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Rhy had misplaced his new older brother, and he was very worried that he was going to get into trouble over it.
Rhy and Kell were really supposed to stay in their bedrooms, or the schoolroom during the day. But they had finished their lessons and Rhy had been tired of those rooms and they weren’t anywhere near big enough to play a proper game of hide and seek.
Kell hadn’t really wanted to play hide and seek at all, he’d wanted to stay in the schoolroom and practice reading. He worried about keeping up with Rhy in lessons, and he worried about breaking the rules, and he worried about exploring the palace alone and getting lost, because Kell worried about everything all the time. And Rhy had talked him into playing anyway because he thought it might cheer him up.
Except now he couldn’t find Kell anywhere and if his parents found Kell before he did, Kell would be the one to get into trouble instead of Rhy, and then he’d probably never play hide and seek ever again. He got really upset about getting told off.
But he’d checked the schoolroom, and Kell’s room, and his room, and all the empty guest rooms in the same hall, including in the wardrobes and behind all the curtains, and that was all the places Kell normally hid. And he’d looked inside the library, and then the Rose Hall, which no one was using that week, even though he didn’t really think Kell would dare go in there alone. And he’d looked in the kitchens, (mostly because he was hungry, they were crowded and loud and Kell blushed and got flustered when the servants called him vares even though that’s just what he was), but he had looked and Kell had not been there, even though that would have been a great way to beat Rhy at hide and seek.
And he’d looked in every single one of the dungeons and Kell was not in any of those either and Rhy really was going to get into trouble for losing his brother.
Rhy sat down on the floor, even though his mother said sitting on the floor wasn’t princely, and made a list in his head of all the places in the castle Kell could be that probably wouldn’t have grown-ups in them who would ask what he was doing. And then he checked them one by one by one, in a very organized way. That was a princely thing to do, so maybe it would make up for sitting on the floor.
Eventually Rhy searched all the way down to the baths. It was the last place on his list, even though it was usually empty in the middle of the afternoon. There were three big, deep pools at the front of the room, and they were all empty, and so were the three smaller ones behind them. Right at the back was one last pool, that was always filled with very cold water, because apparently some grown-ups like cold baths, because apparently some grown-ups were insane. And when Rhy walked right up to the edge and looked straight down there was—
“Kell,” Rhy whispered, so his voice wouldn’t echo, “is that you.”
It didn’t look like Kell. Kell looked like a thin boy with red hair, always wrapped in a grey fur coat, except when Mother made him take it off for special occasions and then he spent the whole time looking upset until he could go back and get it again. It looked like a seal, a very grey and very round seal, hanging straight up and down in the cold pool, with only the very tip of its nose sticking out for air.
The seal, who was probably Kell, bobbed up a little so the rest of his head was out of the water and nodded. He looked more like Kell like that, both of his eyes were big and black all-through, like Kell’s right one, which was apparently very important, and he had frowny eyebrows, very much like Kell did.
Rhy grinned at him, “you won hide and seek,” he said, “I couldn’t find you for ages. We’d better go back upstairs though, its nearly dinner.”
Kell clambered out of the pool and Rhy tried not to giggle about it and mostly failed. He was extremely round and awkward as a seal and cold water got everywhere. And then he sort of folded in on himself and suddenly he was a skinny boy in a grey coat again, sitting on the floor. Rhy helped him up (it probably wasn’t princely for Kell to sit on the floor either) and Kell spent a minute shaking cold water off his coat before he let Rhy lead them back upstairs to his room.
“Can you do that again?” Rhy asked Kell, as soon as they were alone.
Kell blushed.
“Please?” said Rhy.
Kell wasn’t very good at saying no to Rhy (or anyone else, but especially not Rhy). He still looked embarrassed, but the did that funny rolling up thing again, and suddenly he was a round, grey baby seal again, covered in a thick coat of fluffy fur.
Rhy had tried very hard not to grab Kell’s coat, even though it was very soft, because Kell didn’t like it when people grabbed at his coat. But just giving Kell a hug would probably be okay.
Kell made a soft whooping noise, when Rhy hugged him. Rhy maybe shouldn’t have jumped on him quite so hard. But he was so soft and fluffy, even fluffier than he looked, like a big cloud.
“This is amazing,” Rhy squealed into Kell’s side, “could you do this the whole time?”
Kell made another hilarious whoop noise, and Rhy snuggled further into Kell’s side. He was so soft, and squishable this way.
And then there was the sharp sounds of fancy shoes on the stone floor and Rhy’s mother came in to find them.
“Rhy, where are you, you’ll be late for dinner,” she called, and then came around the corner.
“What are you doing on the floor Rhy?” his mother asked.
“Look,” Rhy said, pointing at Kell, “look what Kell can do. He’s so fluffy like this!”
His mother looked at Kell, still seal shaped and peering up out of a matched pair of damp, black eyes.
“Oh Kell,” she said, with a sigh, “this really isn’t called for. There’s no need to show off like this.”
Kell took his coat off, folding back into a boy, and stood up. Rhy sighed and stood up as well.
“Sorry Your Majesty,” he said quietly, looking at the floor.
“Kell,” Rhy’s mother sighed again.
“Sorry Mother,” he said.
They went to dinner.