BURN

the eastern gallery

Tedros is skating when she arrives.

The sun is barely up, just skimming the horizon, and the majority of its light is obscured by another low-lying swathe of black clouds which indicate yet more snow-- they make the morning grey and shadowy, which is a perfect cover. The lake isn't visible from the castle.

Convenient, that.

Usually he comes here to blow off steam, stealing skates from the storerooms because he couldn't be bothered to try and make them, and going from one end of the lake to the other as fast as he can. But today, he'd tried something else-- he'd sat down in the snow and crafted two thin blades of ice, and jabbed them into the bottom of his boots. It had taken a few tries to get them right-- they'd been too thick the first time, and the second time they'd been cut at the wrong angle, so he'd fallen over when he'd tried to jump.

But the third time had worked.

He skates in lazy circles, listening to the rasp of ice against ice and feeling the cold wind smack against his face. They are friends, he and the northern wind. He's always cold, so it really just feels familiar. Kindred spirits.

Spirits.

He goes into a crouch, letting his momentum carry him from one bank to the other. He's still yet to properly process what Agatha told him the other night. He doesn't understand how this spirit thing works, and he's had no opportunity to question her about it. Today will be the first time he's seen her since she caught him in the corridor. He's been too busy convincing his court why he should come off the ivy, whilst fighting the withdrawal symptoms.

It's why he's out here-- he'd woken at 2am with a stabbing migraine and cramps, and, in desperation, had staggered out to the gardens and flung himself into a snowdrift, praying it would help. It had, somewhat. Clearly, however his magic works, it has become overzealous now he's unrestricted it. He'd turned half of his bed frame to ice in his sleep, and he'd woken up with his hair bleached white, again. He'd done a shoddy job of re-dyeing it himself, barely able to focus on himself in the mirror, but it was passably golden again, so he couldn't find the effort to care.

He wishes he'd looked more into how the ivy worked. It had just been a tentative trial, at first, but it had quickly become a requirement, and he'd been too frightened by what had happened at the coronation to argue, or even bother to ask about it.

He should have.

As if responding to the thought, there's another stab of pain behind his eyes. Tedros growls and straightens back up, skating faster, faster--

He kicks off into a spin and lets the sudden slap of force and cold air knock any thoughts out of his head.

When he comes out of it, Agatha is standing on the opposite bank, an inkblot in her black gown against the snowy grass.

He can see the crumpled piece of paper, tan against her black glove, and knows she got his note.

Relieved that she'd agreed to come so early, he kicks off and glides over to the bank, the only sound the grind of his skates against the ice.

He stops in front of her and hops up onto the grass, snapping the blades from the bottom of his boots and tossing them into a snowdrift. He expects a barrage of questions, but she doesn't say anything-- just stands, holding her veil down as the wind snaps around them.

"I feel underdressed." he says, eyeing her full gown and headpiece as the wind whistles through his unlaced shirt.

Agatha ignores the comment, and Tedros finds himself slightly disappointed that she gives no visible reaction to the fact that most of his chest is exposed.