precarious | Glowfic Constellation

first-and-final

"I don't know. Cath thinks I should just ask you to go find an excuse to bring up marrying me as a possible solution to the crown, without bringing my hopeless crush into it at all. I'm waffling."

abeance

"That was my plan originally anyway. Perfect plausible deniability. 'Hey, Reko, know what I bet would fix the crown'."

first-and-final

"Reko's pretty good at drawing people out, are you sure you could actually leave my hopeless crush completely aside?"

abeance

"If he grills me? No. Do you think he's going to do that?"

first-and-final

"I had a little trouble coming up with a plausible reason for you to ride all the way into Ferdinandia just to casually bring up marrying me if I hadn't sent you to do just that."

abeance

"You visit him sometimes," shrugs Jann, "I escort you because that's my job, you aren't in the same room as us all the time, ta-da."

first-and-final

"It's possible I'm overestimating his probable suspicion just because the ulterior motive is so obvious to me."

abeance

"Yep."

first-and-final

"It sure does feel excruciatingly obvious, though."

abeance

"According to my girlfriend," (this title is currently held by the sister of a knight school friend), "the twin princesses of the Enchanted Forest are both married to the same woman, which I think I'd heard before, and they have kids, which I hadn't, fancy that, Reko, hey, you know what occurs to me."

first-and-final

"...Okay. Sure. Fine. Let's go visit Reko."

abeance

So after arranging the scheduling with the object of their visit, they go visit Reko. Reko isn't very far away - Raxwell did use to be all one modestly-sized country - so it doesn't take that long to get there.

Jann waits for a moment when Milo happens to be out of a room that he and Reko both are in.

Reko

seewhathappens

Such a moment occurs when they finish a game of chess and Milo goes to see where Cath has wandered off to.

abeance

"Have you seen him talking to Cath? It's amazing."

(Jann is familiar with the concept of not wandering directly into sensitive topics! Really!)

Reko

seewhathappens

"I've heard her say his name," he says. "Well, meow it. But very recognizably. Now that was amazing. Milo having a conversation in which he provides most of the words isn't anything new."

abeance

"They've got some sort of code worked out and he can understand her. I told my girlfriend about it and she didn't believe me, and when I insisted she told me that Milo was probably secretly a witch or something, and then she started talking about how one of the princesses of the Enchanted Forest - the one who married in, the twins both married the same woman - is a magician. Apparently they have kids, I didn't know that until she mentioned but she keeps track of that kind of thing."

Pause to gauge response...

Reko

seewhathappens

"I've heard."

abeance

Pause, thoughtful staring into space.

"You know what would probably fix the crown?"

Reko

seewhathappens

"Hmm?"

abeance

Doing a moderately credible job of pretending he just thought of this:

"I mean, the thing the Enchanted Forest princesses did would probably have to work, etcetera, but I bet if you married Milo that would fix it."

Reko

seewhathappens

Reko splutters slightly.

abeance

Jann giggles like he's made a stupid joke as opposed to proposed something that at least one person is very serious about.

Reko

seewhathappens

"The princesses of the Enchanted Forest have a few things Milo and I don't, Jann," he points out. "Even if it did fix the crown, it would only put the problem off for another generation, and then you or your heirs would be left to deal with the crown's opinions of nontraditional princes."

abeance

Jann shrugs. He is playing "this was a random idea, not important"; nitpicking about how they could actually look into that question would not fit. "Please don't make me inherit Raxwell. I wouldn't like it at all."

Reko

seewhathappens