.