Unconditioned and Learning

“Flawless, right?” Salaeus chortled.

He had stood aside, allowing Ain to simply take himself in for the moment.

Flawless was certainly one way to put it, that much Akari could agree with. He didn’t write Ain with that kind of picture-perfect preface, he had only really mentioned how breathtaking he was in the eyes of others, how his looks turned heads but only because he wasn’t really human. Akari wasn’t used to it, being this stunning. Not that he wasn’t a good-looking fellow himself, but his looks could never compare to Ain’s.

“What if the prince… does not want me?”

Ain asked softly, bringing a hand to his face again, dragging metal fingers over his face, as his cheek twitched against the sudden coolness of the metal points pressing into his skin.

“Oh? He won’t refuse such a present in front of his court,”

Ain swallowed a shaky breath.

He had forgotten that scene, one he had yet to draw.

“Come his twenty-fifth birthday, that is when you will be handed over to him.”

Akari assumed Salaeus was speaking lightly with the preface of his plans, after all, what would Ain have known about his motives, his whys and wherefores. For Ain, it was none of his business and didn’t have a true moral compass, not until later in the story at least. He must think Ain’s completely dull. A sharp-faced doll with the intelligence of lesser living things, that’s what he must’ve been thinking. That Salaeus successfully created this mindless thing to come to beck and call.

“I see…” Ain freed himself of the momentary tension as he stepped away from the wall mirror and turned to face Salaeus, only now realising how tall he was. He towered over the mage with little effort, staring down with a firmness that could crush him.

Gosh, I’m only five-foot-nine… Ain must be six on the dot.

“What was it like? Waking up from stone?”

A pause—tension stills.

“Painful,” Ain said without thinking.

He was being entirely truthful, it was painful, in the sense that for the first few minutes of consciousness where he couldn’t move, his head was all over the place, as if he’d been hit over the back of his skull with an unbreakable bottle. But all that agony was gone now, in fact it was a short-lived grief back in the temple. Again, the entire outcome was best set with an emerging butterfly analogy, that’s how Akari wrote it in the book anyway.

“Are you in pain now?” Salaeus presses.

“No, just… Nothing, right now.”

It was difficult to bottle up all the emotions simultaneously jumping around the walls of his mind. Zooming from one corner to another, making it a challenge for Akari to properly form a thought for the character he was set to play. But perhaps he’d get used to it, after all, Ain wasn’t a talkative person whatsoever, for he had little to talk about. He didn’t grow up like a human and developed interests from a childhood. He simply began existing, and that must’ve been terrifying.

“Well, let me take you to your room, and get you out of all that armour—Marianne!”

Taken aback by the sudden rise in volume of his voice, Ain had tensed up, staring at the mage with an irate sort of scowl before turning to watch the morning room door swing open. In entered a young woman, mid-twenties with abrasive red hair catching beneath the afternoon sun infiltrating the space; she stared at Ain with the same off-guard strain as he had for her, the two locking eyes before the knight approached her first.

Marianne? Akari never gave a name for this maid, it must’ve been Haruka.

“Marianne, bring our knight to that guest room in the east wing, give him some clothes to change into as well,” his tone shifted. “If he needs anything else, you’ll provide.”

Towards Marianne, Salaeus had a certain twinge in his voice, whether it was the drop of his natural pitch or the harsh enunciation of his words, hostility leaked from what was spoken. Akari couldn’t remember off the top of his head how Salaeus and his maid interacted with one another, for this was perhaps the only scene he could remember writing—they weren’t on good terms at all, that much was obvious.

Nevertheless, Ain was eager to get out of Salaeus’ sight, already irritated by how the mage spoke about him with such grandeur,the kind that made him uncomfortable, he should’ve been lucky that the real Ain wouldn’t care at all.

The manors halls were decorated with a certain theme, light colours, pales and subtle dulls, nothing too vibrant or deeply saturated. It was vanilla, in a sense. Nothing was sore to stare at, not the flowers dominated in a white array, not the beige-gold wallpaper where the pattern needed a careful eye to spot. It was beautifully done. Akari’s draft concepts were nothing like this, but they were what he had in mind. It was meant to lull a false sense of security. The warmth that radiated from all the light colours was meant to feel cosy, and it did, then Akari remembered where this all leads.

Upon reaching the room, Ain watched Marianne first unlock the door with a key from her pocket.

They wouldn’t lock the knight in the room, but they wanted to make sure he wouldn’t go anywhere. A reminder that although being treated like a guest, he couldn’t be let loose so easily. Salaeus needed to know where he was, at all times.

—R… Si… Sir…

“Sir?”

“...”

Ain had been standing still, staring ahead before Marianne’s voice finally reached him. Her soft brown eyes looked up at his tension-filled ones, filled with slight concern. Pretending as if nothing happened, passed by her and entered the room. His eyes instantly began scanning about, from the four poster bed to the empty mahogany desk, with only a quill sunk in an inkwell and a bookshelf half-organised with volumes he’d never heard of. He’d drawn this room before, or one similar to it.

“I’ll return with some clothes, please rest,” Marianne bowed before closing the door, leaving Ain to himself.

All that was left was the sound of heavy plates clashing and grinding against one another, echoing through the room until he reached the bed. He sat himself down slowly, still trying to get used to the space, only to fall deeper into the mattress. He got a slight scare from how soft it was under all of him and his armour, so he had eventually sunk into the bed itself.

“Huh…” He hadn’t expected that.

After standing back up, he started to take off his armour, taking a minute to find where he had to remove each piece. Of course, he started on his gauntlets, slipping them off and placing them onto the bed as he moved onto his vambrance and rerebraces, hoping it’d give him some more flexibility to reach around his plackart. This vaguely reminded Akari of those late knights studying 16th century armour styles he spent with Haruka when he was having trouble drawing Ain for the first time. He didn’t have the skill for such intricacies until he had practiced for over a whole month to get the figure right. But to feel it himself, right now, it was all so outlandish; he hadn’t put it on either, so learning to take it off was just a bit weird.

A few minutes later, maybe less than ten, Marianne returned to the room, knocking and waiting for Ain’s response as he entered with an armful of folded fabric, piling up until it reached the top of her head.

“If they don’t fit,” she said a little out of breath before setting them on the footboard bench, “Just ring me up again and I’ll look for something else.”

Again, leaving little room for Ain to say anything, she exited in a rush without looking back. She wasn’t, say, distant from Ain, but she had clearly been told to remain curt and professional before him. It was probably Salaeus’ doing. He might’ve had an irksome gravitas, one that could uplift others spirits and entertain them for a while, poison sat beneath his tongue. Every word was venomous, even towards Ain.

Perhaps, when he could get back to writing, he could fix that; make it less obvious.

For the time being, Ain rummaged through the clothes left, putting on what he could fit and trying to style it to his overall appearance. It’d be a shame to poorly dress such a beautiful man.

From what Akari could remember from his sketches of Ain outside of his usual knightly attire, were clothing articles that didn’t pin wealth or status. He wore what was comfortable, something loose and flowy because any restriction on his movement made him feel ‘unprepared and restless’.

Before the mirror, after allocating his armour into a corner of the room, he had dressed himself in what he believed to be decent enough for the knight’s physique.

His blouse, ironed and high-collared accentuated his proud silhouette, broad shoulders fashioned beneath the white ruffles that cut down towards his wrists, where air flowed freely by the thin fabric. At his waist, cinched and hugging him were black high-waisted pants that thinned above his hips, though for him, his bodice from afar could be simplified into a ‘V’.

Not many of the shoes fit, from the wardrobe already filled from—probable—previous guests. But he was able to slip into ankle boots that seemed to have been unworn, in a condition adjacent to ‘brand new’.

It was like playing dress up.