What an ugly beauty great cities are. From the tax-hungry toads, to the squalor-drenched squirrels in the trees of their rusty clothing wires and brick alleyways. The ladies have mossy parasols above their heads, flying monsters above their unchildlike sons. Gentlemen smoke pipes made of hog tusk; their boots crunchy with the morning mud walk. Horses snuff clouds from their noses, striped dogs snorting up the aromas of the drunkards. No pretty things found themselves on the sidewalk. None, except Percival. 

There was a park at the heart of the city, and despondently, Percival wandered into its crimson clutches of iron fence, river, and bridge. He escorted himself on his cervine legs down serpent pavements, caked with the fallen butterscotch leaves. However, Percival was horribly unhappy, though his face was cool and composed. 

Leisure was alien to him, as was his once divine passion for the naturescape. He recalled his more youthful days as a student in ebon hall ways. He once peered through the amber glass into a vernal courtyard. He wore smart fawn slacks, reading the works of grand Latin humorists, or Gallic verse. He sketched peach peonies and the marble busts in cocobolo libraries. Percival had once been a dreamy artist, a litterateur. But he had aged so much since then, for now he was nothing more than a melancholic Englishmen who read nothing more than legal reports. He sensed himself becoming a winter, withered rose, and shuddered at the idea that he should live much longer that way. Oh, how angry he was with life! 

Boreas smoked a pipe of ice and blew a fresh winter cloud down upon the parkgoers through his cloudy beard. Percival pulled his tweed coat closer to his body, studying the ladies with their monstrous hats, men with their wickedly tangled beards, children and elders alike so terribly grey in face. As he took to one foot, an ocean-backed bluebird perched itself on a limb before him. Enchanted by the flutter of her wings, Percy stopped to silently admire her composure. 

But before long, he found himself to be alone in the park. A city of thousands, but fate had left Percival to himself, and that, in some sense, brought him a shadow of peace. The bluebird hopped once and offered him a precise twitter. A smile pressed against his poised mouth, but he soon forced himself to remain stony. It was time for the daily ballad of the songbirds. 

The bluebirds’ sisters, the thrushes, and the silver mockingbird, cerulean jay, and despite their pretty little chirps, Percival had the voice of an angel above them. He was the male siren on the rocky coast that summons young sailors, but he concealed his voice in a treasure chest. But he had been so negative a moment ago... 

He pricked his finger on the spindle of aestheticism and pulchritude. An artist

cannot resist such compulsions. Though he was trapped as an unhappy Englishman, perhaps there was some dusty part of him that hadn’t been lost yet. It came in the form of the song of a bird, the creek of a tree, and a drop of sunlight through the 

canopy of leaves, and to years of misery, he responded with a pianissimo aria. 

The earth was his age, the sky was his despair, trees the guardians of secrets, and at last the underbrush his hidden talent, and he gave himself to song on behalf of the belief that he was completely alone. 

Although, he was not completely alone. There was a trio across the park, consisting of a female musician, a freedman, and a guitarist thoroughly enjoying themselves. The horses of wind took Percival’s voice on their backs, and the guitarist nearly plucked a string. 

“What is it?” 

“Do you hear that?” 

The group caught their tongues, and so rang the voice of the male denizen of Elysium. 

“Handsome, isn’t it?” said the guitarist, rising. 

“My, would you look at the time. We should get going if 

we’re going to catch the reservation.” 

Despite this point, the guitarist placed his instrument upon the pepper-ghost grass, floating as an apparition does in the direction of the sound. It was an angelite wave of passion, although, the song was not at all happy. In fact, it was most somber and wistful that this stranger was further entranced by the sound. Such a thing was undeniably inspiring, and the senses of art as well as life came in a flush like blood through the veins. 

The man had come close, off path, and he smoothed the ashen shrubbery with his slim hands to see whoever was on the other side. 

Percy was standing in the artery of the park traced in the midday Sol, and his back may as well have been adorned with two great ivory wings. 

A voice like blue diamonds, lilac snow, and summer nights by the water. Vanilla rose, cherry mint in Romanticism style. 

But soon Percival took a moment of silence, and sighed to himself, taken back by rationality. “Am I any less of a man for wanting love?” 

The lawyer went on in his smartly polished shoes, and though his onlooker saw very little of his face, he was taken aback by the peach-blossom-snow of his trim neck and hands. This gentlemen was none other than a handsome prince, and the very sight and sound of Percy was a crystal spear to the heart. The sensation was sugar-pink, or rather, pale blue with a prickling fever up the face. 

Percival went on saddened. His heart had been an empty cage for over half of his life, and though he deeply loved his children, he lacked all types of love other than that for one’s offspring. No friends, none for his fellow man, and certainly no lovers. Thus, no matter the season around him, he was always pricked by the frozen thorn of winter. 

As he was heading out of the park, someone had taken his and. Percy stopped, heard the shatter of glass, and it was the prince of spring, summer, love, and life. A warm touch and honey-sun- glow. The hearth of his chest may have sparked a quick flame, for he realized that this was no illusion. He spun around to meet the 

paradisal prince with his matcha eyes. 

“Come here often?” 

Percival, at once, was lit by a thousand fires, a thousand comets, unlike he ever had in his nearly forty years of life. He choked on his own tongue while studying him. In every way, this man held the air of a prince. He was, as well, certainly from a faraway land. The man was older than Percy, with proud leonine shoulders and he stood taller than a wendigo. He had eyes like lava stones and his hair was a fine mess, the tips blooming like tropical flora. Smooth skin with complexion of a sierra-sun cliff and milk tea moon boulevard. He was a honey- sweet Apollo, and long ago his bottom lip had been pricked by a rose thorn. His skull was made of sugar candy and beyond his eyes blossomed dahlias, marigolds, and a fire blue Rosa. 

Percival’s eyes traveled up to the scruff of his hair, the flowering poet blouse, to coconut ash trousers, to shoes of burgundy shell cordovan, with a cherry-soda sole. 

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” said the prince, offering him a charming smile. 

“N-no, I was just passing through,” replied Percival, his voice stripped of its powers and persuasions. His face was ignited by a blood-red firework, the tips of his ears lit aflame. He thought himself to be just a fool! For half of his life, he was the one whom was smooth and collected, but he became a shameful mess upon the sight of this stranger. 

The prince arranged himself with a slight bow, moving with such grace and finesse that had seemed to have gone extinct in the human race. “I beg your pardon. I just had heard you singing, and I simply had to talk to you. 

“You’re mistaking me for someone else. I don’t sing.” 

“No, I know it was you. Pray tell, what brings such talent here?” 

Percival took a breath, cast his glance past the prince’s eyes. That trusted coldness came back like an ice drop in the bloodstream. He straightened himself, glazed with a mildly hot air. “I come here on business, and nothing more. I can assure you that I am no concern of yours. It is high time I leave.” 

“Oh no, don’t. I have forgotten my manners. I am Montgomery Andrés Thiago Riel Castillo-Queensway. But everyone just calls me Monty. I think you should too.” 

“Oh my, what a name. It seems to be intimate with every corner of the Americas,” said Percy in attempts of slipping away, but was caught by the net of his royal face and tone. 

“It certainly is,” replied Prince Monty, with a smile of sun- soaked pearls. “From the archipelagos of Chile to the magnolia trees of the South, but my heart goes out to my blessed homeland, Mexico.”

 “What an impressive heritage.” 

“Oh, thank you very much, but I must know your name.” 

“Cartier. And I must mention that your confidence is overwhelming.” 

“Come on then,” said Prince Monty with a grin. “Do tell me your full name.” 

“Percival Sébastien Cartier. I hate to disappoint you with the lack of diverse culture in my title.” 

“But it is the most luxury I could hope for! French, hm? Do you happen to come from Versailles?” 

“I am afraid it is too late for a chance at that.” 

“What a pity. But I must say something. You see, I am a painter, and for as long as I have called myself an artist, I have been fascinated with beautiful people. I have seen many fine ladies and men, but you have simply captured me. Would you consider 

allowing me to paint you?” 

The prince had taken Percy’s hand once more while he was distracted by his sweet cocoa eyes. He noticed that he was being studied by the prince, and as he was close, he observed that he was blossoming with the scent of oud, sandalwood, plum-peach, and a velvety plumeria. 

“Paint me? You certainly are strange,” but as the talk went on, Percival was losing himself more and more. 

“I couldn’t help but think of that as soon as I saw you. I can tell you are an artist yourself. And your face is so refined, so wonderful, how can I resist?” 

“I am certain you have a library full of compliments like that. I have never met a man so deft when it comes to flattery. Most men save those words for women... It is about time I go.” 

“So early?” 

“Yes, I have such a great deal to do.” 

“But if you must, may I escort you?” 

“I know my way, thank you.” Percival proceeded to point his nose up with a cape of golden pride. “I am honored to receive your attention...” he intended to address him by the name, but he did not know which one to refer to, so he silenced himself. 

“And it’s an honor to have you listen. Forgive me for being so forward, I often lose myself before people I admire.” 

Percy, reluctantly, softened. He despised comfort, for he thought it to be so womanly, but he was comforted by such a statement, and when his blush had been violent, now he was a dreamy carnation, mouth curving up into a quaint smile. But no matter what he had said, on behalf of Percy’s manly, English dignity, and poise, he had no choice but to depart. 

“I have work to do. I am going now; else I will be late.” 

“Then it is no right of mine to stop you. I do hope to see you again. Mr. Cartier, was it? Ah, have a good day then,” and the charming prince thrust his hands into the abyss of his pockets, waltzing off with the fresh autumn breeze. 

Percy was a storm in the sea in terms of his emotion. He summoned rain clouds of doubt, lightning strikes of humiliation, but he had been passionate enough for one day. With a chisel, he carved his face back to that cool, colorless apathy of his. He attempted to push everything about the prince into the catacombs of his mind but found this to be far more complex than he would like to admit. 

He reminded himself of who Percival was. A hound with no nozzle. A snake with no charmer. Someone ethical, proper, and harsh. The call to return home was louder than these thoughts, but such a thing would be weak. His purpose was to serve in the court, make no friends and no lovers. His passions took the form of that powerful dog, and his sensibility the hare of the field, one which traces the footprints with long snout and snatches with a firm jaw, but he knew himself to recognize and ignore such behaviors of the mind. 

“What an odd fellow. I assume such things are exclusive to his culture. If I am the one making the fuss, then I must regain myself and return to the office. Now,” thought Percy. 

The sky mimicked Percival’s displeasure, and he cast himself further into the downtown to groom and dress himself for the fateful, and rather fretful, dinner with Mr. Octavius and the secretary.