At the base of the tree, Thomas imagined himself in youth, and what a marvelous affair he might have partaken in beneath these branches. Running aimless trails across course bark, he dreamed of taking a blade to this, of carving a mark for his lover into its eternal trunk. If his had not been so carelessly spurned, Thomas still might have, as though leaving part of Kita scattered across the globe could free him of carrying the weight of his absence instead.
A voice chirped out across the silent night air, startling him from such heavy dreams. Turning his eyes up to the stars, Thomas blinked a moment, certain that a spectral being - a force of the cosmos - was answering his questions as last. Yet there, within the shrouded branches, which bent beneath their own grief of existence, was a more mortal form.Â
âAthena,â he inbreathed, voice lost to the night wind. âI did not⌠You came.â
It was an unrefined thing, to marvel. To stutter, even, stumbling over words as though oneâs thoughts were not effortlessly composed. But with good fortune an unfamiliar friend, any such luck seemed a magnificent thing. At her behest, he wrangled free from the earth beneath, grappling with the treeâs sloping curves. His limbs felt rigid and lumbering, for he had been a child when he last climbed with such disregard.Â
With more effort than anticipated, Thomas balanced his weight atop a sturdy branch, laughing with the youthful joy of abandon, of peculiarity. He enjoyed the oddness of it, the strangeness of her presence.Â
âI hold some qualms regarding your clue,â he caught his breath, smoothing the linen of his shirt. âAs it offered no true indication of time, or of yourâŚunique position. Now surely you think me mad, for cursing the fates aloud while alone in a public garden.â
Settled at last, Thomas looked upon her, lingering at the loveliness of such a visage. He was certain his lips were parted, as though caught in speech, yet they stretched a silence backed by leaves scratching night air. âYou are either unchaste or audacious to have agreed to an unsupervised meeting with a stranger this late in the eve,â Thomas remarked, head tilting in speculation. âI should think you the latter, though, for you would not even take my arm at the tavern. Though, perhaps that is wishful thinking. My intentions, I assure you, are true - with only the aspiration to know you further. And, if you should feel inclined, with doubt to my honor, one good push would leave me rather incapacitated, my lady.â
Thomas glanced below, unsteady at the sight, and found himself committed to remaining upright for the evening. Turning his eyes back to her face, he flushed again at the sight. âWhy have you come, then? When you are so eager to evade my questions that I still call you by an assumed moniker?â
ââââ To see the way he fumbled to speak and then to climb up the tree she was so accustomed to finding rest within, made her nose squish upwards in amusement. He was an eccentric man, an opinion she had pieced together with her intricate study of him. A person with a mind such as hers, a dreamer destined to keep their head in the clouds. For this type of person to survive the difficulties of peasant life, she admired him even more so. He was everything she had hoped she could find in the soul of another - the perfect match for a troubled heart such as hers. What pain and woe rested between them though, knowing they could never cross the line of acquaintance. Should she even be found in his company at such an hour, despite intentions crafted in innocence, the two would surely be hung out to dry. Her grandmother may be so shocked, her heart would cease working - for her lovely Nette was directly disobeying everything she had been taught.
Antoinette thought it unfair for her to be so limited in her purview, however, as she saw a direct advantage in becoming a companion of both the common man and those of higher statures. If she were to have influence within the circles who they ruled, she could gauge the temperature they had towards the new King and immediately alert her family if things were colder than desirable. Besides, she was never meant to don conformity as the other ladies in the court - though she noticed there were some ladies who deemed conformity even less useful than her, exchanging their grace for something else entirely. She was aware she could never completely rid herself of the flowers placed in between her ribcage by those who forced knowledge of being a royal on her - no matter how much she wished to, these ideals were most certainly held high due to misplaced naivety.
"As much an abnormal man I begged thee to be, you prove just the same in certain traits - to have qualms with my clue is so dreadfully predictable of your gender..." She began, a smirk crossing her features that widened her eyes as a result. "Though I must admit, you are the only suitor to have made it thus far - most failing to even solve the riddles in half." She finished, gazing upon him through heavy, dark lashes. He seemed even more bemused than herself to have been in the other's presence. Could it be, I have found a match to my intellect and one who would revel in the light I have the propensity to provide? Perhaps his sanity should be questioned, to rest within the company of a woman so odd.
"I do nothing with unpure intentions, I assure you, sir... For those pursuits are below me at this time - do you not see ample reward in the delicacies? In the thrill of the hunt?" A laugh absconded her at the next words that spilled from his lips. "You seem more of interest in this scenario, to meet a woman in a tree who is better versed in settling in this tree when she implied she may be a criminal just one night before." She moved then to pull a book from her lap, rubbing her thumb over it. It was an old French collection of poetry, one she read relentlessly as a child, brought with the idea of providing it to the man before her. If they were to be torn apart by status, at the very least she could give him some shred of her to serve as a memory.
"Once again, I fear you do not see the hypocrisy in your own verbiage. You have relinquished even less information about your person, yet you desire more of mine? Do the English always desire more than their fair share?" It was a verbal whipping of sorts that she offered him, a way for her to knock him down from the peg she was certain he was on. There was no malice present in her words, but she knew she needed to bring him to her level - for he was so plentifully endowed with features of a holy nature, she was sure women fell at his feet regularly. She would not be one of those if it was the last thing she did.
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