Chapter 5: Wine-drunk Questions

An hour had not yet passed before they found the bottom of the bottle, Eris shaking it in a pathetic attempt to coax more port wine out. He lifted it up, gazing down the bottleneck.

“I think that you should open the other one tonight too.” There was a hiccup, a hand brought up to cover his mouth as he stared at Marion. His eyes were bleary and his face was flushed, before ultimately sprawling across the bed in an attempt to grab the second bottle.

The knight pushed Eris away from them as he reached for the second bottle. “You’ve had the lion’s share of it, I’d like to at least enjoy some of this as well.” Marion huddled away from the prince, shielding the second port bottle from view. “Besides, you didn’t pay for it!”

“Well–” Another hiccup escaped Eris, a hand coming to cover his mouth once more. “Well! It’s not like I won’t repay you. You think I’m a liar? Do you think I won’t?”

“Didn’t call you a liar, Your Highness, but I do think you’ve had a little too much to drink. . . . You’re a lightweight, which is remarkable given the lavish lifestyle I know you’ve lived.”

“Oh- Oh don’t you even get me started about my supposed lavish lifestyle,” Eris whined. Marion was certain had his pitch been any higher, they would’ve gone deaf. “Duties and parties and the whole country is watching me. They’re always watching me. They watch and they look and the whole court waits for me to make a mistake so they can descend upon me like vultures!”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad, Your Highness,” the knight commented, moving aside so as to give the prince the whole bed in his lamentations.

The cork was pulled out of the second bottle and Marion tilted their head back to sup from it. Unlike the other bottle, this was a white port and it was ambrosial upon the elf’s tongue. Honey and summer citrus washing away the worries of the last several weeks. While the tawny port that Eris had largely been the consumer of was fine, it was not as good as what Marion had now.

The ambrosial peace of honey and citrus was disrupted by a wailing cry from Eris. “Not that bad? What do you know about being an heir, you spare?” A nerve in particular had been struck, the knight’s head snapping back so that they might glower at the prince. “Nothing! Nothing, absolutely nothing! You have siblings. The world expects nothing of you and thus it is pleasantly surprised whenever you do succeed.”

“Good gods, Eris,” Marion snapped. “Shut up, would you? I thought you wanted to be quiet about your whole 'I’m the missing, presumed dead, prince of the nation' thing?”

The prince sat up slightly, hiccupping as some tears welled in his pearl-hued eyes. The elf sighed softly, going to set back down on the side of the bed as the man began to sob. Drunk, ugly sobbing. He blabbered on, but was largely incomprehensible, Marion offering a gentle pat every so often to his back.

“I’m sorry,” they murmured. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been rude.”

“No… No, don’t apologize,” Eris sniffled. Marion didn’t think they’d ever seen someone look beautifully pathetic in that way before, pushing the thought away. They wanted to comfort him.“I’m-- Gods, I’m an idiot. . .” The words were drawn out between hiccups and tears. The knight was only then struck by a thought and an idea. The thought being that Eris clearly had a lot more going on than surviving a kidnapping and living alone for the last three months. The idea being that they should likely distract him with something. Cards would have to do.

“I tell you what,” Marion drawled softly, patting Eris’ back gently. “I’ll dig out the deck of cards, alright? I played with Jacket plenty on our way to deal with–” They paused. “On our way to find you. It’s a great way to clear the head and. . . you know, maybe sober up a little bit?” Their voice was strained, given Marion had no basis on handling the situation. They were a knight, not a babysitter or a healer.

Still, the elf manhandled the prince into a sitting position, a hand brought up to try drying some of his tears away. “See? You’re fine. You’re not stupid, you’re just a bit drunk.” They hushed softly, glancing back at Jacket. The fey was already digging out the deck of cards from the saddlebags on the table.

“You’re going to have to teach me how to play,” Eris whined as he sat up.

“Yes, of course, I’ll teach you how to play cards. Do they not debase themselves with games in the Court of Pearls, Your Highness?” The question was more teasing than genuine, a poke at the court rather than the prince.

“No. They do not play card games. They sit, they drink, they gossip, and they play that stupid game with the mallets and the wooden balls.”

“Croquet?”

“Yes! Croquet! I hate croquet. I hate how noisy it is and I hate the stupid little clap that the courtesans do when someone gets a ball under an arch. How hard is it to get a ball under an arch?! It’s not that hard.”

Marion chuckled with a shake of the head, undoing the cord that bound their card deck together. They shuffled with an absent hand, paying very little attention to the cards as they moved. “Well, in the barracks we play cards, typically.”

“But you’re a knight. You’re a noble! Why are you in the barracks like–”

“Like a common soldier? Because it’s how I started out,” Marion snorted derisively, setting the deck down between them. “See, you were right when you called me a spare. So . . .out of spite for my standing, I went and did things I wasn’t supposed to do. I joined the Court Guard, I went to tourneys, and did what I wanted. It was really just to spite my parents, given the weight they put on the rest of us to be… well, nothing, more or less. I wasn’t willing to abide by that so. . . Here I am! On a quest for the King and coming back home with a lot more than he asked for.”

Eris’ gaze steadied on Marion, watching the elf return to stealing sips from the bottle of white port. What he wouldn’t have given to be more than what was expected of him when the weight of the world seemed to rest on his chest.

“They expect nothing, so they must be pleasantly surprised at the results, right?”

“Oh, no. They’re furious with me, but you can’t really fight against your child being knighted by the King, you know? You also can’t fight against the Court of Pearls bestowing a quest upon the same child to go out and avenge the death of their beloved prince, especially not when a blade of kingsteel has already been handed over.”

“Yes, I noticed your blade.” Eris’ nose crinkled slightly. The blade was the sourest piece of Marion’s presence. The secrets of kingsteel were hidden deep in the palace archives, deep enough to be behind vaulted doors. It was not common knowledge and the prince knew why that was. “The same blade that was forged on the anniversary of my mother’s death. Fitting, isn’t it? Sent to avenge the king’s only son with the memorial blade forged for his wife… Enough of this, it’s depressing to talk about blades and the military. Show me how to play your card games.”

The melancholic tone that had preceded his request caught Marion off guard. They took a long drink from the port wine bottle, resting it against their inner knee as they sat crisscross on the bed.

“Well, I think the easiest for the two of us to play is Twenty-One. You draw the cards and try to get to twenty-one or as close to it as you can without going over. If you go over that, you lose. Most folks in my barrack always bet on pay or shifts, but I never enjoyed betting.”

“Is that because you played Twenty-One with a fey?” Eris drawled, beckoning to Jacket as she came crawling onto the bed.

“We’re not dealing her in,” Marion said pointedly. “She counts cards and she cheats.”

“That seems a good enough reason to deal her in,” the prince quipped back, going to scoop up the dog-shaped fey creature into his arms. A noise of protest left Jacket at being manhandled and babied, before ultimately accepting her fate.

Some hours later, Marion would have finished the bottle late into the night, bleary eyed, red faced and barely awake now. They flopped back onto the bed, head tilted to stare at the ceiling as if it might protect them from their drunkenness.

“Hey, Eris?”

The prince was just barely awake, his eyes heavy as his head turned so that he might glance at the knight. “Yeah, Marion?”

“What’s it like when the whole world loves you?”Marion’s thoughts drifted to Eris’ rambling about the nature of being an heir. They truly believed the world loved him, how could they not? He seemed perfect and wonderful in every way that mattered.

“The whole world doesn’t love me. The Court of Pearls and other kingdoms beyond ours, they claim to love me. They don’t, though...” He brought a hand up to rub his eyes. “They’ve been watching me since I came into the public eye. Waiting for any moment that I might fail and falter, so as to find some reason to push me off my pedestal. They want me to tumble, they want me to fall from grace like Icarus did.”

“But Icarus fell from grace through no fault but his own.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it? I’m the heir, I’m the future, I’m meant to be . . .everything. The better halves of people who are gone and the hopeful past for people who may not ever come to exist. The only fault by which I can fail is clearly my own, because I’m the heir and I have all the resources needed to succeed… Even when the world is against me.”

Marion laid there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. The words were stone-like on their chest. A dull ache grasped their heart at the prospect of a failure as grand as that. They turned to look at Eris, only to find the prince fast asleep, curled up with Jacket in his arms. The fey stared at Marion helplessly as the knight stood to drag the blanket over his sleeping body. “Goodnight, Eris.”

They lay in the bed, staring up at the ceiling for some time, considering the sleeping prince’s sentiments. Marion felt compelled to protect him, to uplift him, unable to recall him smiling before now. Had they ever seen a smile grace his delicate features when he was still in the palace? Their memory failed them, little else turning up but fleeting grimaces and placid neutrality. What could they do to make him happy?