As the bustling crowd parted ways around the young prince’s towering and ever still figure, Aurelius stood in complete silence as he stared upwards at the store’s sign. His hood casted a shadow over his youthful features as he craned his neck, silently attempting to sound out the alien letters that had been expertly carved into the painted wooden sign. Even though he was well aware of the effects of the magical potion given to him some weeks prior to his journey the elven prince was distraught to be reminded yet again that the vials did not allow for him to read the funny looking syllables that made up the Ranislavian alphabet.

A gentle gust of wind brushed across the elven prince’s hood, causing several locks of his shimmering golden hair to brush along his wrists as he clutched a crumpled parchment against his rising chest. It was as if the very wind itself was attempting to provide some manner of consolation towards the disappointed prince’s grief.

‘This has to be the place,’ A cautious Aurelius thought to himself as his eyes stared hesitantly at the brightly painted sign. Standing proudly as its centerpiece was the bust of a well-dressed woman wearing a variety of jewelry while a ring of roses floated around her. ‘I mean, the sign matches the picture she drew.’

When they had first arrived at the gates of the Ranislava’s royal palace, Anna had offhandedly mentioned this very store as she reminisced about the various stories that Iskra had gossiped about during her many visits to the supposedly well renowned jewelry store.

In fact, Iskra had made a reputation for herself after having spent a great deal of time and money within its walls. Upon being told of such a thing, Aurelius had made his interest about the storefront known to his travelling companion and after asking where he would be able to find it, a hesitant Anna had not only written down where to find the store but had also done him a courtesy by drawing a crude outline of what the store’s sign had looked like.

However before the two of them had been forced to temporary part ways with one another, as only the necessary parties were allowed beyond the doors of the meeting chamber, Anna had warned the magically disguised prince that the goods sold behind its doors were of such fame and high quality that only a few dozen noble households would be able to purchase a number of its wares without batting an eye at such high costs.

Thinking that her boasts about such a place were merely in jests, Aurelius had waved off her warning while his laughter filled the air around them.

With one last glance at the crumpled parchment held within his hands, the elven prince looked around his immediate surroundings for one last time. After having stood in front of the right store for such a long time had done a number to his nerves, but after confirming that the funny syllables on the parchment actually matched what was on the sign, the young prince tucked away the piece of paper into one of his pockets and stepped into the storefront.

From somewhere up above a small bell chimed, announcing his presence as he stepped into the jewelry store. With his hood covering most of his face, Aurelius stopped and twisted his head towards the harmonious sound as it rang out once again to signal that the windowed door had closed.

Even after the cessation of its metallic jingling, the elven prince’s eyes lingered over the palm sized bronze instrument as his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

Due to how he was raised, the young prince had never once stepped foot outside of his family’s horizon dominating home and it was thanks to recent events that he had gotten the chance to experience the outside world.

So the concept of having a bell used to announce a newcomer was completely alien to the curiosity-stricken prince, but he figured that it was far more commonplace than he was imagining it to be.

“Greetings, dear customer.”

A polite voice called out, drawing Aurelius’ attention back into reality. His head snapped towards where the polite, professional sounding voice had originated from.

Their eyes had met only briefly, but the voice’s owner bowed with such precision that the elven teenager couldn’t help but to return the gesture in kind.

“Please feel free to take a look at our wares at whichever pace you feel most comfortable with.” The attendant politely stated as a professional smile slowly appeared over his face. Looking over the sharply dressed attendant Aurelius felt that the stranger couldn’t have been much older than he was himself, but there was an aura of confidence about his personage that had left him stunned for the briefest of moments. “If you’re new here and wish for someone to help, then you may ask another attendant to be your guide until whenever you see fit to leave our humble store.”

The attendant’s eyes never once left sight of the elven prince as Aurelius nodded his head and stepped deeper into the high-class jewelry store.

Unsure of where to even begin, the prince meandered about the place as he kept to himself. A countless array of jewelry lived inside a variety of glass compartments that populated themselves throughout store’s shelves and the finely polished surfaces of the wares that remained locked behind their see-through walls had left the mesmerized teenager blinded.

Despite having such a vast array of options to pick from, Aurelius suffered from the very real fact that he had no idea what to buy or what his wife even liked when it came to jewelry. He came here for one reason only and that was to pick out a gift that he would be able to purchase himself, but so long as doubt remained in the back of his head he would be left to fend for himself as he went from one shelf to another.

He wasn’t going to leave the store until he had bought something.

The quest that he had set out for himself was an agonizing one as he stepped in front of one particular shelf before slowly losing interest and moving towards another. Eventually he pondered the idea of taking up the provided offer and asking for assistance, but his stubbornness had won out in the end and now he found himself standing next to a young girl who couldn’t have been older then he was as well as an older woman who looked to be the girl’s mother, but the vast difference in their style of clothing had made the foreign prince think otherwise.

As he stood shoulder to shoulder next to the warily eyed older woman who kept a careful hand hovering over the younger girls shoulders the whispers that were gossiping about his appearance had finally caught up to the young prince’s ears.

“-might as well be a beggar.” Remarked one of the whispers as its owner kept to themselves while gossiping with several of the store’s handful of customers. The small group of women were appalled by the store’s refusal to have immediately kicked out such a dusty and worn out trespasser, but after a polite yet firm rebuttal from a nearby attendant the gaggle of nobility lowered their voices even further as they watched the dusty stranger’s every movement.

“-is far too kind. That person is merely a lowborn pretending to be above their station.” Another voice claimed, this time at a level that might as well have been at the normal conversational tone. The owner hid behind an elaborate hand fan as the elven prince turned his head to look at several bracelets that had managed to catch his attention.

Aurelius merely shook his head, wondering why the woman who talked down at him would even say such things if she was too afraid to show her face.

Even the young girl and the older woman next to her were bold enough to whisper amongst each other, but they talked amongst themselves for a different reason entirely.

“Did you see how shiny his hair was?” The young girl practically gushed out as she leaned over to the woman beside her, peaking glances over at the hooded prince as he stared down at several kinds of similarly designed necklaces that had also managed to catch the eyes of the young girl.

“Yes. Yes,” The other woman nodded as she placed a gentle hand over the girl’s shoulders, suggesting to the young woman that she needed to lower her voice. “And I caught a glimpse of his face as well.”

The girl’s face beamed in excitement at the woman’s unspoken acknowledgement over the stranger’s awestriking appearance and leaned further into the woman’s side as she became unapologetic in her attempts to catch any glimpse at Aurelius’ hooded features. Yet she turned to look away, blushing in embarrassment when that very same individual twisted his head to look at another row of necklaces.

“Excuse me,” Aurelius looked up at the older woman as he pointed towards one of the necklaces encased in front of him. “Are these expensive?”

An odd question to be sure, especially for a store that was well known for its exorbitant prices but for the young prince it had needed to be asked. He was unfamiliar with the kingdom’s number system and had asked such a silly sounding question so that he would be able to judge what he could or couldn’t buy with the money that he had on hand.

However; with the way that he had asked the question, it had left the two women baffled and gave them no other option but to stare at the hooded prince with unfiltered bewilderment.

More whispers filtered throughout the store’s atmosphere as the two women fumbled over their words in their attempts to provide an answer, leaving a new level of interest for the blonde haired prince hanging in the air as their responses were quickly cut off with the arrival of a middle aged, grey haired attendant that stepped between the two parties.

“Good day, sir. Instead of inconveniencing some of our customers, perhaps I can be of some assistance to your needs?” Giving the two parties a chance to distance themselves from the other, the grey haired attendant stepped towards the hooded customer as he quietly gestured towards the selection of jewelry that the elven prince had been staring at some moments prior.

“Oh. Uh-” Aurelius stuttered, taken aback by the sudden arrival of the clean cut and impeccably dressed figure. “Yeah, actually. I’d like that.”

“Excellent.” A polite, professional smile rose upwards onto the attendant’s lips as a gloved hand hovered over the selection of necklaces. “Has anything managed to catch your eye, or would you like for me to assist you in picking something out?”

Aurelius turned to the necklaces once again as he fought for an answer. He had a small idea as to what he wanted to buy, but the various pieces of jewelry that he had seen so far looked to be a little bit too simplistic for something that he figured his wife would enjoy wearing.

In fact, he wasn’t even aware of what sort of jewelry Iskra was the most taken towards.

From their conversations together, Aurelius had only managed to learn that she was extremely fond of jewelry and that she had often boasted about the times that she would splurge out and buy copious amounts of the stuff whenever a new seasonal trend had reached her ears before it had even taken hold of the market.

And even though he was well aware that Iskra had gone into some detail over what types of jewelry she had usually worn those conversations had been blurred together into such a hazy mess that the young prince had lost track of what they were even talking about in the first place. His attention had oftentimes been drawn elsewhere while they were with one another and now the struggling teenager realized that his lack of attentiveness towards the contents of what his wife had been saying had reared its ugly head to strike him down in the most opportune of moments.

“I don’t really know.” The elven prince uttered in a soft voice as he looked up at the man with a pleading expression plastered over his handsome features.

‘The various gifts that I had given her were actually from father,’ The prince berated himself as his thoughts turned towards the rare moments where his larger-than-life father would stop by unannounced and hand over a gift for his son to give to his newest daughter-in-law.

‘You’re bold enough to spread her legs and put them behind her ears, but still too shy to go out and buy her a gift. You need to work on your priorities son.’ The Witch-King had once said to him after having surprised the young couple with yet another of his unannounced visits before proceeding to hand over a small box to his son that contained a pair of earrings.

Only for the son in question to immediately plop them down next to an incredibly flabbergasted Iskra as the father and son duo bonded with one another whilst the young couple was still locked in an increasingly heated and stamina draining passion of physical bliss.

The scars that Iskra carved across his back on that particular day still remained and every so often, whenever he thought back to the times where his father would grace the young couple with his voyeuristic visits, the once-bloodied canyons stung with such an intense heat that white-hot stars danced across his eyesight.

Despite her initial misgivings about being watched by her husband’s father, Aurelius was sure that Iskra had grown used to such exhaustive occurrences as the young couple’s lovemaking became even more frenzied whilst the prince and his father happily conversed with each other.

“If you aren’t sure what to buy, then we should start with some simple questions to help us along.” The voice of the shop’s attendant proclaimed, drawing the elven prince back towards reality and away from the moment of familial exhibitionism that was starting to become an increasingly common occurrence for the young couple. “First off, who are we buying for and what do they like?”

“It’s for my wife.” Stuttered Aurelius as he fought with the urge to have an idiotic smile plaster itself across his face as his entire body glowed with unfiltered pride at having announced to the world that he had gotten married. “She used to visit this place a lot when she lived here.”

“Your wife?” The attendant repeated as he eyed the hooded figure’s towering stature, looking for any clues as to the real identity behind this dusty and ragged looking traveler. After eyeing the shamelessly smiling figure for one last time, a perplexed look overcame the grey haired man’s features as he admitted defeat in his attempts to come up with a name for the strange man before him. “Are you sure that you don’t mean fiancé? You might be quite tall for your age, but you have the look of someone who can’t be much older than sixteen years of age.”

“No, I mean what I said. We’re married.” Aurelius proudly proclaimed as he struck up an overconfident pose, something that baffled even the most inattentive of guests. “She’s pregnant after all.”

The attendant offered his congratulations while the nearby lady-in-waiting let out a horrified gasp before tugging on her charge and pulling her away from the uncouth stranger and his virile lifestyle.

Flustered by having stood next to such an unrepentant man after having gossiped about his good looks, the Young Lady blushed up a storm as she stumbled behind the servant woman.

“I’m sure that the wedding must have been quite the exciting one.” The shop’s attendant laughed as he attempted to make light of the situation at hand.

For his efforts, the man was met with a perplexed look from the elven prince. It was as if he had spoken a time-lost language that only the Gods could understand during such a modern era. “What’s a wedding?”

The attendant howled in laughter after having thought that the customer was joking, but he quickly realized his mistake when the golden maned teenager continued to stare at him as if he were an alien creature that had crash landed from the starry night sky.

The whispers returned once again as those listening in to their conversation gossiped with one another, this time they spoke on the matter of which noble household had raised a daughter to such a level where she would have not only gotten pregnant before her debutante into the aristocratic world but also refuse to have held a wedding after becoming pregnant with her man’s child.

“Er-Ah, yes.” The attendant stumbled and tripped over his words as he fought against the growing tide to kick the man out for having brought such shameless degeneracy to his store. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done so already by this point in time, but a morbid sense of curiosity had gotten the better of him he supposed and that led him to dig further for more information as to who this mysterious wife of the enigmatic stranger could be. “Is there a chance for me to learn of her name? That way I can take a gander into our store’s registry and base our new purchase from her previous dealings with us.”

“I’d rather not say her name,” Aurelius stated, fully aware of his wife’s sordid history and the events that led to their meeting with one another. He feared for the worst if he were to bring any unwarranted attention to his growing family. “So for now, let’s just say that she likes her privacy.”

Uttering such a statement had only managed to make the whispers grow in intensity, leaving an increasingly flustered Aurelius to regret what he had said.

‘Sorry Iskra, but I’m probably going to end up buying something that isn’t to your taste.’ Aurelius quietly apologized to his distant wife as he admonished himself for something that has had yet to occur.

The attendant lowered his head in defeat as he continued to ignore the growing number of gossiping whispers, lost in thought as he fought over the minute amount of details that had been provided to him. After struggling for a small amount of time, fighting with himself over just what sort of jewelry the woman in question would be the most ecstatic about, the attendant raised his head once again and offered a polite smile towards the golden haired customer.

“Perhaps the reasons behind your struggles,” The attendant started as he excitedly tapped his fingers against his arms, itching to see the delighted smile that would soon be beaming off of such an odd fellow. “Is that while you think that your wife looks good with everything, she has a different mindset as to what looks good on her and what doesn’t.”

An excited smile beamed off of the prince’s face as Aurelius nodded his head furiously, elated to have heard the man hit the bullseye to the dilemma that he had been struggling with for quite some time now. The young prince couldn’t help but give the man a thumbs up as he clasped the man’s hand with his before giving it a vigorous shake.

After freeing his hand from such an excited customer, the attendant cautiously turned his attention back towards the goal in question and began to offer up whatever advice that he thought would prove fruitful in their search. “How about instead of something similar to these necklaces, we instead focus of something a little bit simpler. A bracelet, perhaps? Or maybe even a pair of earrings that match her eyes?”

What happened next was a whirlwind of calculated sales pitches as the attendant guided the hooded prince through a perfectly crafted storm of chaos as the two of them went from one corner of the store to the other. The two men were conscious enough to keep their voices to a minimum as they argued over the merits of one particular piece of jewelry over the other, but the more that they remained in close proximity with one another the louder their voices became as their shopping spree grinded to a complete stop.

“Look, if you are planning to give her those items then she would only feel burdened by what she’s seeing.” The attendant argued as a knife hand slammed onto the glass countertop in front of him, diving the two distinct piles of jewelry as he desperately fought to control the volume of his voice. The man was growing increasingly irritated with the customer’s persistent refusal to accept his advice. Something that had never happened in the nearly thirty years of service to the store. “She won’t know what to do with them so its best if you give up on those items and instead give her these.”

There were two piles of similar looking jewelry that had been gathered together during the brief time that the two men had spent together. In one pile stood a variety of overly designed and eye blinding earrings, bracelets and other baubles that the attendant was flabbergasted as to why a supposedly shy woman would even dare to wear in public, let alone in her very own home. While in the other pile were similar products that were designed with the tastes of a meek and quiet woman in mind.

Yet despite his insistence that his wife was a woman who took pride in her privacy and was supposedly quite shy, the hooded figure stood resolute in his attempts to buy the gaudiest pieces of jewelry that the store had to offer.

It was beyond agonizing for the attendant.

“I don’t know,” Aurelius muttered to himself as he contemplated over the attendant’s words, taking in the man’s advice before subsequently throwing it all away without so much as an afterthought. “What you picked out looks pretty good, but I still think that she might find them too dull.”

“Look,” The attendant let out in an exhausted growl as a hand reached out and covered the top of his head, scratching at his hair before taking a deep breath to help calm his nerves. “If you’re going to be this persistent, then why not have us compromise and buy something from each of the piles?”

Aurelius tilted his head back and forth as he thought over the idea, tapping a finger over the bottom of his chin as he struggled to find any reasons for him to refuse the given offer.

When none came, the elven prince nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders and reached into the depths of his pockets, rummaging around for what little money he had to offer.

“What about if we just buy both piles?” The elven prince held out a clenched fist as he placed it atop of the glass countertop before carefully opening the palm of his hand to reveal a pile of unaltered diamonds, recently excavated from the depths of the world. “Will this be enough, or do I need to dig for some more?”

Before the visibly stunned attendant could recover enough to respond, Aurelius reached back into his pockets for a second time and pulled out an equally impressive amount of diamonds.

Once the attendant had recovered enough of his senses after seeing such wealth being casually tossed onto the countertop in front of him, the store’s owner was called over so that the three of them could discuss the hooded prince’s purchases.

While the elven prince waited for his purchased items to be returned to him, neatly boxed and lavishly decorated in wrapping paper, a crowd had gathered around the golden maned teenager. Those that had once sought fit to gossip amongst themselves from afar were now desperate to make their acquaintances with Aurelius after he had revealed his immense wealth in such a lackadaisical manner.

Most had attempted to strike up fairly simple conversations with the hooded prince as they inquired about his personal life as well as what he did for a living, but Aurelius was able to recognize that their attempts at flattery were merely faints for what they were really after.

Which was to learn more about his mysterious wife and to pry further information out of him so that they would be able to use such information at a later date.

The prince was well aware of the consequences if he were to give them any more information than he had already done, so he merely waved off their flatteries and kept to himself as he quietly waited for his purchases to return to him.

The patience that he held for those around him was beginning to wear thin when he heard the store’s bell jingle, announcing the presence of another potential customer. Aurelius ignored the sound as he hoped that he would be leaving fairly soon, but the crowd around him had made time seem to move at a snail’s pace.

“That’s quite the crowd we’ve got going on here.” A gruff voice called out as its owner drew closer towards the mingling masses. “Was something new released without my wife knowing about it?”

The newcomer chuckled as his footsteps stopped just short of the crowd, Aurelius turned to look back to see what the man looked like but immediate disregarded his interest in the late comer as his curiosity had only given courage to his harassers. The only thing that the young prince was able to learn from the quick glance was that the man was a man and that he towered over those standing next to him, much like Aurelius did himself.

“What’s going on?” Aurelius heard the towering stranger ask one of the nearby gossipers, but he tuned out their conversation as an impeccably dressed woman gave him a brief dramatization of what had occurred over the past two hours.

For her part in retelling of the story, the woman was quite detailed for someone who the young prince thought had scoffed at his existence the moment that he stepped into the storefront.

Finally, after what had felt like an eternity for the oppressed prince, the shop’s attendant returned with wrapped gifts in hand.

“Here your purchases, good sir. I’m sure that your wife will be pleasantly surprised once she sees her new gifts.” The attendant let out in a jovial chuckle, only for the crowd to follow suite as Aurelius nodded his thanks to the man. “The next time you have business within the city, we’re hoping that you’ll see fit to visit us once again. Perhaps with your wife by your side?”

“Who knows,” Aurelius let out with a tired sigh as he began to neatly stack the boxes on top of each other before turning to leave. “She’s stubborn when she wants to be so I’m pretty sure that it’ll be difficult to get her to travel here.”

With that having been said, the young prince turned to leave but stopped mid-turn as soon as a gold chained necklace with a stylized ruby heart took hold of his sight.

The necklace, along with what looked to be its twin, was encased in a glass container that stood off to the side. Alone and with nothing else nearby to accompany it save for its mirrored sibling.

“What’s up with these necklaces? The ones with the ruby hearts attached to them?” The prince asked as he drew closer to the pair of glass encased jewelry.

“Those dreadful things?” The astonished attendant asked as he shook his head in disappointment towards the pair of necklaces. “You don’t need to worry about those things. They’re nothing more than the whimsical dreams crafted by our designer after one of his many fruitless attempts to alter the tastes of our clientele.”

“Oh,” The prince muttered as he placed a gentle hand over the display, his eyes peering deeper into the swaying ruby hearts as the light gleamed off of their shimmering surfaces. Besides their stylized designs, there was a sliver of gold that divided the two ruby hearts which only served to pique the elven prince’s even further. “What’s wrong with them, exactly?”

“Besides their gaudy appearances?” The attendant nearly scoffed at Aurelius’ interest in the pair of dreadful trinkets. “Nothing’s wrong with them. Like I said, our clientele doesn’t appreciate those kinds of designs and ever since being revealed by our designer they’ve been sitting in that case.”

“Do they do anything special?” Aurelius asked as he sought more details about the items. His inquiry only served to bring the attendant a great deal of pain as it was quite obvious that the man found no joy in looking at them, let alone thinking about the pair of ruby necklaces. “What’s with those slivers of gold around the middle there?”

Seeing no other way around it, the attendant let out a defeated sigh as he walked over to the case and freed the items from their glassy prison cell. With an open palm, the exhausted man showed the hooded prince the pair of necklaces in all of their glory. Allowing the blonde haired teenager to stare in awe at the pair of gold and ruby trinkets.

“If you were to press here then you can open it up and split it in two.” The man explained as his thumb pressed down on a tiny golden nub before casually opening one of the ruby hearts as if the entire ordeal was little more than a child’s most hated toy.

For the young Aurelius however, his face lit up with great joy as he reached out and took hold of the opened necklace. The golden maned prince turned the stylized heart over and over again until a great deal of time had passed.

“Can I buy them?” He finally asked as his face beamed with a new level of unfiltered joy.

The attendant raised an eyebrow at the prince’s question but remained silent as he placed both of the items back into their enclosure. If it hadn’t been for Aurelius’ previous behavior then the man would have been brought low in shock by the sudden interest in such an obviously out of season item.

“One moment please. I shall ask the owner if he wishes to part ways with these particular wares.”

With a great sigh, born out of the boredom that he had to endure for the past several hours, Aurelius drooped low into the seat of his chair. Originally, he had hoped that returning from his shopping trip would spell the end to his journey into the Ranislavian capital but the young prince’s hopes had been cruelly shattered when he learned that Anna’s meeting with her people’s nobility was still in its infancy.

With nothing else for him to do, Aurelius had decided that waiting just beyond the doors where the meeting was taking place would be the wisest move he could ever hope to make.

The consequences for his decision had rewarded him with a front row seat of watching the palace’s servants shuffling up and down the halls as day turned into night and the once sleeping lanterns were now fully lit and happily bringing the warmth of candle light to the shadowy corners of the marbled halls.

“I just want to go home.” The blonde haired teenager whined as his foot bounced up and down on the floor below, the soles of his travel boots echoing deeply into the near-vacant hallway as the nearby servants fought the urge to silence the annoyance that was birthed from his impatience.

Aurelius quietly wondered to himself if his patience hadn’t worn out so quickly if he had the occasional conversational partner, but the young prince was well aware of the rumors about him that circulated throughout these halls.

Rumors of his immense wealth had spread like wildfire and had reached the ears of those within the royal palace well before the elven teenager had even managed to step into the shadows of the royal palace.

Wild speculation and absurd theories had sprung up out of nowhere, but the golden haired prince, whose thin and worn out hood drooped low over his agonizing features, remained absolute in his sternness and bore the gossiping masses with relative ease.

The only time that this wasn’t the case however was when a small selection of servants had offered to feed him and handed him a decently proportioned meal throughout the dreadful hours that he had spent in front of the gold and purple-dye in-lined doors that led into the royal audience chamber. These brief moments of social interactions had come and gone without so much as a thank you from the young prince. Not because of his ungratefulness for the strangers’ kindness, but because of the fact that the servants had disappeared without a trace before he could even open his mouth to form the first syllable.

For whatever reason, Aurelius had felt dumber for having experienced such an awkward moment.

And now the rhythmic stomping of his soles against the finely polished marble floors had returned to the forefront of his hearings attention, masking the entirety of the near emptied halls of its exorbitant noise.

“Must you be so incessant with that racket?”

An oddly familiar voice called out, forcing the elven prince to plant a strong hand over his bouncing leg as he turned to look over at the voice’s owner. Strangely enough, Aurelius was glad that there was at least one person within the hallowed halls who was bold enough to speak out against the young prince’s increasing annoyance that had been born from his impatience.

For that meant that there was someone for him to converse with in order to help pass the time.

Looking towards the man, Aurelius did his best to examine the man’s features as he quietly wondered where he would have heard the man before. While the man looked vaguely familiar to him, with his raven-black hair and his towering figure, the young prince couldn’t put a name or place to the individual’s rugged features.

“Sorry,” Aurelius stuttered as he continued to look at the man with an inquisitive stare, struggling as he failed to think of where the two of them might have met one another. “I just want to get out of here and head back home.”

“Don’t we all.” The stranger muttered beneath his breath before twisting his head to look back towards the towering doors that continued to remain close.

It went quiet after that, forcing an agonized grunt to escape from beneath the prince’s hood as his leg slowly began to stomp at the floor below.

“Now listen here-” Groaned the stranger, his face scrunched up into a fierce snarl as he twisted his head to look back at the magically disguised prince. Only for the rest of his words to be cut down into silence as the twin doors creaked open, the sound of their hardwood edges scratching against the floor reverberated throughout the hall.

“Finally!” The two men said in unison as the elven teenager leapt to his feet while the towering stranger pushed himself off of the wall.

Jubilant laughter and the rhythmic sounds of marching feet greeted the elated men as a crowd of men surrounding a singular teenaged girl strode out of the audience chambers.

“I know that I shouldn’t be saying this,” Aurelius overheard one of the men say as the crowd moved further away from the slowly closing doorway. At the center of the mass of people was a towering figure that shared some resemblance to the already strangely familiar man that was already accompanying the impatient elven prince. “But now that all is said and done with, it feels like that I’m losing another part of myself.”

A chorus of other voices rang out, drowning out Anna’s follow-up to the man’s words as the other men spoke of feeling similar sensations to their apparent ringleader. The other voices spoke out about their dismay at having lost another member of high society, but the young girl that kept a polite, but distant tone with the men waved away their somber words.

Aurelius couldn’t help but beam with a jovial energy as the crowd got closer and closer to him and he had practically jumped for joy once his wife’s friend had made her way over towards him.

“Are you ready to head out?” Aurelius shot out rapidly, his words having been nearly lost in a jumbled mess as his tongue tripped over itself in his hurry to vacate the palace’s premises. “There’s nothing else for us to do here, right?”

Anna took a step back, shocked by the sudden approach but quickly recovered with a smile before nodding her head. “Yeah, everything is set.”

The girl opened her mouth to say something else, but the young prince wasn’t having any of it and rushed to grab her hand into his. Aurelius tugged at the girl, pulling her away from the crowd of jovial onlookers but went no further than a handful of steps before he could no longer stand the growing resistance of the Ranislavian teenager’s dragging footsteps.

“What?” He snarled as he twisted around to look back at the girl. He was more than ready to head out and return home and his face was filled with emotions to back that up as well.

“Don’t you want to stay a little bit longer and speak with some of the men here?” Anna asked after having recovered from the prince’s cruelly sounding outburst, gesturing her hands towards the towering raven haired man in particular. “I’m sure that you would love to get to know this gentleman here. Especially since the two of you have something in common.”

Aurelius couldn’t help but stare at the teenaged girl as if she were a crazy lunatic. Beyond their similarities in height, both the elven prince and the older gentleman, whose raven black hair was beginning to grey with age, shared nothing in common with one another.

Aurelius wasn’t sure what else was the two of them would have in common with each other and instead of wasting any more of his time to look for any supposed similarities between themselves, he felt that it was best to nod in a simple gesture of greetings and immediately depart from the premises.

And so that’s exactly what he did. At least that’s what he tried to do before being stopped yet again by an increasingly flustered Anna.

“What are you doing?” Whispered Anna as she tugged at the elven prince, drawing his ears closer to her lips so that her words couldn’t be overheard by any curious onlookers. “That’s Iskra’s dad.”

“Really?” Aurelius practically yelled out before being hushed by his partner. Only for him to repeat the word at a much softer volume. Looking over the girl’s shoulders, Aurelius squinted his eyes as he sought out any similarities between the towering man and the equally impressive teenaged girl that was waiting for the elven prince back at their backwater home.

Trying with all of his might Aurelius struggled to think of anything else that the potential father and daughter duo could share but beyond their similarities in their height and hair color, the elven prince failed to come up with anything else. Though he had to admit that the two of them shared a harsh, fierce gaze in their eyes.

“I mean, I guess.” Aurelius shrugged as he gave his partner a defeated look who could only respond by looking at him in complete bafflement.

If he were to somehow find the chance to compare both mother and daughter however, then there might be a chance for him to find other similarities.

A forced cough interrupted the odd moment that was being shared between the two teenagers, forcing the both of them to look back at the very man that was the subject of Anna’s impromptu meet-and-greet.

“Aurelius, was it?” Asked Iskra’s supposed father as the man put out his hand in greetings. Both the prince and his potential father-in-law shook hands once the elven teenager got over his moment of hesitation. “You don’t know how hard it was for us to just be able to find out your name from Anna here, but my son here has stated that you flaunted a great deal of wealth inside of The Regalia.”

“Uh, yes. I guess.” This forced the older man to raise an eye at the prince’s peculiar way of speaking, but pressed no further on the subject of the teenager’s great wealth. “But it’s not my money to spend honestly.”

“Then whose is it, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“My wife’s.” Aurelius answered as he beamed with pride. His elation at having spoken such words didn’t come because of who his wife might be, but because of how he felt about his wife overall.

“Is that so?” His wife’s father spoke as he turned to look back at Anna. The girl could only shrug her shoulders at the Ranislavian Duke’s unspoken questions before shaking her head to say that there wasn’t much else to say. “And am I correct to assume that it is through your wife’s contacts that you were able to get ahold of Anna?”

“You could say that, yeah.”

The noble lowered his head as he became lost in thought but after several quick, successive blinks of his eyes, the man returned his full attention back towards what was in front of him instead of contemplating over the meanings behind the hooded prince’s words.

“You know-” The man paused as he thought over his choice of words, making a careful attempt to pry as much information out of the blonde stranger as he could. “When I first arrived to the palace this morning, I thought that I would find a destitute looking young girl who was shivering from fright. Yet I was wholeheartedly surprised to see that Anna was not only confident in her strides, but also speaking in a way that I’ve never heard from her throughout all of the years that our family has known her.”

“Yet I couldn’t help but grow worried for the safety of one of my daughter’s friends when she refused to offer us any more information other than the barebones that was already given to us. She remained resolute in her silence when we attempted to find out more about this mysterious family friend.” A harsh expression grew over the Duke’s weathered features as he stepped towards the elven teenager, using what little height that he had over the hooded prince to tower over the source of his worries as a form of intimidation. “Throughout my life I’ve been called a man whose quite good with his judgement of one’s character, but after having experienced recent events first hand I can’t help but believe that that may not be the actual case. So let me ask you something, Aurelius. Who in the world?”

‘Now that I think about it,’ Aurelius thought to himself as he averted his gaze from the man’s piercing stare, unwilling to look into the icy blue eyes of the inquiring gentleman lest he spill the beans about the current affairs of his banished daughter. ‘I can see some of the resemblance.’

“Duke, please.” Anna pleaded with the man as her voice cracked with dismay while she lowered her head in shame at having to witness the treatment that her friend’s husband was receiving. “He’s a good person. I can assure you of that.”

“My question still stands. What’s more, ” The Duke replied as he continued to stare harshly at the disguised elven prince, speaking with such an authority that suggested that he was not only taking to the teenager standing in front of him but those around him as well. “You sound as if you’re a native of Orul. In fact, that accent of yours is unique enough to place you within the city of Gronskva itself. Though it has to be said that no one within that city has even the tiniest sliver of blonde hair. And I mean no one. “

A few rumblings and nodding of one’s head came from within the crowd as the man finished with what he had to say, forcing the foreign prince to take a step back as he attempted to collect his thoughts.

“Well, I mean-” Aurelius struggled to respond after having been so brazenly been put on the spot, his eyes dashing between those within the crowd as he mumbled out his spots. “I know some people from there. They’re the ones who taught me your language.”

His words come out in such a brazen manner that it was hardly anyone’s guess as to what he had actually said, but the inquisitive Duke had heard it all.

“Where’s your accent then? Are you to tell me that you, a foreigner who was born and raised on distant shores, are able to speak our king’s tongue with such a precision that one would find it hard to believe that you aren’t from this land?”

Nerve wracked beads of sweat began to form over the prince’s head, slowly dripping down onto the bridge of his nose as he desperately looked towards Anna for any help that she might be able to offer.

“That’s enough, Duke.” Anna’s voice called out as she tugged on the man’s sleeve before stepping towards the nerve wracked elven prince, placing her hand over his shoulder to show to the crowd that the conversation was over and done with. Turning to look back at the father of her best friend and the wife of the blonde haired teenager that now stood in front of her, Anna gave the man a sorrow filled shake of her head. “Please, Duke. Have some patience with the man. If you do, then I’m sure that you’ll be able to get the answers that you seek from him. But such a day will have to wait for another time and another place. ”

With that, the two of them left the hallowed halls of Ranislava’s royal palace.