They had met once before, when the frost had licked at their eyelashes and the sky had burned bone-white.
Marivy was a slender, half-aware thing then, growing famous for his duels and sly smile that cost kings small fortunes. But he had not become the Courtier yet; he was certainly a man of the Blue Court, all silver and sapphires, but thus far he had not dominated the marble floors.
His dear opponent had just passed his final trials to knighthood. Somewhere the chaos of battle, an angelic soldier of the Eastern Nations fell under his blade. He took the elite's last words and letters, but not his wings. All he needed to do was return these to his Queen. A brief bow in her throne room sent his position sliding upwards with all the benefits his country could bestow. He was a knight, a man of the broadsword and plated armor, something unique and not to be tampered with. His intimidating looks did not mean ladies did not try desperately to seduce him and men did not cast stones and daggers at him during daylight and in the night.
The Red Court and Blue Court had opposed each other longer than the dragons had struggled for power in the seas. Sometimes the dance was dangerous and brutal, other times one might not even realize a struggle was occurring.
But this the Knight knew, and he was wary when the Blue Court sent an ambassador to visit the Queen for his ceremony. Of all her knights, he was the strangest looking and had received significant attention from his fellows, the Queen's courtiers, and other countries. Of his mother's four children, he was the second oldest and utterly pale. He had been gifted a white horse teasingly in his youth and a small albino cat after he passed his first trial. The Queen was rumored to be finding him a white drake he could put out in the fields or kill, whichever he preferred.
He did not have red eyes, like most albino animals, but no one could look at him and consider him normal. Rather tall, broad-shouldered, and yet somehow strangely off-white, he came across as a strange, wild stag untamed but for one lovely woman. The Knight took advantage of this; he stayed silent and strong. As an indicator of his desire not to be disturbed, he had broken a fellow courtier's arm when he was threatened two days before his ceremony.
He was outside in the wintry weather contemplating just that injury when the Blue Court's petite ambassador approached him.
Like always, the Knight wore a thick red scarf at his neck and his Queen-kissed sword at his side. In stark contrast to his shining, snowflake-brushed plate armor, the courtier of the Blue Court had on dark, tight clothing: a detailed black doublet over a much more flowing shirt. His equally hued breeches were tied to the doublet with fine, colbalt blue ribbons. His cloak descended down to his hips just as his hair touched down to his shoulders. He walked with casual importance, amusing himself looking at the sky turned white with snowfall.
He paused before the Knight as if the encounter was spontaneous, though it was everything except that. "Wonderful to see you here, Sir Asahel," he said easily, smiling for the first time at the Red Court soldier. It was a moment that would forever haunt the Knight, though he wasn't particularly aware exactly why during the first time they met. Nonetheless, something about that smile was a little too loose, a bit too crooked, dangerous like a throwing knife.
"I have not been knighted yet," the Knight replied, finding himself uneasy at the other man's knowledge of his name, very close to his truename. "But it is -" He stopped then started again. "The weather is likely more entertaining than what you see down south?" He stumbled almost immediately, wincing at himself. He wasn't ready for the inter-Court conflict hidden behind shadows, but the ambassador was there anyway, smiling like a streetside butcher.
The Blue Court courtier shrugged politely. "Oh, it is something to witness. All of this is." His eyes were on Asahel suddenly, and the Knight imagined that the heat radiating from his face had nothing to do with his heavy armor or the thick scarf at his neck.
"I hope to entertain you," he said without thinking.
Then his skin truly flushed, so he stared right over the ambassador's head, wanting a Blue Court knight to turn from the green-stripped woods to run him through.
Whatever the courtier's first reaction, his second was more noticeable and could not be ignored. He bowed slowly and sweetly and, upon rising, introduced himself plainly. "My name is Marivy."
As the Knight looked at him, the courtier's eyes flashed up, ferociously icy blue, a kind of color no one in the Red Court had. Asahel fell into fascination without even moving physically. He stiffened and saw straight through the man before him, into shadowy danger, political unrest, assassinations, seductions, all that came with being a true, utterly royal courtier.
Asahel had no time to react: in a second, Marivy had stepped forward, and, even though he was shorter by some length, the courtier stood on the front of his feet to reach up towards the Knight's face. His lips were abruptly by Asahel's - pale, cold lips that breathed betrayal and murder and soft nights on silk sheets.
"But you can call me whatever you want, Knight."
Asahel glanced down so stiffly he thought his armor had frozen over. Marivy's eyelashes glistened with frost, and his blue eyes burned darkly. His smile was the most dangerous thing the Knight had ever seen in his life - his mouth was inches from the courtier's. Everything and God urged him on to kiss the other man, though he had rarely felt any attraction to anyone since his trials started, but still he could feel his body responding, moving forward, to claim those enemy lips.
Marivy's bare hand pushed against Asahel's plated chest, not to move him but to remind him of reality, and the courtier was like the snow, slipping away past him without the slightest remorse.
Blinking slowly, it took Asahel some time to realize he had encountered his first true opponent and possibly his very last. He did not turn to watch the courtier go, but he knew the man was walking away only with the intent one day to return and harm him however he could.
That day Asahel became the Knight of the Red Court.
Marivy's own induction to the Blue Court came after the Red soldier's ceremony, a few more days before he went back north. In that time, Marivy slept with one of the Queen's handmaidens for mild gossip about her mistress and then poisoned two royal cooks, causing a third of the Court to complain bitterly for the next few months of the spicy, overdone nature of the lamb and beef. It should be known that Marivy's Prince took great comfort in irritating his rival politician, even the most minor aggravations. So when the young duelist returned home, his Prince brought him fully into the Court, giddy with gossip and murder, and, within no time at all, Marivy was called the Courtier of Blue.
Barely six months had passed before the Knight and the Courtier met again, now in springtime on the cusp of summer, where the sun baked souls and startled men out of their normal wary ways.
