all our concentration
What Minoth meant by "having fun with it," it turns out, is that Hugo could and would, if not should, purportedly harvest much joy and merriment from the practice of attending affectionately to Haze, with all genuine intentions of treating a lady well.
Just because it would make her happy. Just because it would make Aegaeon steam.
Not that there really were very many chances.
Had he a coat, he might lay it down over puddles. But Hugo did not have a coat, and Jin already habitually froze puddles for Haze to traverse once Lora had gotten done leaping over them. The same applied for the rain itself, but there were Blade shields for that, if one really was worried.
He could not pick and produce flowers for Haze, seeing as Haze already preoccupied herself with a quotidian fastidiousness picking flowers for and with Lora, sometimes in order that they might fashion flower crowns with which to adorn Jin and sometimes as supplies for their evening handicrafts.
They were so self-sufficient that they seemed to even enforce Hugo back to his own quadrant, needing only Floral Soil, if that, for his projects.
What gifts to tender? What doors to hold? What tabs to pay? What meat to share?
He doesn't have stories, not like Addam - not like Minoth! He doesn't have stalwartness, not like Jin. He doesn't have inside jokes, not like Lora or even Mythra.
It is in this fruitless process that Hugo concedes to himself something quite significant: he is certainly disappointed that there is nothing so immediate he can think to provide to Haze, who somehow has become the girl who has everything in the scope of her familiar wilderness life, but he is also certainly pleased to find that there is nothing so outsize he can give, as the emperor, that removes him from the struggles any one of the common people might experience.
"Great," Minoth would say. "Now you're just as frustrated as any other man. And in defense of my connotation, mark here that 'frustrated' is a euphemism for 'stupid'."
By the end of a week, all he has accomplished amounts to awkwardly positioning himself either directly adjacent to Haze, in standing groups, or directly across from her, while seated, in the hopes of concieving and catching her reactions - not her eye, really, never her eye.
But since Aegaeon is His Majesty's shadow, the downturned golden eyes have been caught nonetheless.
It's part a curtsey and a bow, part me-looking-at-you-looking-at-me, so they end up speaking in tandem:
"His Majesty-"
"His Majesty-"
Oh, ah...
"Pardon me, Aegaeon-"
"Beg pardon, Haze-"
And still, they get nowhere.
A bit more nonverbal shuffling back and forth, however, and then they can begin.
"Had you too noticed that Lord Hugo has been acting...different, lately?"
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Haze draws back slightly, wondering if what she has just said is as keenly permissible as she might have thought.
In answer, Aegaeon does not lean in, but affirms, "Indeed. He is reticent and reflective, yet reenters conversations at odd junctures. Additionally, recently he is always merely at the elbow of the discourse, where previously he had stood either to the fore or well apart. When I speak with him, he is...distracted."
All of this, it reassured Haze greatly to hear, that another understood perfectly her qualms and concerns. Another equally devoted to the emperor - oh, how it must be treasonous to say it! For of course she is not more devoted to His Majesty than his own Blade.
She must marshal her thoughts. She must speak purely of what is apparent and true.
"I'm worried something may be troubling him!"
It could be sickness. It could be pain. It could be fatigue. It could be brain fog. It could be a premonition. It could be a hallucination. It could even be something as fleeting as a persistent cramp in his leg.
Aegaeon will know. Aegaeon must know. And if he does not, they will figure it out together.
"If it is what I think it is, no trouble accompanies this change."
A theory already!
"What is it, then? Might I know?"
Aegaeon's reply is delivered with a completely straight, even motionless, face. Still, Haze flatters herself that she might detect his pleasure, his smugness, his amusement, all underscoring his greatest fulfillment and joy.
"A Blade of your unparalleled beauty should not be surprised by this. His Majesty has been changed...by love."