“There’s nothing to pardon,” he says, polite but bemused. Her tongue reminds him of some of the ancient texts he dug up in the library. Easily translatable to the common tongue but, to be honest, it takes him a second or two to process her sentences. “I’m the rude one, snooping around and learning about strangers without introducing myself.” He shrugs his wings, not at all apologetic. Mateo liked to know who was who in his court, especially in the Regent’s absence, and he didn’t see anything wrong with that. It wasn’t like he was some scoundrel selling information on the black market. The citizens of Delumine were like the threads in a great tapestry. Mateo was not interested in the big picture so much as the details– the color, thickness, and composition of each thread, and the details of how each was woven with the others. He wanted to know their faces, names, stories, and to paint them in song the way an artist would with paintbrush and palette.
He gets a little sidetracked, thinking of colors and songs, and by extension scents and textures and feelings, all his senses blurring together like the haze that cradles them, the blur only broken by the distinct image of Maerys’ pale body.
To his wonder, she speaks of a blessing. A blessing!
Most citizens of Dawn Court didn’t speak like that. Many didn’t believe in luck, let alone blessings– they were too focused on logic, science, philosophy. Narrow-minded fools! It never failed to rankle him how knowledge and faith were considered separate and even opposing things. “A blessing indeed,” he says softly, letting the word blessing fill his heart with gratitude for his kingdom, this moment, and the consistency of the dawn. “Praise Oriens,” he says so softly it is not clear if he intends for the words to be heard or not.
(“The sun will always rise again,” his mother would tell him after sunset when he grew wild with fear. “How do you know?” He asked. “I believe,” she said, and something in the way she spoke– the calm knowing in her voice or the plain peaceful look on her face– something cause him to believe, too. And he never stopped.)
“You don’t speak like anyone I’ve heard before.” He frowns because he does not like not knowing things, but there is a joyful spark of curiosity on his features to overcome it– everything he does not know presents an opportunity to learn, and he did so love learning. “Where are you from?” He instinctively leans toward her in interest. The fog wraps around both of them, as though it senses the ripening day and searches for something, anything to anchor to. Step by step they part the misty curtain as they walk, although Mateo, lost to his intrigue, is completely heedless to where they are going.
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@Maerys hi I love her <3
