Brayandli had no immediate reply, in truth he didn’t really know what to think. No one outside of the clan behaved this way towards him; no one inside the clan behaved this way, even. When meeting other nobles his age it was all putting on airs and giving each other bows, polite small talk and passing pleasantries from behind fans hidden in gilded sleeves. Taowren’s not-quite-catty expression slowly grew into a genuine smile.

“I’m taking your silence as a yes, so say no now or forever hold your peace!” Brayandli still had no words; Taowren beamed and repeated the word a few times under his breath. “Brandy, Brandy, rhymes with candy. Much easier to say than Brayandli. Breh-ah-nn-deh-lee.”

“Do you not like your own name…?” Brayandli asked after a while. “Is that why everyone calls you Taown?”

“What? No, of course I like my name—I picked-d it m’self!” Taowren slurred. He waved his hand dismissively but in his drunken state this sent him off balance and he stumbled. Brayandli caught him by the shoulder and had no time to ponder on if choosing one’s own name was another Mohan custom that he had never heard of before. “But ever since I was Taowren, my mother always shor’ened it to Taown… unless she was angry, so… everyone calls me Ta-ow-n.”

              Brayandli, beautiful as he may be, was not good with words, or people, at the best of times; and Taowren was a particularly difficult person for him to get his head around. This wild boy was also drunk. The Okan heir was completely out of his depth in this kind of situation. So, allowing the befuddled young man lean into him, Brayandli watched Taowren belligerently squint at the road in front of them for a few minutes, before deciding that he had to take the only action he knew how to; by being a gentleman and seeing this inebriated person to bed.

              “I will walk you back,” said Brayandli.

“Do I look like a young-g maiden lost in the woods to you…?” Taowren countered waggishly. However, when Brayandli started to walk Taowren did obediently stumble along beside him, his eyes raptly focused on the taller youth’s boots. They were fine, pale leather. Not so much as a single scuff on them. Taowren rallied all his willpower to continue putting one foot in front of the other. To trip over now – or worse, to expel the remnants of the sour wine from his stomach – in front of this particular person? Taowren couldn’t even let himself consider it.

              Brayandli stoically lead the way, but it was not without a sidelong glance or three. Although he had not said anything aloud, Brayandli was more than a little curious about this speckled, loud mouthed, confusing creature.

“You were not here at the last summit,” Brayandli said after a few minutes.

“Nope. I was, uh, not well.” Taowren sang back, eyes focusing and refocusing as he tried to work out if it was one tree or three at the edge of a gentle curve in the path up ahead. “This is my first time up north.”

              “Do….” Brayandli was not good at small talk, but he did try. “…You like it here?” Taowren thought about it for a beat.

“The town’s nice, but up the mountains here…I don’t know. It’s strange. I don’t hate it; it’s far bigger than the Nightingale manor—that’s good, home’s so dull,” Taowren shook his head aggressively because the tree—or trees—he was seeing kept shifting, “but here, I can’t seem to sleep at all. Dunno why.”

“You cannot sleep?” Brayandli’s eyes widened.

“It’s too…” Taowren looked up at the sky. Stars glittered on a cloudless night. The earlier words of Nianhe and Asok rang in his ears. The Gift? Nope. He didn’t want to think about or consider that. “…It’s too quiet…? Loud? Whatever. And it’s cold at night, even though it’s s-summer-r. Yeah, that’s it. It’s too cold up here. I’m freezing all night. Too cold to sleep. Must be it.”

“Is it really that cold..?” Brayandli had never left the Okan province in his eighteen years of life. He had nothing to compare his experience of living here to. On a cool clear night like tonight, Brayandli was wearing nothing but a light sleeveless tunic, with slit sides that ran up to the sash around his waist, along with a pair of thin lightweight trousers, and he didn’t feel the cold in the least. However, he also knew that you would not have to go much further up the mountain to find places that would gleam with frost in the dawn’s first light.

“Yeah...? I don’t know…” Taowren rubbed his temples. “Urgh. Sorry, I can’t think. My brain isn’t working. I’m—I’m-m not normally this much of a lightweight—Tomar gave me his stupid herbs and I think it’s all gone to my head-d….“

“Smoking is prohibited—“ The blessed eyes of this innocent lordling were so wide, Taowren almost felt a little guilty; it was a rare feeling for him.

              “In your province, yeah, yeah-h, I know.” Taowren hiccupped, “But-t don’t worry, Brandy. I couldn’t even smoke any of it, those herbs were so bad, so it doesn’t count, right? Ah, why does anyone smoke? Foulest thing I’ve ever put in my mouth! And have you met my cousin, Tomar? You have—I know-w you have. His temper is so bad, at home everyone calls him the Nightingale’s Sour Plum, you know that? So, I don’t think those herbs even work-k.”

Brayandli’s expression was growing more complicated with every garbled word that came out of Taowren’s mouth. Never had anyone broken the rules and spoke about it to him with such nonchalance. However, he couldn’t help but agree. Brayandli and Tomar had met one another repeatedly at the Triennial Summer Summits throughout their childhood and teenage years. Tomar’s face was thinner than paper, whereas Brayandli was as stoic as hardwood or ice on a stream mid-winter. They were acquainted but in no ways were close or friends. He chose his next words carefully.

“…Tomar Nightingale does often look like a dog that has swallowed a wasp,” he said delicately. “But who is to say that he wouldn’t swallow a hornet without his hashish?”

              Taowren gave this reserved elfin looking creature a surprised glance, then burst out laughing, bending over and slapping his thigh as his cackles echoed through the gardens. After a wheeze and a hiccup, his hooting stopped as suddenly as it started and he remained bent over a few seconds more, willing himself not to ruin Brayandli’s shoes. With a herculean effort Taowren straightened back up to see what may have been a flash of a smile flit from Brandy’s face.

Taowren gazed up at him curiously. After his cousin’s repeated disparaging comments, the last thing Taowren had been expecting from this reserved young man was such poetic wit. He took an unsteady step towards him, his wide and genuine smile back on his face.

              “So-o, you’re walking me back?” Without waiting for an answer, Taowren looped his arm through Brayandli’s, gripping his own wrist with his other hand to prevent escape. Brayandli immediately stiffened at the unexpected contact but made no attempt to remove himself from this overly familiar posture. It seemed Brayandli was not as thin-skinned and sensitive as Tomar, who would have pulled away with a murderous scowl should anyone dare touch his arm. Taowren felt a warmth blossom in his chest that he could not place, but he was sure it wasn’t just the wine.

“With your permission, I should be glad to.” Brayandli bowed his head slightly, dignity firmly back in place.

“And can I call you Brandy?’ Taowren shot back.

“I… If you… If that is your wish?”

“It is. I do want to. No take backs!”

              The unlikely pair walked through the dark; one person’s movements were elegant and measured, while the other’s were jaunty and forever shifting, like a pair of dancers moving to different music. Brayandli did his best to keep Taowren upright and moving at least vaguely in the right direction, but they had not gone more than a few hundred yards before Taowren began to feel his decisions catching up with him.

“Are you okay…? You look pale.”

“You can talk... I…think-k I’m… I’m-m going to be…”

              Taowren doubled over and fell down. Hands and knees in the dirt as his throat filled with bile, he crawled blindly to the edge of the path. There he found himself in the singularly unique position of having Brayandli Okan, Heir to the Okan Clan, son of Lord Balin, the Field Marshal of the Fourth Poacher’s War, holding his hair back from his face as he violently vomited into the flowerbeds. His stomach lurched repeatedly, forcing the bitter dregs of his earlier overindulgence into the immaculately manicured shrubbery, hacking and coughing until both his stomach and lungs were raw and stinging. Water in his eyes, Taowren squinted up at the taller youth who was very gently patting his back. Abashment coloured Taowren’s cheeks more brightly than any amount of alcohol ever could.

“…Sorry…” Taowren croaked. “I… I’m sorry. For this.” Taowren was not the type of person who often felt embarrassed, but this—this was not a chivalrous intervention to defend a girl’s honour, nor was it needling his cousin for making an intolerant comment. He was drunk beyond sensibility in front of his elegant young host—Brayandli had probably never even tasted alcohol, let alone seen a peer this horribly disoriented! The Gods only knew what Brayandli thought of him now. Shame burned more than his throat did. Oh, how Taowren wanted to yell at himself!

“It is fine,” Brayandli hummed back, serene as one could be while holding another person’s hair back as the vigorously threw up their guts. Taowren decided to take the reply to heart, otherwise he was going to spend the next week with a rock in his stomach thinking about it. Brayandli didn’t seem like the type to lie. “Do you feel better?”

              Better or worse, what Taowren really felt now was the strong urge to curl up and sleep. Throwing up was exhausting. He pushed up onto his knees but made no further effort to stand. Glassy eyed, he wobbled where he knelt back and rubbed his face with both hands. Brayandli straightened up and judiciously gazed around the moonlit gardens to allow the boy to compose himself. The skies at this altitude were clear as glass, and the silvery light of the moon bathed the entire residence in its cool glow. Thousands of stars pinpricked the inky darkness above them, punctuated by the occasional streak of a piece of the heavens falling to earth. He did not say a word until he felt the weight of Taowren’s shoulder against his booted leg. Looking down, Brayandli blinked twice.

“Taowren?” Brayandli asked in a voice barely above a whisper. Taowren’s half-lidded eyes were glassy and bloodshot, but his breathing was deep, regular and slow. The disreputable fool had passed out right in the middle of the dimly lit street. Had he been awake, he may have wondered once more if he had seen a flicker of a smile, or if had just been a trick of the light of a falling star.