He frowns. “It is alright. It is only me. I will not judge you harshly.”

He speaks like they are old friends. Voltur feels it, strangely.

Ophel’s hand remains raised, waiting to be taken. His hands are large, but slim. Gold rings and gemstones decorate his long fingers.

He takes his hand. 

Voltur treats dancing pretty much how he treats swordplay, which is to say, technique is handy, but it's not as important as getting there with speed and power. 

He's still pretty good. He has a lot of coordination.

Music plays from some distant corner of the hall. It is no matter; Voltur need not look. These are the ways of the elves.

Ophel makes little adjustments to his stance, carefully guiding Voltur’s hands to sit more firmly on his waist. He notes every misstep, every wrong move.

“Eye contact,” he breathes.

He looks into Ophel's eyes. Deep into them. They are so, so blue, like sapphire. At this distance, he can see the tiny flecks and whorls, not quite the same shape as a human's.

His breath is shaky. 

They are so close that Voltur can count the freckles on his skin. That perfume is all he knows.

The natural flush on Ophel’s cheeks deepens. And then he speaks.

“You are not doing it correctly.”

In a cutting move, faster than Voltur’s instincts can follow, they switch positions. Ophel forces his hands away, and grabs the duke close by the waist, pulling him in firmly. 

“Hands on my shoulders. Watch.”

Before Voltur knows it, he is being swept away like a maiden in a dance.

He follows. Correctly, this time.

He smirks. “This role suits you.”

The music fades away. Ophel takes a step back, and waits expectantly for Voltur to do the same.

“Now curtsy.”

"I - what? How?"

Oh gods what?

“I jest. A bow is usually appropriate.” With his hands clasped behind his back, he demonstrates. He does not tear his eyes away.

When Voltur manages the simple act, he is rewarded with another of the elf’s approving smiles. 

“Are you hungry?”

He was a fraction of a second away from doing it. 

He needs to get out. Needs to clear his head. 

"Yes," he says immediately, instead.

“Good. I do so tire of eating alone.” He is quiet for a moment, and then his voice is kind. “Come. Have you ever partaken of elven food?”

He leads Voltur through the house. Ophel’s posture is perfectly straight, and he treads so lightly, like he never left the dance. 

"I have not. I... Think my life has been very different from anything you know." What even is elven food? 

It probably sparkles. 

He feels like a clumsy giant as he traipses after the elf. 

“I would love to hear of it, over luncheon.” 

Servants pull out chairs for them at an elaborately-laid table, and they sit. Flowers and silver dishes lay between them, and… 

Oh no. Approximately a hundred types of utensils, all waiting expectantly for Voltur to pick the correct one – and then he realises what this meal is, a sudden moment of clarity amidst the haze of elven hospitality. This is just another test.

Ophel rests his chin on his hand, blinking with long eyelashes. “Will you tell me of this life of yours?”

Good. He shouldn't start to relax. Right. Yes. 

He drags his eyes away from the flowers, from the elf's eyes. 

Steels himself, and takes a fork. 

"I didn't really know my father. My mother raised us, me and- my brother and sister. She was a washerwoman, we had very little. When I was twelve there were soldiers coming around, and I thought it'd make things easier on our mum- simpler for my mother, so I joined. Then it was just... I don't know. One day after the other. I learned. It was... Bad, in those days. Chaos. Didn't know who we were supposed to fight half the time. It was just such a... The country needed good men, loyal men to the Queen, and instead it had... jackals. In the end I was made a general. And then I could start to change things. We won the war. The next thing I knew, I was... Here."

Ophel listens closely, holding onto his every word. He regards the man before him with such fascination, like Voltur is one of those many framed canvases on the walls.

”Did you get your wish?” he asks softly. “Did you make things easier for your mother?”

"No," he says shortly, "I didn't." 

...

That's probably rude as well. But he shouldn't make the mistake be made with that blonde girl, either. These people are very fragile. 

"I made sure that she was taken care of as soon as I could. I sent money home. She will not want for anything ever again. But... For most of my life I have not known her, now." His fingers tighten on the fork, remembering. "I think she resents that I was not there." He remembers seeing her, this stranger sitting bewildered in a house where she fears scuffing the polish on all the expensive things, flinching when servants bow to her, so thin and so much less than she was, eyes rimmed forever red with tears. "I think she wishes I had been there to help. She... there is a sense in which she does not know her only son."

Only son? Voltur had mentioned a brother… Ophel does not ask. The tragedy is implicit.

“Twelve is too young for war,” he says carefully, “and too young for condemnation. Your suffering has given her a warm bed.”

And then he changes the subject, before he risks making his guest even more uncomfortable. “It is the leftmost fork you should be using, my friend.”

He snorts, but he does change forks. 

"Ninety is too young for war. Or nine hundred, as the case may be. All mortals are too young, in the end."

He chuckles wryly. “And how old are you now, General?

"Eight and twenty."

“Nine and thirty.” He smiles. “We are both young for our kin. The lifespans of men are rather tragically short, but you have much of it yet to live. You can leave the war behind, Voltur.”

His eyes dart downwards for a fraction of a second.

“That is a carving knife. It is a bread knife you want.”

...

...Should he tell him?

He changes knives, holds it in probably the wrong way. You hold a knife however makes it easiest to strike, you see...

This is an elf. Probably elves don't even have wars. He wouldn't understand. 

He says it anyway. 

"I'm... not sure I can. Not sure I want to. I don't know anything else, it was all my adult life. And..." 

He doesn't know why, but he just can't stop himself. 

"I... Ophel, I. It..." 

He's only tried to tell anyone once, and it didn't work, but now the words just spill out. 

"You hear the songs, you hear the speeches, about war, about what it makes of men. It's-" 

He's saying it all out of order. 

"I mean - you have no idea what it's like. Nobody does. Nobody who wasn't there. The number of men I watched die - there were so many. You don't realise at the time. There were- there were people I loved there. You don't stop feeling the grief, or I didn't, anyway. But when you're actually there - when it's just you and your wits and your sword and the enemy, you're so alive, everything is so bright and real, it's not, not like anything else. And then- I'm not normal. I've seen it from all the sides, foot-soldier and cavalryman and general. When you're a knight and you see all these shining rows of steel, blow on blow and charge and return and then suddenly there's spellfire and demons and- fuck, I'm sorry, I can't tell you what it's like, I'm not a poet, I'm a soldier. I- it was awful. People couldn't walk the roads in peace, you probably wouldn't be able to be here. It had to be stopped. It had to. I did everything I could to make it stop and it worked. But-" here it comes. "But sometimes I- I miss it, Ophel. I really miss it. It was real. I was a man then. Now I- I try to be the Duke and I don't know how and it's all so- so empty."

He grips his glass, drinks. It is good.

"Ant- Lord Bridgerton came at me the other night, looked like he was going to kill me. Eloise held him back but- I wouldn't have hurt him much, you understand, I was only going to take him down, teach him what fighting really means, he needs to know that. But- gods, just for that moment, it was the best I've felt in months."

Ophel listens closely. There is a silence after Voltur finishes his confession, and it presses down heavily upon them until the elf finally breaks it.

“Allow me to understand you. Your very existence since a child has been defined by the matter of life and death. The rush was written into you as though by Fate. It flows in your blood; you are a fighter, Voltur. You are a killer. You cannot change this, and do not wish to.”

He speaks matter-of-factly. His cutlery clinks as he rests it upon his plate.

“I was wrong. The war has followed you to a new frontier. So, I have a proposition for you.”