"hey," shigure greets, admiring his friend's outfit with a smile. the prince is dressed as sharply as one might expect, and it suits him, shigure decides: the way the fabric settles about him like a mantle, like the responsibility he doesn't yet know he's ready to bear.

a ball is not the time for that, though, so the artist merely holds out a tulip instead. "I think we're meant to trade these? I suppose it would make a better bouquet than just one kind of flower…"

but there's one more reason he's chosen to accost his friend now. turning his gaze to the ballroom floor, he can only raise a teasing eyebrow at the distance, or lack thereof, between the dancers in each pair. "are you ready to dance like… that, siegbert?" shigure feels his smile widen, just a little. "we can practice, if you want. so you don't lose your cool out there."

"Oh—hello, Shigure. What impeccable timing; I was actually just thinking of seeking you out to exchange the flowers myself." He accepts the tulip and pauses, looking down at his bouquet with a critical eye. He admittedly doesn't have a great sense for these things; flower arrangement wasn't ever thought to be a required skill for Nohr's heir apparent, and he'd spent much of his time either at his desk or in the training grounds within the Deeprealms to care overmuch about the gardens.

"Here." When he finally finds one that looks good enough, he picks it out and offers it to Shigure. Unsurprisingly, it suits him. Where the roses had felt a little loud in Siegbert's hands, they look elegant in Shigure's. It almost makes him wonder if they ought to have swapped bouquets, but the tulips are a good look on him, too.

...Which is to say, maybe Shigure simply looks good with any and all flowers.

When he looks up, his eyes move from one familiar face to a sea of unfamiliar ones—and he has to clear his throat, because he can already feel the jumble of sound gathering on his tongue, none of which is a coherent sentence.

"I've practiced aplenty before the event," he says, sounding more like an admission than anything defensive. "...But."

But. There will always be a but. He sets his bouquet down and turns back to his companion, and though his posture might be a little rigid, offering Shigure a hand, palm facing up, feels like the most natural thing in the world.