Basile had thought making Imogen fall in love with him would be simple. She had seemed rather simple at the time.

He was mistaken.

Imogen had a line of potential suitors, all avonic royalty, that he had to get behind. Furthermore, there were rules involved in courting ava women that Basile had no idea about.

Some avonic men would court a single women for months. Years, even. Basile did not have that sort of time and this seemed like quite a bit of effort to be putting in to a potential relationship that was a sham.

Still.

Saros bid him to try so he would at least try.

"Why don't you ask Odalis." This was the emperor speaking, who Basile had gone to as a last resort. His uncle, dressed down to his night robes while working in one of the private study's, was more than willing to assist Basile in his escapades. Basile knew it would look good for the imperial dev family and the imperial ava family to form an alliance, especially with the threat of secession on the horizon.

"She spent a summer on Arcadia during our academy days."

###

It had been a few weeks since Imogen had been ambushed and nearly kidnapped in the black of space. Now she clung to her storm in the Scintillan palace after court has been let out. Her adviser was reviewing the schedule when one of her women made a disgruntled sound.

"You may not come any closer."

Imogen looked up, surprised to see Basile approaching her with his own company in tow. While Demian snarled at her feury, Basile apologized, leaning down so that she could hear him better while he explained his purpose.

Imogen had been charmed when they first met, though that had a lot more to do with Basile saving her and her crew than her feeling any sort of way about him. He was just a dev, after all.

The feury's eventually parted and Basile came before her. Her adviser gave a nervous glance between them but Imogen only raised her chin. Here she had no reason to bow to him.

To her surprise, it was Basile who bowed, however subtle it was, before producing a roll of fabric that Imogen recognized at once to be an avonic poetry scroll.

"My aunt spent a summer on Arcadia," Basile explained in his soft, dark voice, "She let me survey her collection of poetry and I was allowed to take one. I thought," and Imogen could have sworn he was blushing or at least flustered, "that you might like this one." As soon as she took it from his hands he was gone, a swirl of dark robes and furs.

Her adviser fixed their glasses, eyeing the scroll. Her feury's had the decency to wait for him to round the corner before they came down upon Imogen with a flurry of questions.

"Was that a courting gift? Is he trying to court you?"

"He doesn't have permission to court our lady!"

"Who would he ask for permission?"

"I would never have expected such an act from a dev, especially that dev! He's military, isn't he? A brute?"

Imogen felt heat raise in her face, delicately opening the scroll and observing its contents. It wasn't a love poem, it was, in fact, a poem about a battle so devastating that the sea went red with gore. And in the end, the hero, in this tale it is an feury women, returns to her husband and he washes the blood from her feathers only to find that the blood is her own and that she is dying in his arms.

"Oh gods how awful!" One of the feury's says but Imogen's heart is pounding. Because of course a dev, especially that dev, would give her a poem about war given the circumstances of their meeting and the current impending secession of Arcadia from the devonic empire. Because of course a military man wouldn't care about flowers and perfume and all the pretty things associated with love.

"I think it's charming." Imogen says, rolling the scroll back up. The others gasp and her adviser shakes their head but Imogen cannot stop herself from smiling.