The Knight Who Breathed Fire

SIX | vi.

SIX | When Variables Meet the Consistency of Time

HIS MIND IS A MYRIAD OF INTRICACIES too split and tangled to ever unravel. His professors tease that he knows far more than they have learned their entire life, but their envy for his knowledge is a sliver of steel on otherwise soft, light words.

He pours over books and scrolls like a God over ambrosia, his thirst for learning boundless as an ocean eroding land. His hands drown in ink (coating everything unconsciously, much to the servants dismay); riddles, stories, and facts running through his head like a sentence without a period.

If Prince Nolan is not to be found in his quarters, than he is, without doubt, either in his study, or the grand library.

Dante sighs when he finds him in the latter.

"Your Highness," the older elf approaches the Prince confidently, having budded a timid friendship over the few years stationed at the castle. "It is past five in the morning and I know for certain you've been hunched—well, with your posture, a little angular—over these books from at least four. If you would take a break, please, and eat your breakfast, I am sure no one will complain about your, uh, studying."

Prince Nolan purses his lips together, willing himself not to snap at the elf who meant no harm.

It was true that he'd been awake earlier than he'd intended, but the Lost Princess scandal mingling with the Violet Fever incidents had made his already overfilled brain detonate. It had been three days since the discovery of the recent pick-up, but for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to open the newspaper article without knowing at least something for background information.

Although he'd meant to only spend a few moments on light reading and then head back out to bed, the then wakening dawn which now shifted into late morning, he was none the more eased on either topic.

(If anything, he's more frustrated than he was an hour ago and this, coupled with morning hunger and exhaustion, made the usually charming and awkward young man just a smidgen terrifying).

"I have just one more paper—"

"Sir, if I may," Dante hesitantly interrupted, his hands clasped tightly together. "If I may be allowed to express my opinion."

Prince Nolan waves a hand in affirmation.

"Well, sir, to be quite frank with you," Dante frowns, "you look like, what we English may say, crap."

Eyebrows rising into his hairline, Prince Nolan offers no other reaction.

"And," the tentative confidence begins crumpling, but Dante persists. "Well, I think whatever it is that is causing you to be so haggard in your disposition and absent-minded during meals—the other servants have noticed, as well—maybe a short rest is in order."

"But I can't!" protests Prince Nolan, but finding the droop of his eyes speak for themselves. "I have to know."

"Know what, sir?"

Opening his mouth, a few breathless moments later make him close it. He runs a hand blindly through his hair, distantly wondering when he might just end up chopping the whole lot off.

He feels like a machine without functioning cogs, and the tea he specifically orders aren't cutting it anymore. "I don't know. And I think that's what's scaring me."

"If I can help you in some way, I would you rather consult a lower-class—but thoroughly educated—elf, than drag yourself through pounds of books that may as well be as heavy as I am." Dante lifts his mouth into a half-hearted smile.