how often did my character have sugar growing up? why or why not? is it the same as an adult?
Dessert meme || Accepting!
My headcanon for Viren was always that he grew up a houseboy to a royal-adjacent noble house and was made a lord by Harrow’s dad. The older staff of the household made sure he didn’t go hungry, but he’d be eating what they were eating, so it’d probably have been a lot of vegetables and grains. Sweets would’ve been a luxury he definitely didn’t get to enjoy that often, though I’m imagining one of the cooks in the kitchen sneaking this scruffy, grumpy, overly serious little 11-year-old a cookie or something and it’s giving me emotions.
That said though.
Listen.
Harrow and Viren probably pulled off some next-level jelly tart heists in their childhood. Once Viren actually starts learning magic there’s like, illusion spells in play, telekinetically jostling pans or knocking over a pot to distract the baker, there’s a map with escape routes that Viren drew by hand... it’s a whole big production. Then they’d always hide out on one of the castle roofs and just gorge on jelly tarts to celebrate their victory.
They got caught once by one of Harrow’s tutors, sneaking back into the castle with a sack full of pastry. At first Viren was the only one getting berated over it, with the tutor assuming that he’d goaded the prince into going along with the whole scheme. Then Harrow grabbed Viren’s hand and loudly insisted that they stole the tarts together, that Viren was his friend, and that he’d accept punishment for the both of them. It didn’t--really work out that way, but Viren remembers that moment more vividly than the crownguard latrines he was made to spend the weekend scrubbing down.
As an adult, Viren doesn’t really eat that many sweets, but he doesn’t--really eat as much as he should in general. He skips out on mealtimes a lot, and Harrow or Claudia tend to bring him food. But he’s lucky enough to have a daughter that’s a fantastic baker, and he’ll never turn down one of her dark magic creme brulee. His tastes have shifted over time towards smaller, more elegant desserts. The kind of stuff that the family he’d served as a child would have enjoyed after their meals.
There is something a little nostalgic about jelly tarts though, he’ll admit.
They just don’t taste quite as good when they aren’t being scarfed down out of a burlap sack, while you’re sitting perched on a castle ledge overlooking the whole of the kingdom, listening to your best friend laugh.
