out and about

Market goers stared at them as they passed by. Rhys wasn't sure if it was he or the princess they gawked at. Perhaps it was both; the sight of an ascar with a member of the royal family had to be unusual, if not downright unheard of. He didn't let it bother him.

His time at the palace had been...well, "uneventful" was the diplomatic way of putting it, and how he had described it to Lord Fenec when he had asked after the first week. "Boring" and "isolating" were probably more accurate words to describe it. No one spoke to him, besides to give orders. He may not have had friends at the military base, but at least he'd had peers. The other soldiers had been his equals. Here, he was alone. The only ascar.

At least the market was a change of pace. The seasons were changing and it was beginning to warm up outside, and there was a pleasant breeze in the air. Market goers bartered with merchants for their goods, artisans displayed their crafts, and traders displayed exotic fare from every corner of the earth. Everything seemed to be moving nonstop, in stark contrast to the still, quiet halls of the palace.

He stayed a few paces behind the princess, who moved forward through the crowd with purpose. He wondered what it was she was looking for. Something for that garden of hers, no doubt.

The market. Alessi felt like she was able to breathe here, despite the crowds of people gawking at her. Her mother disliked when she went to the market, but Alessi found it maddening to stay locked up within the confines of Sortiel and its grounds. She was not afraid of a little staring, Instead, she welcomed it. She wanted her people to know she was not above walking among them, though almost everyone she tried speaking with stuttered and stumbled. The name Egress seemed to do that to people.

When she was younger she used to dream of sneaking out, putting on commoner clothing and becoming invisible, but now her only wish was that people wouldn’t be afraid of her. She wondered, once, if it was the guard following her that made people nervous. She knew now it was the threat of her mother, who was constantly looming over her shoulder, whether she was physically present or not.

Today she was in the market for supplies. A crew had worked for days clearing the garden’s space. All the dead things had been torn out as she and Rhys sat nearby, leading through books. Every once in awhile she’d caught him looking up at the workers, and she’d wondered if he’d have preferred to be working with them over sitting with her. It was true that he was not a particularly skilled reader. It took him ages to finish pages, and Alessi noticed him staring at single lines for handfuls of minutes. But it was also true that Alessi did not quite trust him with the heavy lifting of clearing the dead. Not after he’d suggested what he had. His ascarya.

He’d all but ignored her presence since that day. He followed her, did what was asked of him, shared information he gathered from text she instructed him to read, but besides that he’d kept to himself. It was usually what Alessi wanted out of guards—even Sienne, who had served Alessi well for years, was kept at a distance. Alessi has learned her lesson with that...the hard way. But, even still, she found herself drawn to this boy.

Finally they reached the stall Alessi had been searching for. Seeds. She beckoned Rhys over. He’d been talking her from a distance like a good guard, but she wanted his opinion.

“String beans or snow peas?” she asked.

Rhys stepped forward when Princess Alessi bade him to. He was a bit bemused when she gestured to the buckets of dried seeds displayed and asked,

“String beans or snow peas?”

He didn't know why she was asking him. She had mentioned wanting to grow legumes in the garden, and had had him read a little bit about it in her books, but he didn't know which variety was better.

"I don't know, Princess," he said. But she was looking at him expectantly, so he tentatively suggested, "Snow peas?"

Snow peas sounded more appetizing than string beans, he thought.

Alessi waited while he thought and nodded after he chose. She looked up to the shopkeeper, momentarily. “A handful of these, please.” She turned back to Rhys, ignoring the shopkeeper’s “Yes, Princess, right away,” as he shuffled away to grab a paper bag to put them in.

“I think I like snow peas better, too. What are some of your other favorite vegetables?” She thought back to the first day they’d met, when he’d taken it upon himself to ask her questions. She wished he’d do it again. These days he spoke only when spoken to, and even then with very few words. “If we are planting this garden together, it should have things we both like.”

Rhys stared at her for a second. He had never really considered this garden to be something they were doing together, and he had definitely never considered that she would take his thoughts and opinions into account. A noble had never really offered to share anything with him before.

"We mostly just had peas, carrots, and onions back at the compound," he finally answered after a beat. He furrowed his brow. "And barley." So much barley. He absolutely did not want to grow that. "I suppose I like mulberries." Berries were a rare treat, picked wild when the soldiers were out traveling on assignments.

Alessi listened to his short list of vegetables. She was aghast at his options, a mere handful of veggies, none of them very appealing. “What about asparagus?” she asked him. “Corn? Tomatoes?”

Just then the shopkeeper returned, scooping seeds into a bag hurriedly. It was true Alessi did not have much free time, but the shopkeepers she did business with always acted like they’d be whipped if they kept her waiting. “Do you have any berry bushes?” she asked him, trying to keep her voice light so he would calm down a little.

They finished their business with the shopkeeper, who sold them several handfuls of seeds, both of things Rhys had been familiar with as well as things he wasn’t. Berries had been an excellent thought, but one that needed an errand boy to help them with, so alessi had sent all the packaged seeds home to the palace, shorn instructions to leave them in wait at the garden.

“What about pastries?” Alessi asked as they left the seed stall. “This shop down the way has the best cream pastries.” She intended to keep him walking with her, not ten yards behind.

"I've never had one," Rhys admitted, keeping pace with Princess Alessi since she seemed to want to talk to him today. Secretly, he hoped she would offer to buy him one, but he wasn't sure he'd be permitted such a luxury. "We weren't allowed to have anything frivolous at the compound. Only essentials."

The ascari soldiers needed to be kept in good health, so they were fed well--better than a household servant, at least, who might only get his or her master's scraps at the end of the day--but they had certainly never been given sweets.

Alessi thought about this, wondering about the idea behind it. What good did it do to keep frivolous, as Rhys has called them, things from soldiers. It made sense, of course, to give them rounded diets, but for Rhys to have never tasted a pastry? It seemed a crime.

“Do you think you would like to try one?” Alessi asked as she walked toward the pastry shop.

Alessi ordered four sugar rolls, two cream pastries, and a few assorted berry handpies, then walked over to where a few benches sat. They were all full, shoppers stopping for a mid afternoon treat. But when they caught sight of Alessi, almost all of them stood to offer their seat.

Alessi accepted the seat near the back, thanking the couple that whispered their own thanks back, as if Alessi had done them some favor by taking their seats instead of the other way around.

Shebsat the treats in the middle of the bench, and then looked up at Rhys who was still standing. “Sit!” she commanded with a smile. “And pick what you want! They’re all delicious!”

If people stared at the princess sitting with an ascari soldier, sharing sugared treats, Alessi took no notice.

"Thank you," Rhys said quietly. It wasn't his usual scripted courtesy. It was an earnest thanks. He tried a nibble of a blackberry pie, and found it to be delightful. It was probably the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. "Oh. This is very good."

As he quickly finished it and went to grab another, the sound of quickly approaching footsteps caught his attention. He turned towards the source sharply, but rather than a threat, it was simply a commoner child chasing after a stray cat. The child glanced over at them as she ran past and, apparently startled at the sight, lost her footing and fell down onto the cobblestone street.

"Are you alright, little one?" Rhys asked, moving forward at once to help the child. She took a look at him, eyes wide as saucers, got to her feet, and took off running in the other direction. Well.

He turned to see that Princess Alessi had jumped up in concern for the child as well, pastries forgotten on the bench behind her. "...I suppose she can't have been too hurt, then," he said, gesturing in the general direction the child had run off in.