Chapter Text
There was too much oxygen, down in Piltover. The air felt fake, unnatural, and every breath was too heavy, too full in Jayce’s lungs. It was a workout, almost, to take every breath. Things had been far lighter, back in Naeshis. The air, the responsibility. His wings felt tethered to his sides. He’d been proud of them, once upon a time. The brown-almost-black coloring of the feathers, so smooth and light they’d hardly make a sound when he’d take off into the night. Once upon a time.
There are no Harpies in Piltover. There is the Vastaya, of course. He’d seen one on the royal guard, when he’d been taken into the kingdom. And yet, when he looks at the too-bright sky, not a single Harpy flies under the sun, utterly free in the way they are meant to be.
—
“My dear…” His mother reached for him, and every instinct that had been hardwired into the hollow bones beneath his very skin screamed to leap into her arms, as he had once done when he was a chick, and still does now.
He yanks his arm away.
“Jayce,” his father speaks up, standing at the front of the room, appearing far more put together. How could he be? How could– no, how dare he appear so calm, when he is so willingly agreeing to this? “I know you do not want this. Ideally, we do not either. But to marry into the Medarda family would do wonders for reputation, for acknowledgement. We’d get more trade. More involvement. Naeshis would thrive, and it would be because of you .”
It seemed like an attempt to console him, but it only left him more angry. He didn’t know who to direct it towards.
“The Princess has chosen you as her mate. For what reason, I wish I could say– but I simply do not know,” Ximena speaks up once more. He knows why she did it. But his lips are sealed, sewn by an invisible thread that edges closer and closer to snapping the more the storm of emotions rages within his mind, spiralling mercilessly– and there is no eye. No calm center. No lull in the thoughts that nearly block out the words his parents speak to him. She tries again, placing her palm on his shoulder. He doesn’t have the energy to shrug it off. “It is not like Naeshis will be completely out of your life. We can visit you, and vice versa. It’ll be complicated, but we’ll make it work.”
Jayce hadn’t said anything in more than five minutes. What was he supposed to say? That he was overjoyed, to drop everything he’s known in his life for the past twenty-six years and move to Piltover, a kingdom he has seen exactly once in his life, and get engaged to the princess? That he appreciated how they thought nothing more of him in the moment they’d agreed to the proposal than a pawn that could make Naeshis more noticed?
He knows, logically, that none of this is true.
It does nothing to quell the storm.
His father steps closer, getting down to his level. He’d always been the more reasonable one, speaking with logic, with facts. There’d be little note of comfort in his tone, yet the words themselves seemed to always speak to the factual part of his brain. His father was well aware of this.
“Jayce… Naeshis is struggling. We have had the luck to be virtually invisible in the world of politics on this continent aside from our trade. After the…” his father takes a pause, the dry click of his swallow cutting the atmosphere that felt unbearably heavy, regardless of the light air. “After the Rot, we’ve lost countless resources. We were lucky to only lose a handful of our people– but that does nothing to soothe the fear that clawed its way into our hearts.
“Those are our people, Jayce. Your people. And as a member of the royal family, it is your vow as much as it is ours to protect them. That means being selfless. Doing things you do not want to do. And that, unfortunately, includes marrying into the Medarda family.”
Jayce considers objecting. To yell, to scream, to accuse them of abandoning him, not loving him anymore, casting him aside. He knows none of it is true.
He also knows that, for all their desperate attempts at convincing them, that he has no real say in this matter. They are merely being courteous. Softening the blow.
He nods. A short, single movement. The hand on his shoulder– two claws made of metal instead of keratin– squeezes gently.
“Your majesty,” a voice interrupts from the doorway. One of the servants. “The carriage has arrived. The one for Prince Talis.”
Jayce stands. His chest feels fluttery. Not in the pleasant way like when he dives, weaving through the trees along the vast sides of the Naeshis Mountain Range, racing to the bottom, all just to fly to the top and do it all again.
“Write us as soon as you arrive,” Ximena demands, pulling him into a hug that is deceivingly strong despite how frail she’s gotten. He doesn’t feel as assured as he should, whenever she’d crush him in one of her hugs. He tries not to think about that, or about the mounting sense of impending doom as he is led through the halls of the palace, down to the ledge where they take off, the descent down the mountain slow. His wings are lead. Flying had once been Jayce’s favorite thing. Granted, it’d gotten harder once he’d bulked up, but it never stopped him from spending hours upon hours of his day in the sky. If anything, it was an incentive to learn how to maneuver through the tight-cornered obstacle courses he’d created as a kid.
He wonders, now, if flying will ever feel the same as it had.
The sky is gloomy. They take the small, scarcely touched tunnels that cut through the mountain to avoid being soaked by the rain-laden clouds banked midway through the mountainside kingdom. It all feels like one of the novels he’d read, on days when he’d get himself hurt as a kid and had to have his wings bandaged– or when he’d sneak out, either to go into the city, or into the forest, or wherever small Harpies go– and had been grounded. Quite literally.
The journey to the carriage feels both the longest and shortest it could possibly have felt. Knights turn their heads, the movement barely noticeable, as they land. He’s pulled into another hug, this time involving all three of them– and for all his reservations and anger, he hugs his parents to his body, as if trying to seep all of the warmth from them as he can to take it with him.
“I love you, my vida. Never forget it,” Ximena stares him in the eye, her gaze that mix between unbelievably loving and shockingly stern, a mix only mothers could manage. He places a kiss to her forehead.
“I know. I love you too.” Jayce murmurs, the first words he’d spoken in only five or so minutes– and yet it felt like a century, with how tight and hoarse his throat is. No amount of swallowing remedies it. He turns to his father. “I love you,” he repeats, looking into his fathers golden eyes. Anyone who met him always said the same thing. ‘You have your fathers eyes!’ Not that he’s complaining.
His father nods, running a hand through Jayce's hair. Those hands cup his cheeks, staring for a long moment, as if his father were committing every detail of Jayce’s face to memory for the last time. As depressing a thought that is, it makes him warm in the heart.
Without another word, the hands are gone, and then his feet are carrying him towards the carriage. The door is opened for him. All of his belongings were already moved into a separate carriage that has already started down the road.
He waves out the window, watching as his parents slowly disappear into the distance. Watching as Naeshis fades from view.
—
The harpy jumps as a hand touches his shoulder, feathers fluffing outwards on instinct.
“Oh– sorry,” Mel rushes to apologize, her hands returning to her sides. “You weren’t responding, just staring out the window. I’d gotten a bit worried.” She says it as a joke, but Jayce doesn’t have to search very hard to find the edge in her tone.
“Did you need something?” Jayce asks, trying his hardest to not come off rude. It works, somewhat.
“I just wanted to let you know that the engagement party is being held tonight. My mother wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.” Jayce scoffs at that. It’d been clear since the moment he’d stepped into the throne room to greet the queen that she didn’t approve of him. She’d sniffed the air once, because that was all it took to judge him, and had turned her gaze onto her daughter. There’d been a silent conversation happening between their eyes that Jayce was not privy to, despite standing right fucking there.
But he’s not bitter.
He looks at Mel then, taking in her appearance. She’s dressed to the teeth in her usual fitted-dress and jewelry. Her posture is immaculate, her expression warm enough to be welcoming, trained enough to be intimidating. But something was off. He hadn’t known her very well. They’d met once, as kids, and then now. It doesn’t take a genius, however, to tell that she is withholding something.
Jayce doesn’t press. He’s aware enough of the situation to know that she wants this about as much as she does. That is to say, not at all. So he nods. Not solemnly, or defeatedly. Just a nod. That is all the incentive she needs to make her departure. He knows, logically, that they should get to know each other better.
The silence is appreciated nonetheless.
He sinks back into the lush chaise seated in front of the windows, sprawling across the length of it, stretching his limbs as far as they will go. He doesn’t want to sulk, not really. Nothing would come of it but his own discomfort and hurt.
He sulks.
The ceiling gets boring, after a while of staring at it like if he glares hard enough he can make the angel babies painted on it magically come to life and fix everything that has happened. He’s counted all of the brush strokes of the art, and then again. Probably missed a few, but with every moment that passes, he finds his energy being sapped from him.
His eyes flutter shut, a natural thing, and he dozes.
—
It stares. From across the clearing. The eyes are hollow. The skin is rotten, sloughing off the bone in black peels.
Its jaw is broken, hanging limp, far lower than it should.
It stays there, between the bushes. The moon the only light.
There are two white dots where its eyes are lifeless.
It was the barest breath he’d taken that had finally set it into motion. The cry it’d let out curdled his blood faster than any poison. The forest around them was dead, black. Rotten.
He froze.
It neared, looking no less lifeless as it had from twenty yards away.
It’s hand raised, skin and flesh of the fingertips shed in favor of a bone-made-claw, and then almost as quickly as it’d advanced, he was yanked out of the way, thrown to the ground.
He’d expected the ground part, the fall. Expected to feel the cold cut of those claws through his skin, through his feathers. Expected to bleed.
To Rot.
He did none of that but fall.
He looked up.
Blue hair. There were twigs in it, like she’d dove through the trees.
The sound of the claws sinking into her flesh reaches his ears first and last, because everything afterwards is a deafening ring. He screams, he knows. He lunges. He pulls her away from it. Her consciousness is already fading.
It rears its head.
He doesn’t think. But at least, he thinks bitterly, he doesn’t freeze.
He takes the sword from her belt and stabs it straight through its heart, then severs its head. It will come back soon enough.
He doesn’t care.
Yes he does.
It doesn’t matter if he cares.
The talons of his feet clasp as gently as possible around one of her arms and legs, lifting her with him as he takes flight.
He’d never flown so fast in his life.
It didn’t matter.
—
Jayce awakes with a gasp, disoriented. The middle of his back yells at him as he sits up– the arm rest of the chaise had dug into it as he rested.
Well, as he slept.
No rest was had.
He looks down, then around the room.
He’d almost forgotten.
The heavy intake of air is reminder enough.
The sun is making a slow descent outside, coating the city of Piltover in golden glamour. He wills himself not to think, when he heaves his legs over the side of the chaise and onto the ground. The room is warm, warmer still underneath his feathers, and yet he is cold.
The walk is mindless, as is the routine, of dressing into the garbs set out for him on the bed. They were fancy– fancier than he’d ever thought of wearing.
He might’ve been from a royal family, but Naeshis was not so concerned with regal gowns and suits. Their attire was often light fabric, wrapped around bodies in patterns and crosses. The material usually clung, cascading down their bodies like the waterfalls on the east side of the mountain range.
It was not just to ease flight, wearing flowing fabrics that went easily along with the wind. It was about being close to nature. Not shielding from it, or denying it by hiding the bodies it gifted them.
His hand drifted over his own clothes. Crimson red, the kind that looked like a river of wine draped around his body. He heard it, like the whisper of a distant music box, the day he’d been given the fabric. He’d been young, then. His parents hadn’t expected him to grow so intensely, having to increase the length of it multiple times just to accommodate.
He remembered looking in the mirror that night, after finding a style he’d been happy with for it– one that flaunted the muscles under his feathers that he’d worked so hard for. And that night, for the very first time, he felt truly comfortable with how he looked.
He didn’t look like a she anymore.
It felt like a ritual, almost, to remove it. An odd one, granted, but a ritual nonetheless.
He tried not to think, as he so often finds himself doing very recently, as he slipped into the new suit.
He’d arrived in Piltover two days ago. The first day, he was shown around briefly, and then settled into his room. The second, he met the queen, a brief thing— merely a few words exchanged, where a formal dinner between him and them was set up. And he was sent to the tailors to get his measurements.
And now today.
He’s… at a loss for words. Has been since his parents revealed their agreement to the engagement.
It felt like a betrayal, almost, to hear them say it. They’d always tried to be so supportive, even if they never quite understood him. Even if the things he wanted went against their customs. They supported him. They let him have a voice, an opinion, and listened to it like he actually mattered, like he wasn’t some doll for his parents to flaunt around like so many royal children become.
And yet?
He knew they had no choice. He knew that. So why did it still hurt so much?
The Rot killed Naeshin. It’d been two years already, and the fear has yet to be quelled. The memories. The Ash.
This was the only choice.
…
The suit fits him remarkably well. He’d thought it’d be an awkward look, a Harpy dressed in a suit, but the fabric had been tailored to match his body thread for feather, to compliment it, accentuate it. As if he weren’t an outcast. A prince from a nobody kingdom. A Harpy in a land where a Harpy might as well be a mythical beast.
He looked, in every sense of the word, like a Prince. Like royalty. Like an heir to the throne.
And yet, he felt like the black sheep. He hadn’t stepped out of his room, and he knew he’d be the black sheep. All eyes would be on him, when they’d rather be anywhere else.
Unless he’s just exaggerating.
He sticks with that, that it's just an exaggeration. It’ll make the night infinitely easier to deal with, if only for a night.
Because that’s all he needs, isn’t it? Just one night. Show up, woo the people who matter, and disappear until their wedding day– then disappear again.
He glances at his belongings across the room, still stuffed away in their bags. Only the vaguest of evidence of him shuffling through them to find things to wear these past two days. The servants had insisted on unpacking for him– they’re a lot more pushy here in Piltover than they are in Naeshin– but he’d merely shooed them off with a dismissive wave of his hand, and when that didn’t work he added the firm glare he’d learned from his mother, desperately aching for a moment alone. Really alone. Sure, he’d been alone in the carriage, but that wasn’t the same. There’d been guards on horses on either side, and the coachman on the other side of the wall he’d leaned his head against, looking up at the low ceiling of the carriage, urgently wishing away his tears.
He doesn’t want to unpack. Refuses to, like a stubborn child.
He doesn’t see it that way though, of course.
He sees it as a man who has been ripped from his home and refuses to settle into the new one so easily, to accept it so willingly, as if he doesn’t mind at all. As if he’s happy to be tossed around like the doll he’d been so scared of becoming.
He runs a hand through his hair. It’s starting to get greasy. He shrugs. If nothing else, it merely looks like he put product in his hair.
He dreads the night. The futility of it all. The façade that drowns the ballroom, intoxicates them more than any wine could.
Jayce shakes himself out of his small stupor, casting one more glance towards the mirror before striding towards the door, pushing through it before he has a chance to hesitate, a chance to doubt. For his mind to tell him that there’s no point, in the end, and to turn back around and hide so they’ll never find him.
He almost runs head first into a man as he turns a corner.
Well, almost would be a terrible omission, wouldn’t it.
Because he does run into the man. Quite hard, really.
The collision has Jayce wincing as his head knocks into the others, their bodies crashing together second. The other man's body wobbles unstably, and Jayce thinks nothing of it when his hands shoot out, catching him before he can fall. Makes sure he’s steady before withdrawing himself, finally looking up and meeting the other’s gaze, apology already burning at the tip of his tongue–
It burns away, like smoke from a stamped out cigar.
The man is… beautiful, to put it short. Not that he's short. Actually, without the hunch of his back, he'd almost be Jayce's height. Which is, fine. Not hot. Normal.
He damn near says it, out loud, all of it, before he promptly panics and blurts a half-assed ‘Gotta go!’ while already walking past him. Well, speed walking. Or jogging. Either or. Neither saves his embarrassment.
Gods, what the hell was that?
He didn’t even check if the man was okay or not. He had a cane, he thinks. It can’t be good etiquette for a prince to knock into someone with a cane and not even stop to ask if they’re okay. Absurdly pretty or not.
But he has an excuse. Right? Who in their right mind would be able to gather their thoughts, when eyes as gold as the rising sun settle on him so vividly, like they can see every intricacy of the web that makes up his body, his mind, his soul, in those few seconds they’d made eye contact.
But he’s seen pretty people before, and he’s never reacted like that. Mel was pretty. Drop dead fucking gorgeous, actually. And yet, the last thing he wants to do is marry her.
Well, not because of her, per se. More so their positions. She’d explained it to him briefly, the situation at hand.
A bit of an inconvenience.
Yeah, his life getting ripped away from him was an inconvenience at best.
Before he knows it, Jayce had arrived at the grand doors to the Ballroom. A separate building from the rest of the palace, one you had to cross the luxurious courtyard to get to. The distant trickle of the waterfalls in the center had snapped his mind right back into place, brain latching onto the barest sign of home and holding on like a lion does its prey, glimpses of the creeks at the foot of the mountain where water runoff would make its home.
A tad disheartening, but at least the very disorienting snap to reality managed to save him from doing anything stupid while lost in thought.
He finds Mel waiting outside of the ballroom, greeting her with a small bow of his head.
“You look nice,” she comments idly, thoughts clearly elsewhere.
“As do you,” Jayce says, and it's true. Her dress wasn’t massive, no hoops underneath to add the volume that made you unnecessarily difficult to squeeze past. It was black, frills of see-through fabric cascading downwards, dusted with gold like reflections of sunlight over water. The bodice clings to her torso, simple in its design as it travels upward to a crest at her neck. The golden markings over her body give it the small flare it needs to go from a dress one wears to an engagement party to a dress a princess wears to an engagement party.
He offers his arm, because he isn’t about to let his bitterness sour the entire party.
She takes it, delicately manicured hands coming to wrap around the feathered arm. It’s a shame they couldn’t lock elbows, as he knows they’re supposed to do, but unfortunately he was born with big, gorgeous wings. What a pity.
They take a synced breath, steeling themselves, and push through the doors.
Enough guests have arrived for it to be loud within the ballroom, the string quartet playing over the buzz. Alcohol seems to have been withheld until later in the evening, likely until everyone has arrived. Jayce doesn’t know exactly how something like this is going to go. If he’s going to have to be on a stage, or perhaps make a speech. But if a speech was involved, Mel would’ve told him, right? Not even just for his sake, but he’s her fiancé now. He doesn’t know her too well, but he knows her enough to know she wouldn’t risk embarrassing herself by springing an impromptu speech on him and watching him fumble.
They’re greeted by multiple guests upon entry, all of which he’s never seen in his life. Most, if not all of them, cast him glances– some judging, calculating, some blatantly confused. All of them sly, or some rendition of it, as if they truly believe they’re being discreet with the way they look at him. He doesn’t understand where the confusion might come in, however, he finds he can’t make himself care. He’s just there to make a good enough image of himself that the Medarda household isn’t shamed for choosing a Harpy from a kingdom most of them hadn’t heard about in their lives as their future king.
That thought had given him a reality check last night. It was then that Mel had explained that her father was a similar situation. She’d kept the details vague, however she did tell him that Ambessa Medarda was often seen as the sole ruler of Piltover. That the father was almost never seen, and when he was, he was sickly and pale. He’d died two years ago, and that was the end of the conversation. Well, conversations are two-sided, and he hadn’t been able to get so much as a ‘thank you’ in before she’d already disappeared. Again.
Not to blame her, of course.
He introduced himself almost forty times by the time the drinks came out. More than forty, actually, but he’d stopped counting after it had seemed a pointless endeavor to. It’s impossible to count to one million anyway, and he was sure it was nearing that number.
So when drinks came out, he had little shame in the way he downed his champagne and immediately grabbed for the next one. He did have some dignity, however, and nursed this one. A quick, urgent nursing, but a nursing nonetheless.
“Mr. Kiramman!” He hears Mel call from beside him, and blames the alcohol for the way his face pales. For the way his palms get sweaty underneath the feathers, and how his heart sky rockets. There’s no way, logically, that the man could possibly remember Jayce. Jayce himself barely remembers Mr. Kiramman at all. Face wise. The name, however, is hard to forget. “It is so good to see you,” she greets, smile easily manufactured onto her lips, as the man nears. He smiles at her, and then at Jayce. He almost tenses, expecting to watch as recognition fills Mr. Kiramman’s eyes and he shouts at Jayce, disgracing him.
None of that happens, of course.
And why would it? Jayce didn't take his daughter from Piltover. Jayce didn’t do anything. It was Cait. And they both were barely ten. Smart decisions were not going to be expected from them.
Sure, they got older and continued to be unsmart, but that's more on the fact that they didn’t have another choice than any irresponsibility, really.
“Likewise, Princess Medarda.” He bows, and then turns to Jayce. There it is again, that look of confusion. Although, unlike almost everyone they’ve met so far, Mr. Kiramman buries it quickly. Jayce doesn’t know if he should be appreciative of that or not. “I look forward to seeing what you bring to the Medarda line,” he says with a bow, so calmly Jayce might’ve almost believed he’d been sincere.
“Thank you,” he returns, feeling no less used to it than when the night had first started. “Can I get you a drink?” he prompts, having absolutely zero other conversation starters.
“Oh, no thank you. I quit drinking some time ago,” Mr. Kiramman waves a hand in the air, bringing a glass of water to his lips. Odd. Jayce was under the impression that everyone in Piltover— especially the nobles— were almost, if not always, six feet deep in one alcohol or another. Even in Naeshin, whose practices are so different from Piltover, make it a regular habit.
Him and Mel engage in conversation that Jayce has to start tuning out for his own sanity, and once the man departs, Jayce murmurs a quick word to Mel before slipping from her side for the first time tonight.
He weaves through the crowd. He knows he doesn’t hide very well. He’s 6’1 and is mostly covered in feathers. He might as well be wearing a red and white target on his back.
He manages to reach the balcony that overlooks the dropoff at the back of the ballroom into the west side of Piltover. A breath of relief escapes him once the oppressive atmosphere is left behind, exchanged for the slightly less oppressive atmosphere of the outside. He leans against the stone railing, gazing up at the sky. Swirling the champagne in his glass, he wonders idly if he could get away with flying at night. Perhaps above the clouds, where the frigid cold air is familiar to him. Where the length between him and the ground is so welcoming it might as well be the warm hug he needs to fight against the cold.
Should his wings spontaneously stop working up there, a plummet like that would kill him.
There is a shift of fabric behind him, as well as a soft click of a cane, and he would have jumped out of his skin, had he not remembered the drink in his hand. His body settles for a violent shiver up his spine.
Turning his head, he’s met with golden eyes once more.
“...Hello again,” he croaks, and he can only thank the gods that he didn’t panic and bolt like he did a mere few hours ago.
The man walks forward, gait slightly uneven with the cane, and leans against the railing with him. A respectful distance, of course, as the man nurses his own drink. “I hope I am not interrupting anything?” He asks, and oh that accent. Jayce has to take another sip of liquid courage before he can trust himself enough to respond and maintain his dignity all at once.
Well, whatever dignity he might have salvaged after all but tucking his tail between his legs and sprinting when he was first ambushed by this stupidly pretty man.
“Um, no. I was just… well, it's all a bit much, in there. I never had any of these, back home,” Jayce finally responds, refusing to admit that he’s hiding behind his glass. Because he isn’t. Why should he be scared of the pretty man?
The man offers a hum of acknowledgement, looking out across the city. The light from inside the ballroom catches the lines of the man's cheekbones and jawline, sharp enough to cut the stone of the Naeshin Mountain Range and carve a whole nother palace into it.
There’s moles on his upper lip and under his eye. More, he can see, descending past his collar. It’s then that he notices the man’s apparel–
He wears a white button down, flounces at the collar and cuffs. The shirt is tucked into tailored black pants that cover long, elegant legs. Overtop he wears an aristocrat vest, the color an emerald green embroidered with gold.
It makes Jayce's mouth somehow go bone dry and water like the runoff from the mountain at once.
He realizes he’s staring, and goes to apologize, before the man speaks up.
“It is troubling me,” he starts, and that accent shuts Jayce up instantly. “Why my sister would choose another alpha as her mate, when she herself is also an alpha. It is not unheard of, of course, but among royal pairs?” The man glances at him then, but Jayce is too distracted to be awestruck by those golden eyes.
In Naeshin, the secondary genders are almost completely unconsidered. There are omegas, betas, aalphas– yes– but the significance of them is so little Jayce had forgotten about their significance elsewhere.
It hadn’t occurred to him once that Mel was an alpha.
Sensing Jayce’s inner turmoil, Viktor seems to wordlessly prompt a response, urging Jayce to get out what he’s thinking.
“Back home… we didn’t really do… that. I mean– obviously we had it. That's just biology. But– we had ways of getting rid of the heats, and the ruts, and everything else- almost entirely. I guess I’d become so desensitized, I couldn’t even smell it…” he looks back into the distance, considering. “Wait– so, what the hell are we supposed to do? Isn’t it going to cause complications, y’know, producing an… uh, an heir?” Jayce asks, aware that he’s asking a complete stranger about deeply personal questions within the royal family. He stops short, though, before he continues his tirade. “Wait, your sister!?”
The man simply chuckles, taking a swig of the drink cradled delicately in those long, elegant fingers. “Adoptive, but yes.”
Jayce rolls back and forth on his heels, considering. “Huh. I didn’t think royalty were allowed to do that.”
He merely shrugs in response. “I believe the issue of you both being alphas has yet to be sorted,” he says, skipping over the topic of adoption entirely, and Jayce lets him. Just to hear that accent.
Where is this coming from?
“That would explain all of the confused glances I got when people sniffed at me. I thought they were just looking down their noses at me,” Jayce chuckles sheepishly, running his claws through his hair. He’d tried to resist doing it while he was inside, aware that it appeared unprofessional– but he’s outside now, so who cares.
“I wouldn’t put that past them,” the man scowls, but there's a joking lilt to his tone. “But yes, in your case, they were likely trying to process how that was going to work in terms of the family line. Furthermore, how Ambessa Medarda could ever allow it.”
“I already know that woman doesn’t like me. Her and Mel had their own little conversation the day I went to meet them, just with their eyes. Somehow, that was worse than them having the conversation outwardly. Like they thought I was too stupid to notice…” Jayce is grumbling by this point, tipping back the last of his champagne.
“You’ll get used to it.” There’s a small smirk on the man's lips that stretches the mole above his lip. Jayce is entranced.
“I…” Jayce starts, realizing; “I didn’t know the Medarda family had another child.”
“Not many do.” His responses around adoption are cold cut and served that way, it seemed. The man glances between the large glass doors to the ballroom, and then Jayce. “You should get back to the party, Mr. Talis. Afterall, it is for you.”
Jayce concedes, pushing off the stone railing. He walks towards the doors but stops, turning heel. “Wait– I don’t even know your name..?”
The man truly smiles then, something flickering in those golden depths.
“...It’s Viktor.”