Chapter 65: Ch 65: The Apology Problem

Ch 65: The Apology Problem

Back in their room, Orion finally let out a long, slow breath.

The door clicked shut, sealing them away from the manor, the city, the whole confusing day.

He leaned his back against the solid wood, feeling the tension begin to drain from his shoulders.

Abel was already across the room. He carefully placed his wooden horse on the bedside table, giving its head a little pat. Then he started pulling off his boots, one after the other, letting them thump onto the rug.

"My feet hurt," he announced.

"City walking will do that," Orion said, pushing himself away from the door.

He began the methodical process of removing his own fine clothes. The city outfit felt wrong now—too formal, too much like a costume for a play that had gone strangely off-script. He hung the jacket up, folded the waistcoat.

Abel watched him while tugging at the laces of his tunic.

"Are you mad?" Abel asked.

Orion paused. "At you? No."

"At them?"

Orion considered. "Not... mad. Disappointed, maybe. They scared me. And they hurt Chase. But I understand why they did it."

Abel got his tunic off, then sat on the edge of the bed in just his trousers. He looked tired.

"I thought you were gone," he said softly, not looking at Orion.

Orion walked over and sat beside him.

"I’m right here."

"I know." Abel sighed, a big, heavy sound. "My head is tired. From being sad. Then from being confused."

"Lie down," Orion suggested.

Abel did, flopping onto his back and staring at the canopy. Orion stretched out beside him, on his side, propped on an elbow.

For a while, they just lay there in the quiet dusk of their room.

Finally, Abel spoke again.

"He was nice. For a kid who got punched."

Orion almost laughed. "Yes. He was very gracious."

"Do you think his face hurts?"

"Probably."

"Good," Abel said, then immediately frowned. "No, not good. That’s mean. I don’t mean good. I just... he held your hand."

Ah. There it was.

"It was a friendly gesture," Orion explained gently. "In his culture, it’s normal."

"We hold hands."

"We do. And ours means something different. Ours means ’you’re mine and I’m yours and we’re together.’ His just meant ’I’m glad to see you, friend.’"

Abel thought about this distinction. It seemed unnecessarily complicated.

"I like our way better."

"Me too."

Silence fell again, comfortable this time.

Downstairs, the dinner bell rang faintly.

Neither of them moved.

"I’m not hungry," Abel mumbled.

"Neither am I."

They stayed where they were, in their quiet fortress, as the last of the sunlight disappeared from the windows.

---

Meanwhile, in the woods at the edge of the estate, the training yard was in a state of cheerful anarchy.

With Aster, Loren, and Kaelen gone for the afternoon, discipline had evaporated.

A betting ring had formed around two burly Betas doing push-ups. Jax, the giant, was counting loudly, his voice booming through the clearing.

"Forty-seven! Forty-eight! Come on, Gareth, you’re lagging!"

Gareth, red-faced and sweating, grunted with each descent.

Near the weapon racks, a younger guard named Corin was hopping on one foot, looking bewildered.

"Who stole my boot? Seriously! I took them off to cool my feet for one minute!"

Someone snickered from the shade of a large oak.

Three guards were soaking their feet in the cold stream that bordered the yard, having declared the afternoon ’unofficially hot.’

The general mood was one of relaxed idleness. No Aster meant no barking orders, no relentless drills. It was like a holiday.

That all ended the moment the three missing men walked back into the clearing.

They didn’t stride in with their usual confident energy. They sort of... drifted in.

Aster’s face was a blank mask, but his eyes were distant. He walked straight past the push-up contest without a glance.

Loren wasn’t whistling. He wasn’t even smiling. He just trudged, scuffing his boots in the dirt.

Kaelen followed, his sharp eyes scanning the yard, taking in the slacking off with none of his usual pointed commentary.

All activity ground to a halt.

The push-up bet was forgotten. Gareth collapsed onto his chest with a grateful wheeze.

Corin stopped hopping.

The guards in the stream stood up, water dripping from their legs.

Every head turned, tracking the trio’s progress across the yard.

Whispers started, low and urgent.

"What’s with them?"

"Looks like someone died."

"Did something happen in the city?"

"Maybe the consort..."

"You ask."

"No, you ask!"

Aster reached the long, rough-hewn log that served as a bench by the fire pit. He stopped.

For a second, he just stood there.

Then he sat down heavily, like his strings had been cut.

He braced his elbows on his knees.

And he buried his face in his large, calloused hands.

A low groan, deep and full of genuine anguish, rumbled out of him.

The entire yard froze. You could hear a leaf drop.

Loren slumped down on the bench a few feet away, staring into the unlit fire pit as if it held the secrets of the universe.

Kaelen remained standing, arms crossed, gaze fixed on some distant point in the trees.

Jax, ever concerned, was the first to break the silence. He lumbered over, his big face creased with worry.

"Captain Vance? Sir? Everything alright? Where’s Lord Abel? Is he—"

"He’s fine," Aster’s voice was muffled by his hands. "The consort is fine. Everyone is physically fine."

The answer raised more questions than it answered.

Corin limped over, still one-booted. "What happened?"

Loren spoke without looking up. "We made utter fools of ourselves. That’s what happened."

Another guard, a woman named Elara with a shaved head and shrewd eyes, crossed her arms. "Care to elaborate?"

Aster finally lifted his head. He looked exhausted. He looked, for the first time any of them could remember, completely at a loss.

He looked around at the circle of curious, concerned faces.

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

Then he asked the question that had been haunting him the entire ride home. It came out in a flat, hopeless tone.

"How do you write an apology letter to a seventeen-year-old kid you punched in the face?"

Dead silence.

Then, a chorus of confused echoes.

"A kid?"

"Seventeen?"

"You punched a kid?"

"Since when do we punch kids, Captain?"

Aster winced. "We didn’t know he was a kid."

Jax’s brow furrowed so deeply it looked painful. "How do you not know someone’s a kid?"

Loren finally looked up, his expression pained. "He’s... tall. And he talks like a retired archivist who’s won philosophical debates for breakfast. He was having a private lunch with the consort. We thought..." He trailed off, shamefaced.

Understanding dawned on several faces. Elara let out a low whistle.

"Oh. You thought the consort was stepping out. And you caught them."

"We burst in," Kaelen said quietly, finally joining the conversation. "Loren punched him. Aster pinned him to the floor. He was half-dressed. The consort was on the bed. It looked... exactly as bad as you’re imagining."

The clearing erupted in a wave of muttered exclamations.

"Gods above."

"You tackled the consort’s lover?"

"Is the consort okay?"

"Is the kid okay?"

"He’s not his lover!" Loren snapped, frustration boiling over. "He’s his pen pal! They’ve been writing letters for four years! Today was the first time they met! And yes, the kid is okay. Mostly. He has a split lip and probably a spectacular bruise. And then he invited us to sit down and have lunch."

The story kept getting stranger.

"He... invited you to lunch?" Corin asked, incredulous. "After you punched him?"

"He ordered more wine," Aster said, the memory clearly causing him physical pain. "He made conversation. He asked about Abel. He was... gracious. Horribly, unnervingly gracious."

Jax shook his head, trying to process. "So let me get this straight. You thought the consort was cheating. You stormed in and attacked his friend. The friend turns out to be a teenage writer. And instead of screaming for the guards, he buys you lunch."

"That’s the summary," Kaelen confirmed dryly.

Elara started to laugh. She tried to stifle it, pressing her fist to her mouth, but it came out as a choked snort.

Soon, a few of the others were grinning, though they tried to hide it out of respect for their clearly mortified leaders.

"This is not funny," Aster growled, but there was no real heat in it. He knew it was, objectively, a little funny. In a catastrophic, humiliating way.

"It’s kind of funny, sir," a young archer named Finn ventured from the back.

"The consort," Aster said, steering the conversation back to seriousness. "He accepted our apology. But he suggested, rightly, that we owe one to the boy. A written one."

The idea hung in the air.

Soldiers didn’t write apology letters. They gave nods, shared a drink, maybe clapped a shoulder. This was foreign territory.

"What do you even say?" Loren groaned, mirroring Aster’s earlier posture by putting his head in his hands. "’Dear Kid, sorry for the fist to your jaw. Hope your studies aren’t impacted. Best, the idiots who serve your friend’s husband’?"

"You have to explain," Kaelen said, thinking aloud. "The misunderstanding. Your loyalty to Lord Abel. Your regret. An offer of restitution."

"Restitution?" Aster looked up. "What, send him a basket of fruit? ’Here’s some apples to go with your black eye’?"

"Maybe a book," Corin suggested helpfully. "He’s a writer."

The group devolved into a brainstorming session, the earlier slackness completely forgotten.

"Start with ’To the young writer, Chase’..."

"No, that’s too formal. ’Dear Chase’..."

"You can’t just ’Dear’ someone you assaulted!"

"How about ’To the recipient of our profound regret’..."

"That sounds like a tax document!"

Aster listened to the babble, the weight on his shoulders feeling slightly lighter. They were in this mess together, as a unit. Even if it was a ridiculous mess.

He stood up. The talking stopped.

"Right," he said, his captain’s voice returning. "Jax, you have the neatest handwriting."

Jax looked startled. "I do?"

"You write the supply requests. They’re legible. You’re drafting the letter. Everyone else... clean up this yard. It looks like a festival left town. Drills resume at dawn tomorrow. Properly."

There was a collective groan, but it was good-natured. Normalcy was returning.

As the guards scattered to pick up training swords, fill in the betting pool, and find Corin’s missing boot (which turned out to be under the log), Aster walked over to the storage shed.

He found a piece of relatively clean parchment, a pot of ink, and a quill that wasn’t completely mangled.

He set them on the stump they used as a makeshift desk.

Jax approached, looking nervous. "I’ve never written an apology before, Captain. Least of all to a genius teenager."

Aster clapped a hand on his massive shoulder. "Just write what you’d want to hear if you were in his shoes. Truth. Respect. No excuses."

Jax nodded, took a deep breath, and sat down on a smaller stump. He dipped the quill.

The sun had fully set by the time a first, clumsy draft was complete.

Back in the manor, in the dark quiet of their room, Orion was almost asleep when Abel whispered.

"Orion?"

"Hmm?"

"Tomorrow. For our date. Can we take bread and cheese again?"

"Of course."

"And the apple?"

"If you want."

A satisfied silence.

Then, "And after... can we kiss? Without waiting for the end?"

Orion smiled into the darkness.

"Yes, Abel. We can kiss whenever we want."

"Good."

Abel shifted, curling closer, his warmth a solid line against Orion’s back. His breathing evened out into sleep.

Outside, under the rising moon, a big man with careful handwriting frowned at a piece of parchment, the words ’profound remorse’ scratched out for the third time.

The day was over. Its bruises, both physical and emotional, would remain.

But life, messy and complicated, was moving on.