Chapter Text
***
Yuri sits in an intricately carved, beautifully adorned high-backed chair, looking for all the world like the wealthy son of royalty in his temporary throne draped in rich, brightly dyed fabrics and luxurious velvet cushions.
However, he can’t help but feel that he’s worse off than even the commoners huddled in crowds at the lowest tiers of the circular wooden stadium, chanting and shouting jovially as they jostle each other about while watching the tournament below. Watched like a hawk by the eagle-eyed Lilia and hawkish Yakov hovering somewhere behind him, all that Yuri can do is enviously scowl down at the crowds below, watching as they blithely enjoy the festivities.
The bastards.
Yuri himself has been forced to sit absolutely, perfectly still in his seat (just as his governess Lilia has ingrained into him through hours upon hours of mind-numbing etiquette training), sweating under his many layers of royal garments as he distractedly pretends to watch the jousters below. His parents, the reigning King and Queen, absolutely adore these jousting tournaments, talking about them for days on end and constantly reminding Yuri that he is privileged to be a part of them, privileged to one day inherit rulership of a land with such rich and proud traditions as Amphora.
But Yuri spends most of his time at the tournament ignoring the ongoing duels in favor of mentally cursing his parents and their insufferable enthusiasm for all of Amphora’s traditions (which apparently extends even to ones as time-consuming and gruesome as jousting.)
Yuri had tried his absolute damndest to get out of coming to this tournament, flat-out refusing to leave his room at the castle this morning and even threatening to eviscerate himself on one of his bed posts if anyone so much as attempted to open the doors. But as soon as Mila (that conniving, red-headed she-devil who Victor and Yuuri had for some reason appointed as his personal guard) had thrown the doors to his room open and lifted him high above her head, Yuri knew that it was a lost cause.
After all, as the heir apparent Yuri holds a position of honor in this jousting tournament. It’s he who presides over the tournament and announces the final victor, he who grants the victor’s request, and it is in his honor that this (boorish, uninteresting, and incredibly long) tournament is being fought.
And as much as it wounds him to admit it, it actually makes sense that his parents had refused to budge on his attendance. In truth, Yuri has known from the start that there’s no way in hell Victor and Yuuri would pass up a chance to coo and fawn over the sight of their incredibly unwilling and characteristically irritable nineteen year old regaled in the full splendor of his royal garments.
Of course, his parents are fully aware that Yuri is currently mentally scheming the best possible ways to cause havoc around the castle as revenge for his forced attendance at this event. And yet, both of his obnoxiously affectionate and doting parents continue to whisper and chuckle conspiratorially every time Yuri lets out an exasperated sigh, only further reinforcing his belief that his father and papa actually find the sight of their exasperated son cute somehow. (His parents are weird.)
Despite deliberately ignoring the outcomes of duels listed on the scoreboard below, Yuri gradually becomes aware that the last seven out of ten duels in this (unbearably lengthy and equally violent) tournament have been won by the same jouster in dull grey armor. It registers as an unusually impressive feat even to Yuri, and his attention is gradually if not begrudgingly drawn to the nameless jouster, whose rich, caramel-colored skin is just barely visible behind the protection of his dull and slightly dented helmet.
This particular jouster's appearance at the tournament was a shock to the commoners; as soon as he had ridden out on his white and black speckled mare, Yuri could instantly hear the waves of gossip and conversation rippling out from the peasant crowds on the tiers below him. But as Yuri refuses to sacrifice even a single brain cell to the worthless cause of thinking about peasant gossip or his least favorite sport in Amphoran tradition, he can honestly say that he gives zero fucks about jousting or anything that pertains to it, including whether or not this particular jouster maintains his winning streak.
However, he still finds himself wincing occasionally throughout the tournament, unable to stop his gaze from wandering down to the particularly gruesome sights of challengers being speared by their opponent’s lances or falling from horseback onto the hard and unforgiving earth. Jousting is an incredibly violent sport, as the jousters themselves have no choice but to injure others or be injured themselves. And while Yuri tries to be mentally present for this gory ordeal as little as possible, he can’t help but flinch each time the crowd lets out a cheer at a particularly hard-hitting blow.
His dads are definitely sadists for enjoying this. Although to be fair, they seem to be more interested in using this tournament as an excuse to make disgustingly gooey eyes at both him and each other than in actually observing the time-honored Amphoran tradition going on below them.
Yuri winces again as he watches an injured challenger being carried off by the medics, the jouster in the dull metal armor perfectly still on his horse as he watches his opponent being carried off of the field. He just doesn’t understand how someone can intentionally injure another human being so badly and then watch, without remorse, as their opponent is carried away on a gurney. And while Yuri has had to fight with himself to conceal his own repulsed reactions to the violence present in the tournament, the jouster in the dull grey armor has brutally injured his opponents in the last seven duels without once displaying anything like hesitance or remorse.
It disgusts Yuri. If he could completely do away with this barbaric and terrible tradition, he would.
***
Yuri watches the sun setting over the western parapet of the city, the bloody reds and oranges of the impending twilight only further reminding him of the violence of the tournament below.
His position on the royal viewing platform on the sixth tier allows him a view of the capital city painted in the colors of sunset, and he can even see the gargantuan stone castle standing in the city’s center. Yuri watches wistfully as the colors of the twilight dye the castle’s stone walls in their brilliant hues, wanting nothing more than to return to the castle, fall into his decadently ornamented bed, and begin re-reading his favorite book on the big cat species of Amphora while enjoying the company of his companion animal, Potya.
The victory bell rings from the jousting field below, drawing Yuri’s attention back to the tournament. He feels a sudden spike of excitement when he realizes that the next duel will be the final of the tournament, after which he can announce the victor, grant his request, and then finally go home.
The crowd applauds wildly as the two jousters get into position for the start of the duel, and Yuri begrudgingly allows his curiosity to get the better of him as he looks down to inspect the contestants. He recognizes the contestant on the black Thoroughbred from last year’s tournament; his name is Jean-Jacques and he is the victor of the previous year’s final duel. He’s the son of a well-known dignitary who lives in the east of the city, and the request that Yuri had granted for him a year ago was to hold a public feast for the commoners. The gesture had made Jean-Jacques extremely popular among the citizens, something that becomes even more apparent to Yuri as the crowd begins to raucously chant his name, annoyingly enthusiastic to see him win again.
Of course, Yuri both always has and always will view Jean-Jacques as nothing more than a pompous asshole who takes a perverse pleasure in being impudent to him in public, as if teasing the heir apparent is something to be taken lightly. He had tried to get Jean-Jacques sentenced to treason for his insubordination several years ago, but it had only resulted in Yuri getting his court privileges taken away. Because apparently, Victor and Yuuri had agreed with the Royal Court that “harmless flirting” was not a punishable offense.
(When Yuri becomes King, that will change.)
Yuri’s attention is drawn back to the field by a small smattering of applause and cheers for Jean-Jacques’ opponent, the same nameless jouster in the dull armor who had wracked up a winning streak with his brutal tactics early on. His white and black Andalusian mare is shorter and less athletic than Jean-Jacques’s Thoroughbred, his armor is bulkier and less modern in design, and it is unmistakably obvious that he is not the crowd favorite.
Yuri doesn’t think that he will need to pay much attention to this round in order to determine the final victor.
As soon as the duel begins, the jouster in the dull armor charges at Jean-Jacques with surprising force, nearly knocking the veteran athlete off of his horse and leaving him barely clinging to the saddle. Too stunned at the unnamed jouster’s immediate attack to relish the sight of one of his least favorite people almost being literally knocked off of his high horse, Yuri watches numbly as Jean-Jacques hastily recovers and goes on the offensive, successfully denting his opponent’s already partially deformed grey armor with the sharp tip of his long, masterfully forged lance.
Yuri shudders at the sickening sound of the blow that the unnamed jouster sustains, unable to hide his reaction at the crunch of metal piercing through metal even as he knows Lilia will chastise him for it later. While Yuri can’t find it within himself to work up too much sympathy for jousters in general, he also recognizes that being hit with a lance feels like a strong punch in strong armor. He can only imagine how painful it must feel to be struck with the sharp tip of Jean-Jacques’s lance while in weak, dented armor.
But the unnamed jouster perseveres throughout the round, finally emerging victorious when he manages to knock Jean-Jacques off of his black Thoroughbred completely. Jean-Jacques exits the stadium, limping but otherwise unharmed, and Yuri’s eyes slowly trail back from his retreating form to that of the victorious but clearly injured jouster remaining on the field.
The unnamed jouster’s armor is so dented and deformed that it seems to cling to his muscular frame like a second skin, form-fitting in some places and uncomfortably jutting into his body at others. Yuri has heard that if a jouster’s armor has sustained too much damage, it has to be broken and chipped off piece by piece, and he has no doubt that the unnamed victor will be at the medic’s tent immediately after the completion of the tournament, his armor being broken apart by a metalsmith as his body is tended to by a person of medicine.
The victory bell is rung again, and Yuri rises swiftly from his chair. A hush falls over the crowd as all eyes turn toward the Prince, the commoners waiting with bated breath for the final announcement and the granting of the victor’s request.
“The final duel of the tournament has concluded,” Yuri announces authoritatively amid the hush of the spectators. He maintains his steady voice and regal posture with ease in front of the large crowds, but internally he is just barely suppressing the urge to rush through his customary lines so that this tournament can finally just end. “The final victor may now make his request,” he finishes firmly, willfully ignoring the amused whispers of his obnoxiously entertained parents behind him. (They relish any and all displays of imperiousness from their usually crass and uncooperative son, finding that the cuteness of these moments is directly in proportion to how embarrassed Yuri is at the time of their occurrence.)
The commoners come alive at Yuri's words, shocked by the unexpected outcome of the duel but fiercely loyal to the sport that has become a symbol of their nation. Yuri waits until the cheers of the crowd have abated before directing his focus to the victorious jouster, taking the time to deliberately steel his voice before asking the final question that custom dictates. “What request have you?”
The entire stadium watches expectantly as the jouster carefully removes his dull grey helmet, turning his intense and smoldering gaze upward towards Yuri as he does so.
The expression in the jouster’s dark, amber-colored eyes is fierce with determination as he levels his gaze directly at Yuri, showing none of the respect and deference that Yuri has come to expect of commoners. Every past winner of this tournament has genuflected out of deference for the heir apparent before averting their eyes and humbly stating their request. Even Jean-Jacques had observed the proper decorum of lowering himself before the Prince during the previous tournament, only daring to make his impertinent quips at the heir apparent when he had engaged in a more private audience with the Royal Family and their ensemble of guards.
But this man with his fiercely simmering expression does nothing but stare at Yuri, his gaze strong and almost challenging as he observes the Prince. Had Jean-Jacques or any other commoner displayed this type of behavior toward him, Yuri would have been offended. But Yuri can’t really find it in himself to be angry at this man when he is so clearly from a foreign land.
The jouster’s eyes are of a peculiar almond shape, and they are outlined in what appears to be black kohl. He has six intricately forged metal rings, all of which are connected to each other through a series of smaller metal links, dangling from his left ear. The long locks of his dark hair, which is the distinctive color of writing ink, are partially tied up in a small bun behind his head in the style of Amphoran soldiers. And yet, the bottommost portion of his hair extending from his sharp jawline to the tips of his ears has been shaved close to his skull, resembling a fine veneer of dark velvet.
Yuri has never seen any person wear such an intricate series of metal ornaments anywhere but around their necks, and he has only ever seen the ladies at court wearing kohl-rimmed eyes and tied up-hair. But the unnamed jouster is as masculine a man as any Yuri has ever seen, a fact that becomes increasingly more apparent with every moment that he spends observing the unnamed man’s dark gaze and muscular form. The jouster’s high cheekbones, masculine tan, and strong, sharp jawline make him handsome via an aesthetic that Yuri has never observed before.
Yuri feels an unexpected but not unpleasant stirring in his stomach as his attention trails down from the man’s strong, burning gaze to drink in the entirety of his form. The beads of sweat dripping down the unnamed victor’s jawline and pooling in the hollows of his collarbonesー the partially visible portion of his tanned upper chest, glistening with pearls of moistureー the combination of strong, muscled limbs and broad shoulders pulled firmly back into a confident, dominant postureー
They all cause Yuri to temporarily stop breathing.
Despite his repugnance at the sport of jousting, he will admit that the jouster is handsome, devilishly handsome, and fascinatingly exotic.
The only other person that Yuri has ever seen with caramel-colored skin and dark, ebony-colored hair is his papa, Yuuri. Victor has told him many times of how he met Yuuri while on a voyage to a distant land, an exotic nation where such phenotypes are common. (Of course, Yuri usually tunes out the vast majority of the story, as it consists of flowery, effervescent declarations of love at first sight and other nonsense that he would rather die than willingly listen to.) But Yuri has heard Victor’s descriptions of his papa’s nation often enough to know that the jouster in front of him does not seem to be typical of Yuuri’s people, either.
Aside from the descriptions provided in his father's nauseatingly quixotic story, Yuri has encountered depictions of people with a similar phenotype to that of his papa and the nameless jouster only once, when he read a book from the royal libraries on nations of people from lands to the East. There were illustrations of people from distant lands, ones far in the direction of the Eastern mountains, for whom it was strange to be born with light hair and pale skin as most people in Amphora are.
But why would a foreigner from a distant nation enter a jousting tournament? As far as Yuri is aware, jousting is a tradition that exists only in Amphora.
“Tell me, victor, which land are you from,” Yuri commands suddenly, his curiosity piqued as he surveys the jouster from his position overlooking the stadium.
The victor is briefly quiet, the intensity of his dark eyes morphing into a contemplative expression as he carefully considers how to answer. “From the lands of Jin, Prince,” he replies evenly, his deep and heavily accented voice only slightly halted as he pronounces the foreign words.
Yuri feels his heart rate accelerating slightly at the jouster’s reply, finding himself increasingly charmed at the man’s steady confidence and drawn in even further by his appealingly exotic accent. The unnamed man’s voice is slightly dark and husky, and it adds to the peculiar charm of his unique appearance and masculine visage, speaking to everything in Yuri that relishes the exotic, almost dangerous appeal of the man gazing up at him with those smoldering eyes.
“Tell me, jouster, what is your request,” Yuri commands imperially, his voice ringing out with authority as his eyes shine feverishly bright. If before he was eager to continue the closing ceremony for the sake of finally ending this tournament and going home, he’s now genuinely curious as to what this man, obviously a foreigner from a distant land, could possibly desire from the Royal Family of Amphora.
The victor pauses yet again, seeming to carefully think over his words before pronouncing them, each syllable distinct and clear as he turns the full force of his simmering gaze on Yuri’s equally intense emerald eyes. “It must be granted by the King and Queen,” he says firmly.
And Yuri goes from charmed to annoyed in a split second.
As an avid reader of royal history books and political accounts from Amphora as well as from foreign nations, a pursuit firmly encouraged by his parents (and even more firmly enforced by his tutor Yakov), Yuri understands that it may seem strange for the heir apparent to preside over such a time-honored ceremony instead of the King and Queen.
However, the jouster’s fiery, unwavering gaze combined with his almost defiant words are beginning to wear on Yuri’s patience. The charm of the the foreigner’s exotic speech and intriguing appearance beginning to lose their novelty, Yuri once again returns to having but a single want and need in this world: wrapping up this tournament quickly so that he can return to the castle and try to forget being dragged into this arena and forced to preside over a tradition he absolutely loathes.
(And the fact that Yuri’s authority as the Prince is now being publicly rejected by this nameless commoner only serves to further this agenda.)
“Jouster, this tournament is fought in my honor,” Yuri explains haughtily, his attempts to keep his voice stable and measured now nullified by the prideful annoyance that creeps into it. “I am the one who presides over the tournament from its opening ceremony to its completion, and I will be the one to grant your request.”
This time the jouster does not pause before speaking, barely allowing for a moment to pass between Yuri's final words and his own unwavering declaration. “It must be granted by the King and Queen,” he repeats firmly in the same heavily accented voice.
Yuri’s temper begins to flare at the repeated rejection, his frustration now rivalling his exhaustion as he wonders whether the jouster knows Amphoran well enough to even understand what Yuri is trying to tell him.
The sight of Victor rising from his throne saves Yuri from having to dwell on it for long, a rush of relief washing over him as he silently sits back into his own throne, mentally thanking his father for pausing in whatever disgustingly gooey conversation he was having with Yuuri to actually step in and aid his distressed son. The Queen rises to join the King a moment later, the Royal Couple directing their eyes down toward the ground floor of the arena as the unnamed jouster begins to speak again.
“As per the rules of the tournament,” the jouster says in his husky, strongly accented voice, “I am granted one request.”
There is an audible creak throughout the stadium as the expectant commoners collectively lean forward over the wooden railings of the first five tiers, and an audible groan as Yuri gives up and leans back in his heavily ornamented throne, waiting for this all to be over so that he can finally return home and actively try to forget every detail of this experience overnight.
“I wish to marry your son.”
The collective gasp that fills the stadium is not loud enough to drown out the sound of the Queen falling to the ground in shock, or of Yuri falling to his knees in a fit of hysterical laughter.
***