clown (term of endearment and esteem)

Chapter 01: socks
Chapter 02: shoes

Addam is the king. Minoth is the jester.

It's dangerous, flirting with the King of Torna. Not because he's a dangerous man, no, and not even because he's particularly magnetic.

He's not, in general. He's mostly just a certain sort of pathetic that always happens to charm a man like Minoth, whose very own job it is.

Officially, anyway. The general impression of a court jester is that their every action is risible, self-possession a marker of the beginning of a bit rather than the end of one and the beginning of wisdom. Their commentary is not pertinent; their advisement only affect and completely ineffectual.

The court jester is not supposed to stand at the king's left with his arms crossed and his knee splayed and his cape worn but never anything like tattered.

King Addam, with a tremendous sigh that can only be properly described as heaving his bosom, lurches cheek onto fist and looks up at Minoth, sideways. Stray tufts of rich gray hair hang in his eyes like inanimate flirtations themselves; how dare they touch him, when no one else can? He's so confined, so constricted, in his throne.

"Well? Aren't you going to amuse me? Since I've just heard such depressing news."

(The Black Knight has laid waste to the adjacent royal holding of Coeia, and if it doesn't mount an attack upon Aureus herself next, it might as well take a detour to Leftheria, the royal vacation realms. So they're screwed, in other words.)

Minoth looks back down at the king, likewise sideways, careful not to agitate the eye covered in a scar that everyone - save the king, god help us all - thinks is mere greasepaint folly in his futile attempt to keep his head and attached hair still as the dead.

"Didn't know you found me amusing."

The king lets out a great laugh at that, all shouts and sharpness. "Of course I do, Minoth! I should think I'd have fired you by now if that weren't the case."

It's a rotten little lie, because they both know that he'll never do it even when the morose jester abjectly refuses his description.

Some strategist or other pokes at the right side, which Addam keeps maddeningly empty on a deranged sort of purpose. He shoos it away, gauntlet creaking along with his wrist, and when the wayward hand returns, it takes Minoth's upon which to lay a kiss - so that was the point of his advocation for asymmetrical handcover to match the look of Minoth's face.

A story, then, Minoth thinks, but doesn't say it. There are preparations to be made, fortifications to bolster. Sometimes he's more attuned to the king's responsibility than Addam himself is - and that's no fickle fable, it's an unfortunate fact.

But, because of all those duties needing attending to, the throne room has been cleared. With a damnably unsubtle crook of his neck, Addam nimbly maneuvers Minoth into his lap, where the humorist sits with his legs awkwardly splayed over the far arm.

"Amuse me?" he pleads again.

Minoth is the king. Addam is the jester.

The problem with the king is that he's so handsome. Regal, Addam could deal with. Rugged, even. But all with a certain sort of stiff, bland ugliness, so as not to distract his eye.

King Minoth is all-encompassingly distracting. However in Alrest is Addam supposed to attend to his duties of amusing the rest of the court if the king's caught his own fancy, and doesn't even seem all that determined not to let it go?

If Addam didn't know better, didn't believe better of the handsome man's ever-noble spirit, he'd say Minoth were toying with him. Even if he's not a very knowing man, he does know...that.

That Minoth, of the Origo line or possibly not and instead of origin unknown, is a man of utmost decorum, who lays equal expectations and respect upon all members of his staff, who is not married because he doesn't consider the position of being married to him as any sort of prize to be offered, who thinks endlessly and speaks only half as much.

It's predictable, and if Addam's intelligence were a touch less emotional and a touch more instinctual, he'd have seen it coming. The way Minoth's- heavens' sake, the way the king's been looking at him, ever more tender but also ever more hungry, is a thing to be studied, a revelation of all the parables' endings in the world at once.

Minoth would be remiss if he didn't communicate his intentions. But he has, and Addam, unbeknownst to himself, has been responding.

Late in the day, sometime between supper and songs, the king looks up again, and this time he forecasts pleading. It's an odd, foreign emotion, open weakness on his face, but it's not unwelcome. Addam finds himself pleading back - if, unfortunately, subconsciously.

"You're a very special man, Addam."

"Me? Oh, no, my lord, I'm just-"

"You disagree?"

"Why, not hardly, I only-"

"Very special," Minoth repeats. "I'm lucky to have you."

"Lucky," echoes Addam, nodding fervently. "Right."

Then, Minoth beckons him down with a single finger. The motion, Addam notices, is capitally matched by the half-blinks of the king's fascinatingly electric blue eyes. Even the bags beneath them seem to bow in deference, not to the sockets they grace but to Addam.

To Addam himself.

The king tastes very sweet, of dark wood and fine-pressed paper, also of salt and of flowers. His hair, loose around his ears, invites Addam's own fingers to tangle into it, a softer action standing in high contrast to the roughness of Minoth's mouth and brows.

This, Addam thinks faintly, is why he isn't married. Even the jester has enough pride not to want his spouse to be a joke if they're anything but a woman, and women do not have tongues like pens tattooing truth and justice upon your very soul.

"I hope you understand me," Minoth says roughly, once he's let Addam go.

The stiffness of his language is not lost on the jester; this was very rare, indeed.