Nikolai Lantsov had a reputation for liking loud gatherings. It was a reputation he’d cultivated over the years. From balls designed to strategically show off Ravka’s wealth to those that had been certain the country was nearly bankrupt (it was; displays of wealth were entirely a lie) to ceremonies that landed him in the line of sight of foreign nobles eager to throw eligible daughters his way to secure a good alliance, Nikolai had always found that being thought of as the slightly-dangerous, entirely off-kilter spare-turned-heir had worked for him. People expected less of an extrovert who preened in the spotlight. It had been a good balance to the growing knowledge of his sneaky, clever tendencies on the battlefield. Let them think him lucky rather than talented.
But that didn’t mean he minded quieter moments. Far from it.
Some of the happiest memories of the last few years had been in the Little Palace, reading by the fire, with Zoya drinking tea and Genya and David murmuring to one another. Tolya and Tamar looming, cracking jokes, occasionally bringing cards. And so while Nikolai had teased Edwin about not wanting too much attention on his birthday, he actually had no reluctance to initiate a quiet meeting with his friend, a nice bottle of whiskey in his hand and a bag of those pastries he’d seen evidence of in the Library where Edwin sometimes could be found. Little details. It’d be nice to spend time with him at all, honestly. Nikolai knew he’d been distant in recent weeks, not so much that he’d been rude, but his preoccupation with his new memories had been a lot to process. It still was. Nikolai rarely shared when he was upset - that much had been bred out of him, raw emotion being unseemly - and now was no different. But he’d mulled over his new memories and had begun to come to terms with them. It helped that he no longer had to fear the monster inside him. Eating Edwin would not have been a suitable birthday present for either of them.
“Happy birthday!” he said fondly as Edwin opened up the door, thrusting the bag of pastries into his hand. “Which one is it, anyhow?”
People didn’t generally care about Edwin’s birthday, which was an arrangement that had suited him fine. He had fond memories, in his younger years, of spending the day with Jack and Elsie Alston – Hawthorn – with his mother nearby and a small cake that had been baked by Winna, the cook. But as he, and his siblings, had grown older, and his mother’s health had taken a turn for the worst, Bel had decided that she would take it upon herself to plan his birthday, and it had inevitably devolved into Bel and her set picking away at him until he retreated to the library to spend the evening with his books. The last birthday he’d thought to observe had been with Hawthorn, and Hawthorn had made it seem as though so much as acknowledging the day was some Herculean chore, and by the end of it Edwin had felt so insignificant that he decided then and there that he wouldn’t bother ever again. He was quite content spending the evening by himself, in his library, with a bottle of brandy. At least his books could never make him feel the way other people often did.
He hadn’t intended to bring it up to Nikolai at all, though it had come up naturally in a discussion over the Pride festivities. Edwin had expected it to pass by uneventfully – perhaps with a Happy Birthday text or phonecall while Nikolai went off to do more interesting things – but Nikolai had insisted on doing something. Even when Edwin had made it clear that he’d be perfectly happy spending the weekend on his own.
But then, maybe it wasn’t so unexpected. Nikolai’s mood of late – since he’d received more memories from home – hadn’t escaped Edwin. He wasn’t despondent, exactly, not quite withdrawn, though he occasionally got a faraway look in his eyes when he thought no one was paying attention, and then turned his ungodly cheer up more than usual when he felt someone’s attention. Edwin hadn’t the slightest idea what to do about it, but Nikolai hadn’t seemed to want Edwin to leave him alone, and so he hadn’t. Edwin’s birthday, he decided, probably a convenient excuse so that he wouldn’t have to attend something more social.
Edwin would take it though, even if it was only an excuse. He liked Nikolai’s company, and while Edwin was hardly the type to think he needed company, he certainly didn’t want to be alone right now. He’d spent the entire afternoon unable to read, wrapped up in thoughts instead of Pride and the parade he’d gone to see earlier that afternoon. There was a strange, painful joy settled deep in his chest, melancholic and optimistic, the vision of a life he both could and couldn’t have. It made him want to scream and laugh and cry, all at once, and there was no one else that Edwin wanted to be with right now more than Nikolai.
He took the proffered pastries, a small, pleasantly surprised smile tugging at his lips when he recognized the bag. “Thank you. These are my favourite,” he said, and stepped back from the door, leading the way to the parlour. “I’m twenty-six,” Edwin answered. “So long as you don’t count the three months I skipped over when I arrived.” One moment, he’d been in England in early October, 1908, and then he’d wound up here in Vallo, and it had been January 2022.
The parlour wasn’t as filled with fresh cut flowers as it had been when Flora Sutton lived here – while he now had Briar tending the gardens, he had no extra staff to do tasks like filling vases with flowers every morning – but he had gone out earlier to fill a vase with roses and daisies, and it now sat on the centre of the coffee table, filling the room with a subtle, floral scent. He set the bag of pastries on the table next to them, gestured to Nikolai to take a seat, either on the sofa or one of the cushioned chairs, and went to the cupboard to fetch a couple plates and glasses.
“Have you been to any of the festivities?”
Only a year older than himself. Nikolai took a seat on the couch, having left his boots by the door, and accepted dishes for pastries and the whiskey he’d brought. Saints, how he loved not having the pomp and circumstance in Vallo. No royal tester. No one looming over this. Just him and Edwin, something he was rather glad of, something wrapped tightly, something he took care not to pull any of the strings of for fear of dismantling it.
“Pride? I went early this morning,” he answered, smiling. “Quite a party. They were setting up for the parade. The costuming was extraordinary.” Nikolai hadn’t had quite the emotional reaction to it that Edwin had had, but he hadn’t been unaffected. While Ravka had had a much more progressive take on love, Nikolai had never had the freedom of doing anything that he wanted. He’d approached his few romances with a pragmatic take on them, because an heir would be required and anyone who entered into a relationship with him would have the country’s eyes on them.
“I was glad I went,” he added simply. “Did you go?”
Edwin placed a pastry on his plate and sat down next to Nikolai on the couch, curling a leg underneath him, not quite relaxed but near enough to it.
"I did yes," Edwin said. "I watched some of the parade before I came home. It was really," he paused, searching for the words, though nothing seemed to fit just right. "Ineffable," he finally settled on. "If you had told me before I came here that a celebration like this was possible, I would've thought you mad. But I'm glad I went too."
He avoided saying that he wished he has gone with Nikolai, not least because he wasn't entirely sure that was true; he was certain he'd have made a fool of himself in one way or another, and was glad that he'd had the time to gather himself.
The corner of his mouth twitched - ineffable, what a truly Edwin Courcey word - but Nikolai didn’t tease. There was a feeling of vulnerability here between the pauses, and despite his brashness he took care not to push too hard with jokes. He knew that Edwin’s world had been by far more damning toward same-sex relationships than his had been. Fjerda had likely been kinder toward them than Edward’s England, which really was shocking given Fjerda’s rampant misogyny and religious fervor. “It apparently happens here every June,” he said, getting comfortable in a sprawled sort of way, taking a sip of his drink. “Genya told me of it. It makes me wish some of my friends from home could see it - it’s been ages since we’ve had anything that wasn’t a march to a battlefield.” Nina would have been overjoyed. Brekker’s sharpshooter and his explosive expert, too. Tamar and her wife. It had been so long since they had had a chance to feel joy - actual joy, not relief - that Nikolai struggled to imagine it.
“I suppose you don’t get much occasion for celebrations like this back home,” Edwin said. He was, suddenly, fiercely glad that Nikolai was here in Vallo, and David and Genya as well, even if he hardly knew them.
“I’ve friends back home who I wish could have seen it too.” Robin, in particular, but it felt awkward speaking of Robin very much with Nikolai. He was sure that Maud and Adelaide would have enjoyed themselves as well. “Maybe we’ll have the chance to show some of them, if we’re both still here next year.” And if anyone else from their respective worlds found their way into Vallo.
He took a sip of his whiskey and while he tried not to choke on it, he didn’t succeed. Edwin wasn’t a teetotaler, but he didn’t often drink hard liquor.
Nikolai didn’t point it out, but he smiled a little over his drink at the contained noise of suffering Edwin had produced - and then made a mental note to see if he could buy kvass anywhere. Edwin versus the peppery Ravkan alcohol was a battle he knew he wished to see sometime.
And then Edwin’s thought - of being here next year - properly inserted itself into his brain, and he muddled it over, his expression turning thoughtful. He’d accepted this place months ago as a holding dimension, somewhere to be withstood, to be on hold, until he would be allowed back into the world that was his. He certainly hadn’t minded the rest, even though he had also felt a measure of guilt for being here while his friends and allies continued to suffer back home.
Now, though. With David and Genya here, and with familiarity, he found he was not quite so eager to reenter the fighting ring, so to speak. With, if he was honest with himself, Edwin here, for he knew himself and could admit in private he had grown more than fond. And with his new memories… he had new reasons to want to go home, but also as many to never want to return.
“Do you think we’ll be here, then?” he asked, posing the question to Edwin, eyes flicking to his, voice light as it often was when he was hovering over something heavy. “In another year?”
Edwin held Nikolai's gaze; it felt, for a moment, as if there were more to the question than just the question itself. and of course there was, Edwin scolded himself. Nikolai was a king, who had an entire people to look after, during a war. He had to be eager to go home again, however little he showed it. He broke the eye-contact, glancing instead at the books that lined the far wall.
"I couldn't begin to guess," Edwin said. "But we've been here for half a year already, and there are Outlanders who've been here for quite a bit longer than a year. And there's Sutton Cottage, and the library…" He didn't think they would have come, if he wasn't expected to stay here for some time.
He focused on his pastry. "Would you be disappointed if you were?" he asked, and took a bite.
Nikolai flicked his eyes around the cottage as if it interested him, and considered how to answer the question. It was rather the question he had been circling around asking Edwin, and he had not prepared a pat answer. He hadn’t been forthright with his memories of home - Edwin wasn’t stupid; he must have known them to have been painful - and he found the idea of being forthright tiresome. Edwin was not to blame for home, and things might have gone worse, besides. Nikolai was always better in the action than he was in the reflection afterward, and so he defaulted to a good, vague, disassembling royal answer: “I wouldn’t remember it to be disappointed, would I? They say you don’t remember your time here.”
Well, he’d hated that. Nikolai winced, and set his plate to the side. “That was mealy-mouthed of me; I apologise. Yes, I-- I think I’d prefer to stay here. Here isn’t a relief, exactly - there’s a great deal at home that I miss quite dearly - but it’s at the point that should I leave Vallo, there’s a great deal here that I’d miss as well.” He smiled, looking a little pained. “I don’t have a good answer. I think I’m chronically incapable of being grateful when there’s not a weight of a country strapped to my shoulders. What of you?” he asked, swiping a pastry and nibbling it. “I know you’ve people you miss.” He said it delicately, not being blunt enough to add something churlish like not your idiot family, though he certainly thought it.
Edwin grimaced. It had been a stupid question, and he’d been ready to accept it as such and move on before Nikolai continued on. It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for Vallo, but there was some relief in knowing that Nikolai wasn’t spending all his time here wishing that he wasn’t.
“Back home… I never really felt like I fit,” Edwin answered after a moment. “I didn’t have many friends. Rather, I didn’t have any friends, until a few weeks before I arrived here. No one would have ever accused me of being enthusiastic about my job. I was never able to just be. And there certainly wasn’t the Library of Alexandria.” He shot Nikolai a small half-smile. “Given the choice, I would rather the people I miss be here. I think my mother would like it here, too. It would be good for her.”
Nikolai smiled at the notion; knowing that Edwin’s mother was some semblance of unwell, and not quite understanding the whole of it. He deliberately did not think of his own mother, and their most recent meeting. At least Edwin had had someone on his side, at one point.
But what he read in the answer - in Edwin’s skirting around whomever he had been dating back home - was a wound still painful to mention. Not entirely, he knew. Nikolai rarely spoke of Zoya except in the capacity of ‘my general’. But he felt somehow - disappointed.
Silly, really. Must I be adored by everyone I meet? Move along, Sobachka.
“Come on, now,” he said, ever-ready to lighten up the tone of the evening. “Surely I’m more of a draw to staying here than the Library of Alexandria. I’m much more attractive. And you can check me out without the risk of incurring a fine.” There, a book pun. Covered any soft parts that would be better off hidden.
It was hard, sometimes, for Edwin to remember that for all of Nikolai’s flirting, he wasn’t really flirting with him, so much as flirting in general. His sister and brother-in-law did the same: they flirted with everyone, even if they didn’t mean it, though in their case it was because they loved to surround themselves with people who were completely in love with them, and flirting was an easy way to keep them in love with them.
He didn’t think Nikolai flirted for the same reason – if he did, Edwin wouldn’t enjoy his company so much. Rather, he thought that Nikolai liked to flirt, partly because it likely came naturally to him, with all his tremendous charisma and charm, and partly because it stopped people from looking too closely at him; Edwin couldn’t claim to understand his motivation, but it seemed to him like Nikolai liked to act in such a way that people wouldn’t guess at his intelligence, and turning them into stuttering idiots was a good way to accomplish that.
Edwin glowered at Nikolai, if only to buy himself some time until he was sure he had use of his tongue, and resisted the urge to take Nikolai up on his invitations to check him out – at least, not in any sort of embarrassingly obvious way. His expression softened a little. “You have your draws as well, I suppose,” Edwin said, knocking his knee lightly against Nikolai’s. “Who else would bring me pastries and this vile stuff.” He took another gulp of the whiskey, grimacing but at least not choking this time.
“It’s your birthday! Vile stuff is perfect for the occasion.” Nikolai gave Edwin’s knee a pat, and withdrew his hand to grasp his pastry plate once again. Well, friends it was. He’d been too aware of power dynamics growing up, and his relationship with Alina had been too hot and cold for him to want to push anything now. He’d been little older than a teenager when he and Alina had fake-dated themselves to real feelings on his end, and although he was over her, the entire mess had taught him about the value of a partner being very clear.
It didn’t occur to him that he (himself) wasn’t being terribly clear, or that Edwin had talked himself out of taking him seriously. Nikolai was clever in many ways. Emotionally intuitive? Eh.
Still. He smiled now. “I’ve got a plot. I think you and David need to find a project to work on together. He’s a dog with a bone when he has his sights on a solution, and with your ability to think outside the box… we’re working on a way to guide new arrivals to the city, you see. With the forest ever-changing, we were considering some kind of enchanted light to act as a lighthouse to spur them on.” He took a bite of his pastry. “...see, this is your other gift. Talking shop on your birthday. Giving your brain something to mull over.”
“A custom universal across worlds, I see,” Edwin said dryly, trying to ignore the way his stomach flipped at Nikolai’s touch.
His eyes brightened a little at the mention of a project though, and he tore off a corner of his pastry with his fingers to eat as he listened to Nikolai explain, feeling warm that Nikolai had thought to ask him to help. “Lighthouses are meant to steers ships away from the rocks,” he said, pedantically, nearly teasing, “but I catch your meaning. Something that can be seen at all times of day, no matter the weather? It could be tricky.”
Not that that was likely to stop Edwin from setting his mind to it.
“I do love tricky, though,” Nikolai answered brightly, never one to back down from a challenge. “And tricky isn’t impossible… and impossible usually only means improbable anyhow.” He leaned back against the cushion, settling in. “Let me give you a little more information, so you can mull it over…”