As the 'Personal Time' block of his schedule arrived, Julian found himself restless. The apple Lucius had given him was still in his pocket, and the walls of the West Wing felt like they were closing in on me, making him even more anxious.
He decided to head to the garden.
The Alaric gardens were beautiful in a haunting way—everything was crystalline, covered in layers of frost. In the center stood a massive, ancient apple tree. Its branches were bare, but at the very top, a single, shriveled 'Winter Apple' remained, clinging to a high branch like a stubborn survivor.
Julian looked at the apple, then at the sturdy branches.
'I haven't climbed a tree since I was a kid,' he thought, a wave of nostalgia hitting him. 'But that apple... it looks like it's waiting for someone to pluck it down.'
It was dangerous thinking of climbing a withered tree during winter.
The branches will be slippery with frost but look on the bright side. If he falls, he'll be falling on a bed of snow.
But before that, Julian made sure to check the map. The Duke's path was nowhere near here and the servants were busy with the evening meal preparations, so there was no one to give him trouble.
Besides, no one told him not to climb a tree specifically, unless this happened to be an ancient tree they worshiped.
Julian paused.
It wasn't, was it?
He used the system to check the trees status...
>[OBJECT SCAN: Ancient Winter-Apple Tree]
>Type: Malus Domestica (Hardy Northern Variant)
>Status: Healthy. 87% survival probability despite the deep freeze.
Seeing it was a healthy tree and not in any way a source of worship, Julian felt he would not suddenly lose his job or his life when caught in the act.
"Just this once," he muttered.
He shed his heavy outer coat, revealing his slender frame, and unbuttoned his sleeves.
He rolled them up and then looked up at the huge bark of the tree covered in frost.
He touched it to make sure there was friction and thankfully, it looked like he would be able to climb it without issues.
'This should be fun.' he gripped the lowest branch. His body was surprisingly nimble, his long legs and flexible waist making the climb easier than he expected. He ascended higher and higher, the cold air biting his face, until he was perched near the top, level with the attic windows of the main manor.
Once he had settled at the top, he reached out his hand, his fingers inches from the frozen fruit, when he heard a faint sound from below.
Crunch.
Julian froze. He looked down, only to find someone standing just below him.
Standing directly beneath the tree was the Duke.
Julian nearly lost himself as soon as he saw it was the Duke. What... Why... How in the world was he here? And why did it have to be at a time when he was high up in the branches?
The Duke was in a simple black tunic that emphasized his dangerously broad shoulders, his blond hair catching the dying light of the sun and his tanned skin unfazed by the harsh weather. He was staring straight up into the tree.
Straight at the figure who was doing something you don't see every day in this cold and desolate manor, and their eyes met—Julian's panicked purple and blue eyes looking down into the Duke's icy, unreadable blue ones.
> [ALERT: Target 'Duke Alaric' is observing you.]
That's pretty obvious enough.
> [Current Affection: 0%]
> [Status: ...Intrigued?]
Julian's heart stopped. No matter how he looked at it, this looked like he was currently trespassing in the Duke's garden, perched in a tree like a common thief, and trying to steal the only fruit, though a shriveled apple, growing on the branches.
He watched as the Duke stared at him with icy indifference in his eyes, but it slowly melted into something much more dangerous: genuine, wide-eyed curiosity. The Duke looked enamored, as if he had just discovered a rare species of bird nesting in his garden rather than a panicked tutor.
Desperate to break the suffocating awkwardness, Julian's brain short-circuited.
He knew the first thing to do should be to introduce himself and make sure he wasn't viewed as someone hostile to the Duchy but his brain twisted all of that and he ended up blurting a casual 21st-century line, one that one should only say in their friend's circle,
"Um... hi there."
The words hung in the freezing air, pathetic and utterly uncouth and Julian immediately wanted to swallow his own tongue. Hi there? To the brother of the Emperor? To the Cold Duke of the North? Where was the noble etiquette he had just been teaching Lucius?
Where was the danger navigator in his head?
He was finished. Ruined.
He has just spelled his own doom.
Before he could speak out an apology for his blatant discourtesy, the Duke tilted his head, his golden hair catching the last rays of the sun.
"Is the view from up there worth a broken limb?"
Julian's breath hitched. He couldn't tell if that was a cold threat to have his legs removed for trespassing, or a genuine warning. This situation was a disaster. Their eyes remained locked—one pair icy blue, the other a startled mix of purple and blue—and the embarrassment burned hotter than the Balm on Julian's skin.
"I... I'll just come down," Julian managed to say, his voice thin.
He shifted his weight, intending to descend with some semblance of grace, but the North had other plans. His boot hit a patch of glazed frost, and his footing vanished as he slipped over the frost.
As soon as he felt the fall, Julian let out a little exclamation as the world went still for about half a second, his life flashing before his eyes.
"Ah—!"
Nothing was going well for him right now.