A sky with no clouds

[gwenchan]

Fandom: Hetalia
Personaggi: HWS Inghilterra, HWS Howard the spy
Rating: Teen and up audiences
Additional tags: Alternate universe_Royalty, Alternate universe_Human
Chapter: ?/? 
Prompt: Cielo

 

Swabia was quiet at night, avoid of all the underground noise that was the habit in Dauphiné court. Nobles here preferred to retire to study and read in their chambers, instead of spending away the evening chatting and gambling. 

 

It was strange. Arthur's never thought he could regret Lutece's noise, but here he was, missing the buzz, the constant movement, the palace rooms swarming with life, the salons filled with nobles and - 

He shook his head with vehemence, chasing the image away.

"Sir?" 

Arthur lifted his head toward his valet. Howard was standing across the room, arms folded gently and concern painted all over his face. The same expression he wore everyday since they re-united.

"Yes?" he murmured, tired from the long day, even more when at night memories took away his sleep.

"Is it everything alright?"

Arthur sighed. He knew the proper answer, but he could also feel the mask slipping from his face and how little he could lie with someone who knew him since childhood. "Not really," he admitted. "But it will be."

Howard nodded, pensive. 

 

"Was it really as they say?" he asked, slowly, testing Arthur's mood and if he could dare the question. Arthur's face twitched. 

"What do you mean?"

"Dauphiné, sir." The valet spoke with care, head tilted forward with deference. It couldn't hide the curiosity in his voice. "Forgive me, but I have been thinking about it all week. Is it as beautiful as they say?" 

 

Arthur looked at the hands in his lap, a handkerchief all wrinkled still held in his fists, still wet from the tears he shed just moments ago. He didn't see either. Other sceneries flashed before his eyes, a countryside of vivid beauty passing from outside a carriage window and a glimpse of laughing lips in the corner of his vision.

“Yes,” he exhaled. “some of it was”

 

“Is it like the paintings?” Howard continued, temptatively. He knew Arthur’s well enough to understand when the discourse was being dropped, but sometimes he simply pushed it a bit more. Sometimes, it was the right thing to do.

 

“It is better. The South was breathtaking.”

 

Surely a painting, even of the greatest master, couldn’t convey the experience, being there, in full summer, when the heat rose from the stones of the pavement and a gentle breeze blew all the way from the sea; the constant buzz of bees, the overpowering perfume of lavender, the taste of ripe peaches.

 

“There is sun, so much sun,” he murmured. “Clean skies. So bright and blue. We do not have them in Albion.”

 

Miles and miles of sky the color of forget-me-not, of the sea reflected above, turquoises pulverized. 

 

One day he had looked from his window to find the sky completely free from any clouds, even the faintest or the tiniest. Wherever he turned his head, no cloud on sight, not even the occasional stretch of cotton so typical of summer days. It had been only a profusion of blue over his head. 

 

Later, he had seen the same blue reflected in someone's eyes as that very person pleaded to him to stay. 

 

He patted his own before new tears could fall. He whispered so that Howard didn’t hear his voice cracking.

 

“Some of it was. Some of it was really beautiful.”