How does one catch a shadow? How does one ensure, for that matter, that one catches the right shadow? It's a bit of a gamble; but it is a gamble that Preston West III is pretty sure he knows how to take. As the palace winds down for the day and the chambers of the mighty ring with closing arguments and deals, as servants busy themselves with preparing for the return of their masters and mistresses, one figure slips through the halls like a ship moving against the current. Not furtively, no; nothing gains attention quite like furtive behavior, after all.
     If I am wrong then this missive will be found most probably by your brother-in-law. If I am right then you will find it, and I think your curiosity and sense of entertainment alone will be sufficient that you will choose to answer...
     Thus the missive begins. It is addressed to Aeron ap Davydd, and it does not spell out the details. A meeting is sought. A time is proposed, and a place; this very unobserved hour, between lunch and dinner. The location is the chambers so richly appointed for him by his lover and future king. The note has been dropped in a shadowy corner near your own usually empty apartments, and Pres has returned to his own suite.
     He is confident. Give him that, at least. He is garbed in the uniform he's designed for himself, navy blue with white shirt and black boots, hair clipped only a little less severely than a Marine's. And he is pouring not one, but two glasses of blackberry brandy as he settles in patiently to wait.
     A favor for a favor...

     To admit to curiosity is to give away the trick. To show up so soon is nothing less than an admission of submission, interest and even, in some cases, boredom. He would so hate to give the wrong sort of impression.
     You wait patiently. Your door -- the Soon King's door, rather -- remains unopened. The dust is not so much as inconvenienced, nor the air, nor the Soon King's jeweled pillows...
     But upon setting down the bottle of blackberry brandy, held within that quiet thud of glass to wood, in fact disguised in it, was the lifting of another bottle. These things happen from time to time. Perfectly fine aged mulberry whiskey goes missing.
     "I don't normally do favors..."
     The voice is similar to Bran's in tone but not in timbre. It is an insinuation as much as a sound -- quiet, thoughtful, and of extremely dry humor. "But you are quite right, Preston West. I do like entertainment."
     He is the exact replica of Bran. He is as tall, as broad, his face identical down to the shape of the eyebrow. But where Bran's face is animated, his being boisterous (if at times arrogant), looking at Aeron is like facing the Sphinx. His black eyes are surrounded by a corona of emerald green (versus his twin's green eyes surrounded by a corona of black-green). The whole of the left half of his body is covered in tattoos identical to his twin's, his arms visible as his clothing transforms from shadow armor to something one might see in the worst sort of London clubs: black leather pants and a black t-shirt.
     Aeron opens the bottle of whiskey as he steps forward from the Nothingness that birthed him. "Blackberry brandy is far too sweet for me, but I thank you for the gesture. What may I do for you..."
     It is probably just a rhetorical question...

     He takes both glasses to the table and turns to you in doing so, offering you a very faint smile. "Sorry. I didn't know what you'd prefer." Pres motions for you to feel free to sit, a wordless expansiveness of American hospitality, waiting an extra beat before he sits himself. If you don't want the brandy, he'll just have to drink both himself. Can't let it go to waste.
     He waits until you've arranged yourself however you feel best, and he studies you. You look exactly like your twin, and you are nothing like your twin. "Your brother's in love with my sister. It seems to be going around lately. I don't know how close you are to him, but I can tell you how to help him win her over."
     He puts a card down on the table, metaphorically. Here's an offer. It's revealing, and he knows it's revealing - and he figures you probably can tell that he knows. The grey eyes are grey as slate, the red in his hair bleaching out a little to honey color. He sits back and picks up the first of the brandies. "Health," Pres proposes.

     There is something about your family that always takes him aback. You not only set all of your cards on a table, but you all tend to slam them down and point to them as if to say: Hey, here I am, showing you my cards. Seated on one of the Soon King's fine slipper chairs, Aeron leans back as if to hold his own cards closer to his chest for fear you might reach over and fold them back to take a peek. He takes a plug from the whiskey bottle, the fruity-sting of the mulberry a shock to tongue and throat.
     Aeron cocks his head to you, to your toast, an eyebrow tilting upward quixotic. "And wealth," he intones. "Bran appears to care for her, yes." A smile, while beautiful, is hardly comforting upon his face. "You will have to pardon me, Preston West. I am unused to brothers attempting to assist Bran in his conquests. Typically, he's chased with a variety of weaponry." It amuses him and he is, therefore, entertained even as you promised he would be. He takes another swig of the whiskey.
     "Why... I wonder," Aeron muses afterwards. "Why do you wish to assist him in his... endeavor?" He says nothing about his closeness with his identical twin. Your cards are shown. And he is has called the bet. The stakes, as of yet, have not been raised.

     He watches you, expression unchanged, perhaps a little pensive. "He says he's in earnest, and that's good enough for me. I think he's sincere - I'm less worried about Gillian with him than I am about Maddie with your nephew, and vice versa. But things are changing. I can't see how it'll work out. If I'm going to be a good brother, I have to try to do things in a way which will make people as happy as I can."
     Pres shrugs and drinks a mouthful of the brandy without wincing, though his eyes go a little bit brighter. "And I know how to help him. More specifically, I know how you can help him win her over. Don't know if it's something you'd want to do, but," he shrugs, "I know how. And I need something from you, so ... better I have something I can offer you, yeah?"
     He waits, as patient as a fisherman, and with an underlying awareness that fish can bite back.

     "For a thief and a rogue, he is incredibly earnest and forthright," Aeron says seriously. "When his word is given, it is true. My brother is quite honorable. I believe him." Turning slightly, he sets the bottle aside, his fingers folding on his stomach. He eyes you with those green-rimmed black eyes rather curiously.
     For a number of reasons...
     "I do not know that happiness is the best tonic for him, but I would like to see him less maudlin. Before I investigate that further, however, I must ask what it is that I could do for you? You ... require something from me?"
     He has to know what the cost will be, after all, before he accept what you are offering. Aeron looks you over, up and down. The fish sees the dangling worm. But some fish like to watch it dance for a bit before nibbling...

     Mentally, he shrugs, and he tells you his answer in as cool a tone as any. "I need to learn how to fight," Pres tells you. "We all had a little bit of self-defense as kids, but the only sword and dagger stuff I've done has been tournament stuff, and doesn't count. I need you to turn me into as close to an expert as possible, as soon as possible."
     "It's better," Pres continues, eyeing you carefully, "that I learn from someone with no real interest in my failure or success past a certain point. We're not friends. You're not going to go easy on me. But we're not enemies either; you're not going to use the opportunity to get me killed just for the hell of it. And it's better that other people don't know what I'm learning, and I think you're the one person I can go to about this who will keep it in relative confidence if I tell you why. Which is good, because somebody other than me is going to have to know."
     He picks up his brandy and lifts it in a slightly mocking little salute. "Of course, I'm not going to tell you without a deal being on the table. Open to negotiation, but I can't give it all away for free. You'd get bored if I did."

     The cat doesn't like being figured out, but he humors you all the same. "Very well. Your logic is sound. I can't argue with it. And I do know how to fight. Even better, I know how to defend. There are plenty of hell-beasts on which to practice and entire frontiers of disputed space and time. You shan't lack for sparring partners."
     Aeron returns your slightly mocking salute with a motion of his hand, a kind of royal wave as he reaches for the bottle of whiskey. "You were speaking of how I might help my brother ... woo your sister. I am the more charming one. It only makes sense." His lips curl in his own amusement. "What are you proposing that I do, Preston. My usual methods involve abduction. I am assuming you are thinking of a more... modern approach."

     "The real hitch in anything to do with my sisters is always going to be our mother." Pres goes right to the meat of the matter. "Maddie wants to tweak her; Gillian wants her approval. So right now Gillian's low man on the totem pole, so to speak. Maddie brought home a duke."
     He sketches the situation for you with broad strokes, expecting you to have the wit and wherewithal to fill in the colors for yourself. You've seen a bit of it. "Maddie's being cruel," Pres says bluntly. "She doesn't realize it really, not yet - she hasn't figured out that those claws are sharp, yet. If it keeps up, if the scales don't balance, sooner or later Gillian's going to reciprocate. And she's stronger, tougher and meaner than Maddie when it comes right down to it. She's competent. I don't want your bro being a casualty of that. So if you want him to win, 'he' needs to go to mumsie and dad and ask permission to court her and lay bona fides at their feet which leave - Balthazar's - in the dust. Bona fides they can understand, natch."
     He looks at you and waits to see what happens on your face. Is it something you can do, would do, does it interest you, bore you, repel you - he doesn't know. But he has a share of curiosity aside from any vested interest. And he finishes off the first brandy, picking up the second. "She'll be miffed that he went behind her back. But mumsie's approval will mean more to her than she wants it to. And it'll change how she looks at his pursuit of her, not because of any titles or money he has, but because mumsie and dad approve. Gilly needs her rebelling to be secret. Maddie doesn't."

     "He can be the King of America if you want him to be," Aeron drawls out. He doesn't understand the fascination with titles and he cares little for drama between girls. There is a reason he prefers men. Aeron is quiet through all of that, quiet even after the explanations.
     "Do you wish me to impersonate him," his mouth twitches. "I can do a fairly spot on impersonation." That actually sounds quite delightful. Seriously, however, Aeron sits forward again. "While I am happy to convey the information to my brother, I am not in favor of our becoming pieces in the ongoing chessboard of contention amongst the West Clan. I do not see what is to be gained by such an exercise. It merely continues the tit for tit for tat. Madison, once upped, will be inclined perhaps to retaliate. And so on and so on. Trust me... I'm Welsh. I know a little about family squabbles bringing down castles."
     He takes up the bottle of whiskey again, taking from it another clearing pull. He is nowhere near intoxicated, but he is flavored by it. "The family has a ... selection of titles. Earl of the Welsh Marches, Earl of Radnor, Earl of Snowdon. The Duke of Bedford, the title to which you refer, is long expired in terms of actual power. It is in name only. And she brought home a king it seems. Bran... and I... may eventually become kings ourselves, but that shall be a most sorrowful day. I, personally, shall be inconsolable. We are dukes, and so the playing field, if you wish to think of it as such, is even. Will that be sufficient? I should think, in the interest of long-term family harmony, equality would be preferred."

     "I don't want you to become pieces." It's said flatly. "I don't want you to be unreasonable, and yeah, I want you to just play the role. Pull whichever title he's got that can be provable and recognized. I don't know a damn thing about those kinds of titles. Gillian would, does. Me? Not so much."
     Pres sits back and exhales slowly. He closes his eyes, thinking about it - and, did you but know it, looking with something that is not quite his eyes, to trace the patterns behind his lids.
     Equality...
     There is no such thing, not really...
     "I don't think it matters. If it's equal there, it still will be unequal here. Maddie will gloat over your nephew's kingship and try to rub Gillian's nose in it. Mumsie won't know about that, so - go with whatever seems most appropriate," Pres says finally. "This isn't about heading Maddie off at the pass. This is about impressing mumsie, and getting dad's approval, enough that mumsie will stop using Maddie's 'success' as a club to try to beat Gilly into line as a future senator's wife, and giving your brother a real shake. She won't fall for him if she doesn't love him - but if he has our parents' approval, she'll be more likely to let herself fall in the hopes he'll catch her."

     He remains unconvinced about something that remains unvoiced. But it is in his eyes as he studies you. "We make the proof we need," Aeron replies, matter-of-factly. He was an Oxford professor and Oxford recognized him as such, without it having been true, not even a little bit.
     "I will... come up with something exciting," the tone and the smile are both even. "And I will present myself to them. Of course, he will have to know. I shall have him there with me. I do nothing hidden from my twin. But we have a way," Aeron smiles, "... of getting what we want."
     The bottle of whiskey disappears, and Aeron is on the move. His stride is unhurried, rather can't be bothered with haste. "I shall contact you tomorrow regarding your instruction. I am... looking forward to it..."

     And you have not asked for the rest. This is going to be interesting.
     Pres rises and nods to you politely. "It's in your hands. I'm just telling you what I think you need to know. The rest is up to you guys. Good luck, and I'll be here tomorrow."
     "Same bat-time, same bat-channel..."

Posted by rowan at August 08, 2009 09:40 PM