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Sir Arlin delivers excellent news. As always, he is an excellent advisor. While in the tower, your… condition will not advance, but it can also not be transmitted to others. It’s not a cure, yet, but it lends hope to the idea of normalcy. Or, whatever normalcy can be considered when you are the nameless, faceless sovereign of a great magic tower, and de-facto leader of a country. Your hands shake as you leave the map room from which Sir Arlin spends his time, not from their usual tremors and associated weakness, but from excitement. It has been a long while since you have felt excitement. You have a reason for excitement, now. You can touch! Walking through the halls of the tower, you think of all the possibilities that are now open to you. Most of them involve Sir Oliver, your beloved knight and number one employee. You had been too worried to kiss him, yesterday, in the garden, but now you know that it runs no real risk for him.
The only risk is to you, how he will react to knowing that his sovereign, his… lover(?) is a leper, physique ravaged by years of untreated disease. It has been a while since you truly looked at yourself, but you can only imagine that it isn’t much better than the last time. You know that new burns have scarred themselves into your skin, joining the miscoloured patches scattered around your body. Your fingers are mildly misshapen, hands weak and trembling, and you’re prone to walking slowly due to the unhealing ulcers on your feet and the perpetual muscle weakness. It is a well known thing that you are weak, although most tend to believe it is due to disability, a rumour that you and Sir Arlin have done nothing to stop, sometimes even softly encouraging from the backgrounds. It is better than the truth, after all. A disability isn’t contagious, feared by the populace.
Regardless of the simmering fear settling in your stomach, you go to find him. It takes a little while to find him, as you stumble through the tower, searching the kitchens and snagging a light snack (it is near lunch time, after all), knocking on the door to his quarters, and finally checking the library. It is there he is settled, nestled up into a corner with books galore towered beside him and atop the desk. You smile to yourself, under the cold, unflinching marble mask you wear. It is nice to see him content, somewhat peaceful with the everpresent tiredness in his eyes alleviated a bit. You watch him for a bit longer, as he sips from a mug of coffee that had been hidden behind one of his stacks of books and flips the page of the book he is perusing. You have to squint to read the titles, the small print of the unnecessarily complicated titling of magic manuals evading you. Oh, Oliver. Still working, even when he’s not on a mission.
You finally approach him, shambling over as quietly as you can in all of your ostentatious finery, which isn’t very quiet at all. The fact that he doesn’t notice is a testament to his focus, his commitment to continuing to expand his magical knowledge base even after getting his degree. You eventually reach him, and place a shaky, gloved hand on the shoulder of his armour.
“Sir Oliver. Could you spare me some of your time?” You speak quietly, not yet wanting to disrupt the quiet sanctity of the library. There’s no one else there, everyone else having been dispatched or on leave, but this is a moment you’d like to keep private. Oliver looks up from his book, a small smile gracing his tired face when he sees it’s you, and only you.
“Boss! I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” He greets you, his cheeks heating up with a slight blush. If you weren’t wearing the mask, he’d see that your cheeks sport a similar blush, for you both are surely thinking of yesterday’s events. You take his lack of a denial, and now closed book permission to talk. You amble over over to the seat across from him, and sit down. Your robes drape over the chair, obscuring it from view, and you carefully place your gloved hands on the desk.
“It is always a pleasure to see you, Sir Oliver.” A hint of affection coats your words, and he notices it.
“I’ve come to… confide in you, we’ll say.” You leave it at that, waiting to see how he reacts. You don’t want to keep secrets of this magnitude from him if you are to love him completely, to be his partner and not just boss.
His expression sobers a tad, and he nods. He’s placed the book he was reading off to the side, devoting his whole attention to you. You smile under the mask at that. He truly is a wonderful, devoted man and knight. You thank your lucky stars that fate brought him to The Tower, even if those events were more than unsavoury for the both of you. You take his nod and silence as permission to begin, starting at the beginning.
“I do not wish to hide things from you, dearest Oliver.” You can’t help yourself from adding in the endearment, even if it does not exactly belong in this conversation. Before he can speak to ask what it is you may have been hiding from him, for you have been rather upright about everything he has asked about beforehand, you continue on.
“You have probably noticed that I am… weak. I am ill, to be honest. Before The Tower called to me, invited me in and made me sovereign, I was a leper. Still am, in truth.” You swallow thickly, watching his face and body language carefully for any negative reactions.
“Thankfully, The Tower, in all of its magic, mitigates my symptoms. Prevents my ailment from progressing further. It also prevents it from spreading, as I just learned from Sir Arlin.” You take the silken gloves off of your hands as you say the last of it, slowly and carefully exposing the mottled flesh of your fingers and hands. At some point your eyes have slipped closed, deep down your conscience not wanting to see if Oliver reacts negatively to your truth. Your hands tremble even as they’re freed from the fabric, and you lift them to the mask. Gently, you remove it and the headdress, freeing yourself from the heavy fabric and marble for the first time since morning. You hear a gasp from Oliver once you’re finally revealed, the soft intake of his breath breaking your heart a little. You swallow, and open your eyes finally as you put down the covering.
You timidly look up to meet his eyes, hoping, praying that he will not see you with sudden disgust, hatred for keeping such a heavy secret. Instead, sorrow coats his face as he looks upon you. He reaches for your hands, his rough hands resting atop yours patchy. You can barely feel the touch. But by the gods, does your heart soar. It has been so long since you have been touched, even in such a simple way as this. You had almost forgotten what real touch was like, your years of isolation slowly chipping away at the memories.
“Boss…” Oliver starts, his fingers ghosting over your hands and eventually lacing them through yours. You don’t say anything, waiting for him to finish what he’s started.
“You have done nothing but good for me. You’ve saved me, in a sense.” He swallows, his hands gently squeezing yours. The slight pressure is naught but a ghost of a feeling, but a nice one.
“I have pledged to serve you, and… I love you, at the end of the day.” His cheeks flush as he speaks in a soft voice, repeating those three little words you had said to him yesterday. Your expression brightens as you hear them, your cheeks heating up with what you imagine to be a soft flush.
“That you used to be ill doesn’t matter. That you remain hale and whole does. I’ve seen illness and injury in my life, suffered and inflicted.” His face darkens a bit as he thinks of the work he used to do for the Empire before defecting, and you squeeze his hands gently in turn.
“What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t matter to me, you are not that which befalls you.” Ah, there’s that smart mouth of the smart man you sent to school. How you have come to love him. You smile at him, lips curling upwards and eyes crinkling.
“Thank you, Oliver.” You lean into the table, robes bunching up.
He leans into the table as well, and offers you a simple nod in response. His dark eyes gleam in the sunlight coming from the windows of the library, and you decide to get to the secondary reason, other than being truthful, that you came here for. You clear your throat, look deep into his eyes, and get to it.
“May I kiss you, Sir Oliver?” You ask quietly, bashfulness creeping into your tone. You’ve never kissed someone before, not even when you were an uninfected child and had the freedom to fool around, and your heart beats with excitement at the prospect of sharing this first with Oliver. The heat in your cheeks remains as you wait for his answer, your eyes nigh unblinking as you watch him. It takes him a second to process it, but he bashfully nods, and leans further into the table. You awkwardly meet him, and press your lips together. You close your eyes for the second it lasts, separating a few centimetres apart and simply smiling at each other afterwards. You squeeze his hands gently, looking at him with love, and he looks back, those dark eyes of his gleaming with what you think is affection.
You think that things will turn out well, with Oliver by your side.