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allybrumby · 1 year

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Under the Tables

I WROTE THIS BASED ON THIS POST BY @i-admit-i-am-dumb <3333333

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Cardan watches Jude uneasily take a cup of wine from a nearby servant, nodding her head in thanks. She glances down at it with the usual frown on her face, swirling the red drink around in the cup. It’ll be her first drink of the night, while Cardan has already had 3. He’s nowhere near as drunk as he usually is at revels, choosing to bear the festivities not sober, but Jude is not a drinker like him. Instead, he watches her take small slips, wincing at the taste before setting the cup aside.

The same servant comes back up the dais and bends his head as he offers her a platter of what Jude describes as finger food, though that makes Cardan wrinkle his nose as he imagines unpleasant things.

She pushes the platter away with a small, “No thank you” and then reaches for her cup again, not so much to drink, but to busy herself so it looks like she doesn’t want meddling servants to keep offering her things just for her to reject them.

Several moments later, she catches his eye, and the scowl on her face deepens just a little bit more. “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” Cardan says, resting his chin delicately in his palm. He leans towards her. She’s all too far away on this dais, their throne-like chairs set several feet away from each other. He makes a mental note to amend this for next time. He should have learned of the structure of the dais and seating arrangements before this revel. It’s their first one after all. The staff didn’t know how to seat two royals on the dais.

“You clearly have something you wish to say.”

“Do I?” he replies innocently.

He takes her in silently.

She’s picked out a dark dress for tonight, though he can hardly say she had a choice. All the dresses he’s gifted her after their marriage and her return from the mortal world have been similar in darkness, but not in style. While some dresses have extra ruffles or a distinct neckline, they’re all dark shades of several colors. Maroon, navy blue, black, forest green, and his favorite dark purple.

The last one is the one she wears, a dress that comes down to her feet, her shoulders left bare, and a corset that accentuates her waist. The only thing that stands out from the dark colors is the white of her corset laces, which she may have tied a little too tightly, he thinks, judging by the way her chest rises and falls with each trembling breath.

Or, he realizes, she’s nervous.

“These revels,” he says, gesturing lazily at the crowd and orchestra, “are meant for merriment and celebration. This one in particular is intended to celebrate your return. So why then are you unhappy?”

She frowns. “I am not unhappy. I’m having a great time.”

Cardan clicks his tongue. “Liar liar. What an awful trait to have.”

She shoots him a look. “I am not lying. I really do think all this is great. I’m happy I’m not being hunted or killed or held for ransom.”

“But?”

“But what? Nothing. But nothing.”

“What makes you so uncomfortable you cannot eat or drink properly? Much less sit without fidgeting. Is it the amount of people? I assure you that was not my doing. It was all your sister. I believe she still thinks she has to make things up to you. Take it up with her.”

“It’s not that.”

“Is it the food, then? Does the magic still not allow you to enjoy our food?”

“That’s not it either.”

Cardan reaches for his cup and pointedly takes a sip. “I assure you it is not poisoned.”

Her eyes flash. “I wasn’t too concerned about being poisoned tonight. Not that you’d even notice if you were poisoned. You act the same way drunk.”

He’s grinning now. He tilts his head down so his crown falls a bit lower than his brow, which he catches quickly before it can fall to the floor. “Then what is it? And do not tell me it is nothing. Quickly tell me what it is so I can fix it immediately. Is it the music? Shall I ask them to change it? Is it the throne? I’ve already decided I need to have a word with the staff about the seating. Or is it the–”

“Cardan,” she says quickly under breath, her jaw tense, “it is nothing of concern.”

“It is,” he replies. “Tell me what it is.”

Jude’s eyes narrow, but she doesn't speak. Much to his frustration. She looks back at the crowd of dancing people and drums her fingers against her arm rests, refusing to look at him. Nervously, she tucks her hair behind her ear, revealing the gold jewelry embedded in her unusual round ears, matching the delicate gold chains around her faux horns. She’s made them extra tight today it seems. Usually, by the end of the day, her hair is beginning to unravel, but not today. Everything about her is impeccable, unruffled.

She looks every bit like the Queen.

And yet she twists her fingers anxiously and keeps switching from crossing her legs to crossing her ankles, to leaving her feet flat against the floor.

He will not tolerate it. One night off is what she deserves.

Cardan suddenly stands, making several revel goers glance at him cautiously. A few stop dancing, stepping away from the dais to give him room. Jude slants a look at Cardan and narrows her eyes again.

He holds his hand out. “Come. We’ll dance.”

“What?” she hisses. “Now?”

“Yes. Now.”

“Way to do this in front of everyone. Now I can’t even say no.”

“I do not think you’d want to say no to your husband anyways. Not about a dance at least.” He smiles when she takes his hand, waiting for her to adjust her dress so she’s not tripping over it as she follows him, descending from the dais.

The music continues merrily, many revel goers taking steps back, making a path for the King and Queen. Jude ducks her head to hide her face, nearly walking into Cardan’s back when he abruptly stops in the middle of the floor. He turns back and takes her waist, but not before announcing to the dancers, “Please, do not stop. Keep the festivities alive!”

And with that command from their king, the dancers and citizens resume their dancing, stealing glances at Cardan and Jude whenever possible.

Jude is unmoving, now staring up at him with her dagger-like eyes. He only smiles back and tightens his fingers on her waist, just below her tight corset. He tugs her closer and gently begins to sway. It takes several long seconds before her legs give way, falling into a small step pattern with him.

“This is very obviously a security hazard,” she says, looking around them now. She can’t look over his shoulder due to his height, so she chooses to look around his torso instead. “Anyone could stab you right now and be done with you.”

“I am more at a risk of my own wife doing so rather than a stranger.”

She scowls. “I’ve never actually stabbed you.”

“How many times have you threatened to?”

“Not enough.”

“As for the security,” Cardan says, sweeping her around suddenly, making her clutch onto his biceps. “You’ve done all that you could about it. There are about 10 guards at every entrance of the Palace. I’ve never felt safer, and you should feel safe too.”

“You can never be too careful,” Jude grumbles, letting his arms go. He pauses their movements and reaches for her wrists, tugging her hands so they clasp behind his neck. The movement makes her stumble closer to him, and then he returns his hands.

“Come on, wife,” he says quietly. “We’ve done this before.”

“I hated that night,” Jude replies instantly, her jaw tight, likely from the mere memory of it. But there’s a scarlet blush over her cheeks. He finds it amusing. “I’ve hated several of these revels in fact. They were always fun for everyone but rarely for Taryn and I.”

As Cardan gently moves them, he thinks back about seeing her at the previous parties. He seems to remember what she’d been doing at nearly all of them, and the realization would have struck his stomach in a nauseous way a year ago. Now, he accepts it. He’d always been watching her. It comes handy during moments like this.

He recalls the first revel he saw her at. There were talks about mortals in Elfhame, and at the first mention of the twins, he scoffed and rolled his eyes and groused about them to his friends. He’d predicted what they’d look like. He recalls telling his friends that he assumed the mortals were dull creatures, too ugly and plain to be considered things of beauty to marvel at. He imagined they had bug eyes and unnatural hair colors. He assumed they had sharp teeth and gangly limbs that made them awkward to look at. “I pity them,” he’d said to his friends who had laughed in response. “To be that ugly and stupid…it must be a nightmare. I would simply end my life.”

The night that he first saw Taryn and Jude did little to change his perception about mortals being stupid, but some cracks formed in his ideas about them all being ugly.

“Those are the twins,” Nicasia had leaned in and told him with a grimace. “They’re so plain looking. Look at their dresses.”

“What are their names?” he’d asked, staring at one of them in particular.

“Jude and Taryn. My parents said so.”

“Which one is which?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell.”

He gave her a peculiar look. “You can’t tell? But they look so different.”

And Nicasia had given him that same look back. “They’re identical. Anyways, I do not care about which one is which. Let’s get a drink.”

They were different, Cardan recalls. Everything from their hair to their face to their dresses. They were polar opposites, and he did not learn who was who until several days later when they’d showed up to lessons, huddled with each other.

Because of Madoc’s status and role, Cardan saw the twins more often than not at the revels. When they first arrived, they looked lost like deer. Their heads whipped anxiously at every noise, trying to hide behind each other. One of them, Taryn, always managed to hide behind Jude. And they always held hands, he remembers, smiling. Their hands were always tightly clasped, making them inseparable.

Jude frowns. “What is so funny?”

“I’m recalling the previous revels.”

“Yes, because the death of your entire family must have been a fun night.”

Cardan ignores the jab. Instead, he turns them around and wraps his arms around her waist, tucking her closer. “I remember,” he says, looking over her head, “the first time you got into trouble at one of the revels. We couldn’t have been more than 12 years of age. You got separated from your sister and couldn’t find her.”

Jude’s eyes darken at the mention of that year. “Mhm.”

“And you’d asked for help to find her,” he says, unblinking, still recalling. “But you asked the wrong people. Some older kids, right? And they’d commanded you to dance instead. It took hours for someone to realize something was wrong and for your father to get you out of the dance circle.”

Jude is quiet for some time, and he blinks, glancing back at her. She has one of those infuriating expressions on, the ones he can’t read. “You knew,” she says finally. “You watched it happen.”

“I did.”

“You were very cruel for not helping.”

“I was.”

They don’t say anything after that, just swaying along with the music. Her skirts brush against his legs, but he always manages to move away before he can step on the expensive fabric of her dress and cause them both to tumble. He continues through his memories.

“For a while,” he starts up again, opting for a different memory than the bombardment of bad memories that arise in his head. Of all the times he watched and did not help. “For a while, I wondered why you and Taryn would hide under the tables.”

He feels Jude stiffen under his touch. She stops moving, frowning up at him. “What?”

“The tables,” he says. “You hid under them. For several hours sometimes. It was intriguing. I wondered why you did that. Why you chose to be away from the festivities and simply talk under the tables. What could be so important?”

He shrugs and gently steers her away from a group of kids dancing so she doesn’t fall against them. She’s staring up at him with her mouth slightly ajar.

“But I know now that with all the people messing with you, it was the only safe place. I just found it interesting. You’d be there one moment and then gone the next. Several times, I thought you managed to find a way out of the party without alarming your father, but it wasn’t until later that I saw you and Taryn crawl out from under a table that I realized it.” He smiles. “Sometimes I grew jealous. I too would have liked to be under the tables with a friend, hidden from everyone’s eyes. Once, I thought about joining you and your sister under. But by then, you weren’t particularly fond of me and I’d already made up my mind about hating you.”

He takes a breath. “You were such a strange child. Now you’re an even stranger woman. Only I’ve become used to it now, I suppose.”

Jude bites down on her lower lip. She swallows. “Is that why you joined me under the table that night?”

“You punched me and made me double over. I did not have a choice. I do not think I could have walked even if I wanted to after that.”

“You know what I mean.”

His eyes refocus. “I think so. I am not sure. I was very drunk. When it all started happening, it became unbearably loud in the hall. People running, children crying.” He winces and lowers his voice. To avoid other listeners, he pulls her closer and bucks his head, his cheek against her hair and mouth against her beautifully round ear to ensure she’s the only one hearing him speak. She shivers but lets him. “I saw the guards by the entrances. I saw your sister. I saw Madoc and Oak and Oriana, but I did not see you.”

Realization strikes her features. “You knew it would be me under the table when you lifted the cloth.”

Cardan laughs though he doesn't find anything funny about the bitter memory. “It took a few tries to find the correct table, my dear, but yes. If anyone was under those tables, it would be you.”

She looks up at him with that expression again, the one he cannot read. “You said…” she struggles to speak as if trying to recall that night. Her eyes briefly flutter shut and then reopen. “You said that it wasn’t safe for me.”

“It was not.”

“What were you going to do? Once you found me? It wasn’t safe, but what else? What else could you do? Do you recall?”

“No,” he replies truthfully. “I don’t remember much from that night.” There’s a reason why they do not talk about it often. “But I do remember feeling glad that I got to be under that table. Even if it were my last few minutes alive. And even if you physically made me incapable of walking.”

Jude is quiet after that. Her legs move mechanically as he sways them closer to the dais. The dancers have made another path for them and while she’s lost in her thoughts, she’s more pliable. He moves her closer without having to argue with her, and finally when they stop in front of the sais, the music pauses, allowing dancers to take a break before the next dance begins. He drops his hands.

“Revels,” he says quietly, “have not treated you well. I see that. Perhaps as Queen, you will not feel the need to hide under tables or away from your people. They are, after all, here for you.”

She blinks up at him. “It’s been hard,” she says, gathering her dress to make it easier to walk back up the stairs to their seats.

“That is why I urge you to take after me and have some drinks.”

He’s relieved to see the corner of her mouth raise slightly as she nods. He takes her hand and brings it to his mouth, dotting light kisses to her knuckles. In response, she gently holds his crown so it does not fall. Then, he clasps her hand and helps her up the stairs and into her seat.

When they sit down on opposite chairs, he glances over at her. She looks more relaxed, though still in her thoughts. Feeling his eyes on her, she looks back at him. Stares for many seconds and then says almost inaudibly, “We don’t have to hide under tables anymore.”

“No, dearest,” Cardan replies softly. “We do not.”

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