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Laurent had walked an hour with Prince Damianos before a strange silence inevitably fell upon them. It was thickened by the crush of the snow beneath their boots, and the heavy clouds of air forming before their lips. Now still and silent, Laurent could feel the cracks that had settled in his lips. On instinct, he lifted a hand to them, ready to pick and tear at the dry, rough flesh, before remembering that said hand was within a glove, and, more importantly, that he stood beside the Prince Damianos, interim Ambassador of Akielos. He replaced his hand within its muff.
A lone goose was flying overhead, trying to catch up with his brothers who had long since passed. His squawks broke the thickening silence, bringing Laurent to an embarrassing realization. Had he truly spent the better part of the morning pushing Prince Damianos up and down rows upon rows of all these dead plants? Everywhere Laurent looked, something frozen and dead stood. The few brittle leaves that had managed to cling to their trees were encased in a thin sheet of ice, which threatened to fall and shatter at any minute gust of wind. Even the evergreens were tipped with a sick brown, drooping below heavy layers of snow and ice. The sky overhead was gray, thickening itself with snow before releasing it upon the earth.
*What an awful host!* the Prince must be thinking. The thought made Laurent pull his hands closer to his face, the warmth from his muff giving his aching nose and cheeks a temporary reprieve.
“Have you any thoughts of marriage, Prince Damianos?” The words fell like an executioner’s axe, leaving a bloody, sputtering mess of what careful companionship Laurent and the Prince had managed to cultivate.
Damianos cleared his throat. “Yes, I do.” Another awful moment of silence. “And you may call me by my given name if you would like.”
Laurent exhaled a cloud. “Alright. Damianos.”
They were silent again.
“Why do you ask about marriage?” Damen asked finally, his tone light.
“Oh, well. My brother is thinking of marriage. He’s thinking to marry an Akielon,” Laurent said.
Damianos looked at him strangely. “An Akielon?”
“Mhm.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“Really? Why not?”
He smirked. “She would freeze before the winter set in.”
Laurent laughed. “Well, either she freezes in Arles or I cook somewhere in Akielos. My brother’s options do not favor him.”
“Why should you cook in Akielos?”
Laurent smirked, glancing over at Damianos. “Don’t you seen my complexion?”
Damianos stared, a furrow in his brow.
Laurent dropped his smile, and focused again on the path before him. “The King intends to strengthen Veretian-Akielon alliance through marriage, which leaves only him or me to be a groom. He has chosen that he will marry, as I do not prefer women as he does, and this arrangement will also allow us to remain in Arles together.”
Damianos was quiet. Then, “I see.”
They were silent a while, the hedges around them growing taller, the stars shining brighter, the stabbing air piercing their skin where it slipped in between the layers of wool. Laurent soon became aware of a numbness at the tips of his ears, and lifted his hood accordingly. The white hare fur brushed against his skin, inhibiting much of his peripheral vision. It was one of his favored coats, deep Arlesian blue and snowy white. When he wore this coat, Laurent fancied that he was like the pink-cheeked princes in tales of old, coats embroidered with starlight and hair threaded with ice. Laurent shivered a little at the thought, and pushed his hand back into his muff.
“-wish to marry?” Damianos was asking, his voice deep and cold-roughened, like the knights in those old tales.
“Yes, I suppose. I have not thought much on it, to be frank,” Laurent said. He had to turn his head fully to the side to see Damianos. “What are your thoughts on marriage? You didn’t quite answer me earlier.”
Damianos shrugged. “I am twenty-six this winter. My brother is thirty-five, and just recently married. My father wishes that I do not follow his path.”
He stopped, studying a leaf from a low willow tree, glassy with ice. Quietly, “We don’t marry countries in Akielos, as you do in Vere. I had had one, who I thought I would make mine, but she found another.”
Laurent was quiet, weighing several responses on his tongue. “She’s a fool, then,” he settled for, and regretted only slightly less than he would have his other options.
Damianos laughed, low and disagreeing, as he turned back. “Thank you, but she’s really quite the opposite. You’d see if you met her.”
“Bring me to Akielos then. I’ll meet her and tell you again that she’s a fool.”
Laurent held his face still against the suffocating embarrassment. Why couldn’t he have been born a mute?
Damen looked away from the icy leaf and back to Laurent, a confused sort of look on his face.
“Shall we continue?” Laurent asked, to quell the growing awkwardness.
Damianos nodded, a newer, stranger look on his face.