Gerome hadn't always been a voyeur, but over the years he had gotten rather good at it.

From an early age his own social ineptitude had been painfully obvious; he'd really only been able to express himself around his mother and sister. Even interacting with his own father had seemed insurmountable at times.

Some of the other children accepted him as he was, and others did not. He distinctly remembered getting along well with Laurent, because he said interesting things and the other kids didn't really understand him either.

That had been all well and good. Gerome hadn't minded being a casual member of the group. His natural persuasion toward solitude made him less likely to play with the others for long. Back then, he had seemed very important in his own mind; he wasn't royal, but he was son of the great tactician of Ylisse. His father was renowned as a great and brilliant man, and those shoes had seemed horribly large to fill. But Gerome wouldn't have complained. It made him feel special; his father could lead kings and make winning strategies. A whole nation depended on his wit and skill. It was a great honor.

It was much better than what was to come.

Gerome had started wearing a mask for obvious reasons. If asked the pragmatic response would be that it kept enemies from anticipating his next move; but it was relatively obvious for anyone paying attention. As Lucina would learn, you wear a mask when you don't want people to know who you are.

The whispers and the wandering eyes had been to much for him, really. Already shy and socially inept, the mask was an escape; a wall that separated him from the rest of them.

Perhaps it was that no one ever said anything to him, that was part of the problem. He'd only hear whispers, a few words here, a few words there, and he had enough shame to fill in the rest on his own.

Morgan took it harder than he did, or perhaps it was better to say that she handled it very differently. She'd always been so very close to their father. She had been his little girl, and she refused to stand for people slandering his already tarnished name. Gerome wanted to believe that she was right, that she had every right to believe in their father. But in the same breath, he couldn't agree with her either. He wanted her to stop, if she kept drawing attention to the issue then they'd never forget it. The wound would stay raw instead of scarring over.

One day, she just disappeared. He and Minerva looked and looked and looked, but they could not find her. She was gone, just like their father. Gone gone gone.

They were trudging home after a long day of searching, when they caught sight of Inigo.

He was all alone in the woods outside of Ylisse, his blue hair glistening in the moon light as he flowed from one spot to another seamlessly.

Obligation kept Gerome watching – certainly it was dangerous for a prince of Ylisse to be out in the middle of the night on his own – but shame kept him hidden. Without a doubt being along with him would scare Inigo away, and the last thing Gerome wanted was to be feared.

So he and Minerva had stayed in the shadows. They didn't even seem to stay quiet, but Inigo was to absorbed in his work; cursing when he missed a step, and tirelessly trying again and again. It could have been the moonlight reflecting on his face, but it had looked like he was crying.

Eventually, after what seemed to be hours of practice, Inigo turned on his heels and trudged back to the castle.

From then on, there really was no option on the matter. For some reason, Minerva took a vested interest in Inigo's dancing from then on. She seemed to have a sixth sense about it too, so finding out when he went out to practice was a lot easier than Gerome would have expected. Inigo went out more often when the moon was large, and when the moon was small he'd change his practice location to the lake, where what little light there was reflected back onto him.

Often he and Minerva would spend their days looking for Morgan, and their evenings would be spent watching Inigo dance. They got better at watching to. A few times, Inigo had almost caught them. But inevitably Inigo would always turn back around, and continue his dancing. Gerome dressed darkly, and Minerva's scales were a dark shade as well, so perhaps they just fit into the background easily. Though if truth be told, Gerome had no idea how Inigo could miss them so often.

At the onset, it had really been Minerva's thing. She was horribly invested in watching Inigo dance when ever she could, and Gerome could rarely deny her something she truly wanted, especially when it didn't include maiming someone. But the more they watched, the more Gerome himself came to identify with it. The more he watched, the more it seemed like a story; Inigo was somehow weaving an intricate tale with the turn of his wrist, and the pivot in his heal. Every new dance was a chapter, and the more Gerome watched, the more he wanted to watch. A pirouette was a revelation, clenched hands was pain, every single movement had meaning, spelled something in a language that couldn't be spoken. And once he had started translating, he understood why Minerva couldn't stop watching either. People tend to think of languages as written or spoken word, but for Minerva, language was how you shifted your stance, how you narrowed your eyes or how you swished your tail. A language without words made sense to her, and only through interacting with her so intimately could Gerome understand that speaking was sometimes an inhibitor to what really needed to be said.

So the two of them watched, night after night. Life did not change much; Lucina could look at him with the mask on, but he couldn't stand for her to do so; he couldn't find Morgan, no matter how hard he tried; and he drifted farther and farther away from the rest of his childhood friends. He felt himself pulling away from the rest of them without even trying; it just felt right. Minerva was really the only one he could talk with, the only one that would never hate him or distrust him for something he didn't do.

Gerome rationalized that he really couldn't blame them, that he'd act the same way if the roles were reversed. But he couldn't truly convince himself of that. Life was just unfair.

Their situation over all worsened. Food was harder to find, rations had to be set, and a lot of commodities just flat out disappeared from their daily lives. Gerome remembered Laurent having only one or two books, and reading them over and over again, because there simply were no other books to be found. Certainly writing books was significantly less important when well off people were eating two meals a day.

Gerome couldn't help but feel like all of it was his own fault. He could rationalize all day long that it wasn't, and Minerva reassured him that it wasn't, but he found it hard to distance himself when the people around him were so obviously suffering.

Despite their situation, Inigo kept sneaking out at night. Gerome rationalized that in such desperate times, he had to follow the prince for his own safety. If Risen should attack, he could grab Inigo and fly off, saving both of their hides. It was a much better reason than saying he enjoyed sneaking out and watching another man dance without his knowledge. And no sane person would believe him that Minerva enjoyed watching too.

But it was nice. Watching Inigo was like being told a story. It was a sad story, but it was a good story. Maybe one day he'd work up the courage to actually say something to Inigo. In his minds eye, where he was everything he wanted to be, he'd march up to Inigo and tell him just how much those dances meant to him. That they were brilliant and that he shouldn't be ashamed of him, as he so obviously was. But then Inigo would give him that vapid excuse of a smile, and wave him off. And that was the good option. The alternative is that we was labeled a freak, a weirdo, and then even the dancing would be gone.

No, he'd likely never be able to tell Inigo that he enjoyed watching him dance. And that was probably for the better. It wasn't like they'd ever be close.