Tomar didn’t know the answer, so he just grunted as the three walked through a final moon gate and out of the ornate gardens. Now they were in the main section of the Okan Keep’s grounds, with gravel paths wide enough for two bulls to race through stretching out in three directions from them.
Not far ahead of them, a lone white-haired youth was approaching. Taowren squinted, shading his eyes against the late afternoon sun. Even at this distance, the newcomer’s eyes were remarkably visible - such a pale shade of blue they were virtually silver. He was tall and elegant, not as skinny as Willow but there was a similarity in the cast of their long limbs and the way they held themselves. However, what Taowren really noticed as he approached was his face; all smooth angles and high cheekbones, it was truly exceptional. In the corner beneath his right eye was a small dark beauty mark, another just to the left of his pale lower lip. This person’s attention was not on the three in front of him as he approached, but somewhere else, as if he was drifting silently through his own world with his gaze fixed straight in front of him.
Taowren stared unabashedly at this elfin-looking young man as he passed the trio unhurriedly, taking in his thick white hair pulled back into a loose low bun and his pale bare arms hanging straight at his sides. Thinking he looked like a being from one of his mother’s fairy tales about elves and fae that she had told him as a child, Taowren gripped Tomei’s arm with one hand and pointed at the retreating figure with the other.
“Who’s that?” Taowren hissed, a little louder than intended.
“Oh, that’s Brayandli,” Tomei hummed.
“That’s Brayandli?” Taowren whipped his head around to look at Tomei, his loose hair furling about his shoulders. Tomei nodded once. Taowren’s head turned back and a smile broke over his face, because that person turned towards the sound of his voice. Whoever this pretty boy was had now spotted the three Nightingale clan disciples he had just ghosted passed and, blinking in surprise, turned to face them.
“Young Master Brayandli! I hope we have not disturbed you.” Tomar stated pointedly and bowed deep, yanking on Taowren’s sleeve to get him to follow his lead. However he was ignore, for Taowren’s attention was lost ogling the blue-and-lilac robed lordling with the kind of interest that made Tomar audibly grind his teeth. Had anyone paid Tomar a glance, they would have seen his face silently saying: oh, great. Here we fucking go.
“Good afternoon, Honorable Brayandli,” Tomei murmured as she too bowed politely in greeting. Taowren, meanwhile, simply continued to openly ogle.
“Tomei, you weren’t kidding when you said he was handsome!” Taowren blurted with bright eyes entirely locked onto Brayandli as he said, “I’m a man but I wouldn’t say no to doing the three marriage bows if it meant having a husband with a face as exquisite as yours!”
Tomar made a strangled noise, his face having already twisted into its famous Sour Plum expression while Tomei was nervously laughing behind her folding fan, her face flushed from cheek to temple.
"What did I literally just say to you?" Hissed Tomar in a low voice, sharply smacking Taowren on the back of the head, before turning to the tall willowy youth before him. “Brayandli, apologies. This is my cousin, Taowren, he’s uh… Well…”
“What? It was a compliment.” Taowren interjected, rubbing his head. Even the blow had not removed his gaze from the figure in front of him.
Whilst Taowren always had half the mind to wind up his straight-laced cousin with such comments, in that moment he had, in truth, simply uttered his personal thoughts out loud. The young man standing in front of him really was exquisite to look at.
His face could have been chiselled from marble, Taowren thought to himself. His eyes would have been painted by the Gods themselves. As with all those of his heritage, he looked perfectly and ethereally wolfish. His tell-tale wolf eyes were sharp, with long white lashes encircling them. Truly, a gift from the Heavens—no wonder he is Gifted, ha!
“Don’t take everything I say so seriously, Tomo!”
Plus, he doesn’t seem even slightly offended anyway.
But it didn’t hurt to curb one’s behaviour—just in case. No sense making enemies out of someone so pretty you could stare at them for hours without experiencing boredom.
“No offence meant, Young Master Brayandli,” Taowren even remembered to bow to a proper depth. “I’m Taowren, but everyone calls me Taown.” However, this was as far as Taowren’s attention span for proper etiquette and introductions ever went. So, unthinkingly, and with the same naive enthusiasm he brought to every situation, Taowren stuck his right hand out in greeting.
Beside him, Tomar loudly groaned for probably the hundredth time that day. Brayandli’s expression remained placid, but he tilted his head to one side at the hand in confusion.
“Taowren? I do not believe we have met before,” Brayandli’s voice was as tranquil as morning dew. He politely bobbed his head at all three of them; all the while his pale eyes stared down at the outstretched hand as if he had never seen this kind of bodily appendage before in his life, “…Um…”
"Don't you teach your servants any manners, Tomar?" An unfamiliar voice drawled in. A slender youth approached from the right-hand fork in the wide road. His hair was coal black and loosely curled around his face, with skin pale as jasmine petals and as unblemished as a babe’s, but what stood out most were his sharp green eyes. They slid from one individual to the next, drinking in everyone’s faces slowly, before landing on Taowren’s and beginning to narrow in immediate dislike.
“Young Master Yan," Tomar stood straighter as he took the boy in. Taowren noticed his cousin did not offer this youth the honour of a bow. Evidently this was not a person Tomar got along with. “He's not a servant, he's my cousin, Taowren. Taown, this is Yan of the Hanlen clan, from the Iron Lands.”
Yan was a handsome-looking young man of a height with Tomar, putting him a head and shoulders below the silver-haired Brayandli. A hand flicked back a loose black ringlet that fell down over his shoulders, while his foot tapped on the ground. Eyes fixed on Taowren’s freckled and piercing-adorned face, Yan’s lips twisted before he spoke.
"Taowren?" He rolled the word on his tongue as if it tasted bad, "A cousin? You've never introduced us before, Tomar. With a name like that, I would remember.” Yan strode forward and thrust his face insolently close to Taowren’s as if to examine him like an overpriced mule. His eyes did not seem to like what they found, lingering on the tell-tale Mohan-made rings in Taowren’s nose and lips, squinting at the sacred tusk in his septum.
Taowren pulled his face back, hearing the insult in the other’s words. Male names ending in ‘wren’ were common among the Mohan tribes. As travelling nomads of the commoner class, who were displaced from their original homeland some several centuries back, it was not uncommon for members of the noble class to feel the tribes were inferior to the great clans of Turo. Less commonplace but still whispered about were those who felt the nomads were parasites stealing from their own rightful lands. Evidently, this green-eyed young lordling was among them.
“Taown’s health has been very fragile until recently, this is his first time outside of our clan’s province." Tomar promptly inserted himself between the two, sensing the same string of tension rising. Hearing these words, Brayandli’s head tilted to the other side. Taowren was many things, but he certainly didn’t look or act the least bit fragile—from the mischief in his smile to the confident sparks in his eyes, Taowren was the very picture of energetic and healthy.
“Oh? Well, if he is so ill of health, what are you doing letting him be so familiar with my honourable cousin? Do you wish for him to contract whatever skin disease afflicts your own?” Yan twisted his pale green eyes to look at Brayandli as he flicked a hand at Taowren’s freckled face, their glint seeming to say the two were somehow allies against this overly friendly sprout. Taowren bristled and went to move forward, but Tomar’s hand gripped his bicep.
Abruptly, Brayandli’s perplexed gaze closed off. His phoenix brows pinched slightly, forming something that was almost, but not entirely, a frown. Brayandli turned his attention fully to Taowren, all but ignoring his cousin.
"What am I supposed to do?" Brayandli delicately pointed to the still outstretched freckled hand. "Is this a... Mohan way of greeting?"
"Oh!” It had never occurred to Taowren that people didn't know how this greeting worked, as shaking hands seemed like the most natural thing in the world to him, “Yes, it is! It’s similar to a warrior’s greeting. We shake hands though, not wrists, like this."
Taowren took Brayandli’s large hand in his much smaller freckled one, and shook it thrice with a firm grip. The pretty young man said nothing but let him do it, his own grip as light as a hummingbird’s wing. Taowren grinned as he continued to take in Brayandli’s exceptional face, whilst the elegant youth returned the stare, his pale eyes lightly following the trail of glinting piercings across Taowren’s face. However, as Taowren released him, Brayandli’s hand snapped back to his side so stiffly he could have sworn he heard the taller boy’s joints crackle.
Yan stood to the side of the pair, attempting to glower past Tomar, who was still partially blocking his view of Taowren. The look on his face made it seem as if the interaction had personally offended him, his clan, and his ancestors, but Taowren wouldn’t have noticed even if he had been banging a gong and shouting bloody curses. Brayandli’s silver eyes cast a look at his cousin, and then back to the freckled youth still smiling at him, his own expression unreadable. Yan opened his mouth as if to say something, but was cut off by Brayandli’s next words.
“It is good to meet you, Taowren,” Brayandli bowed deeply, but his posture remained as stiff as a brand new calligraphy brush. Taowren actually felt the air pressure shift around him as his head came back up, “and to see you again, Tomar, Tomei, Yan. I have tasks to attend to now, but I will see you all at the welcome feast tonight.” Without another word he turned on a wooden heel and, with immaculate posture, walked away as quickly as his long slender legs could carry him.
Yan harrumphed and immediately called after Brayandli, loudly bellowing: “Hey, Brayandli! My dearest cousin, wait!”
“…I think you offended him." Tomar groaned, pinching his temples with one hand.
“I can’t believe you actually got Brayandli to shake your hand…” Tomei murmured, fan hiding her face once more.
"Of course he offended him! My cousin is a noble heir, not some common traveller!” Yan sneered over his shoulder as he stormed after Brayandli, "Hey, Brayandli, didn't you hear me? I wasn’t finished talking to you…!”
Yan’s voice trailed off into the distance and Taowren watched him go, frowning. He didn’t think Brayandli seemed offended at all, and besides, it was just a handshake. It wasn’t like Taowren had kissed him on the open mouth or slapped him on the backside out of nowhere, was it? The Okan heir had even asked how to do the handshake. As for that Yan person… he was the one who seemed offended.
"What's his problem?" Taowren asked, pointing at the disappearing pair. Brayandli’s pace was unmatchable and he vanished over the slope of the hill long before Yan could catch him.
"Brayandli?" Tomei let out a heartfelt sigh, “He's always been like that—a lone wolf, pardon the pun. He always leaves whenever a crowd starts to form. It would be quite mysterious and romantic if he wasn't so stiff and proper all the time.”
What she didn’t add was that no-one, or at least certainly none of the girls she knew who admired him from afar, had ever dared try and touch his hand before. That was far too personal for the Okan Clan! Brayandli, especially, was renowned for disliking the touch of others! The Okan heir famously refused to partake in any dances at even his family’s banquets for that very reason. But…Taowren was Taowren; he was not a girl, and he gave no thought to unspoken rules or class etiquette. Taowren was overly familiar with anyone and everyone.
“Mysterious and romantic? Yeah, right. He’s just an unsociable recluse,” grunted Tomar. “He probably doesn’t want anyone to realise how boring he is. The Gods only know what will happen to the Okan Clan when he becomes Lord.”
"No, no, not the Pretty Boy. The other one—“ Taowren started to say, but Tomar sharply waved a hand to stop him and pulled his cousin close by Taowren’s collar.
“That's Yan Hanlen, the youngest son of the Lord of the Iron Lands,” his cousin muttered, voice low as if others would overhear, “Best just avoid him all together, Taown.” Tomar was Sour Plum-ing once more as he added, “His mother is from Eistorna, and she's a traditionalist. He takes after her a lot. He’s also… Spoiled.”
Taowren recalled one of the few pieces of history he had bothered to learn - Eistorna had once been the neighbouring country to Mohani, the ancestral home of the Mohan Tribes. However, the Eistornians had invaded Mohan some centuries back and annexed it and it’s people. Mohani had been swallowed and become part of Eistorna, whilst its native people had been either massacred or displaced and scattered across the realm. Even now, it was commonplace for Eistornians to consider Mohan people a third-class. Tensions between the two people remained high.
Taowren nodded, needing no further explanation.
“Let’s head back,” Tomei said, with a dismayed shake of her head. Yan was considered one of the top five men in terms of looks among their generation of noble lordlings, but she could not approve of the way he treated certain races and classes of folk. In her mind, it struck him off completely from her list of potential suitors. “I’ll explain the rest of the clans on the way, you’ll meet most of them at dinner.”
“Sure,” Taowren stretched his arms up behind his head before setting off towards their quarters. “I hope the food is good. I’m starving. Can I choose my own seat? I don’t want to be anywhere near Yan but I’d happily sit with Brayandli. Can we sit on his table? I bet he’d like to practise shaking hands again.” And if not, well, Taowren would be just as happy ogling at that pretty face some more.
Tomar put his face in his hands. This was going to be the longest summer of his life.
Comments (0)
See all