Puss's Boots - Chapter 8

“Orlando? May I sit with you?” The younger man turned and looked into the wrinkled face of his mother’s long estranged grandfather.

“Of course, sir, but I will warn you, I will not be pleasant company tonight.”

“Because now you know the truth about why your parents died?” At the solemn youth’s nod, the elder Gloria continued, “Orlando, do you resent me? I did treat your parents horribly; I just wanted the best for my granddaughter. What I could not see was that she would take poverty for love. I was wrong to think the best is necessarily the most expensive.”

“No, I do not think that I can resent you, and, until the hour of her death, my mother loved her grandfather consistently. She always said that, while she did not always agree with him, she always would love and admire the man who loved her and her mother enough that he risked even his own life on bloody battlefields to give them a good home and food. How can I betray her love for me by hating you, Grandfather?”

Orlando spoke as softly as he ever had, but his voice had a quiet, new confidence. He was slowly gaining faith in his own strength, growing stronger and more assured by the love shone to him by his family, but he never forgot to speak honestly, softly. These were the marks of a truly noble person, and anyone had only to look at Orlando to see that he possessed these qualities.

And look Alexander did. After Vincente’s death, and his subsequent fit, he had been ushered out of the Grand Hall by Caoimhe and his son. He had slept fitfully and decided a walk in the gardens might help to clear his mind, at least, for a while. There he had stumbled upon a touching first conversation between Lord Gloria and long-lost his grandson. As he stood, transfixed on the tableau before him, Alexander never noticed his son’s approach.

“After I spoke with his father for the first time, I knew.” His son’s hand rested on the King’s shoulder to steady him. “You had told me about the matching lockets that Lord Gloria had had made for him and his wife; I saw them on Marie and Gerard Red. Are you well, Father? I know the events of today must have hurt you, but you are as white as the winter snow.”

“Ah, son, nay, I am fine. As you said, I have had painful day. Now I have known the loss of two of the three people I love most in my life; it is my most sincere wish your love last you both until the grave. Perhaps it is now time that I take a rest from this Court…”

“Father!” Shock filled his face; all sorts of bad thoughts filled his head. Surely Alexander was not planning to… abdicate, but when he said as much, his father just laughed,

“No, son, not just yet, but a short reprieve is in order, I think. You and your consort can rule in my stead for a time. You need a chance to prove yourself and find a way to make your own path. Providing, of course, that you actually go over and talk to him rather than hide here in the tree with me; there is – I think – a great deal you must say to him now, likely starting with an apology.”

“I know, father; he has grown since the day when we first met; he is strong enough now to stand beside me knowing who – what – I am. And Magic knows I am not the only one who has assisted him to find the confidence he so desperately needed to stand up to the king. My only regret of this newfound courage is the fight we will most surely have tonight.”

At those words father and son both shared a quiet laugh, and, giving his father a final smile, the prince walked over and knelt beside the bench the elder Orlando Gloria had so recently vacated. He heard his father’s voice as he offered to walk with the Elder back to the now quiet castle. He saw the younger Orlando Gloria staring, eyes glazed, at a rose bush, seeing but, at the same time, blind to the world outside his mind. Reaching over he plucked one of the roses and, ever mindful of the thorns, gently placed it in Orlando’s open hand.

Orlando jumped and dropped his Stranger’s gift. Both men went to catch it, and their hands met and tangled around the rose. Orlando blushed softly and looked shyly up at the other through long lashes. Midnight and summer sky eyes danced together; both hid and revealed emotions, some that even their owners were still unaware of. An eternal dance, hidden in both silent glances and words unspoken, but even the most comfortable silence must, eventually, be broken.

“Are you mad at me, my love?” For once, it was Orlando’s ever-confident stranger who’s voice shook, whose hands were hot, but Orlando just smiled and reached out his free hand for his Prince’s.

“Upset, but that is for another day, my Prince.”

“Then why are you so formal with me still?”

“Because I have no other name to call you by. You have yet to remember your promise and give me your true name, Stranger, and, until you honour that promise, I have no other titles with which to identify my mystery lover.”

“Ah,” laughed the Prince, “you are quite word sharp once you lose your shyness. This is the side of you that I fell in love with, even though you hid behind you sister’s skirts when first I came.”

“You had been spying on us and carried a sword. Besides, Dione’s kicks hurt more than mine. And how could you see the sharpness if I was being shy?”

“To your first point, it is surely because she does not feel empathy for the man she is kicking, that her’s are, no doubt, more painful. And, to your second, perhaps it was the spark I felt when our eyes met that told me. The look hummed through my veins as only Magic has in the past.”

“You will constantly tease me, and my face will be forever red staying by your side.” The words were spoken sullenly, but Orlando’s shining eyes and red cheeks betrayed his true feeling on the matter. And all his companion could do was stare into the bright eyes in front of his own. Slowly, so as not to startle Orlando too much, he released his grip on the rose and moved his hand up to cup Orlando’s cheek. When met with no objections, the Prince moved closer and closer until their breath mixed and noses bumped. Tilting his head to one side, waiting for Orlando to do the same, he finally closed the last few centimetres of space between their lips and whispered his name into the mouth he had longed to kiss for almost three years now.

And when they finally parted, Orlando finally said the name that he had been waiting almost three years to hear.