"It's unfortunate for you to get sick before your coronation, Your Highness."
"I'll be alright, Madam Felitia." Vladstin reassured the old maid. "It's just a cold, I'll be well tomorrow."
A knock came to the door. Vladstin blew his nose on a handkerchief. His voice was a little muffled when he said, "Come in!"
Leron came with a bowl in his hand. "I'll be giving him his dinner, Madam Felitia. You can now rest and leave it to me."
"Thank you, sir." Madam Felitia bowed her head and gave a slight Ilvedian curtsy to him, lifting her maroon skirt. "Call me if you need anything."
"We will." Leron gave a slight nod, a little amused at the exaggeratedness of the curtsy. All the Thirteen Kingdoms associated Ilvedia with that, especially the commoners, but they don't really practice it much outside of formal meetings among nobles.
The maid closed the door, and Leron sat down on the chair by Vladstin's bed. He placed a hand over his forehead to check the temperature. "Are you still feeling unwell?"
Vladstin said that he was alright in front of the maid, but in front of his 'lover', he gave a few coughs and acted sick. "Yes, I'm still feeling a little heavy and cold."
Leron knows that Vladstin is just pretending so he could baby him, but he played along. "Poor you. Well, I have some rampiogli to warm you up."
"Thank you." Vladstin sat up slowly from his bed like it was really painful for him. Leron sighed in his mind and helped him up.
"You have a coronation tomorrow so you have to get well soon. Not to mention that it's your 18th birthday." Leron reminded him. "If you're still feeling unwell, would you like me to tell them to postpone it—
" No, no! It's.... Uh, I think I'll feel much better now that you're here." Vladstin chuckled and finally dropped the act. He changed the subject. "Er, have you eaten already?"
"No. I was worried about you the whole day and I helped Queen Vanesda handle the preparations instead because you're not around." Leron said. "I know your size so I oversee your clothes for tomorrow. "
"Then if you haven't eaten yet....." Vladstin grinned. "Would you like to share? It's quite rare for me to eat rampiogli when it's not at the festival."
"I know it's one of your favorites that's why I had it made for you. I can't share it." Leron offered him a spoon and fork.
"Why not?" Vladstin pouted.
"Because it's yours, and you're sick, aren't you? Do you want me to catch your cold?"
"I'm not that sick anymore...." Vladstin straightened up and revealed the truth. "And I don't like you skipping meals. So as the future King of Crescentia, I order you to eat this rampiogli with me!"
Leron sighed, and used the spoon while Vladstin would use the fork. "Very well, future King of Crescentia. I'll do all everything you say as your loyal subject."
He said so and ate reluctantly, yet this is all part of his plan.
Watching Vladstin carefully, Leron timed his scooping of the pasta until they eventually ended up with the same long string connecting their two mouths.
"Mph! We got the same pasta, haha!" Vladstin said with pursed lips, too scared that the pasta might fall off if he opened his mouth too much. "You know what that means~"
"Do we really have to honor that tradition?" Leron acted all shy. Over the years, he did it so well that he can force his cheeks to redden at will.
"Yes, yes! Don't worry about getting sick. If you did get sick, I'll take care of you..." Vladstin flirted shamelessly, getting closer. He cupped Leron's cheek and nibbled the pasta until it grew shorter and shorter along with the distance between their lips.
While Vladstin is distracted, Leron pulled the knife that he kept hidden and tucked under his shirt.
Vladstin closed his eyes as their lips touched, and seeing the Leron wasn't letting go or pushing him away, deepened the kiss further.
Leron kissed him, pulse quickening not because of excitement, but out of anxiety. He embraced him so that he could stab him in the back. Vladstin didn't notice anything wrong and hugged him back, caressing Leron both desperately yet also so delicately. Leron could only close his eyes from what he was about to do.
With shivering hands, he raised the knife and....
He can't do it.
"Ahn....ha.... Are you alright?" Vladstin let go and asked him. "You're a little tense."
"I... I'm fine, heh. " Leron quickly hid the knife back and laughed nervously. "Just.... butterflies in the stomach, you know."
Vladstin believed him. "Yeah.... I get that too whenever we do this."
"A-Anyway, just finish your food. I'm full already." Leron stood up and stepped back. His heart wouldn't stop pounding and he feared that though as dense as Vladstin was, he might begin to notice it.
Vladstin ate the rest of the rampiogli forlornly, like he was disappointed in something. Once finished, he set it down and Leron took it. The knife was hidden under his shirt and tucked on his trousers again. Leron gave a half-baked smile. "I'll be going then...."
"Wait, Leron. There's just something I'd like to say."
Leron braced himself, his nerves still a wreck from his failed attempt to..... He walked back really stiffly and he felt like his limbs were made of stone. Vladstin patted the space beside him on his bed and Leron sat beside him obediently. Vladstin took his hand and kissed it, gently sighing.
"You know how much I love you, don't you? I love you so much that sometimes I feel like it would burst and take over me completely." Vladstin blushed like he had never before. "Every time we touch and our lips are pressed together, I crave to do something more. We've been together for quite a while now, and even before that we knew each other very well.... yet we still haven't crossed that line."
Leron gulped, not expecting that it would come to.... this. That Vladstin would reveal his true desires so sincerely. "D-Do..... Do you want to.... do something right now?"
"No....I mean I do....But.... Ugh!" Vladstin buried his face with his hands. "What I wanted to say is that I'm willing to wait for you no matter how long it takes. If you're not ready, then that's alright with me. If you completely don't want to, then that's fine with me too. Even kissing and stuff.... being around you is enough. Just tell me if you're uncomfortable and I'll stop, ok?"
Vladstin looked at him with full sincerity with those golden eyes that were so intense that they felt like they are brighter than the moon outside. He really was just so.... good. Why!? Why does he have to be so....
"I have to go." Leron could not take it and ran out of the room.
"Leron! Wait!"
-------------
There was a heavy storm outside the Royal Orphanage, and the windows had begun to fog up. Xiani doesn't mind this because she was enamored about a new book she was reading, about a study on how Zhaulian belief, there are different facets to a person's soul that when losing one could explain most 'inhumane' behavior.
She soon heard the creaky door downstairs open, and she frowned a bit. Who would visit this late at night?
"Xiani, can you please open the door?" Lady Wilhengard knocked.
She closed the heavy book almost the size of her whole desk and opened it. Her round eyes widened even more in shock. "Prince Leron?"
"Leron asked to sleep with us tonight." Lady Wilhengard said. "I don't know what happened, but he went all the way here and is now soaking wet in the storm. You have the key to Yulio and Raishti's bedroom, don't you?"
"Yes." Xiani nodded and got the key from the drawer.
Yulio and Raishti are now grown men by this time, and went on separate ways from the Orphanage. Yulio followed his dreams as a soldier, quickly rising from the ranks, while Raishti took an apprenticeship from a duke's adviser to become a diplomat. From what Leron had heard from Suzhi who stayed here to take care of the new children being added to the Orphanage, they still wrote letters to each other which she sometimes deliver personally when she have time. Suzhi did not care for their privacy and would rip the envelope and read it, then pretend to puke afterwards.
Their bedroom was now empty, so that's where Leron will stay for the night.
"Just follow Xiani and take a bath in the shower. I have to put all the babies to sleep in their cribs." Lady Wilhengard said and leave it up to the bewildered girl.
"This way, Prince Leron." Xiani showed the way with an oil lamp in hand.
"Please, there's no need to call me that." Leron took off his wet cloak and shook the water off.
"But no matter what, you are still a prince of Ilvedia. It is a fact that I merely acknowledge. " Xiani said.
This left a foul taste on Leron's mouth. His mind is already a chaotic wreck, he doesn't need a reminder of that fact.
Xiani really doesn't know social cues well. She says things that may be hurtful and don't fully realize the harm in those words. She comprehends textbooks more than human emotions, even her own. Though this means she doesn't get along with people that much, this also means that she doesn't fully feel sad about it or distraught, or realize that what she truly feels.
Leron wishes he was like this sometimes. Maybe then, killing Vladstin would be easier. He has the willpower but there's something that's stopping him from doing it...
"Prince Leron?" Xiani looked back, her confused face visible only through the light of the oil lamp. She was now way ahead of him in a cobblestone staircase.
"Oh." Leron realized that he came to a halt and continued walking. To break from the awkwardness, he cleared his throat as he walked up the steps. "What were you reading back there by the way?"
"Zhaulian beliefs! They believe that there are five souls in a person, not one, and each of these corresponds to a certain organ like the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, and kidneys..... " Xiani finally had the opportunity to talk about it so she shared everything she knew with strong zeal. Leron first listened to the lecture out of politeness, but then grew interested when she started to explain the further studies about this concept.
"The book I was reading was not really just about these souls, but the science behind them. The authors claim that though there are many misconceptions in the Zhaulian belief, they are not too far off to say that there are different facets to a person's psyche. But all these facets, these 'souls' are actually part of a watery mass in the head.
"They call this the 'brain'. It is where the mind is, and the mind contains all things like our memory, our conscience, our identity, and the like."
"These scientists believe that most moral misconduct and unnatural behavior can be a result of a disease in the mind, a malady of the 'brain'. And so, fixing the brain might fix the behavior."
"Taking away parts of the brain would take away some of its functions though, so it's too risky. But they actually learned that a tribe from the Kaikilatlo Kingdom are studying this mind-altering for many years, they just don't know what the organ in our head was called and believe it possesses strong powers.
"They perform surgeries on their enemies and make them lose their memories and their conscience and make them follow the first command given to them, regardless if it was something vile like killing their own families—"
"Does that book of yours have these rituals?"
"Huh?" Xiani was too engrossed in the intellectual aspect of the conversation that she took a while to recover from being interrupted.
She then nodded. "The book has a copy of the translated records for these rituals. But they are not proven yet. And the victims of these surgeries explain that what they feel is like their 'true self' being locked away, some sense of dissociation."
"They don't really seem to forget their memories because they will say they remember it when you ask them, but they only remember the fact that something happened, not the visual image or the experience itself."
"They feel regret for what they have done but are somehow distanced from it, and that is how they will feel for the rest of their lives. Some recovered the part of their brain that was taken away but others lost their sense of conscience, their self, their MIND... forever."
"Some describe it as being dead and yet still able to walk anyway."
Leron pondered over this the whole night. He tossed and turned on Yulio's bed, tried Raishti's, and got the same result, and found himself going back and forth on two beds yet unable to sleep on either of them. A surgery to the head..... Not to mention that he has to do it on his own. It's likely that he'll end up dying in both mind AND body if he makes a single mistake.
But it was a risk that he was willing to make. He has nothing to lose. Or rather, he wanted to lose everything.
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