"I couldn't help but notice you're still looking rather pale this evening, young prince."

Riccardo stiffened where he'd been about to mount Taizong at Luka's voice behind him. He had had no doubts that the rest of their travel party would notice he hadn't even fed off of Mahvash's gift to him in private, but no one had commented over their breakfast of meaty broth and fruit juice. Even his father had only given him his usual disapproving glance over his cup. Leon had also stayed blessedly quiet about the whole thing, too. So why Luka felt the need to hassle him, Riccardo didn't know, and he gritted his teeth against it.

"If it displeases you, look away," Riccardo grumbled and grabbed the front and back of Taizong's saddle to throw himself over the gryphon's back. He finally turned to look at Luka, ears falling back at the smirk on the man's face.

"I just thought I should let you know, Your Highness, that it has not gone unnoticed," Luka said. He nudged his heels into the sides of the antlered steed and it trotted forwards to presumably be stopped at the side of his father's.

Riccardo sighed heavily and felt relief that, at the very least, the end of this night would be spent settling into his own bed. Hopefully, there'd be enough commotion at home over the party that his refusal to feed on the fae would be forgotten. Speaking of, he glanced around him for where exactly the fae had gone to and spotted his curly blond hair showing from the other side of the horse Mahvash had provided him for this journey. Why he hadn't mounted yet, Riccardo couldn't say. He had a responsibility over the fae, now, though; Leon's good or bad behavior would be noted as a reflection on him going forward, and he didn't want more trouble if Leon slowed their party from moving forward.

With the weight of responsibility on him, Riccardo nudged Taizong to stalk over to the fae. He towered above both Leon and his horse thanks to Taizong's enormous size. "You should mount up," Riccardo advised the fae. "We'll be going very soon."

Leon looked up over his saddle at Riccardo with a peculiar look on his face that Riccardo couldn't place. It was almost anger, but with a wrinkle in his brows that said confusion, too. The odd expression gave way to a grimace, though, and Leon looked away and patted the horse's neck. "Do you know how many fucking days I've been riding," he complained. "I'm sore as hell and enjoying a few more seconds off of a saddle."

Leon had a... way of speaking, Riccardo was slowly discovering. It was almost... funny, actually. Fuck was still a jarring word in his ears, but he couldn't find it in him to tell him to stop using it.

"You don't usually ride," Riccardo asked.

"No," Leon answered. "Especially not this much."

"Chances are you won't leave the palace much after we get you there," Riccardo tried to reassure. "So there won't be a need for you to ride much."

Leon only responded with a quiet scowl. Riccardo's brows pinched together at it. What had he said?

"We'll reach Malatia before sunbreak," his father's voice called out from the front, mostly for the benefit of their new traveling companions, Riccardo was sure. He wondered if the empress considered herself lucky to have an escort for the last stretch of her travels. She currently sat atop her horse near her father who was likely making awkward small talk with her. "A hawk has been sent forward to ensure the palace has warm food and drink aplenty for our arrival and in thanks for your rescuing my son after his fall."

"Here, here," cheered one of the empress' people.

Riccardo was looking forward to the warmth of the palace as well, but he had to imagine that Mahvash and her company were especially feeling the bone-deep cold and missing the warmth of their desert home. He felt his own pang of jealousy, wondering if living in a warm environment was as wonderful as he imagined or if the people there ever got tired of it.

Up ahead, his father, Mahvash, and his father's generals started forward on their steeds, and so Riccardo turned to Leon. "It's time to mount your -"

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"Yeah, yeah." Leon got into the saddle swiftly and winced once he was astride, but he tapped his heels into his horse obediently, and Riccardo watched, satisfied, that the fae started moving with the rest of their group without more fuss. The last thing he needed was for the fae to misbehave and his father to turn his attention on either one of them. For now, it seemed his father was content to pay him no mind and that was far preferable to having the whole of his father's attention.

Riccardo rode with Leon for the first half hour of their journey. The fae was surprisingly quiet, however, and Riccardo couldn't think of any safe topic to discuss while his father was in listening range. He supposed he was glad that Leon seemed to have picked up on not talking about the lack of feeding or anything else that had happened in the privacy of the room they'd shared throughout the day. It was far better for both of them.

The silence between them, however, felt tense with everything going unspoken between them. Out of the corners of his eyes, Riccardo was certain he saw Leon throwing him looks that he couldn't quite discern the meaning of. Leon was confusing, though. Riccardo still wasn't sure why the man had seemed frustrated and almost angry about him not biting him when he clearly didn't want to be. Hopefully, the fae continued to calm down and accept his new normal.

Around the half-hour mark into their journey back home, his father finally seemed to no longer be content to let him linger in the background, though, and he was called to the head of their party to ride alongside him and the empress Mahvash.

"Good of you to join us, young prince," he was greeted when Taizong walked side by side with her horse and his father's maned elk. "Enjoying the company of your new pet, back there? I understand a warrior can get quite hot-blooded from battle, and he's handsome for a fae, is he not?"

Riccardo's ears fell back at that, eyes widening. It seemed to be clear to everyone he hadn't fed on Leon during the day, so was this where thoughts had gone instead? "I'd never!" His voice was embarrassingly high-pitched in its delivery.

"My son will take a wife within the next few decades," his father rumbled, firmly. "He knows better than to dishonor his future wife with casual relations -" His lip curled in disgust. " - and with a blood slave no less."

Riccardo's heart was still beating hard to realize people might think he'd been improper with Leon during the day. His father likely didn't want to say it in front of Mahvash - who was known far and wide for dabbling in perverted same-sex relations with her harem of wives - but he did not tolerate such things in their kingdom. A man laid with a woman and a woman with a man. Such was decreed by the gods themselves and this divine ordainment was enforced by his father, the king. He was often surprised Mahvash was invited to their kingdom for anything at all, and he could recall his mother complaining about her perversions and the corruption she brought to their great nation since he was little. And his father? The first public execution Riccardo had seen at the age of 26 was of two men - soldiers, to be exact - who'd been discovered in a compromising position with one another. Did Empress Mahvash truly not know how serious an accusation she'd made was?

"Such a shame," the empress said. "Your country still practices arranged marriage, then," she asked his father curiously. "Political marriages are so drab, and they'll both likely take a lover or two, anyways."

Riccardo wanted to disappear right into Taizong's feathers and never come out again. His heartbeat thundered so loud in his ears, that he wasn't sure what his father's answer was. After a few moments, though, he felt a tingle go up his spine like eyes were boring into the back of him. Before he could think about it, he turned warily around and his eyes met with Leon's blue ones. The fae didn't look away from him when their eyes met like Riccardo would have expected. Instead, his eyebrows went up and Riccardo didn't know what question was trying to be communicated to him, but he turned around again to face forward.

The worst part of this was that Mahvash was right: Leon was handsome. Not that Riccardo was paying that much attention to it. It was just that objectively, he could appreciate that Leon was a good-looking man with his shiny, blonde curls, bright-blue eyes, and fair features. It wasn't as if he was specifically noticing these things, though. Really. Anyone with eyes could see Leon was nice to look at. It didn't matter how innocent his thoughts were; they were dangerous to have around his father. It was a blessing that his father would never know he'd ever had them, but Riccardo was afraid to look back at the fae again at this point.

Thanks to Mahvash's comments, Riccardo knew he was going to have to be more careful of how he acted around Leon. His father already thought him to be odd as it was. But these accusations Mahvash put out there? He really didn't need to give his father reason to believe there was even a grain of truth to them. Why couldn't Leon have been a woman?