Takes place circa Eiderdown era
“How does it feel being an empty nester?”
Rook sprawls out on their four-poster bed as indolent as a large cat.
“Don’t say that,” Nice chides. His fingers make quick work of his hair. He’d just recently returned from yet another trip. Although the winter had promised no more diplomatic trips, he was called to the city of Vada-el for something he had only told Rook about in vaguest terms.
“Hiding from me?” Rook had asked, half a tease.
“I would only bore you,” Nice had said, before deftly twisting the topic to other things.
Nice regards himself in the mirror, tilting his head to the side to take in the white fishtail braid that begins above his left ear and trails down to his throat. It’s strung through with beautiful baubles, glass beads the size of marbles that contain the vast blueness of the cerulean ocean, as well as crystals set to look like glorious four-pointed stars, bright against a backdrop of snow.
He unravels the braid with his smallest fingers, drawing the colorful pieces from the strands of his hair and setting them in a shallow dish where they plink together like water.
When he’s through, he scritches the tips of his fingers through his hair, waking up and soothing his sore scalp with a sigh. He’s been wearing the ornate Vada-elan hairstyles more and more lately, even getting proficient at doing the simplest of them himself, but he’s still not quite used to it.
Continue reading “Glittering”