As The Roses Bloom

empires crumble and cathedrals flatten my heart

Throwing a little angst in there....

Present

The streets were abuzz with activity, as was to be expected.

Those who would be in attendance pushed around, looking for jewelry, bouquets of flowers, dresses and scarves and shoes to match, gifts to give their partners and bottles of scent. Supply rose to meet the sudden spike in demand, filling the streets with two shop tents for every one spot, salesmen shouting twice as loud, and the displays spilling over one another in riots of color. Even those who weren't invited to the ball were holding their own simultaneous celebrations in their own homes, with families and friends, and buying bags full of freshly harvested produce and neatly sealed boxes of sweets.

"Have you spent much time here?" Now Kell was just blatantly initiating conversation.

Holland found himself walking closer to Kell's side. Just a little bit. Just enough to feel their shoulders brush every few steps. The streets were crowded enough that it didn't seem too odd for Holland to press into Kell's side as they wove their way through the streets.

"I'm not much of an explorer," Holland replied dryly. It was true; he had once felt the world held such wonders, and he'd wanted nothing more than to discover each of them in turn. But that feeling had faded like cheap ink in the sun, quick and irreversible, leaving him squinting to see if there really had been anything there after all. It was best, he'd learned, to stay with the places and the people he knew; even if you couldn't trust them, you knew them. You knew how to navigate a situation gone wrong. "I don't think there's a single moment of peace anywhere on this street."

Kell seemed to consider this, following Holland's gaze to the woman two stalls ahead, shouting about her charmed amulets. "You'd be surprised how much peace you can find in a crowd."

Holland noticed, not for the first time, that Kell moved through these streets as if he could pick his way through them in his sleep, melting into the crowds as if he belonged no where but here. He was good at that, Kell. Fitting himself into places and groups of people with a sense of belonging.

Kell, Holland remembered once again, was a prince. A well-known figure among these people. Crowds had always made Holland tense; the only things that people gathered in crowds for were fights or executions, and to be in a crowd was to invite violence towards your person from all and any sides, so Holland had had to be constantly vigilant whenever he unwillingly found himself in one. Sometimes Holland had even been the spectacle, bleeding so hard that the crowd whipped up into a frenzy from the taste of magic in the air. But the anonymity that the swirling eddies of people gave Kell must've come as an uncommon relief.

"Maybe," Holland conceded instead of voicing this.

Holland decided quietly that he could bear the crowds anyday if they allowed Kell to walk like that: as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Kell stepped easily around a spill of some brightly dyed drink that stained the stones of the street, and turned to look back at Holland in askance. He was always hearing the whispers of what Holland wasn't saying.

It was a thrill to be known, to be understood in that way. Holland wasn't sure if it was a pleasant thrill or a terrifying one, but when he felt it, he often felt as if there were rose petals stuck in his air pipe.

"Crowds in my world never meant anything good," he explained. It was hardly an extensive exploration of his aversion to crowds, but Kell's eyes softened and he knew Kell had inferred enough.

"Save for the last one." It didn't come across as a contradiction or invalidation of what Holland had said, but rather a hopeful observation.

The last crowd in White London Holland had seen had, indeed, been a celebratory occasion. It was the only truly celebratory occasion Holland could remember taking place in his world at all—pretending to celebrate the rise of new blood thirsty leader out of fear not counted.