Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

By the end of this story, several people will have died, one of them, notably, twice.  Fighting, fencing, torture, poison, hate, revenge, pain, death, chases, escapes, lies, miracles - all this for the guise of love.

The year Roman Santiago was born, the most beautiful person in the world was an African woman named Zainabu who worked as a maid in the household of the village chief.  It did not escape the chief’s attention that someone rather incredible was tending to his household; neither did it escape the attention of his wife, who was somewhat lacking in the beauty department but certainly not in intelligence.  She set about studying her adversary and soon discovered her greatest weakness: chocolate.

Bits of chocolate began to find themselves stuffed everywhere one could look, and Zainabu never stood a chance.  A season’s time found her pleasantly plump, happier than she’d ever been, and ecstatically married to the local pastry chef.  The chief never looked at her again with anything but vague disappointment, and the chieftess was quite content until, for reasons unknown to this day, the chief ran off with his goat herder.

The stress of this was quite enough to give the chieftess migraines, except this was before migraines.  Well, more specifically, migraines existed and people had them, but they were called ‘head pains’, and the medical community believed they were best treated with a specific mixture of lavender root, chicken broth, and boiled eels.  To no avail, The chieftess took this potion faithfully, which was the exact opposite of her unfaithful husband - who she still occasionally saw blowing kisses at the goat herder. Unsurprisingly, her grumpiness became legendary, as was noted by Voltaire (except this was before Voltaire).

The year Roman Santiago turned ten, the most beautiful person in the world was the son of a rich Indian spice merchant named Vihaan.  Vihaan had a perfect dusky skin tone that had only been recorded (as this was after proper recording had been established) six times before.  The plague hit India when Vihaan was twenty-five, and, although he survived, his complexion was not quite as fortunate.

The year Roman Santiago turned fifteen, the most beautiful person in the world was a Native American named Ahusaka.  They were the child of a very rich ruler and sought after by countless suitors. So much more beautiful than the rest of the world were they that it appeared they would be number one for many, many years to come.  That was, until one of their suitors (number two-hundred and six) exclaimed that they were the most perfect being ever to walk the Earth. This stuck with Ahusaka, who spend the rest of the night examining themself in the mirror (this was after mirrors), pore by pore.  The rosy-fingered dawn was creeping across the sky by the time their assessment was done. Ahusaka sat back, tired but content. It was true. They were, doubtlessly, perfect.

Humming contentedly, they slipped on their shoes and went for a stroll by the lake, musing to themself.  How lucky they were to be rich and beautiful and sought after and kind and young -

Young?

Ahusaka stopped dead in their tracks and blinked rapidly, existential dread creeping up their throat as it does in all of us from time to time.  Sure, they were rich and kind and would be forever, but one could not exactly stop aging. So distressed were they that, for the first time in their life, they stepped into the library (this was after libraries).  They poured over manuscripts and philosophy, so caught up in their pursuit of youth that they failed to notice the shadows stamped under their eyes becoming permanent or the tiny stress lines wrinkling their forehead.  Suitor four-hundred and seven was a scholarly type who was eager to assist them, and, next thing you knew, they fell in love. The two of them did, eventually, manage to create the sorcerer’s stone (beating out Nicholas Flamel by a good two decades) but that was long after Ahusaka had decided somethings were far more important than sublimity.

Roman Santiago, at eighteen, of course knew none of this.  Although, if he had, he would’ve sourly demanded to know who, exactly, was keeping track of these things and what made them such an expert.  As it was, Roman barely ranked in the top twenty-five, and this was largely on potential alone. He was a mess of bruises and dirt from his adventures and fights in the forest, he saw baths as loathsome obstacles, and he always smelled faintly of dragon blood.

His main concerns were finding new ways to smuggle Shakespearean anthologies out of the library (this was after Shakespeare); his horse, The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth (Roman had always been a bit on the over-dramatic side, and his one-time stint as a barber had not gone well for either man or horse); and torture the farm boy, Virgil.

“Farm Boy,” was once Roman’s preferred nickname for Virgil, as it was what he had been when he had been orphaned and came to work for Roman’s father.  This lasted until Roman realized he wasn’t a farm boy, anymore.  (Reports differ on when this epiphany occured, but it is this author’s sincerest belief that it was when Roman saw Virgil chopping firewood shirtless.)  Since he couldn’t exactly just start calling Virgil his name all of the sudden, a barrage of nicknames ensued.

“My Chemically imbalanced Romance, fetch me that pitcher.”

“As you wish.”

“Panic! At the Everywhere, polish my saddle.  I want to see my face shining in it by morning.”

“As you wish.”

“Not-so Good Charlotte, listen to this story and tell me what you think.  Specifics, okay? Nothing vague.”

“As you wish.”

As you wish, was the token phrase of Virgil's communication with Roman.  Sometimes with a smirk, sometimes with a sigh, sometimes with a ‘princey’ tacked on, but still, those same three words over and over again.   As you wish.

Virgil lived out in a shack near the animals and kept it neat, according to Roman’s mother.  Sometimes, late at night, Roman could look out his window and see it faintly glowing with candle light, Virgil sitting at his small desk, reading.  This strange urge came to Roman, sometimes, to climb through his open window (this was after window panes) and cross the dew-speckled lawn to sit with Virgil and ask him what he was reading.  This feeling was always met with an appropriate level of disgust as Roman slammed the window shut and curled up in his bed, huffing.

Roman did, however, sometimes leave his personal books unattended in places where the farm boy just might happen to see them.  If anyone ever borrowed them, well, it was quite alright, especially since that person always was careful to keep them clean and never lost the bookmarks.  He sometimes wondered if certain unknown someones laughed at the snide comments he made in the margins or marveled over the drawings he made on the blank pages, long, calloused fingers tracing wondrously over the fruits of Roman’s labor.  Roman never asked. It would be unseemly.

“I’ll leave the boy an acre in my will,” Roman’s father was fond of saying whenever the subject of Virgil was brought up.

“You’ll spoil him,” Roman’s mother would scold, and the age-old argument would start up again (this was after arguments).  Roman always sighed when this began, because he knew that, eventually, they would turn on him.

“Have you bathed?”  Roman’s father demanded.

“Of course I did!”  Roman cried.

“You smell like the forest.”  Roman’s mother scowled.

“I was hunting for dragons,” Roman explained.

“You’ve got to take a bath, Roman,” one of them sighed.  “We’ll never find you a proper spouse if you smell like dead things.”

“A proper spouse,” Roman scoffed. “The prince of my dreams won’t care if I go off on adventures.  He’ll be right there with me!”

“Well,” Roman’s father sighed, pinching his nose, “if a prince ever comes by asking, you’re all his.”

Although, what with the way things were looking, Roman’s prince was somewhere very, very far away, and didn’t feel like finding him.  Shortly before his twenty-first birthday, Roman realized that it had been ages since he had held a normal conversation with anyone from the village.  Half of them simply avoided him. He had never really had… anyone he was close to, so it took a moment for the realization to dawn, but once he did, it was impossible to miss.  The village was completely polarized. They glared sharply at him or stared with wide eyes. They turned haughtily away or couldn’t bring themselves to move.

Eventually, he managed to corner Apollo, the blacksmith’s son, to demand answers.

He glared balefully back.  “I would think, after what you’ve done, you wouldn’t have the audacity to ask.”

“What?”  Roman demanded, crossing his arms.  “What have I done?”

“You’ve stolen them!”  Apollo cried. “You’ve stolen everyone away!”

He stormed off in a huff, but it was enough for Roman to understand.  Everyone who was even the slightest bit interested in males, half the peasants in the village, were infatuated.  The idea was almost enough to make him laugh. Who wanted them? There wasn’t a person in this town who could hold a candle to the swashbuckler of Roman’s dreams.  Of course, it was rather nice to be beloved, but after a while, a guy could only handle so much blind adoration. They stammered through conversations, cheeks red and words ineloquent, and Roman got more uncomfortable the longer he stood with an admirer.

Sometimes they gathered in the darkness beyond his window and called to him, jeers and demands and crude remarks he had to stuff his head under his pillow to avoid.  He tried to block them out, but luckily he never had to endure it long. Every time, Virgil stormed out like a hurricane, dark eyes flashing in the night and lips curled back into a snarl.  

“Leave,” he growled, “before I make you.”

A brave one would step forward with a snide comment, and Virgil, without another word, would let his fist fly.

They quickly learned to leave when Virgil came.

Roman never failed to thank him when this happened, but Virgil only shrugged and ducked his head, as if to hide that half-smile dancing on his lips.

“As you wish,” he said, then, so softly that Roman wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it: “I’ll always fight for you.”

When Roman turned twenty, a man in a fine carriage was stationed at the crossroads, watching as he rode into town on The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth (who was, ironically, his first and only horse).  Gawkers were by no means an anomaly in Roman’s life, so he paid him no mind. In a way, he was right. The man, one of many before who had ridden miles to catch a glimpse of Roman, was in no way personally significant.  He was, however, the first noble to undergo this pilgrimage and the one to mention Roman to The Count.

The kingdom of Parietal was settled somewhere in Florida (although this was before Florida) and across the channel from the kingdom of Occipital.  (The name of the channel was a source of much debate and several wars, but eventually the two kingdoms uneasily settled into Parietalians calling it the Channel of Parietal and Occipitalians calling it the Channel of Occipital.)  In theory, Parietal was ruled by King Terrence and Queen Valerie; in actuality, King Terrence had a tendency to mumble and much prefered bird-watching, resulting in some rather vague and alarming responses at board meetings when he was far too occupied with admiring the osprey that had just landed outside the castle window.  Thus, the majority of ruling fell to their heir, Prince Remy.

He was assisted in all things by his confidant, The Count.  The Count had a name, presumably, but as he was the only count in Parietal, everyone had quite forgotten it.  Deceit was a nickname he had earned somewhere, but one didn’t exactly call a man like The Count a thing like that to his snakey, half-peeling face.

“Well,” Roman’s father said, standing before the window, “you don’t see that every day.  Darling, come look.”

“Look yourself,” Roman’s mother sniped back, not looking up from her sewing, “you know how.”

It was the twentieth argument she had instigated that day, and, with a pang, Roman’s father suddenly remembered that he was behind by five.  “Ah, such magnificence!” He crowed, blocking the entire window with his body. “Never have I seen such splendor!”

He continued marveling until her curiosity got the better of her, and she crept to his side, only to be thwarted by his careful positioning.  “What is it?” she demanded, trying to peer around him.

“Look yourself,” he said smugly, “you know how.”

The score was twenty to sixteen, and he edged aside to let her see the massive parade of extravagant carriages trundeling down the road by their farm.  They both marveled silently at the brilliance of it all - gold trimmings and white Persian (this was after Persia) horses and thick velvet curtains to keep the reality of wage gaps and lower-class living from reaching the noble’s gilded eyes.

“They must be going to meet Prince Remy somewhere,” Roman, who had come into the kitchen only to find the soup boiling over and his parents with their noses pressed against the window, said.  “He’s off hunting, most likely.”

“The why,” his mother asked, voice creeping steadily into alarm, “are they turning towards us?”

Indeed, the tokens of obscene wealth in a capitalistic society (this was during rich people being awful, but, really, that perimeter doesn’t have a time limit) were bouncing down the rough-hewn road towards the Santiago farm.

“Did you forget to pay the taxes?”  Roman’s father demanded, a tad frantically.  (This was after taxes, but taxes really came before everything, including soup, which was the very first meal the very first fish-man had when he threw himself onto the shore from the ocean.)

Roman’s mother didn’t have a chance to respond because the carriages rolled to a stop, and it was time to see what these very important and serious people wanted…

“Chickens,” Deceit, ever a master of deception, said, not at all convincingly, from within the depths of his gilded carriage.

“Chickens?” Roman’s father repeated slowly, one eyebrow raised, standing beside his wife on the lawn.

“Chickens,” Deceit confirmed, fully aware of the ridiculousness of his excuse but committing to it at this point.  “Word is that this charming farm of yours has the best chickens and chicken eggs in all of Parietal. We simply had to know your secret.”

“Oh yes,” Roman’s father, a frankly terrible farmer with only a few mangy chickens, said, nodding.  “The secret.”

“That secret,” Roman’s mother, who once had a horse shoe thrown at her head because she tried to sell those chickens at the market and got laughed out of the entire village, agreed.  “It’s a very secret secret.”

“Surely you wouldn’t mind sharing?”  The Count smiled, revealing oddly sharpened teeth.

“Not at all,” Roman’s father floundered.  “You see, we, uh-”

“You have a child, don’t you?”  The Count interrupted, boredly examining the stitching on his specialty golden gloves.  “Why don’t you call him out. Although I’m sure he couldn’t be sharper than either of his charming parents, it couldn’t hurt.”

“Roman!”  Roman’s father called.  “Roman, come here, please.”

Roman’s mother blinked at The Count in confusion.  “How on Earth did you know we have a son?”

“A lucky guess, I’m sure.  I’m prone to-” The Count stopped talking, for, at that moment, Roman stepped out.

Slowly, Deceit emerged from the carriage, eyes wide.  He was a tall, handsome man with one yellow eye and a look of perpetual scorn hiding in the curve of his mouth.  He couldn’t look away as Roman joined them.

“Show some respect,” Roman’s mother hissed in a low tone, and Roman preformed a hesitant bow.

“It’s an honor to have you,” he murmured, voice low and melodic.  With his hair unruly, skin sunburned, and clothes the rough garb of a peasant, Roman barely ranked within the top twenty of beauty (and that was mostly on potential), yet still, he was by far the most beautiful being anyone present had ever gazed upon.

“Chickens,” Deceit said eloquently.

“What?”  Roman blinked.

“The Count is here to find out just what makes our chickens so grand.”  Roman’s mother smiled, far too wide. “Go on, Roman. Tell him.”

“Well,” Roman began, rapidly composing a list of plausible lies, “we feed them with-”

“We feed them!”  Roman’s father cried, nodding emphatically.  “That’s it. We have the farm boy feed them.”

“And is that the farm boy there?”  The Count, marginally recovered from the full force of Roman’s beauty in the same way that one flying directly into the sun eventually gives up trying to resist and slips into a state of great inner peace, gestured towards Virgil, lurking at the side of the house.

“Indeed.”  Roman gestured him over.  “Jason Toddler! Come here.”

Virgil’s lips moved softly as he approached, but Roman didn’t have to hear him to know what he was saying.   As you wish.

“Have you a name, farm boy?”  The Count asked.

“Virgil, Count.”

“Well, Virgil, perhaps you will be so kind as to educate us.  We are all greatly passionate about chickens. We are practically reaching the point of frenzy, such is our curiosity on their feeding habits,” Deceit drawled dryly (sarcasm was invented and mastered at this point).  “Might you demonstrate the source of this miracle?”

“You want me to… show you how to feed chickens?”  Virgil and Roman shot each other incredulous glances, as if checking that they were not alone in the insanity.

“It’s what I live for,” Deceit deadpanned, taking Virgil by the arm.  As tempted as he was to keep staring at Roman, it was better he not make the reason for his visit so blatant.

Roman trailed after them, unsure why.  They all stood around awkwardly as Virgil fed the chickens, Deceit making appreciative noises and not letting go of Virgil’s arm.  The chickens pecked at the ground. The Count was still holding onto Virgil. The chickens clucked. The Count was gazing at Virgil steadily.

Something strange curdled in the pit of Roman’s stomach.

“He didn’t really do anything though, did he?”  Roman’s father pushed his soup around in the bowl, frowning.  “He just fed them.”

“Maybe they just like him personally,” Roman’s mother mused.

Roman’s bowl was still barely touched, but he pushed it away in favor of getting a new one and carrying it to the back door.  “Here.”

“Thanks, Princey.”  Virgil smiled up at him, eyes dark and lovely.

“You’ve never explained why you call me that,” Roman blurted suddenly, gripping the doorframe and fixing his gaze on the shadowed forests.

Virgil blinked, taken aback.  “You’ve never cared to ask.”

“Well, I’m asking now, aren’t I?”  Roman twisted his mouth peevishly then turned away.  “Nevermind, forget it. There’s a reason we don’t talk, farm boy-s/boys/girls. All our conversations would go round in circles-”

“Prince Troilus,” Virgil interrupted.  “You remind me of Prince Troilus from Troilus and Cressida.”

Roman blinked.  “He’s an indecisive idiot!”

Virgil smirked.  “I’m well aware.”

Roman drew himself up, offended, and prepared to tell that farm boy where, precisely, he could stick his judgemental opinions when Virgil amended himself.

“More importantly, though, he’s a romantic.”  Over time, Roman couldn’t help but notice the different smiles Virgil had - patient, irritated, smug, wicked.  There was one, however, that struck him as strange. Roman only ever saw it when it was only the two of them.

“He believes in love and a happy ending, all the way though,” Virgil continued, sticking his hands in the pockets of his hoodie (hoodies have been around for much longer than you might think).  “It’s that optimism, I think. You always… just go for things, go off on adventures and damn the rest of the world if they don’t agree.  We’re peasants, yet you believe in a better life, in princes and adventures and true love.”

“Why shouldn’t I, Bore-owulf?”  Roman, unsure if he should be offended, went with the safe route and stuck his nose up in the air.  “There’s no reason there shouldn’t be a happy ending.”

“I’m not sure that’s the way things work.”  Virgil smiled up at him, only a bit bitterly.  “But if anyone deserves to ride off into the sunset, it’s you, Roman.”

A lump rose in Roman’s throat, and he tried to swallow it down, floundering for something to say.  By that time, however, Virgil had shaken himself out of his odd mood and was once again the quiet, wry farm boy Roman thought he knew.

“Thank you for the soup.  Good night, Princey.”

“I didn’t dismiss you!”  Roman exclaimed as Virgil started to return to his hut.  The farm boy stopped, turned, and arched an expectant eyebrow.

“Yes?”

Roman wasn’t quite sure how to explain he didn’t want to say goodnight just yet.  “I don’t like what you’ve been doing with The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth,” he eventually decided upon.  “Polish her saddle, massage her ears, and comb her mane. I don’t care if it takes you all night, Edgar Allen Poe-dantic.  Just get it done.”

Virgil inclined his head slightly, the curl to his mouth suggesting a mock bow.  “As you wish.”

Roman nodded, not satisfied, but slowly coming to his senses.  “Goodnight then, farm boy.”

“Goodnight, Princey.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

The night was hot as Roman readied for bed, a strange cauldron of emotion bubbling in his chest.  It had been a strange day, he reasoned with himself as he collapsed onto his bed, so it only made sense that he was somewhat disquieted.  

The Count had been staring at Virgil.

Roman rose abruptly and cracked the window, sighing as a breeze drifted inside.  He had been too warm. That explained it. The returned to bed, snuggled under the covers, and closed his eyes.

Why had The Count been staring at Virgil?

Roman rose again and began to pace around his room, brow furrowed (which, although it endangered his position within the top twenty, miraculously did not dock him from the roster).  It didn’t make any sense. Why would anyone want to stare at Virgil? Sure, he was strong and muscular, but anyone would be after working on a farm all day. Sure, his skin was tanned past its natural brown to the color of rich honey, but the farm excuse again.  His eyes were nice enough, if you liked that sort of thing - dark and wild, like the sea after a storm. It just didn’t make sense for a man as fashionable and dignified and handsome as The Count to be staring at a lowly farm boy like Virgil.

Perhaps his hair?  Roman triumphantly popped his fist into his palm, stopping in his tracks.  His hair! Virgil treated his hair with a strange mixture of wild berries, tinting it somewhat purple.  Roman nodded, satisfied. It made sense. The Count wasn’t allured by Virgil in any way, he simply was gawking at the novelty of a boy with purple hair.

Good then.  Perfect. Roman settled himself back into bed.  All was settled. Everything was great.

Except that Roman knew it was nothing more than a cheap, fake explanation.

The faintest strands of music drifted through Roman’s open window, and he propped himself up to see the object of his infuriation sitting in his candlelit hovel, humming to himself and softly strumming his guitar.  It was a rough-hewn thing that the farm boy had made himself, working in the dark of the evening once his chores were done. Roman had asked about it once, in passing, but Virgil had simply shrugged uncomfortably and muttered something about his mother being a musician.  His long fingers worked methodically at the strings, pulling sound from thin air.

Everything in Roman’s vision suddenly shifted, not drastically, not irrevocably, but irrefutably, as if everything in the world had been shifted four point three centimeters to the left.  Epiphanies are like that, sometimes. Nothing is truly different, but to your eyes, everything is ever so slightly changed.

The Count was right to look at Virgil.  Roman, as it turned out, couldn’t help but look as well.

He didn’t sleep well that night, and, as soon as dawn brushed the sky, he was on his feet and knocking frantically on Virgil’s door.  Virgil opened it, messy-haired and soft with sleep. He blinked out at Roman with those eyes, dark as the sea after a storm. Behind him, Roman could see short, half-melted candles, the guitar, and those still-same books Roman had left out for him.  One was open to a drawing Roman had done. And there, before him, was Virgil.

Roman couldn’t bear to look at him, so he stared down at the ground between his bare feet.

“I love you,” Roman blurted out.  “And I know you might not believe me because I have never been anything but terrible to you, but it’s true.  Perhaps it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said in my entire life. I love you. I think I have for a very long time, even though I’ve only been aware for a few hours now.  In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a snob, so that probably led to my internalized classism shining through in a stalwart rejection of any romantic involvement with you, but that doesn’t matter now.  

“I’ve had an epiphany, and everything seems to be ever so slightly to the left, and I love you.  I love how witty you are, and I love how you stay up every night to read even though you must be exhausted, and I love falling asleep as I listen to you play the guitar, and I love you.”  

The sun was rising behind Roman, filling him with its warm glow and courage.  “I think I’m growing to love you even more with every single second. I thought I loved you last night, but then, when you opened the door, I realized that my love last night was a puddle compared to the sea after a storm of my love now.  Your eyes are like that, did you know? I’ve never told you, but I’ve always thought that.

“There are so many things I’ve never told you.  I’ve never told you that I think you’re witty and brave and kind and the most incredible person I’ve ever met in my entire life.  I’ve never told you that I love you. I know I can’t compete with someone like The Count - for I saw the way he looked at you - but please bear in mind he’s older and has other interests, but I am young and for me, there is nothing but you.  I love you so much it fills every inch of me. My arms love you, my ears adore you, my knees shake with blind affection. My mind begs you want anything just so I can make you happy, just so I can see you smile. Do you want me to follow you for the rest of your days?  I will do that. Do you want me to crawl? I will crawl. I will be quiet for you or sing for you, or if you are hungry, I’ll bring you food, or if you’re thirsty and nothing will satisfy you but French wine, I will go to France, even though it is across the world, and bring a bottle back for your lunch.  Anything that I can do for you, I will do for you; anything that I can’t do, I will learn to do. I’ll do anything to prove that I love you, Virgil. Oh, Virgil. I’ve never called you that, have I? Virgil, Virgil, Virgil. Now, please, my love, my Virgil. Virgil, please tell me that I have the slightest chance of winning your love.”

With that, Roman did the bravest thing he’d ever done in his entire life: he looked Virgil in the eyes.

Virgil promptly closed the door in his face.

Roman didn’t quite remember how he get back inside, past his parents, and into his bedroom, but he found himself curled up on his thin, lumpy mattress, eyes wide and staring at the thatched ceiling.  His tears were hot and flowing without abandon, but he scarcely felt them. Instead, all he could focus on was a vast, empty vat perched just above his stomach. It was a tremulous thing, sloshing thick, nasty acid over his heart and down his stomach with each shake of Roman’s shoulders.

Time enough later, he raised his trembling hands to his eyes to wipe away the last of the thick, hot tears splashing down his cheeks.  He rose, slowly, and used the washing basin. He stood there for a moment, face pressed into the blessed coolness of the damp cloth against his eyes, then presently pulled away and flashed himself a bright smile in the mirror.

“There now!” he chirped, “that’s much better, isn’t it?”  He patted his cheeks, trying to coax the color back into them.  “Look at you, all worked up over nothing at all.”

It was the way these things were, sometimes.  Youthful follies - he was still a young man, after all.  You fell in love for a moment, burned with all the passion and intensity of a falling star, then you burned out.  Get your heart broken, sob it out, get up again, rinse and repeat. Buck up and chock it up to experience, Old Sport.

“It’s better he didn’t say anything,” Roman assured himself.  “He has troubles in the mental capacity, after all.”

He’d have stammered and turned red and hid his face in that patched-up hoodie until things became terribly awkward.  Really, Virgil had done them both a kindness this way.

Besides, it was Virgil.  Who cared what Virgil thought?  Virgil, who still maintained a MySpace.  (This was after MySpace, but much, much before the internet.)  Virgil, who smeared charcoal under his eyes for the aesthetic. Virgil, who was an emo nightmare.  Virgil, who was snarky and sour and sharp-tongued and clever and handsome and - Roman cut his spiraling thoughts off with another sob, throwing himself on the bed and resolving to hide there until the sun went away.

He was, indeed, making remarkable process by the time the knock came on the door.

“I don’t care who you are, but go away before I run you through with my sword,” Roman called, voice thick and rough.

“It’s Virgil.”

Roman had a tiny heart attack.

“Virgil,” Roman forcibly drawled, throwing himself back to lounge across the bed and tapping a shaking finger against his chin pensively.  “Do I know any Virgi- oh Farm Boy, it’s you! How terribly droll.” He frantically fluffed his hair, wiped his eyes, and went to the door, swinging it open.  “Ever so kind of you to stop by, you know. I’ve been feeling absolutely dreadful all day about that nasty little joke I played on you this morning. Of course, you knew I wasn't serious for a single moment, or at least I thought you knew, but then, just when you started closing the door, I thought for one terrible instant that perhaps I'd done my little prank a bit too convincingly - you know what a fabulous actor I am - and, poor thing, you might have thought I meant what I said when, of course, we both know how absurd that would be."  Roman smiled becomingly and took a deep breath, as he had just performed a rather impressive monologue of denial.

"I've come to say goodbye.”  There was a rough burlap sack clutched in Virgil's left hand.

The smile trembled on Roman’s face as he desperately grasped onto it the way one desperately grasps onto a slippery bar of soap in the shower.  “Oh, good night, you mean?  How sweet of you, My Dark and Stormy Knight, to show that you aren’t in the slightest upset at that joke of mine-”

“I’m heading to Europe to make my fortune,” Virgil interrupted.  This was after fortunes, but only just, and Europe had been established for a good long while at this point.

“Europe?”   The frame of the door bit into Roman’s hands as he clung to it.  “Is… it because of what I said this morning?”

“Yes,” Virgil said simply.  

The ground buckled beneath Roman, and the pomp drained from him entirely.  “I'm sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn't…” Tears were stinging at his eyes again, and he tried futilely to blink them away.  “I didn't mean to scare you away. I was too intense, I know. Please, stay, Virgil. We can talk it out. I'll restrain myself, I promise.  Please don't… please don't leave me.”

“I have to.”  Virgil took a small step forward, his hand drifting up towards Roman, then stalling halfway and awkwardly coming to land at the back of Virgil's neck.  “There’s a ship that leaves for London tomorrow morning. I’ll work ceaselessly until I’ve saved up just enough for a small farm and a house… for two.”

“I see.  Well, I hope you and The Count will be quite happy together.”  Jealousy roared in Roman's chest, and his foot ground against the earth, smashing grass into the rough-hewn floor (which is why, to this day, we refer to jealousy as green).  “Although I do hope you know he won't be satisfied with a dingy old farmhouse and some lousy-”

“-Roman,” Virgil interrupted, looking some combination of bewildered and exasperated and fond.  “What is this about The Count? I don't think either of us are quite on the same page here.”

“You're running off with The Count,” Roman burst out, “because I love you and you don't love me and!-”

“I don't love you?!”  Virgil interrupted again (terrible manners on his behalf, really), incredulous.  “Roman, surely you must know that everything I've done these past years has been for you.  How could you ever even dare think that I don't love you?”

Roman went quiet and trembling, yet still he managed to take a small step closer.  “What?”

“When my parents died and yours took me in as a servant, you were the only person who showed me even the smallest bit of kindness.  You left out your books for me, and dropped the strings for a guitar just like my mother had at my door, and I fell so desperately in love with you that I've stayed here, for years and years, clinging onto the dream that one day you would look up and see me.”  Boldly, Virgil reached out and took Roman's hand, intertwining those long, calloused fingers around Roman's soft, brown ones.

“I pushed myself to become strong because I thought that would please you.  I played the guitar when you were near so I could see that smile you get when you hear music.  I tended to your horse because she protects you on your grand adventures, and I could never bear it if you were in danger.  I studied languages and art and literature just so I could keep up with your lightning wit. I stayed here just to be close to you.  Everything I've done, Roman, everything has been for you.”  Virgil dropped the burlap sack and gently wiped away the tears falling from Roman's eyes.  “So don't you dare say that I don't love you.”

“I'll kill you if you're just teasing me,” Roman, desperately trying to regain his composure, laughed.

“Why would you think that?”

“You haven't said it, Virgil.”

Virgil arched an eyebrow.  “Is that all? Okay, Princey, here goes” - he drew himself up - “I love you.  Want it louder? I love you!  Need me to spell it out? Eye ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-yu.  Backwards? You love I. In Morse code? Dot-dot-”

“Now you really are teasing me,” Roman cut in, laughing.

“Sweet revenge,” Virgil defended, squeezing their hands and sending stardust glowing through Roman's veins.  “I love you, even with as big of a moron as you are” - offended Princey noises - “since you could ever possibly think otherwise.”

Roman shook his head, smiling.  “But how could I have known?”

“I said it.”  Virgil tucked a loose curl behind Roman's ear.  “Every single day, I told you ‘I love you’. You just heard ‘as you wish’.”

The bell in town square rang, the deep chimes reaching as far as the small Santiago farm.  Virgil made a small noise and pulled back reluctantly.

“I’m sorry, Roman, but I have to go.  The ship leaves soon, and London is far.”

“I understand,” Roman said, swallowing down the lump in his throat.

“I’ll come back as soon as I can, I swear it.”  Virgil picked up his burlap sack.

“I believe you.”

Virgil took a step backwards, unable to turn his back on Roman.  “And I’ll write, often as I can.”

“I’ll respond to every letter.”

Another step.  “I’ll miss you every day, Princey.”

“So will I.”

Another step.  “I really do have to go.”

He was almost out the gate.

Roman watched him.

“Goodbye, Roman.”

“Goodbye, Virgil.”

He turned around.

The words burst from Roman: “Without one kiss?”

Virgil’s face blossomed into a smile.  “As you wish.”

And they fell into each other’s arms.

The day after Virgil left, Roman thought it was only right that he moped around, sighing dramatically and gazing forlornly into the middle distance.  After all, the love of his life had departed, life was meaningless, etcetera, etcetera. It didn’t take more than a few hours of this fantastically melancholy mood, however, before doubts started to creep into his mind.

Europe was a very long way away, and what would happen if Virgil came back to find Roman a withered, sour man with a sallow face and disposition for tears?  He could take one look then immediately go “Nope. Sorry, Roman, but I’m running off with a local British man. The accents are so sexy, you understand.”

“No, I do not understand!”  Roman cried aloud, then rushed to his mirror.  Narrowing his eyes in determination, he examined himself carefully.  “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Incredible Sulk.” (People often underestimate how long superhero references have been around.)

“Mother! Father!”  He called, storming down the stairs and interrupting his parents’ daily breakfast squabbling.  (Thirteen to fourteen and they hadn’t even finished off the eggs yet.) “How can I improve my appearance?”

His mother immediately burst into tears, sobbing about how she had prayed for this day, and his father fainted.

“Brush your hair,” he said once the smelling salts had been administered.  “For the love of god, please brush your hair.”

“And wash behind your ears,” Roman’s mother instructed.  “Thoroughly.”

“Stop tearing all your clothes.”

“Don’t roll around in the mud.”

“I’ll start there then,” Roman confirmed, nodding with determination, before releasing a tiny sigh.  “Goodness, no one told me being beautiful was going to require so much effort.” Nonetheless, undaunted, he set to work.

Each day, he had to wake up early in the morning to finish all the farm work in record time.  With Virgil gone, there was twice as much work to be done, and, since The Count’s unusual arrival, egg orders had increased exponentially.  Roman had always been resourceful, however. He carried hay bales from one side of the field to the other, sculpting his arms and shoulders.  He ran after chickens who had flew the coup, turning his legs long and lean. He rode The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth to increase his core strength.  

That ass needed no improvement.

It was late in the afternoon when the real work began, however.  First, a cold bath, scrubbing at his skin until the layers of dirt washed away, revealing the smooth, hickory-brown skin beneath.  His family was blessed with beautiful dark skin, and he enhanced its natural glow with oils and lotions, until he was practically luminous.

His hair, once he wrestled out the tangles and mud, was a mass of autumn curls.  It had been roughly chopped with a knife whenever he thought of it, but now he went into the village to find a barber, and was pleased with the short, daring haircut he left with.  He combed his fingers lightly through the autumn curls, smiling as he considered how much Virgil would like running his hands through Roman's clean, silky hair.

Fixing his figure faults came next, and he dedicated a fair amount of time to critiquing his inherent traits.  His right wrist was far too pudgy, his left elbow terribly bony.

Within three weeks, Roman had moved from number twenty to fifteen and was moving fast.

He bathed his skin with fresh honey and milk started tailoring his clothes.  He kept up his hard work and, within another week, he had reached top ten.

None of this had escaped the attention of the village, and, although Roman was now more beautiful than ever, there was something in his demeanor, a soft happiness, that prevented any ill will.  Villagers reported that he was more lively and bright than ever before, his love for Virgil shining through his every action. And, really, that's what spurred the entire sure of beauty, not the elaborate self-care routines.

To love and be loved is the most beautiful a person can be.

They saw Roman's glow every day as he went down to the docks at dusk, gently plodding his horse along the cobblestone streets.  He sat the edge of the water and kicked his feet over the edge, waiting and hoping for the mail carrier’s vessel to arrive.

The effect of Virgil's words on him was so strong that, when the first letter arrived, Roman's glow of happiness instantly propelled him to number five.

Europe is strange and a bit frightening, the first letter read, and I love you.

That was the way Virgil wrote: It is raining and I love you.  I’ve gotten over my cold and I love you.   Roman was entirely certain that it was just Virgil teasing him again, in that wry, tender way he had, but that didn’t stop Roman from smiling every time he read another I love you in Virgil’s careful, curling handwriting.

Months passed.  Through their correspondence, they grew closer than ever.  Virgil was just as snarky and clever as Roman knew, but he was also more vulnerable, perhaps able to better express himself through writing, where there was no chance of tripping and falling over his words.  Perhaps it was the twentieth time Roman laughed aloud at something Virgil wrote, then curled closer to the letter, smiling, that a pang of melancholy hit him. All this time before he had accepted Virgil, he had missed out on this smile on his face and this fluttering in his stomach, and this soft, warm happiness curling in his chest.  Well, he resolved, going back to Virgil’s tales of his exploits, they had plenty of time in their future together.

They were so close that, when a certain revelation fell upon Roman one day (literally.  He was wandering through the village when Linda got rather fed up with her husband Steve forgetting their anniversary and hurled the magnificent dress he had given her out of a second-story window and directly onto Roman’s head), Virgil was the first one he told.

His strokes were hesitant and his mind churning as he carefully scratched out that there was something inside of him (after some deliberation, he determined that ‘he’ was comfortable) that wasn’t entirely male all of the time.

Roman marched to the harbor, carefully placed his letter in the hands of the postmaster, and waited.

The response, when it came, was a package with a letter strapped on the front with rough burlap twine.

His hands shook as he unfurled the letter, anxiously skimming over pleasantries and idle chatter Roman just knew Virgil had put in to infuriate him until he came to the section he wanted.   Am I still allowed to call you Princey, then?

If Roman hadn’t been in love with Virgil before, that one simple sentence would’ve done him in.  (Especially when the package revealed a rich red dress, slightly too short, slightly too wide, and absolutely perfect in every way.)

Yes, he responded, of course, my love.

Well, then, Princey, the reply came some weeks later, as you wish.

As it turned out, that was the last letter Virgil ever sent him.

Roman returned home from the library one day to see his parents standing there, wooden.  He hadn’t had any letters lately, but that was only to be expected. Virgil was sailing back.  The next time he and Virgil spoke, it would be in person.

“Are you two alright?”

“Off the…”  Roman’s mother swallowed hard and tried again.  “It was off the coast of the Indies.”

“Couldn’t be helped, you see,” Roman’s father said helplessly.

“What couldn’t?”  Roman demanded, clutching his books tighter, as if they could shield him.

“Virgil’s ship was captured by pirates.”

Roman thought he’d better sit down.

“So he’s been captured?”  Roman knit his hands together in his lap, stalwartly refusing to let the tears clouding his vision fall.  “Is there… any word on a ransom?”

Roman’s father gently laid a hand over his.  “It was the Dread Pirate Roberts, Roman.”

“Oh,” Roman said faintly, “the one who never leaves captives alive.”  

“Yes.”

Suddenly, Roman’s words fell from him faster than he could contain.  “Did they come upon him in the night? Did he know? Was he scared? Did they cut his throat, or was he thrown overboard?  Perhaps they whi-whipped him…” His breath caught, face flushed, trembling. “Well. I guess it doesn’t matter.”

He rose abruptly.  “If you’ll excuse me.”

By the time either parent was composed to call after him, Roman was gone.

He shut himself into his room for one week, then another, then another.  His parents fretted over him, pressing their ear to the door to see if he was sobbing, sliding small bits of food inside to make sure he was eating.  He wasn’t crying, though. Not so much as one would think. Instead, he read Virgil’s letters over and over again, until he could recite each one by memory, see the curled, looping handwriting every time he closed his eyes.  

He pulled on a red silk dress, slightly too short, slightly too wide, and absolutely perfect in every way.  He knitted his hands in the fabric and wondered if Virgil had run his hands over it before he sent it to Roman.  The ghosts of his hands fluttered against him, phantom touches from a dead man.

Roman didn’t sleep much.  He kept expecting to be awoken by the faint strands of guitar.  There was no solace in dreams. The love of his life was dead, and all that was left was rust and stardust.

He descended the stairs one day for breakfast, as if nothing had changed.  His hair was neat, expression cool.

His parents rose immediately.  “Roman! Honey!”

They rushed to him, but he brushed them off.  “I can take care of myself.”

They sat back down, silent as he brewed himself a cup of tea.

Roman looked fine.  More than fine, actually.  He was gorgeous. The impossibly lovely child who had entered that room was sun-kissed and carefree, alight with love and contentment.  The person who stepped out was almost the same, but there was something different in his eyes. They were deeper, darker; pain and suffering pressed against the edges of his beauty.  He was slightly thinner, a great deal wiser, and an ocean sadder.

He was twenty-two.  He was the most beautiful being in five centuries.  He didn’t care.

“You’re sure you’re alright?”  Roman’s mother said anxiously, resisting the urge to lay her hand over his.

“Fine.”  Roman sipped his tea, looking out of the cracked window towards that old shack.  “But I’ll never love again.”

He never did.

Chapter Text

Prince Remy of Parietal was shaped like a dagger - thin, sharp, and angular.  His features, his clothes, his words - everything about him was bold. He moved with a certain carelessness, brash and inelegant.  If his ambitions were to become a ballerina, his dreams would be hopelessly cut against his knife-like limbs. As it was, he did not want to be a ballerina, nor did he particularly want to become king.  

Most kingly activities, while he didn’t particularly abhor them, were rather dull in his eyes.  He found no joy in presiding over court, hosting grand balls, or the endless paperwork (paperwork came into being sometime between Europe and MySpace) associated with creating new laws.  Everything in the world paled in comparison to his one true love.

Hunting.

There was nothing like it.  Remy lived for the rush of defeating his enemies, no matter how great or mere.  There was this one particular moment, when his victims collapsed on the threshold between life and death, that he could see the stillness begin to take over.  He could see the creature fighting back against the thing he had inflicted - the ultimate sleep. He laid them to rest, one after the other after the other. Sleeping.

From death and sleep and taxes, there was no escape.  He laid something to rest at least once a day. When he started, it was only the grand opponents - lions and elephants and bears.  It came, however, that he appreciated the challenge each enemy could offer. He could spend a whole day tracking a lone falcon though the sky, padding down river after one singular salmon, letting his ears guide him to the buzzing of a certain dragonfly.

Boring kingly activities didn’t exactly lend themselves for a lot of leisurely hunting, however, so he had the Zoo of Death constructed.  Each of the five floors held a different opponent. The first held opponents of speed: cheetahs and falcons and hummingbirds. The second held the strong: elephants and rhinos and gorillas.  The third held poisonous opponents: vipers and black widows and deadly wasps. The fourth held enemies of the mind, those that struck fear into the hearts of whoever dared to gaze upon them: the shrieking eels and the trouble-toothed lions and Cthulhu.

The fifth floor was entirely empty.  Prince Remy was waiting, waiting and hoping, for his match in wits and strength, the strongest enemy he would ever put to sleep.  It was an unlikely find, he knew; yet still, the fifth floor lie in wait.

He was cornering a coyote when the issue of King Terrence came up.

“Please, don’t let me interrupt your vital work,” The Count drawled, peering warily at him through the bars of the cage.  “I’m sure this can wait.”

“Ugh, chill out, babe.”  Remy experimentally hefted one of his throwing knives, bouncing it in his hand and eyeing the cowering animal.  “I just need a sec.” He nodded to the attendant. “Open it.”

The far door to the cage swung open into a narrow tunnel, and the coyote sprinted for freedom, faster and faster as it caught sight of the sunlight.

The Count sighed.  “There’s really nothing-”

Remy flung his arm forward, knife flying, and the sound of paws hitting the dirt abruptly cut off.

“-important,” The Count finished weakly.  The Prince turned to him, smile knife-sharp and eyes gleaming fiercely from behind his tinted spectacles.

“Now, what was it that you needed?”

“Well” - The Count cleared his throat, drawing himself up - “as you know, King Terrence is a perfectly proper ruler-”

“Skip to the important stuff.”  Remy pulled a piece of chicle out of his pocket (a new and thrilling invention) and chewed it for a moment before blowing a bubble (an old but still thrilling invention).

“He’s dying,” Deceit sighed, resolving himself to break into the castle accountants’ offices and give himself a raise.  He deserved it.

(For the record, King Terrence was only dying on paper.  The physicians had been slipped enough gold coins to write down whatever he wanted; that was, as it turned out, the ability to say “I can’t, I’m dying” whenever anyone asked him to do something he didn’t want to, like rule a kingdom.)

“Damn.”  Remy twisted his mouth sourly, retrieving his knife and carelessly wiping the crimson coat off on his pants.  “Guess I gotta get married then.”

“Heard you’re kicking the can,” Remy said conversationally to King Terrence as the two of them and the Count gathered.  “That sucks big time.”

“Yes,” Terrence said emphatically.  “I am most certainly dying and that is why I cannot do anything but relax and watch birds.  Cough cough.”

Deceit blinked at him.  “Did he just say the words ‘cough cough’?”

“Sorry I’m late!”  Queen Valerie chirped, bustling into the room.  She was bright-eyed, rosy cheeked, and easily the most beloved person in the kingdom.  King Terrence and she had married largely for convenience when Remy was still a child who only knew wicked stepmothers from the fairy tales.

“You’re fine, Evil Stepmother,” he assured her fondly (he had caught onto that nickname in his younger and more vulnerable years and had never quite let it go.  Valerie didn’t terribly mind, even though it had inspired a character in some “Cinderella” story. Oh well, she was sure that would never catch on).  “Now, who am I marrying? Let’s just pick someone and get it over with.”

“Hey, since I’m retiring, shouldn’t Remy get married now?”  Terrence asked, completely distracted by the pelican swooping by the window.  His hand, however, was pensively clasped across his mouth, so all everyone else heard was ‘hmumblemumble Remy mumblembumble’.

“What was that?”  The Count asked.

Valerie, who spoke Mumble, Baby, Gallifreyan, Olde Englishe, and Spanish, responded, “he said, ‘whoever marries you would get one fantastically handsome life partner’.”

Remy preened.  “He’s not looking too bad himself.”

“Yes,” The Count hissed, “it’s almost like he’s not actually dying and just wants to relax in the royal palace, watching birds all day.”

They all laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of that concept.

“We just got a new Miracle Worker,” Valerie responded once she was done wiping away tears of mirth.  “So of course he doesn’t look bad.”

“You fired Joan?”  Remy blinked. “I thought they were the only one left.”

“Another came in with very high credentials,” The Count said solemnly, “their own good word.  It’s not like this some unspecified time where people can just lie about their medical training, after all.”

More boisterous laughter.

“Oh, yeah, I got a new Miracle Worker,” Terrence mumbled.

“He says ‘you can’t marry just anyone’,” Valerie not-at-all helpfully supplied.

Remy groaned.  “Ugh, that means Emile, doesn’t it?”

“Ah, yes, because there’s a multitude of better matches, politically speaking,” The Count drawled.

Emile Picani, heir to the Occipital throne, was heinous to Remy for literally no other reason than being heir to the Occipital throne.  The two kingdoms across the Parietal channel (or Occipital channel, depending on which kingdom you were in) had survived over the years largely by going to war with each other.  There was the “Potato” Versus “Puh-ta-to” Discrepancy, the Tuna Fish Feud, the Water Bottle War (Occipitalians took environmentalism very seriously), which temporarily plunged them both into insolvency, only to be remedied by the Ruby Rift, where they got rich again by banding together and robbing everyone within thieving distance.

“I wonder if they hunt.”  Remy sipped his Starbucks thoughtfully (the majority of mega-corporations have been around to rip you off since the beginning of time, and will continue to do so long after humanity has perished).  “I don’t care about personality as long as they know their way around a bow.”

“I met them when I went over for a diplomat’s meeting,” Valerie volunteered.  “They were rather lovely.”

Remy pursed his lips thoughtfully.  “Skin?”

“Satiny.”

“Lips?”

“Number or color?”

Remy rolled his eyes.  “Color, Evil Stepmother.”

“Caramel.  Cheeks the same.  Large eyes, honey-colored.”

“Sounds absolutely scrumptious.”  Deceit rolled his eyes.

“Yes,” Remy mused.  “Form?”

“Lean.  Clothed divinely.  They have the largest collection of sweater vests this side of the Atlantic.”

The Prince sighed.  “Well, make up some absolutely ridiculous, stupid holiday no one should ever celebrate-”

“-Columbus Day-” Terrence chimed in.

“-Perfect, and have them over for a state dinner.”

“Then it’s settled!”  Valerie smiled. “I’ll send out an invitation today.”

Unfortunately, this was some vaguely middle-age-ish time period, before even e-mail had been invented.  So they just sent Emile a message on MySpace. They responded with a ‘rawr XD’, and arrived in the capital city a few weeks later.

Remy was rather pleasantly surprised when the heir first walked into the throne room.  Emile was a soft, warm person, with sparkling eyes and a bright, bubbling voice. As promised, their eyes were the color of honey, skin that of caramel, and form graceful and lithe.  They didn’t quite rank within the top two hundred, but they were still exceptionally lovely.

“It’s a pleasure to receive you, your majesty.”  He swept into a bow before them, every inch the proper prince.  Yeah, he was definitely going to tap that.

“The pleasure is mine, your your majesty.”  Emile responded in kind, skirts rustling as they ducked into a demure bow.

“No, but it will be be tonight,” Remy muttered.

“What?”  Emile blinked.

“What?”  Remy flashed a brilliant smile.  “Nothing. I was just hoping we could cut out some formalities.  Why don’t you call me Remy?”

“Then, please” - they straightened up and hit Remy with a million-kilowatt grin - “call me Emile.”

“You got it, babe.”  Remy offered his arm, and they took it with a laugh.

“Well then, Remy, why don’t you show me around?”

The day actually passed quite pleasantly for both parties; Remy showed Emile the magnificent castle gardens where the air hung thick with the smell of jasmine, the thick, mysterious forests where strange creatures blinked round, yellow eyes, and the castle itself.  Emile was enamoured with the grand ballroom, marveling at the shining marble floors and grand, sweeping picture windows.

They held out a hand for Remy, and he took it eagerly, sweeping them across the dance floor in a whirl of their skirts and his hand slowly creeping lower.  Emile rolled their eyes and gently but firmly resettled his hand on their waist, allowing him to spin them around the room one last time.

Emile didn’t talk much, just interjecting with clever quips and fun facts.  It was almost as one of the defining aspects of his characterization - let’s say rapidly-projected pictures that somehow conveyed motion - hadn’t been invented yet.  Weird.

Nonetheless, the day passed quickly and pleasantly.

By dinnertime, the two were rather heavily… if not enamoured, convinced they could be happy with the other for the sake of a political alliance (Emile) and wondering with rapt attention exactly was under those shapeless sweater vests (Remy).

At 8:23 there seemed every chance of a lasting bond being forged between Parietal and Occipital.

At 8:24 the two kingdoms were on the brink of war.

What happened was simply this:

At 8:23 exactly, dinner was brought out through the servant’s door to the west.  Remy, Emile, The Count, and various nobles were gathered around the long table of the grand dining hall.  It should be noted that, as this was a grand occasion, a great number of nobility was gathered around, gossiping and cooing over the person they knew could one day marry their prince.

At 8:32:07, King Terrence still hadn’t wandered in through the King’s Entrance.  At this point, the feasting had already began, but he wouldn’t mind. He was rather prone to wandering and showing up late; people had been known to starve before he got around to starting a feast.  His belated presence, however, simply reinforced the whispers on the edge of the court. His health had been declining lately, the poor thing. It was about time the Prince settled down with a lovely little thing like the foreign Heir.  Queen Valerie was absent as well, but given that she and many of the more sycophantic court members didn’t get along, this wasn’t a surprise either.

At 8:32:15, Prince Remy, soaking in the admiring glances the courtiers sent the way of him and his future spouse (it wasn’t like Emile was going to say no, after all), commented loudly and pointedly how well the two Heirs had been getting along.  Emile, vaguely embarrassed, murmured something about what a nice castle it was.

At 8:32:23, a courtier commented as to what an attractive couple the heirs made.  Emile flushed and offered thanks with an awkward laugh. Remy smirked and draped an arm around their shoulders.  “It looks like we’re… compatible in more ways than one.”

At 8:32:32, Remy’s fingers were toying with the neckline of Emile’s shirt, his fingers grazing their skin; they tensed, swallowing hard.  “Dinner looks delicious,” they managed, hand clenching at their side. “Why don’t you start eating?”

Remy leaned in until they were cheek-to-cheek, and Emile could smell the heady wine coating his breath.  “How can I when there’s something much more delicious beside me?”

At 8:32:39, another courtier, noticing their position, called out for the foreign heir to give their Prince a kiss, and the room burst out into laughter and cheers.  Remy arched an eyebrow at Emile expectantly, but they just blanched and shook their head. “I don’t want to,” they told him quietly.

He nodded and leaned back, but his arm stayed tight around their shoulders.

At 8:32:40, Emile looked up at him, expecting him to quiet down the courtieers, but he was laughing along with them.  Emile smiled tightly and said something about having to use the bathroom. They shrugged off Remy’s arm and gathered their skirts, making a beeline for the exit as hot prickles of anger and discomfort crawled up their scalp.

At 8:32:45, the disappointed calls of the courtiers (who mostly hung around the castle to take advantage of the very, very liberal supplies of wine and ale), seeped into Remy’s ears, and, very much an entitled frat boy ahead of his time (frats, thankfully, hadn’t been invented yet), he made a show of standing up to follow Emile.

At 8:32:50, Prince Remy, drunk on wine and the admiration of his court, marched after them; whirling them around, he grabbed Emile’s waist with one hand and their chin with the other, smirking.  “Come on, baby,” he growled, “just one kiss.”

“I said no!” Emile snarled and slapped him.

The time was 8:24 on the dot.

Remy stood quite still for a moment, frozen.  Slowly, he pressed one hand to his reddening cheek.  “No one has ever dared raise a hand to me before.” He turned to face Emile, gray eyes flashing.  “Or reject me.”

“Then I say it’s high time.”  Emile stood unwaveringly, arms crossed.

“Well then, your highness.”  Remy nodded slowly, a hand drifting down to the sheath at his side. “Feel free to run.”

And Emile did.

“Damn them,” Remy snarled, voice rough as he stormed into the council room.  “Damn them!”

“What the hell have you done?”  Deceit hissed, slithering after him.  “Heir Emile was an important political ally.  Not that politics is that important when you’re running a kingdom, I suppose!”

“I really wish you hadn’t done that,” Valerie, who had spies everywhere, sighed, perched in the window sill and sipping tea a mug of tea shaped like a snowman (novelty mugs have been around as long as there have been people to exhale air through their nose in a vaguely amused almost-chuckle at them).  “Occipital is going to be furious.”

“Forget Occipital.”  Remy ground his teeth.  “I’ll conquer it sometime.  I’ve wanted to ever since I was a kid anyway.”  He ran a hand through his hair and paced, much to the later displeasure of the servant in charge of cleaning up those muddy boot prints.  “People laugh when your spouse doesn’t want you. I won’t have that.” His steely gaze snapped over to the Queen. “Find someone else.”

Valerie waved a hand helplessly.  “Who? There aren’t too many nobles of marrying age within distance.”

“I don’t care!”  Remy stopped, trembling with tension.  “Someone gorgeous. The most beautiful person you can think of.  Someone who people will look at and go, ‘wow, Prince Remy must be amazing to score someone like that’!”

The Count slithered forward, head cocked.  “What if they aren’t royal?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What if they can’t hunt?”

“Have you not been listening to me?!”  Remy whirled on him, eyes flashing. “I don’t care if they can’t spell!  Find me someone gorgeous!”

The Count smiled thinly.  “He’s already been found.”

“A farmer?”  Remy rolled the words off his tongue experimentally, then pulled a face, as if they left an unpleasant aftertaste.  “I don’t know if I could marry a farmer under the best circumstances. People might laugh if he was the best I could do.”

They sat on their horses atop a sloping hill above a rural town not too far from the capital city of Parietal.  The Count’s horse was jet black, corded with muscle, and fitted with wickedly sharp iron shoes. Beside him, the Prince rode one of his legendary great whites, the only breed that could keep up with his indefatigable hunts.  Next to it, The Count’s horse looked like a toy rocking horse.

The Count just shrugged, waiting in silence as their horses filled the air with soft snorts and the sound of stamping hoofs.  “We can always leave.”

“No, it’s fine.”  Remy shrugged. “I mean we’re already-”

His words quite simply died as Roman slowly rode past.  “I think I’ll take him,” The Prince said quietly, then shook himself.  “Gotta go lay on the charm.” With a wink at The Count, he thundered down the hill.

“I am the Prince, and you’re going to marry me,” he said, quite swavely, cutting Roman off and making The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth rear back in alarm.

“I am a peasant,” Roman replied archly, stroking his hand against his horse’s neck until she calmed, “and I refuse.”

Remy blinked, then flipped up his sunglasses and blinked again, just so the gesture could be impressed upon the gorgeous peasant.  “I am the Prince, and you can’t refuse.”

Roman crossed his arms, taking in this great and terrible rider and his great and terrible horse.  “I am a peasant, and I just did.”

Remy glared, wondering if those good looks were really worth it and coming to the forlorn conclusion that they were.  “I am the Prince, and refusal means death.”

It was the eyes, Remy realized.  They were deep and dark and tragic, giving the peasant an air of distant glamor, despite his surroundings.  Remy had never seen such sad eyes in his entire life.

They gazed at him steadily as Roman responded, without hesitation, “kill me then.”

Remy gritted his jaw.  “I am the Prince, and I’m not that bad.”  He sulked, popping another piece of chicle in his mouth.  “What’s so bad about marrying me?”

“Marriage involves love.”  Roman’s hand strayed unconsciously to the broken guitar string tied around his wrist.  “Love isn’t something that I do anymore.”

Remy groaned.  “Ugh, a sob story.  Of course. Look, babe.”  He flipped his sunglasses back down and shrugged.  “Love isn’t a part of the deal. I just gotta get somebody to stay on the throne, you feel?  So, like, either you marry me, become fabulously rich and universally beloved, and give out apples to orphans or whatever, or you don’t” - he smiled, knife-sharp - “and I kill you right now.”

Sensing Roman’s distress, The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth backed up, but he held her steady.  “You do realize we could never have an heir,” he managed, grasping for an out.

“An heir?”  Remy blew a bubble, popped it, and snorted.  “Who cares about an heir, babe? The system of the monarchy is inherently totes ridic, and way favors the first-born for no freaking reason. Besides, I was adopted anyway.”  (This made sense as, even with that time’s rudimentary knowledge of genetics, no one thought a Black King and a Latina Queen’s platonic marriage would produce a White Prince.)

Roman stared at him with those tragic eyes for a long moment.  “I’ll never love you.”

“I wouldn’t want it if I had it.”

“Then, by all means.”  A weight settled on Roman’s chest, crushing him, and he closed his eyes painfully.  “Let us wed.”

Chapter Text

If you had a good narrator (one who, say, didn’t constantly interject with parenthetical remarks), the entire first half of this chapter could be boiled down to ‘what with one thing and another, three years passed’.  After all, the allure of this story is the drama, isn’t it? This is an epic love story where one party dies in the first chapter and the other is abducted into royalty. Why would you care about Roman’s subjugation to the whims of a terrible prince?  Who on Earth would care to read the political and legal drama over how the prince can’t marry just anyone? What’s the point of belaboring Roman’s pains over the loss of his love, his life, his freedom?

Unfortunately for you, you do not have a good narrator.

Ignoring the fact that Roman would rather take a dagger directly to the chest than be anywhere near his fiancé, being a future ruler wasn’t that bad.

Sure, he had been forcibly taken from his parents, his forests, and the only place he had ever known, but at least the food was good.  

Besides, he didn’t really have time to dwell on his misfortunes.  Roman’s days were filled with Heir training. Day to day, month to month, tutors filled his head with how to curtsy and pour tea and address visiting nobles and politely ignore peasants, until his brain felt stuffed with cotton and his eyes drooped.  He collapsed into bed each night, miserable and tired, and waited for restless sleep.

He didn’t like his dreams.  They were filled with knife-sharp, leering princes and eyes like the sea after a storm, so far, far away.

Roman always woke up, heart racing and eyes watering.  He gripped the guitar string around his wrist so tightly he bruised.  It was always hard to sleep after that.

“You look tired, My Liege,” Nizhoni, his handmaid, commented as she unceremoniously flung open the windows.  The edges of her deep brown skin glowed in the morning light, and she nodded in satisfaction at the rising sun.  “None of that, now. It’s a lovely day.”

Roman groaned eloquently and pulled a pillow over his face.  “Five more minutes.”

“That’s not in your schedule,” she trilled, crisply unfolding a marked sheet of paper.  She was a middle-aged, matronly sort of woman who abhorred anything that hadn’t been scheduled an excess of two weeks in advance.

Roman dragged himself up to glare at the accursed schedule.  If looks could kill, the poor thing would be incinerated, the ashes would be stabbed, and the stabbed ashes would be hurled into the deepest vacuum of space.

“Someone’s in a sour mood,” she tisked, laying out bread and fresh fruits for his breakfast - a luxury he hardly could’ve acquired before the castle.  “What’s gotten into you?”

“I can hardly sleep,” he said, softly, staring down at his hands.

She blinked at him slowly, before straightening up and wiping at imaginary wrinkles out of her apron.  “Well, you simply need to keep your mind occupied! I’ll see if I can do anything about your studies, and…”

Roman sighed, tuning her out.  (This was before people could pop on headphones to signify they weren’t paying attention, but if Roman could, he would.)  He let himself be bustled to his classes, sat listlessly through a lecture on the finer points of bouquet decoration, and wished for the castle to be hit by a meteor.

It was that night, when Nizhoni was leading him back to his chambers, that Roman first noticed the door.

(Now, you may think it strange that Roman needed someone to guide him around the castle, and you would be entirely correct.  The castle had been built anywhere between one hundred and five thousand years ago. Of course, it was also possible it had been build that day, and the memories of it had been implanted into everyone but Roman’s feeble human minds.  Regardless, the castle was intentionally labyrinthine, with twisting, winding passageways and rooms within rooms. According to legend, it was so assassins couldn’t find the royal families, to keep them out. Still, Roman had always had the uncomfortable feeling it was actually made to keep things in.)

Nizhoni had been strolling down the twisting corridors with the utmost confidence, before she stopped dead in her tracks and sucked in a frustrated breath.  “My Liege, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten something. Could you wait here a moment?”

“Sure,” Roman agreed wearily, leaning against the ornate, rusting door behind him.

“It won’t be but a moment,” she assured him, already bustling away.

“Great,” Roman informed an empty hallway.

He huffed out a breath and sunk down, letting his head thunk back against the heavy oak.  Exhausted. That’s all he was lately - listless, dull, bored.

Tired.

He let his head loll to the side, and a flash of gold caught his eye.  A padlock. Immediately, he was on his knees, inspecting it. Like the door, it was almost entirely rushed over and dull.  Almost.

There was a thin line of gold by the keyhole.  Someone had picked the lock.

Soft footfalls came from behind him, but he ignored it.  It was probably just another servant. They seemed to all be scared of him, for whatever reason, because they either just ignored him or stammered their way out of a conversation as quickly as possible.

“My liege?”

Whoops.

“Heya, Nizhoni!”  Roman shot to his feet with an innocent smile.  “How ya doing?”

“Quite fine.”  She arched an eyebrow but mercifully didn't comment. “Come along then.”

He fell into step beside her, but then paused.  “Nizhoni?” He asked, casting a glance back at the door. “What's that?”

“Oh, that?”  Nizhoni cast it a dismissive glance.  “Just the old library. All boarded up now.  I’m surprised you haven’t seen it before; it’s the window directly below yours.  Anyway, as I was saying, you'll have to be up at…”

Her voice dulled to a murmuring of white noise as Roman’s mind began racing.  A library. An old library. Directly below his window.

A small smile crept across his face, and, for the first time in months, Roman felt awake.

He made his first voyage there by slipping out of his window and grappling down the castle’s side.  He had slit his bedsheets into several braided ropes, and he really had to come up with some good excuse for why.  (Current contenders were: ‘a dragon did it’, ‘I was trying to make a new dress’, and ‘a quantum nanotechnology CPU pill made me do it’.)

He had hung there that first night, almost dizzy with the thought that the guards perpetually stationed outside his door didn’t know where he was.

He could run.

He could jump on The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail and ride as fast as she would take him, wind rushing through his hair and hands growing red with the cold as the stars rushed past above head like so many diamonds and the Earth became a blur and his thoughts were drowned out under the pounding of hoofs.  And he could run and run and run until he finally arrived -

Nowhere.

That was the problem.

There was nowhere for him to run.

Roman gripped the makeshift rope until it bit into his hands and sighed.  He had gotten word of his parent’s death not too long ago. There was nowhere for him now but here.

Roman kicked out and shattered the library window.

It became habit.  Mercifully, Nizhoni didn’t comment on the ruined sheets Roman kept coiled under his bed, simply supplying him with new ones without being asked.  Night after night, Roman slipped out of his window and into a private sanctuary, away from leering princes and dull classes and people who never quite looked him in the eyes.

“And every atom that belongs to me, as good as belongs to you,” Roman murmured to himself, eyes skimming over the nearly-faded words of a cracked leather volume.  Unconsciously, his hand strayed to the broken guitar string tied around his wrist. Rough metal dragged across the pads of his fingers, and he jerked away, as if burned, and slammed the book shut.  That was enough Whitman for the night.

(Now, it should be noted that this was before Walt Whitman, but the library was just old enough to have a copy of his works, which was really quite fortunate for our Roman.  Any newer, and he'd have been entirely inundated with Percy Shelley.)

He cleared his throat, tried to push down the hot, painful coal glowing in his chest.  It was always there, but sometimes it was easier to ignore. He dragged another tome towards himself, a history of politics in the region.  Somewhere between his third dinner with Prince Remy and his sixth time seeing the man covered in blood after a trip to his heinous Zoo, Roman had realized there was no way that man was ever going to make a good king.  So, he reasoned, he was supposed to be Remy’s partner anyway. Why not be a true ruler alongside him?

He taught himself politics and biology and history and diplomacy and sciences.  It was a warm sort of nostalgia, drowning himself in a book as a candle burned low beside him.  Sometimes, he looked up to catch a glimpse of a ramshackle hut, a few yards from his bedroom in his parent’s farm, to share something incredible.

But there was no one there.

The one downside to this whole ordeal was that Roman’s sleep schedule, once fragmented, now flew completely out the window.  Literally. He was escaping out the window.

It was on perhaps the sixth consecutive day of simply refusing to wake up in the morning that Nizhoni snapped.

Roman laid limp in bed, as she pointedly threw the window open.  “Five more minutes,” he groaned.

She turned to him, face a mask of disapproval and hands placed firmly on her hips.  “My Liege, you have to get up.”

“Can’t. I’m dying.”

She huffed, frustrated.  “Honestly, My Liege, if I had known you couldn’t control yourself, I’d never have shown you-”  Nizhoni’s eyes widened. She clamped her jaw shut.

“Wait a minute.”  Roman shot up; his hands flew to his mouth, eyes wide.  “Did you show me the library… on purpose?”

“Oh, don’t make a fuss,” Nizhoni sniffed, hands shaking as she laid out Roman’s outfit for the day.  “I could hardly have you wasting away in here, now could I? Besides, maybe now you’ll-”

She was cut off my Roman flying to and throwing his arms around her, laughing.  “Oh, by Odin, Nizhoni, thank you!” (Norse mythology was around at this point, but it hadn’t quite become mythology, nor myth.  Just -ology.) He pulled back, grabbing onto her arms and beaming. “You’re wonderful!”

Nizhoni cleared her throat, a flush on the bridge of her nose.  (Now, don’t make the mistake of thinking Nizhoni had any designs on our Roman.  While neither she nor anyone else could mistake Roman’s beauty, she was happily wed to another girl from her tribe, and the two of them spent many pleasant hours as many of us do: imagining toppling the current governmental structure and eating ice cream.)  “Yes, well, don’t mention it. Please. Yours aren’t exactly sanctioned visits.”

She briskly untangled herself from Roman and smoothed out her apron.  “Honestly, my liege, you mustn’t be so improper. I’m just a handmaid, after all.”

“You're the only friend I have here!”  Roman protested.

Nizhoni stepped backwards.  “No,” she said, eyes darting towards the open door, “I cannot be that for you, My Liege.”  She raised her voice, eyes imploring. “Prince Remy is your friend, of course. He has been so good to you and our people.”  Her voice was flat, like she was reading from a script and had very, very, painfully little skill in acting. “You know his door is always open.”

The realization hit Roman all at once.  He was meant to feel alone.  What he had thought was dull classes and servants being shy of interacting with him, simply because he was engaged to the prince, was deliberate.

Remy was to be the only one he could love.

Two guards passed by the door.  Roman wouldn't have noticed the way they glanced assessingly inside if he hadn't been looking.

Nizhoni looked at him with a firm sort of sadness.

“Yes,” Roman said, and the words felt like bile on his tongue, “Prince Remy is my friend.”

So Roman made a comfortable home in denial and put in a down payment on repression.   He let himself pretend, sometimes, on those nights in the library. He let himself think that Virgil was just in the other room, gone to get them something to drink, and listening to Roman read to him.

During the day, with his tutors and Prince Remy and that Count, Roman did his very best not to think at all.

Days passed.  Months passed.  Years passed. It is easy to say such a thing, but nearly impossible to live it.  Imprisonment, no matter how grand, is torture. Yet, throughout it, Roman sat in his gilded cage, smiling sweetly and cooing brightly like a good little pet while his mind wandered far away, to purple hair and eyes like the sea after a storm.

So, all this to say, ‘what with one thing and another, three years passed’.

The crown square of Parietal was filled as never before, awaiting the presentation of Prince Remy’s spouse-to-be, a commoner by the name of Roman.  For almost forty hours, a steady stream of people had swarmed the square, until people were perched atop lamp (tragically, the only LAMP in this story) poles and leaning precariously out of fourth-story windows.  The air was thick with the sound of excited murmurs and the faint unwashed stench of peasants. Still, more and more from further and further away joined as the hour of presentation drew near. No one there had seen the future Heir before, but rumors of his beauty nestled in everyone’s ear.

At noon, when the announcement was slated to take place, the crowd held their breath, excitement skittering through the square.  Nothing happened. Queen Valerie quickly peaked her head out, offered an apologetic smile, and ducked back in with a thunderous expression.

At half-past noon, Prince Remy was unceremoniously shoved onto the balcony by the queen, squinting bearily from behind tinted shades.  “Oh shit, that was today?” he muttered to himself, before drawing himself and blinking through the edges of a hangover. He raised his arms as the Queen and King joined him, standing a respectful distance back.

At this point, everyone knew of the king’s failing health (there were rumors that he was dying, he was dead, or he had been dead for seven years and there was a doppelgänger in his place, like Avril Lavigne.  This was after Avril Lavigne.), but were rather confused to see him looking the same as ever and apparently in good health.  He cheerfully waved at the crowd before getting distracted by a nearby flock of doves.

“My beloved peeps!”  Prince Remy declared dramatically.  “As I am sure many of you, my… beloved subjects have heard, my… beloved father’s heath is, like, totes garbo.”  He cleared his throat. “Which isn’t that shocking since he’s like…” He lowered his sunglasses and squinted at Terrence.  “Ninety-six?”

Terrence shrugged.  “No one can find anything on Google, so let’s go with that.”

“He’s ninety-six!”  Remy proclaimed. “So the time has come for me to take a partner on my awesome ascension to the throne, so I might be a fair and just ruler or whateves.”

The crowd began to stir restlessly, and Remy flashed them a grin.

“Soon, it’s gonna be our country’s five hundredth anniversary, and, that night, I’m going to marry someone who was once a commoner like you peasants.”  He smirked. “Although, maybe you won’t find him so common now. Do you want to meet him?”

The crowd roared, and Remy soaked in the attention, beaming.  “My people! Meet your future ruler: Heir Roman!”

The balcony doors swung open.

The crowd gasped.

The twenty-five year Heir far outshone the twenty-two-year-old mourner.  His figure faults were gone, the too-bony elbow having fleshed out nicely.  The pudgy wrist could not have been trimmer. His hair, still shining the color autumn, was devoid of its previous snares and split ends; he had a full-time team of five hairdressers.  (This was long, long after hairdressers. Truly, hairdressers have been around since the advent of humanity, the first one being Adam; The King James scholars do their very best to muddy this point.)  His skin was still hickory-brown, but now with two handmaidens assigned to each limb and four to the rest of him, it actually appeared to gently glow.

Prince Remy grabbed his hand, and Roman hid his wince behind a smile.  Their joined hands were thrust high in the air, as if Roman were a trophy.  The crowd cheered.

“M’kay, good enough,” Remy said and began toting Roman back inside the castle.

“Wait, hold on.”  Roman stopped and pulled away, unwilling to give up the blue sky, the fresh breeze, the people who weren’t afraid to speak to him.  “They’ve been waiting for forever. I’d like to go speak with some.”

“Oh, babe.”  Remy caught Roman’s arm with an uncomfortable chuckle.  “We don’t, like… interact with them.”

“I’ve known more than a few commoners in my time,” Roman said archly, peeling Remy’s fingers off of his arm.  “They will not, I think, harm me.”

With that, he left the balcony and reappeared a moment later on the grand steps of the castle.  Quite alone, he walked into the crowd. Where he stepped, people parted, almost afraid to sully him.

“It’s alright,” he said with a soft smile.  “My name is Roman. It’s nice to meet you all.”

Up on the balcony, The Count oozed towards the railing and, with his sharp mismatched eyes, took in the looks of awe and love from the people.  Slowly, he smiled.

No one who was there would ever forget that day.  None of them had seen someone so beautiful, been so close to perfection, and the great many adored him instantly. The more pragmatic, while admitting he was lovely, deigned to reserve any judgement on him as heir-consort.  Some, of course, were bitterly jealous. Very few hated him.

Only three were planning to murder him.

Roman, of course, knew none of this.  He was smiling, and, when someone wanted to touch the edge of his fine white dress, he let them, and when they wanted to touch his hand and speak to him, he let them do that too.  He was, despite everything, still hopeful he might make a good ruler one day; he had studied very hard, after all. So he kept his smile gentle and words kind and posture erect. If someone had told him his death was so close, he simply would’ve released a startled, disbelieving laugh.

Yet, in the farthest corner of the Crown Square, by the highest building in the land, hiding in the deepest, darkest shadow, the man in black stood, waiting.

His boots were black and leather, his clothes some sort of black cotton.  His mask was blacker than a raven, but blackest of all were his eyes, those stormy eyes.

Cruel and black and deadly.

Roman was more than a little drained after his earlier triumph.  After so long in isolation, being so immersed with other people was a shock.  He took a short nap; then, as the rosy-fingered evening took ahold of the sky, he donned his long-sleeved riding clothes and walked to The Lady Charlotte Sterling No-Tail the third’s stable.  After the news of his parents’ deaths, Prince Remy had apparently decided Roman was no longer a flight risk, so Roman could ride his horse, unattended, in the afternoons.

Weather permitting or not, Roman did.

It was only then, with The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the third’s hooves beating out a joyful rhythm against the soft dirt and the wind rushing in his ears, that Roman truly felt happy anymore.

He urged her faster and faster, making a flying leap over some obstacle, and giggled guiltily as she clipped and knocked it over.

“MY MAILBOX,” a woman screeched, jumping up and down frantically.  “NOW HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET MY OVERREACTION MEDICINE???”

“SORRY!”  Roman cried back, almost laughing, but his words were carried away by the whipping wind.

As he rode through woods and streams and heather, his mind roamed.  The walk through the crowd had struck a strange chord in him. He knew, intellectually speaking, he would be a ruler soon, but that made it so, so real.

He was going to marry Remy.

A strange sort of sickness curdled in his stomach.  He had always thought… even when he was younger, when he dreamed of his wedding, Virgil was always the one on the other side of the isle.

Still.  Roman hastily blinked away the tears that threatened to fall.  There was nothing wrong with marrying someone he didn’t love. If the whole world did it, it wouldn’t be so great, what with everyone just sort of being passive-aggressive all the time, but some sacrifices could be made.  Roman was going to help the kingdom. He was going to be the ruler of Parietal.

Every since he had become heir-in-training, everyone had told Roman that he was most likely the most beautiful being in the world.  Now he was going to be the richest and most powerful as well.

Don’t ask for too much from life, Roman told himself as he rode along.  Learn to be satisfied with what you have.

Darkness was closing in when Roman crested the hill, and, suddenly, his horse refused to go on another step.

The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the third snorted, stamping her feet, but he shushed her, stroking gently down the line of her neck.  “What’s the matter, girl?” he murmured.

That’s when he saw the trio appear, almost out of the mist.

The man in front was short, wry and pale with an angelic, gentle face.  He moved quickly, almost uncannily, on strangely skittering limbs towards Roman.

The man to his left was as dark and sharp as the sword attached to his side.  Twin scars ran down the lengths of his cheeks, partly obscured by his wire-rimmed spectacles, and a tie sat crisply at this throat.  (Don’t make the mistake of thinking this was before ties. They were a rather new invention, but not quite unheard of.) His chest swelled, but Roman of all people knew that wasn’t necessarily an indicator of who he was.

The man to the right was quite possibly the biggest person Roman had ever seen - round and freckle-faced and the approximate size of an ox. He stood, waved, and almost smiled at Roman before the other man elbowed him in the ribs.

(Roman privately thought that would do more to injure the scarred man’s elbow than the giant, but it seemed to get the point across.)

“A word?”  The short man - a Sicilian, Roman decided - rose his arms beseechingly.  His smile was even more angelic than his face.

Roman inclined his head.  “Speak.”

“My friends and I are but poor, lost circus performers,” The Sicilian explained.  “We got lost and pray there is a village nearby, where we might spend the night before a happy reunion with our trope.”

Something about his words rang false, and Roman gave a tight-lipped smile, slowly edging The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Third backwards.  “There is no one nearby, not for miles.”

The angelic smile didn’t falter.  “Then there will be no one to hear you scream,” he said and jumped towards him.

If Roman cried out, it was only from shock.  There was nothing, no sensation besides fingers tapping at his neck and then…

Roman woke to the sound of water lapping on the sides of a boat.  A blanket blinded him, and thick, course ropes bound his hands together.

“What is that you're ripping?”  A voice painted with a Spanish accent asked.

“Fabric from an Occipitalian officer’s uniform.”  The Sicilian replied. The sound of a hand hitting a horse.  “Get!”

Hoofs thudded off into the distance, and Roman spared a moment to pray his old friend would make it home safely.

“The prince will be suspicious once they see the fabric on his precious betrothed’s horse.  Once they find his body dead on the shore of Occipital, suspicions will be confirmed.” The Sicilian then released an evil laugh that ranked a solid eight out of ten on malice, and nine out of ten on glee, but needed improvement in the resonance category.

“I still don't think it's right,” another voice, which most certainly shot off the Richter scale in terms of resonance, chimed in, “just killing an innocent person like that.”

“Did I go mad?”  The boss snarled.  “Or did the word think escape your lips? You were not hired for your brains , you hippomocratic landmass!”

(Roman very well knew, as I'm sure that you do, that “hippomocratic” is, of course, not a real word.  Sometimes, however, people who are given dangerous levels of power - such as presidents, writers, and bloodthirsty Sicilians - make up new words when no one bothers to correct them.)

“I just feel better when I know what’s going on, that’s all,” the giant mumbled.  “People always think I’m so stupid, but I’m just a little confused.”

“The reason people think you’re so stupid is because you are,” the boss shot back.  “Now shut up and fix the sail.”

Soon, the boat was moving.  Those strange, skittering footsteps moved away.

“Peter sure does like to fuss,” the Spaniard murmured.  Roman could not see it, but he had taken the giant’s hand and squeezed it softly.

“A- boat everything,” the giant agreed with a little giggle.

A half-groan, half-laugh.  “Why must you rope me into your buterching of the English language?”

“Good one!”

“That wasn’t intentional and you know!”  The Spaniard hissed.

“Suuure, Logy.”

A call came from the front of the ship.  “What are you two conspiring about?”

“Nothing!” They called in unison.

An unimpressed grunt.

“I don’t like this, Lo,” the giant said, softly.  “It’s not fair.”

“I know, Patton,” The Spaniard murmured.  “It’s just one more job, however, then we can leave Peter.  Forever.”

Patton paused for a long moment before replying.  “Together?”

“Y-yeah.”  The Spaniard cleared his throat, the faintest hint of a smile in his voice.  “Together.”

“I ship it,” Roman whispered to himself.

“Quit your bellyaching,”  Peter, apparently, snapped, coming closer.  “We don’t get the rest of our fee until we kill him and dump his body.”

“The people won’t take his death well,”  The Spaniard cautioned. “He’s become beloved.”

“And so, war will start,” Peter said smugly.

“Maybe we could just say we’re ransoming him?”  Patton said hopefully. “I’d hate for him so be so upset.”

“Oh no,” the Sicilian said, casually.  “He knows we're going to kill him.”

Roman tensed.

“What? But how?”

“Because.”  Sharp footsteps echoed across the deck, towards Roman.  “He's been listening to us this whole time.”

Fingers touched his neck again, and Roman fell back into darkness.

Roman, when he woke up for the second time, was about five seconds from a panic attack.  He had been kidnapped, his captors were planning to kill him, and his phone didn't have any signal! (Probably because they didn't have phones back then.)

Without pausing to think about it, he threw himself over the side of the boat.

He wriggled out of his blindfold, the water slackening the cotton.  His hands were still bound, but he kicked hard enough to make for it.  He stayed under the water as long as he dared, until his lungs burned and his nose filled with the stench of salt.

He swam, pulling on every ounce of strength he had to cut through the moonless night.

Behind him, there were cries.

“Go after him!”  The Sicilian barked.

“I can’t swim,” the Spaniard protested.

“I only doggy-paddle,” the giant said.  “It’s ruff.”

Roman continued to peel away.  His legs ached and his heart pounded in his throat.

“Don’t worry,” Peter said, suddenly calm.  “The eels will get him.”

Roman really, really wished he hadn’t just said that.

“Little boy” - not a boy, Roman though with a flash of irritation - “do you know what happens when the Shrieking Eels smell blood?  They go quite mad. There’s no controlling their frenzy. They’ll rip and shred and chew and consume until there’s nothing left.  We’re in a boat, so we’re quite safe, but I do worry for you, little Prince,” Peter cooed. “I’ve got a knife in my hand, pet. If you come back now, I promise we won’t hurt you.  If you don’t, I’ll slice my arm open, fill a cup, throw it, and let the eels feed. You won’t be beautiful for long then.”

Roman silently treaded water.  Although it was surely his overactive imagination, around him, he could almost hear the warning cries, low, thrumming hums that preceded feeding.

The Sicilian hissed.

“He just sliced his arm!”  The giant called, fretful.

Roman stayed quiet.

The Sicilian hissed again.

“The cup is half full!”  The sharp, scarred man announced.

Roman decided he didn’t believe them.  There were no eels. There was no blood.

“The cup is full!”  Peter called.

Surely it wasn’t.  Surely they weren’t going to kill him like this.

“Tell us where you are, or I’ll throw the blood,” Peter snarled.

Roman said nothing.

Patton made a soft, pained sound, and the scarred man shushed him comfortingly.

“Goodbye, then.”

Blood hit the water.

A pause.

The eels went mad.

“Hey,” Queen Valerie said to her platonic husband.  “Do you ever feel like you’re taking away from the excitement?  You know, the main plot or whatever?”

“Yeah, sure,” Terrence said absently, squinting at a flock of DoDo Birds nearby.  Weren’t those supposed to be extinct?

“No, I’m serious!”  Valerie protested, sitting up on her throne.  “Our son is going to turn out to be a tyrant, probably, his betrothed has some angsty thing going on where he recites Shakespeare to a wire tied around his wrist, and we're doing like… nothing. This whole time.”

“ You're doing nothing,” Terrence responded mildly.  “I'm birdwatching.”

“Your highnessness!”  The doors flew open and a messenger, pale-faced and gaunt, rushed in.  “Heir Roman's horse has returned without him. It bears fabric from an officer of Occipital!”

“Oh heeeeeeeeell naw,” Prince Remy suddenly appeared, sucking on an overpriced drink and scowling.  “The only one who strong-arms hot people somewhere against their will is me.”

“They must have kidnapped him,” The Count, mismatched eyes flashing, stepped out from the shadows.

“Oh shoot, dude, how'd you do the creepy materializing thing?” Terrence, looking mildly impressed, asked.

“We have to go after him.”  Valerie declared, standing from her throne.  “Guard, I want a full squadron on our fastest ship across the channel.”

“I'll head it,” Remy said immediately.  At his mother’s surprised look, he shrugged.  “I mean if you can find a better hunter…”

Valerie assented.

“I'll arrange everything at once, My Queen.”  The Count disappeared with a bow, the prince and guard following him shortly.

“Oh goodness,” Valerie sighed, sinking back down.  “I just hope he’s okay.”

Roman was definitely not okay.

Waves of water splashed over him as the channel came to life, shaking and roaring.  The shrieking eels were here. Bloodcurdling, chilling wails pierced the air.

Something smooth brushed his leg.

Roman bit down on his bottom lip and closed his eyes.

Fortunately for all involved (save the eels that is) the moon chose that precise moment to emerge.

“There he is!”  The Spaniard called, already speeding the boat over.  Patton reached out a giant arm and scooped Roman up, back to the safety of his future murderers.

The eels howled in frustration.

“Keep him warm,” the Spaniard called from the tiller.

“He’s right.  You’ll catch a cold,” Patton clucked, taking off his cloak and wrapping Roman in it.

“Does it matter?”  Roman spat bitterly.  “You’re killing me soon enough anyway.”

Patton drew back, pained.  “I don’t want- I’m not the one who, I wouldn’t-”

“Hold your stupid tongue,” Peter snapped.

Patton immediately hushed.

“I don’t think he’s so stupid,” Roman said impulsively.  Patton looked at him, startled. “And I don’t think you’re the mastermind you make yourself out to be either.  Cutting yourself and throwing blood in the water doesn’t exactly utilize your critical thinking skills.”

“It worked didn’t it?”  Peter crossed towards him.  “You’re back, aren’t you?” He smiled thinly.  “Weak people always scream.”

“I didn’t scream,” Roman snapped back.  “The moon came out.”

Peter’s hand flew back.

“None of that.”  Patton stopped him halfway.  The Sicilian’s hand was dwarfed in his.

The tiny man glared up at the giant.  “Do you want to fight me? I don’t think you do.”

Patton immediately wilted, stepping back.  “No, sir. But don’t hit him. Please.”

The Sicilian scoffed and stalked back towards the other side of the boat.  “He would’ve screamed,” he said. “He was about to cry out. My plan was ideal as all of my plans are ideal.  It was the moon’s ill timing that robbed me of perfection.”  

He flipped off the moon.

At some point, Roman must have drifted off, because he awoke to a triumphant cry.

“There they are!”  The Sicilian pointed dead ahead.  “The Cliffs of Insanity!”

The cliffs rose, practically vertically, from the edge of the water.  Even at a distance, Roman had to tilt his head back to see where they ended.  They were, theoretically, the fastest way between Occipital and Parietal, but hardly anyone ever climbed them.  Not to say it couldn’t be done. Two people were known to have made the climb in the last century. One of them even survived.

“Straight for the steepest spot,” Peter commanded.

The scarred man, who was already headed there, rolled his eyes.

“Not that I care for any of your well-beings,” Roman said, “but isn’t this a bit of a suicide mission?”

Peter laughed.  “So you think. This is all going according to plan.”  He sat back on a crate, propping his feet up on the ship’s railing.  “We’ve gotten away home-free, boys.”

“Not a boy,” Roman muttered, and the Spaniard cast him a sidelong glance, touching his own chest, which was not nearly as flat as he wished.  He had said almost the same thing, once upon a time.

“No one could be following us yet?”  Patton asked, leaning against the railing.

“No one,” the Sicilian assured him.  “It would be inconceivable.”

“Absolutely inconceivable?”  the Spaniard chimed in, following Patton’s gaze.

“Absolutely, totally, and, in all other ways, inconceivable!”  Peter folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

A beat.

“Although, out of curiosity, why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Patton said.  “Except we happened to look back and something’s there.”

They all rushed to the railing.

Less than a mile behind them, a small, black schooner cut quickly and silently through the moonlight waters.  A giant sail billowed above it, and a single man stood, still as a statue, at the till.

A man in black.

“Oh, that,” Peter blustered, “that is just some local fisherman out for a pleasure cruise.  At night. Through eel-infested waters.”

“Obviously,” Roman drawled.

“He’s gaining on us,” Patton fretted.

“It doesn’t matter!”  Peter snapped. “No one in Occipital knows what we’ve done, and no one in Parietal could’ve gotten here so fast.  Sail on!”

Roman couldn’t take his eyes from the black, billowing sail.  He was, admittedly, frightened by these three kidnappers. Yet, somehow, someway, that man in black filled him with an unknowable, unspeakable dread.

He stumbled back from the railing, as if that could make a difference.  He made to turn away, but paused, unwilling to take his eyes off of that frightful thing.

“Look sharp,” Peter said lowly.  “We’re here.”

The Spaniard deftly navigated the boat through the crashing waves and jagged rocks, a look of grim determination set on his scarred face.  The spray was blinding. Roman shielded his eyes and peered up, up, up at the seemingly unending face of rock.

There, dangling from the steepest part of the cliffs, was a rope.  Peter grabbed it and pulled once, twice, but it held firm.

“The ship’s almost here!”  The Spaniard called, rushing up from the helm.  “We’ve got to go.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”  Peter scowled. “Anyway, the ship’s almost here and we have to go.”

“Remarkable observation,” Roman muttered.

“I know,” Peter said.

Patton had fashioned the rope into a harness and stood expectantly.  “All aboard!” He grinned. (This was before trains, but after witches turned people into planks of lumber, which is where the phrase truly comes from.)

The Spaniard scooped up Roman (although not without a shout of protest) and draped him around Patton’s shoulders.  Peter clung to the giant’s neck, and, with a minute of hesitation, the scarred man strapped himself to Patton’s waist.

He swallowed hard, looking at Patton.

“Hi,” Patton said, smiling softly.

The scarred man returned it, imperceptibly.  “Hello.”

“Be gay on your own time,” Peter snapped.  “Sink it.”

Patton stomped so hard the wood cracked beneath his feet.  The boat took on water as, one hand over the other, Patton slowly began to climb the Cliffs of Insanity.

The thing about Patton was that he was strong.  (Something the Spaniard had devoted quite a bit of thought to.)  So, although it was nearly a thousand feet up the brine-soaked rope and he was carrying three people, he wasn’t concerned in the slightest.  When it came to power, nothing worried him. If someone asked him about biology, he got knots in his stomach. If someone quizzed him on derivatives, he started sweating.  If someone asked him what the act of being an adult was called, well, that one he knew.

Adultery.

Suffice to say, strength had never been Patton’s enemy.  He could take the kick of a horse and not fall backwards.  He could scissor open a hundred-pound sack of flower effortlessly.  He had once held an elephant aloft with only the muscles in his back.  His real might, however, lay in his arms.

There had never, not in a thousand years, been arms to match Patton’s.  Not only were they massive, quick, and obedient, they were indefatigable.  He could chop down an entire forest (not that he would. Patton was rather environmentally conscious.  Global warming wasn’t a problem yet, but, when it came to be, it would exist in spite of Patton’s best efforts.), have ten axes shatter and his legs give out beneath him, but Patton’s arms would be as fresh as ever.

Therefore, even with three people strapped around him, Patton wasn’t the slightest bit perturbed.  He was actually rather happy. It was only when someone called on Patton to use his strength that he felt he wasn’t a bother to everyone.

Which is why it was so startling when the Sicilian looked down to see the man in black had sailed into the impossibly rocky harbor, grabbed ahold of the rope, and was climbing after them.

“Faster,” Peter said, softly.  Then, a roar: “Faster!”

Patton practically flew them up the rope.

“Faster!”

“I’m sorry.” Patton ducked his head.  “I thought I was going faster.”

“You’re doing wonderfully, Patton.”  The Spaniard looked up. “We’re nearly halfway there.”

“He’s gaining on us,” Peter hissed.

Roman, from his position slung around Patton’s shoulders, could see the man in black, how, indeed, he was almost flying up the rope at a rate that should’ve been impossible.  Roman’s heart seized in his chest.

Already, the man in black had cut their lead by a hundred feet.

“You’re supposed to be a giant!  That’s what I hired you for!” Peter spat.  “You’re supposedly a great and mighty thing, and yet he gains.”

“You will do well to hold your tongue,” the Spaniard hissed.  “Or you will remember why you hired me.”  The scabbard of his sword bounced against his leg as Patton raced higher and higher.

“He’s over halfway,” Roman said, heart pounding in his throat.

“Move, damn it!”  Peter screamed. “A hundred feet to go.”

Patton moved.  He cleared his mind of everything but ropes and arms and fingers, and the rope bit into his palms and his arms pulled and his fingers grasped as tightly as he could bear -

“He’s right behind us,” the scarred man murmured.

“He’ll never catch up!”  Peter cried. “It’s inconceivable!”

“You keep using that word,” the other man snapped.  “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Forty feet.

Patton pulled.

Twenty.

Ten.

It was over.  Patton had done it.

They tumbled onto the ground at the top of the cliffs of insanity, and Peter flung himself towards the thick cord on the ground.  Pulling a knife from his boot, he sawed desperately.

The man in black was no more than three hundred feet away.

One strand snapped.  Two. five.

Patton, the Spaniard at his side, peered over the edge.  “He really is a good-”

The rope fell.

The Sicilian was roaring, howling in mad shrieks of victory before the Spaniard raised his voice.

“He did it.”

Peter shut his jaw immediately.  “Did what?”

“Let go in time.”

The man in black was hanging in space, clinging to the slick, sheer rocks, seven hundred feet above the waves.

Peter stared down, fascinated.  “You know, I’m quite the expert on death.  It may interest you to know the fall will kill him, not the impact.”

Patton made a small noise and turned away.

“Oh,” Peter suddenly remembered, small, beady eyes flashing.  “How rude we’re being” - he grabbed Roman by the rope binding his wrists and flung him forward to watch the man struggle - “not to share such a lovely view.”

Roman hissed and yanked away.  “Touch me again, and you’ll be joining him.”

Peter smiled thinly.  “You’re hardly in the position to be making threats.”

“Shouldn’t we be going?”  The Spaniard, watching Patton’s hands clench and shoulders tremble, suddenly asked.  “I thought you were reiterating how vital our limited time is.”

“We will be,” Peter said indulgently, “but you can’t expect me to miss a death like this.  I could stage one of these a week and sell tickets, you know. Get out of the mercenary business entirely.  Do you think his life is flashing before his eyes yet?”

“He must have strong arms,”  Patton commented with something like hope, “to hold on for so long.”

“He can’t stay there forever though,” Peter clucked.

At that moment, the man in black began to climb.

It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t effortless, but, still, inch by inch, he climbed.

“Inconceivable!”  Peter cried.

The Spaniard whirled on him.  “Stop saying that word. It was inconceivable for anyone to be following us.  It was inconceivable for him to sail fast enough. It was inconceivable for him to climb the rope.  It was inconceivable for him to survive, and, yet, he climbs!”

Indeed, the man in black was now fifteen feet closer to the top.  Fifteen feet farther from death.

Peter, eyes gleaming nastily at the insubordination, snarled.  “When I say something is inconceivable, that’s because it is inconceivable!  This man… is not following us! A much more likely explanation is that he’s a local sailer.  Who dabbles in mountain climbing. And has the same general designation as us.” He coughed. “Regardless, he must have seen us with the Heir and must therefore die!”

“Fine then.”  The Spaniard said stiffly, before their boss could turn his eyes on the trembling Patton.  “I’ll stay behind.”

Peter nodded.  “We’ll be heading for the frontier of Occipital.  Catch up when he’s dead.”

The Spaniard inclined his head.

Peter stalked off, muttering to himself.

“I’m going to duel him right-handed,” the scarred man murmured to himself.

Patton fell to his side, Roman once more hoisted around his shoulders.  “Are you sure?”

The swordsman smirked.  “If I use my left, it’s always over too quickly.”

Patton just sighed.  “Catch up quickly.”

He smiled, making the scars on his cheeks stretch and gleam.  “Don’t I always?”

“Something feels different this time,” Patton murmured, then shook his head.  “Goodbye, Lo.” Something the scarred man didn’t dare name lingered in his expression.  His teeth worried at his bottom lip, and he took a step closer. “Logan, I…”

“Yes?”  he said, almost breathlessly.

Patton crumpled, offering a half-hearted smile too late.  “Be safe, okay?”

He wrestled down a jolt of disappointment.  “You as well.”

“I’m waiting!”  Peter snapped.

They rolled their eyes at each other.  Roman, still around Patton’s shoulders, gave a commenseral ‘ugh’.

“I’ll see you soon.”  He squeezed Patton’s hand.  “I promise.”

Patton nodded, slowly, and disappeared into the night.

The swordsman released a shaking breath and told himself to focus.  He had a job to do.

He stared down the long, tall cliff face at the man in black and, slowly, smiled.

Logan Montoya drew his sword.

Chapter Text

A village by the name of Pons nestled in the mountains of Central Mexico.  It was tremendously small, and, if airplanes were around at this point (they weren’t), it would quite literally be the place you could blink and miss.

There was no work in Pons; dogs overran the streets; food was a scarce pleasure.  Here is where our Logan grew up. He was always just a tad hungry, had no siblings, and was missing a parent.

He was fantastically happy.

You see, Logan’s mother was a daughter of the Aztecs, a master swordsmith, a scholar of the highest degree, and his father was a son of a bitch.  He had ran off shortly after Logan’s mother, Estella, revealed she was pregnant, and neither had seen him since. (At the time of our story, he was on the streets of Occipital, pedaling miracle elixirs guaranteed to cure what ails you.  The fact that he now had scarce few teeth and even fewer hairs seemed to undermine his point.)

Logan truly couldn’t care less.  His mother was flighty and impulsive and absent-minded.  He loved her. Totally. The jury was still out on why, but the resounding consensus is because she loved him back.  Love is many things, but it’s hardly ever logical.

Logan, as a child, hadn’t been all that logical either. 

He loved nothing more than magic.  He could spend hours with his mother in her work shop, watching metal pour white-hot into molds and casts she spent days, weeks laboring over.  While her hands were busy at work, she told him stories of the sword’s future.

“This one, mija,” - (This was before Logan had gotten around to figuring out just why he was uncomfortable being called her daughter) - “is going to go into the hands of a great Mexican knight.  He’ll use it to win tournaments, and, one day, the hand of his true love.”

“But how can you know?”  He asked once, when he was a child of no more than six and the realities of the world started to dim the edges of his starry vision.  “How can you know what those swords are going to do?”

She just smiled and tweaked his nose.  “Magic, mijita.”

And, in his younger and more vulnerable years, he believed in her.

Logan believed in magic.

“Order up!”  Estella called with a wry smile, bustling into the living room in a whirring of skirts.  (This was after cheesy diners but before mom jokes had been truly mastered.)

Thomas jumped up from the couch, grinning.  “Are you going to let me see?”

“Hmm,” Estella hummed thoughtfully, hugging the long, covered bundle to her chest.  “I don't know. Honey, what do you think?”

Logan, aged eight, beamed and nodded enthusiastically.

“Well, if you say so, mi amor.”  Grinning, she laid the bundle down on the table and gently pulled off the sheets.

The very air in the room stood still in reverence.  The blade was slim, long, elegant. Estella picked it up, balancing the hilt with the long, sharp blade.  She touched it to the pad of her thumb, lightly, and a bead of red welled up.

Logan’s eyes widened.  “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“No,” Estella sighed, dreamy.  “It’s sharpened to a hair’s breadth.  You won’t realize you’ve been wounded until you bleed out.”

Thomas cleared his throat.

Estella startled, snapped out of it.  “Although you’ll do well not to hurt yourself, mi hijita.”  She laughed, as if to say ‘wouldn’t it be funny if the thing I just said was funny?’

She wrapped it, binding the bundle in twine and handing it over to Thomas.

“We'll get a good profit on this one,” she said with a satisfied smile.

“Estella,” Thomas sighed with a wry smile.  “You know how I feel about taking credit for your work.  I'm a trainer, not a maker like you.”

“And you know as well as I do people are going to take someone like you more seriously,” she responded with a grimace.  (This was during prejudice, but, if we fight very hard, someday we’ll find ourselves after prejudice.) “Besides” - it turned into a soft smile - “my girl needs an excuse to see her honorary Tio every once in a while.”

Thomas relented, pulling her into a hug.  “You’re ridiculous.”

“I thought I told you to stop talking to yourself,” Estella fired back.  “You staying for dinner?”

“Like I would ever willingly cook for myself.”  (This was before Hello Fresh, which, if certain videos are to be believed, is the only way Thomas can cook for himself.)

He followed her into the kitchen, sniffing hopefully.  “Have you decided to come back with me to the city yet?  We could be partners. My name first on the sign, probably, but equal partners.”

“No.”  She stirred the menudo.

“Alright.  Your name first on the sign.  You’re the master, you deserve to come first.”

She poured his portion.  “You can always skip dinner.”

“Why won't you?”  Thomas whined, pouting at the table.

“Because, my friend, you are famous and rich, and you should be.  Your weapons are beautiful. Useless, certainly, but beautiful.”

Thomas pulled a face at Logan, who giggled.  “You’re too kind, Estella.”

“But,” Estella continued, “you make swords for any fool who happens along.  Gold-encrusted ceremonial trinkets. I am poor, and no one knows me in all the world except for you and my girl, but I do not have to suffer fools.  I make weapons for fighters.”

“You’re an artist,” Thomas sighed, setting the table.

Estella snorted as she laid down three bowls.  “Not even close.  Someday, maybe.  But not yet.”

Then Thomas turned to Logan, and asked him how he had liked the books from the city, and Logan lit up, rambling about math and science and astronomy, and the topic of swords was forgotten until the next time Thomas’s carriage rolled up the rickety path to their home.

(Something dark, something sad always crossed over Estella’s face in times like this, when she heard Logan talking of things people in their world never knew, never cared to understand.  He never noticed.)

Logan was ten when the itching under his skin broke free, like his body was an ill-fitting suit.

“Sweet dreams, baby girl.”  Estella leaned down and kissed her son’s forehead.  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“No,” Logan said before he could stop himself.

Estella blinked down at him, the edge of her mouth curling with confused amusement.  “I won’t see you in the morning, then?”

“No, I’m not…”  Logan trailed off, sitting up in his bed.  His sheets rustled as he twisted his fists in them, swallowing hard.  “I’m not a girl, Mama. I look like one, and everyone says I’m one, but I don’t… I don’t feel like one.”

(This was after trans people, but trans people have existed as far back as soup and most bacteria, despite what straight cis male historians and passive-aggressive southern mothers will have you believe.)

“Oh,” Estrella said, softly, then once more.  “Oh.” Slowly, she sat down on the edge of his bed, smoothing out her skirts.  “How long have you felt like this?”

Logan couldn’t bear to look up at her, instead watching her hands fold and unfold the pleats of her skirt rhythmically.  “Always.”

She melted.  “Oh, baby,” she said, her voice tripping and breaking over the words.  She gathered him to her chest, and he broke down, sobbing into her pressed shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he cried, “I tried so hard to be a girl, but I can’t, Mama.  I’m not a girl, and I just can’t do it anymore.”

“Shh.”  She rocked him against her chest, and he could feel her trembling.  “Shh, it’s okay, honey. I’m proud of you for telling me.” She swallowed, stroking the long hair he had always hated.  “You’re a boy then?”

“Yes,” he murmured, almost afraid to say it aloud.  “I’m a boy.”

She took a deep breath and nodded, gently pushing him back.  “Then dry those eyes, mi hijito.” She wiped his face gently with her sleeve, regardless of snot and tears.  “And get some sleep. I have a feeling we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

He chewed his bottom lip nervously, looking up at her lined, gentle face.  “You’re not mad at me?”

She gave him a smile, and he felt his fears being driven away by its light.  “The minute I held you, I knew you were perfect, baby boy.” She kissed his forehead.  “I could never be mad at you for being yourself, Logan.”

His eyes widened.  “Logan?”

She shrugged, almost sheepishly.  “I always wanted a Logan. Did you have something else picked out?”

“No.”  He shook his head, then repeated the name, wondrously.  “Logan.” It glided along the edge of his tongue, cool and comfortable to his ears.  “Logan,” he said again, mist fogging the edge of his eyes. “I like it a lot.”

“Then get some sleep, Logan.”  She stood, smoothing her skirts.  “Tomorrow, we’ll see what we can do.”

They cut his hair, sold his dresses, and told everyone his name was Logan.

For a while, Logan was the happiest he had ever been.

That, of course, was when the snake-faced man showed up.

The main thing Logan remembered about that day was the heat.  It was the summer he had turned eleven, and the air itself seemed to be shimmering, crackling with a hellish fire.  Logan had been draped over the arm of the couch, languidly fanning himself when a knock came from the door.

“Mama!”  He called down the hall, where the clang of metal on metal rang out.  “Mama!”

(This was after parents were deaf when you were calling them, yet had Vulcan hearing when you muttered a curse word after stubbing your toe.)

When no response came, he dragged himself into her workshop.  Dark strands of hair had escaped her ponytail and were stuck with sweat to her forehead and shoulders as she labored over the burning forge.

“Mama!”  He shouted.

Her eyes flicked up.

“Someone's at the door.”

She went back to hammering.  “You know how to answer a door, mi hijo.”

The ground was practically sizzling, but the man on the other side of the door didn't seem to be bothered by the heat.  A hat was slung low over his face, but mismatched eyes gleamed out from under the brim. His clothes were fine, obviously meant for nobility.

“Salutations,” Logan said, acutely wishing he was a bit more properly dressed.  Maybe a necktie? Surely no one could look at someone in a necktie with such a disdainful glower.  “May I be of assistance?”

“I'm told this is where you come to get a sword,” the man said.  “Run along and get me your mother, little boy.”

Logan drew himself up importantly.  “She's quite preoccupied.”

A gold coin landed at Logan's feet.  The man smiled thinly. “I'm sure she'll find some time.”

With wide eyes, Logan scooped up the shining token and ran to the workshop.

“I’m afraid it’s Thomas you’re looking for.”  Estella, at the door, smiled thinly. Logan winced from the vice-grip of her almost-trembling hand on his shoulder.  “A poor woman and her son have nothing to offer you, I’m sure.”

“I desire the greatest sword since Excalibur,” the snake said.

“And I pray your wishes are granted.”  Estella reached for the door handle. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s nearly noon, and I must make my son lunch-”

A clothed fist slammed into the door, forcing it open.  “I didn’t give you my permission to move,” the nobleman said.  His expression didn’t change, as open and pleasant as it had been earlier.  His gloved hand flexed. “I have plans, things I must accomplish. Those who stand in my way usually do not find pleasant ends.  Now, what was it you were saying of lunch?”

“That we just ate and have nothing more to do.  That we wouldn’t dream of budging.”

“I’ve heard that a genius lives here.  The greatest smith in the world.”

“Thomas,” Estella said again, “he visits sometimes.  That must be where your mistake lies.”

The nobleman paused, tilted his head.  “Well, that is a shame. Only a master could hope to accomplish the challenge of helping me.”  He tugged off a glove.

Estrella stifled a gasp.

His hand was just as misshapen as his face.  It was badly scarred, with stiff, ungainly fingers and fingernails so long they could almost be taken for talons.

“I was in an accident,” he said, voice flat.  “If it weren't for Re- if it weren't for my boss, things could have been worse.  Still, I need a way to fight.”

Estrella was practically glowing, eyes bright with excitement.  “May I?” She didn't bother waiting for a response before she grabbed his hand and inspected it closely, measuring and muttering to himself.  “You'll need a bigger hilt than typical,” she mused, “and a knot for counterbalance because of your fingers… Mi hijito, consígueme ese mi libreta.”

He scampered off, and when he returned, notepad in hand, the snake was smiling thinly.

“A year then,” he said, “and I'll return with five bags of gold.”

Logan made a small noise of amazement.

Estella paused, then squared her jaw.  “Ten.”

The nobleman arched an eyebrow.  “You dare presume your wares are worth so much?”

Her eyes hardened.  “You get what you pay for.  If I am to build you a sword to shame Excalibur, you should bless me for letting you off so easily.”

The snake tilted his head.  “Very well then. I'll see you in a year.”

Estella nodded.  “I'll have it ready by then, señior… oh, I'm so sorry.  I didn't catch your name.”

He smiled thinly.  “It doesn't matter.”  He touched the brim of his hat and was gone.

It was the worst year of Logan’s life.

Estella slept only when she dropped from exhaustion.  She ate only when Logan shoved bits of meat and bread at her.  She studied, groaned, raged. She never should have taken the job; it was impossible.  The next day, she was soaring, flying. There wasn’t a star in heaven that she couldn’t reach.

Her hands danced as her mind spun tale after tale for Logan, prophesying the sword’s future.  Her hair grew greasy, her spine stooped. Her skin caught the blaze of her forge and glowed with an unnatural fire, even when she was far from her workshop.

“I’ve never seen you like this, Mama,” he confessed, standing in the doorway to her workshop.  The moonlight glowed a solitary spotlight, tugging at her hair and scribbling calculation after calculation out.  The balance was wrong, so the edge was too dull. The edge was sharpened, but that weakened the metal. The metal was strengthened but now the point was too fat.  The point was slimmed and the balance was wrong again.

She was silent for a long moment, and, for a moment, he thought she hadn’t heard him.  But she always did. Even in this state, she listened.

“Then you’ve never seen me challenged, my love.  Happy.”

He swallowed hard and gripped the edge of his nightshirt.  “I don’t believe this is what happiness looks like.”

“Go to bed, mi hijito.  I’m working.” The edge of her hand was slathered in black with smeared ink.  The tips of her hair were singed.

“Mama, I don’t think-”

“Logan.”  She stopped and looked at him, eyes glowing with unnatural embers.  “Do you know why I’m doing this?”

Logan started.  “Well, you want the challenge.  The glory. To create the finest sword since Excalibur.”

She inclined her head, a wry smile flickering at the corner of her mouth.  “Well, yes. But there’s something else. If I simply wanted the glory, why did I negotiate for ten bags of gold?  Why would I care about the money?”

Logan found he had no answer.

Estella rose, crossing the room and cupping his face in her hands.  “You’re smarter than anyone around here, Logan. Never doubt that. You deserve…”  Her voice broke and she shook her head. “There’s places you can learn. Places that can teach you the names of the stars and how wide the world is and how to bring a man back from the edge of death.  But they cost.”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead.  “Let me do this, Logan. For both of us.”

Logan squared his jaw and pulled himself up.  “Then let me help.”

For the first time in months, a true smile lit the corners of her lips.  She showed him how to feed the fire.

A week before the year was over, Logan woke up in the dead of night.  Nothing had awoken him.

That’s what was wrong.  Nothing.

There was no sound of hammer on steel, no roaring of the forge, no muttered curses as another design failed.  Everything was dead silent.

(As a matter of fact, in the history of the world, there had only been five instances of silences as deep as the one that currently blanketed the Montoya household.  Two were perfectly timed for someone to say something embarrassing, just as conversation in the rest of the room dropped, two were the result of looking at something perplexing and going ‘huh’ internally, and one was recorded ten years prior, at the first date between one Mr. Maan Narcisa and one Mx. Alexander Úna.)

Logan padded into his mother’s workshop.  Estella was sitting there, her scarred, calloused hands folded in her lap and her squinting, brown eyes gazing forward.  He didn’t know when she noticed him, but she spoke up. “It’s done.”

Even in the hut’s darkness, the sword glistened.

“Finally,” Estella whispered, water shining in her eyes.  “Mi hijito, after a lifetime. Logan. Logan, I am an artist.”

The nobleman did not agree.

He came to their door, on the exact day they agreed upon.

Estella held out her hands.

It was the most perfect sword that had ever existed.  (As a matter of fact, it is still the world's greatest sword and will, if necessary, cut a bitch.)

A bag of gold unceremoniously landed at her feet.  She picked it up.

“What is this?”

“Your payment.”

Her eyes flashed.  “This is not what we agreed upon.”

“You said I'd pay for what I got.”  The scarred man sneered at the flawless masterpiece.  Another sword hung heavy at his belt.

“You’re disappointed?”  She could barely get the words out.

Logan stood in the corner of their hut, watching, holding his breath.

“I’m not saying it’s trash, you understand,” he went on, “but it’s certainly not worth ten bags of gold.  One should be more than enough.”

“Wrong!”  Estella cried.  She hurled the bag back at him and clutched the sword.  “The gold is yours. All of it.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t take the sword,” the nobleman reassured her, voice purring and hissing, “just that I would pay what it was worth.”

“The sword belongs to my son,” she snapped.  “I give it to him now. Goodbye.”

“I’ll take it,” the man hissed, “and give you some gold.  You should bless me for letting you off so easily.” His gloved hand reached for the hilt, but Estella already had it in her hands, drawing herself into a defensive stance.

He looked at her.  Sighed.

Logan didn't even see him draw his sword.

He didn't scream when she collapsed.  He didn't do anything. It was all over too quickly.

The scarred man snatched up the sword and sauntered down the path.

Logan jolted to life.  Stepping carefully over the body, quietly losing heat on the stone ground, he raced after the man, snatching the sword from his unsuspecting hand.

The nobleman looked at him coolly.  “What do you think you're doing, brat?”

“You killed her,” Logan thought he said.  His lips were numb. Everything felt numb.

“I sincerely apologize you had to see that,” the scarred man drawled.  “Now give the sword back.”

Logan clutched it until his knuckles turned white. “No.”

He snorted.  “Then I'll pluck it off your dead body in a week when you starve to death.”  He slithered down the mountain path.

“You killed her!”  Logan screamed. “Fight me!”

“I'm not going to fight a babe who can’t even lift his sword,” he called over his shoulder.

“Face me you misshapen, scarred bastard!”  Logan shouted.

The man paused.  Turned.

“You should learn how to address your betters.  It will serve you well someday.”

Logan shook, the tip of his mother's perfect sword bobbing in the air as he held it before him, clutched in both hands.  “You are not my better, murderer.”

His strange,  mismatched eyes gleamed as he stalked up to Logan.  “You would fight me?”

Fear welled up in Logan's throat, but he didn't waver.  “Yes.”

In one silver flash, the sword clattered from Logan's hand.  In the next second, it was in the killer’s.

“I'm a merciful man, you know,” he said, conversationally.  “But I think it will serve you well to have just a tiny reminder of this moment.”

Logan ducked just in time to avoid the sword’s arch.  It crashed into the stone path with a shower of sparks.  The scarred man hissed. He kicked out, and Logan was flat on the ground, looking into his face.

Logan committed every inch to memory. 

“Do you like my scars?”  The nobleman asked, pleasantly, after he noticed Logan's scrutiny.  He flicked the blade once, twice, then it was done.

Hot streams of pain crossed Logan's cheeks.  He lay in the road, shaking.

The scarred man examined the blade, frowning at the single notch.  “Look what you made me do.” He dropped a year and a life's worth unceremoniously to the dusty ground, and only then did Logan feel the blood running down his face.

The nobleman turned.  Walked away.

Logan lay on the ground until the sky turned red.

He woke up to Thomas's face hovering above him.  There was a soft pillow beneath Logan's head, bandages on his cheeks.

“I took you home with me,” Thomas explained softly.  “As soon as I heard what happened, I came running. Logan, I” - His voice cracked - “I'm so sorry.”

He was in Thomas’ mansion.  In the city. He'd never been farther from home.  

Something came unmoored in Logan's chest.

“Don't be,” he said flatly, pushing himself up despite Thomas's protests.  “Everyone dies. It's unavoidable.”

Thomas started.  “Oh, um… I guess that's a… logical way to look at it, Logan.”  He switched tactics, nuding a stack of books towards him.  

“I got you a few books.  Some fairy tales. I know you love the ones with magic.”

Logan gazed at them blankly.  

“Don't be illogical, Thomas.  Those are frivolous.” Logan laid back down.  “I need a minimum of eight hours of rest for maximum efficiency tomorrow.”

At the clear dismissal, Thomas reluctantly crossed to the door.  “I know this is hard, but I'm going to be here for you, Lo. Okay?”

He didn't get a response.

There was a note on Logan's pillow the next morning.  I must learn.

Thomas tore apart the city, the area, the country looking for him.  He never could. 

Ten years later, a knock came on Thomas's door.

On the other side, a man stood - tall, wiry, with huge, violent scars running the length of his cheeks.

“Logan,” Thomas gasped, drawing him into a hug.

“Thomas,” Logan responded, peering over his shoulder, “is that a llama?”

Timothy the llama took a bite out of the wallpaper.

“Never leave again,” Thomas laughed, pulling back and clasping his shoulders.  “I make dumb decisions when I'm lonely.”

Logan shook his head, regret pinching the corners of his mouth.  “I can't stay. I just came to ask you one question.” He cleared his throat self-importantly.  “As you know, I have spent the last ten years learning.”

“Yes, you made that very clear in the four-word note you left as a twelve-year old that was supposed to reassure me when you disappeared.”

“Now,” Logan continued loudly, having the slightest bit of grace to look abashed, “I've come to ask if I'm ready.”

“Ready for what?”  Thomas threw his arms up.  “Logan, what have you been learning?”

Logan touched his hand to the sword hanging at his side, perfect and gleaming, except for the small notch on its blade.  “The sword.”

Thomas blinked at him slowly.  “You're kidding.”

“No, I'm quite serious.”  Logan adjusted his necktie.  “Serious people wear neckties.”

“I'm calling bullsh*t.”

“How did you just censor yourself?”

“You can not have spent ten years doing nothing but learning how to sword fight.”

“Well, no,” Logan conceded, following Thomas into the living room, “not just learning how to fence. I used my time efficiently in other ways.”

Thomas settled onto the couch across from him.  “Tell me.”

“Ten years is three-thousand, six hundrid and fifty days.”  (This was before Leap years.) “Which, in turn, is eighty-six thousand, six-hundred hours.  Well, I made it a point to sleep for at least four hours a night, which eliminated fourteen thousand, six hundred hours.”

“Okay, you slept. I'm with you.”  Thomas nodded.

Logan pulled out a sheet of paper, tacked it up to the wall, and began to construct a pie chart.  (This was before pies, so at the time, it was just called a nonexistent pastry chart.)  “Now, even with that time accounted for, I had seventy two thousand hours.”

“So what else did you do?”  Thomas leaned forward.

“I squeezed rocks.”  Logan drew in another healthy non-slice in the nonexistent pastry chart.

Thomas rubbed one of his ears.  “I'm sorry, I think my hearing is going out.  It almost sounded like you said you squeezed rocks.”

“To strengthen my wrists and control the sword,” Logan explained.  “So, I spent a total of two hours a day, or seven thousand, three hundrid hours total squeezing apple-sized rocks.  Additionally, I spent two hours per day dodging, leaping, and square dancing to ensure proper footwork while fighting.”

“Square dancing?”  Thomas said faintly.

“Yeehaw,” Logan deadpanned.  “Now, this left me with fifty-seven thousand, four hundred hours per day. Two of those were dedicated to sprinting, to ensure speed.”

“And those remaining fifty thousand hours?”  Thomas asked. “You spent those leaning to fence?”

Logan frowned.  “It was forty-eight thousand, eight hundrid hours.”  He tapped on the chart.

“I'm gay, not good at math.”  Thomas rolled his eyes.

“Granted.”

Thomas shook his head.  “Where did you learn?”

“Anywhere I could find a master,” Logan pocketed his pointer and sat next to Thomas.  “New York, Brazil, Chille.”

“But why didn't you stay?”  Thomas demanded. “You know I could have taught you here!”

Only then did Logan soften, placing his hand over Thomas's.  “Because you loved me, Thomas. You've had said, ‘great form, Logan! That's enough for today.  Let's go have a snack’.”

“That… definitely sounds like something I would have done,” Thomas admitted, a wry quirk to his mouth.  It still did. “But why was that so important? Why did you throw away your childhood?”

Logan pulled away, an icy sheen settling over his features.  “I'm not going to fail her again.”

Thomas's expression softened.  “Estella,” he said. The name was fresh on his tongue, as if he hadn’t dared to speak it in so long.

Logan squared his jaw.  

“I’ve spent all these years preparing to find the snake-man and kill him in a duel.  However, he is a master. Not only did he say as much, but I saw the way his sword flew.  I can’t-” his voice cracked, and he drew back, staring at his hands for a long time and breathing.  He smoothed his expression away until he was blank and unfeeling - dispassionate and cold as steel.  

“I will not lose that duel when I find him, so now I have come to you.  You know swords and swordsmen better than perhaps anyone.” He looked up at Thomas, unnatural embers glowing in his eyes.  “If you say I am ready, then I am. If not, then I will spend another ten years and another ten after that, if necessary.”

Thomas nodded and led him to the courtyard.

It was late morning, but the air itself sizzled.  Any flowers that dared poke their petaled faces out of the ground wilted instantly.  Logan didn’t flinch. He tightened his tie, pulled out his sword, and got into position.

“The snake taunts you,” Thomas, hiding in the shade of his manor, called.  “Duel him.”

Logan began to leap around the courtyard, the great blade flashing.

“He surprises you with the Agrippa-defense!”

He wasn’t surprised for long.  Logan shifted position, speeding up until his sword became a streak of steel lightning.

“Bonetti’s attack!”

Again, his feet shifted; his sinewy body transformed.

Thomas almost didn’t recognize him.

Logan wasn’t himself when he fought.  Something deep - a raw, pulsating sort of rage - settled under his skin, barring his teeth and pushing electricity through his veins.  (This was before electricity, but Logan was actually the one to invent the term if just to fabricate an explanation for his battle-rage.)

If he was younger, he would have called it magic.

Logan knew better now.

At three in the afternoon, Thomas cried: “Stop!”  He slumped over, wiping sweat from his brow. “I’m exhausted.”

Logan stood, panting slightly, sword still at the ready.  “Well? Your verdict?”

“Your mother always made the world’s finest weapons,” Thomas said, softly, “but I think, out of all of them, you’re her greatest.”

Logically speaking, the man in black should not have been able to climb the cliff.  There were no footholds, and the rocks were sharp and slippery. Yet, still, he climbed.

Logan laid on his stomach, peering over the edge of the cliff, and squinted his eyes.  He was a good learner, although not a particularly fast one, so it took him a moment to realize what the man in black was doing.

He balled his fists - one at a time - and rammed them into the cliff’s face.  Then, using his fist as an anchor, dragged himself upward one agonizing inch at a time.  Whenever he could find support for his feet, he used it, but his fists driving into the sheer rock enabled the majority of his climb.

Logan made a soft noise of amazement, mind whirring as he calculated the rock’s placement on the Moss scale, the probable force at which the man’s fist flew as related to its surface area…

Strong.

The man was incredibly strong.

It was almost as though something, some ineffable higher force was pulling him upwards.

(“On love’s light wings,” Roman would have muttered, had he been there and had he known all he soon would.”)

The man was close enough now for Logan to see the mask, obscuring everything but his mouth.  A black bandana was tied over his hair. Logan squinted, but he didn’t appear to have scales or scars of any sort.

Another outlaw, perhaps?

Logan sighed and stood, brushing himself off and unsheathing his sword.  He really did seem like quite the extraordinary man.

It was a shame Logan was going to kill him.

He didn’t necessarily want to, but orders were orders and rules ruled the Kingdom.  Besides, if he didn’t, Peter would inevitably make Patton do it, and that was… unacceptable.

Logan didn’t bother to waste sympathy on the man in black.  (This was before Hallmark cards, but even if they had been around and even if there was one that said ‘so sorry for killing you in a duel’, Logan wouldn’t have bought it.)

Someday, someone would kill Logan, and the world would not stop to mourn.

The man in black was perhaps fifty feet below the cliff face.  All that was left to do was wait.

One problem.

Logan really, really hated waiting.  Once he had paced the edge of the cliff a few times, he had run himself through some sword fighting drills, then paced some more, gazed dramatically into the sunrise and wondered where Patton was, and now he was brooding.  Logan was a champion brooder, really. He had the dramatic scars for it. He had been brooding for a good ten minutes and was pacing himself so he could brood until the man in black got to the top and still have enough in him for a final burst of sullen silence once he and his adversary met.

Which, really, would be any minute now.

Any…. minute… now…

Logan gave up on his brooding and stalked over to the cliff’s edge.  The man in black was still thirty feet down. He made his way up, agonizingly slowly, and Logan took the time to examine the sword strapped to the man’s side.

A small thrill of excitement hit him.

“Salutations,” he called.

The man in black flicked his eyes up, grunted, and jammed his fist into the cliff.

“Slow going?”  Logan continued.

“I hate to be rude,” the man in black snarked, “but this is not as easy as it looks so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t distract me, specs.”

“Apologies.”  Logan retreated from the cliff face and made another solid attempt at brooding.

“I do not suppose you could make better progress?”  He called down again, not three minutes later.

“If you’re in such a hurry, you could lower a rope or make yourself useful somehow,” the man drawled.

“Factually true.”  Logan included his head.  “But I’m under the impression you would refuse my offer, as I am waiting to kill you.”

“That does put a damper on our relationship,” the man concurred.  “But, I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait.”

Twenty five feet down.

“I hate waiting,” Logan muttered, turning away before a sudden thought hit him.  “I could give you my word as a swordsman!”

“No good,” the man grunted, dragging himself up another foot.  “I’ve known too many swordsmen.”

“I must confess I’m going quite” - Logan pulled a stack of flashcards (his own invention, although he didn’t think they’d catch on) out of his pocket and flipped through a few - “‘cray-cray’ up here.”

“Anytime you’d like to switch places, I’m more than happy to do so.”

With twenty feet left, the man in black sagged against the rock, breathing heavily.

“Come now,” Logan cajoled (this was after cajoling). “You have merely twenty feet left.  Surely you can continue. I am more than willing to offer the reassurance that you’ll reach the top alive, and I shall provide a rope to ease the rest of your ascent.”

“Why on Earth do you want to help me so much?”  The man in black snapped, craning his neck to hit Logan with a full-force glare.  (In terms of intensity, it was a solid ten out of ten, but the overall effect was somewhat dampened by the fact he was hanging off of the side of the cliff like a particularly damp, emo barnicle.)

“Well, you appear to be an excellent swordsman.”  Logan inclined his head. “The sword you’re carrying has significant wear, indicating frequent use.  The grip on the hilt is of a distinctly Italian,” - (this was after Italy) - “influence, yet has modifications that suggest on-the-fly improvisations.  Furthermore, the Gaelic” - (this was before France) - “weight of the sword leads me to believe-”

“Okay, okay!”  The man in black resisted the urge to throw up his hands in surrender.  Largely because that would’ve sent him plummeting to the sharp rocks and death below.  “Fine, throw me the rope.”

Logan began uncoiling the rope as the man continued, grumbling.  “Honestly, you talk too much.”

Logan stood on the edge of the cliff, rope dangling from his hand and eyebrow arched.  “I could always change my mind.”

“You are a wonderful conversationalist,” the man immediately rescinded.

“That’s what I thought,” Logan said and threw the rope.

The man in black reached the top shortly thereafter, with a bit of huffing and puffing on both mens’ part.

“Thank you,” the man in black sighed, hands on his knees.

Then his sword was at Logan’s throat.

“You know,” Logan said, conversationally, trying to hide the thrill of excitement rising in his stomach, “you’ve just climbed a rather significant distance.  We can wait until you are ready to commence in any sort of combat.”

The man in black smiled, sharp.  “A swordsman and a gentleman? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a combination, then.”  Regardless, he sheathed his sword and sunk onto a relatively flat rock, releasing the smallest sigh of relief.

“You musn’t keep very civilized company.”  Logan perched beside him, reflexively touching the soft flesh of his unscathed throat.  “Do you count yourself among those ranks?”

Something in his storm gray eyes darkened.  “I’m far from a gentleman, Sir.”

“Why have you followed us?”  Logan asked, quietly.

“You have something I want.  Valuable cargo, you could say.”

“We have no intentions of selling.”

The man shrugged.  “That’s your business.”

“What’s yours then?”

“Revenge.”

Logan snorted.  “In that case, we are more alike than previously assumed.”

The man in black shot him a wry smile.  “I knew there was a tragic backstory to go with those scars.”

Logan made a noncommittal noise and stood, turning away to survey the clifftop they found themselves on.  Riddled with roots and flat, sandy plains and rocky platforms - it was perfect for a fight. The stage was spotlighted by the rising sun, cresting over the edge of the cliffs.  It’d be so wonderfully easy to force the man in black back, to watch him slip and fall down those still-same cliffs he had so masterfully climbed earlier.

Logan could already feel himself slipping away, that buzz settling over his skin.  His hand twitched, longing for a sword as his blood began to sing with electricity.  He could just barely eek out his next sentence.

“Nothing that would interest you, I'm sure.”

“Well then.”  The man in black stood, bowed.  “May I have this dance?” He drew his sword, holding it in his right hand.  

That sight thrilled Logan.  His weakness against the stranger’s strength.  He knew who would prevail, regardless.

“You may.”  Logan almost smiled as he drew his sword in return, twirling it in his right hand.  “Although I must inform you my affections lay elsewhere.”

“How strange.”  The man almost smiled back.  “As do mine.”

The first blows came quickly, each man circling before they stepped back.  Logan lunged forward with a lightning-fast strike, but the man dodged it like it was nothing.  Another flurry of attacks, and the man in black tried the same attack on Logan.  It didn’t even come close to hitting him.

They locked eyes.  Smiled.

“You’re using Bonetti’s defence against me, are you not?”  Logan swiped at his legs, but the man had already jumped out of the way.

“I thought it natural, considering the rocky terrain,” he said conversationally, slashing at Logan’s jugular.  Logan parried easily, laughing.

“You really expect me to attack with Capo Ferro?”  He leaped up onto a rocky plateau, stabbing downwards.  “What level of an amatur do you judge me to?”

The man in black shrugged, forcing Logan further up the rock with a series of blows.  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always found Capo Ferro a perfectly adequate alternative to the Thibault.”

The man in black dropped from the platform, landing several feet below Logan.  He looked up with a challenging smirk.

“Unless your opponent has studied the Agrippa.”  Logan took a few running steps and flew off the edge of the rock, tumbling midair to land facing his rival.  

“Which I have," he added with a cocky shrug.

The man in black just laughed, driving forward with insurmountable strength, forcing Logan towards the edge of the cliffs.

“Your form is flawless,” Logan marveled, dodging to avoid another scar across his cheek.

“Thank you.”  The man found a gap in Logan’s defence, drawing a sharp line across his forearm.  “I’ve worked on it for quite a while.”

Logan hissed in pain, eyes shining.  “I must admit it… you’re better than I am.”  His heels were almost over the edge of the cliffs.  He hadn’t felt this alive in years.

“Then why are you smiling?”  The man in black narrowed his eyes, barrling onward.

“Because I know something you don’t know.”  (This was, by far, Logan’s favorite sentence, and it brought him no end of joy to utter.  This occasion was no expectation.)

“And what’s that?”

Logan’s foot slipped over the edge.

“I am not right-handed.”  Logan tossed his sword to his left hand and surged forward.  Immediately, the tide of the battle shifted. The man in black could hardly defend himself against a killing blow; countless scratches and scrapes began to litter his skin as Logan’s clever sword slipped through his defenses.

Logan circled the man, and now it was him slipping dangerously close to the cliff’s edge, helpless as a newborn baby being told that the problems of climate change heaped upon their generation by the past generations were now their issue.

“You know,” Logan said, grunting as he pushed the man closer to the edge.  The man threw himself to the side in what would have been an impressive escape, if not for the rock that slipped out from underneath his feet.  He fell on his right arm with a crack, hissing. “You seem a decent fellow.” Logan pressed the tip of his sword into the soft flesh of his throat.  “I hate to kill you.”

“You seem a decent fellow.”  The man in black wiped a trail of blood off of his split lip, looking up at him with stormy gray eyes.  “I hate to die.”

Logan steadied himself for the killing blow before the man in black did something strange.  He smiled.

“Why…”  Logan tilted his head, eyes narrowed.  “Why are you smiling?”

“Because I know something you don’t know.” A hint of amusement touched the man’s eyes.  

Intrigued despite himself, Logan leaned forward.  “And what’s that?”

“You see…”  The man’s gray eyes flashed.  “I’m not right handed either.”

“Wha-”

The air was punched out of Logan’s lungs as the man swept his legs out from under him.  Before Logan could even recover, the man leapt to his feet and scooped up his sword, retreating to a safe distance.  His right arm was tucked behind his back.

Eyes flashing, the man in black struck once, twice, and Logan’s sword flew out of his hands, landing in the soft dirt a plateau away.  For the first time since he was eleven, Logan was afraid of a fight.

The man in black inclined his head.

Logan scrambled towards his sword, snatching it up and holding it before him in his trembling left hand.

The man in black flung his sword; it spiraled through the air, landing just between Logan’s feet.  Something told him it wasn’t a lucky miss.  

Ah,   Logan realized.  He’s a drama gay.

The man in black grabbed a low-hanging tree branch and flipped himself around it twice before somersaulting into a perfect landing and grabbing his sword with a deadpan expression.

Definitely a drama gay, Logan mentality confirmed.

“Who are you?”  Logan demanded.

“An emo nightmare, to those that care.”  Something bitter touched the edge of the man’s mouth.  “No one of consequence, really.”

“I’m serious,” Logan snapped, gesturing to his necktie.  “I must know.”

The emo nightmare smirked.  “Get used to disappointment.”

Logan sighed.  “Very well.”

Within a second, they were dancing across the sandy, rocky ground.  The frenzy of their feet kicked up clouds of dust. Their blades were both practically invisible for their speed.  

“If I had friends anymore,” the nightmare mused, twisting mid-air to block Logan’s thrust, “you’d be a very good candidate.”

Logan laughed, a little winded.  “If we weren’t trying to kill each other, I’d agree quite readily.”

They were almost equally matched.  Almost. The man in black was just slightly faster than Logan, just slightly stronger, just slightly more desperate.

But just slightly more was enough.  Cuts and scrapes littered Logan's skin until his shirt was riddled with tears and his limbs ached with exhaustion.  The man in black struck out one final time.

Logan's sword dropped from his hand.  He collapsed to his knees.

“Kill me quickly,” Logan said, clenching his hands, as if that could stop their shaking.  “If you have any mercy in your soul, kill me quickly. And…” He faltered, swallowing hard and blinking back tears.  “And tell Patton…”

If Logan believed in happy endings, if he believed in good, if he believed in wishes, if he believed in magic, he could have reached out and taken Patton’s hand before the other three left.  Logan could have kissed him; maybe Patton would have lit up like a struck match, just like he did when he cracked a pun.

But wishes were just dreams, and dreams were just pretend.  In the end of every story, science and reason triumphed. Magic wasn't real.

So Logan hadn’t done it.

So he never would.

“Tell Patton I-”

“I’m not going to kill you, Specs,” the emo rolled his eyes.  “I'd sooner destroy MySpace than an artist such as yourself.”

Logan barely had time to breathe out, relieved, before the man continued.

“But, since I can’t have you following me either…”

The hilt of his sword cracked across the back of Logan’s head.

He crumpled to the ground, and the man in black paused just long enough to make sure he was still breathing.

“Please understand I hold you in the highest respect,” he drawled before chasing after the footprints, chasing after Roman.

Chapter Text

“Wow,” the man in black said to himself as he raced across the craggy rocks and uneven ground.  “It feels like I’ve been running for almost nine months.”

“He beat Logan,” Patton said, faintly.  His tree-trunk legs suddenly felt very weak beneath him, and he swayed to sitting, something dreadful clawing its way up his throat.

“What?”  Peter, from several dozen feet back, huffed out, struggling to catch up with Patton’s strides along the rocky frontier of Occipital.  Even with Roman - still bound hand and foot - around his shoulders, Patton had moved lightly, almost gracefully over the rough terrain.

Patton shook his head morosely.  “Logan lost.”

Roman patted his shoulder as best he could.

At the bottom of the mountain, the man in black was running, gaining quickly.

“Inconceivable!”  Peter burst out.

“Oh,” Patton, feeling faint but now slightly bitter, said.  “You’re right. Logan just won, stole his clothes, and gained fifty pounds.”

“Fool,” Peter hurled at him.  “All these years and you still can’t tell Logan when you see him?”

Patton knew every curve of Logan’s face better than the back of his hand, but he didn’t say anything.

“Logan must have slipped or tricked or unfairly bested,” Peter muttered to himself.  “That’s the only conceivable explanation.”

He turned to Patton, suddenly, pale eyes intent.  “Stop him.”

“It might take me a minute to do something from the mountain top.”  Patton squinted down. “But I'll be at my peak performance.”

Roman snorted, and Peter groaned.

“Just…”  The Sicilian pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Give the Prince to me.”

“Heir, not Prince,” Roman insisted tartly as Patton gently lowered him.

“Finish him,” Peter addressed Patton, ignoring Roman entirely.  “Finish him your way.”

“Ooh, my way,” Patton said, pleased, then paused.  “Which way is my way?”

This was a rhetorical question, as Patton also had a tragic backstory that often forced him to fight large groups of people.

No, we will not be elaborating on that.

Peter groaned.  “Hide behind a boulder with a rock.  The minute his head comes into view, hit it with the rock!”

With that, he scampered off, Roman in tow.

It was a bit weird to Patton, how willingly Roman went with a man he could have easily overpowered, but he shook the thought off.

“My way doesn’t seem very fair,” he muttered.  Regardless, he grabbed a rock almost half a foot wide and easily palmed it.

Huddling behind a boulder with a motion very much like an elephant huddling behind a palm tree made of toothpicks, Patton took a few deep breaths and tried to convince himself Logan was okay.  He was Logan, of course he had to be okay!

Because if he wasn’t okay, there would be no one to put up with his puns or read to him or tell him fun facts about the glass bowl with holes poked in it that covered the earth at night (this was before Space) or to–

“Hey, um…”  The man in black hovered awkwardly at his shoulder, looking as if someone had just told him he was going to perform brain surgery.  “Are you okay?”

Patton realized he was blubbering and waved the rock.  “I’m supposed to throw this at you,” he sobbed.

He did so.

The man in black dodged it neatly.  “I take it that’s a ‘no’ on the whole ‘being okay’ thing, then?”

“What did you do to Logan?”  Patton demanded, wiping at his eyes.

“He’s fine,” the man in black promised.  “Just unconscious.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”  Patton sighed, then threw a punch.

“What was that for?!”  The man demanded, from the ground.  He sat up, gingerly rubbing at his cheek.  “Feels like I got hit by a mack truck.” (This was after mack trucks, but before highways, which made for some very interesting traffic jams.)

“You made me worry,” Patton said, primly.  “It’s only fair. Besides, I have a tragic backstory.”

“Oh, really?”  the man in black woozily shook his head.  “Well, while I recover from my possibly-fatal concussion, you’d better share it.”

Patton did so, but due to the man in black’s possibly-fatal concussion, he didn’t remember it later.

“Oh no,” he said, after a suitable pause, once he realized the giant had stopped talking.  “That’s so tragic.”

“I know,” Patton nodded, blubbering.  “I’ll never be able to look at an eraser the same way again.”

“Mm,” the man in black said, vaguely, wondering how long he had been blacked out for.  “I think we should fight now.”

Patton blinked owlishly.  “Even after I shared my Tragic Backstory with you?”

The man in black shrugged, pulling himself to his feet and throwing a punch at Patton’s sizable stomach.  “I’ve got a mission.”

“Why are you doing this?”  Patton asked, a frown touching his lips, absorbing the man in black’s jab without even a wince.  “Why are you so insistent on finding Roman?”

The man in black was silent for a long, long moment, trying and failing to punch Patton’s throat.  A nearby blade of grass grew ten millionths of a centimeter by the time he spoke again (which was a new record for grass growth rate, but not for sullen silences), so softly Patton had to lean in to hear, neatly dodging a kick.  “Have you ever been in love?”

Patton smiled.  “Yes.”

The man snorted.  “Horrible isn’t it?” 

He shrugged at Patton's incredulous glance, then ducked and whirled to avoid Patton’s swinging fist.  “It makes you so… vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”

Patton blinked slowly at him.   “I'm adopting you,” he announced, then engulfed the man in a bear hug.

The man shrieked a muffled protest, flailing uselessly.

“It's okay,” Patton hushed, gently rocking him.  “They can't hurt you now, my sweet and sour shadowling.”

The man shouted something that was muffled in Patton’s chest.

“I know, I know,” Patton cooed.

The man in black went limp.

“Oh,” Patton sighed, happily hugging his new son, then looking down to see his face was rapidly purpling.  “Oh!”

After a brief intermission where Patton tried to gently pat his face and ended up knocking out a tooth, the man in black startled back to animation with a sharp gasp.

“Sorry about your tooth,” Patton said, sheepishly.

“It’s fine.”  The man in black shrugged.  “This is after dentists.”

An edge of mischief lit his storm-gray eyes.  “Although,” he hedged, “if you got to knock me out, I think it’s only fair I do the same to you.”

Patton smiled indulgently.  “If you think you can.”

Obediently, Patton exposed the back of his head, and the man in black swung at it with all of the force in his considerably-strong body.

“Oh no,” Patton said, carefully lowering himself to the ground.  “Golly gee, you sure got me.”

The man in black gave him a deadpan look, which Patton didn’t see because he was busy gently fluffing the sleeve of his shirt before he nestled his head down.

“Zzzzzz,” Patton murmured, doing his best to look knocked-out.

“It’s less believable if you just say the letter ‘z’ a bunch of times,” the man in black informed him.

“I can’t hear you; I’m knocked out,” Patton responded, tartly.

The man in black rolled his eyes.  “Are you going to stay ‘knocked out’ until I leave?”

“Pinky promise!”  Patton chirped.

(Now, many Occipitalian scholars have debated when, exactly, pinky promises began, but as an authority on the subject, I can tell you with utter confidence that this was at the instant of pinky-promises.  Before, it had been piggy promises, where you would pledge a baby swine to your neighbor should you somehow break the vow the two of you concurred upon, but Patton, who had never before had reason to say such a solemn promise, had stumbled over his words in the excitement of participating in such a popular cultural phenomena.  As to why his version of the vow caught on instead of the long-established one, your guess is as good as mine.)

If the man in black had stuck around to hear Patton’s promise, he would’ve been notably confused, but as is, he had already raced off, following the last trail of footprints, towards where Roman awaited.

“Oh, shit!”  Prince Remy of Occipital gasped, leaning close to the ground and squinting behind his tinted spectacles.  “Ooh, sis, he did not.”

“What is it?”  The Count came up beside him, slightly winded from having to chase behind The Prince, over-eager and vibrant with the thrill of the hunt.

“There was like… a major battle, sis.”  Remy snapped his chicle, a finger tapping against his thigh in consideration.  “Like, totes crazy.”

“How descriptive,” The Count deadpanned.

“Petty isn’t a good look on you, bitch,” Remy sighed, doing a strange sort of shuffling before twirling, all the while with his eyes glued to the ground.  “This is like super sketch, though. Sometimes the right foot is leading and sometimes the left? Wack.”

He pursed his lips, carefully fitting his feet into the faint footprints left on the ground.  “They were switching hands, for whatever reason. They weren’t hurt, ‘cuse there isn’t enough blood for that, but still…”

His eyes narrowed, and he scrambled over a mound of rocks before letting loose a triumphant cry.  “I thought so! Dee, check this out.”

With a muttered curse, Deceit pulled himself over the rocks, fighting back a wheeze, and stood beside the prince, who was triumphantly surveying a perfectly unremarkable patch of flat land.

“Wow,” The Count said, “your suspicions were entirely founded.”

“Someone got conked out right there,” Remy snipped, pointedly ignoring him.  “Then fucked off somewhere back towards the ocean. Whoever got ‘em followed those other peeps inland.”

The Count nodded, mentally preparing himself for yet more walking.  “Should we follow them both?”

Remy smacked his chicle thoughtfully before shaking his head.  “Nah. Ro's all that matters right now. Besides, we’ll need all our dudes for whatever trap we’re heading into.”

The Count arched an eyebrow.  “You think it’s a trap, then?”

Remy just flashed a grin.  “I always think everything is a trap, babes.”  He winked. “That’s why I’m still alive.”

“Very well, then, Your Highness.”  The Count gave a shallow bow. “As you wish.”

“So,” Peter said.  “It is down to you, and it is down to me.”

“Well,” the man in black said, casually.  “You could always just give up now.”

“No,” Peter laughed, smiling thinly as he held his knife against the long line of Roman’s throat.  “I don’t think I will.”

The man in black took a step forward, and Peter pressed the knife even further against Roman’s throat.  A bead of blood trickled up. (While one would think a scar would jeopardize Roman’s place as the world’s most beautiful being, it ended up giving him a bit of a sexy, roguish vibe, further solidifying his status.)

“If you wish him dead, by all means keep moving forward.”

The man in black stopped dead in his tracks.

“I must admit,” Peter drawled.  “I quite resent what you’re attempting here.  Who on Earth tries to kidnap what another man’s rightfully stolen?”

“There’s a price to be had for him,” the man in black said.  “I would have it.”

“Yet, I cannot allow it,” Peter said.  “See, you need him alive, but I’ve been paid a great deal to ensure he won’t be breathing, in the near future.”

“I’m not sure you’ve considered this fully,” the man in black said, evenly, something dark flashing in his eyes.  “I’ve gone through great personal sacrifice, hardship, and turmoil to reach this point. As is, if I fail, the odds are I will become angry.  If he stops breathing, there is every chance that you’ll meet the same unfortunate end. Surely you can see that there’s no good way out of this.”

“Maybe not for you,” Peter responded, “but I will confess we are at somewhat of an impasse.  If you’ve killed Logan and Patton, I’m forced to conclude I can’t defeat you physically, but there’s no way you could match my brains.”

Throughout this whole exchange, the man in black’s eyes hadn’t left Roman, sitting quietly and complacently at Peter’s side.  Vaguely, he wondered if the heir had been drugged before shaking the thought off.

“You’re that smart?”

“Let’s put it this way: you’ve heard of Keohane?  Adiele?”

(Now, dear reader, those names will mean nothing to you, but only because we’re before Keohane and Adiele.)

“Yes.”

“Morons.”

A startled laugh escaped the man in black’s lips.  “In that case, I challenge you to a battle of the wits.  If you’re as skillful as you claim, you’ve got nothing to fear.  I’ll even let you choose the challenge.”

Peter’s eyes lit with a most horrifying sort of glee.  “For the Prince?”

“Heir,” Roman and the man in black said, in unison.

Roman’s posture shifted, his lips parting slightly.  It almost sounded as if…

“To the death?”  Peter demanded.

The man in black nodded.

Peter smiled thinly.  “I accept.”

He gestured the man over to the flat, rocky outcropping where he and Roman sat and, laying his knife to the side, produced two cups, filling each one to the brim with wine.

(Our tasteful readers will note that this is not proper wine-drinking etiquette, but this was before manners, so no harm, no foul.)

“They call me a witch where I’m from,” Peter said, chuckling.  “A dragon witch, if you’ll believe it.”

“And why is that?”  The man in black said, guarded.

Peter shrugged.  “I’ve always been good with plants, at making poultice and tinctures from even the smallest leaf.”

He pulled a small vial out of his vest.  “Dracaena marginata is normally nontoxic to humans.”  He smiled, sharp and dangerous. “At least, that’s what they think before they try my special brand.”

The man in black looked at Peter the way a badger might look at a snake who had come round his home and ignored his ‘No Soliciting’ sign.

“Do you mean to poison us?”

“No,” Peter said, handing the vial and the cups to the man in black.  “Just you. Lace one, and we’ll see who falls.”

Roman’s fingers found a sheet of cool metal.

The man in black turned his back and did something Peter couldn’t see before turning back and placing the cup in his left hand before Peter, the one in his right before himself.

“Your choice,” he said, simply.

Now, anyone who isn’t a white, cis male can tell you just exactly how long those sorts can go on rants for.  Since the invention of socioeconomic classes that have enabled them to ‘um, actually’, their way through life, there have been three top-ranking grand monologues by the overly entitled.  The first was a five-hour detour in poor professor Carl Cohen’s philosophy class, where the extremely white Chad Davis of the I Tappa Kegga fraternity explained to a world-renowned professor and his entire class why, exactly, racism was ‘kinda wack, bro’.  The second was only half an hour, but arguably more excruciating, when Tad Daniels of a bland business accounting firm somewhere urban explained to the ‘coffee girl’ how to really work hard and get ahead in business, only for her to explain once he paused for breath that she was the CEO, and his interview would no longer be necessary.  He asked if he got the job.

All this being said, Peter’s aggressive, circular-logic filled, baffling deduction of which cup, exactly, the poison had been placed within came in at a close third.

“–therefore the poison cannot be in your glass,” Peter concludes, triumphantly.

The man in black, who had been dulled into a stupor, eyes glazed with the mental effort of by braining himself on a nearby rock, startled back into animation.  “What?”

Peter shot him a dry look.  “Let’s drink. Me from my glass, and you from yours.”

The astute reader will recall Peter concluded that the poison was in his own glass, yet our dragon witch had duplicitous schemes in mind.  He intended to distract the man in black with a dramatic cry and proclamation that something was behind him, then switch glasses while his back was turned.  He probably would have as well, if, at that second, Roman hadn’t stabbed him in the chest.

Peter made a choking, gasping sound, and the man in black leapt, knocking into him and slamming him into the ground.

Roman didn't wrestle his blindfold off in time to see the moment of impact, but he heard the sickening crunch.  He unveiled his eyes to see Peter lying in a pool of red, completely still.

“Dumb of him,” Roman commented, casually, wedging the knife’s handles between his knees to cut the ropes binding his wrists, “to put the dagger down so close to me.  You're welcome, by the way.”

“I had it under control,” the man in black said lamely, looking down at the corpse before them.

Roman snorted.  “Yes, the knife being pressed against my neck should’ve tipped me off.”

“The cups were both poisoned,” the man in black said mulishly.  “I've spent the last five years building up an immunity to all sorts of toxins.”

“Weird flex, but okay.”

The man in black just laughed, almost bitterly.  There was something strange in his gray eyes as he looked over Roman – as if anger and something too tender to belong there warred for their places at the forefront of his mind.

“What’d you go and do a thing like that for?”  He eventually asked, gesturing to Peter. Or, what had previously been Peter.

Roman shrugged, for even he couldn’t quite explain what had possessed him to attack his captor when he had been quite docile previously.  “You… it was just something you said. Reminded me of–” He cut himself off, sharply. “Doesn’t matter.”

“You’d be surprised, highness.”  His voice was strained, rough.

Roman looked at him, sharply.  “Who are you?”

“No one to be trifled with, and that is all you ever need know.”

Barring his teeth, Roman stepped backwards.  “I think I need to know a bit more than that.”

“Are you going to behave, highness, or do I have to help you along?”

Roman shifted his weight, eyes narrowed.  “You’re welcome to try.”

The man in black made a noise of frustration.  “We don’t have time for this. Could you do me the grand favor of being insufferable on the go?”

Roman planted his feet on the ground, crossing his arms over his chest.  “Not until you tell me what you plan on happening.”

“What do you think will happen?” He snapped.  “I’m taking you back to your pig fiancé, collecting my reward, and leaving a wealthy man while you live happily ever after, your highness.”   

It made sense, of course.

The man in black started walking, and Roman found himself following along behind, unsure what to do with the black void of something noxious brewing in his stomach.

Imagine for a moment, dear reader, you are Roman.  

Wow, you’re hot.

Congrats.

But beyond being incredibly stunning, you’ve been trapped for years with a cruel man you don’t love, only to be flung into a different sort of captivity.  After years of numbness and pain, ebbing and flowing until you are simply too exhausted to process, within a day, you’ve felt fear and curiosity and wonder and sympathy and humor.

You’ve felt.

And now a man, a man who fits in your mind strangely, like you haven’t placed him quite right, is promising to take you back to safety.  Back to your placid numbness.

This, then, is why Roman just laughed, bitterly.  “Sounds perfectly miserable.”

The man in black cast a strange glance at him, half-turning back.  “I would think someone like you would be all-too pleased by the concept of a happily ever after.”

“Call me a cynic,” Roman said tersely.

“Cynics are merely thwarted romantics.”

Roman tried not to flinch too visibly at that.

“What?”  The man in black turned a smile on him, sharp and devoid of joy.  “Did I hit a nerve? Has being away from your high and mighty prince hurt you so much?”

“My experiences of love are none of your concern,” Roman snapped, “but if you must know, he’s not the one I ache for.  I had a love, strong and true, who would do anything for me, and I for him.”

“Pretty words without experience are meaningless, highness,” the man in black snapped.  “Do not tell me your trifling experiences of so-called love with some prince who isn’t even the one you bothered to get engaged to if you don’t have the heartbreak and the scars to give weight to anything you say.”

Rage sizzled in Roman’s chest, and he growled, eyes flashing and teeth bared.  “I have loved more deeply than a killer like yourself can ever dream!”

“A killer?”  He laughed, humorlessly.  “Oh, my dear Heir, you’re the one that struck at Peter.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Roman spat.  “I know who you are now. Only one man in the world could be this cruel.  You’re the Dread Pirate Roberts, admit it!”

The pirate flashed a tight-lipped smile, bowing with a flourish  (it was a ten out of ten for dramatic effect, but lost a few points for enthusiasm, or lack thereof). “With pride.  What can I do for you?”

Fury had been building in Roman’s chest this whole time, but at this confirmation, it sizzled over, spewing out along his words like venom.  “I’ll tell you what you can do, sir. You can sit there, smug and happy and cruel. You can wallow in your own arrogance and continue to belittle me.  You can refuse to see beyond your own puffed-up pride until it’s too late. You can rest easy up until the moment I take my knife and slit you, mouth to naval, and laugh when you beg for mercy.”

Roberts blinked, mentally marking himself down as both scared and horny.  “Hardly complementary, your highness. Why lose your venom on me?”

“You killed my love.”

The pirate was frozen for a moment before he shrugged, far too casually.  “It’s possible. I kill a lot of people.” He rolled his shoulders, forcing his eyes away from Roman and off, along the horizon.  “Who was this love of yours? Another Prince like this one – ugly, pampered, rich?”

“No,” Roman snapped, a hand slipping under his sleeve to rub at the broken guitar string.  “A farm boy. Poor. Poor and perfect.”  

Robert’s eyes snapped to him, and Roman found his voice softening, as he looked into endless gray eyes, familiar if not for the shrewdness, the anger brimming within.

“With eyes like the sea after a storm.”

They were standing on top of a steep hill with a ravine, rocky and harsh at the bottom.  Roberts had his back to it.

“Then he died.”  Roman reached behind him and found his knife, tucked safely away in his waistband.  “Because you killed him.”

“Roman,” the man in black said urgently, something shifting behind his eyes, as if he had suddenly realized he had made a grave miscalculation and the very pissed off love of his life (who, let’s say, didn’t know his true identity) had a knife.  “There’s something you need to–”

A horn sounded in the distance, and the man in black’s concentration broke, stormy eyes narrowing as he scanned the horizon for Prince Remy’s hunting caravan.

“You can die too, for all I care,” Roman hissed, and lunged, slashing out with his knife.

The man in black threw himself back with a shout, and his feet slipped beneath him.  Roman couldn’t help a perverse satisfaction at seeing the pirate’s face when he fell and kept falling.

He’d break his neck and die down there, Roman was sure.  He made to turn away, satisfaction purring in his chest, when a voice called up to him, coming from the man in black as he tumbled down that rocky ravine.

“As… you… wish…”

The blood drained from Roman’s face.  (this was after blood and faces.)

“Virgil?”

Chapter Text

“I have been falling,” Virgil yelled, “for a year and two months!”

“Aren’t we all falling?”  A nearby bird, who was sedately following his progress as he tumbled down the hill, said.  “Not like you, of course, but in our own ways.  It all can be so overwhelming, especially now, and it feels like the ground keeps slipping out from beneath us.  This is a strange world, with a creator of dark moods and gray days.  But we continue to exist.  The sun continues to come up every morning, and we continue to live, despite the incredible statistical anomaly that our mere existence poses in a universe of infinite possibility, somehow contained in a mere twenty-six letters.  We continue to fall, to plummet through this dark void, but we’ve found light and a voice in it, even if it takes longer than we could’ve expected.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You have a concussion,” the bird explained.

Dear reader, there are many things a clever protagonist could do right now.  Perhaps our Roman shall fashion a rope of spare vines and safely rappel himself downwards, to care for the potential wounds of his (apparently alive) one true love.  Perhaps he shall use his rather impressive and lovely physique to elegantly scale the ravie’s rocky face and do much the same.  Perhaps he shall call out encouragement to Virgil, so the pirate can safely come back into his arms, and Roman shall not endanger his life in the slightest.

But those are things a clever protagonist would do.

Roman decided to throw himself down the ravine.

Prince Remy, who had, indeed, just crested the nearby hill, blinked in surprise as his fiance threw himself down an extremely steep ravine.  

“What the fuck is that nonsense?”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t know,” The Count, who’s name had recently been revealed to be Janus, said dryly to prince Remy.  “What with you being a brilliant tactician and all.”

(Now, dear reader, it may come as quite a surprise to you to find our dearest Janus, whom this narrator has simped for since his arrival into our humble lives, to be in such a position of evil power next to such a wicked man.  In truth, our Janus was not a terrible person, nor one of even mostly-evil inclinations.  He, quite simply, was very selfish.  This is not a terrible thing in moderation, but when left unchecked, can be quite dangerous.  In this case, our Janus simply was presented with two options: to be good, where he would be a minor character in another’s love story, perhaps a vaguely mentioned pirate, a dashing swordsman, or a miracle worker; or to be a villain, where he would not only get to be a main character, but get to wear a bitchin’ cape.

The choice was obvious.)

“I know my flaws,” Remy said.  “But why the fuck did they yeet themselves down a hill?”

(Now, dear reader, it may not come as a surprise to you to find our Remy, who the narrator enjoys the potential of yet bemoans his widely accepted characteristics, as such a wicked man.  

Fuck that guy.)

“Surely it isn’t because Roman’s trying to get away from you,” The Count drawled.  “Who wouldn’t jump into the arms of the prince who kidnapped them?”

“Yeah, exactly!” 

Janus rolled his eyes.

Roman landed in a painful heap next to Virgil’s crumpled form.

Every muscle in his body ached, and his brain was fuzzy, likely from the near-concussive state he had acquired from throwing himself down a ravine (this was after concussions), but he crawled, inch by painful inch, to Virgil’s side.

“Virgil,” he breathed, and the name was sweet on his tongue.  “Virgil.”

Sea-gray eyes blinked open, and a wry smile settled onto familiar lips.  “Roman.  You sure know how to make a man feel welcome.”

Roman let out a half-crazed laugh and fell into Virgil’s side, burying his face in his shoulder, crying and laughing all at once.

“Can you move at all?”  Virgil asked, softly, brushing curls the color of autumn from Roman’s splendid face.

“Move?”  Roman pulled back and looked at him, eyes shining.  (He was already the most beautiful being in the whole world, as anyone would agree, but even the most harsh of critics would find themselves speechless in the face of the radiance of the love in his eyes.)  “You’re alive.  If you want I could fly.”  

“Good.”  Suddenly, strong hands were pushing Roman away, and Virgil loomed above him, eyes dark.  “Then you can remove yourself from my presence.”

Roman startled.  “What?”

Virgil snorted, averting his gaze from Roman’s splendor and scanning the ground for his lost mask.  “I said you can leave.  I was attempting to whisk you away from your prince and return you for the bounty, but now that you know my identity, I suppose there’s no point.”

“What?”  (This was before broken records, but, somehow, Roman still found himself feeling rather like one.)  “Virgil, what are you talking about, my lov–”

“Don’t.”  Virgil snapped, then took a deep breath, looking away with his hands fisted.  “You don’t get to say that to me.  Not anymore.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roman pleaded.

“No?”  Virgil laughed, a cruel sound.  “Tell me, Roman, when you heard the news did you get engaged to your prince at once, or did you wait a whole week out of respect for the dead?”

Roman sat, stunned, for a moment, before he rose to his feet, face growing scarlet.

“Don’t you dare,” Roman snarled.  “You have no idea what I went though, Virgil.  You don’t know what it’s been like for me.  I died that day.”

“Oh, I’m sure it was miserable,” Virgil hissed, “being waited on hand and foot in the palace, letting adoring peasants fawn all over you as you quietly forgot about that stupid farm boy you lead on once upon a time.  How could I ever be so blind?”

“I mourned for you,” Roman cried, “for four years, I wished every day to see you again.  I was threatened with death into an engagement with an utter brute, and through it all, I thought only of you!”

He threw up his hands, and a glint of silver caught Virgil’s eye.

Roman’s long-sleeved shirt had torn clean off, revealing a guitar string, tied around his wrist.

Virgil swallowed, hard.  “Is that…?”

Roman curled a hand over it, protectively.

“I never forgot you, Virgil,” he said, softly.  “I never stopped loving you.”

Virgil took one trembling step forward, then another, then another, until the heat of Roman was everywhere.

Roman swallowed hard, cupping Virgil’s face in his hands.  “I thought you were dead.”

“Forgive me,” Virgil pleaded, turning his head to kiss Roman’s palm.  “When I saw you being presented to the kingdom, you glowed, and I…”  He swallowed hard.  “The way I feel about you, the way I’ve always felt about you… I couldn’t stand the thought I was in it alone.”

“You’re not,” Roman said, softly.  “Virgil, you were never alone in this.  It’s been us, always.

“I can’t believe how foolish I was, not to see you right away.”  Roman shook his head.  “I shoved you down a fifty foot drop.  How did you not break your neck?!”

“Plot convenience.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

A hunting horn sounded in the distance.

“You can walk, as well, I hope?”  Virgil looked at him expectantly.

“Yes, yes of course,” Roman stammered, hastily.

“Good.”   He kissed him once, quickly, and Roman could’ve combusted from the feeling of it if Virgil didn’t pull back, just as quickly, and flashed him a grin.

“Then I believe that’s our cue to run.”

A brief history lesson, if you will indulge me.

As part of his self-education for those horrible years Roman spent in Prince Remy’s palace, he had read up on the rival kingdom of Occipital.  The shores of the kingdom of Occipital were sparsely populated, largely due to the high concentration of screaming eels in the waters.  It was rather discomforting to be settling into bed for a good night’s sleep, only to hear a six-foot marine creature screeching with disturbingly human-like throats, knowing a feast was soon to be had.

That, however, was only partially why the citizens of Occipital far preferred to remain inland.

It was perfectly reasonable, of course.  It’s incredible how much a giant, deadly swamp with lightning-quick sand, random spurts of flame, and oversized, carnivorous rats depreciates property values.

Now, our Roman was still slightly concussed, rather shell-shocked from throwing himself down a fifty-foot ravine, and still possessing the critical thinking skills of someone who thinks throwing himself down a fifty-foot ravine is the best course of action in any situation, so perhaps he can be forgiven for not realizing he and the apparently-alive love of his life were approaching the infamous Fire Swamp until they were a mere thirty yards away.  (That’s 2.7432 meters for you metric conformists.)

“Well.”  Roman said, stopping dead in his tracks.  “Fuck.”

“Eloquent as always, my love.”  Virgil looked back at him, brow furrowed.  “Is there a good reason you stopped our escape from your tyrannical fiancé, or are you just admiring the scenery?”

“I’m admiring the scenery,” Roman said, “because no one who’s ever seen this scenery has lived to tell the tale.”

“Oh.”  Virgil blinked.  “What?”

“Unless I am extremely mistaken,” Roman said, swallowing hard, “that, before us, is the fire swamp.”

“The fire swamp?”  Virgil echoed.  “As in the fire swamp with fire spurts, lightning sand, Rodents of Unusual Size, and copious amounts of foreshadowing?”

“I don’t think the ROUS’s are real,” Roman said, because he didn’t know how foreshadowing works.  “But yes to the rest of it.”

Virgil was, at this point, a sailor, and he took the opportunity to demonstrate the breadth of vocabulary that it had granted him.

“We can’t go in there.”  Virgil anxiously scanned the walls of the ravine around them, but he wasn’t sure even he could scale such a smooth enclave.

“We don’t have another choice!”  Roman protested.  “I’d rather take my chances in there than with the prince.”

“What part of ‘no one who has ever gone in there has ever survived’ are you missing, Roman?  Did the basic laws of Spanish change while I was gone?”

(This was after Spanish and not quite before English, but it was still called Englyesh at the time and was overall very silly.)

“Virgil.”  Roman grabbed him by the shoulders.  “Virgil, my love, look at me.  From here to that forest you’ve heard of is a very short distance - thirty steps.  It is a very short walk.  Make those thirty steps with me, Virgil, and we’ll find our happy ending just on the other side.”

“The other side of what?”  Virgil snapped.  “The veil?  No one has ever survived the fire swamp, Roman.  No one.  I can’t…”  The fight drained out of him, tears pricking at the edges of his eyes.  “I just got you back, Roman.  I can’t lose you again.”

“You won’t,” Roman vowed.  “Virgil, you’ve done everything in your power to get us together once more.  Now, please, let me keep us that way.”

The hunting horns sounded again, closer.  Prince Remy would be here in seconds.

Virgil’s hand trembled in Roman’s own, but he nodded, and, thirty steps later, they disappeared into the wilds of the fire swamp.

“Well,” Remy said, slowly lowering his tinted shades down his nose as the drop of red and speck of black disappeared into the dark.  “That is interesting.”

“Well,” Roman said, picking his way around a pit of something black noxious, bubbling ominously in the ground.  “It’s not that bad.”

Virgil took a moment to stare at his one true love and wonder if he’d stopped hallucinating since he’d made conversation with a very philosophical bird.

Roman shrugged.  “I’m not saying that I’d want to build a summer home or anything, but the trees are actually quite lovely.”

“I don’t like it,” Virgil said, touching the hilt of his sword once again, just to make sure his weapon hadn’t disappeared since the fifteenth time he’d checked.

Whatever Roman planned on responding to that was cut off by a pop pop popp ing sound.  He sent Virgil a questioning look that was tragically hindered from becoming a fully developed inquiry by the hem of Roman’s pants catching on fire.

He shrieked, falling backwards, and Virgil lunged forward, frantically smothering the flames with the excess fabric of his sleeve.  The fire was extinguished almost as quickly as it began, but their wide-eyed glances weren’t likely to disappear as quickly. 

“Singed a bit, were you?”  Virgil asked, breathing heavily.

“I’m okay.”  Roman tried to swallow his heart down before it beat out of his chest.  “You?”

Virgil wordlessly shook his head, hand smoldering.

(This was before humans developed fire resistance, but then again, you likely are as well.)

“Do we know where we’re going after this?”  Roman asked as they trudged through the thick undergrowth, Virgil using his sword to hack away the most stubborn of the sticky, hanging vines.

“If we get through this,” Virgil muttered darkly, then shook himself when Roman shot him a look.  “My ship should be in the bay.  If we can make it that far… well.  That’s our best shot, at least.”

Roman frowned.  “I thought your ship was still back by The Cliffs of Insanity.”

“That’s my sailing vessel.  I mean my…”  He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck.  “My pirate ship.”

Roman stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Virgil.  “You mean… you’re actually the Dread Pirate Robers?  That’s impossible!  He’s been marauding for twenty years, and you only left me three ago.”

Virgil managed a dry laugh, gently nudging Roman back into walking.  “I would’ve thought it was impossible too.  And, in a way it is.  You see, I actually did get kidnapped by the Dread Pirate Roberts.  He was a terrifying, crude man.  He killed each member of my original crew off one by one, until… he got to me.  And all I could say was ‘please.  Please, I must live’.  I couldn’t cry, couldn’t scream like everyone else, and honestly I think that made it… boring for him.  He liked it when people were scared of him, with his wild eyes and terrible mustache.  But I couldn’t be scared, not when I knew there was no way I could die.  Not when I had to see you again.”

Roman tucked his hand into Virgil’s, squeezing.

“So he said to me, ‘alright, Virgin’ – he kept calling me that, for whatever reason – ‘I’ve never had a wench before.  Rest up, I’ll probably kill you in the morning’.  For two years, he said that to me: ‘good job, Virgin.  Rest up, I’ll probably kill you in the morning’, and then he’d always describe how he’d do it in graphic detail.  It wasn’t that bad, actually.  I was learning to fence, to sail, anything anyone would teach me.

“Roberts and I eventually came to be great friends.  There’s plenty of opportunities for dark humor on a pirate ship, and I made him laugh like no one else.  Then one day it happened.  ‘I am not the Dread Pirate Roberts’, he told me.”  Virgil swept Roman into his arms, balancing deftly along a fallen tree  “‘My name is Remus. I inherited the ship from the last Dread Pirate Roberts, just as you will inherit it from me’.”

“The last Dread Pirate?”  Roman echoed, incredulous.  “How many have there been?”

“I’m the fourth, as far as I can tell.  The real Dread Pirate Roberts has been retired twenty years and is living like a king in Patagonia.  You see, the name is the thing to inspire fear.  No one will surrender to the dread Pirate Virgil.  We went ashore, got an entirely new crew, and established me as the new Roberts. So for the last three years, I’ve been slowly working my way back to you, but all that’s done now that we’re together.  I’ll find someone else to take up the mantle, if that’s what we want.”

He paused, looking around at the rapidly-encroaching darkness as Roman got back on his own feet.  “If we make it out of here, that is.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”  Roman tried weakly.  “The ground opens up and swallows us whole?”

Virgil snorted.  “That, at least, is thoroughly out of the realm of possibility.” He said, just before the ground opened up and swallowed him whole.

The lightning sand, one of the books in Prince Remy’s castle read, is significant for its powdery white sands, distinct from its similar variations of weather sand for being completely dry.  Unlike thunder sand, which drowns its victims, the powdery fine texture of the lightning sand has practically no substance, making it incredibly easy to sink rapidly.  While only a handful of people have survived encounters with the lightning sand, they report a feeling of weightlessness, even as they sunk.  The most common cause of death associated with the lightning sand is suffocation, as the invasive sands push through every available orifice and eventually settle in the lungs, filling it completely.   While uncommon, scientists have reason to believe there are high concentrations of lightning sand wells within the Fire Swamp, on the far Eastern side of the kingdom of Occipital, although the lack of surviving scientists escaping from this area prevents that statistic from being confirmed. 

Well, Roman thought, a bit hysterically as he took his knife and slashed a nearby vine, taking a deep breath.  Always nice to know something others don’t. 

Gripping the vine tightly, he stepped forward, and fell.

It was almost nice, being weightless. 

The fine flakes of lightning sand pressed against Virgil’s eyelids, filling his ears, trying to slip through the gaps between the fingers of the hand he’d clamped over his mouth as soon as he realized what was happening.  

It was soft.  Warm.

He’d die like this, and it wouldn’t hurt at all.

The only way he could tell he was falling was the oh-so-softly increasing pressure above him, as the lightning sand compounded on itself and grew heavier and heavier in the tiniest increments, like someone had decided to see how many feathers they could stack on top of him before his bones shattered.

(This was after the infamous ostrich feather information extraction technique, operated as described above, but soon discontinued when ostriches got together and decided that hey, they kinda wanted to keep their feathers, thank you very much.  How would you like it if we put your gross, featherless hair on each other?)

Spread out,   Virgil thought.  Fall slower.

There was no doubt in his mind that Roman had dived in after him.  Virgil’s only hope was that his love had remembered to grab some rope before surrendering to his heroic instincts.

A hand touched Virgil’s own, which would’ve been a marvelous sign, if it wasn’t reaching up from below him and generally missing everything that made up a hand but the bone.

He jerked away, which would’ve greatly offended the skeleton, had they been alive to feel it.  (As it was, they were very much not alive, which saved Virgil a great deal of anxious apologizing and fretting over his rudeness, all of which would’ve simply hastened the lightning sand’s entry into his lungs.)

And so Virgil fell.

Weightless.

Until a familiar arm wrapped around his waist.  A thick vine pressed into his hand, and Virgil pulled, hand over hand with Roman as his lungs burned and the lightning sand protested their movement, pressing pressing pressing against his lips, his nose.

Virgil didn’t notice the pressure falling away (much like the human armies fell away in the aftermath of the great human-ostrich war) until his face breached the lightning sand’s surface.

Gasping and coughing, spitting paste – Virgil and Roman collapsed on solid ground.

“We’re never going to make it,” Virgil said, as soon as he could breathe, chest heaving as tears made tracks through his fine coating of sand.  “We might as well die right here.”

“Virgil, love.”  Roman’s powdery hand cupped his face, those brown eyes looking into his own.  “Don’t you see?  We’ve already made it.”

Slowly, he assembled himself into a position that was more or less standing upright, if you squinted and likely had a number of concussions.  (Luckily, Virgil fulfilled both these conditions.)

“What are the dangers of the fire swamp, hm?”  He helped Virgil to his feet, and they leaned against each other, before slowly but surely starting forward once more.  “The flame spurts.  Well, there’s a popping sound before each one, so we can avoid those alright.”

As if to prove his point, he took Virgil by the waist and neatly spun him out of the way of a get of white-hot fire.

“The lightning sand,” Roman continued, unperturbed.  “Well, thanks to your… clever discovery, we can avoid that well enough.”

“But Roman.”  Virgil turned him, the lines of his face drawn tight with worry.  “What about the ROUS’s?”

“Rodents Of Unusual Size?”  Roman almost managed a laugh.  “I don’t think they exist.”

He likely would’ve gone on with his belief, quite happily, for the rest of his life, if one hadn’t decided to leap out and try to eat Virgil.

“Why does this always happen to me?”   Virgil howled, wrestling with the beast.  It was a huge, rat-like thing nearly Virgil’s size – covered in matted fur and scars, with half of an ear missing and long, yellow teeth.

(Now, dear reader, in defense of the ROUS: I don’t think you’d quite take well to two hamburgers coming into your home and cutting things up, being loud, ruining your interior decor, and generally making a muck of things, especially if you were so terribly hungry.)

Roman threw himself against the creature, trying to knock it off of Virgil, but he bounced off of it like a fly that was weirdly beautiful by human standards, and would probably have several thirst accounts dedicated to it if this was after twitter.  

Virgil’s arms gave out, and the ROUS lunged, sinking its long, sharp teeth into Virgil’s shoulder.  He screamed –

(“What the fuck was that?”  Outside the forest, Prince Remy looked up from arranging his selection of identical tinted spectacles.

The Count didn’t bother looking up from his book, turning a page.  “Survival of the fittest, dear.”)

– and Roman swung a nearby tree branch, long and heavy as a bat, at the thing’s head.   It hissed, dislodging itself as a familiar pop pop popping filled the air.  Virgil tucked in his elbows and threw himself to the side, rolling himself and the ROUS over and over, until a white-hot burst of flame lept into the air, and the beast roared.

Virgil wrenched himself away, rolling to his feet.  Finally able to reach the sword strapped to his waist, he plunged it into the smoldering beast – once, twice, three times, until it fell still.

There was a moment of silence as it bled out, Virgil standing above it – covered in blood and soot and powder-fine sand.

“Well.”  Roman said, swallowing hard.  “I think it’s just about time to make camp.”

The sun had long-since set when they found a space that Virgil deemed safe enough.  They were near the edge of the fire swamp, and near delirious with exhaustion.  (Roman had spent the last ten minutes arguing they should ask a tree for directions with Virgil promptly responding that it was ridiculous.  How could a tree give directions if it never went anywhere?)

Roman ripped off his remaining sleeve, wrapped it around a branch, and lit it on a nearby flame spurt.

“What do you know.”  Virgil said with a weary sort of smile.  “You’re practically a local.”

“Calling me a giant rat, Fall Out Farm Boy?”  Roman arched a haughty eyebrow at him, but Virgil could see the exhaustion in the set of his shoulders.  “And to think I was even considering kissing you.”

“Well, let’s not be too hasty,” Virgil protested as Roman lit their rudimentary fire.  “Maybe I was comparing you to the lightning sand.”

“Powdery and suffocating?”  Roman said, dryly.  “Be still my beating heart.”

“Maybe” – Virgil tilted his head, doing his best to look rakish – “you just take my breath away.”

Roman couldn’t help his smile, even as he pretended to consider it, tapping his chin.  “Hm… no.  No way you’ve gotten that smooth in the past three years.  I know you better than that, my stormy night in shining armor.”

“Damn,” Virgil sighed, leaning closer as Roman settled next to him on the mossy ground.  “I guess you do.”

He reached for Roman, but the movement twinged something in his shoulder, and he flinched minutely.

The smile slipped from Roman’s face; he leaned forward, checking Virgil’s makeshift bandage.  “Do you need me to look at it again?”

He shook his head.  “We’ll be fine as soon as we get to my ship.”

“Why, Virgil.”  Roman smiled, carefully tucking himself to Virgil’s uninjured side.  “That was nearly optimistic.”

Virgil huffed out a laugh.  “Let’s blame the bloodloss.”

“Just thirty feet to a happy ending, remember?”  Roman said, softly.  “We’ll get there, one way or another.”

The fire had died down to embers by the time the question that had been ruminating in Virgil’s head ever since Roman had described his kidnapping finally found the words to express itself.

“Why didn't you fight them off?”  Virgil said, softly enough that Roman could pretend he was asleep.  It was quiet there, as they laid side by side at the edge of the fire swamp – strange and unusual eyes glimmering at the corners of their vision and strange and unusual stars glimmering above them.

“What do you mean?”  Roman said, just as lowly.  Virgil might have believed his implied innocence, if not for the way his hand tightened, just slightly, in Virgil's own.

“I've seen you fight, Roman.”  Virgil turned on his side, staring at the love of his life.  He was barely more than a silver silhouette in the darkness, but Virgil could see the way his throat bobbed, eyes blinked, teeth worried at his lip.  “You've slain dragons.  You go off on impossible quests.  You were on horseback.  You could have fought off three men easily.”

Roman stared up at the sky – mostly void, partially star.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Roman,” Virgil said, softly – not a reproach, not an inquiry, just his name, as sure as it ever was from Virgil’s lips.

Roman breathed out, slowly.  “They could do two things to me - kidnap me or… or kill me.  I thought that if they kidnapped me, I'd finally escape that prince and that castle.  And if they…”

Roman's voice broke.  He closed his eyes, tightened his grip on Virgil's hand.  “All I could think was that if they didn't, I'd get to see you again.”

“Roman…” Virgil's lips parted.  “I…”  But that was all he could say.  That was all he could find the words for.  “Roman,” he repeated, reaching out and cupping his jaw.  “My love, look at me.”

Roman shook his head, jaw clenched and eyes shut tight.

“Roman,” Virgil said again.  “Look at me, Roman.”

Finally, Roman did.  His eyes were glassy with unshed tears; his skin was blotchy and red with emotion.  He was streaked with dirt and blood; he was trembling and tired and scared.  A carefully selected panel of highly qualified judges could seriously debate his position as the world's most beautiful person.

(Second place, a woman from a place that would later be called Hawaii had recently taking to braiding her hair in quite a fetching way, after all.)

Virgil had never loved him more.

“I'm here,” Virgil said, cupping Roman's cheek and pressing their foreheads together.  “No matter what has happened, no matter what we went through, we're both here, right now.  I have you, and you have me, and we're going to protect each other, alright?”

“I thought you were dead,” Roman burst out, shaking as three years of agony, of loss and pain washed over him.  “For three years, I mourned you.  And I would've mourned you every day for the rest of my life.”

“You won't,” Virgil vowed, holding him even more fiercely.  “Listen to me, Roman: death cannot stop true love.  All it can do is delay it for a while.”

“You're here,” Roman repeated, slowly, as if getting a taste for the words in his mouth.

Virgil pressed his hand to the curve of Roman’s cheek.  “I'm here.”

“The show me.”  Roman said, and didn't wait for Virgil to be confused before surging into him fiercely, pressing closer and closer and closer until he could feel Virgil's heartbeat pressed against his skin.  “Show me,” he demanded between increasingly fevered kisses.

Virgil slid his fingers under the waistband of Roman's trousers and broke away with a grin.  “As you wish.”

Virgil woke up to a sword pressed into the soft flesh of his throat.

A tall, lean prince, eyes covered by tinted spectacles stood on the other end.

“Surrender.”

“You mean you wish to surrender to me?”  Virgil flexed his arm, on which Roman’s head of auburn curls rested.  Roman’s breath paused just a moment too long between inhale and exhale – he was awake.

“Very well,” Virgil continued, “I accept.”

Prince Remy scoffed.  “Brownie points for having balls, but don’t be stupid, babe.  This isn’t going to go down how you think it is.”

“Funny,” Virgil said and almost smiled.  “I was going to say the same thing to you.”

Roman was on his feet within the blink of an eye, the sword laying in Virgil’s discarded clothes kicked into his hand in the next.

“There you are, hun.”  Remy didn’t bother to look at him, sword unflinchingly held to Virgil’s neck.  “I hope you had a nice little trip, but it’s time to come back home.  The wedding’s almost here, remember?”

Roman’s fingers flexed around the sword’s hilt.  “I couldn’t forget if I tried.”

The Count, who had been standing behind The Prince, twin daggers in each of his hands, flashed his oily smile at Roman.

“A pleasure to see you again, dear Heir.  Now, I’m sure we don’t need any… unpleasantness?  We’d hate to mar that pretty face, so soon before your big day.”

“Good thing you won’t get the chance,” Virgil said, and neatly swept Remy’s feet out from beneath him.

The Prince hit the ground hard as Virgil rolled to stand, snatching up Roman’s discarded dagger.

“Couldn’t even wait for us to get out of our underwear?”  Roman twirled, deftly dodging Janus’ twin knives.

“He’s not one to deprive himself of eye candy,” Janus said, dryly, as he lunged for Roman.

“Why’s he hanging out with you then?”  Virgil snapped, neatly parrying the blow.

(This was before aloe Vera, but Janus found he very much wanted some.)

Remy recovered, staggering to his feet and slashing back into the fray.  

“Alright,” the Count muttered, almost to himself.  “Enough of this.”

From the corner of his vision, Roman saw a man in a purple tunic step out from behind a tree, then another, then several more – all with crossbows.

The Count raised a hand, and they aimed their bolts for Virgil, obliviously struggling with the Prince.

“Promise not to hurt him!”

The words ripped themselves from Roman’s throat, hoarse and scared in a way he couldn’t remember ever feeling.

The Count held up a finger, and the archers paused, along with the two fighters.

“What was that?”  Remy said with interest, lowering his glasses to look at him.

“What was that?”   Virgil demanded, with the same tone of voice you’d use, if you saw an otherwise unassuming person on the street unhinge their jaw and take a bite out of the concrete pavement.

Roman swallowed hard, feeling the eyes of all those archers on him.  “If I go back with you, will you promise to release this man?”

“Oh, honey,” Remy cooed.  “I knew you missed me.”

Roman grit his jaw.  “I need an answer.”

The Prince rolled his eyes behind those tinted sunglasses before sweeping into a bow before the Heir.  “May I live a thousand years, and never hunt again.”

“He’s a sailor aboard the ship Revenge.”   Virgil’s sea-gray eyes were on him, scared and incredulous, but Roman refused to meet his gaze, digging his nails into the meat of his palm.  “Promise me you’ll return him there, safely.”

“I swear.”  Remy’s smile was sharp.  “It will be done.”

“Roman,” Virgil hissed, twisting away from the Prince.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“Look around, love,” Roman said, softly, and watched the widening of those sea-gray eyes as he saw the legion of archers, bolts still aimed for his heart.  “We weren’t making it out of this one.”

“You can’t know that,” but it was a futile protest.

“I lost you once, and it almost killed me.”  Roman blinked back the fog growing in his eyes and tucked a purple curl behind Virgil’s ear.  He tried for a smile.  “I’m not going to lose you again.”

“Roman, please.”  Virgil grasped onto Roman’s hand, eyes wide and pleading.  “Roman, don’t do this.”

“I’m sorr-”

Prince Remy galloped past on a white horse, grabbed Roman by the back of the shirt, and swung him into the saddle without breaking stride.  Within moments, he was gone.

“Come now,” a silky, oily voice purred.  Virgil looked up to see The Count, leering down at him.  “We must get you to your ship, sir.”

“You’re a terrible liar, snake face.”  Virgil looked up at him, then started laughing.

“What?”  Deceit snapped, tapping the hilt of his sword impatiently.

“You’ve got a scar across the left side of your face.”  His lips twisted into a smirk.  “I know someone who’s looking for you.”

Virgil was still laughing up until the moment Janus knocked him out.

Chapter Text

“Welcome,” Prince Remy said, rather pleasantly, as the blindfold was ripped from Virgil's face and the back of his head slammed into the thick stone slab he was chained to.  “To the Zoo of Death™.”

Virgil squinted blearily up at him, nursing what just might have been the beginning of a concussion.  “How the fuck did you make that sound with your mouth?”

Well, he tried to say “how the fuck did you make that sound with your mouth?” but his own mouth was very busy trying to emulate its long time icon, the Sahara desert, and nibble on this delicious burlap sack that had been stuffed into it, so it came out more like “hmuchfucisoudnmaotuohf.”

“Don’t try to talk too hard,” Remy said, clicking his tongue.  “You’ve been out for like three years.”

“Whajief!?  Wjhyuhjawhdnjkejrehg?”

Remy, who, as a prince, had been educated in Spanish, French, Vulcan, and mumble, responded: “Well, I mean, the plot couldn’t progress until you woke up.”

“Hjmadf.”

“Thank you, I find myself incredibly handsome as well,” Remy, who had spent the majority of his time daydreaming during his language lessons, said.  “Well, I’ll leave you three to it!”

Virgil blinked, trying to lift his head only to drop it back down immediately when shoulder hissed in pain where the ROUS had sunk its disgusting teeth into his flesh.  “Tjher?”

“Three,” Janus, who had not daydreamed though his language lessons, confirmed, slithering out of the shadows with a bowl of something strange and pungent in one hand.  “I believe you know [girl (gn) i have no idea where i planned this sentence to end tf]?”

• anyway, virgil is told he's going to be abandoned on the last floor of the zoo of death (TM) to fight for his life against some cool monster, with remy planning on coming in later to hunt whichever thing survives 
• and now they're discussing how Remy planned roman's kidnapping so they could go to war with the country across the sea
• yes this is just a good omens reference teehee

“We needed to start a war.”  Remy shrugged.  “So, ya know, we could… have a war.”

“Can’t have a war without war,” The Count drawled sarcastically.

Remy turned to him, eyes huge.  “Ohmygosh, I love that.”

Deceit blinked as Remy beamed in delight.  “You can’t have a war without war!”  He punched Deceit’s shoulder.   “Clever.”

Remy swept out of the room, yelling over his shoulder.  “I’m going to get pants with that stitched on the ass!”

Virgil leveled Deceit with a flat look.  He sighed.

“I don’t like working for him either, but for some reason, this is the second fanfiction She’s written where I’m heavily implied to have feelings for him with no apparent basis.”  Janus shrugged.  “I’m just in it for the bitchin’ cape.”

“What’s fanfiction?”

Janus swished out of the room, heels clicking menacingly on the rough-hewn cobblestones, and, extremely reluctantly, Virgil had to admit his cape was incredibly bitchin’.

• roman is incredibly depressed after losing virgil again, as you can imagine, and has been doing nothing but sulking around the castle 
• he's still hot though don't worry 

Remy spotted him and drifted over like a rain cloud enjoying a ride on a gentle zephyr towards someone who had forgotten their umbrella.

“And how is my darling fiancé doing today?”

“Wishing for death more with every passing moment.”

“That's the spirit!”  Remy, who wasn't listening to a word Roman said, continued.  “The fitting for your wedding dress is at six, and the rehearsal dinner is at eight.  Does shrimp sound okay?”

“Delicious,” said Roman, who was fatally allergic.

“No, you’re right,” Remy said, pinching the perfect brown arch of his cheek.  “Red meat it is!  We need a meal a highly skilled vet could bring back.”

• meanwhile!! patton has found peter's dead body and is trying to find logan after they've both been defeated by virgil 
• he finds him incredibly drunk in a local tavern in the kingdom, 

Logan snorted.  “How drunk can one person be?”  He turned and promptly walked through a closed glass door. 

• patton nurses him back to sobriety and convinces him that they need to find Virgil 
• patton regrets how they dealt with roman and wants to rescue him, with virgil as necessary extra brains and muscle to their team 
  • also their boss is dead what else are they gonna do you know 
• logan goes off on a rant about how patton can't be right about roman and virgil being 'true loves' because it isn't real 

Patton thought, unbidden, back on a history of humanity trying to perfect the human form, and decided that no one made the hands as well as Estrella Montoya. 

“I’m not a man of fantasy, Patton.  Not like Roman and his farmhand.  I don’t believe in happy endings or justice or riding off into the sunset with your one true love.”  He touched the edge of his scar gently.  “I know that’s not the way the world works.  I hate all the old fairy tales, illogical and inane as they are.

• goes on like this for a while, very touching, pretend whatever i wrote is making you weep gently 

“I… I suppose what I’m saying is that… I never cared for stories until you entered mine.”

He felt gutted when he finished, exposed. Like he just handed over the secret to Logan Montoya, the fully labelled dissection of every hope and regret he’s ever had—like Patton could look through him and see every wound he’d ever hidden, open, bleeding chest and all.

Yet Patton just looked at him with something close to fondness, and that ruined him like no rejection ever could.  

“Logan,” he said softly, then paused, smiled, and said it again, just to savor the way it felt rolling off his tongue.  “Logan.”

“Yes, Patton?”

“I love you,” he said simply, and those three little words unmade Logan entirely.  “I love you so much, Logan.”

• they hear virgil's screams because he's being tortured
• oh yea he's being tortured btw. in case you care
• go to the place where they heard the screaming coming from, but can't find him anywhere; it's just an empty field

“Patton, I…”  Logan swallowed, squeezed the hand in his, and released it.  “I think I have an idea.”

Somehow, Patton knew to be silent as Logan drew his sword, reverently gazing at it as the silver metal glistened in the early afternoon light.  He knelt into the dirt, a strange, wary bubble swelling tickling against his chest.  “Mom,” he said softly, bowing his head, “I know you aren’t… Science and reason say that you’re gone.  The laws of logic dictate that I am talking to nothing more than empty air.  The facts know that you are dead.”  The tip of the sword dipped and trembled in his shaking hand, writing unknowable words against the sky.  “I can’t, however, deny that there is… something within me, however, that insists, irrationally, illogically that you’re still there somewhere.  Something in my heart wants to see you everywhere.

“I avowed against wishes and dreams long ago, but” - he risked a side glance at Patton, only to see him looking back with soft, wet eyes - “recent events have led me to believe that… happy endings may not be a logical fallacy after all.”  He rose slowly, eyes shut.  “So, Mom, if you’re there, please, I need you.”  The tip of his sword warbled, and he followed it with slow, dream-like steps.  “I need you to guide my sword.”

This is a work of pure fiction.

However, in a world in which an infinite number of universes exist, this story is bound to be true in at least one of them, and if this story is true in one world, it is true in all of them.

So maybe it's not as fictional as we think.

Maybe Estella was right.

Maybe magic is real.

A thunk.

Logan opened his eyes to see his sword had banged against an old, gnarled tree.  Of course.  With a sigh, he slumped against it.  It clicked.

That, of course, is when the Super Secret™ door to the Zoo of Death opened.

“Logan?!”  Patton rushed to the entrance, peering down into the murky darkness.  “Are you okay?  Or are you just falling for me?”

Logan sat up on the first landing and rubbing at his banged head, shot his love a glare.  “Not the time, Patton.”

“I promise I will knot make another one.”

“I chose not to analyze that sentence for my mental health.”

• yay!!! they find virgil!!!!
• but he's dead
  • not yay.
• but logan knows a miracle worker!!! yay!!!
• the miracle worker (joan cameo) brings virgil back!! yay!!!
• but he can't move super well and is incredibly weak 
  • not yay.
• but virgil finds out roman is supposed to marry remy that night which is WACK and of course insists they go ahead with the rescue mission
• also he tells logan that the person who killed his mom is Janus
  • rip janus i love you im sorry i make you a villain all the time, you're just so iconic 
• roman is also having a terrible time. btw.
• he looks super slay in his wedding dress though 
• anyway, virgil, patton, and logan get into the castle by setting a cloak patton is wearing on fire and convincing all the guards that he's the dread pirate roberts or whatever i decided his name was earlier 
• meanwhile, remy rushes through the wedding ceremony and blurts out "I DO" and disbands the whole thing before anyone can break in
• once the castle is breached, patton and logan go to find janus while virgil sneaks into roman's room
  • virgil STILL is barely able to move. poor dude was dead like two hours ago 
  • but he finds roman :D and they reunite :D and roman is like >:( why didn't you stop the wedding and virgil is like "i mean did you even say 'i do'? you're not married babe'

Roman liked bickering, liked the clash of lightning wit.  He liked the flush of exertion on Virgil's cheeks and the way neither of them could stop smiling, even when they tried to scowl.

• logan confronts janus and there's an epic sword fight, during which he inflicts every wound janus has given him in reverse order 

Logan leaned forward, staring at his bleeding face.  “I want my mother back, you son of a bitch.”

• and he kills janus :D lmao rip to my snusband you were so cool 
  
  
• meanwhile, remy has run into the bedroom where virgil and roman are reuniting 
• virgil bluffs him into submission, and roman and virgil tie him to a chair, telling him that he'll have to live forever with his shame, without the escape of death 

“Well, at least I have all my teeth,” Roman snapped.

Remy frowned.  “This is before dentists. No one has all their-”

Roman punched him square in the jaw.

Remy gasped, sputtering, and spit.  Roman smiled as blood and a tooth splattered on the floor.

“Roman!”  Virgil gasped, horrified; Remy looked up at him, hopeful.

Virgil took Roman's hand tenderly, clucking over the bruises that were sure to form.  “Darling, you could have hurt yourself.”  He pressed a soft kiss to the reddened knuckles.

Remy groaned in pain and in despair, letting his head fall back. 

“You'll just have to be twice as handy as normal then,” Roman hummed, blinking innocently.  “You know, since one of mine is out of commission.”

Virgil wrapped his arms around Roman's waist, grinning as he pressed their foreheads together.  “I think that can be arranged.”

• they all have to make their dramatic escape, but luckily patton found four white horses for them to run away on
  
  
• jump out of the window in turn, roman last 

“Just one step, Roman!”  Virgil called up towards him, shining under the moonlight.  “Come right now.  Come just as you are.  Take that one step towards me, and we’ll find our happy ending just on the other side.”

Roman clutched the edge of the window for one moment more, then let go, warbling slightly on the edge.  His pulse roared in his ears, but there was no question as to what he would do.  He managed a smile, down at Virgil.  “As you wish.”

And he fell.

• Emile ends up conquering Parietal; they pass each other on the way 
  • Roman compliments their sweater vest, and Emile compliments him on the bloodlust in his eyes <3
• The four sides run away and become pirates together on The Revenge or whatever I decided the pirate ship in this fic is called (im not rereading all that)
  • also i decided that remus was the pirate that virgil inherited the ship from?? don't remember if I put that in yet 
• Anyway they all become pirates and it's great <3 the end