Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The wind blows in a silent yet noticeable manner over the acres of already blanketed land that stretch out before him when he steps carefully past the towering iron gates, further down the hastily paved cobblestone path. This means that when the snow falls, it is at an angle, pelting down towards him from the right. He extends an arm towards the sleeping city, its residents quietly dozing in their respective houses, and allows the drifting flakes to singe his arm with the gentle bite of mother earth. 

The wind whoosh es in his ears, creating a ringing sensation that he’s well accustomed to. It’s only when he looks down that he realizes: he is not wearing shoes. He is not wearing a coat, nor his belt with the long scabbard attached, nor any of his perfectly polished armor. He does not wear the heavy golden crown atop his head, and he does not wear a tunic fit for the gods, tailored and cut for his exact shape down to the millimeter.

He wears loose-fitting pajamas. Baby blue and silky; a hot commodity. He doesn’t own anything like this, he’s sure of it. He’d know if this set of clothes was sitting in his chest of drawers. He’d know, because he’d be using them. 

Carefully, he turns his face back up to the grey sky, drinking in the clouds that douse him in wintry whispers. It’s easy to get lost in the wide, yawning expanse of air that is exposed to the world. The sky has not fully descended into darkness yet, but it will soon. He does not know why the kingdom is asleep so early— just knows that it is. Knows that it’s right. 

He takes a step forward, playing with the idea of a journey. Before he can get any further, a warped voice calls for him, a name that is long forgotten and buried in the dirt from whence he came. It is not one to call his own anymore. With a pause, the little prince slowly turns, squinting in the ferocity of the snowstorm that has gradually increased in intensity.

It is not his own King that he sees when he finally opens his eyes wide enough to look. The face is blurry, distorted, cracking and splintering and frowning— but it is not one he recognizes, he is sure of that— he thinks— there is no way—

“Theseus,” it says again, and with a gasp of fresh air,

a sharp breath tainted with frost, 

he awakes. 

“Tommy?” 

That is a voice he recognizes, finally. When he sits up quickly, gathering his bearings and coming to his senses, he finds the two-toned butler towering in his doorway, watching on worriedly from his position leant against the wall. Tommy quirks an eyebrow, and in reply, his personal servant (or, as he likes to put it, his royally assigned confidant) clears his throat. 

“You slept… fitfully, at best,” says Ranboo. Tommy only shrugs in response, pulling himself up to sit straighter and throwing an irritated yet nonchalant look towards the doorway as he inspects his sleeves.

“Am I being judged on that, too?”

Ranboo hesitates, shifting his towel to his other arm. “Well, no, but—”

“Then it doesn’t matter.” With a grin, Tommy finally turns to Ranboo in full, growing tired of comparing himself to whatever jarring dream he had. It is gone now, no matter what it was, and Tommy makes no effort to grasp at its fleeting figure as it disappears into the corners of his mind, tucked away forever. “Dad says today is meant to be an important day. We’re meant to lay low. It’ll be a good day, if we can make it— would you hand me that hairbrush?— and I don’t want to spend it sulking. Deal?”

Ranboo steps forward, brush already in hand, and leans toward him. Obediently, Tommy shifts around to let Ranboo brush his hair out for him. Tommy learned long ago not to fight back when Ranboo wants to take care of him, at least on the more tolerable occasions. Compared to his own stunning lack of self-sustainability, they work well together.

“Let’s just not get into trouble today,” his best (and only) friend sighs, and Tommy chuckles, reaching backwards and tapping on his wrist.

“Trouble? That’s my specialty.”

He sits still only long enough for Ranboo to just barely finish. When he finally swivels around, his friend’s face flickers for a moment into an unrecognizable shape— Theseus— and then things fall back into place, frustratingly (and unsettlingly) quickly.

“Right,” says Ranboo, good-naturedly, and it embeds itself into his brain. Right. He hasn’t been called Theseus for… as long as he can remember. The name comes to him in his dreams on occasion, and haunts him with each confident step he takes, but Tommy will always be Thomas Innes Tancran, named after a distant uncle (revered in battle) and his father’s own last name. 

He is no Theseus. He does not know a Theseus, a boy with hair so gold it shone and a biting smile blindingly bright enough to fool the gods. No, Tommy wouldn’t know where Theseus came from, and he wouldn’t know where along the line it disappeared. Over all else, Tommy aches for it to stop clinging to him with every breath. 

And that it does. Tommy leans forward, banishing all thoughts of a name that does not belong to him, and lifts himself onto his two feet, stretching his arms high above his head. Respectfully, he nudges Ranboo back until his butler agrees, stepping back reluctantly towards the doorway. “I’m fuckin’ starving,” Tommy says, yawning and ignoring the way that Ranboo’s brow creases upon the crude language. “Anything good for breakfast?”

“Porridge,” Ranboo supplies with an apologetic smile, and Tommy scoffs.

“Never mind that; just lost my appetite.” He pauses for a moment, taking large, sweeping steps over to his wardrobe. “Care for a joyride, Ranboo?”

There’s a lull in the air as Tommy’s hand ghosts along dozens of expensive fabrics, finally landing on a white blouse accented with red that he’s sure he won’t make a mess of at the stables. “I’m— not sure I understand,” says Ranboo, and Tommy swivels around with the shirt, hair falling into his eyes as his lips curl into a grin borne of mischief.

“First order of business: get out so I can change. Then I’ll show you the ropes.”

—

As it turns out, Ranboo is absolute horse shit at learning the ropes.

“Just tug on the reins!” Tommy calls over to him, and Ranboo grimaces, gloved hands fumbling with the leather that is attached to the bridle.

“I don’t— I can’t hurt him—”

“Absolute pussy,” Tommy deadpans, maneuvering his own horse towards Ranboo’s in a haughty prance. Henry has been with him for years now; Tommy’s certain that, when Ranboo doesn’t understand something, Henry’s the only one who will, despite his crushing inability to, well, speak. “It’s just a horse, Ranboo. You can’t possibly be scared of a horse.”

Ranboo glances up, a controlled fire burning in his eyes. “I just don’t want to hurt him,” he repeats, with some bite, and then his expression softens. “Sorry—”

“Stop apologizing for everything. Twat,” Tommy spits, and then laughs, nodding for him to follow. “Come on. Let’s at least get further than the stable. Surely you can manage that?”

It’s a brilliant summer day. Tommy turns his face to the sun, inhaling slowly as its light beats down on the both of them. He wouldn’t miss this for the world. Of course, the silks and shit are excessive; luckily, Tommy’s coerced his butler into allowing him to discard a lot of the most expensive stuff. Tommy’s never been one for the theatrics, or the power plays, or the clear displays of wealth— and that’s not going to change anytime soon. 

“Whoa,” he murmurs, threading his fingers carefully through Henry’s mane as he guides him into a brisk trot, out of the stable and out into the rolling hills of the fields. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, bud.” He throws a glance over his shoulder, squinting thanks to the sun, and Ranboo is staring down at his own horse, fumbling with the reins. 

“Catch up!” he calls back loudly, and Ranboo jumps practically out of his skin, leaving Tommy to laugh loudly. Ranboo, ever the mediator, offers a sheepish grin rather than a sharp rebuttal, and then Henry whinnies, frustrated with the pace they’re crawling along at. “Fine, fine—” Tommy leans closer to his friend’s neck— “off we go, then.” He hooks a foot in the stirrups and gives Henry’s flank a gentle kick, and then— then—

They’re off. The wind greets him with a sharp feeling in his cheeks, an old friend paired with the blazing ball of gas in the sky and the sweet scent of the colorful flowers smattered throughout the fields in their wake. Tommy leans forward as Henry picks up speed, drawing in a deep, triumphant breath and then allowing a whooping call to come pouring off of his lips. He hears Ranboo call for him, from way behind him, but Tommy can’t stop now; the forest is closing in, and soon, his butler’s cries fade into the background, like everything else besides the rushing wind in his ears.

Henry and Tommy crash past the barrier of brush and briars, leaping over a long line of nettle bushes to reach the dark forest behind them. Careening onward at a dangerous speed, Tommy leans close to his horse so as not to go tumbling off (and to avoid the lower-hanging branches that drag thin lines in his cheeks when he sits up straight). He yelps again, a mostly-exhilarated but mildly-terrified sort of thing, and Henry brays delightedly, keeping them on at a pace that may not turn out to be so good for his health.

When they crash past the next hill, light filtering in from the gaps in the canopies above, Henry pauses and squeals and starts to stumble, and time slows as Tommy’s eyes widen.

He’s going to fly off.

“No, no, no,” he mutters as Henry’s hooves scramble for a foothold. He’s never like this— between fumbling with the reins and squeezing his legs together to try and keep himself on his horse, Tommy attempts to figure out what’s got Henry so worked up. They know each other too well for novice mistakes such as this— Henry hasn’t done anything like this before, and Tommy’s itching to figure out why before he’s flung off. 

But he’s too late. Henry skids to a complete stop, lowering his head, and all Tommy catches sight of while he soars is a gut-wrenching vision of bright white—

When he hits the ground, he rolls. It sends a sharp jolt through his shoulder, and he coughs out a groan, slowing to a stop. He lays there for a second, though, trying to catch his breath, and it’s unnatural. Tommy forces his eyes open, even if for just a second, and realizes that the ground is covered in… white.

He fights to sit up, sluggish eyes widening, and the beckoning pull of frost does not let him. 

His eyes beg to close again, the ground seeming to pull him under as he rests among the snowy flowers. It’s an odd turn of events. He can’t have hit his head hard enough to concuss, right? Then— why is he seeing things? 

Tommy shivers, yet sinks into the frost like it’s the home he’s been missing all his life. Ranboo is still waiting for him by the stables, right? Surely, the damage is surface-level— maybe a hairline fracture, at most— he can get up. He needs to get up. He needs to get back to Ranboo, right— Tommy grumbles and rolls over, pushing at the ground, and then—

He inhales deeply, and the sharp scent of winter invades, and he settles onto his side, finds himself lulled into complacency once again. The sun hangs high overhead just close enough, from where he lays under the trees, to keep him comfortable, despite the goosebumps raising across his skin. The frigid dirt becomes his best friend. The flowers, he thinks, are so nice, and he is lost to the floating yet sinking feeling, the sky spinning around and around above him. Tommy sighs contentedly and lays, and lays, and lays, burrowing himself further between crisp, icy white petals.

Icy white petals. 

Something latches around Tommy’s wrist, yanking him forward and up and by the gods, his eyes fly wide open and he breathes clean air again. “Fuck!” is his first eloquent exclamation, followed by a cry of outrage once he finds his wrist still enclosed in a hand that does not belong to anybody he knows.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. He stepped a little too far into the woods and now he’s going to be kidnapped. 

Disoriented and nauseous, Tommy scrambles away from whatever shadowy figure just dragged him out of the Flower Patch from Hell. “Who the fuck—?” he begins, but his eyes crawl up from the cloak to the heavy satchel of gold to the sword to the skull mask, and he swallows his question, suddenly hyper-aware of his surroundings. Henry nickers from somewhere far off in the forest, and somebody’s loud cries are echoing in the clearing past the treeline. 

Must be Ranboo. Tommy inches backward, heart in his throat, and the figure is silent. Running is a suicide mission; standing still is a death sentence.

“Are you going to kidnap me?” Tommy finally blurts, hand jumping pathetically to the scabbard at his waist. “Because you’re— you’re doing a shitty job of it, you know.”

“Kidnap you?” the person asks incredulously, its arms rising to cross over against its chest. “Laughable. I just dredged you from the pits of the Glacies, runt. You should be thanking me.”

Tommy hones in on the person’s worn mask, eyes tracing the tusks that split off from it. “What’s—” He shakes his head, finding his balance and his focus. Stay on task, Tommy. A pity— he never was any good at that. “What the hell is a Glacies?” he demands, but his eyes slide to the left, a sinking feeling erupting in his chest, and— oh.

Oh. 

With a quick gasp, Tommy stumbles back from the line that has formed in the grass beside him. Where he stands, the shrubbery flourishes, stunning reds and blues popping up all around him. Just a stone’s throw to his left, though, the grass slowly withers away into yellows and tans, flowers frozen in place and grass unmoving until the entire area is covered in ice. After that, as far as the eye can see, the sickness spreads— no plant or force of life is safe, and the whispers of vivacity that fill the woods around him are lost to the white frost slowly creeping in.

“That,” the hooded figure says deftly, “is the Glacies. And you’ll stay far from it, if you value your life.”

Unsure of what his next action should be, Tommy swallows, wide eyes pinned on the figure that just pulled him from the small patch of winter in his picturesque fields of summer. “How long?” he pipes up, standing straighter. His father’s voice echoes in his ears: You are a prince. Act like it. “How long has this been happening?” he asks again, louder, more confident, more sure of himself.

“At least a week. Surprising that you haven’t heard already— it’s beginning to make the rounds in the farmlands closest to the Crown by now.” With that, the figure turns and slinks into the shadows, leaving Tommy to catch his breath and realize that oh, they didn’t know. Whoever they were, they wouldn’t have known that Tommy was the reigning Prince of the Cassian Empire. They couldn’t have known.

Because Tommy isn’t allowed past the iron gates in front of the castle.

Chapter Text

“...don’t know why you wouldn’t have told me sooner…”

“...thought… and when it…”

Tommy presses himself further against the wooden railing, peering through the gaps. Ranboo grabs the back of his shirt, tugging carefully to keep him from leaning too much of his weight on the creaking mahogany and giving them away. 

His father has removed his mask, pacing back and forth across the cleanly polished floorboards in front of his most trusted advisor (and the head of his royal court). Tommy knows the man only as Halo, and Dream hasn’t addressed him by anything different during the conversation that he’s straining so hard to hear.

Ranboo leans close, whispers: “I don’t think we’re getting much out of this.” 

Tommy waves a hand at him, pursing his lips. Ranboo’s been oddly protective of him ever since the fiasco from yesterday, what with the falling into the territory of the Glacies and all. Of course, Tommy ran back as quickly as possible after the brief discussion with the masked shadow, and then the two of them went together to report it to his father.

Dream did not take to the news kindly. Tommy watched him swear, fumble for a feather pen, and press his lips into a thin line. Stay with Ranboo, and under no circumstances may you move until I come to get you, Dream said, and then sent him to his room. Now Tommy’s afraid that something— or someone— is going to get hurt because of his infuriating honesty.

Loyalty is a tough nut to crack; Tommy can’t train himself out of telling his father the truth.

“The people of the villages,” his father’s voice floats carefully over to him, “have no idea what they’re talking about. You, above anyone else, should know this.” His voice is strained, seeping with a bitterness that Tommy can taste from where he’s crouched. He could recognize that tone anywhere; Dream is incredibly displeased.

“It wasn’t supposed to spread this far,” Halo frets; Tommy hears the floor creak as he begins to pace. “We assumed—”

With all the fury of an affronted king, Dream’s hand slams into the wood that makes up the table in front of him. Tommy’s ears leap to his shoulders, and he reaches blindly for Ranboo, grabbing onto the edge of his butler’s sleeve. Even Halo seems perturbed, from what Tommy can see of the back of him— he’s ceased in his pacing.

“Stop,” says his father, seething, “assuming, then.” He exhales, lacing his fingers behind his head and walking in a careful, calculated circle. “We were meant to have more time.”

“We were,” Halo agrees somberly. He takes a step towards Dream, lowering his voice, dammit, and Tommy leans closer, strains to pick up even a sliver of the sentence. 

“...manifested…”

His heart drops into his shoes. With a jolt, Tommy realizes that this isn’t a conversation he wasn’t to listen to anymore. It doesn’t matter what Halo said, or what his father is going to say next— Tommy needs to go. 

He says nothing to Ranboo, tugging on his shirt to clue him in and then carefully moving up to the next step. Ranboo’s brow draws together, but he follows suit— until Tommy places his weight too heavily on their fifth step up.

“Thomas?”

His father’s voice carries to him through the railing, searching for them where they are perched so meticulously out of sight. Tommy presses himself to the wall and waits, gripping Ranboo’s arm so tightly that his knuckles turn white. They forget to breathe there, hiding in their own shadows, until Dream goes on.

“No, there was nothing… check… carry through with…” 

His voice finally dies, and then his footsteps grow closer. Tommy locks eyes with Ranboo, who already looks terrified, and nods— and the both of them go flying up the stairs as silently as possible, avoiding every creak and crack and soaring around the corner in the corridor that will lead them to Tommy’s living quarters. 

When they shut the door behind them, as gently as possible, Tommy turns to Ranboo exhaustedly, throwing himself at his butler. Seemingly unsure, Ranboo doesn’t move, but Tommy wraps his hands in the fabric of his shirt and catches his breath. “Manifested,” Tommy says quietly, shoving his forehead into Ranboo’s shoulder.

The other boy catches him, bearing half of his weight. Tommy will always be grateful for the presence of his other half to fall against when he needs it most. “Whoa, hey— what?” says Ranboo hurriedly, gathering Tommy haphazardly in his arms. “Your Highness—”

“Oh, stop that,” Tommy bites, batting at his butler and pausing to breathe, balance, live. “Manifested,” he finally repeats with wide, wild eyes, pushing himself back from Ranboo and fixing his hair with a quickly moving hand. “The advisor— he said it. He said manifested. What does— I don’t—”

Ranboo’s mouth opens and closes as he struggles for a response, and then the door swings open on its screeching hinges, and the two swivel rapidly to stare at the new entry with pink, flushed faces. Tommy’s heart drops into the soles of his feet when he makes eye contact with his father; struggling to make sense of the blizzard raging on in his head, he takes a few steps back and bumps into the edge of his bed, sitting abruptly. 

He pats the seat next to him once. Ranboo joins him, and then Dream speaks.

“Everything alright in here?” he begins with the tilt of his head. His mask is secured firmly to his face, smiling features carved into its greying surface. Tommy is transfixed on them for a moment, as Dream goes on. “I know you’ve been in here a while. I apologize.”

The boys exchange a glance, sitting on the edge of the bed. Tommy does not comment on their lie of omission, and even Ranboo, loyal to a fault, says nothing. “Yes,” Tommy eventually summons the strength to reply. “It doesn’t matter.” His voice sounds automatic. Emotionless. Tommy hates it; he’s supposed to be the lively one, the entertaining prince. He clears his throat to try and rid himself of the shadow that is monotony, offering his father a wide-eyed look. “As long as we may come out for dinner?”

“Of course.” Dream smiles to mimic the mask, an expression that feels too large for his face, and inclines his head. “Now, I need to ask you something.”

The world is dunked in a bitter chill that Tommy isn’t ready for. He glances at Ranboo and then returns to his father, the sharp bite of goosebumps raising over his arms and legs. “Tom— about the frost in the forest,” Dream begins quietly, sinking down on one knee to face him at eye level, and the room seems to tilt on its side. “Was everything covered? All of the plants, the trees— everything you saw?”

“Everything,” Tommy affirms instantly, and then clears his throat again, brow drawing closer together. For a moment, his head spins, vision blurring over as he stares into the unchanging eyes of the mask. “There were no animals. It was just… ice. And it was cold,” he recounts. Finally, his gaze falls to his hands; Tommy fidgets aimlessly, a pit growing and growing in the bottom of his stomach. Manifested, Halo’s whisper echoes in his ears, and Tommy swallows, barely clinging to his thoughts.

There are only a few people with magic in this age.

The ones who display it proudly, their hearts on their sleeves, are often whisked away in the night, stolen from homes and either put to work or to death. Those who are quiet and secretive are almost always killed when they are exposed, though— those in power like to have control, including Dream. 

He’s studied it with tutors and teachers from other empires, and those living within his own. All of them drill the same conclusion into him: magic is undesirable. Magic is something to be feared, and those who wield it with no parameters are the most dangerous of all. Magic is not to be glorified; magic is evil; magic is a curse.

But they also refer to the culmination of one’s powers with the same term (the term that was passed between two of the most powerful men in the Cassian Empire, the term Tommy’s been avoiding his entire life, the term he least wanted to hear): manifestation. 

“It was cold,” Dream echoes, and Tommy stiffens, dragged roughly back into the present— what feels like an interrogation by somebody who claims to care for him. (It’s bad to think that. Dream provides everything for him. Dream is his father. Dream would never let anything bad happen to him. He shudders) “How cold? Freezing? When you got up, could you still feel your limbs?”

“Somebody helped me up,” Tommy blurts, a shell of himself, and the urge to clap a hand over his mouth is immediate. This time, he forces himself to break gazes with the mask, throwing a sharp, remorseful look in his butler’s direction and swimming frustratedly through the sludge in his head. Ranboo is staring back at him with slightly parted lips; Tommy glances down at them pointedly, and his butler’s jaw snaps shut.

Attention returned to his father, Tommy waits patiently for the storm that he knows is next. Sure enough, Dream pauses, folding his hands and straightening his spine. “Someone helped you up,” he parrots, and Tommy swallows, suddenly finding it hard to maintain eye contact. He looks anywhere but Dream— the pale vines snaking in through the window, the dim candle, the finely woven rug that bears Dream’s weight. “You didn’t think to tell me?” 

He’s taken up a tone similar to the one he used on Halo. Tommy’s hope to emerge unscathed shatters into a million glass pieces that skitter across the ground. Dream is not an ally when he is angry. Dream is no ruler, no guide, no father when rage seeps into his skin, forcing a fitting frown over his face under the mask. Dream is no stranger to violence when Tommy has done something that is unforgivable, unable to be forgotten, unable to be swept so cleanly under the bed—

He is shaking. Tommy notices himself trembling through sluggish awareness, presses his hands to his thighs, and speaks. “I don’t have magic, Dream.”

It reverberates throughout the room, completely sapping the fury away from his father and leaving him frowning in a different way: bewilderment. “What?” says his father, and it practically echoes.

“Tommy,” says Ranboo quietly, and the room is silent again. 

He is exhausted by his own inability to face the consequences of his own actions, eyes travelling throughout the room as the silence seems to stretch on for ages and ages. Dream stares him down, and his fancy room feels too hot. The rug is too bright. The candle smells of wax that he despises, and Ranboo breathes too loudly from beside him, and the glistening gold trimmings make up a setting he doesn’t want to be sitting in the middle of. 

The chandelier hanging from the ceiling is fixed in place with a chain that is rusting and corroded. Cobwebs are laced between each arm, but the candles burn brightly. A pity to Ranboo, who normally lights them and puts them out each day. More a pity to the tarnished gold, scratched and blurred with years of heat and handling. 

Tommy sets his jaw and stares at Dream, haphazardly shoving aside the bone-chilling fear. The only way to beat it is to stick to his virtues. “I have no magic,” he repeats, slurred, louder, stronger. If it weren’t for the terror rattling in his ribcage, he’d be unstoppable. “The frost— it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it, Dream.”

“Oh, Tommy,” his father replies in a hushed whisper, lifting himself up and onto the edge of the bed, and Tommy lapses into an uncomfortable silence as his father soothes him, his eyes finding Ranboo’s. He has done it. He has escaped the fury. He sags. “Tommy, it’s alright. Come on, now. You don’t seriously think—?”

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, unsure of himself, his footholds. Who is he? What does he stand for? Did he mean the apology? Does Ranboo know more than he should, or just enough? What about his father? Does his father know everything he should? Is Tommy being honest enough? “I don’t know. I just thought… I don’t want to turn out like that,” he finishes, all in a rush, and swallows phlegm, fiddling with his fingers. “I want you to be proud.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.” Dream’s arms encircle him, and Tommy lowers his head numbly to his father’s shoulder. “I am proud. You mustn’t worry— just answer me, sunshine: who helped you?” A pause, a lull. Tommy fights the spin of the earth on its axis, and everything in the room is too dim. 

He doesn’t want to answer. It feels wrong to open his mouth. But again, stronger, Dream asks: “Who helped you out of the frost, Tommy?”

And he cannot fight the onslaught of pressure. 

His jaw unhinges despite how tightly he had it clenched before; his lungs twist into knots when he answers, and his heart beats three skips too fast, and his fingers twitch where they sit helplessly in his lap. “Tall man,” he breathes, “and he wore a skull mask. With tusks,” he remembers, nodding. “Strong hands, plain clothes— I thought he was a stable hand at first.”

“Hm,” Dream hums. Tommy’s father combs a hand through his hair, and a sliver of a tremble runs down his spine. “I don’t recall a new stable hand. Did you see any of his face?” 

Again, Tommy answers as if he has no choice in the matter, the words drawn out by a higher power. Dream does not make rational decisions when angry. Tommy wouldn’t want to make it worse. He makes everything worse. “No,” he says confidently, dizzily. Breathe. In and out, Tommy remembers the goodness of air. “He told me it was called Glacies. Told me— told me to stay away from it.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Dream says with a smile, rubbing Tommy’s upper arms kindly and then patting his shoulder. “Alright. That’s all I need, sunshine. Dinner will be ready in an hour— can you busy yourselves until then?” 

Tommy nods stiffly, and Dream stands, making for the door. With bated breath, Tommy waits, hearing the floor groan with each footfall. Upon his final step, Dream turns, face stony where it was familial just seconds before. “Don’t worry yourself over magic,” says his father, and Tommy sits up straighter, breathes a little deeper. “And Tommy?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for your helpful cooperation.” There is a hint of a smile, and then the door swings shut, and—

And Tommy comes back to life with a gasp, spots and stars dancing in his vision as he leans forward to cradle his head in his hands.

“Holy—”

“—crap,” Ranboo finishes for him in a hiss, sliding closer to his side in an instant. His hands hover over Tommy’s arms, eyes running carefully over his skin to check for anything past what has already been done. “Tommy, what was—”

“I don’t know.” His head finally feels crystal clear, and the breaths that he takes in are sharp and crisp again. Tommy can hear the birds outside his window without the muted buzz in his ears, and when he turns his gaze to the chandelier, it gleams, as finely polished as ever. “I don’t know, Ranboo.” His head spins and aches with the hint of foul play, and he grimaces, clenching his jaw shut tighter. 

Finally, he sits up straight, exhaling. Ranboo rubs circles into his shoulder, and Tommy swallows, finally meeting the other’s gaze. Ranboo opens and closes his mouth and then, softly, quietly: “Do you think—?” He peters out, mouth left half-open before he gives up on his words, and Tommy breathes in ash from the hearth and rosemary incense, tunes in to the gentle sway of trees outside the castle, feels the silk sheets and Ranboo’s hand against his shoulder. Ranboo does not continue, too afraid to face a bended reality, but Tommy shudders with his knowledge of the truth:

Dream took all of that away from him, and he still can’t figure out (or doesn’t want to accept) how.

“Did he get you, too?” he asks carefully, tilting his head. “You look okay. Are you okay?” He can’t stand the thought of it, the idea that Dream could have had Ranboo suspended in that same dizzying, swaying state of mind. It’s sickening, and the guilt is deafening, but when he looks, Ranboo is shaking his head slowly.

“I don’t think so, no. Not— not like what happened to you.” He inhales shakily, trying to find a path to continue on. Tommy lets him, ears ringing in the gentle pause. “Your eyes, Tommy…”

“I know.” It comes out forced, strangled, but Tommy can’t let him finish that sentence. Not like that. Again, a bitter embrace of the facts that have been laid out for them: “I know. I could feel it.” His father, the father who he’s felt compelled to be honest with throughout his entire life—

“That can’t be the first time,” Ranboo says, chewing hard on his lip, and Tommy winces. “I know. I’m sorry. But it has to be something, Tommy. You can’t— you can’t deny that. It’s too… it’s lining up.”

Tommy lifts his head bleakly, massaging his temple. “Ranboo,” he begins quietly in the face of Ranboo’s worried frown, and his butler replies miserably, lowering his voice to a whisper. 

“Magic."

Something in Tommy’s chest flutters and beats wildly, begging for an escape it will never have, and he swallows, grabbing Ranboo’s wrist. “What do we do?” he murmurs. His father, using magic— was Dream the cause of the Glacies, after all? Is his father going to do something to the person who pulled Tommy out of it? Is he safe? Is Ranboo?

Magic is a dangerous, dangerous thing, the teachings echo in his ears. It is not to be tampered with, and it is not to be stood against. And now his father, the most powerful man in the kingdom— no, no, Tommy thinks. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. Magic is something to avoid, something that he’s always assumed his father was against. Dream can’t just have magic. 

Tommy runs a defeated hand through his hair, dropping his head to stare at the floor. “Do you think he’s going to— to hurt us, or something?” he questions anxiously, and Ranboo exhales.

“I don’t know. I don’t think he wants to hurt you. I think… you shouldn’t have said anything about magic, though,” he confesses, “when you two spoke. He’s going to be suspicious.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Tommy lifts his head again, locks fearful eyes with Ranboo. “It just— happened. I couldn’t… I didn’t…” A breath. Silence. “Ranboo, what if he…” 

“He won’t hurt you,” Ranboo repeats dedicatedly, strongly, but Tommy shakes his head.

“But the man who helped me, with the mask— he’ll hurt him. And the frost, and…” He falters, brow drawing close. How does it all tie together? How do the cogs fit into the machine? What does his father have to do with the Glacies? He sounded angry when Halo brought it up, though— even if Dream does have magic, he didn’t cause the frost himself. Is he trying to, what, fight the Glacies? Send it back to where it came from? 

It beats itself into his brain, running in rapid circles until the inside of his head is worn down and bone tired. “Fuck,” Tommy mutters, “how do we stop him?”

“From… what?”

“Something evil.” His heart squeezes painfully, whole body aching with the thought of Dream imposing something on the people of the Cassian Empire. A new declaration, a sickness, magic— Tommy doesn’t even know what the threat is. The point is that his father has magic, and that can’t be good. As much as Tommy knows he is lucky, luckier than the kids on the street who are fed scraps, Dream has never been especially benevolent. The golden prince turns to his butler, his best friend, his brother, lost for ideas—

But Ranboo shakes his head forlornly, a dying hope pouring off of his lips.

“I don’t know.”

Chapter Text

The wind blows in a silent yet noticeable manner over the acres of already blanketed land that stretch out before him when he steps carefully past the towering iron gates, further down the hastily paved cobblestone path.

Tommy is not cold. He is used to this sentiment, now, the clear skies of grey that float quietly past his head. This time around, he is silent. The frost and flakes around him wrap him in humble comfort, squeezing tight against his brittle bones. He extends his arms to his sides, exhaling and watching small clouds float out from his mouth and up towards the heavens.

He takes a step, bare feet pressing into thick, powdery snow, and revels in the familiarity of the scene. This can’t be the first time he’s been here. His eyes travel slowly down, pinning on the blue silk wrapped around his wobbling frame. Right, he thinks to himself. Things are how they are supposed to be.

Tommy lifts his head, glancing up and over the city again. The people are resting. They always are. The wind whoosh es in his ears, creating a ringing sensation that he’s well accustomed to. It’s easy to get lost in the wide, yawning expanse of air that is exposed to the world. The sky has not fully descended into darkness yet, but it will soon. He does not know why the kingdom is asleep so early— just knows that it is. Knows that it’s right.

Again, Tommy steps forward, playing with the idea of a journey. Again, there is a distorted voice floating to him in the air, wrapping itself around his ribs and pulling him back gently. “No,” he mouths, lost to the void of falling fractals and gusts of wind, but the voice is relentless. It’s fuzzy, messy, like a ripple in a pond, but he turns as if he has no control over himself, as if the gods have ordered him to do it, whispered in his ear, told him fables of glory and sent him on his way to power, and he closes his eyes when he catches sight of the silhouette, waiting for consciousness—

Theseus, comes the whisper, just as it always will. Theseus. 

And Tommy does not wake up.

With a sharp inhale, he pulls his eyes open to find the shadow advancing. Lost for words, Tommy reaches blindly for the iron gate, wrapping a hand in it and dragging it further towards himself. He wills it to close, but it does not budge, stuck in the snow just as it would be if it were shut.

But it isn’t. It leaves a clear pathway to Tommy, a beeline for a boy who has lost his roots.

“I don’t know who that is,” he says, setting his chattering jaw, and the shadow stops where it is advancing forward, and the silence rings out. Tommy opens his mouth to speak again, but the voice comes, summoned from the deepest pits of memory.

Come home, Theseus. 

“I am home.” Tommy feels bitter resignation beating at the walls inside his ribcage, fighting to slip out through the gaps and infect the rest of him. “Dream takes care of me.” He falters. “Ran— Ranboo.”

You don’t know what it feels like to be home. The voice is slightly agitated now, and the shadow inches closer. Tommy still can’t make out its face. He never can. He’ll use your own magic against you.

A panic rises in his chest. Tommy finds his hands pressed to his thighs, slipping from the gate as the shadow takes gentle steps towards him. It’s like pinning an injured animal, he thinks strangely. He is a rabbit bleeding out in the snow; crimson tears roll from his face, and the shadow finds him all the same. Cornered. 

“I don’t have magic,” he says weakly, and the silhouette scoffs.

There is silence, for a moment, besides the swaying of the trees, the whistling of the wind, and the continuous crunch, crunch, crunch as the figure grows closer. Tommy should be scared. Terrified, even. He should be petrified, horrified out of his wits, barely conscious enough to protect himself.

He glances down at himself again. He has no weapon. No crown. No shoes. Only the blue silk pajamas, and a looming sense of something greater.

You need not fear us. 

“I,” says Tommy, and finds his throat overcome with raw emotion. The figure is close enough to place a name to, now, but it dies on Tommy’s lips, along with his disagreement with the idea of fear. “You,” he says instead, but still flounders for anything that makes sense. Nothing comes to mind. The frost creeps up around his ankles in thin, snaking tendrils. He is not cold. The shadow approaches.

It wears a mask much unlike Dream’s. It does not smile; tusks run up the sides, and Tommy feels the thin bone from where he stands, feels the fragility of this figure. Then it shifts; it wears impossibly round glasses, a smile painted into its face, but Tommy cannot see its eyes. Finally, a third face: worn, rugged, tired, and framed by platinum blond hair. An emerald glints from somewhere inside its hood throughout it all. The shadow shifts back to the skull with the tusks, and Tommy watches on speechlessly. 

It’s laughable. He should feel all the fear in the world, standing here and staring at the shapeshifting creature before him, but the cloak sways in the wind with another step closer, and a hand is outstretched, Tommy taking it in his own and becoming something more than human,

and he finds himself folded to the chest of the looming shadow, more a home than Dream has ever been.

Theseus, it says to him, carding a blurry hand through his hair, and Tommy stands, shielded from the snow, with his arms hanging limply at his sides as he is held. It’s been a long time coming. 

“What has,” Tommy whispers breathlessly, but he already knows. His arms wrap around the shadow, hands wrapping in its clothes, fingers curling in the fabric of its cloak— and he presses his forehead into the figure’s chest, breathing in crisp, biting air. 

It’s been coming, the figure says again, and then: we’re waiting for you.

“Where?” Tommy mutters, and the shadow does not answer as Tommy speaks, muffled, into its clothes. “What’s your name? Where are you from? Help me,” he begs, loathing the feeling of helplessness but giving in all the same. “I can’t do this alone. Please— tell me where you are.”

You know, the shadow says.

“I miss you,” Tommy says, inexplicably. 

He awakes to hands that rock him frantically back and forth. 

“Tommy,” Ranboo cries, and it’s sharp in his ears, piercing. His butler grabs at his clothes, and Tommy finds himself exhausted, slow to wake. The corners of the shadow’s face disappear in wisps, and Tommy extends a hand, reaching for a home that is lost to him now. Ranboo does not let up, though, dragging Tommy into the waking world by the hair.

Tommy groans, rolls in his bed, but Ranboo pulls him again onto his back, squeezing his arm. “Tommy, you need to wake up,” he says.

Normally, Ranboo wouldn’t wake him like this, so aggressive and unforgiving. Tommy feels his face descend into an agitated frown. He then tunes in to the unfamiliar rumbling that is reverberating, in waves, throughout his room. With a sharp breath, Tommy finally drags his eyes open, and holy shit— everything in the room, from the hairbrush on the chest of drawers to the bed frame, is rattling something fierce. Tommy makes eye contact with the hysterical Ranboo, who wordlessly grabs his hand and lifts it to his line of sight—

He is glowing. His hands, his chest— a brilliant white light engulfs it all, and frost sits at the tips of his fingers, icy fractals growing slowly past his hands and clawing up his arms.

A startled, strangled breath leaves him, and everything goes silent. Tommy flies up in his bed, reaching around to hook his elbow in Ranboo’s as the bright glow fades from his limbs. The frost retreats quickly, and Tommy stares at his own arms as they return to their natural color, less pale and more full of life. “By the gods,” he whispers, and Ranboo presses his lips into a thin line.

“Your eyes,” he says, and Tommy glances up at Ranboo, feeling the heat of panic thaw him out. “Your eyes, Tommy— one of them is—”

“The mirror,” Tommy says, and it is handed to him instantly off of his bedside table, and he examines himself with a growing sense of urgency. His lips are purplish, a slowly-fading tint of blue spattered across them and his cheeks. Freckles are consumed by frost that is gradually receding, but the thing that stays— the thing Ranboo is the most worried about— 

His left eye is devoid of any color, completely white, and frost remains over that corner of his face.

Something tugs harshly at his chest, and Tommy presses a hand to it, eyes wide when he feels the urgent pull. It doesn’t hurt, per se, but it’s intense, ever-present, unfading. He throws his blankets off of his legs, and the pull rattles in his chest, loosening but never going completely away. 

“We need to go,” he says seriously, and then, when he’s standing, “turn around.” 

There in the quiet movement of dawn, purple and indigo and the shrill chirping of birds spilling in through his bedroom window, Tommy throws on new clothes, frantically patting himself down to make sure they stay in place when he hastily fastens buttons. “Go where?” Ranboo asks faintly as he works. “Do you have a plan? Do you know what you’re doing?” Tommy presses his lips into a thin line as he combs a hurried hand through his hair. No, he neglects to voice out loud, circling around to meet Ranboo’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” he says, and the string tied to his ribs, pulling him towards his door, calls him a liar inside his own head. He takes a breath, smothering the feeling he just can’t shake, and grabs his butler’s wrist. “Anywhere but here. Come on.”

They descend the stairs once Tommy has secured his sword in its sheath hooked on his belt, Ranboo looking paler than ever and Tommy’s mind racing at a million miles a minute. Brilliant, intricate gold trimmings stare the two of them down as they hurry past, a tumbling mess of limbs and anxiety.

And just as they’re passing by the dining room and the gaping wide expanse of a ballroom, just as they’re making their great escape, a shadow appears in front of the both of them.

“Where are you boys going?” Dream says, and Tommy’s joints lock up. He swallows air, mouth bone dry as he fights the urge, the influence, but it’s no use. Ranboo stays stock-still, but Tommy’s creaky bones force his chin up, force his jaw to unlock, force his lips to part. 

“Out,” he says, voice breaking in a feeble attempt to combat the presence of thick, honey-sweet magic that he knows is lurking around the corners of their minds. “Outside,” he adds, and then curses himself as everything runs together in his head. Blurred colors become one, dripping down the sides of his brain, and the room is impossibly bright, and Tommy is hyper aware of each breath Ranboo takes beside him, and the pull, the tug on his chest, increases to a crescendo that he is unable to ignore.

And still, Dream holds him back, and all Tommy can do is hope that he hasn’t seen his eye yet. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he tuts, crossing his arms. “I told you to stay in your room, Thomas. Did I not?”

Tommy can’t even hesitate. “You— you did,” is drawn from his lungs, through his windpipe, scraping painfully along the back of his throat and out from his lips. He clamps them firmly shut after that; thankfully, another wave of compulsion does not rock him yet.

“Go upstairs, Tommy,” says Dream, and Tommy suppresses a vile hiss, beginning to turn.

The pull heightens until it is agony to breathe.

Tommy stops in his tracks.

A blinding white light rockets from his body, and the rest of the world fades into ringing.

Several things happen then. All at once, Tommy feels a disconnect at his side, the loss of a presence that was so sure before— Ranboo has darted off somewhere. At the same time, Dream yelps, shouting something awful and then calling for guards. Tommy’s heart rises to his throat, and frost buds at his fingertips, itching for a use. The beautiful chandelier overhead, draped in cobwebs and candles, begins to tremble and sway.

He can’t stop it. Tommy frantically pats at his thighs, and scrapes his palms with his fingernails, backing up blindly until he bumps the wall. Dream will be angry, the magic (and his common sense) whispers frantically. He doesn’t like Dream when he’s angry. Dream is capable of bad, bad things when he’s angry. All of it is to no avail. Nothing helps; the bright, icy tendrils slide up his arms, and then Dream catches the edge of his shirt amidst the blinding light with an angry, snarling shout, and the pull is excruciating.

Glass shatters piercingly, somewhere close to him, and Tommy yelps in tune with Dream’s cry of pain. At first, he’s terrified that the entire chandelier has come crashing down due to his own inability to control himself, but then something warm and metallic-smelling splatters across his face, and Ranboo screams, “Run,” and Tommy sprints like he never has before.

The pull leads him to the door in place of his inability to see; Tommy finds it in no time, gasping for breath as Dream screams after him. “Don’t leave me, sunshine,” he wails, “don’t leave me here to die,” but Tommy’s magic rivals his, and they crash to a standstill, and the manipulation falls flat on its face. Ranboo whimpers something fierce, and all Tommy can do is hope he’s following. 

When the golden prince of the Cassian Empire throws the grand front doors to the palace open, a shudder runs through the entire building, and a heavy rumble sets in, and there’s an upheaval of gravity itself as the illuminative white magic grows so thick that even Tommy is fully blinded—

Then there is a crash so great that it sends heat and air speeding his way, knocking him out of the castle and flying out into the open air with a roar. 

That, he thinks as he scrambles up to sprint on wobbling legs, was the chandelier.

The bright heat of the sun is tantalizing when he stumbles into open air, struggling to breathe. Ice has a death grip on his heart, but all Tommy can feel, as he forces his legs to keep moving, is the blazing sun on his back. He narrowly avoids falling several times, knees shaking and blood pumping furiously with the adrenaline from his narrow escape. The light fades, out in the wide expanse of fields, and Tommy chokes on his own saliva, throwing one glance over his shoulder to check for his butler.

A scream pierces the air, floating through the open doors of the castle and out into the summer sky, and Tommy’s guts twist and go sour. He staggers among the tall grass and barely manages to keep himself standing, retreating as fast as he possibly can for the stables. The sun forces the ice back to where it came, and a gut-wrenching burn builds in his throat, and he comes to terms with the sacrifice Ranboo has made for him with stinging eyes:

It is a harrowing exchange of freedom.

Chapter Text

Tommy does not feel like his feet are stable underneath him until a long, perilous horse ride and more than twelve hours later. 

He’s cooped Henry up in a stable on the outskirts of the city he’s ventured into, feeling a little uneasy with leaving him so vulnerable— but he paid the stable hand an extra handful of gold to take good care of him. The boy stared at him, a bewildered look budding quickly in his eyes, and then began to count the money in awe, and Tommy swallowed and moved on, making a note not to drop so much gold on the casual things.

Now, he spins in a slow circle, the heavy beat of buskers trailing after him and taking root in his heart. The tug is still strong on his ribs, and Ranboo is living in the back of his mind, but Tommy loses himself to the heart of the city, stumbling out of the way as horse-drawn buggies bustle down the center of the cobblestone road. 

His wide eyes dart from fruit stands to boisterous inns, and he draws in the scent of smoked cedarwood and hot cooked chicken. They swirl together, mixing with scents from the flower shop further down the street and the earthen smell of horses’ hooves. Again, Tommy pulls his tunic further up his shoulders and turns in a circle, pulling the sleeves of his shift further down his arms and reaching down to yank on one of the glinting buckles on his shoes. 

His stomach protests, loudly, and Tommy eyes his sword self-consciously. None of these people are carrying swords with them, it seems, aside from the few wayward travelers he sees— tall, burly, sour-looking men with leather skins draped over their shoulders and long, wiry beards. 

And the guards. 

Ever so often, Tommy will catch sight of a tall man decked in forest green and pale gold, armor plates clinking together by his elbows and boots thunking into the cobble as he walks. He’s learned to duck his head and mind his business when they draw near; of course, he’s a runaway prince, constantly checking over his shoulder to check that Dream isn’t after him, but Dream wouldn’t come so far from the castle. He wouldn’t look for Tommy so far out.

Because in his head, Tommy has only fleeting glimpses of time spent out of the castle, walking carefully down paths not meant for human feet and trying foods he’d never seen before. The rest of his life was spent cooped up in the towering castle, and on royal grounds. With a shudder, Tommy shrinks in on himself, unable to help wondering if Dream used magic to skew his memories, too.

No matter. The coins jingle in his pocket, and Tommy exhales, allowing his eyes to be captured by bright, vibrant paintings for sale. He restrains himself from buying everything in sight, lest he be bogged down by more weight to carry, and moves on, passing suspicious alleyways and rough-looking pubs until he finds somewhere that looks maybe the slightest bit promising.

The pull against his chest yearns for open air, but twilight and the setting sun bathe the streets in an orange glow. Tommy averts his eyes from another guard and ducks into the nearest tavern, eyeing the sign out front as he does— the Jack of All Trades. 

The floorboards creak and whine loudly when Tommy elbows his way through the crowd and makes his way through the doorway, knocking hanging vines out of his path and soaking in his surroundings with wide eyes. The wood is a gentle tan, but the clinking of drinks and shouting of customers is overtaking. 

The first thing he notices is the sharp, sickly sweet scent of something that he places as alcohol. It must be. Dream never let him near it in the castle, despite the way it was brought out for the holidays, so the pungent scent isn’t all too familiar, but it’s so potent that he can place it all the same.

“Aye!” a man shouts in his direction, from up front near the counter, and it cuts through the clamor of the bustling crowds around him. His jaw is sharp, but he’s not grisly like the men with the swords outside— in fact, he’s got no hair at all. “Ya goin’ to buy anything or just stand there, ya wee shite!” 

Tommy blinks twice, head jerking back slightly. “Ex— excuse me,” he mutters, but advances with a careful hand on the hilt of his sword at his waist. “Sorry?” he says, raising an eyebrow, and the man claps his hands together hastily.

Turns out, he’s got a grin as sly and sharp as the rest of his features. “You look like ya’ve never seen a tavern in yer life,” he laughs, reaching a hand over the counter to clap it on his shoulder. Tommy’s eyebrows shoot up, and his gaze darts to the dirty hand on his clothes, but he passes it off, heart fluttering with the rhythm of the city. “Fancy a drink?”

“Uhh, I’m not…” Tommy begins, but the man cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

“Ahh, bollocks.” He grins, grabbing a bottle and pouring a haphazard cupful of a piss-yellow liquid that Tommy grimaces at the sight of. He shoves it across the wood, though, and Tommy takes it with both hands, eyeing it distrustfully. “Try it, then,” the man encourages, “on the house!”

On the house? Tommy’s eyes flit to the ceiling, but no— the man can’t possibly mean that. With a shrug, he lifts his lips to the rim of the cup, taking a breath and then drawing some of the bitter liquid in— and it’s disgusting. He coughs, hiding it with a hand and trying his damndest not to spit it back out, and forces a grin. “Right, then,” he agrees with a nod, “thank you. Actually, I was wondering—”

“Another already?” the man laughs incredulously, slapping the counter. “By the gods, boy, you look enough of a lightweight as it is—”

“No, no,” Tommy cuts in, “I need a place for the night. You wouldn’t happen to have any rooms upstairs…?”

The man’s expression shifts, and he crosses his arms. “Got money, have ya?” he inquires carefully, and Tommy shakes the leather satchel tied to his waist. The coins clink together inside, leaving the man’s brows to shoot up. A low whistle escapes his mouth, and he meets Tommy’s eyes with a dangerous glint. “Better protect that, y’know— easy to get robbed here in L’Manberg.”

“Oh,” Tommy says, swallowing. That’s not concerning at all. Consciously, he adjusts his satchel, pulling the knot tighter around his waist. “Right,” he continues uneasily, quirking an eyebrow, “yeah. Uhh— so about that room—”

“Yeah, yeah.” the man waves him off and then goes on to list the rates. They exchange a handful of shining gold, and the man claps him on the back and offers a name: Jack.

Tommy is led up the winding stairs in the very back, the beer left forgotten and abandoned on the counter. The noise from downstairs fades to a background track, and Tommy’s eyes sweep over the old root, some boards rotting in certain places and others mottled with knots and knobs. The dark wood smells of alcohol and something that is sharp on his senses; Jack pays it no mind, guiding him to an unused room. He nudges the door open with a foot and extends an arm to show it off with a flourish. 

“Home for the night,” says Jack, much tamer now without the drunken crowds surrounding them. Tommy steps carefully into the shoddy room, amazed by the low quality. There’s not something better? And Jack answers that question for him— “Aye, best room we’ve got.”

“...Right,” says Tommy, watching a spider scuttle across the floor and under the bed. That better not come back to haunt him later. “Thanks. By the way, I’m Tommy.”

Jack’s eyebrows shoot up. “Tommy, innit? Share a name with the prince, do you? I’d be careful waving that around,” he warns lowly, and Tommy’s already kicking himself. Fuck. Shit. Fake name next time.

Still, though, his curiosity gets the best of him, like it always does. “Oh? Why’s that, then?” he asks, setting his bag at the foot of the bed (which looks like it will kill his back to sleep on after being pampered all his life).

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” Jack glances behind him and then leans closer, and Tommy catches a whiff of his breath, unable to tell if he’s been drinking or if it’s just that bad, either way. “Prince’s missing, kid. And there’s rumors goin’ around—” He squints, shaking his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t scare ya—”

“Tell me,” Tommy demands, turning around and narrowing his eyes. “Don't start it and then leave it hanging there. Tell me.” 

“Well,” Jack chuckles, “they’re goin’ round saying that the King’s been attacked. One of his own personal servants, too— but they’re playing the story up somethin’ fierce. Impossible to tell what’s true and what isn’t, now.”

Tommy’s heart sinks low in his chest. Ranboo, he thinks, swallowing the lump in his throat. If news of the castle has already spread this far, that means they’ll be looking for him— Tommy just has to hope that he looks different enough, plain enough, to get away. The purple trimmings on his tunic definitely don’t help, though, and the absurd amount of money he carries around with him doesn’t, either. 

Just stay smart and keep your head down, he tells himself, smoothing his shirt down and tugging on his sleeves. He suppresses a sneeze (blasted dust) as he makes to answer his host. “I’ll be on the lookout, then, I guess,” he says, crossing his arms. “Thanks for the room.”

“Welcome, Tommy,” Jack replies happily, backing towards the door. “And that funny little white streak of yours— I like it. Go on, then,” he nods before Tommy can process, and the door swings shut, and oh, shit. 

Tommy glances rapidly around the room for something reflective. The only thing to use, though, is the small metal plate that holds the candle in the room. Tommy swears under his breath, running a hand through his hair and wrestling his tunic off of himself. He slides out of his boots and groans, trying in vain to pull his hair down low enough to see any of the white that he knows must be hiding there.

He needs to be careful. Maybe he’ll buy a hat. Tommy flops down in the stiff bed, pressing his palms into his eyes and rolling onto his side. He tunes out the din of patrons downstairs and breathes himself into sleep, ignoring the aching pull on his ribs and the frost that threatens to bud at his fingertips, pushing it all down and falling into the familiar rhythm of sleep. He doesn’t even realize, until he’s nearly gone, that he went right to bed without dinner.

Chapter Text

The wind is mild. Snow falls gently from the sky, dusting the fields in frost that sticks and builds into vast expanses of fluffy plains. Everything is white on white on white on grey, and the wide open air is much less stuffy and suffocating than the walls of the grimy tavern inw which he left his consciousness. 

Tommy comes to standing in the gate again, squinting when he turns his eyes up. It’s bright, for a season that should be so calm and quiet and soothing. He shields his eyes and sneezes with the sudden influx of light, relief flooding against the back of his throat as he does it. It is a painful disruption to the serenity of the moment, though, and he instantly wishes he could take it back when snowflakes dance agitatedly in winding paths right before his eyes. 

The wind soon blows them back on track. His sneeze is forgotten. The world keeps turning.

When he looks down, he is instantly compelled to take another step. Tommy’s feet press gentle marks into the snow as the second and third follow. The pajamas seem to grow paler with each passing night; Tommy doesn’t mind, relishing in the soft, luxurious feeling of silk against his skin. In the waking world, he fell asleep in plainclothes. They must have been hot, or at least uncomfortable.

Here it is so much better. He wants to stay here, this time. Tommy sinks to his knees and draws lines in the snow with his finger; when he pulls his hand back, he still cannot see the grass under the snow. Frowning, he pushes his hand further in, searching for ground that will not rush up to meet his palm.

There is a whisper, from far back at the treeline, and instead of heeding it, Tommy’s wrist sinks dutifully into the snow. Then his elbow. Then his knees, which once seemed to rest on such solid ground, begin to sag slowly down, tugged towards the dirt that he knows must be hiding under here. Tommy stretches, reaches, the snow comes up around his upper arm—

And he slips into the abyss, face and the rest of his torso descending into powder that, only a handful of minutes prior, was packed so tightly.

Tommy can’t breathe. He can’t even manage a lungful of air with which to scream. The people are asleep in their little homes; they wouldn’t hear him anyway. The world was so bright, and now, pressed against compacting snow that slowly builds to bury him, it is pitch black. Tommy’s heart thuds in his chest, and besides the gradually heightening whispers from the surface, it is the only thing he can hear. His lungs begin to burn with a passion, and a terrifying understanding breaks itself over his head: he is done for. 

Tommy’s knees draw close to his chest, and his lungs sting so bad that it feels like his chest will split open if he isn’t careful, and his lips are sealed so firmly, elbows tucked so tightly, eyes scrunched shut so forcefully. He rolls into a ball in the snow, and his lungs threaten to burst, and he accepts his feat. The whispering rises to a deafening crescendo, hissing and spitting and frantically scrabbling for leverage.

And then there’s a harsh yank at his ribcage— and hands wrap around his sides, pulling him out from where he had made a wonderful little grave for himself. 

Tommy gasps in the fresh air, lungs trembling when they are met with the oxygen they were craving so badly. He sees spots, remembers that he isn’t supposed to feel such pain here, and feels cheated. The golden prince is pulled back onto stable ground, sturdy arms secured steadily around his torso, and the manic whispers conjoin into one unrecognizable voice, echoing, bouncing around in his head.

Theseus, it calls with concern, and Tommy is right back where he started.

“That is not my name,” he fights, but his head lolls back, and he quickly comes to understand that the shadow, the recurring figure, is the one that rescued him. Something in his chest screams with an exhilaration Tommy does not yet know. It draws him close to the shadow, closer than he ever could be before. “I’m Tommy,” he pants, “Thomas Innes Tancran of the Cassian—” an aching cough— “Cassian Empire—”

He is shushed gently, and a half-tangible head settles atop his own. Theseus, comes the silhouette again, and Tommy embraces it, closes his eyes, sinks into the shadow like he wants to so badly. You have not yet found yourself. But we will be here waiting when you do. 

It floods him with a frustration that sends pinpricks to the corners of his eyes. Tommy grabs onto the arms that bear his weight, frowning deeply. “What does that mean,” he says, a rough exhale tumbling from his lips, and the fog creeps in thicker, and the wind blows sharper, and the snow comes crashing down from the heavens. Tommy only now notices how much heavier it is coming down.

You must figure that out for yourself, the shadow says, and rage builds in Tommy’s chest, and finally, finally, what he was trying so hard to get out earlier—

“No!” The cry that rings from him is earth-shattering; the ground rumbles, and heat seeps in where it is not welcome, thawing Tommy out much more than he’d like and melting snow in a burning circle around him. 

The shadow hisses and draws back, face shifting rapidly between the skull mask, the glasses, and the plain blond hair, and Tommy whips around to face it, eyes alight with fury that he cannot control. The heat he carries is a curse, a plight among this safe haven of ice, but he bears it too aptly for his origins, swallowing and allowing the raging fire to take his heart. “Tell me what I have to do,” Tommy spits, narrowing his eyes, and the shadow with the skull mask grows blurry in his vision. “No— no!” he demands, taking a step forward. “Stop! Come back— what do I do?”

Do not, the shadow warns, its hands lifting and shifting in time with its face, play with fire, child. Tommy blinks, trying desperately to piece together the warning (threat?), and the shadow has a name before he can stop it. 

When he looks again, it is Dream who stands confidently in front of him.

Tommy scrambles back a few steps, wide eyes unmoving. The heat follows him as he goes, creating a pillar of unwelcome light. Tommy trips over his own feet and crashes to the ground, but soft snow does not catch him and familiar ice does not break his fall. Instead, he lands with a grunt onto dead and dry yellow grass. His hands scramble to scoop snow, but he misses with a whiff, the powdery substance melting right at his fingertips. 

“Go away,” he begs, shielding his face, curling in on himself, hiding, breaking, and the shadow looms over him. “Please,” Tommy says. “I don’t want to go back. I need you. The other one— come back. Please, come back.”

His codependency is laughable. He hates the sound of his own weak voice, pleading for a mercy he doesn’t deserve. Where is his spark? His fire? Where is his confidence, his genius? His humor? Here, it is lost to the wind, leaving only serious conversations and consequences and all the things he never wanted to face.

He swears he hears Ranboo’s careful murmur from the edges of the forest before snow envelops him again and the heat disappears without a warning, freezing him over. 

Finally, Tommy directs his attention again to the figure, which kneels in front of him. Its face is the one with the round glasses— smoother, gentler, better than Dream. Hush, it says, offering a hand, and Tommy takes it, and he is pulled into the chest of the silhouette again. Let us guide you. 

“I don’t know where I’m going,” Tommy begs, forehead pressing into the shoulder of the shadow, and it chuckles kindly, wrapping him in a tight embrace.

Yes, you do. 

No— no, no, no— Tommy grips tightly to the figure’s sleeves as it begins to fade. “Wait,” he says, “please—” and again, the same picture-perfect moment, frozen in time, slips from between his fingers.

When he opens his eyes, everything is white.

A shuddering bolt of electricity wires its way through his system, and Tommy throws himself out of bed, panting. He can see his breath in the air. The room is doused in frost. It covers every surface, most heavily surrounding himself and the bed. Even the flame of the candle is frozen where it crackled and danced in the shadows of night.

Tommy’s heart leaps to his throat. Jack can’t see this, he knows, but there’s no way to thaw it out. There’s no way to stop it. He glances down at his own hands, overrun with intricate, icy fractals all the way up past his elbows, and swallows bile.

The crown prince lunges for his bag and sword in its sheath, fastening both around himself and yanking his boots on. The cold takes no effect on him; he abandons his tunic and reaches for the metal disc that the candle rested on, wiping glossy frost from its surface and frantically scrubbing at it to try and get a good look at himself.

When it thaws, he is distorted, but there is no doubt about it— half of his whole head is white, and not a single drop of blue still remains hiding in his irises.

Tommy’s hands tremble when he sets it back down, turning for the door. He’ll have to make it quick. Maybe he can hope that Jack isn’t awake yet. He sets a hand on the knob and then swallows, his entire body aching with longing to get out.

There’s a pull on his chest that commandeers him for a moment, and his eyes go wide as saucers when it forces him to open the door and step out into the hallway. 

Tommy grabs onto the strap of his bag with white knuckles (if they can even get any paler) and practically sprints down the hall on the lightest feet he can muster. Still, frost tracks out of the room after him, and down the stairs, and until he reaches the bottom of the tavern, which is… completely still. It’s not open. Tommy thanks his lucky stars and races out into the open air, the tug on his chest begging for sweet release, and immediately, his eyes grow wide.

There are hundreds, thousands of people already gathering outside throughout the city, but the volume is eerily low, the people only allowing the hushed exchange of worried whispers. There is no music, no loudly clopping horse-drawn carriages, no shouting merchants from markets. Tommy slows his pace so as not to draw attention to himself, keeping his head down and eyes low to the cobble. Is this what all cities are like in the morning? Is this what he should expect of the public? The castle was never like this.

And then Tommy catches a glimpse of something snow-white, and his heart stops. 

No. No. No. He ducks around people as carefully and quietly as possible, begging to remain unnoticed as he maneuvers his way deeper into the heart of the crowd and realizes that the citizens are confined mostly to the wide cobble path. Thankfully, he reaches the edge of the street without much issue, wiping his face and lifting his head and there, there,

there, his cruel prison awaits, 

the Glacies has crept all the way to the outskirts of the city in just one night.

Tommy goes white as a sheet to match his hair and eyes, quickly wheeling backwards and covering his mouth with a frosty hand. It’s here. The Glacies is here. Tommy turns his eyes up far, towards the mountains that cradle the city of L’Manberg; they are doused in a neverending white blanket, just as everything else. The Cassian Empire is dead in the middle of a blazing hot summer, the sun practically melting the skin off their backs, and here is the frost, covering everything in a glistening white. 

The murmurs rise to a crescendo as he realizes what has happened. Dream’s beloved, flowering kingdom has been reduced to ice, fractals extending just past the edge of the Glacies. If this keeps up, everything in the kingdom will look exactly as it does in his dream, the one that keeps coming back. If it keeps up this way, then…

The people of the kingdom will succumb to the Glacies and fall into a deep sleep, unbroken, and the land will descend into nothing but a gaping expanse of white. That would explain why the iron gates in his dream, so snowy, are the same iron gates as the front of the crown castle. Across the kingdom will fall a hush greater than any man has ever known, and even the shadow in his head will be enveloped by the snow, and then, then…

Tommy begins to think, a great, cavernous chasm unfolding in his chest and a burning sting forming in his eyes. There’s a yank on his ribs greater than ever before, one that causes him to suppress a yelp and crash haphazardly into the ground as he walks. A haggard breath that is drawn from him, and a shudder to follow it suit. Finally, as he struggles to his feet, there is a recognition:

The Glacies belongs to Thomas Innes Tancran, the boy with the ice in his veins. 

—

As it turns out, once he coerces Henry onto stable ground, the horse isn’t all that affected by the Glacies after all. They’ve been traveling for some time now, pushing forward based only on the deafening tug from within his chest. It’s tiring, its constant presence, but Tommy embraces it all the same, leaning into its pull and guiding Henry the best way forward.

He’s already eaten; the kind woman he bought from spoke in hushed tones, and served him a bewildered look, but he kept his hands as out of sight as possible and ate like lightning, leaving a handful of gold in his wake when he rushed out the door. Sated yet anxious, he retrieved Henry shortly after, and then pranced in a careful circle, trying to figure out where to go from there.

The feeling in his chest wrenched him north, so north he went, and now he’s here: the middle of nowhere, with something foggy dawning on the horizon. He’s not out of the Cassian Empire, not yet. He can’t be, because the Glacies still pushes in on all sides, sending luring whispers down his spine and pulling him in.

But he does not crumble, building resolve against the blankets of snow that try to kidnap him, and he decides he won’t dismount his horse until he reaches civilization, however far that may be. Besides, there is still plenty of space for a horse to walk— the Glacies hasn’t yet cut off his only method of travel.

Tommy keeps on at a steady pace, Henry his trusty steed, and soon, buildings and farms and structures start to emerge from the fog, which slowly thins out and dissipates in the heat still left over from the sun. The town he approaches is much quieter than L’Manberg was when he first arrived, but he can’t tell if it’s because of the Glacies or the manner of the city. 

People still walk along the streets, though, so he finds a good, trustworthy place for Henry, dropping extra coins for the woman to convince her to feed him (because Tommy’s not even brought any food for himself along, much less his horse, and he’d kill before seeing his baby mistreated). Soon, he’s on his feet again, lucky that he has the luxury of Henry so they don’t ache already. 

He carefully progresses through the streets, ducking around guards and searching avidly for somewhere to crash for the rest of the day and through the night. Henry needs a break, and Tommy could do with another meal, although it isn’t wholly necessary, and— he runs his fingers through his hair with a grimace. Shit. It’s getting bad, he knows; he needs something to cover it up. 

The worst part of this city, on top of its silent nature, is the way the guards seem much more thorough. Tommy is not going to do well at hiding if he can’t blend into crowds, and this city sparsely has a spot to duck and hide without being noticed. The clamor of L’Manberg is far greater a hiding spot. 

With a wary glance up, Tommy folds his arms across his chest to hide his hands and bristles in the breeze, clenching his jaw and turning sharp eyes on the bleak sky. He scans the silent streets for a shop, adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows roughly. Another guard marches by with clanking boots, a street or two over, and Tommy tenses, picking up his pace.

The wind pushes his hair into his eyes, and Tommy lowers his head to avoid catching anybody’s eye, and— he walks right into someone.

They let out a gentle uff, and Tommy snaps his head up in surprise before he can think to do otherwise, hoping against hope that it isn’t a royal guard. His eyes go wide, and then he realizes that’s probably somewhat of a problem, showcasing the shining white irises to anybody. “Ah,” he mutters, strangled, choked, and the man raises a playful eyebrow.

“Watch where you’re walking, eh?” he says, but it’s teasingly, and Tommy tilts his head— the man’s round glasses are… familiar, in a way. It is then that the tug that lives permanently in his chest heightens, nearly driving him right into the man’s chest again. Tommy holds himself back but gives the man a bewildered look, stiffening his spine to keep from succumbing to the urges of magic curling around his bones. It’s never been this insistent before; Tommy does his best to tune it out.

Something about the corners of his face, the dimples in his cheeks, the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles….

Thankfully, the man himself does not ask about the white streaks, the white eyes, and if he catches sight of the frost creeping up Tommy’s neck, he is silent. “Only joking,” he continues brightly, but his cheery disposition takes a hit when he surveys Tommy’s body language. “Are you out here alone? My, you look… rather cold.”

“It’s summer,” mumbles Tommy, desperate to get out of any situation where he has to talk to somebody that could get him in trouble, but the brown-haired man shakes his head, tutting.

“That won’t do. What with this Glacies and all— you must be chilly. You’ve got your arms wrapped around yourself and everything—!” Tommy flushes, stammering in disagreement, but the man is pulling his own cloak off before the prince can get even a single word out. “Here you go, bud. This’ll do, eh? Not even a tunic on,” he mutters in disapproval, “my, my. Who let you out of the house looking like that?”

Unsurely, Tommy takes the cloak, rubbing the material between his fingers. An idea strikes him; he turns it over, examining it, and sure enough, there it is. A hood. Hesitantly, he folds it over an arm— he needs the hood, to hide his hair.

Tommy lifts his eyes, burying his hands in the cloak to shield them from the man’s vision and offering a tight smile. “Right,” he says, “thank you,” but it feels wrong, and nothing like himself, so he digs a hand into his satchel to make up for it. “How much do you want for it?”

“Oh, sunshine,” says the man with a genuine grin, “no cost.” He reaches forward and claps a hand on Tommy’s shoulder, inclining his head with a small lift of his eyebrows. “Take care of yourself, bud.”

When white light erupts along his shoulder and down his arm, under the man’s hand, Tommy’s eyes go wide. He opens and closes his mouth, taking a step back and grabbing onto the strap of his bag in preparation to run. “I— I don’t—”

The man raises one eyebrow a bit higher than the other, eyes descending into less innocence and more a wide knowledge that keeps Tommy on his toes. “I’d get that under control,” he teases amusedly, and before Tommy can speak, breathe, blink— the man is gone, breezing past him like nothing’s wrong.

The light fades promptly after. Tommy throws the cloak on hurriedly, darting to the side out of the middle of the street, and pulls the hood down low over his head, so far it nearly covers his eyes, too. With a curse muttered under his breath, he moves forward, sticking his hands deep into its pockets.

This will keep him safe, and if the people want to know what he’s doing in a cloak in this scalding weather, he can blame it safely on the Glacies. The tug in Tommy’s chest begs him to go back, to chase the man that was so kind to him, but Tommy grits his teeth, forces himself on, and takes cover inside the nearest inn, much like last time.

The Fireside Inn is a much tamer establishment than the Jack of All Trades. None of its floorboards creak when he enters, and the door swings fluidly on its hinges. The few patrons inside are either seated at a round table or on the roaring, crackling fireplace, and they don’t shout and slam their mugs down on the wood; discussion is gentle and quiet, and the atmosphere is… comfortable, at the least. 

The woman in the front has a kind sparkle in her eye and an understanding lilt to her voice when she greets him. Tommy, wrapping the cloak tighter around himself, inquires about a room, and she leads him down rather than up, into a comfortable row of quaint little rooms. He picks the one that looks like it has the comfiest bed, and the woman smiles and wishes him well and sends him off with another handful of his golden coins for her hospitality.

With that, he hangs the cloak on the back of the door and stares at it, tracing its outline, before grabbing the only two dusty books off the shelf, curling up against the wall, and reading first about plants and then about the patterns of the stars until the words blur together and he finds himself lulled into a nap. 

Chapter Text

Tommy does not dream.

When he next opens his eyes, he is still in the Fireside Inn. The walls are not doused in white ice, and the pull on his chest is tame. There’s noise from downstairs and outside, and there were no strangers to taunt him in his dreams.

He fell asleep sitting up. Tommy leans his head this way and that, pressing cold fingers into his neck to massage the tension away. He closes the leatherbound book on plants that laid, face down, on his chest, and slides it carefully back into the shelf. With a grunt, he gets to his knees, leaning back to pop his joints and then standing.

Tommy turns in a slow circle, taking up the cloak again and wrapping himself in it. It is nicely insulated in here, keeping the hot air out in the city where it belongs, so Tommy’s ice is not reserved to his own body, spilling out from h is skin and filling the room with a chill that he is sure would be noticeable to anyone walking in.

But the nice lady running the inn didn’t say a word if she saw his hands, or his eyes, which proves helpful. There are few people in this land who know how to mind their own business. 

When he makes the steps down into the pub, there are considerably more people than he saw before his nap. Upon a peek out of a window, the sky is falling to dusk, and Tommy glances at the livelihood of the Fireside Inn, and at the way the woman’s hands are kind and gentle as she serves platters of food that make his mouth water.

He skipped lunch to sleep. This is the most thrown off his schedule has ever been, after living under the strict guidelines of the castle, and it’s more freeing than he would have expected. Furtively, Tommy pulls a hand from his pocket to check it; it’s better than it was yesterday.

So he dares to approach the counter and order a meal for dinner. He sits and waits patiently, swinging his legs, and five minutes later, when he’s served, he listens in to the conversations around him, keeping his eyes on the bowl of soup and half a loaf he’s been given. It’s tame at first, stories of missing cattle and married sisters, but as Tommy gets halfway through his bowl, dipping bread into the broth, something in particular catches his ear. Maybe it’s his father’s name, or maybe it’s the mere mention of the king, but something sets him off to listen:

“...ordered it,” a firmly-spoken man says a few feet behind him. “They’re saying the servant was executed.”

Tommy’s gut fills with ice. This was not something he wanted to hear. For a second, he loses all appetite, staring owlishly into his broth. Ranboo, he dares to think, but no— there’s no way. Tommy won’t believe it. Ranboo’s fine, waiting for him back at the castle. Tommy’ll go back for him. He’ll go back. He has to go back. The tug in his chest makes him lurch further against his table at the thought, and he all but chokes on his broth, muffling himself with a hand and stuffing bread into his mouth to hide it.

It’d be better to mind his own business, if this is what the gossip is going to be like. Tommy sets his jaw and shovels spoonfuls of hot soup into his mouth, which seems even better than castle soup, infused with care and caution that one can’t find among most of the monotonous chefs in the castle. The meat is surprisingly good quality, too, for a little inn like this one. He turns his attention on it and scowls, destroying the reflection of himself by stirring it when it grows too stagnant and dipping his bread into the broth again, and then—

“...looking for the Prince, too, but nobody knows what he looks like,” Tommy hears the man say, and he stiffens, dropping his spoon and sitting up ramrod straight. 

An urgent chill slides down his spine. He picks his bowl up hurriedly, sucking up the rest of the broth by drinking it right out of the bowl (terrible table manners, but the point is to not act like the king’s son), and stands when he finishes, gathering his back and sword and pushing his chair in. He leaves half of his bread uneaten, despite how hungry he was just minutes before— he’s lost all appetite.

The lady notices, taking confident strides over to smile at him. “You have a good trip, honey,” she says, and Tommy forces a smile onto his face, glancing agitatedly for the door. 

“Thanks.” He’s out of there in an instant, sliding past the doors and turning his face to the brilliant night sky, speckled with stars that muddle together when Tommy’s vision is impeded on by the glow of the lantern at his side. 

The city’s busier at night, but not by too terribly much. It’s far tamer than L’Manberg, which Tommy appreciates— but outside here, he’s vulnerable, and in need of Henry, because he really should get going—

“Hey!” a sharp voice rips through the night, attracting stares from all around. Tommy jumps, shoulders flying up. Uneasily, he steps further out into the street, turning his head back and forth. That can’t have been directed at him, right? Tommy pulls his hood down further and drops his head, sticking his hands in his pockets and slinking off to avoid anyone catching sight of him.

It’s a dangerous game, this— but Tommy picks up the pace, heading up the hill to the stables where Henry awaits. Tommy’s already paid them for their service, so he can go retrieve his horse and fuck off to wherever his heart pulls him. He starts up the slope, feet pushing him further up the cobble, and—

A rough hand grabs his shoulder, yanking him in a circle. “Stop where you’re going,” the voice says, and Tommy’s heart seizes in his chest. He keeps his head low, struggling in the grip, but whoever has a hold on him grabs his chin, forcing his head up.

The man is decked out in royal gold and green.

Tommy jerks back, yanking at his arm where the man has it in a vice grip. “Sorry,” he forces out, heart skyrocketing in his chest, “you’ve got the wrong person,” but the guard sneers at him.

“Nice try, kid,” the man says with wide eyes, leaving Tommy to shrink in fear. “But there’s a warrant out for your arrest— and you can’t seriously be that dense.”

Arrest?! Dream’s going to kill him. Dream’s literally going to kill him. “I,” Tommy begins, the panic building in his chest, but the man forces him backwards a step, and there’s another man, and another, and suddenly, Tommy is surrounded on all sides.

Everything is happening much too quickly. He’s been gone for days, running earnestly from the castle and legging it as far as he could possibly get, and now they find him? Now is the time they finally catch up, finally wrap his wrists in twine and kick him to the ground?

Fuck, his ribs hurt. He groans when he makes rough contact with the cobblestone, cheek pressing into stone. “Fuck you,” he bites, kicking out violently in an attempt to free himself, but to no avail. Flailing gets him nowhere, and his arms are wrenched painfully behind his back. 

“What the hell,” he hears quietly, and his stomach drops. “What is this?” Two fingers run along Tommy’s wrist, where fractals embed themselves into his skin, crawling up his arms and infusing him with a winter that overpowers the sun itself.

Tommy panics, yanking as aggressively as he can and twisting this way and that in the first man’s grip. Another one soon has hold of his shoulders, though, pinning him down, and Tommy pants. “Been stickin’ yer hands in the Glacies, Prince?” the first one says, shoving him further into the ground, and Tommy gasps for breath, lifting his head as far up as he can to avoid the inherent suffocation that apparently comes with arrest.

“Let me go,” he spits, wriggling around when hands reach for his torso. “I did nothing. I’m innocent, unhand me!” Frost knocks at his chest, begging for a release, a grand entrance, but Tommy clamps his lips shut and wills it to stay inside. He doesn’t want to attack, and he can’t afford to expose himself. He just wants out. 

Just as hands brace against his ribs, beginning to pull him up and off of the ground, there are new footsteps, clean and sharp against the cobble. “Evening, gentlemen,” says a new voice to match, gentler, smoother, and then a sword is pulled from a sheath. “I believe you’ve got the wrong kid.”

“Thomas Innes Tancran,” the first man spits, “is guilty of aggravated assault against the king and the crown itself. He is also a stray—” Tommy bites his tongue to keep from crying out when his shoulder is yanked at a bad angle— “and must be returned posthaste to his father.” The commotion in the street grows to a crescendo as the people stop and stare and start to whisper.

They know who he is now. They know who he’s been, what he’s done. They know the face of the storm.

The new arrival chuckles, and the tug in Tommy’s chest goes haywire when he pipes up again. “I understand the grounds on which you are restraining the boy— but really, it’s inhumane.” There’s a charged pause, and Tommy aches to lean towards the new man, and then: “Allow me to demonstrate.” 

With a great gust of wind, a sword comes slicing down towards him. Tommy only gets a glimpse before screwing his eyes tightly shut, his pulse spiking in his chest— surely this is where he finally gets what’s coming to him— but then the bindings around his wrists and ankles fall away.

Without any hesitation, Tommy rolls to his stomach and throws a fist into the jaw of the first face he sees. The guard stumbles back, reeling and holding his chin, and Tommy takes on the next challenger, an even burlier man. The prince scrambles backwards against the cobble, eyes widening in the huge shadow of the man when he reaches down for Tommy’s neck—

And the sword slices cleanly through the air, coming to rest between Tommy and his newest assailant. “Ah, ah, ah,” the man who freed him tuts, and Tommy looks up to find his savior. He’s washed in a sickening sense of recognition, face scrunching as he tries to figure out what name he could possibly place to this face. His chest tugs so hard he nearly goes sprawling again, and Tommy swallows hard.

He’s on the brink of it, but it won’t come. The man’s blond hair frames his face naturally, long overcoat hanging down by his sides, and Tommy drinks it all in like he’s been in the desert for the past three weeks. “Hello, mate,” the man says kindly, eyes twinkling, when he catches Tommy staring, and the prince averts his eyes, flushing. 

The hunt begins. Tommy scrambles to his feet, reaching for his sword in his haste. He yanks it out of its scabbard and wields it menacingly as guards from down the street and from different parts of the city come pouring in, surrounding them in a flurry of green and gold. Tommy swallows, glancing to the questionably cloaked man, but the elder just smiles again.

“You’ll be alright, angel,” he promises, and Tommy nods, swiveling around. Swordsman, as Tommy’s taken to calling him, is the only one who he can trust not to run him through with a sword, so Tommy steps the other way hurriedly until his back presses into his elder’s. The blond man tightens his grip on his sword, and Tommy does the same, and things spur to action right then and there.

Swordsman jumps forward in a low, sweeping circle, knocking several men to their feet. Tommy finally directs his attention to the handful of guards that are advancing on him, gulping and positioning his feet the way he’s been taught. It won’t be easy to fight off royal guards, but it can’t be any harder than sparring with Dream. Surely—

A blade nicks his arm, and Tommy roars to life, lunging. “Fuck you!” he shouts, for what has to be the hundredth time. “How dare you— coming and attacking me like that—!” It’s no good to scream his lungs out at them, really, but Tommy lets loose all the words he couldn’t say to Dream, all the words that built under the surface while his father’s magic stifled his airways. 

Tommy brings his sword down atop a new man, aiming straight for the shoulder with a shrieking battle cry: “I— am— innocent!” With each word, he swings, once, twice, three times, and then steps and pivots, parrying some blades and ducking under others. Tommy whirls around, slicing clean into a man’s arm and wincing when he cries out in pain. 

It’s nothing compared to what the blond man is doing behind him, though, easily mowing down soldiers like a scythe through grass, so Tommy keeps up at the same rate, pushing down the guilt. He jumps past a sword that would’ve had his head, if he’d waited, and sucks in a hurried breath of air, trying to put space between himself and the men after him. He brings his sword down against armor, the shrieking clangs of metal on metal piercing the night. 

This is a wildly unbalanced and tiresome fight— Tommy doesn’t even have a tunic, much less armor. In fact, they’re probably trained better than him, too. There’s still the question of Swordsman, of why he’s the only one with the gall to step in and do something, but Tommy can’t bring himself to build the resolve to stick around. 

If he can just get up the hill to his left, get out of the circle of guards, he can make a break for it. He’ll reach Henry, and then they’ll really be stuck, because Tommy will be much faster than these men on horseback.

On the count of three, inside his head, Tommy takes a breath and throws himself forward, diving for the only route open. He nearly does make it, too, slipping between two men and dragging his sword after him, but an arm wraps around his torso, slingshotting him back into the middle until he trips over his own feet and slams, headfirst, into the ground. 

His shoulders take the brunt of it. Tommy bears the pain across his upper back, immediately kicking out and attempting to ground himself again, but they swarm him, ripping his sword from his grasp and boxing him in. Panic and desperation rise in his throat, the frost creeping up as hands cover his body in bruises until he begins to shake. 

His mouth drops open (whether for more air or to start cursing, he’s not sure yet), and fog pours out before anything else. That’s certainly never happened. Somebody yelps in surprise at the new obstacle, and Tommy is shoved further into the ground. When he rears his head forward, struggling against these new restraints, a blade is pressed against his neck. Tommy lifts his chin out of the way jerkily, eyes going wide as he coughs.

His whole body shudders, wrenching back and forth angrily, but he can’t manage to conjure the vengeful words, a bitter taste of defeat sharp on his tongue. The clashing of sword against sword floats to him, and he picks out Swordsman’s voice, but not the individual words themselves. Again, Tommy opens his mouth—

And a fist connects with his jaw, sending a painful jolt down his entire nervous system. Somebody grabs his wrists before he can retaliate, and someone his ankles, holding him down steady until he can barely move a muscle. Finally, his chest is compressed achingly, two hands placed against his ribs and pushing, pushing, pushing. Tommy panics, gasping for breath, and his chest rattles with angry opposition. The man that’s pushing down on his chest, Tommy realizes with a start:

The magic pull doesn’t like that. 

It builds rapidly, before he can even consider stopping it. Just a second later, an explosion of bright white light bursts from Tommy’s body, and in a single instant, everything is covered in ice. 

“Atta boy!” he hears Swordsman’s whooping cry of encouragement. The shouting and clamor of their audience roars to a deafening forte, and Tommy scrambles to his feet as soon as the sword slips from his neck, ducking swiftly past a man who has been blinded by his magic. Snow whips violently in circles around his attackers; his hands shake as the energy pours out of him, blasting the city in frost. A decent portion surrounding the ground where he laid is pure white; Tommy wheels backwards quickly, heading for the hill.

He cannot stop the winter when it pours out of him.

“Thank you,” he whispers, but the words are caught in his tightening throat and they snag on his teeth before they can get to Swordsman. The entire city now knows that he is something inhuman. Soon, it will be the entire kingdom, too. Tommy yanks his hood up, stepping shakily backwards and lifting a hand to ghost along his neck, where the sword was so easily set against his snow-laced skin. A shaky breath escapes him, and he watches it crystallize there in the air, a cloud that should have been stamped out just a few minutes ago.

Tommy turns and takes off running under the stars, feet pounding against the cobble. Henry awaits, and the guide in his chest bangs furiously at his ribs; he needs to follow the tug and get the hell out of here as fast as he can. Blinding light and frost all wrapped up in a ball of winter trail after him as he goes, and Tommy takes a second once he reaches the stable, hastily unhooking Henry from where he was tied up.

Fact one: he is a wanted criminal. Fact two: the entirety of the Cassian Empire will soon know every detail of his attack on the royal guards. Fact three: he does not know what will happen or has already happened to Ranboo, and fact four: the same could be said for himself.

Tommy clenches his jaw, throwing a leg over Henry and kicking his flank gently to get him going. Together, they thunder past the heart of the city, leaping over anyone who dares to try and stand in their way and fleeing to the outskirts. Tommy listens as the uproar back near Swordsman slowly dies in his ears. If Tommy is to die along with it, and this relentless pull at his chest is dragging him right to the center of the danger, then so be it.

Anything will be better than a miserable life riddled with Dream’s manipulation. Quite frankly, he can’t wait for the exhilaration of freedom.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately, this was not what he meant when he said he wanted freedom. 

Tommy is on what quite possibly could be called the most boring expedition of his entire lifetime. Sure, maybe that isn’t a wide range of time in the long run, but to Tommy, things couldn’t possibly get any worse than this. 

It’s daylight now, and he’s been on and off for hours. The tug has finally, finally pulled him past what he thinks are the borders of the Cassian Empire; he’s not quite sure, never having been past them before, but the wall around the kingdom’s claimed land looked fancy and was riddled with flags and bedecked in gold trimmings, so he’ll assume that it probably was. 

Now, though, the prospect of getting lost is terrifying. Yes, Tommy will always have the pull to rely on, and yes, he has Henry right here with him, but there’s no food. There’s barely half a canteen of water left. He glances down, shakes the container at his wrist, and the noises of bare minimum slosh back at him, the sad amount of remaining water tumbling around inside. 

Tommy can’t afford to starve alone out here, not like this. He’s tried too hard to die here. And Henry— what’ll he do? Who’ll take care of him? No, Tommy will not starve outside, and he won’t shrivel up and dehydrate, and he won’t lose his mind out of boredom or under-stimulation or even loneliness.

Okay, so the last point is a little iffy— but every good plan has its flaws.

Tommy sags, dropping his head low against Henry’s mane. His horse nickers and rears his head, pushing Tommy back up to sit. “Yeah, yeah,” the prince grumbles, swallowing hard. “You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. It’s rough out here.”

Henry stamps his foot reproachfully, snorting, and Tommy rolls his eyes. 

“Fine. It’s a hard life for both of us, you lousy pony.”

He yawns as Henry keeps moving with a whicker, desperate not to let the repetitive clopping of his trusty pal’s hooves lure him to sleep. Henry doesn’t know where he’s going— Tommy’s supposed to be the one in charge, the one to lead them on this perilous journey.

But Tommy’s also the one who spent the entire night awake to beat the shit out of a mob of angry castle guards, exposing his biggest secret to the entirety of one of the Cassian Empire’s biggest cities while he was at it. Can’t win ‘em all. 

Soon, Tommy finds himself too exhausted to even hold the reins properly. He’s not sure what’s been sapping the strength from him, but ice eats away at his veins, and the breeze cards a gentle hand through his hair, and Tommy slumps to the side, finally giving in and sliding carefully off of Henry.

They’ve found themselves in the midst of a forest by the time Tommy dismounts, wobbly on his feet after hours of using Henry for his transportation. Light streams in sparsely from between the treetops, and he deems it a good enough spot to take a breather. 

Tommy stretches and hobbles over on unsteady legs to a tree, grabbing onto the edge and sliding down into the dirt. “I could just,” he mumbles around a gaping yawn, “sit here to catch my breath, yeah?”

Henry brays dubiously, and Tommy folds his arms across his chest, head lolling back against the oak he’s made into a bed. “This is the opposite of comfortable,” he informs Henry through slurred, tired words, eyes falling closed. “Watch me… ‘lright? Watch out.” 

Henry does not watch out, keep guard, or anything of the sort. Instead, he lays himself down spitefully yet calculatedly, right next to Tommy on the forest floor. When the golden prince slumps to the side, burdened with sleep, there is his trusty steed to serve as his pillow.

When Tommy finally closes his eyes and falls, floating, through the sky, he is hit with a sudden feeling of weightlessness. Thankfully, the next time he opens his eyes, his feet are planted safely on the ground below him—

Barefoot, in the biting snowstorm, right in front of the castle. Right in the exact spot he’s been running from this entire time. Leave it to those who handcraft his dreams to torture him. What could go wrong?

Tommy inhales deeply, taking in the sharp, clean scent of freshly fallen snow. Of course, it’s still coming down in thick sheets all around them, but it sticks when it lands on the ground, and suddenly, the grey sky heightens, shifts, darkens.

He turns around before the shadow can call his name. 

“Oh,” he breathes, and the man with the glasses smiles sadly at him, opening his arms out to the sides. He doesn’t speak, leaving Tommy to do all the work for the both of them. Unsurprisingly, the prince wrinkles his nose, folding his arms across his slender torso and stepping back.

“Fuck no,” he spits, whirring to life and finding his voice under the frenzied flurries from overhead. “You… no. You left me. You didn’t even show up last time.”

The shadow draws its arms back to itself, a deep frown etching into its face. Busy, it says ruefully. We were busy. 

“Busy,” he echoes, laughing scornfully. “Sure. And I was passed out in an inn I knew nothing of. Alone.” It’s pitiful how much he misses the company of a shadow that only appears to him in his dreams, but it’s all he has, now. At this point, he has to cling to what little lifeline he has left.

Aww, Theseus, the shadow coos cheekily, you missed us. It’s the most upbeat thing he’s ever heard come from its mouth. Its lips curl up into a teasing grin, and Tommy, surprised by its sudden expressiveness, fights to stay mad.

“I didn’t miss you, I—” Frustrated, he lets a groan cut him off, falling from his lips and staining the snow at his feet. He pulls at his hair, beginning to pace in an agitated circle. “I’m trying to— to get to—”

A thought strikes him: where is it that he’s going?

His head snaps up. “What am I following?” he demands, taking a step forward in the snow, and the shadow’s eyes twinkle, much to his chagrin.

It extends a hand out to its side, a bright, curling sliver of light dancing off of its fingertips. Aren’t you following the magic? it asks him coyly, and Tommy huffs through his nose, placing a hand flat against his chest in an attempt to feel the tug. 

It’s still there, even here, even in this mind palace full of winter. It begs him to draw closer to the shadow, but Tommy, temperamentally affronted, doesn’t budge. “You won’t tell me where I’m going. You just— just keep telling me to— to come home. And now I’m running away from home, and the— you know, the guards— the whole kingdom— I don’t—”

His breath catches painfully in his throat, and without warning, Tommy finds himself sinking down into the snow, knees making a hard impact with the ground below. He sucks in a trembling breath, wide eyes fixed on the gleaming blank slate of frost below him. Tommy takes fistfuls of the shit and slaps it into his face to pull himself from the nightmare of his own design. Get it together, he thinks to himself. No prince has ever ruled a kingdom like this.

Well. Tommy can’t rule any kingdom, ever— not after this fiasco.

When he manages to look up, the frantic energy ebbing away and giving way to regulated breathing, the shadow is knelt in front of him, extending a concerned hand and kind eyes. 

You are far too concerned with the past, child, it chides, and Tommy grits his teeth, sitting up on his knees.

“No. No, I’m not concerned enough about the past. You dreamland freak—” Tommy sucks in a breath, shakes his head. “What about Ranboo? Ranboo’s stuck with my father, back at the castle.” If he’s even alive— fuck. “And— and the townspeople. They know now. They know I— I’m—” He looks woefully down at his hands, and his palm lines glow faintly, frost budding and spiraling outwards from his veins. 

The shadow is there with a guiding hand on his shoulder. You cannot control everything, Theseus. It’s stupid, and, frankly, quite patronizing, but Tommy lets himself lean into the touch that he hasn’t felt in so long.

“I was meant to be perfect,” he confesses, voice coming out sour and twisted and cracking. “I was meant to take over the crown. In two years’ time, even. And then you showed up, and now my own father’s kingdom is full of ice. Ice, in the summer, and it’s my fault. And I tried to make it better, but I don’t know how.” He draws in a breath, gripping at his shirt. “I have to know how to solve the kingdom’s problems before I can take it over. But I can’t. I can’t fix it.”

The shadow cradles his head with a hand, slowly pulling Tommy against its side. It’s less than familiar; Dream’s embraces were always charged with emotions Tommy couldn’t live up to. You’re okay, Theseus, soothes his subconscious companion. You did try. But we need you back, and the frost has its reasons. A hand runs over his hair. You’re so close. 

The frost has its reasons. That’s the stupidest thing Tommy’s ever heard in his entire life. “It’s following me,” he chokes, turning his face to the shadow for comfort, “and I can’t get it to stop. It’s my doing, but I don’t know how to make it go away.” Tommy normally avoids its face, but now, he stares directly into its eyes, watching as the brown hues crumple with sympathy. 

Theseus, it begins, and there’s something about its dimples, its soft, apologetic smile, the way that its glasses sit atop the bridge of its nose—

Tommy is hit with a cataclysmic realization, the wind roaring to a wild crescendo around the both of them as the snow pelts into their shoulders. Tommy’s eyes, sapped of their color, search the shadow’s face wildly, leaving it to stare in confusion until he lurches forward, wrapping a hand in its cloak as if to beg it to stay.

“You,” he says shakily, fingers curling in the fabric. “You.” The shadow opens its mouth to interrupt, fingers threading through Tommy’s curls once, but he shakes his head, jaw agape. 

“I saw you in the street,” he whispers, an acknowledgement that feels tremendously taboo. “I saw you. The cloak you gave me, in the city, I saw you—” 

The shadow slips from between his fingers like sand, yanking back and folding its limbs against itself. Despite Tommy’s firm grip on its cloak, it pulls away until he has no control, just like always. Tommy gasps at the sudden absence of warmth, lurching to trail after it as the brown-haired man shoots back, eyes wide and reserved and dimples disappearing jarringly along with his smile.

“No— wait,” Tommy gasps, lunging forward on his knees as the pull tugs him excruciatingly for the familiar face, but the shadow lifts into the air, shooting back several feet as the ground begins to shake. It shifts faces, the blond man taking its place, and the familiarity is like another violent right hook to Tommy’s gut. “You! You saved me from the guards! Last night, you— you were there, too!”

The man opens and closes his mouth as if he’s struggling to breathe, and when Tommy gets a good look at his eyes, they roll back in his head. Startled, the prince scrambles to his feet, leaping back for the iron gate as the shadow’s face switches one more time. His heart pounds in his chest; when he tries to swallow, his mouth is bone dry.

The skull mask is the only thing left, staring him down and daring him to say something. Tommy freezes in the pale light of the sky. Behind him, the people of his kingdom sleep fitfully in their homes, trapped by this wintry purgatory. It is a hell of his own making, a prison crafted by his own hands of ice. Now, the prince’s hands are devoid of what has come to be his usual frost; his palms are raw, and red, and freezing cold.

Tommy has never truly felt cold here before. 

The ground settles, finally, and the snow returns to a much gentler falling. The shadow’s feet touch the ground, and the earth shudders and sighs and rests. The boar mask is threatening, the furthest from inviting that Tommy’s ever seen the shadow look. He is endlessly grateful that he cannot recognize its face like he did the others. His voice is caught in his throat when it takes one careful step towards him, still meters away and shielded again by the cloak that remains tightly around its shoulders.

Tommy’s never really examined the fabric closely before— or maybe it was that he couldn’t— but now its colors are bright and loud, displayed right in front of his eyes. They scream a brilliant blue and white, with gold trimmings along the edges and a crest that shines from the lapel. 

Tommy swallows his thoughts, stepping forward himself to mirror it. If he can get close enough, get a good look at the crest on the cloak— “I’m sorry,” he says, masking his curiosity for apology. The shadow lifts its chin reproachfully; Tommy can feel the sharp gaze even from under the skull mask. 

Something about it is familiar, he thinks with creeping dread. Tommy recognized the man who gifted him a cloak and the Swordsman who protected him because he just saw them the night prior. But the mask…

Tommy pulls at one of his curls, threading it around his finger and then letting it go. Dream isn’t here, he tells himself. Dream doesn’t wear this mask. He knows that much from the nightmarish moment when the shadow did shift into his father. The king’s mask smiles threateningly at him from around every corner, and this mask has dark, gaping holes for eyes. But this provides more questions than answers.

You cannot play with fate, boy, the third face snaps harshly. Everything did always seem firmer coming from the boar mask, after all. You will unravel the magic, if you are not careful. I suggest you stop sticking your hands into places you don’t belong.

Tommy takes a step closer. “I won’t do it again,” he says emptily, absently. “I can’t.” His eyes float from the shadow’s face, locking on the crest. Another step, and another, and his chest constricts, the pull reaching for the shadow just as much as Tommy’s gaze hungers to see the design etched into its clothes. 

Theseus, warns the shadow coldly, and it sends a chill through his bones that Tommy has never felt so vividly as he does in this moment. We will not be able to fix things if you break them again. The warning is clear and concise: don’t shatter something you can’t afford to mend. 

Tommy’s breath hitches in his throat. “I,” he says, stopping in the snow. “I’m.” Something in his chest twists. Right then and there, in search of a crest he aches for so badly, Tommy becomes the villain he never meant to embody. 

Thundering footsteps echo across the tundra as Tommy launches himself forward. The scenery begins to fade haphazardly as he runs, the castle flickering behind the shadow and the trees falling with a mighty gust of wind. The shadow fades in and out of existence, looking down at itself in shock as it does so.

Theseus! 

Behind him, he hears the screech of his very own iron gates as they descend into the void below. The ground quakes like it never has before, sending Tommy stumbling across the ground and pitching sideways into the snow. The world freezes, as he catches his breath, and then he throws himself back up, trying to outrun a world that will not let him live.

Houses crumble to dust in the city below the towering hill. Life is still, but the earth is not, sucking everything into the sea of snow as Tommy runs, half blindly, for the shadow. The crest, he reminds himself, the crest, but when he casts a glance behind himself—

A dark, gaping chasm has opened at his heels, a crack in the earth that begs to suck Tommy under. 

He gasps, pushing harder against his burning lungs. His feet drag him rapidly forward, but no matter how fast he sprints, the ground falls away right behind his feet, never letting go. The snow and wind and ice build to a sickening, inescapable storm, whirling furiously as the ground spasms and shakes beneath his feet. 

He loses track of the shadow altogether in the blizzard as he feels the things he was never meant to feel in this mind palace— ice bites at his limbs, his skin descending into violent shades of blue and purple, and his face flushes with the piercing wind, and the sleet pelts into his arms, tearing at his silk blue pajamas. He sprints deep into the endless expanse of fog and snow and white, hoping against hope that he’s in the home stretch, but there is nothing to run toward, the shadow having disappeared altogether in the thickness of the whiteout.

And then it’s over just as quickly as it began.

Tommy’s ankle rolls agonizingly, and he cries out, collapsing with a shattering shriek into the snow. The abyss catches up with him from behind and swallows him whole, and just as Tommy comes to terms with the terrifyingly familiar feeling of falling, stomach dropping out of his body and arms scrabbling and flailing helplessly for the ledge he cannot reach—

Something grips his wrist with a force unknown to any mortal man, yanking him up and out of the pit.

Tommy inhales sharply, eyes flying open. They lock onto the seemingly soulless, endless eyes of the shadow’s mask. Theseus, it says to him, unblinking, don’t let go. So Tommy obliges, reaching up with his other hand to wrap it tightly around the shadow’s arm and gasping for breath. 

“Help,” he forces out, refusing to look down. The shadow heaves and pulls, creeping up by mere centimeters as it supports his weight in the air. The ground has ceased to crumble, far above them, but the shadow floats weightlessly as it pulls him up, painstakingly slowly, from the darkness into which he has fallen. “Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

I warned you, child, it hisses, but it is firm and perseverant in its grasp, unshaking. I warned you not to take matters into your own hands. 

“I need to find you,” Tommy chokes, voice shaking as he forces each word past his mouth. “And I don’t know how.” 

You have little faith in us. 

Tommy looks up again, fighting to see what’s behind the mask but failing altogether. “The magic,” he mutters, too afraid to peel his gaze from the shadow with the boar mask. “It’s all I have left to follow. And I— I don’t know where I’m going. I have no food, no water. I have no guide.” 

We are your guide. The hand around his wrist tightens, pulling him up at a diagonal incline, and Tommy’s heart leaps to his throat, thundering dangerously. One hand braces his back, and Tommy strains to lean upwards, his head burrowing itself into the last face’s neck for warmth and comfort. He moves a hand of his own, as quick and terrifying as it is, to wrap around the shadow’s torso in return. I have hold of you, Theseus. You will not fall, says the silhouette confidently, softly.

But Tommy’s on the verge. He’s on the edge, the brink, of something beautifully horrifying. He can see it, in the way the cloak billows in the sharp wind and the tusks split off threateningly from the skull. He can hear it in the way the shadow’s voice echoes in his head when he presses his ear to its figure, deep and monotonous and rumbling. The sky has shifted from a tempered grey to blinding white, and Tommy feels the pull propelling him against the shadow. He presses closer to his savior’s side, shaking, and sees. 

Tommy tightens his grip on the silhouette’s wrist and the fabric of the back of his cloak, and he lifts his head slightly, aware of his own self-sabotage. Tommy can’t help the words that are drawn from his mouth, his dream becoming less than lucid when he whispers, with all the trembling fear of a newborn fawn: 

“You pulled me from the Glacies by the stables.”

The wind grows, and the sleet returns tenfold, and the heart of the earth begins to shake fiercely. No, the shadow says stiffly, frantically, gripping his body tightly, no, Theseus, no— but Tommy cuts it off with a scream when he slips, his knuckles shifting to a gleaming white when he starts to lose his grip, and it echoes, bouncing back at him from the depths of the abyss. 

The last shadow slides in and out of reality, fighting to keep its hold on him. You were warned, child, it cries, you were warned, and Tommy slides down, closer and closer to the darkness, as the figure fights for tangibility.

“No, no, no,” he panics, dangling over the hole in the earth that pulls him so aggressively downwards. “No, please, I didn’t mean it, I don’t know why—” He cuts himself off with a terrified shriek when the shadow removes one hand from him.

It reaches for its mask, wrangling it off of its head. Tommy stares into blood red eyes and old, pink scars, stares into eyebrows drawn painfully upwards and a mouth split in a silent cry after him. His hearing fades to the wind and the ringing, and Tommy loses himself when the last shadow finally fades.

His hand swipes at the air when the shadow disappears. For a split second, he is weightless, bodiless, suspended in the sky above the chasm that calls to end his life. 

Then the weight of the world comes crashing down into his chest, and he hurtles towards the gaping void below, nothing but crimson eyes haunting his head when he squeezes his eyes shut and prepares for fatal impact. 

Chapter Text

Tommy awakes with a wracking scream that quickly fades out into a cough. He jolts up, clapping a hand over his mouth, and Henry startles instantly, neighing loudly and scrabbling to stand on his hooves and shield Tommy from the imaginary danger.

The ground around them, he notices when he catches his breath, pressing his hands to his face. It’s covered in a thin sheet of verglas, taunting him. It seems they both fell asleep, because Henry… would have noticed this. You won’t get them back, a voice whispers in the back of his head. You ruined it, oh great and mighty golden prince.

But while the shadow magic is gone, destroyed by Tommy’s own two hands, the tug on his chest is still there, he thinks. He’s pretty sure. Tommy pulls himself up to stand with a low hanging branch from the tree he slept under, stumbling towards Henry. The Glacies creeps in from behind them, further back in the forest, but there’s a clear difference between where Tommy has summoned ice around him in his sleep and where the haunting curse of the Glacies follows swiftly at their heels.

“Right,” says Tommy shakily, still walking on wobbly legs. Henry nickers questioningly, and Tommy waves him off, frustrated. “Nothing.” Faces and long lost features swirl and mix together in his head, and Tommy squeezes his eyes shut, exhaling. “Nothing, buddy. It’s fine— we need to get out of here.”

As he tries, fails, and then tries again to hop up and mount Henry, he is chased with another fleeting thought: you didn’t even get a good look at the crest. Tommy bites his cheek, trying desperately to remember anything he could have seen while clinging to the shadow and hanging over the monster pit from Hell, but he can’t find it in his head.

Henry nudges at him, as he finally gets settled, and Tommy pats at his neck. “It’s fine,” he insists, “I’m fine,” but his eyes can’t help but magnetize onto the ground. He waits, holds his breath, for it to open up beneath him and swallow him whole. For all the trees in the forest to crash to the ground, and for the birds to take terrified flight around them. He waits for the snow and the sleet and the hail to come crashing down, chasing them with a ferocity that can be attributed to his mistakes.

Tommy waits. And waits. And waits. And nothing happens.

With a slow exhale, he guides Henry forward, ducking under branches that would leave scratches in his skin as they move forward at a comfortably slow trot. Tommy eyes the dense woods around them, navigating Henry around the trees and then pulling at his own hair for a second, distracted. 

He tugs as many strands as he can down to eye level; they’re all white. Every single one. At this point, his hair is white with blond streaks instead of the other way around.

A shuddery sigh leaves him, and Tommy slumps forward against Henry, an ache building in his throat. “Oh, man,” he mutters, and Henry slows to a stop, braying nervously. “No, it’s— fine,” he forces out, choked, but Henry tosses his head back, and Tommy grimaces. “Bad dream, buddy,” he says shakily, tearily, and his horse huffs sadly.

“I know,” Tommy whispers, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I know.”

He has nothing. The golden prince of the Cassian Empire has all the odds stacked against him: he has turned his own father into an enemy, abandoned the only person he could ever call a friend, alerted every guard and townsperson in the empire to both his departure and his sudden possession of weather-bending powers (that he can’t even control, some powers they are), and ruined the last good thing he had left— the dreams, his fragile visions of a heaven he can’t reach.

Recognition sparks behind his eyes, and it’s painful, but it’s there. He’s been starting to think, more and more, that Dream must have charmed him. Dream must have done something to his memory. Ranboo’s always been Memory Boy— always been the one that struggles to keep up with everything going on— but Tommy’s missing chunks.

For instance, he thinks, sagging against Henry at a standstill, Dream never had a wife. Where has Tommy’s mother gone and fucked off to? He never received a straight answer, and seeing as he’s never spoken to a real citizen aside from the three or four times in the past few days, he’s never been able to ask someone who would tell him the truth.

Another thing: Tommy has always felt a gaping hole alongside him, a hole where a family should go. Dream’s family, yes, but they hardly even look alike— and Dream wears that stupid mask, separating him from Tommy every single time thanks to those burn scars— and Ranboo, well. 

Ranboo filled that hole. Now he’s gone.

Tommy breathes in, wrapping his hands tightly in Henry’s mane. “At least I’ve still got you, buddy,” he says, attempting a cheery disposition, but Henry shifts where he’s standing, snorting resentfully at Tommy’s lies. His front crumbles instantly, and Tommy groans frustratedly, voice cracking at the end. “Fuck. I know. I can’t talk to a horse forever, I know, Henry, I’ve gone and— and ruined everything.”

A massive headache is building, attacking his brain from every angle. “Maybe we should go back,” he mumbles, to which Henry whinnies, loud and affronted. Tommy buries his face in his only remaining friend’s fur. “Oh, shut up. You can’t even understand me.”

A well-timed snort nearly leads Tommy to believing that Henry does, but he’ll leave that to deal with another time. Right now he needs to focus. Something is begging and screaming to be unlocked inside his head, something that’s been slowly building throughout the past few days, and Tommy can’t afford to keep it locked up any longer.

“I need you,” he whispers to himself, pressing a hand to his chest. The tug yanks him forward, and he lurches, steadying himself with a hand against Henry’s neck. His eyes widen slightly; if he wasn’t sure of the presence of magic still within his veins, he is now. “You’re still there.” Awed, Tommy glances up at the leaves that shield him from the sunlight.
Birds sing their praises from the canopies, and Tommy winces at their shrill cries. The forest is a friend, though, not an enemy; Tommy’s far too tired of making those lately.

He’s going to figure this thing out. He’s going to find the missing piece in his brain, the last cog in the machine. He’s going to put the finishing touches on the painting that the shadow left being, a half-crafted universe that he can’t unlock yet, but will someday. 

Tommy has no idea what he’s doing, but he knows exactly what he’s doing. He doesn’t know where to go, but the tug is going to lead him right to his destination. All the stories in his head crash together, bunched up and jumbled, yet they make perfect sense all at the same time. 

At rock bottom, there is no way to go but up— and there is no way in high Hell he’s going back home. 

With a whooping cry that shatters something in his chest, Tommy takes off, the wind greeting him like an old friend. Instead of whipping and stinging, it’s friendly. Understanding. It cups his cheek caringly, and Tommy forces himself to smile, leaning forward and blinking furiously to keep his eyes from drying out. “Go, go!” he calls to Henry over the noise. “Faster, come on, you lazy thing— whoa!” 

With a screeching whinny of protest, Henry picks up speed. Tommy goes flying forward, barely hanging on by clinging to his steed’s neck. “Holy shit!” he yelps, the wind filling his lungs and pouring out through his mouth in a white fog that trails off, dissipating in the air behind him.

When the snow comes, it’s an accident. They’re making headway faster than ever, covering hundreds of feet per second, and Tommy gets ahead of himself. A shout is drawn from him, and he throws a fist, exhilarated, in the air. In that very instant, a burst of ice shatters from his palm, embedding itself into the bark of the trees all around them. Henry responds with a snort, and Tommy stares in awe at his own palm.

He did that. On his own, this time, not through his dreams and not through a panic response at being attacked.

He laughs incredulously, smacking Henry’s side with a frost-infused palm. “And you thought I couldn’t do it,” he brags, staring at his palm and then glancing up to guide his rapidly-moving horse around more trees. “Again,” he finally whispers, staring at his hand, “do it again—”

And a bright white light pours from the folds of his palm, illuminating the shady forest with magic. A glance behind him tells him that, through Henry, Tommy is trailing frost behind him again. A burst of snow explodes from his hand, and, when directed, settles itself begrudgingly over a close grouping of trees, leaving all of them covered in frost of Tommy’s own making.

“By the gods,” he breathes, and then gestures to the frost following behind them, patting his chest exasperatedly. “Stop that. Come on— we’re criminals. Get it together. Don’t leave a trail right to us”

The pull roars to life, sucking the oxygen from Tommy’s lungs, and he nearly topples from atop his horse, swaying dangerously to the side. He yanks on the reins, steering Henry into a sharp turn that brings them closer to what he can only assume is the edge of the forest.

Tommy clutches his hand to his chest, curling it into a fist and then leaving the magic for responsibility. Now isn’t the time for experimentation, and especially not for play. He’s got a lot of work to do, and he’ll start by finding his way out of this wretched forest.

—

The days and nights pass… rapidly, now.

They dragged on when he was still within the walls of the Cassian Empire, almost as if Dream had the whole kingdom in a power grip. Now, though, minutes slip by as smoothly as sand between his fingers and hours pass in the blink of an eye. Tommy can spend a full day riding on horseback before he gets sore and Henry gets tired and they have to scout somewhere out to make a pit stop for the night.

The towns outside of the Cassian Empire are… something else. Tommy was taught of other races and other languages in tutoring, but they were always addressed as something obsolete. Unnecessary, even. Countless teachers warned him that the languages were dead, not worth learning, and all the people were hostile.

That makes for one hell of a confusing night the first time Tommy approaches a village, one with houses that don’t quite look tall enough for humans. 

As it turns out, they weren’t made for humans. Just like Ranboo, Tommy finds something more than human, something different— and when he finally squeezes his way into one of the only two inns in the small (literally) town, the roof is too low, the doorways too short and thin, but he’s happy to call it a home for the night, as long as they’ll feed him and take care of the primadonna, Henry.

The two set off again after that, because Tommy doesn’t speak a lick of their language, and barely any of them speak much Common. It’s a nice experience, though— grounding. Not everyone in this world is human, he thinks to himself, and remembers the sight of a tidy little brewery he found down the street. And maybe not everyone hates magic.

The third night is spent in a town that does speak Common, though its people remain very reserved and keep to themselves. It’s nothing like the bustling streets of L’Manberg, which thrummed with music and energy and something more than simple pleasantries. This city is tame, quiet, and this time, instead of his body, Tommy finds his personality much too big for these people.

He leaves that one quickly. Unfortunately, they don’t care enough to say goodbye.

The fifth is spent in a town that strikes him as much stranger than any other. The houses, rather than gentle hues of brown and grey, are bright, expensive colors, and oddly shaped, too. The markets are full of spices Tommy doesn’t recognize, and the ethnic people are kind but very talkative— much to Tommy’s misfortune, as he can’t communicate with them very much at all.

That night is where he makes a new vow to himself: as soon as things settle down, and he has access to a vast expanse of libraries again, he’s going to teach himself at least one other language.

Each city they stumble across peeks at him with at least one thing he’s never seen before in his life. Tommy tries new foods hesitantly but willingly, and inspects new architecture more excitedly than he thought he would, marveling at stone pillars and intricate, curling designs. Throughout it all, though, there are two things that consistently nag at the back of his mind.

One: none of these are kingdoms. None of these are empires, stretching wide for miles and miles around. Of the five cities he’s been to already, only two spoke Common, and neither had anybody who’d heard of a towering man in a boar skull, a blond man with expert swordsmanship, and a kind brunet man who offered people coats. 

Of course he’s frustrated. Of course he wishes that he’d just stumble across the entrance to the home he’s working toward, find it laying there in the dirt like a coincidental prize. Of course he wishes that his shadow people would come to him again, and not the other way around. But as much as he keeps his eyes peeled, he never enters a kingdom rather than a city, and he never sees the men from his dreams in the streets, and the tug keeps on tugging.

Which segues beautifully into the second thing: Tommy aches.

It’s no small feat to travel hundreds of miles away from one’s home with nothing but a sword, a horse, and a magic string tied around his ribs. Tommy’s more concerned, though, with the dreamland he destroyed recklessly in his head. Each time he goes to sleep, he crosses his fingers and toes, curling up under the sheets of each bed in each shitty inn that he stays in and begging for his shadow back.

It never comes. They never come. There is no more gently uttered Theseus, and there are no more quick warnings and half-answers and vague assistance. He was warned, and he stepped over the line, and now he’s paying the price.

It’s so painful, living without any of his old family (Ranboo’s somber, haunting face follows him like a shadow, appearing in every crevice that Tommy dares to linger on for too long) nor any of the new shadows that appeared to help him. They don’t come like they once did, to the cities, despite how much Tommy wishes they would, and they don’t come to his mind when he’s unconscious. 

His dreams are abstract, or wholly non-existent, and he doesn’t remember any of it. He much prefers the familiarity of the silhouette.

But there is always something to look up to. As much as he’d love to give in and become a full-time pessimist, there’s always a better dream to chase. There are two sides to one coin, after all, a yin and yang, and darkness could not exist without light, which means there are always things to thank his lucky stars for. 

The tug has not left. Tommy is immensely relieved every time he wakes up, starving and disoriented, and the tug in his chest pulls him carefully to sit up. That’s better than nothing; it’s better than wandering around looking for a crest he won’t even properly recognize. A separate thing: he was gifted another handful of gold coins for his kindness in the first and fourth cities, which wasn’t nearly as much as he started with, but is much better than nothing. Both of the blessings buy him two meals each; that way, he can conserve his money to spend on shelter for Henry,

There’s another thing, too. A third thing. It’s an uncertain, unstable thing, and Tommy could be clinging to false hope— but he’s pretty sure, fairly certain, that he is beginning to remember. 

The farther Tommy gets from the Cassian Empire, the less of Dream’s clawing hand he feels inside his brain. The more distance he puts between himself and the man he called a father, the more the clouds begin to ebb away. After the fourth night, if Tommy wasn’t sure already, he is now: he knew the faces that the shadows switched between.

The careful cloaked man by the stables, and the one who offered his coat so willingly to hide him, and the Swordsman— Tommy sees glimpses of gentle hands guiding him to bed. He catches tidbits of a life he could have had, once upon a time, a fairy tale of a thing that chases after him, especially once he closes his eyes to sleep. 

He can’t be sure if they’re really memories, or if they’re something that his brain conjures to compensate for the loss of the shadow. But in the safe haven inside his head, the brunet smiles at him, and the blond holds Tommy to his chest, and the man with the skull mask has a face again, red eyes more understanding than they are threatening.

One by one, he’s served brief glances through a stained glass window of the person he could have been: attended to more kindly than any tutor ever could, cared for more deeply than a father like Dream ever would, and with real siblings in place of the hole that Ranboo is stretched thin to cover.

One by one, Tommy’s nerves are struck, until he’s tired and beat and hungry, but he cannot back down for the life of him.

“Would you quit whining?” Tommy kicks Henry’s flank, squinting to try and pinpoint the edge of the bare-bones forest they’ve found themselves in. “It’s not that cold. There is no way you’re shivering right now, you stupid mare.” He huffs, shaking his head, and Henry nearly mirrors him, tilting his head this way and that. 

A tremor runs through his horse’s torso now, though, a real one, and Tommy frowns. “Whoa,” he says, an order instead of an exclamation. “Slow down, bud.” Henry scoffs, and Tommy narrows his eyes.

It’s the sixth day since the shadows left him with nothing but the tug in his chest. Tommy’s determined to get past it, though, determined to keep going— and the tug never leaves him, so why should he stop?

Here, though, he genuinely can’t tell if the temperature has decreased. They’re in a devastatingly empty forest, the lack of leaves adorning the trees jarring. It smells heavenly, though, the sickly sweet scent of a certain species of honeysuckle and earthen foliage bombarding him as he treks on. With his newfound resistance to the cold, though, Tommy isn’t sure if his horse is being dramatic or not.

Carefully, he stops Henry and throws a leg over his back, sliding down and hopping to the ground. With a worried glance, he takes the reins in one hand and pats his horse’s shoulder with another. “I need you, you wretched little thing. Don’t go anywhere.” 

It feels dishonest and sappy, being so overly kind, but Henry is his last companion, and Tommy can’t afford to lose the only thing he has left. “Come on, buddy. Come on.” He leans forward, batting low-hanging, spindly branches out of his way in an attempt to see the end of the forest. 

There’s a clearing up ahead. Tommy leads Henry forward on foot, catching sight of a cloud of his own breath in the air— ah. So maybe Henry’s not exaggerating after all. 

They duck forward carefully, Tommy leaving unwitting footprints of frost behind him as he goes. When they finally emerge from the forest, the trees thinning out and the sun peeking out from behind piercing grey clouds, they come to the edge of snow littering the ground.

A pang hits Tommy’s chest full force. The Glacies, he sighs. Of course his curse has reached this far already. Tommy prepares to turn around, but something moving catches his eye—

A snowflake. A lone snowflake drifts down from the sky and into Tommy’s outstretched palm. 

He inhales sharply, turning back to set his undivided attention on the snow blanketing the ground in front of him. “Not the Glacies,” he whispers to himself carefully. Henry nudges him forward, so he sinks to his knees, extending his hand and plunging it into the snow. It’s not as cold as he thought it’d be.

With a delighted whicker, Henry nudges him again. Tommy raises an eyebrow, getting to his feet. When he turns back to mount his horse, though, the tug at his chest flares up with a pain so great he gasps. Instantly, Tommy presses a hand to his chest, whirling back around to face the snow head on. 

It dies after that. Tommy frowns and squints, trying to judge if it would be smart to lead Henry into what could possibly be a dangerous situation. Upon a quick evaluation, though, he catches sight of a towering stone wall in the distance, the gap connected by a tough gate forged from what must be steel. 

They can at least go far enough in, obliging with the tug, to see what that is. Tommy pulls himself atop his horse and squeezes Henry’s flank with his heels; the horse starts off slowly, carrying him through the gentle wintry weather. Tommy’s veins run cold as they pass through a place that now feels so familiar. He blinks at the snow, screwing his face up to get rid of the image of the shadow that hangs around in his head.

The shadow is gone thanks to him; Tommy has no right to lay claim to missing it.

Henry is huffing something awful, either because he’s sick and tired of the snow as a whole or because he’s sick and tired of the snow, two different, related issues. Tommy pushes onwards, and the fractals from overhead begin to float down a little faster, a little more densely. Light flurries settle across his hair and eyelashes, and Henry’s well-kempt mane. 

“Come on,” Tommy mumbles, frowning carefully as they approach the stone. There’s something engraved into the front, even though the gates are open. It must be a greeting, or a name of some sort. Tommy leans forward from atop Henry, mouthing the words carefully to himself to decipher them and then repeating them in his head:

Antarctic Empire. 

Something snaps inside of him, a pressure that has been building for two weeks. Tommy emits nothing more than a squeak and an incredulous breath of disbelief before the tug yanks him so hard he falls from his horse. 

Antarctic Empire, he thinks again, digging his hands through the snow on the ground again and pressing his cheek into its comforting embrace. Antarctic Empire, he thinks, dragging himself up and onto his horse and ordering Henry to run like the wind. (It’s fine, it’ll surely be good for him.)

Something dangerously close to hope catches in Tommy’s throat, winding around his windpipe, and something awkwardly near desperation pours from him like bubbling, overboiling water from a cauldron. Tommy isn’t hot, though— he is freezing, hands icing over with fractals as frost slides up his neck and takes over his face. Something awfully optimistic burns in his throat as the tug pulls him forward, forward, onward, and Henry keeps the pace up obediently. 

They’re on their way now, surely. They must be getting close. Tommy keeps a hand tightly wrapped in the leather reins and shivers, using his free hand to pull his cloak tighter around himself. He is sure his face is streaked in dirt, and he is well aware that he can’t go on for much longer without proper supplies or anywhere to rest.

But they must come to a city soon enough. It’ll all come together soon enough.

So they keep on walking.

Chapter Text

The adventure has thus far turned out far longer than initially planned. Tommy and Henry finally get tired of seeing dead trees and plains, and blankets of thick snow— and in good time, too. Soon, finally, they approach a city. Something he needs is dwelling here, Tommy’s sure of it, by how aggressively the tug yanks him forwards. He doesn’t see, can’t tell why, until he gets close enough to the city’s outskirts to see the giant rolling snowy mountains that lay behind it. 

The castle that sits atop the sheer, dropping rocky cliffs. 

Tommy’s heart drops out of his body. He clops into the city carefully and slowly, keeping his head up but his hood on. Tommy eyes the people below him, walking on the streets like nothing is wrong, like everything is fine, like there’s nothing banging at the insides of their chests and screaming wildly to get out, too. 

Okay. That could just be a him thing, but that can be looked over.

“Shh,” he soothes Henry when the horse huffs again, “yes, I’m looking for a stable. I know, I know.” A reputable-looking place just inside the city limits catches his eye. Thankfully, Tommy finds when he shakes his bag, he’s got enough coins left to scrape together rent for his horse and the fee for the blanket he asks them to give Henry, who is decidedly not a horse accustomed to the winter.

The man’s a ginger with white streaks in his hair who gives him a very weird look after his quick once-over. The hair nearly gives him whiplash, but then, Tommy realizes, his eyes are normal. Tommy’s the only one who’s being followed around by frost— at least, he’s pretty sure.

When Henry is finally safe, and Tommy steps cautiously further into the city, everything seems to hold its breath, including himself. Each step feels like a gear clicking into a place, a candle being lit. Each breath fills another tiny section of the hole alongside him. Each time he glances up, nervously, at the castle, the tug surges forth again.

The town is almost quaint-looking, if it wasn’t so big, and the snow has begun to pick up. He finds he much prefers this to the stupid, constantly blazing heat of summer. The next time he passes a shop, he studies the snow blanketed across its roof. The owner gives him an odd, mouth-half-open sort of glance before shaking her head and looking away. He chalks it up to being new and waves, stomach tight with anticipation for something greater, like it is in every one of these stupid cities. 

Something about this one, though.

Tommy’s still thinking that when there’s a real physical pull on his cloak. Jumping practically out of his skin, Tommy spins around with wide eyes, a hand hovering above his scabbard. “What the—?”

He has to look down. There is a child of a species that cannot be human standing right in front of him. He thaws instantly and crouches to the kid’s height, inclining his head. “You speak Common, buddy?” The kid nods, but says nothing. He squints, narrowing his eyes at a spot on Tommy’s cloak, and the prince looks down. “What? Got something on me shirt?”

The child takes two corners of the cloak in his two hands, pulling on it. “King colors,” the cryptic little shit says breathlessly. “You have on king colors. My mama said no one’s allowed to get king colors.” The kid’s eyes sparkle, and he bounces on the balls of his feet. “Do you work for the king? Do you know him?”

“I’m actually,” Tommy begins instinctually, and then pauses, faltering. “Ah. Well.” Right. He’s in this new kingdom, this Antarctic Empire. They have different colors, different customs, different ways, and no Dream. He can’t go around saying he’s a prince here. When Tommy lifts his eyes around the street, it seems that everyone in sight is trying to pretend like they aren’t staring.

He doesn’t know whether to feel flattered or threatened. There’s no way they all know him, right? The news of his escape from Dream couldn’t have gotten this far already. This wasn’t how it was in L’Manberg. There, he fit in, sliding between the crowds like nothing was wrong. Here, on the outskirts of a city he’s never seen, he can’t tell if the people want to serve him a hot bowl of soup and bread and tuck him into bed or draw a sword and run him through with it several times over. 

Ah, well. Maybe it’s for the best that he can’t tell. “No,” he chuckles gently, “no. I don’t work for…”

His eyes trail down towards the cloak that he’s wearing, and they nearly pop out of his skull. Blue. White. Gold edges, gold trimmings. The only thing missing, he realizes instantly, is the gold crest on the chest. Smart men. 

The shadow, the shadow, the shadow. 

Tommy stand abruptly, stumbling and trying not to knock the child on his ass. “Thanks, buddy,” he says breathlessly, and turns, staring up at the castle with a growing desperation. “By the way— you wouldn’t happen to know if the king accepts visitors—?”

“Mama says he’s very nice but very busy,” the kid says woefully, staring up at Tommy with wide puppy eyes. “So we aren’t ‘posed to go bother him. She says the guards don’t like it.”

“Yeah,” Tommy mutters faintly. “The guards. Right.” He swings back around to look at the boy, fidgeting with the cloak around his shoulders and weighing his options. “Buddy, does the king have any… kids or anything?”

The child wrinkles his brow and then grins devilishly. “I don’t have to tell you,” he giggles, “you’re not my dad," and Tommy deflates. 

He's always hated kids.

He’s desperate for knowledge, though. Tommy has to know if he belongs here. Besides, he can always do a quick odd job or something and get back on his feet. That’ll give him enough money to afford another nice cloak like this one, to hide his hair— and besides, the stable man had white in his hair, Tommy isn’t the only one. 

His hands shake as he unbuttons the top of the cloak, hurriedly finalizing his decision. “I’ll give you this,” he says breathlessly, and the kid’s eyes grow wide as cleanly polished dinner plates. 

“Really?” 

Tommy bends down to his level again, a sly grin taking his face. By the gods, it’s fun to mess with children. “Of course. But you have to tell me about the king.”

The child’s face splits into excitement, and he shakes his arms hurriedly. “Okay! The king lives up there in the rock house—” he points to the castle over Tommy’s shoulder— “and there’s a man living in there with him. He has brown hair.” 

Tommy’s pulse spikes. Carefully, he reminds himself to bide his time, wait patiently. Hoping for too much all at once will only serve to disappoint him. Thousands of people in this world have brown hair. “Right,” he says with bated breath. “Anything else I should know?”

The kid takes a moment to think about it and then nods suddenly. “Yeah, the one with the sword!”

“Sword?”

Jumping to life, the hybrid child swings his arms through the air, making sound effects as he goes. “He goes like this to the bad people! And this!” A careful, calculated swing comes towards Tommy’s shoulder, and the kid’s hands bump against him gently. “Like that! With a sword. Do you have a sword, too?” he questions, peering at the sheath strapped to Tommy’s belt.

The prince snorts. “Yes, of course. Any good—” he pauses— “traveler must be armed appropriately.” He reaches forward, patting the boy on his tiny shoulder and then unhooking his cloak from around his shoulders, head whirring with possibilities the whole time. The sword man could be any number of guards or advisors— that part can’t be too important. Tommy wouldn’t be surprised if the kid just assumed that many of the guards were the same person, from their matching armor. 

“Alright,” he obliges with an exhale, “you earned it.” Before he can put the cloak around the little kid’s shoulders, he leans in, wide, adoring eyes fixed on Tommy’s own. 

“One more thing,” he says. “About the king.” Tommy raises an eyebrow but falls silent, nodding with a tight chest to let the kid continue. This could be it. This could be exactly what he needs to seal the deal, to know for sure that he’s chasing after a plausible conclusion. The kid leans to his ear, cupping his hand, and Tommy braces him with a hand so he doesn’t stumble. “They say,” he whispers loudly, “that he has—”

“Michael?” 

Tommy and the kid— Michael— both jump when a loud call sounds from down the street. Tommy glances up in alarm, and the kid swivels around, one hand gripping the fabric of the cloak tightly. “Michael, thank the gods,” says an older man— maybe a boy, too, Tommy can’t tell. His hair’s in his face. “Come on, it’s just nearing dinner time. Surely you want to go to the festival later.”

Michael jumps to action, yanking the cloak from Tommy’s hands and running to the person that seems to be his caretaker. “The festival!” he exclaims excitedly, taking one last furtive glance at Tommy before he turns his back to ramble about whatever event is happening tonight.

“Right,” Tommy mutters, disappointment clawing at his chest at the forgotten secret of the king. “Thanks, buddy.” He stands and turns, exhaling quietly and tuning it out when he hears the brown-haired one mutter something to Michael about dangerous strangers behind his back. 

Tommy ignores it and pushes forward. A festival, they said, and he laments, grimacing. That’s going to make it difficult to get anywhere in this stupid place. Tommy bottles it up, though, and vies for optimism, trying to make things easier on his tired brain.

Holy fuck. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. By the gods, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life, holy— Tommy shakes himself out of it, swallowing and keeping up at his walking pace. He tries desperately not to trip over his own legs, glancing in every window, every front stoop, every corner for his missing shadow. 

There aren’t any familiar faces staring back at him.

It takes him an excruciatingly long part of an hour to navigate his way further down, into the real heart of the city. That’s where the celebration is, anyway: this is a lot more like L’Manberg. It’s snowing, yes, and it doesn’t let up, but the people seem used to it in a way Tommy’s never seen before. 

Dream never really let him outside to play in the snow. In this place, kids pack snowballs tightly to throw at each other. A dog to his side leaps in a carefully crafted pile, right before two kids themselves can jump in. With the relentless way it’s coming down, Tommy’s sure it would annoy the hell out of the people of his own kingdom, namely Dream. 

Here, though, he embraces the cold, feeling frost take over his fingertips and sticking his hands into his pockets to hide them.

His shadows must be hiding here. Tommy dances around the crowd, ducking politely past the throng of people, many with lanterns or flowers or long, curling ribbons. There’s music thrumming passionately through the entire village, coursing through the city and wrapping around its inhabitants like family. Tommy feels himself pulled to sway with it, leaning to the rhythm. 

He’s not sure what exactly it’s a celebration for, but it’s a lot more welcoming here, where they don’t stare as much. He is offered free food, and strangers jostle his elbows and exchange glances with him like he’s been here all along, and a drink and a dance from a lady even float his way, to which he awkwardly declines. 

(“Not old enough,” he informs the girl apologetically, whose face splits and gives way to shock.

“Oh! Terribly sorry, then, but I’m afraid I must retract in that case,” she says, laughing and flushing pink.)

Tommy’s perfectly fine to let the festivities slip from between his fingers, distracted beyond belief, but it seems that the city’s grip on him is unmoving. The festival is nice— and it’s the first time he’s ever seen a city so unified— but he needs to know how to get to the castle. He needs to know how to tackle the rocks and cliffs and claw his way up the mountains. With growing desperation, he finally resorts to asking around— some drunk people, some sober. 

Some laugh him off, and one man pushes him in the shoulder, asking if he’s looking for a fight. Technoblade will have your head, another woman says with wide eyes, if you go up there, boy. 

Tommy has no idea what a Technoblade is and what it has anything to do with the king, but the news is very disheartening anyway.

Finally, a kind woman with twinkling eyes gives him a straight answer. “The king is coming down like he does every festival, child,” she says fondly, and Tommy’s cheeks flush red. So that’s why everybody has been taking the piss out of him— they thought he was joking. They assumed he knew.

Clueless but appreciative, Tommy nods enthusiastically. Normally, he might be a little pissed off, but he puts impatience and princely attitudes behind him, leaning forward in anticipation. “Right,” he replies, “and that’s… soon?”

“Soon,” the woman affirms, patting his shoulder. “No need to get worked up about it, dear. Your hair is a lovely color, by the way.” With a start, Tommy realizes hers is just as white as his own. His mouth drops open to look for answers, but she raises one eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you’re a lamb hybrid like myself, aye?”

Tommy’s eyes widen, taking in her appearance again and finally clocking the two small horns poking out from within her wild curls of hair, which he’d missed earlier in his frantic hunt for information. “Uh— no, actually,” he begins, “I’m…” Tommy falters, glancing down at his hands. Ice curls around his fingers, and frost walks along his skin. With a start, he wonders why more people haven’t commented on it. “I,” he says quietly, but there’s no answer to give her, no information that makes sense. He has seen none other like him, yet the people of this kingdom don’t stare and single him out like they would have in his homeland.

Despite everything, the woman is shockingly compassionate. “Give it time,” she urges gently, smiling at him in a way that singles him out, dropping the welcome feeling of recognition on his shoulders. She carries herself, he thinks, like a mother. Tommy’s never really seen a mother in action, but if he had to guess what it’s like, this would be it. “Not all of us know our roots from birth, dear. You’ll get there.”

“I’ll get there,” he echoes with wide eyes, drawn to her magnetizing friendly nature. The crowd roars to life all around them, but Tommy tunes the din out, eyebrows drawing up slightly in an uncharacteristic display of trust and vulnerability. He’d hate to expose himself like this to the people of the Cassian Empire, but here, things are… different. “You think?” he asks hopefully, and the woman laughs kindly, gesturing to the clamor around them.

“What I think, dear,” she begins good-naturedly, tapping his shoulder to turn him around, “is that the king’s come down from the castle.”

Tommy’s stomach drops out of his body. He lurches on his feet, the tug pulling him violently towards the path that leads down to the village. Nearly falling to the ground in the street, Tommy stumbles, fearful of being trampled. The kind woman grabs his arm to right him, patting his back gently. “My, my,” she tuts, “do take care of yourself.” As her hand falls away, she joins him in staring at the three figures who approach on horseback. “Oh, would you look at that. They’ve all come down this time, all three of them.”

All? All of who? His questions die on his tongue, though, and before he can ask them, before he can latch on and refuse to let go, the woman slips away with a kind smile, a pat on his shoulder, and the hushed advice to enjoy himself. Just as suddenly as he was accompanied, Tommy is again alone in the crowd, the racket sliding into a cacophony of excited whoops and cries, each grating on each other to create an unavoidable din.

He finds himself mesmerized by the figures that descend towards where Tommy can see a stage, of sorts. The crowd surges forward to surround it in anticipation, and Tommy gasps, floating along with it before he can even make the conscious decision. The people of the Antarctic Empire carry him closer and closer to the destiny he wishes so badly to manifest, and Tommy feels a terribly painful yank at his ribs, stumbling into the man in front of him and then ushering a quickly muttered apology.

He can’t stop it. The pull beckons, and Tommy snakes around members of the crowd, sneaking his way closer and closer to the front as the people quiet down all around him to listen. The kingdom descends into all but silence, aside from the whistling wind and hushed mumbles and whispers between families, and Tommy stumbles over his feet, desperately trying to avoid drawing attention to himself while battling with the urge to make the biggest scene he can just so the king of this place will look at him. 

He needs to know. Tommy has to know if the pull has guided him correctly, or if his dreams are going to shatter at his feet. He ducks around people frantically, trying in vain to get a glimpse of the king’s face when he finally comes to a stop on the high wooden stage around the people. Just as he’s getting there, though, a man’s arm comes to stop right in front of him. Tommy stands on his tiptoes, aching to get past, but he’s held back, and there’s still a huge sea of heads in front of him, blocking his vision irritatingly. 

“Don’t get smart, boy,” a grumbling voice from his side hisses among the quiet murmur, and he is yanked backwards. Tommy’s head whips around to place a face to the new voice, and a drunkard stares back at him, eyes hazy and already clouded with enough alcohol for the next month. “Plenty of us want a sight of ‘em,” he complains. “Scrawny little bastard like yourself has a better chance of being trampled.” 

Tommy opens and closes his mouth, and the pull in his chest yanks him off balance, stumbling further toward the stage. Unable to explain his reasoning to the gruff-looking man, Tommy winces out a half-smile and sinks into the crowd, which, helpfully, parts slightly to give him a convenient exit. Thankfully, the man leaves him alone after that, so Tommy pushes forward, ducking around citizens of the village and standing on his tiptoes to try and catch a glimpse of the story he’s been adding pages to for the past week and a half.

His heart skips three beats in his chest. He leans around a woman with bright red, curly hair, cranes his neck, opens his eyes as wide as they can possibly stretch—

There is a flash of blond hair, icy blue clothing, arms raising up into the air.

“Welcome, everyone!” a kind voice thunders loudly across the hills, snaking its way deep into Tommy’s limbs and tightly around his heart. The golden prince’s pulse spikes so hard he gets nauseous, the world spinning around him as the crowd around him rises to a roaring cheer again, and he careens forward. 

Somebody says something to him, grabbing his arm. It’s a man he doesn’t recognize. Are you okay, lad? And when Tommy opens his mouth, white fog billows out.

The man gasps. Shouts something to the heavens. Tommy’s legs choose to give out at this very convenient moment, and he crashes to his knees against the cobblestone, sharp pebbles in the ground mixing together in his vision. Everything is plunged underwater, in a thick layer of bubbles and a ring in his ears that he can’t outrun, and Tommy panics, the tug dragging him a few feet across the ground even without his limbs moving at all. 

A foot meets with his back, and he is pressed into the ground. Choking for air, he tries to roll, but to no avail. Tommy braces himself against the frosty cobblestone, feeling the telltale sign of something building in his chest. A stuttering cough claws its way out of his body, the fog ceasing to roll out from his mouth, and then, finally, the ringing stops, too. 

The crowd is silent. Some, when he yanks his head up to look, are staring at him in wild confusion. Most, though— most have their faces turned up, reverent to the king that is so merciful as to greet them.

Tommy strains to hear the address. Finally, his ears clear out, and he pushes himself up further, and the king speaks. 

“It is wonderful to see you all here,” says the blond-haired king, and Tommy scrambles to his knees, pressing a hand against his chest to mitigate the rattle, the building pressure that threatens to combust. “Our city, and this empire, is as beautiful as ever. I’m sure those of you with professions in trade will be happy to know that the eastern ports are back up and running.”

An excited rumble of a murmur rises among the citizens, but there’s shuffling and then silence, and the king continues. Even though Tommy can’t see him, he knows the man has the power to raise a single hand and silence a crowd of thousands. “As for now,” he begins, “the Cassian Empire is no threat to us. However—” 

Tommy loses his breath. 

“—received word that the prince is still—”

Another harsh blow to his chest. The tug at his ribs sends him lurching forward. 

“—on the rise, and the search remains in effect—”

He chokes. Tommy chokes on air, palms freezing over. The ice glides rapidly up his arms, wrapping around his neck and finding its way over the curvature of his jawline and cheekbones. It squeezes, and a soft glow whirs to life in the lines of his palms, and it’s all he can do not to burst right then and there. 

The king is still talking. “It is the first and last time we have ever and will ever delegate serious business to the public, or make such a plea, but we think it best to ask for the help of our crown city.” 

The cheer that rises in the city is monstrous. Tommy squeezes his eyes shut, battling with the Glacies inside and out. He summons the faces in his head, the shadows he lost in his dreams, and sees them clearly: one blond man, kind features tainted with age; one youthful man with brown curls that hang in his face, gangly and mischievous; one soldier, a knight that stands taller than the sky itself, and with eyes as sharp as a blood red moon—

“Help us find our prince,” the king shouts above the tumult.

And Tommy explodes into a ball of brightly burning white light. 

He is forced to his feet by the magic, the pull inside of him, and the crowd doesn’t cease to scream and shout when he rises. If anything, as the light pours throughout the city, they grow louder and louder. Tommy does not feel his feet leave the ground; one second the cobblestone is sturdy under him, and the next, he looks over a sea of heads, all tilted up to stare in wonder at the boy who glows. 

“Shit!” he yelps, eyes blown wide. He’s never floated before. Nobody’s taught him the etiquette for such a thing. How does one navigate in the sky? How does one move? 

The chill in his hands whirs to life, leaving thick frost and icy patches along the ground under him. Snow is sucked from the air around them, speeding around the golden prince in a tornado of flurries, and finally, finally, he is high enough to see. Finally, the tug in his chest screams, and he pitches forward, and the crowd goes wild—

Finally, he finds the face of the knight who dragged him from the very curse that he created, tracing the boar skull with his eyes. He finds the face of the prince who lent him a cloak to evade the guards that hunted him down day and night, the grey sky glinting off of the rim of his glasses. He makes eye contact with the king who fought alongside him in a city that was never his own, electric blue eyes trained on his own. 

Finally, he floats to a stop alongside them on the stage as the people of the Antarctic Kingdom cry out behind him, hands lifted toward him to catch him should he fall to the ground just as quickly as he rose. 

And the rest of the pages of the book are filled, and the white glow fades, and the roaring tug is finally shattered as his family joins him in the center of the stage, their rapid footfalls crunching the ice that Tommy has left behind on the creaking wood. 

As soon as strong arms wrap around him, Tommy is broken into a million pieces. “No,” he says, his throat constricting, “no, no, I ruined it. I broke the dream. You’re gone, you should be—”

“My prince,” says the king, says Phil, says his father, burying his head into his hair, and Tommy sobs, grabbing onto the material of his shirt with a grip that will never loosen. “My son,” Phil whispers, “my angel,” and Tommy is lost to a feeling of family that he has been missing for years and years of his life. 

Tommy lifts his head, vision blurred by tears, but Phil cups his face with a hand, smiling brokenly at him. He turns, and there is the man with the glasses, there is his brother, there is Wilbur Watson to beam just as wide. “Theseus,” he says, “we missed you.” 

“Oh, by the gods, by the gods,” Tommy cries, a hand shooting out for Wilbur’s. He is ushered backwards, further from the crowd that shrieks and leaps and demands to see the prince that has finally been returned to his rightful throne, and Wilbur reaches back for him, running a careful hand through his hair. “Wilbur, Wilbur,” Tommy begs, pressing his face as close to Wil’s shoulder as he can, and his brother gasps, squeezing him tightly. 

“You remember?”

“Not all of it,” Tommy admits muffledly, tear tracks still streaked down his face. “But enough. Enough.” Wilbur lets out a muffled noise, and they don’t let go for what feels like a millennium, clutching each other tightly like they haven’t been able to in years. Wilbur rocks him gently, shushing him with promises of better clothes, a warm room, a good meal, and as much of me as you need, my sunshine. 

When Tommy finally surfaces for air, removing shaking hands from Wilbur, he can’t help himself— his eyes are drawn to the third figure that stands a few feet away, one that stands protecting them with a glinting purple sword. He is the man that tried as hard as he could to save Tommy, every time, and the man that never lets go of a grudge. 

But he is the man with gentle hands when Tommy is sick, the man who adjusts his posture when they train, the man who promises no harm shall come to him in the darkest of days. His back faces them, and Tommy crumbles on the inside, knowing that he is the man who feels the most like he has failed. 

His head aches something awful with the sudden influx of memory. Tommy picks out scenes from his head, sifting through them rapidly and sorting them into sections inside his head. Wilbur picking him up after he scraped his knee; Phil tucking him into bed in the dead of night after he came for help during a thunderstorm; sneaking out to get more food; ignoring his studies to play instead; Wilbur’s music, Phil’s books, and—

He exchanges an uneasy glance with his brother and father, who nod encouragingly. Phil nudges him forward, and Tommy stumbles, his palms glowing in humiliation when he clears his throat. “Technoblade,” he says quietly, and the warrior does not move, facing the crowd with (no doubt) a stare that warns them not to try anything.

So Tommy, pushing aside his reservations, tries again. “Techno,” he says, louder, clearer, and the warrior turns, a hand flying to the mask at his face. Yes, Tommy remembers; it used to scare him. It was quite the intimidating thing, that mask, and he used to think it would come alive to haunt him. It would fly off of Technoblade’s wall to follow him.

It does not. In fact, Techno leaves it on, hesitating. This, too, Tommy remembers— the only way to read Technoblade’s emotions is through his eyes. “Hello,” he says, again initiating the conversation, and Techno purses his lips. 

“No proof,” he says gruffly, and Tommy’s chest falls, fast, and Phil steps forward protectively. 

“Come on, mate. He just flew twenty meters up into the air and glowed— what more do you need?” 

Tommy takes a step back, face flaming, and stares into the empty eye sockets of the boar mask. He rubs at the back of his neck and grimaces. “I don’t look how you want me to,” he acknowledges, staring down at frost-ridden skin. “My eyes, my hair— I am not the Theseus you remember.” A deep breath, and his arms wrap around himself. “But I remember you.” 

There is only one real way to prove himself. Techno makes no move to acknowledge it, but Tommy fights to breathe, fights to keep the tears at bay. “You used to—” he starts, face hot with embarrassment as the tears roll and his voice cracks. “Used to read me the stories of the gods—” a shuddering breath— “on the worst nights.”  

There is a stretch of silence, the world holding its breath even as the crowd below them begs for their attention. Tommy’s heart thunders in his chest, and Techno stays stock still for another terse minute— until, finally, his shoulders slump. 

“Runt,” he obliges, carefully pulling the mask from his face, and it’s all Tommy needs to collide with his chest, throwing his arms around the towering frame of the knight who has sworn to protect him with his life. “Still not much of a hugger,” Techno mutters in complaint, but Tommy presses on, tightening his grip to force out the shameful tears into his chest, and finally, Techno returns the hug, chuffing quietly against him. 

“I missed you,” Tommy whispers, “all of you, so much,” and it doesn’t matter if none of them hear him, because now, he has all the time in the world to tell them so, again and again and again, until his memory has fully stitched itself back together, and until he can finally fit into a family of four again, just as it was always meant to be.

In that moment, Phil and Wilbur approach them again, shielding him from the world that has been so cruel to him. Above them, the yawning expanse of grey sky beckons, and the snow tumbles down from above, and there is no earthquake, no gaping chasm, nothing that will ever lure him into oblivion again.

“You’re home, Theseus,” says Phil, and Tommy is home.

Chapter Text

The fireplace spits cinders from beside him, driving the steady crackle of flames into his head as Tommy sinks into his seat, leaning his head back. The embers spell out a story that Tommy still cannot reach, a handful of sand that slips from between his fingers. Time and time again, he sweeps his eyes over the room, but nothing comes to his brain. Frustrated, he turns his eyes from the fire and towards the shelves of books upon books that line the walls around him.

He reaches out from his position curled on one of the luxurious chairs and runs his brittle fingers along the crooked spines of old books, allowing leather to crinkle under his touch. This, he remembers, is Techno’s study. It’s always blazing hot in here; Tommy likes it now more than ever. Though the cold does little to bother him, it’s nice to feel the heat in his bones when he needs it.

The study, much like most rooms, used to be off-limits for Tommy. He can recall, faintly, a time where they scolded him for setting foot into the rooms they deemed ‘big kid places.’ Tommy is no idiot— they probably just wanted him out of their hair and their personal space— but the point of the matter is that things have since changed.

They’re letting him back into certain rooms now. To spark your memory, they say, because when he first entered the castle, he could barely recognize the place at all. What flashed in his head were nights curled up with Techno in his bedroom, and dancing in the fields catching lightning bugs with Wilbur, and the floating feeling of sitting atop Phil’s shoulders in the bustling marketplace, pointing at the apples he thought looked best.

No matter how hard he strained, he couldn’t recall the layout of the castle, or any magic in his system. He got lost on his first night, and still, he doesn’t know how to control the magic that sits within him. Wilbur told him it’s because he didn’t have any before— that they were sure he inherited it, but he didn’t show any sign of it while he still lived with them.

That means Dream took him before he got the chance to make his real family proud. Tommy curls against the seat and turns his eyes to the ceiling.

Family is a complicated thing. Each time Tommy wakes, he expects to see his old bedroom, expects to see Ranboo standing rigidly by the door and greeting him with a smile that reflects the opposite of his posture. Each time he thinks too hard about it, the mess of tangles inside him grows louder until he thinks of his father and misses him so badly that it hurts.

He tries to tell himself Dream isn’t his father. It doesn’t work very well. Still, Tommy longs for a home that smells of alliums and the glowing chandeliers from his old castle. He wonders if they fixed the one in the entryway. He wonders if they’re still looking for him.

He wonders where Ranboo is.

Sometimes, he dreams of it. Speaking of: Tommy does not see the shadows in his dreams anymore, which felt like his fault until Phil explained that those shadows were them to begin with. The three of them were guiding him home, making the trip out to give him a nudge in the right direction every once in a while. Once Tommy’s magic kicked into life, it connected him to his home, his real family, and Wilbur could scry for him. It couldn’t be for long, but it worked at night, when he was dreaming.

Wilbur said he had to be careful. Magic is a dangerous, tricky sort of thing. That’s why Tommy disrupted the visions; he knew too much for it to hold up. It’s frustrating, but it’s how it is. It all feels like one big plot hole. Fuck the magic system, and fuck Dream, and fuck anyone who ever crossed Tommy— he’s disobedient, but he doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve to lose track of who he is. 

The identity crisis is wholly unwelcome, but it trails along behind these sorts of things. Without Dream as his father, what is he? Without his real memories, what is he? With magic that ices him over against his will, magic he can’t control, what has he become?

Wilbur and Phil said the Glacies wasn’t directly his fault. It formed because of him, they said, because he was displaced from his home and under a curse. The curse of binding, as they called it, ties him to his homeland, the Antarctic Kingdom. It was considered a legend before Tommy proved it. Dream knew about it before it happened. His brother and father knew about it before it happened. Maybe Tommy knew, at some point, before Dream messed with his head. 

There’s too much to keep track of. Tommy hangs his head again, slouching against the edge of the chair and letting his hand fall. He wants to spend time with his family, but they don’t feel like family yet. He wants to know them again, wants to remember what they’re like so he can wrap his arms around them without feeling like a criminal—

But Dream haunts the corners of his mind, reminding him that he is missing a huge chunk of what should have been his life, and Tommy thinks of Ranboo and descends into swirling madness and self-blame again.

Before he can spiral, the door clicks. Tommy glances up instantly, straightening himself out. Sit not like a prince, says Dream in his head. Sit like a king, so that you will be fit to become one. Tommy straightens his spine and drops his feet off the edge of the chair, despite the way his feet are in socks, anyway, and greets the new arrival with a nervous nod. “Hello.” 

Technoblade grunts as a greeting. He has been the least vocal by far, despite the way Tommy has shown proof of his status as Theseus Watson (that’s a whole entirely different can of worms— he’s already had to explain over and over that he is Tommy, not Theseus). Tommy remembers the least about Techno. When he tries for more, his head hurts. 

Who is he kidding? His head hurts all the time these days.

“I can leave,” he offers, shifting in his seat to stand, but Techno eyes him as he moves across the room, reaching up to the highest shelf to pull a book down. “Sorry. I didn’t know you needed in here.” 

Techno is… harder to talk to than the others. It’s not just the fact that Techno doesn’t want to talk to him; Wilbur is his biological brother, and Phil his biological father. Techno isn’t related to the three of them by blood, and it seems to make him less willing to be emotionally available. He’s a knight sworn into his position and highly respected by Phil. Somewhere along the line, he became close enough to the royal family to be promoted to the status of a personal guard to the three of them collectively.

That’s how Phil explained it, anyway— because when Tommy saw Techno for the first time up on that stage, he thought they were brothers.

Again, Techno grunts. “Doesn’t matter to me,” he murmurs, flipping through some of the pages in his book. His lips press into a thin line, and he sets it back on the shelf in favor of another one. “I can always read somewhere else.” 

Tommy can’t believe it’s really over so soon. Here he is, dying to at least talk to the man he knows the least of, and Techno is turning towards the door, taking brisk steps towards the exit of the room. He seemed so welcoming during the festival, in his own way— so ready to take Tommy back in, so ready to have his Theseus back home. 

Now, he barely interacts with the young prince, leaving Tommy to fend for himself as he floats around the castle in search of somebody to tell him what to do. It hurts to watch Techno go like this, to watch him pretend he doesn’t care a single bit. Tommy wants to speak, but his words die on his lips.

Maybe Techno isn’t pretending.

With a sigh, the piglin hybrid stops, turns before he reaches the door. “You’re staring,” he points out plainly, and Tommy goes red in the face, averting his eyes as quickly as possible. It’s just like him to make things so blatantly, obviously awkward.

“Ah,” says Tommy, hiding his face in his cloak, “sorry.” He avoids Techno’s eyes like the plague— just get out of here already— and waits in shameful silence for him to exit through the door in front of him.

A handful of seconds tick by. Then an armful. Then Techno exhales, not quite a sigh but not quite a normal breath, and inclines his head. “You’re troubled.”

You don’t say. It’s embarrassing to be patronized and psychoanalyzed like this, so much so that it stings when Tommy glances up. “I’m fine,” he squeaks out, “just trying to remember,” and Techno stares at him with that look. That I don’t believe a single thing you’re saying look. The you’re full of shit one.

Tommy gulps. He’s pretty sure he’s seen this look before.

“I’m supposed to protect you,” Techno sighs, coming closer yet avoiding his face. Tommy presses his lips together, fidgeting with his hands as Techno approaches to avoid making tense eye contact. “So tell me what’s bothering you.”

A slap in the face. I’m supposed to protect you. Supposed to. Tommy can see it now. This is not born of care or love; this is a contractual obligation. “Nothing,” he says, shrugging loosely and hollowly. “Nothing’s wrong. Really. I’m trying to remember places. People. That's why I’m in here.” He’s too short, too choppy, too brief and brisk to get it right. Lying is impossible when Techno is dropping into a chair alongside him quietly; compulsively, Tommy adds, “Sorry.”

The knight does not acknowledge his apology, which makes things all the worse. “What do you remember, then?” asks Techno instead, and Tommy wishes he had anything to say. The fire remains between them, taunting him and jumping up into licking flames, and Tommy trains his eyes on it until his retinas burn with the effort of keeping them open. He’s buckling under the pressure. He can’t stand this. 

“I don’t know,” he admits quietly, finally meeting Techno’s gaze. His elder is staring at him with a specific glint in his gaze. Once upon a time, Tommy would have known what it meant. Now, he suffers and drowns in his own thoughts trying to figure it out.

On a whim, Techno seems to soften slightly. “You don’t know,” he echoes back to Tommy, and it worms its way into Tommy’s brain, helping to loosen the stuck cogs. Tommy shifts in the spotlight and under Techno’s watchful, expectant gaze, swallowing hard and again straining for scraps of anything.

He lets his eyes fall closed. It’s easier without Techno watching so intently. Still, though, it makes him dizzy to try and force himself to remember things all at once. “No,” Tommy mumbles, pulling at the fabric of his shirt. Why is it always so much easier to speak to Wilbur and Phil? “No, I… I think… I remember fireworks.”

Vibrant flashes of red, blue, and yellow swirl in his head, and a burst followed by the crackling hiss of ash and ember echoes in the back of his brain. It’s all framed by the night sky, people shoving and pushing and shouting below him— wherever he is, he can’t tell— and his hand is tightly gripped in someone else’s. When Tommy looks up to make out the figure standing alongside him, holding him and keeping him warm in the cold, everything grows fuzzy, until the colors and bright sounds die down and Tommy is left with the same quiet lull of the fireplace again. 

There is a pregnant pause, and Tommy hesitates to open his eyes, yearning to go back to the vision. It’s the first thing he’s actually remembered the whole time he’s been sitting here, which is odd, considering it has nothing to do with Techno’s study (unless, unless, unless). Thankfully, Techno speaks before he has to make the first move. “Probably from a festival,” he says at last. “For your birthday. We used to have them for Wilbur’s, too.”

By the gods. Tommy’s eyes fly open. “When is my birthday?” 

Dream gave him a date, sure, but Tommy never felt attached to it. For all he knew, it could have been a lie. Tommy resists the urge to lean forward in his seat eagerly (it’s enticing, learning things about himself he never knew) and flips the story around, watching Techno just as intently in return. 

At this sentiment, this instant question, a flicker of something takes Techno’s eyes by storm— and for the briefest of seconds, he looks stricken. Then it’s gone again, back to that glint in his irises that Tommy can’t rationalize. “You don’t know your own birthday.”

“It makes it sound worse when you put it like that,” Tommy mutters in exasperation, turning his face to the ceiling, and Techno puffs out a breath, some mix between amusement and a scoff, maybe. Tommy’s still not sure how to tell. “I’m not some orphan kid from the streets. I was a… am a prince.” And from two different kingdoms, at that. “Just because Dream…”

He trails off, a sudden burn at the back of his throat, and the ceiling becomes ten times more interesting. Rebuking the tears gathering in his eyes, Tommy swallows a shaky breath, things coming back to him left and right. Ranboo’s yelp, his insistence for Tommy to run. The conversation between his father and the royal advisor of the Cassian Empire (I thought we’d have more time). Dream’s magic running through Tommy’s bones, forcing his limbs to bend and his heart to beat and words to pour from his mouth—

There is a hand on his shoulder, and Tommy jumps, head whipping back down to find Techno out of his chair and closer to him. “You’re upset,” the knight observes quietly, and Tommy’s vision grows blurry with tears. 

“No shit,” he says, and then regrets it, lips turning down at the corners as he angles his head shamefully away from Techno. “I… miss my home. I know this is where I’m supposed to be, Techno. This is my family. You—” He has to stop himself, stop talking before he says something he’ll regret. The burn creeps forward in his throat, and he swallows bile, and his hands grow cold. “It’s a lot,” he chokes out, “and I miss my brother,” and the emotion raises to a crescendo that sends ice spiraling down his arms, and then he is silent.

Familiar, humiliating tears roll down his cheeks, but Techno crouches to be level with him and does him the duty of gingerly wiping them away. Surely there’s a chance he still cares. Surely there’s a chance Tommy didn’t blow it for good. “Wilbur?” Techno murmurs, but even he knows that’s not right. He doesn’t comment on it further, though. With an exhale, he wraps a hand around Tommy’s arm, pulling him carefully from his seat. “Your birthday is April ninth." He braces a hand against Tommy's back, and the blond leans into the touch. "You need fresh air and water.”

Sure enough; a different date than when Dream had him celebrate. Tommy doesn’t deny Techno's observation, either. When Techno glances down at his arms, Tommy’s gaze follows, and he reprimands the ice that has crawled up to his elbows. Slowly, it fades, and he’s left to walk with Techno in silence. He notices, as he is herded towards the door, that Techno left his book behind. It’s not clear whether it’s out of a legal obligation to protect and assist Tommy because he’s a prince, or a compassion that runs deeper than family ties.

He’s not sure he wants the answer to that question.

Techno leads him down the hall with a hand on his shoulder, and Tommy follows blindly, comforted by the presence of the man he has found it so awkwardly difficult to speak to. Maybe things will get better if he’s vulnerable. Maybe things will make more sense if Tommy forces himself to talk to Techno, forces himself to face his fear. Maybe things will only improve if he tells the truth. These buried secrets can’t stay locked in his chest forever,

“His name was Ranboo,” Tommy blurts, and Techno does not falter, continuing down the corridor. “My father— Dream, I mean. He hired Ranboo to be my servant when I lived… there.” Techno’s grip on him tightens slightly, so Tommy wrenches his wrist around to find the knight’s sleeve, taking it carefully between his fingers yet holding on for dear life. “Ranboo wasn’t a servant, though. Ranboo was…” Don’t cry again. His voice layers with Dream’s: You are meant to inherit this crown in due time. Show me you are ready. 

A shaky breath is drawn from him, and Techno steers him around a corner, nudging him. “Ranboo was like a brother to you, then,” he says, and Tommy is thankful that, even despite the tenseness between the both of them, he understands. “And he’s… where?”

“I don’t know,” Tommy confesses when he can finally breathe clearly again. Techno stops them in front of a glass door, careful as he pulls it open and leads Tommy through. “I don’t know what happened to him. Last I saw him was right before I left, and he— I thought—” His eyes catch on a towering apple tree, and then another, and he takes a few steps further into the room when Techno releases his arm. Whoa. 

“The greenhouse,” Techno supplies helpfully, and when Tommy turns to look back at him, he’s extending a canteen. “Drink, Theseus, you’ve worn yourself out.” 

“Whatever,” Tommy murmurs, but he takes the canteen and uncaps it. He wishes he could ask Techno everything he wants to, either about his own past or his family or even Techno himself, but the man is daunting, crossing his arms and watching over him as he drinks.

The water alleviates the burn in his throat until it’s almost gone altogether, and it pushes the tears back to where they came from. He heard somewhere that it’s impossible to cry while one is drinking water; maybe that’s what this was for. Wiping his mouth and turning back to the foliage in front of him, Tommy soaks in the sight of the greenhouse as he explains.

“Ranboo isn’t dead,” he says confidently, taking a few steps further and relishing the sunlight that streams in through the pristine glass panes. “I would know if he was dead. Dream would have gotten word out somehow.” He knows his father and the punishments he would dole out; Dream would hammer Ranboo’s death into his brain until it was all Tommy knew anymore.

“But he isn’t with you,” Techno replies knowingly, and it’s relieving to know that the knight understands. It’s comforting to know that he won’t have to explain himself. Surely, Techno can already see what’s coming. Surely, he knows what Tommy has been dreaming of, the nightmares that have plagued him in the dark. 

“No. He’s not with me.” A pause; Tommy runs his hand along a fern. “He’s back at the castle. The Cassian Empire.” Another hesitation, this one more charged. There are wind chimes hanging from the outside of the greenhouse that sing as he steps carefully along the designated stone pathway throughout the brush. 

A butterfly swoops past him and out of sight again, and finally, Tommy caves, turns back around. He meets Techno’s eyes with a silent cry for help. Just like the visions, he is dangling over a deep chasm, only alive thanks to Techno’s grip on his wrist, pulling him up and out of the depths.

That vision tells him that care and compassion and contractual obligations don’t matter, all running together into one truth: Technoblade would do anything for him. The look that Techno returns to him is cautious, guarded and warning, but Tommy surges on, determined.

“I need to go back.”