Work Text:
Her idiot friends found Matthias a tuxedo.
Wylan is shooting her a thumbs up, like an asshole, like the room hasn’t turned to look at the extremely tall man by the stairs leading down to the ballroom.
Like Matthias doesn’t have the audacity to look, dare she say, cartoonishly handsome.
Maybe if she’d ever seen him in normal clothes, like she’d asked him to wear, repeatedly, instead of what he had worn, something that made him look like an extra on Vikings and Merlin at once.
With a little Dragon Age in there. For good measure.
He’s striking.
She feels like she’s looking at- Yeah. A fictional man. Too handsome to be real.
He looks at her, and she hates the way her breath catches.
She feels like she could fly. Delicately. Cinderella-style, gliding across this ballroom floor despite being dressed in seventeen layers like Milady de fucking Winter.
How dare he look this good.
It’s ridiculous enough for her idiot bosses to throw a renaissance-themed ball. It’s somehow worse that Matthias isn’t on theme.
His ridiculous armor with all the wolves carved in would’ve been better suited for this event. Loud and awkward, sure. But in accordance with the dress code.
She’s anxious. He looks so good that it’s giving her anxiety. Does he have any idea? Does he know?
“You’re late,” Nina says, stopping right before the stairs. Her hoop skirt swings with forward momentum, rustling her dress.
“It’s hard to find a tux in his size,” Jesper says. Wylan is taking his hand, and they’re walking down the stairs. “Sorry,” he says, as a courtesy. He and Wylan are laughing to each other. Breezing onto the ballroom floor like this isn’t their fault.
She bites down any insult she might hurl in their direction. Professional event. Work event. Instead, she looks to Matthias, shining under the light of the chandeliers.
“Hi,” she says.
“Good evening,” he says.
“Come down,” she asks.
The music sways behind her. He looks at his feet. “I don’t know how to dance.”
“You got dragged all this way,” Nina says. “Got shoved into that tux. Rode in a limo through traffic, assumedly. Just to tell me you don’t dance?”
“It is tight,” Matthias mumbles. It’s admirable, how he’s just making the observation, the expression of discomfort, not bragging about how well it frames his broad shoulders.
“Besides,” she says. “How do you expect to woo a princess when you get back to Fjerda if you can’t even waltz?”
He meets her gaze.
A woman like her shouldn’t beg. “I’ll go dance with someone else.”
That works well enough. He’s down the stairs as the MC announces “The King and Queen’s Waltz.”
Nina offers Matthias her hand.
His touch reeks of propriety. Always chivalrous.
“You’ve fought dragons,” Nina tells him. “How are you afraid of dancing?”
“I’m not afraid,” he says.
She faces him, as a dance partner should. “Put your hand on my waist,” she says.
He balks. “What?”
“Brave ser knight,” Nina croons. “Who isn’t afraid of dancing. Could you please put your hand on my waist? It’s the proper form.”
His cheeks are flushed pink. Cuter than his stature should allow. “Oh,” he says. He flexes the fingers on his hand. “Right.”
“Today,” Nina says.
His touch is ginger. Cautious. Palm against the curve of her waist. Fingers towards her back. His thumb idly rubs small circles into her bodice.
“Good,” she says. “Perfect.” her hand finds his shoulder. “I’ll lead.”
“Doesn’t the man lead?” Matthias asks.
“That’s what I’m teaching you to do,” Nina says. “So you can just mimic me when you find whatever Fjerdan girl you’re looking for.”
She catches a flash of hurt on his features. “Right. That makes sense.”
She ignores the way his hand fits perfectly against her waist or the feeling of his fingers lacing with hers.
Matthias is a man of roughspun cloth and leather and suits of armor. He’s tough. He’s naive. He’s waiting for her to lead.
She brushes her hand over his shoulder. Like it’s her job to keep him tidy. “I’m going to step forward with my left foot,” Nina says. “You step back with your right.”
His shoes are too modern for him. She feels like he must hate them, like he must feel so out of place.
“Good,” she says. One step down. “Now follow my left foot.”
He doesn’t. He crosses her left foot instead, stepping on her dress in the process.
“Sorry!”
“It’s okay,” she says. “Face me again. We’ll start from the beginning.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” he says. “I wasn’t made for this.”
“You’re made for whatever you want to be made for,” Nina says. She moves her left foot forward again, and he steps his right back. “I’m going to move my left foot diagonally. Move your right foot with it.”
He’s unfailingly clumsy, though her hem makes it through unscathed this time.
“See?” she says. “Fast learner. You’ve developed at least three new interests since you came out of that manhole.”
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
“Stop apologizing,” she says. “Now let’s put our feet together. Just… like… this!”
“It all still feels so unfamiliar,” Matthias says, his heel meeting the floor with a hard click. “I don’t know when I’m excited or when I’m nervous anymore.”
She looks up at him. “Is that a bad thing?”
He’s just looking at her. Staring. His eyes are like twin spotlights from the upper rig, and she’s the one melting on stage from the heat of it.
“Matthias?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“What about that guy?” Nina asks. “The wolf-guy who followed you or whatever? Didn’t he tell you he’d take you home?”
“Jarl Brum,” Matthias says. “And he did.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” Nina says. “To go back to… your world?”
“Yes,” he says, barely above a whisper.
She doesn’t know what else to say. He could be mistaken as doubtful. But she doesn’t want to hope. “Let’s try those steps again,” Nina says. “Then we can get to the next part.”
He nods.
“What’s wrong?” Nina asks.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells her. “I mean- You look. Beautiful.”
“That’s what’s wrong?” Nina says. “I look too good?”
“You look like a princess,” he murmurs.
“What was that?” she asks.
A gulp. “I said you look like a princess,” he says. Too loud. Heads turn.
“Thank you,” Nina says. “I guess that makes it easier to imagine your true Fjerdan love, huh?”
“It doesn’t,” he says.
When she steps forward, he doesn’t move in turn. Her foot lightly scuffs the top of his shoe. “Matthias, what’s wrong?”
“I want to be like you,” he says.
“What does that mean?” Nina asks. “Like me?”
He seems to consider the question. She nudges his leg with that same foot, and he remembers to move again.
Here they are, doing half a box-step across the dance floor, nearly bumping other couples as they try to figure this damn thing out.
“Real,” he says.
“You are real,” she says. She’s surprised she means it. Isn’t he just an idiot in a suit of armor? The man who’s only interests, as of five days ago, had been “honor and bravery?” The cartoon boy?
The guy who had never even had a grilled cheese sandwich, until she’d made one for him.
The guy who’s honorable and chivalrous and so stuck in his ways it almost makes her laugh.
He is real. He has to be. She couldn’t be dancing with a figment of her imagination.
“You are real,” Nina says. “You’re a person trying his best.”
“A part of me doesn’t want to go back,” he says.
“So don’t,” she replies, the words stored somewhere that she hadn’t realized, ready to launch before she could catch them. “Stay and be real.”
“I’m-“ He darts his tongue against his lower lip. “I can’t.”
“You’re doing it now,” Nina says.
He gently shakes his head. “I can’t just- I can’t turn my back on my country.”
“Your country doesn’t exist,” Nina says. “I exist. And now you do. Do you really want to go back to being two dimensional?”
He lets go of her waist, leaving her standing, buffeted by the swaying of the waltz. “I shouldn’t have come,” he says. “I shouldn’t be thinking of these things.”
“Matthias,” she says.
“I’m sorry for imposing,” he says. “I have to go.”
“Wait,” Nina says.
He turns away.
“Matthias!” she repeats, lifting her skirts so she can trot after him. He’s too damn tall, and his legs carry him far too quickly. “Stop!”
They really can’t stop messing up this dance floor, whether they’re dancing wrong or running after each other.
Above the elevator, the clock ticks. Four minutes until midnight.
He’s already halfway up the stairs.
She kicks off her heels, near sprinting after him.
She catches spare glances from her coworkers. Nina, always so commanding, losing her composure.
She’ll make something up for HR on Monday.
Nina just catches him by the cuff just as he reaches the top, tugging him back. “Enough!” She pushes him against the railing of the stairs. “Enough of this. You’re real. Okay? You’re real because I say you are. And I want you to stay with me.”
“Nina,” he says.
“If you go, I’ll go,” Nina says. “Just don’t leave me.”
“You’d really go back with me?” he asks. “To Fjerda?”
“And be a cartoon princess?” Nina says, slightly out of breath. “Sure. If that’s what you want.”
He watches her try to catch her breath. Mostly, he stares at her lips, slightly parted. “But you’re going to be a lawyer.”
“I’m trying,” she says. “But singing songs in the woods does sound nicer than the LSATs.”
“I don’t know. I had an exact path,” Matthias offers. Like he’s pleading with her. “I knew who I was and what I was meant to do. And now…” He’s embarrassed. Bashful. Not the knight from the storybook land, but the man figuring himself out. “I don’t know how to exist in this world. I don’t even know what being human means. I want to do it right but I don’t know if I can and-
She cups his face in her hands. “Matthias,” she says, softly. She runs her thumbs over his cheekbones. He relaxes into her touch, shutting his eyes. “No one is doing it right,” she continues. “That’s the beauty of it.”
She leans in. He tilts his head towards her, and-
The elevators at the top of the stairs ding, like a warning.
She rests her forehead against Matthias'. “If Jarl Brum just stepped out behind me, I'm going to go absolutely insane," Nina says.
He looks at her with the utmost concern. "I have terrible news."
She signs with the entire weight of her soul. “Perfect.”