.

"Too many questions to answer. Should we go down for breakfast instead, my prince?"

Sebastian was already climbing down the ladder. Jylan watched as, whenever it shook, Sebastian would make a face and freeze where he was before continuing to climb down. It put a smile on the butler's face. There were plenty of things to make him feel content or a little joyous, but not so many that could make him laugh as much as the naive prince did.

When the prince was safe and sound on the ground floor of the cottage and Jylan heard the creak of a wooden chair as Sebastian sat down in the kitchen, Jylan let out a breath.

Then he pulled up his sleeves.

Jylan was sweaty when he came down, and he seemed a little jumpy as well. He brushed his hand through his locks of hair constantly as he pulled out the breakfast ingredients. "Know how to make a pancake?" 

"Pancake stuff, cooking, done. Easy." Sebastian said, even though he had never even seen a pancake before. He always had gourmet lobster for breakfast. 

"Alright… Here's the cookbook." Jylan sighed, pulling a worn leather book from one of the wooden cabinets and handing it to the prince. All the books Sebastian had ever read had much finer bindings, crisp pages, and goldwork around the edges. He wasn't used to looking through a book as unfashioned as this. 

Hesitantly, Sebastian opened the book up to the first page. He was greeted with scraggly writing spelling out the words "Cookbook for Peasants." Or, at least, that's what he thought it said, but with how terribly it had been written, it might as well have been "Footbook Zor Heasanzas."

"What is this?" Sebastian said in horror. It wasn't a book. It was a rusty, hard-covered brick, so old that he could already feel layers of mold and dust building upon his hands. 

Jylan peeked over Sebastian's shoulder, disgust growing on his face for a moment before he returned to a peaceful smile. "Ah, sorry, my prince. It has been a while since I have opened it." 

"No, not that. Uhm, I think I can survive a little dust… and cobwebs… and squashed bugs," Sebastian lied. "But why does the writing have to be like that? Some sort of ancient dialect?" 

Jylan tried not to roll his eyes, holding back another sigh as he peeked over Sebastian's shoulder. He grabbed Sebastian's hands from behind, shutting the book and flipping the ragged thing to its backside. A few messy signatures were scrawled there like cuts in the bark of a tree.

"I see what you mean," Jylan snickered. He brought his face closer to Sebastian's ear. "People here can't afford printers like the royal palace can, so people try to copy down books on their own," 

Sebastian nodded briskly and laid his hands to rest on the countertop, Jylan's on top. That's when the stupid prince suddenly jolted to the realization that they were in a romantic pose.