The Lout's Pet Squirrel (og alcale)

Part 16

In so many ways, the tea tasted good.

Alver had been quite partial to morning tea before he lost everything. More than that, he'd been surviving off of animal food for the last several weeks. Mind you, he had a squirrel's metabolism and the animal food had been of the finest quality, but there was something quite soothing about sitting with a cup of tea like a person instead of lapping up water from a bowl like an animal.

Perhaps it was just his pride.

Violan waited for him to speak. She set the tea herself, dismissing nearby servants and allowing for absolute privacy as Alver met with her. She was smart enough to be aware of how servants gossip although he was curious to know if she knew just how secret his identity ought to be.

Alver's clothes wouldn't give much away, otherwise he wouldn't have worn them around Cale, but somehow those sharp icy eyes seemed to rake over the fabric as though seeing something that others couldn't.

Violan Henituse had a passion for the arts. Most as an appreciator and a patron but she dabbled in a bit of painting and sculpting, just enough to know what the craft meant. She also knew something about fashion, he realized belatedly, and she'd been a merchant in a past life.

She might have noticed the finery of the fabric.

"Thank you for meeting with me." Alver said in order to break the silence. He only had so long to gather information and as such, he couldn't afford to squander it all in indecision. "The tea is lovely."

Violan carefully placed her cup down. "You're different than I expected."

Alver nodded. That was to be expected. He'd considered playing the part of a peasant who didn't know anything about etiquette to avoid suspicion but if Violan was truly similar to her son, he was likely to get a lot further with her through honesty. "I can imagine."

"What are your intentions for me son?"

The question came sharp and sudden and Alver felt smacked upside the head by it. It wasn't an unexpected question, of course a parent would want to know why the hell Alver was loitering around here, it was the intention behind the question that quite thoroughly shocked him into speechlessness. "...excuse me?"

"You understood." Violan said coldly, managing the feat of looking down on him despite being quite a bit shorter.

Alver collected himself.

"I want to be his friend." Alver said carefully. "And I want to help him. Nothing else."

Violan's finger tapped the countertop in the first unladylike gesture he'd seen from her. Either a gap in her composure or a purposeful expression of her agitation with him. Either way, it succeeded in intimidating him. "And to do this, you need to sleep with him?"

How did she manage to make it sound so completely wrong? Ah, it was like dealing with Cale all over. Fire and ice melded into one to make a ferocious beast that always aimed for the jugular.

"That... wasn't my choice and it's not what you're thinking." Alver surrendered. Setting down his tea cup and admitting that she'd thoroughly cracked his composure with only a few sharp questions. "If it would comfort you, I can leave his room. I promise that I have no such intentions toward him. He saved me when I was injured and I owe him a debt. That's all."

The intimidating finger finally stopped tapping and she lifted up her tea cup, apparently appeased by his answer. "There's no need for that. I just had to be sure." Her sharp icy eyes locked on his. "However, if anything should happen to him..."

"It won't." Alver promised, feeling quite a bit flushed by this all. It was a bit frustrating, all things considered. Cale was the one who had stolen Alver's first kiss, not the other way around. Although, he could admit that Cale's ignorance that he was kissing a sentient being was part of the reason Violan was irate with him.

"I thought you'd be a child." She confessed, stirring a sugar cube into her tea absently and letting it sink in. "Occasionally, beast children have migrated to our territory for their own reasons. Most of them we try to send home but some of them wind up in the slums." She watched his reaction carefully. "Poor orphans with nowhere to go."

Ah, that would explain her adjusted tone. A full grown man was definitely a bigger concern than a poor orphan. Although, he couldn't help but feel like her words were testing him again somehow. Gauging his reaction.

"What do you do when you find those orphans?" Alver asked, venturing to learn just what Violan was angling for.

"We bring them to an orphanage when we can."

"And when you can't?"

Violan fixed him with a look and there it was, that was his test. Deduce the answer without having to be told. A fair test but was it one that he wanted to pass? She wanted to incite his ego, his desire to show off just how smart he was, and thus far she was succeeding. But if he came up with a plausible answer, it would show her just how knowledgeable he was over noble affairs.

But most of all, she'd succeeded in turning around his intentions from gathering information about her into avoiding suspicions about him. He must be losing his skill if he was this easy to bamboozle.

"I have a question about Young Master Cale." Alver said, blatantly dodging the test and earning a small glare. "You would trust a drunkard with a poor innocent orphan child?"

A person as observant as Violan must have noticed the incongruity of Cale's behavior. It might have been different if she was apathetic to his situation but it was clear that she held affection for the boy. She had to know something.

Violan's expression didn't give anything away.

It was impressive, actually, sometimes a person's poker face was more telling than simply showing emotions openly but Violan managed to lock down all emotions so thoroughly that it felt like anything could be playing behind the mask.

"You said you want to help him." She said coolly and he got the impression that he'd only been barely spared a sword to the throat. Which was a strange feeling considering Violan was unarmed and had no well known history with weaponry. "How and why exactly do you intend to help?"

Finally, they were onto the conversation that Alver wanted to have.

"I want him to stop destroying his life."

It was a selfish but entirely sincere desire.