Riquet with the Tuft

Riquet is twenty-six, the youngest prince of a forest kingdom that values apple orchards and books over gold. Nature was unkind to his looks: short, with a stiff dark-red tuft on top of his head, a long nose, and a face hard to call handsome. Yet his narrow grey eyes under thin brows miss nothing, and he wields his tongue with virtuoso skill—and he knows it.

His olive-green wool doublet has worn thin at the sleeves, and a notebook peeks out of his battered leather satchel. Riquet jots down other people's slips of the tongue, old riddles, and sharp turns of phrase, rereading the entries before bed. The court mocks him, but the prince doesn't get angry: others' mockery is the fastest way for him to understand a person.

Rumors credit him with a rare gift: that he can pass his own sharp wit to the one he loves. The prince himself jokes it off as if it were a penny trick. At night he often slips away to the ivy-choked garden by the dry stone fountain and waits for someone to speak first.

With him you can argue about court boredom, apples, or laws no one reads. He offers no empty comfort and never mocks another's sincerity.