I'm not sure if you're looking for prompts, but if so- affectionate moments meme for your Claude and Kade # 21? Please tell me more about them i am Intrigued
I had an idea for this one almost as soon as you sent in the ask, but it took me this long to get it off the ground. Whoops.
Anyway, here's Claude and Kade, at the very end of week 6. Spoilers, obviously. Prompt 21: A Promise.
Once the Ambassadors' Ball was successfully concluded, with the number of foiled assassinations holding steady at a frankly manageable one, Claude let his social smile drop like a rumpled dinner jacket. His limbs felt heavy, and he was weary to the bone. Contemplating the early morning that he would have tomorrow, let alone the week of negotiations that would follow, was more than he could bear. He had only just enough energy left to meander his way through the dark, quiet, abandoned corridors of the castle until he found his own bed. A brief and troubled night's sleep was still better than none.
All around him, those dark and quiet corridors were closing in. Dark and quiet, but not abandoned. Something--someone--was intruding on his solitude. Having spent the last six hours maintaining a marathon of perfect socialization, Claude was distinctly unamused at the breach into his last peaceful hour.
"Why don't you stop lurking and show yourself?" he asked the impenetrable dark.
A sliver of shadow detached itself from the nighttime hallways, resolving into the dark silhouette of a tall, slim man.
"Oh," said Claude. "You."
"Were you expecting someone else, my lord?" asked Kade, his voice dipping effortlessly into his customary derisive drawl.
"I thought it might be one of the others," said Claude, shrugging with immaculately affected nonchalance. "That strange creature of yours, perhaps, the one wanders about with her little notebook, spying on everyone."
"Oh, her." Kade snorted. "You needn't have worried. She's harmless."
"For a man who values his privacy, you seem to have no notion why anyone else would value their own," said Claude.
Kade snorted again. "Everything you did, said, or thought during the summit was observed and recorded," he said. "You should have known that would be the case, before you ever set foot on my island."
"Your island?" asked Claude, raising an eyebrow.
"It is a sovereign territory, you know," said Kade.
"And you are not its sovereign," Claude pointed out.
Kade laughed softly. "Never change."
"I wasn't planning on it," said Claude, baffled.
Kade nodded once, sharply.
"Is that what you came here for?" asked Claude. "To tell me not to change?"
"Perhaps I came to congratulate you on a successful endeavor," suggested Kade cryptically.
"The Ambassadors' Ball, you mean?" asked Claude.
Kade shrugged, a ripple in the night's darkness. "Did you accomplish some other great feat today, perhaps?" He sighed and took a step forward, narrowing the distance between them. "Can't you keep yourself out of danger, my lord, not even for the space of one week?"
"It would seem not," he answered. "I suppose that I'm just hopeless, that way."
"Tomorrow the negotiations begin in earnest," said Kade.
"I'm aware," he replied dryly.
"Right," said Kade. "And since you're nearly out of time, do try to stay alive a little bit longer. It would be a shame for you to come so close to achieving your goals, and then fall short of the mark."
"What do you know about my goals?" he demanded, with a creeping suspicion.
Kade took another step closer, until the trace of distant candlelight gleamed in his silver hair and his icy smile. "I was there when you gave your great speech. Far in the back, behind the rapt audience of your fellow delegates, but I heard everything. Don't you want to secure your place in the history books, Lord Claude?"
"I told you not to call me that," said Claude quietly.
"By what name, then, do you mean to be remembered?" asked Kade.
"By a name that I earn for myself," he answered without hesitation.
"A name and a reputation of your own invention," said Kade thoughtfully. "How un-aristocratic of you."
"All right," said Claude, crossing his arms. "You've said your piece, and delivered your back-handed compliments. Are you done? Only it's late, and as you rightly pointed out, I have a long day ahead of me, tomorrow."
Kade sighed. "I will miss this, you know. Our little verbal sparring matches. There are so few others on this island who are able to keep pace with me, and fewer still inclined."
"Shocking," said Claude dryly. "If that will be all?"
"One more thing," said Kade, his smile fading. "One thing I need you to remember, before we part for the night."
"Oh?" said Claude, stepping closer.
Kade gripped his face suddenly by the chin. Leaning close until his whispered words were just a breath of warm, honeyed breath, he said, "Remember who you are, and who you are not."
"…What?" said Claude, taken aback.
He tried to step away, but Kade held fast.
"No, listen to me," said Kade, leaning in until their noses were almost touching, whispering furiously. "No matter how hard it is, remember what you came here to do."
Claude snorted. "I came here to look out for myself and secure my future."
"I seem to recall you saying otherwise," said Kade.
"I lied," said Claude bluntly.
"Really?" asked Kade, dropping his hand abruptly. "Is that why you worked so hard to see Imogen acquitted?"
He bit his cheek. "What's your point?"
Kade drew a deep breath, like a runner preparing for a race. "During the negotiations, people will come to you with offers, as they have before. If you want to write your name in the book of the living, you must choose to do what's right, and not what is easy. As you have before."
He stiffened. "And how do you know all of this?"
"I know everything that goes on in this castle," said Kade. "I know every secret that you think you've uncovered, and more besides. I know what demands the ambassadors will make during the negotiations, and what concessions they're willing to make. I know that you've been skulking in the shadows, trying to learn our secrets. And I know that you danced the last dance of the ball with the Princess of Hise."
"She's just a friend," said Claude automatically, before he remembered that he owed no explanation for whom he danced with.
"Remember who your friends are," said Kade, stepping back and already melting into the shadows, "and who your enemies are."
"And which one are you?" he asked impulsively.
He could hear his soft laugh fading as he disappeared, for once, more amused than derisive.
