Doves and Peacocks

On the evening of the trials, Titanio arrived home—without the guards—well before Ruthenia had finished up with the reporters. An hour later, when he had settled into his favourite armchair with his first stack of paperwork, he heard an equine land on the work shed's patio.

He knew the voice of Ruthenia, of course, but the other he now recognised as that of the Arcane Prince, Aleigh Luzerno, after many evenings by the radio and a conversation at the courthouse where he had assured Tanio he would get her home.

But it was not ten minutes later that the beast once again fluttered away in a haste, and left Ruthenia screaming out a plea to Ihir, so keenly anguished that at once, Tanio feared for what had transpired inside, and at the same time suspected he should not press her about it (he was getting better at telling when to mind his own business).

But then, Ruth looked absent and confused all evening, and summarily ignored his subtler questions about her state of mind. It took a world of patience not to push for an explanation for her disorientation. She will tell me once she's ready, he thought, and simply resolved to make himself available to her.

But sure as the sun rose, Ruthenia never mentioned that evening again, nor her troubles, or really anything that did not directly concern work or home.

Now and then, sitting in his armchair, Titanio wondered if he was too pushy, too grating, too much the kind of person she didn't need. But then he reminded himself she was hell-bent on self-sufficiency, and didn't like to be helped.

Or perhaps it was all of the above.

Whatever the case, he only saw her life in snapshots. They discussed the news over dinner, and the funding opportunities that had come their way. He knew she went to machine building because he was there. And he knew she attended Hollia's party because he dropped her off at it.

That last happening proved to be what pushed Titanio to finally declare he would buy Ruthenia a new flight mount, whether she liked it or not.

“Are you serious about getting another umbrella?” he asked.

Seemingly without having to think, Ruthenia nodded. “I don’t fancy relearning how to fly. If I just get another of the same kind, it'll get me back to where I was sooner. Or whatever.”

The “or whatever” was all the affirmation he needed. Within three days, he had sourced out a new umbrella from a maker in Helika, at Eldon's recommendation. Rather than orange—he supposed she might want a change from the old one, and more importantly, the shop did not stock orange—he opted for a deep brown, almost black, trimmed in gold, because she seemed to have a predilection for those colours.

On the day Titanio handed it to Ruthenia, there was no special fanfare to it. She saw the package, half-unwrapped, on his coffee table, and smiled in an odd way, a way that told him she was trying very hard not to smile.

“Is that the umbrella?” she asked, with an attempt at nonchalance.

“The one and only,” Titanio declared, and from the way her eyes would not leave it after it had entered her hands, he could only assume she was pleased.

Once Ruthenia had the umbrella, Titanio noticed her staying out later and later after school.

None of my business, he thought resolutely, but he did stop her at the bottom of his stairs the night she returned past her usual bedtime. “More parties?” he said, then to soften the question, “Your social life must be thriving right now.”

And perhaps the wording had been clumsy, because she growled, “I'm not partying every night.”

“Fair, fair. Then whatever are you up to?”

At this query, her eyes darted away in panicked thought for a second, and then she shot back, “Nothing that concerns you.”

“Well, I wouldn't say I'm concerned, but—” He was concerned—but stay calm, Titanio, she will tell you when she's ready. “But don't mind me if I am curious... The pattern of your comings and goings has changed a bit.”

“Ugh, why do you keep track of that?”

“Well.” Titanio had long scraped the bottom of the barrel of ways to verbalise care, and none of them had ever quite worked. Instead, he finally told the truth. “Ever since two weeks ago, when I heard you screaming when your, er, friend left, I have been wondering if all was well.”

Ruthenia stared for a while, seeming to debate herself on whether to dignify him with a response. Then, finally, she said, “And I'm saying, knowing you care about me, that nothing's going on that should worry you. I promise.”

She was an easy person to read, and if he couldn't read her now, it was because she, too, didn't know what she felt. Titanio smiled through a sigh. “I take your word for it. But remember...if anyone has hurt you, I'm going to have some very strong words for them.”

To his surprise, Ruthenia laughed. “Nothing like that,” she said. “But that means a lot to hear. Thanks.”

That was about all he got, before she vanished back across the bridge, to her distant corner of the property.

That had happened last week. The next time Titanio had poked his head into Ruthenia's shed, he had noticed an odd lack of a mess. And without that mess, he had noticed that her windows had brand new curtains.

These weren't like the moth bitten set he had brought her from his parents' attic: they were proper, dark velvet, enough to blot out the sunlight well into morning, and decidedly much fancier than anything else in that shed.

It was only seconds later that he was reminded of Ruthenia being right in front of him when she burst out, “Hey, quit staring!”

Before he had realised he was being shoved away, the door had been slammed in his face.

Ah, of course. I see.

He mused on this revelation all the way to his house. He had assumed a particular narrative of that scene on her patio, but perhaps it had been misconfigured. Who knew what had really happened in her shed that day?

Well, she did. But she wasn't talking, and water was wet. And he wasn't about to pry. (See? He was getting better at this.)

Then, Aleigh showed up at work. Unannounced, without warning, at Eldon's mansion, on a day he hadn't even realised the Arcane Prince knew they were there.

It was the last stitch that pulled the weaving together. All those signs from before, Ruthenia's dazedness, the gifts, and the excessive number of favours they had done each other, had in fact built up to something.

However, it did still surprise him that Ruth had cast such a spell over the poor Arcane Prince that her mere proximity was reason enough for him to detour to visit.

He hadn't had any strong opinion of Aleigh before Ruthenia's association with him, other than knowing he was the Arcane King's reclusive brother. Then Ruth had gotten in situations with the royal—a never-ending roster of them, really. And confronted with the possibility she might actually be interested in him, Tanio had wondered less about whether they were a good fit, and more about whether he understood his own ward at all.

Now, watching Prince Aleigh make excuses for his presence at the dining table, eyes darting every few seconds to his ward, Titanio saw with his own eyes that the young man was well and truly in love with her, and doing his best to preserve the secret of their intimacy—perhaps for her sake.

There was a certain conscientiousness about this gesture that at once brought him face to face with the fact of the matter: he didn't know anything about anyone, ever.

Ruthenia and Aleigh left lunch together—with a little urging from him, of course—and by the time the rest of the team went to the deck to part ways, the pair were long gone.

Right then, from seemingly nowhere, the immensity of his rue descended on him—at how little he understood about having a teen in his care. How close they felt at times, and how completely invisible at others.

There was a world of things in Ruthenia's life that he might never be privy to. Oh, Ruth, will you actually ever tell me anything?

But that was—and this was the hardest part to learn—not his choice to make. If she felt safer with her secrets, then she deserved that safety.

But wouldn't it be nice, he thought, to be able to care in the way he wanted to?