#// PUKINGG

[dyshonor]

Emma had already bought him a gift.

But Emma had not bought him a gift.

She didn't really know what he liked. She hardly knew him, in all honesty. With the frequency with which she saw him, most probably wouldn't judge her for not getting him a gift at all. But Emma would. Because that was Randal, even if it wasn't the Randal that she knew. It was the Randal that'd become her Randal, right? And a future friend is a friend all the same.

(it'd be lonely, wouldn't it? to not be acknowledged, for the crime of not yet being who you will be someday?)

She knows from their time in Valentia that he's not a fan of sweets. Did he like sweets when he was her age, and grow out of it? Or had that always been how he was? Randal as he was now was kind of the opposite of the Randal she knew—but not completely, not so thoroughly that she felt it an obvious assumption. Best not to risk it. That left cookies or cupcakes out of the question, though. Does she find somewhere that'll sell her a bottle of whisky if she asks with wide enough eyes?

...she's not sure she wants to encourage that.

"Randaaaal!"

The young trainee hadn't relied on her pegasus today, and so she'd resorted to searching for him on her own quick feet. She's quite lucky to have found him at a reasonable hour. Quite lucky to have found him at all, really. And yet it is carefree the way she rocks on the heels of her feet when she finally stops beside him.

"It's your birthday today! Did you forget?" Probably not, given how high and mighty he tried to act, but at the same time, she could hardly imagine how confused his sense of time must be. Emma herself had a hard time keeping track of it, now, and that was without the sort of complications Randal had dealt with. "I looked all over for a gift for you... but, um, I realized I don't actually know what you like."

And with complete familiarity, she grabs him by the wrist, pivoting on her heel to pull him along.

"So you're gonna come with me, and we're gonna hold a party with everyone!" She'd already asked Poe, Niamh never said no when Emma invited her to festivities, she bet she could swing Alice if she begged... "Then I'll get to know you better, and we can get you gifts next time. I got a cake for us and everything!"

She knows he's not a big of sweets—but it felt wrong to have a party without a cake.

"I hope thirty candles is enough."

-- RANDAL HEARS THE CRY from afar and feels his shoulders tense. It is with an incredible amount of self-control, cultivated after hours of meetings and handshakes with well-to-do usurpers, that he makes them ease when she rocks up besides him.

His birthday? Well he hadn't forgotten it- in times once-recent, it was an opportunity to force political rivals in front of you- but he had certainly not expected anything to come of it. It was a day to keep in mind, a day to procure fake, obligatory showcases of love.

He does not expect much. Emma loved that dastard, and she surely would have wanted to spend his 'birthday' with him. Knowing her, she'd likely been planning something for months. If this was some sort of scrambled coping mechanism, then he was far too miffed to let her down gently. No, before she's even finished stating her intentions, Randal has opened his mouth and-

A pause. "For... me?"

Well, she knows Randal- not him, that dastard, they were the very same but not him- but she still takes the time to clarify that she doesn't know what he likes.

What he likes.

He opens his mouth, closes it. The insults that come pre-baked with his tongue falter and wither. It is such an unabashed display of kindness that it leaves him without words.

By the time he finds himself, Emma has yanked his wrist and sent them spinning. "Wh- wait a second--"

The words coast over his head in near-numb fascination. A party, with 'everyone', whatever that meant. For him? As in, him? Surely at least some of them were there for the dastard, for that person they were surely waiting for him to slip back into, but it was being organized for the presentation of his sake...

He bites his lip. This is stupid to get excited over. No matter his age, he is an adult, and an adult that is seeking to strike out on his own and far away from this place that that dastard has brought them to.

(but is it wrong?)

Randal trips and catches his balance as Emma rambles on, full of promises of gifts for next time. Next time?

(he is not going to stick around forever. he is going to blink and that dastard will take his place back, as he has every right to. randal: the one who stands with a face clear of stubble, the one with hair still short enough to curl at the nape of his neck, the one granted a fresh nomer of 'wicked knight', will flash by with hardly anyone to remember him by.

he will be that dastard, that person actually worth being around, and he will be as good as dead. he is not so delusional as to think that he can actually keep him at bay forever- he does not know if he wants to.

so. if, like everything else that he has stumbled through, this doesn't matter anyway, why can't he indulge?)

His face twists into a pout.

"Thirty- I'm not that old!" he sputters. "I'm twenty! Something! Nowhere close to thirty, or if you're going for that old dastard's age, then--"

(maybe, if he's lucky, there really will be a next time. for him.)

[girl-bateman]

Scorpio sun / Libra moon / Aquarius rising

Aesthetic for @pukingg

[uraniaconjunctmc]

Scorpio sun - Libra moon - Capricorn rising

@pukingg