John looks into the mirror, past his own stony eyes and towards Curt’s equally blue ones, up on a stool so he can help fasten the straps around John’s shoulders, anchoring the his pauldron. “They’d shoot me out of suspicion before I hit the gates.”
Curt tsks, “I’d make enough'a distraction.”
John grins, turning and cupping both of Curt’s cheeks and pressing a smacking kiss to his lips. “It’s my wedding, Curt, ain’t that something to smile about?”
“A political marriage seems more like a business deal than a party to me.”
“How about for all the wine we’re about to drink.”
“Human wine tastes like shit.”
John flicks the end of Curt’s ear, the delicately pointed tips not all that sensitive but certainly vulnerable to attack.
Curt ducks, gracefully dignified, “Your sister sent a raven this morning. She knows you’re being insulted; if you want to call his play, she will stand by you.”
John snorts, turning back to the mirror and examinging his armor. “And waste the party?”
If John has been allowed his way he’d be dressed in the lighter battle armor he was used to– scarred and dented and decorated by every time it had saved his life. He’d go out there and show them that even if peace was right around the corner, John and his kin were still ever-ready. Naturally, the notion had been vetoed and instead John had been buffed and shined and stuck into a suit of bronze colored armor carved all over with vines that tapered to drapes of berries over his shoulders, his chestplate. The chainmail beneath a white steel, his shoulder draped with a red cloth stitched with gold thread.
They’d woven blackberries in his hair. The scent drifts around him with each step, sweet and perfrectly ripe.
He glances at Curt again who was now busy fastening his own bronze armor, “A curious turn of events, Edith having your ear over mine.”
“She says she figured you’d actually consider it if there were witnesses.”
“Almost sounds like she’s hoping I’ll rise to the bait.”
“Humans can’t even make peace without spitting in your eye.”
John dons his weapons belt; fits it with his sword and dagger. “It’s a political marriage, Curt. So what if they think they’re offering me some goddamn offense. A prince is as good as a princess.”
“Maybe after the nuptiuals, but they’ll be snickering all through the ceremony.”
“So let them. I’m here to end this damn war; not give in to the opinions of small human lords and sycophants.”
Curt settles down into one of the chairs at a table still covered with the remnants of their breakfast. He drags an armored finger back and forth across his top lip, eyes gazing off at some halfway mark, thoughtful. “We fought against him, you know. At Red River; that commander that shattered our left flank.”
