Chapter Text
The letter lay on Leona’s desk like it had teeth.
Long lines of formal script curved across the cream-colored envelope, the gold seal of the Sunset Savanna's royal house catching the light like an accusation. He hadn't touched it since it arrived, and the untouched weight of it filled the room more than any scent of ink or parchment could of should.
It wasn’t even a big letter. Just a folded slip inside a heavy envelope. But it sat there like it knew it didn’t need to be big to be important. Like it knew what it meant.
Leona scowled at it from his lounging spot on the bed, one arm draped over his eyes.
He hadn’t moved in over an hour.
"Yo, Leona," Ruggie’s voice cut through the haze like a knife through warm butter. "You dead over there?"
"No."
"You sure? 'Cause this looks like the kind of letter youde only leave unopened if you’ve kicked the bucket or are planning on it."
Leona didn’t respond. He heard the soft pad of feet over stone, and then the crinkle of paper.
Ruggie plucked up the envelope from the desk. “Fancy paper,” he muttered, turning it over in his hands. “Embossed seal. Probably expensive enough to pay my rent for a month.”
Leona cracked one eye open just enough to glare at him. “Put it back.”
Ruggie ignored him. "Is it important?"
“No,” Leona said.
Lie.
He said it fast, too fast. The word had a sharp edge, too smooth to be true. Ruggie raised a brow at him but didn't call it out. Just flipped the envelope in his fingers like he was considering whether it might spontaneously combust.
Leona watched him from the bed. Still unmoving. His fingers curling into the cotton fabric of the blanket draped haphazardly over half of his body.
After a long pause, Ruggie huffed and said, “You know it’s gonna keep sitting there like a ghost until you open it, right?”
Leona didn’t answer.
A minute passed.
Then two.
And then, with the heavy weight of someone dragging chains behind him, Leona sat up and held out his hand.
Ruggie passed the letter over silently.
Leona broke the seal like he was tearing skin.
He unfolded the paper slowly. Read the first line. Then the second.
And there it was.
The engagement.
Formalities. Dates. Expectations. Polite congratulations and mutual political benefits. As if they meant anything. As if they changed anything.
Leona didn't say a word.
But his grip tightened, just enough to wrinkle the edge of the page.
Ruggie didn’t ask again if it was important.
He already knew.
---
The garden at the summer pavilion smelled like oranges and sunlight.
It was too hot for running, too bright for sitting still, but neither of those things mattered to the small boy with bare feet and grass stains up his shins. His laugh carried through the palm trees like it belonged to the wind itself—light, careless, delighted.
Leona sat under the shade of a jacaranda tree, chewing a stem of something bitter while pretending he wasn’t watching.
“You’re not playing,” the boy said, breathless, plopping down beside him with all the grace of a falling fruit. He was wearing gold bangles that jingled every time he moved. “Are you mad at me?”
“No.”
“You’re frowning.”
“I always frown.”
The boy giggled. “You didn’t yesterday. Yesterday you smiled.”
“Tch.” Leona looked away, but the corners of his mouth twitched. “That was ‘cause you tripped and landed in the fountain. You looked like a wet puppy.”
“I was soaked! But you laughed.”
He leaned in then, with a lopsided grin and a flower clutched in one hand—something blue and wilting, plucked too early from the edge of the path.
“This one’s for you,” he said, proudly. “it's just like you.”
Leona stared at it.
He didn’t take it.
What did that even mean 'it's just like you'?
The boy’s grin wavered just a little.
“I can find a better one,” he said quickly, scrambling back to his feet. “Maybe something red! That's a lot more like you!”
He ran off again, chasing blossoms like they were stars fallen to earth. His laughter echoed between the tiled archways and the white stone walls.
Leona sat still beneath the jacaranda tree, holding the crushed blue flower that had somehow ended up in his lap.