Was it really the same man Mile had propped upright in his quivering arms as knees collapsed in climax only a matter of hours' heartbeats earlier? Or perhaps, all heady hallucination borne of the wine his aching skull scolded he had over-indulged.
This way or that, as he watched the Busaban Prince bury his father and ascend to the throne in the space of one surreal morning, Lord Orion couldn't help but feel a certain disconnect from reality.
As if it were illusions of Esen, in long sleeved black tunic and trousers, gold threads embroidering scalloped neckline to marry the glinting crown upon his head. Haloed by fragrant clouds of smouldering incense, as he walked a lined avenue of holy men, chants and wais and offerings, with cousin Ciel at his side.
Not once a glance cast in Mile's direction - so why did it feel as if there was something that tied them? Some secretive string that stretched and slackened - elasticity as required, to keep those enemies-come-last-night's-lovers attached.
"You're going to have to kiss-" - Mew's voice at his sibling's side.
"-I...what?"
"Kiss and make up, Orion. Whatever childish grudge you two harbour against one another, it's time to let go. He is your Queen's cousin and our closest royal ally now. We will meet Esen often...damn it, are you even listening to me brother?"
Mile bobbing his brow energetically - wincing - as if clearing debris...
"Yes. Yes I hear you - I'm just leaden headed from the night's hell's juice I guzzled"
"Then take it as your punishment for behaving like a brat when we arrived. Poisoned revenge of Busaba's vines"
"Oh! You heard it too?" - Jin, distant relative and notorious loose-tongued tattler, muscling in at King Solaris' elbow, much to the elbow-owner's evident distaste...
"Heard what, cuz?", Mile took the bait - groans from the elder - inquisitive nature begging a feed.
"My footman had it from Esen's carriage driver, whose mother works in the palace kitchens. The servants are saying His Majesty Asnee's death was no natural end"
"What do you mean by that?" - both Jongcheveevat siblings' undivided attention commanded then, and Jin revelling in such powerful spotlight:
"It's told the royal physician believes it was an expertly masked poison, potent enough to paralyse a healthy heart in seconds. And then the very strangest part..." - pausing for dramatic effect as if playing an on-stage encore for rapt audience - "...Is that there was a spiralled shell found lodged in one nostril"
"...Bizarre"
"A...shell? Are you certain it was that?", Solaris' voice seeming unnatural - or so his younger sibling sensed vaguely, fleetingly. And how the King's body had stiffened suddenly at his side...?
Asnee poisoned.
A shell token.
Cloak and dagger fare - though in all truth Mile didn't care. Not about that...as he stretched into a yawn.
And when he looked up it was to find Apo's eyes upon him across the temple's courtyard. Dark and unreadable - yet the slightest flick of his head towards a side exit clear - Lord Orion hustling through mourners to follow, dragged like a dog on a lead by King Esen and that same invisible string.
His heart was being tied - if he did not yet know it.
//
"Can I show you my real home?", Gulf's breath had tickled Mew's ear on return from state duties of funeral and coronation processions, "An hour's journey away into the mountains"...
It was a place of astounding beauty. If Mother Nature deigned to bless a shrine then surely that would be it. There, amongst the glades: Purest clarity and freshest scent. Pines and frosted mosses of velveteen greens, sparkling stream waters that tinkled with the ebb and flow of ancient wind chime melody, over grey stones so smoothed by the passing millennia of aqua's caress.
And in a meadowed enclave upon the hillside, stood a chocolate box cottage - thatched roof, chimney puffing, woven, welcoming doormat and all.
Then beyond the rose-red door:
"I did not think I would see your face again in this life, child. You've made an old soul so merry that I could throw off my rugs and jig for a skinny dip in the stream this day", wrinkles wrinkling as the lady, old Auntie Kulap, patted the hearty blanket covering her lap, wooden chair rocking rhythmically at the cottage's cosy fireside.
She spoke in heavily accented rural Busaban dialect - words so slanted that King Solaris needed to turn to the Queen for translations, phrase to phrase.
Boyish giggles gurgling Ciel's throat at the thrill of two such separate worlds colliding - did his husband not see how displaced his guarded grandeur seemed? The cottage was not tiny, yet the King looked as a giant wooden puppet, perched on miniature stool in the discomforts of formal attire and awkward gaze.
There were grains of truth to what Apo had always told, reflected the omega then: A King soon becomes a figurehead, out of touch with the land and people he loves and leads.
Pangs of sudden sadness. Could Mew be so hollowed too? Return to the mechanical man he had seemed in their first months together?-
-Trail of thought evaporating away with kettle's steam, as a second Auntie arrived with an elaborately carved tray of hibiscus tea and pink peppercorn rusks on her hip, King spluttering un-royally as the Busaban treat's' punchy flavour grenades assaulted unarmed and unsuspecting taste buds.
Matriarchy chuckling, eyes of motherly comfort, before the senior Aunt Kulap went on:
"So King Solaris, I suspect you came here to know your heaven, yes?"
"My...heaven? I don't follow"
"Gulf's name, Ciel, is the sky, the heavens, were you not aware?"
Mew's eyes falling upon the omega - as the tickle of blush glowed up from his nape to ears and cheeks.
"I see" - and he really did.
"Our Gulf was sent here as a boy, just as all omegas in the Traipipattanapong royal line before him. It's a sacred place, this little corner of our kingdom..."
"Without your mother?" - still fixed on Gulf.
"Princess Luna, rest her gentle soul, sadly passed when he was just a babe in arms - only a girl of eighteen years herself. Her husband, an army general, slaughtered by enemy sword on the battlefield before the child was even born unto this world. So Ciel arrived here earlier than planned, at the breast of a wicked wet nurse-"
"-Auntie Kulap", the second lady interjected in low warning to watch her words.
But...
"What, Kwang? Why shouldn't I say it? We all knew that snake to be the eyes and ears of the palace those 20 years. What's the use of pretending now that she's returned to their ranks? If they were to slaughter me for treason, I'd likely die before the axe could sever my pretty, greyed head!", rogueish guffaws as listeners in the room shifted in seats - how to respond to such gallows humour? - grateful when the elder ventured on with her tale...
"King Asnee's thought - rooted in the Traipipattanapong alphas' traditions - was to keep their omega line and value untainted by life's many stains. Raised on this sacred land, by the hands and hearts of maidens alone. Pure as crystalline white snow, ready to bleed on his bedsheets for only his husband, virginity prised to bear royal heir"
At which the second lady promptly dropped the tray she was clearing entirely, glasses splintering, tea splashing floorboards as spilled secrets' mess.
And as Gulf rushed back from the kitchen with the broom, he witnessed an exchange in hushed, urgent tones, Mew leaning in to catch Kulap's meaning. Mysterious, fragmented phrases reaching the eavesdropper:
"....Didn't happen that way...softest heart but a wilful spirit that cannot be broken or even bent...now more than half a year passed...Mongkul whispers...cast aside or killed to make way for a wife more willing to breed?...keep him...beg of you to cherish him..."
Obscured omega's eyes widening as the King lowered himself down onto his knees amidst the puddle of cold tea. Taking the old woman's hand in his and looking on as equals, steady and serious, to say:
"I will protect him from it all. I swear it to the Gods"
And all at once Gulf knew what kind of man his husband was.
//
"I can see why you didn't want to leave this place for the palace, for Mongkul", Mew turned to Gulf as they rounded the west wall of the cottage, winter's sun sinking towards the lure of eventide as the two mens' misted breath danced like frolicking forest faeries in the air between.
"Looking back now, there was a lot I didn't understand. I was planted to grow in composts of naivety, knowing myself as an orphan but not a royal asset to be played as flower ace in the card games of Kings"
"Perhaps in the eyes of your Uncle and his royal and political bedfellows. But not the real people here who reared you..." - and not myself, Mew yearned to add.
"Hmmm. Solaris, I've been wondering...Why are there so few women in the palace you call home? Less than 10 in a staff of hundreds, I think?"
"It was my father's doing. He had a mantra he liked to boast - "I don't care for women, beyond the bed chamber". He purported that 'they' couldn't be trusted. Omegas too. His world was a man's and an alpha's world, no doubt"
"But your own mother, Queen Thalassa?"
"The old King wasn't...well, he wasn't a good man Gulf. Cold to his core. I don't think he knew what it meant to love. There are times, dark days, when I have feared that he and I could be somewhat alike-"
Self-searching suspended as the alpha froze at the feel of elegant fingers travelling to trace his pattern of hidden scars, past pains graffitied. Slowly, with each delicate stroke, an untensing, unclenching, releasing: tuoksut.
Then words to accompany the embracing, scented warmth - shy, gaze avoiding:
"No...no...that isn't it, that isn't you. Let me show you you"
Elder led towards a narrow, external staircase winding to an attic door beneath the eaves. Tall men stooping to enter, then Mew straightening up, and a sharp intake of breath:
It was a simple bedroom - Gulf's before bedroom. Sloped ceilings, a low frame with patchwork quilt, candles, dried flowers, small trinkets and treasures. But eyes transfixed by the facing wall, decorated with unique parchment mosaic: Blues of azure, navy, cobalt and sapphire. Of aquamarine, cornflower, sky, turquoise. A swirling tide of wild horse waves, galloping free for home, in a whirlwind of fizzing, frothing, salted candy floss mists.
Picture after picture after picture, of the imagined sea.
"This" - Gulf's hand slipping into Mew's larger one - "Is you"