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AAAAAAHHHHH I'm so excited! I love the prompts so much!! I hope these aren't taken but can you do Yves & Chevalier/ prompt 1 / angst / 1st pov Yves? A story where Yves has to stand up to Chevalier but he's so scared, but he does it anyway. I'm typing this so fast in case it's gone. Thank you writer!!!💕💕

Characters: Yves Kloss & Chevalier Michel

POV: 1st person (Yves) Genre: Angst

Prompt #1: "What are you waiting for?" "That, I cannot say."

Wordcount: 1047

A/N: This was my reaction when I read the request: 🤩😲😢 Yes, I am aware I went over my own imposed wordcount limit, but shhhhhh....Angst and adventure tied in the poll, so strap your boots for next time!

He will arrive at twilight — the man whose reputation preceded him, yet I only understand fragments. The man who held his quarry captive with silken threads bound by mystique and promises. The man whose name alone evoked despair. Like a pestilence. Like a curse. Like me.

I run my thumbs across the braided handle of the basket in my lap to keep my hands occupied, but my tapping heel ruins all hope of maintaining covertness. The sound ricochets off the crumbling soot-stained walls like crows accosting one another, and though it’s slowly driving me insane, I don’t stop. At the very least, I feel a little less alone.

Aside from my horse, I truly am alone here. I arrived mid-afternoon to scope out the place, though I was ill-prepared for the actual size. The way Clavis described it, the castle ruins were a broken shell of supposed former glory. A motley of derelict pillars and archways encircling rotting rooms picked clean of treasures and life. Yet I could still spot its majestic ramparts on my approach, saluting me as the dying sun pressed me forward.

Clavis said we would meet in the throne room, and even though I could tell where it was the moment I stepped inside, the first room to the right, I saved it for last. I wanted to make sure we would not be interrupted, yes, but more so I was curious to learn of a people who coexisted on a land undivided by borders. My search yielded naught; those bandits left no decrepit corner unsullied.

Sunset blares deceptive crimson through the glassless windows as I wrap my riding cloak more tightly around myself. We are not yet in the thralls of winter. Could I even survive in the land beyond the ruins? I hear my horse whinnying sadly, and I open my basket, produce the sack of sugar cubes, and cross to the exit, still swaddling the cloak around my body. A fresh set of apologies wets my freezing lips as I round the corner to the castle entrance, but both the “sorry”s and my legs stop short when two horses come into view over the threshold. 

I release the cloak and reach for my saber, but I already know it’s too late. The twisted solace I find in the moment is the icy tip on my nape is familiar.

“What are you waiting for?” Chevalier’s voice and his sword release a new chill down my spine that paralyzes me so firmly the sugar sack slips out my grasp. 

“Th-that… I cannot say,” I whisper, my racing heart doing nothing to bring back my senses. I can’t turn to face him, but it doesn’t take a genius to tell he’s not pleased.

“You cannot by choice or coercion?” he growls, pushing the sword harder against my neck, but I know he hasn’t broken skin; I would have felt the warmth of blood.

“Did Clavis tell you?” I ask. Somehow, the thought of Clavis watching, turncoat smirk and all, brings me a sickening sense of comfort. It would mean I’m not alone with Chevalier.

“He didn’t need to,” says Chevalier, maintaining the same pressure on my neck. “You are more aloof than usual, barely speaking at mealtimes and retiring earlier in the evenings. Not a single tea party was held this past week, and you were almost always absent from the kitchens. Sure enough, your horse was missing in the morning.”

I swallow my breath, and it lands in my stomach like a hunk of lead. “You have been watching me?”

“Don’t act so surprised. The movements of every person entering and exiting the palace are under my purview. Especially those who wish not to be seen. Ah —” He lowers his sword, but I am no less tense as he passes me into the throne room. He reappears with the basket, inspecting the contents like he’s just got his hands on a limited edition book series.

“A worthy effort. Though poisons will not suffice on him,” he says, holding a gingersnap biscuit to the horizon.

“They’re not poisoned!” I blurt out, swiping the basket and hugging it to my chest. “You can eat that one to check.”

“Then you do not deny they are meant for someone else?” he says, tossing the cookie at me. I take my time catching and replacing it in the basket to avert my eyes. 

“I will not contradict you, Prince Chevalier,” I say, pretending to rearrange fudge squares, “but this is a matter beyond your purview. Kindly leave.”

“You are aware you speak with the leader of Rhodolite’s foreign affairs faction while standing on the border with our greatest adversary?” His voice is level and without malice, yet my toes still curl reflexively.

“Yes,” I say.

“Then I ask once more, and pray I do not repeat a third time,” he steps directly in front of me. “What are you waiting for?”

I bite my lip to stop my jaw from trembling. My eyes sting with the woes I’ve locked away for decades. The ones Clavis weaseled out of me when he discovered my correspondence last week. The ones I will not compromise even for the Brutal Beast.

I inhale deeply, raise my head, and glare back at Chevalier. “For you to leave… please,” I hastily add on.

He regards me in silence, like a hunter watching a dying animal, contemplating whether it would be kinder to end my misery than watch me suffer.

“He cannot give you what you seek. He was a child himself when she came to Rhodolite,” he says morosely.

I grip the basket so tightly splinters dig into my palms. “Even still, I must know what he can tell me. It is more than you or your books ever could.”

He breaks eye contact first, opening the basket and picking a gingersnap. “I’d like to know, too,” he says, biting down brusquely. He then retrieves the fallen sugar sack and walks off, and I catch my breath as warmth refills my senses.

“What are you waiting for?” he calls to me from the dilapidated doorway. His blade gleams under the rising moon as he produces it once more, and it is only then that I notice the navy tinge of evening has enveloped us all. What he says next makes me immensely relieved I am not alone.

“He is here.”

Mark my words, the day when I properly write Gilbert into a fic is approaching. It's just not today.

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