“Remember,” Minho reminds you, wary, “you don’t have to pick any of them.”

But you do, kind of, and Minho knows that, too. You are marrying age—past it, actually. With the excitement of Minho’s marriage, you had been pushed to the wayside, though you can’t say you were upset. Minho should have been wed first, being king, and he was eager to marry Jeongin, anyway, could hardly wait for it.

But it does mean your marriage is all the more important now.

Minho lays the stack of portraits face-up in front of you; there are no fewer than a dozen of them. You know that Minho has inquired all over the world, in nearly every kingdom which has an eligible bachelor in the line of succession somewhere, but you weren’t expecting this many choices. It’s a blessing, you suppose.

“Okay,” you say, looking up at Minho expectantly. “Tell me about these guys.”

There are a half dozen portraits remaining. You know they’ve sent accompanying letters, of course, introducing the suitors and their kingdom. Hopefully you can glean enough information from that to make a choice.

Minho goes through the men of each portrait one by one, though he very intentionally leaves out the kingdom name. You try to guess them, anyway. Nobody much sticks out to him; it’s incredible how a complex and three-dimensional human being can become so… flat on paper.

“Okay, this last one,” Minho says, fumbling scrolls in his arms. The portrait in question shows a man who’s really only half-dressed—an interesting choice for a portrait to send a potential husband, to be sure. You wonder where he’s from, where this sort of thing must be normal. But he has a fur draped over his shoulder, and odd paint markings on his face. They form some sort of pattern, though you couldn’t say what they mean or represent.

“Prince Chan,” Minho declares, finding the correct scroll at last. “Has four older brothers, so there’s almost no shot he’ll ever be king—guess that’s why they’re trying to marry him off.”