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All the glittering finery of the palace did little to banish the weight of the air. Shadows clung to each corner and the few people Kurt saw on his way through the halls and stairways kept their gazes downcast and their footfalls as light and quick as a mouse’s heartbeat. The great windows provided flashes of murky blue-grey as he passed them. The rainy season had rolled in a little under a week ago, drenching New Serene with a perpetual drizzle. His lips pressed into a line that grew tighter with each glance of the sky he caught. With the gloom weighing on his nerves his pace became a little faster than before.
He allowed his boots to strike the floor so their noise bounced around the cavernous throne room. Kurt stopped before the door whose warm color and gold filigree still failed to shake the cold that had seeped in through the wood, brick, and plaster of the walls. In that moment his only provisions against the deafening quiet were the muffled noise of the city and his own breaths. He allowed the span of a few more to pass before he reached out and knocked, a twinge pulling in his shoulder and belly: one from an old injury and the other, he worried, from one soon to be inflicted. No answer came. He hadn't expected one. He entered anyway.
The room was frigid and damp: all of the great windows had been opened, and each candle and lamp had long since been extinguished by invading gusts of wind. Sheets of parchment had been blown off of the desk and scattered across the room. The only other occupant stood by a window in the opposite wall with her back to him. Tangled waves of hair were loose around her shoulders, a corona of backlit flyaways surrounded her bowed head. Her coat had been thrown over the back of an armchair clustered with its twin and a small tea table in front of the cold, dark fireplace. Kurt crossed to stand beside her. Before them was a perfect view of Orsay Square and the bronze likeness of the Prince was a small black weight on the scene, forming the axis to all the rain-rushed activities of the city. Kurt discovered that Her Excellency saw none of it though: Her eyes were closed, her lashes brushed over the deep shadows beneath them.
Though concerned as he was, as curious as he was, Kurt found little to say at that moment and turned back to the view. They passed countless heartbeats there, made as pale as statues by the cold light spilling through the window and the thick blue shadow filling the office. It was only when he felt her weight pressing at his side that he was able to disrupt the silence. Setting his hand at her waist he spoke softly, his voice rasping and grating over the intended tone. “I went to the infirmary and you were gone,” he said into her hair. It still bore a hint of its usual sweetness despite being damp and in need of a wash.
She said nothing for a long time and Kurt began to wonder if she would ever speak again. Another faint twist made itself known within him, he pressed such thoughts away and waited, thinking of nothing but his breathing and hers. The sound of her voice, cracked and hardly above a whisper, sent a small, sharp jolt across his skin. “I had to make certain,” she said.
Over her head, Kurt’s eyes found the empty chair behind the desk. A pang went through him as the ghost of a pyre’s smoke and the determined glower of an adolescent princeling nagged at his senses. In an instant of eye-searing lunacy Kurt considered calling in a favor from the Sailor: He would take Her Excellency aboard a ship and as far as possible from that room. They would run to the opposite end of the world from this political vipers' nest and would never again be seen upon these wretched shores.
Kurt blinked, holding that pretty image for seconds longer and then he pulled her closer, resolving to take all of the weight that she would allow him to.