Pralines & Cream 4, Cantaloupe 17
Title: The Hidden Stars
Story Continuity: The Lethean Glamour (non-main story)
Author: darkfaerieclaw
Prompts: Pralines & Cream #4: four star, Cantaloupe #17: big brother
Topping: Whipped Cream (Valentio is 15 [as opposed to 30 in LG])
Rating: PG-13 for crudeness and language
Summary: There are four stars which can never be seen from Castle Volacoeur, so of course they would turn out to be Valentio's favorites. Prince Lysandro doesn't entirely understand, but he's trying, and that's all Valentio needs.
Note: Pralines & Cream finished now. <3
Valentio glared up at the sky, as if daring it to come down. Predictably, like everything else in the past eight weeks, it didn't seem to get the hint or in fact care about what Valentio wanted of it, and remained free of the four stars he loved most. It would in fact, that scientist guy with the electrical socket-enhanced hair had said, never show his four stars, due to some astrological phenomenon Valentio couldn't remember the details of, but which he was certain contained exactly too fucking many big words. It wasn't often he found himself missing anything, but, well, "there's nothing like a new life to fuck with your old one," Handrew had said before Valentio left Dannareth for good, and his friend's words were wise and true, as they often were when the mind they came from wasn't under the influence of whatever powerful drugs he preferred that week.
His little sister was in a coma, his mother was dead, the father that raised him was insane, and the father who shot out the load which bore him was only accepting him into his castle and his life - this life, life without the four stars that had nothing and everything to do with one another, life away from everything he associated with life - to earn the sympathy of his people. And then, of course, there was the matter of his big brother, his very own, brand new half-brother, who said things like "I'm feeling a mite peckish" and "in for a bushel, out for a pound" with a stone sober, straight face, and pined and mooned after girls like a kicked puppy - if a kicked puppy could, in fact, moon and pine with an air of great and noble dignity - and that was just a breed of future psychopath Valentio wanted nothing to do with.
Also, he'd been poisoned twice in the past week alone. Being second in line to the throne was so not whatever fantasy Ellaina had dreamed of. Valentio wondered sometimes if she woke ten years from now, would she still be that sweet little sister, always ready to tell him she could and would kick his ass and then offer him a fruit roll like it wasn't a big deal, or a nineteen-year-old young woman, just a little different from the rest. He wondered if he would be there for her. He wouldn't need to die now, for him to be inaccessible to his own sister. All he'd need to be was hiding from assassins, or ascended to the throne.
Valentio leaned farther onto the railings of the balcony. There was a path below, empty and moonlit.
"I would not suggest jumping off," a quiet, dreadfully solemn voice said behind him. "There are many ways to die. You shall be presented with the chance, I think, to be met with death in far more agreeable ways if you have it in you to only wait."
Valentio looked around. Long black hair, blue eyes, a long, awkward nose, and poncy clothes they'd tried to fit Valentio into on his first day. He grinned on reflex. "So, you're this older brother I've been hearing about, huh? Look kinda like someone I used to make fun of, actually. This could work."
"I'm hardly the sort of fool you like as not grew up with," Valentio's brother - Lysandro, he remembered, the firstborn son of King Leodane Melman and Valentio's aunt Clarace - said. He walked towards the balcony, and stood across from Valentio with the sort of awkwardly stiff posture he'd seen on King Leodane upon their first meeting. "Any constellation in particular catching your eye tonight?"
"I don't like constellations," Valentio said. "I tend to just make up my own. I had a favorite of my fictionals - uh, Lirael, Altiphanes, Seraphita, and...Astraea, I think. From the constellations of the smoke mirror, Largessa's chariot, and Emperor Hironoto. But, well...you know..."
"I do," Lysandro nodded. "What did you call it, your constellation?"
"The One-Ton Wang," Valentio said, and laughed at the shocked look Lysandro wore. "Come on, I named it after a neighbor. I was twelve. Man, you're so straight-edge it's a wonder you can find the give to bend down to tie your own shoelaces."
"Of course I don't tie my shoelaces," Lysandro said. "I have servants for that."
Valentio snorted.
"Is there..." Lysandro paused, unsure if he should ask. He sighed, and plowed ahead with, "Is there anything odd about that?"
"Are you kidding me?" Valentio said. "This is the most surreal place I've ever been to. If a squadron of parachuting mushroom men fall from the sky singing in harmony about - about pro-vegetarianism, I wouldn't bat an eye at this point. Not even my bad one."
"If you have a bad eye, I'm sure Dr. Ida wouldn't mind looking at it."
"Nah, I've been okay with it since I was six. Just an accident with lemonade," Valentio said, smiling. "I upset a customer at this lemonade stand my sister and I operated when I was little - customer wanted lime-colored lemonade, but I was saving the dye for my sister. Fucker - and this was a twenty-nine year old man, mind you - aimed right at my eyes, but he only got the left one. The eye's just more sensitive, that's all. I can never win a poker game ever again, more's the pity. I could have cleaned out all of Dannareth."
Lysandro considered this. "Dannareth," he said, slowly, "is at the very border of this kingdom, isn't it?"
"S'right," Valentio said. "Barely counts as a sovereignty of Volacoeur."
"You know," Lysandro said, "technically speaking, of course. But assaulting a prince of Volacoeur is a punishable offense. And of course, the prince would choose the punishment, no need for blood. Our father, for instance, when he was ten - a man struck him for taking food from his restaurant for what he assures me was to feed a friend of his who had fallen on hard times, and he made the owner...I think it was the restaurant proprietor he made dress naked between two cardboard hot dog buns to his deli for three months. As I recall, his justification at the time for the nakedness was that the deli owner was weiner enough. He...was ten, of course."
"What, you think I'd take my revenge on poor Mr. Juan Wang? I mean, his name's enough punishment, don't you think?" Valentio said, eyes solemn. And solemn they remained, for all of three seconds. He grinned. "Of course, if the tax accountants can, like, make it so they accidentally misplace his taxes, and he has to fill them out again five times before they properly file them...you know, I think I could more than live with that."
"Life has a way of working these things out, sometimes," Lysandro said. "I wouldn't be surprised if such a thing happened to Mr. Wang, if I were you."
Valentio snorted. "Awesome."
As his brother turned his attention back to the sky, Lysandro thought he saw in Valentio's eyes the same claustrophobic, tightly-wound light he'd seen at the subpar zoos in the cluster of developing countries at war with the Sangrians. He'd seen the look in the quick, hungry eyes of the large cats as they undoubtedly went over all the ways they would never escape, in the hard eyes of the bunyips, the loneliness and the mindless frenzy of a highly social animal being kept alone, but so close to their own. He recognized and sympathized, but knew whatever comfort he offered would be ignored, because he remembered when he'd realized he was a kept creature, too, and sympathy was useless and a thing to be scorned. But the stars were easy things to give from here, if you just knew how.
"You know, there are a lot of stars out tonight," Lysandro said, his voice reluctant, halting, and even quieter than it had been, as if he was embarrassed to be heard. "I, ah...I'm sure there are a lot more constellations that...don't exist, not yet."
Valentio's eyes shifted from the sky to Lysandro and back. Lysandro didn't know what he was seeing, what he was thinking, but then Valentio pointed out a series of clustered stars - "Anyaang from the Hammer, Remora from the Genesis Tree, Diana from Love's Arrow, and Vidal from Cassiopeia, see? Don't they look sort of like a bunch of dudes stuck together - what's it, conjoined twins?"
"They...look like little points of light," Lysandro said. Valentio snorted, and said, "God, you're gonna make a really crappy king if you can't read into something as simple as the sky. Seeing things in the stars is easy. All you have to do is twist the sky and give it life, you know?"
"No," Lysandro said, and Valentio wondered if there was ever such a gloomy noise in all the world. "I don't. Which is why you felt you had to explain it, I suppose."
"Damn," Valentio said. "A nearly grown man, and a future official, and not an original thought in his head. It ain't exactly new, but still, you're lucky you've got a kid brother to explain all this to you, then."
And even though it reminded him of Ellaina, it was different enough that it was exactly what Valentio needed.
Story Continuity: The Lethean Glamour (non-main story)
Author: darkfaerieclaw
Prompts: Pralines & Cream #4: four star, Cantaloupe #17: big brother
Topping: Whipped Cream (Valentio is 15 [as opposed to 30 in LG])
Rating: PG-13 for crudeness and language
Summary: There are four stars which can never be seen from Castle Volacoeur, so of course they would turn out to be Valentio's favorites. Prince Lysandro doesn't entirely understand, but he's trying, and that's all Valentio needs.
Note: Pralines & Cream finished now. <3
Valentio glared up at the sky, as if daring it to come down. Predictably, like everything else in the past eight weeks, it didn't seem to get the hint or in fact care about what Valentio wanted of it, and remained free of the four stars he loved most. It would in fact, that scientist guy with the electrical socket-enhanced hair had said, never show his four stars, due to some astrological phenomenon Valentio couldn't remember the details of, but which he was certain contained exactly too fucking many big words. It wasn't often he found himself missing anything, but, well, "there's nothing like a new life to fuck with your old one," Handrew had said before Valentio left Dannareth for good, and his friend's words were wise and true, as they often were when the mind they came from wasn't under the influence of whatever powerful drugs he preferred that week.
His little sister was in a coma, his mother was dead, the father that raised him was insane, and the father who shot out the load which bore him was only accepting him into his castle and his life - this life, life without the four stars that had nothing and everything to do with one another, life away from everything he associated with life - to earn the sympathy of his people. And then, of course, there was the matter of his big brother, his very own, brand new half-brother, who said things like "I'm feeling a mite peckish" and "in for a bushel, out for a pound" with a stone sober, straight face, and pined and mooned after girls like a kicked puppy - if a kicked puppy could, in fact, moon and pine with an air of great and noble dignity - and that was just a breed of future psychopath Valentio wanted nothing to do with.
Also, he'd been poisoned twice in the past week alone. Being second in line to the throne was so not whatever fantasy Ellaina had dreamed of. Valentio wondered sometimes if she woke ten years from now, would she still be that sweet little sister, always ready to tell him she could and would kick his ass and then offer him a fruit roll like it wasn't a big deal, or a nineteen-year-old young woman, just a little different from the rest. He wondered if he would be there for her. He wouldn't need to die now, for him to be inaccessible to his own sister. All he'd need to be was hiding from assassins, or ascended to the throne.
Valentio leaned farther onto the railings of the balcony. There was a path below, empty and moonlit.
"I would not suggest jumping off," a quiet, dreadfully solemn voice said behind him. "There are many ways to die. You shall be presented with the chance, I think, to be met with death in far more agreeable ways if you have it in you to only wait."
Valentio looked around. Long black hair, blue eyes, a long, awkward nose, and poncy clothes they'd tried to fit Valentio into on his first day. He grinned on reflex. "So, you're this older brother I've been hearing about, huh? Look kinda like someone I used to make fun of, actually. This could work."
"I'm hardly the sort of fool you like as not grew up with," Valentio's brother - Lysandro, he remembered, the firstborn son of King Leodane Melman and Valentio's aunt Clarace - said. He walked towards the balcony, and stood across from Valentio with the sort of awkwardly stiff posture he'd seen on King Leodane upon their first meeting. "Any constellation in particular catching your eye tonight?"
"I don't like constellations," Valentio said. "I tend to just make up my own. I had a favorite of my fictionals - uh, Lirael, Altiphanes, Seraphita, and...Astraea, I think. From the constellations of the smoke mirror, Largessa's chariot, and Emperor Hironoto. But, well...you know..."
"I do," Lysandro nodded. "What did you call it, your constellation?"
"The One-Ton Wang," Valentio said, and laughed at the shocked look Lysandro wore. "Come on, I named it after a neighbor. I was twelve. Man, you're so straight-edge it's a wonder you can find the give to bend down to tie your own shoelaces."
"Of course I don't tie my shoelaces," Lysandro said. "I have servants for that."
Valentio snorted.
"Is there..." Lysandro paused, unsure if he should ask. He sighed, and plowed ahead with, "Is there anything odd about that?"
"Are you kidding me?" Valentio said. "This is the most surreal place I've ever been to. If a squadron of parachuting mushroom men fall from the sky singing in harmony about - about pro-vegetarianism, I wouldn't bat an eye at this point. Not even my bad one."
"If you have a bad eye, I'm sure Dr. Ida wouldn't mind looking at it."
"Nah, I've been okay with it since I was six. Just an accident with lemonade," Valentio said, smiling. "I upset a customer at this lemonade stand my sister and I operated when I was little - customer wanted lime-colored lemonade, but I was saving the dye for my sister. Fucker - and this was a twenty-nine year old man, mind you - aimed right at my eyes, but he only got the left one. The eye's just more sensitive, that's all. I can never win a poker game ever again, more's the pity. I could have cleaned out all of Dannareth."
Lysandro considered this. "Dannareth," he said, slowly, "is at the very border of this kingdom, isn't it?"
"S'right," Valentio said. "Barely counts as a sovereignty of Volacoeur."
"You know," Lysandro said, "technically speaking, of course. But assaulting a prince of Volacoeur is a punishable offense. And of course, the prince would choose the punishment, no need for blood. Our father, for instance, when he was ten - a man struck him for taking food from his restaurant for what he assures me was to feed a friend of his who had fallen on hard times, and he made the owner...I think it was the restaurant proprietor he made dress naked between two cardboard hot dog buns to his deli for three months. As I recall, his justification at the time for the nakedness was that the deli owner was weiner enough. He...was ten, of course."
"What, you think I'd take my revenge on poor Mr. Juan Wang? I mean, his name's enough punishment, don't you think?" Valentio said, eyes solemn. And solemn they remained, for all of three seconds. He grinned. "Of course, if the tax accountants can, like, make it so they accidentally misplace his taxes, and he has to fill them out again five times before they properly file them...you know, I think I could more than live with that."
"Life has a way of working these things out, sometimes," Lysandro said. "I wouldn't be surprised if such a thing happened to Mr. Wang, if I were you."
Valentio snorted. "Awesome."
As his brother turned his attention back to the sky, Lysandro thought he saw in Valentio's eyes the same claustrophobic, tightly-wound light he'd seen at the subpar zoos in the cluster of developing countries at war with the Sangrians. He'd seen the look in the quick, hungry eyes of the large cats as they undoubtedly went over all the ways they would never escape, in the hard eyes of the bunyips, the loneliness and the mindless frenzy of a highly social animal being kept alone, but so close to their own. He recognized and sympathized, but knew whatever comfort he offered would be ignored, because he remembered when he'd realized he was a kept creature, too, and sympathy was useless and a thing to be scorned. But the stars were easy things to give from here, if you just knew how.
"You know, there are a lot of stars out tonight," Lysandro said, his voice reluctant, halting, and even quieter than it had been, as if he was embarrassed to be heard. "I, ah...I'm sure there are a lot more constellations that...don't exist, not yet."
Valentio's eyes shifted from the sky to Lysandro and back. Lysandro didn't know what he was seeing, what he was thinking, but then Valentio pointed out a series of clustered stars - "Anyaang from the Hammer, Remora from the Genesis Tree, Diana from Love's Arrow, and Vidal from Cassiopeia, see? Don't they look sort of like a bunch of dudes stuck together - what's it, conjoined twins?"
"They...look like little points of light," Lysandro said. Valentio snorted, and said, "God, you're gonna make a really crappy king if you can't read into something as simple as the sky. Seeing things in the stars is easy. All you have to do is twist the sky and give it life, you know?"
"No," Lysandro said, and Valentio wondered if there was ever such a gloomy noise in all the world. "I don't. Which is why you felt you had to explain it, I suppose."
"Damn," Valentio said. "A nearly grown man, and a future official, and not an original thought in his head. It ain't exactly new, but still, you're lucky you've got a kid brother to explain all this to you, then."
And even though it reminded him of Ellaina, it was different enough that it was exactly what Valentio needed.