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Chapter Text

Ron thought lies were some of the most beautiful things in the world.

Close enough to spells they made you question the same things, but far enough away, you weren’t called a witch when you used them.

He kept a bottle of lies wrapped up and hidden like a secret—because in a way they were.

Ron lied, he lied, and then he lied some more to cover up his tracks. By the time he was gone, nobody had realized what he’d done. 

They all thought it was the tricks of the wizard.

All magic is, is lies.

There was no real magic left in the world to manipulate. 

Ron wasn’t convinced there was any, to begin with.

And even if there had been, that all had to be lies, too.

Society as a whole would be forever built on deceit. Everybody heard what they wanted to hear, even if it wasn’t what had been said.

He hated it. Ron despised his species.

There was only one thing that he found to be true: The Weather.

It didn’t lie.

If water fell from the sky, it was going to rain. At least for a little while.

Which caused Ron to say that without a doubt, this wholly, truly, was an awful storm.

His hair was soaked, water dripped in front of his eyes, and he shivered violently.

It was summer, the rain was warm, why was he shivering?

His bag was heavy on his back, he could hear the glass bottles clink against each other even over the thunder.

A bolt of lightning hit the ground not forty feet ahead of him. Ron jumped back.

He looked up at the sky. More rain fell into his eyes. “ You couldn’t have made that hit me?” He screamed. “No rest for the wicked?” 

Ron started walking again, groaning and opting to stare down at his feet instead of the sky.

His shoes sunk deep into the mud and each step was a feat of endurance. To pry himself from the ground, and then nearly jump to get the furthest distance he could before repeating the process. The knife in his boot rubbed up against his leg and slipped deeper into his shoe with every step. It stopped at his ankle, as it couldn’t go any deeper.

Yet, with everything around him, all Ron could think of was the large dark umbrella he hadn’t purchased from the last village he was in.

He had wanted to. Had enough funds. But he hadn’t.

Ron felt unbelievably foolish now, as he treaded through the forest.

Really, he did need to get to the next town quickly.

He missed his cart. His horse.

Ron was so focused on his feet, and how the rain sounded, that he didn’t realize when it stopped, and he ran into a tree.

He fell onto the grass.

Ron took one of the leaves hanging from the tree into his hand. “No wonder no rain’s getting through, these are as big as my head.”

Ron took his bag off and set it on the grass, his back pressed up against the tree.

He let his head bang against the trunk and he sighed.

His shirt stuck to him, as well as his pants. His boots were coated in a lighter brown than the leather material was.

Ron ran a hand through his hair, combed it all to the back with his fingers so that none of it fell in front of his face again, and then closed his eyes. The world went dark around him, and he thought about the other lies he had been told.

They were also their own kind of magic. Special, beautiful.

The truth was horrid, unforgiving, and at times, unnecessary.

Untruths could be horrid, and unforgiving, and unnecessary. But they could be merciful, wonderful, and romantic.

Because they were untruths. They could be what they wanted to be.

Ron only woke up because his head slid off the slab of bark he had been resting it against.

He was glad it had slipped, though, because someone was rustling through his bag.

“Hey!” Ron reached to snatch the bag back, and the person looked at him.

Ron froze as horrible pain erupted inside of him. It raptured his nerves. He was completely still. Not making a noise.

He felt like he was rotting inside out. Sweat drenched his body. 

The person just stared at him. Didn’t blink once. Ron could only see one of his eyes. 

Blue.

Green?

A mixture of the two. The colors seemed to move and intertwine, but never fully mix.

Like water and oil.

He finally looked away and gasped, pressing two of his fingers to his eye.

Ron fell back against the tree and took in rapid, shallow breaths.

“Much easier with two.” The thief mumbled.

Ron reached into his boot and pulled out his knife.

He lunged forward and grabbed the thief by his throat and took him to the ground.

Hands wrapped around his wrist while he raised his other hand that held his knife.

In the position they were in now, Ron could finally see all of the thief.

Quite literally, he was without clothes.

Bruises and scratches covered a fair amount of his body. 

His wrists were rubbed raw. Bleeding. His nails were cracked. 

On the side of his neck, there was a brand, but that was hardly of Ron’s interest when his eye was on that same side of his body.

Or rather lack thereof.

It was as though it had been cut out.

Bound to be infected if it wasn’t treated right. 

Ron sighed. He raised his knife higher.

The other eye—and possibly the random patches of purple-blue skin—would go for a reasonable sum.

But something about the whimper the thief let out when his grip around his throat tightened made him stop.

Ron could feel his nostrils flare. His fingers wrapped around the handle of his knife, he was shaking.

Yet instead, “How long ago was your eye cut out?”

The thief looked at him bewildered. All he did was try to breathe through the hand cutting off his access to air.

Ron put the tip of his knife under his chin. “How long ago was your eye cut out?” he asked again.

“Not too long ago,” He choked out. “A day. At most.”

Ron nodded.

He let go of him and sat back on his knees. The thief scrambled up, sitting with one leg over the other.

Ron opened his bag and took out a bottle of vodka, and a piece of cloth.

Some reasonable, selfish, part of his head argued this was a horrible waste of vodka, but for some reason he couldn’t fully explain, the majority of him agreed this was a wonderful idea.

“Come here,” Ron ordered. “I’m going to clean your eye.”

“What is that?”

“Holy water. Because it’ll save your life.”

“How?”

Ron sighed. “Or, I can let you die of infection. Choose quickly.”

The thief hesitated but scooted forward.

Ron wet the cloth with the vodka and grabbed the thief’s face. He dabbed the cloth against the gaping hole there, and the thief pulled away.

“Hold still. Or I will tie you down.”

His eye darted to Ron’s bag, to the ground, then back to Ron. “How? You don’t have anything that could be used as a restraint.”

“Shoelaces.”

“Pathetic.”

“Or, I could use my knife, layer your hands over one another, and then stab it through them into the ground and hold you that way.” Ron offered.

His face went pale, and then the thief laughed. “Just as horrible as I thought.”

“The worst.”

Ron was focused on the cavern in the boy’s face, but his mind kept going back to the way the colors of his other eye swirled and fought each other. How they nearly blended, but not quite. It was like watching blades of grass and rain.

The droplets hit the blade of grass and weighed them down, but eventually slid off into the dirt and sunk in there. Feeding the plant, it had just been trying to bend down.

He continued to clean the eye, the thief took to digging his nails into his thighs as a distraction.

With how close they were to each other, Ron could smell salt. He wasn’t sure how someone could smell of salt, but this thief did, and it was off-putting. But also calming. He found himself oddly relaxed while cleaning the eye socket.

Ron wasn’t entirely sure how long it took, but eventually, it was over and Ron reached into his bag.

He pulled out his glass bottles and pulled out a white shirt and a pair of brown pants. 

At the knee of one of the pant legs, he cut out a rather large square. He took one of the laces from his boot, used his knife to stab through the cloth square, and tied the shoelace between the two holes.

He handed it to the thief.

“What is it?”

“An eye patch. Put it over your eye.”

“As opposed to the eye patches you put on your knee.”

“You’re the one that didn’t know what it was.”

Ron watched him put it on. The square was a little too big, but it did the job.

He handed the clothes to the thief.

“I don’t want to know why you’re naked, and I don’t want to see it either.”

The thief nodded and stood. He put the pants on first, then the shirt.

It was more flowy on him that it was Ron. The sleeves billowed a bit.

“What do you want?” The thief asked.

“What?”

“You cleaned my wound, you’ve given me clothes, and spared my life while I was trying to steal from you.” He explained. “Out of that list, the only thing truly important is sparing my life.”

Ron snorted and secured his bag shut. “Not really.”

“No, It is.” The thief got back onto the ground. Closer to Ron than he had been before. “I can’t repay that.”

“No, I suppose you can’t.”

“So, what do you want?” The thief pressed.

Ron let out a long breath and turned to him. “I want to get to my next town and forget I ever ran into you.”

He looked hurt. “Are you sure? I can’t repay you but I… I can certainly make this at least worth your time.” He swung his legs onto either side of Ron, effectively straddling him.

Ron’s eyes widened.

He looked at the brand on the side of the thief’s neck. It looked fresh. Still slightly pink, but not red and angry like new brands. It was in the shape of an ‘S’ and Ron swore he had seen it before. 

On another unfortunate's neck at one point, but he couldn’t pinpoint when and where.

All he knew for sure, was that he despised seeing those people with those brands on the streets. Or specifically, men who handed them bags of gold coins and took them to an inn. He wondered how many inns this one had been in, and when he’d finally had enough of it and fought back against a customer, only to be held down and forced to have an eye removed.

Distantly, Ron registered that his hesitation and examination of his neck could be construed as acceptance of the offer, and so he had to think quickly of a way to reject it, instead.

Before he fully processed what he was doing, Ron was standing with his boot on the thief’s throat.

“Who do you think I am?” He asked. “Do you think I helped you, so I could fuck you? Because that is not how I operate. Do not ever think that again, do you understand?”

The thief nodded rapidly. As well as he could, anyway. With a boot on his neck.

Ron moved his foot back onto the ground. The thief sat up and brushed the grass off of his skin.

“What’s your name?” Ron asked. 

“Carl.”

“Ron.”

He slung his bag over his shoulder. “Where are you from?”

Carl stood up. “Not here.”

“Obviously.” Ron pushed the leaves from the tree back. The forest that had been relatively clear the night prior was lazy with fallen branches and leaves. He frowned when he saw his footprints had been molded with the mud, still deep holes where his feet had been not too long ago.

With one last deepening of his frown, Ron stepped onto the dirt road. It had tried, no longer a field of potential sinkholes, but again a sturdy path for travelers.

Carl followed him in suit. He wondered how the dirt felt against bare feet. He tried not to think of how many rocks his feet would bleed from with his lack of shoes.

“Where were you headed to?” Ron tried.

“I don’t…” Carl trailed off. “…know.”

Ron sighed deeply. “How’s that?”

“Hmm?”

“How’s that? That you don’t know?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Good, a variant.” He paused. “Okay…where do you want to go?”

“Home.”

“And for you that is…”

“Alexandria.”

Ron stopped walking. “The forest?”

Carl nodded. “You’ve been?”

He started walking again. Rotating the knife in his hand.

“No,” Ron admitted.

Carl hummed. “So, you’re a wizard?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Well, you either are or you aren’t.”

Ron huffed. “Then I guess I’m not. Because all of that is bullshit anyway.”

“What’s bullshit?”

“Wizardry. Magic.”

Carl laughed. Hard. 

He had to stop walking. Ron stilled, too, and watched with little amusement and a frown.

“What?”

“No—no, it’s just—” He bent over and put his hands on his knees. “How is it that magic and wizardry is bullshit if you can see me?”

And with that, Ron was more confused than he ever had been.

What did his deceitful wizardry have to do with the ability of sight?

He thought of all the lies he had been told as a child to help him get to sleep, one stuck out in particular as he thought of the searing pain he had felt while Carl stared at him.

That only witches and wizards could see creatures of magic, which hadn’t ever made much sense to him.

Nobody believed a word that came from tricksters, and not many believed in magic as it was, who would believe them if they said they saw something like a unicorn or dragon?

If things such as those were to exist, they must be visible to the public, so more credible sources could confirm what the jesters said.

Nobody took a witch for her word or a wizard for his.

But, even though it didn’t make much sense to him, as a child Ron found that lie to be one of comfort.

The thought that magical creatures were only visible to those who could manipulate and make the impossible happen seemed fitting. They would respect each other.

Because in reality, if everyone could see unicorns, they would be hunted. People would drink their blood, thinking it made them immortal. Use their fur as coats. Their manes as hair ribbons and violin strings.

Their horns would be crushed and sold as powdered magic.

As a child, he didn’t think of what would happen to the humanoid magic creatures. Beautiful as they were, to be sold off. Used and tossed aside.

He thought of the brand on Carl’s neck. The bruises on his body. The lack of clothes. One eye.

And the other. Whose colors swirled so wonderfully with each other. Around and around. Blue-purple patches of skin that almost took priority over the bruises. His laugh imitated the pleasantness of honey so much, that even though it was mocking, Ron couldn’t bring himself to care nearly as much as he should.

It was a disgusting thought, that he was more focused on that laugh rather than figuring out what Carl had meant, but it was all he could focus on.

That and the scent of salt that still lingered in his nose. Why salt?

Mint was a familiar scent. As was vanilla. Pine and rain. Wine.

Salt.

Nobody ever smelled of salt, not the way this thief had. 

The contrasting colors on him were remarkable. He was pale. So pale, that the sun didn’t look quite right on him. But the purple and blue spots on his skin fit just right.

His hair was dark and fell so…deliberately, but also on accident. It was almost impossible. If his eye had just been cut out, recently, how did a large chunk fit to cover the wound already so perfectly cover the space?

He couldn’t have been far from the forest during the storm, so how was his hair so dry?
Ron’s own hair was still damp from the rain.

Nothing about him seemed right.

Salt.

Ron nearly stumbled when the implications of the sentence sunk into him, the salt, the purple, and blue, the eye colors, hit him.

He watched as Carl laughed at him again, and he understood why it was honey. Why it made him forget everything else that he had been previously been thinking about and focus only on the sound.

Even the birds and bugs seemed to grow quiet.

Ron realized that the lies he had been told as a child were untrue. Because he was not a wizard. He was a man of trickery and lies. Nothing more than a magician. 

Nothing magical about him, but he could see it.

He could see the person before him, and comprehend him.

That was a nymph.

Chapter Text

Ron hadn’t ever fully believed anything he had been told as a child.

He couldn’t remember when that started, but it couldn’t have been long after his brother died. When a lie led to his demise.

He knew that most people would react to that by swearing to never lie again, but he couldn’t find it in himself to let go of the comfort and safety deceit brought him.

They were a blanket, that wrapped around him and kept him warm. Kept him sane.

The truth was a cold, harsh, unforgiving winter.

People were so gullible, that even the maddest of lies could prove true if you insisted enough.

Because everyone trusted somebody, and word of mouth was the easiest way to get lies spread.

Once you told one person, they’d go tell another, and that person would believe them. Because trust was almost as reliable as untruths.

And very soon, you had a working system of lies. A web that entangled you and could not escape from.

It was as addictive as rum, and Ron tingled whenever he said something untrue and was believed.

He knew that some liars believed what they were saying, only then they were not guilty parties as he, they were delusional.

Ron lied about things that he knew were not true, hence his “wizardry.”

All it was, was simple up close illusions. Cards. Balls. Chest pieces.

But people believed it was magic, and he would reinforce their thoughts so that the fools would pay him.

So, when he thought about it more, there were two things he would always count on to be true: The weather, and the gullibility of mankind.

He did think it odd that so many people believed in something they had never seen. God, fairies, magic. 

“You can’t see air, yet you know it’s there.”

“When winter freezes, you can see your breath turn into white smoke, can you not?”

He thought of that conversation with his mother, who had loving wrapped her arm around his shoulder, pressed her lips to his temple, and mumbled, “One day, you will find something so beautiful, you’ll believe magic is real. Because there’s no other way something that wonderful could exist.”

“I doubt it.”

“Everyone does.”

She clutched her golden necklace and headed into the house, leaving Ron to stare at the sunset.

He might believe it if there weren’t so many conflicting stories.

In stories of God, Judas kissed Jesus on the cheek in one, and the lips in the other. In stories of magic and fairies, only people who manipulated magic could see them, but in others, creatures hid from humans who hunted them.

But how could they have been hunted, if only people who manipulated magic could see them? 

In Ron’s mind, the people who manipulated magic wouldn’t hunt others of their kind.

At least, he hoped.

With all the lies he had told, he never truly believed he was a wizard. He could not manipulate magic. He could manipulate people.

So, if that were so, there was no way the thief in front of him was a nymph.

Even though the smell of salt was overwhelming once he placed what it was, and he could see the blue and purple skin on his neck and the eye.

Oh, that eye.

It was so hypnotizing. Watching the colors swirl and then revolt back against each other.

He could see something on the colored skin he hadn’t seen before, and he refused to believe they were the gills of a fish.

Carl was not a nymph. He did not have gills. 

Of course not, gills meant he needed water to breathe.

He didn’t have gills. Ron would have noticed while he was staring at the brand on his neck.

“Are you alright?” Carl asked.

“You…you…”

“You’ve figured it out?”

“You’re…no.”

“You haven’t?”

Ron shook his head. “You aren’t. No. Those…do not exist.”

Carl frowned. “You’re a wizard…”

“No!” Ron yelled. “I’m not! I have glass bottles, playing cards, and a chess set! I’m not a wizard! Magic, it’s—” “Would you like me to prove it to you?”

Ron’s mouth snapped shut and he laughed. “How would you do that?”

Carl locked eyes with him and that feeling of mind-numbing pain returned. His blood pushed against his skin, his eyes watered, and his bones pushed down against his muscles. Everything was contorted and all he could see was that eye.

The fascination with it turned into hatred quickly. He hated the colors. He hated how they interacted in such an unusual manner.

Ron hated how captivated he was with this person.

Carl looked down at the ground, and the pain left.

Ron toppled over onto his hands and knees. He pressed his forehead to the cool ground and took large breaths.

“If you do that again—I’ll kill you.” He panted. “Take your corpse and sell it. It’ll go for a lot.”

“I know. I sell for a good sum.” Carl replied.

“Damn right.”

He could feel the shadow of Carl cover him as he walked over. He squatted down in front of Ron.

He looked up. Carl seemed unimpressed. 

“Do you believe it now? Or would you rather I pull all the water and salt from your body through your eyes and leave you nothing but a blanket of flesh?”

Ron sighed. “I’d rather you not. I’m quite fond of being whole.”

He sat up on his knees. Rubbed his sleeve across his forehead to clean the dirt off.

“So,” Ron started. “You’re a nymph?”

Carl smiled. Barely a smile, but enough that it could be construed as one.

“Yes. And you’re a wizard.”

“No,” He corrected. “I’m not. I’m a jester.”

Carl frowned. “But you can see me.”

“Yes, because you’re not invisible! I can see you! You are flesh and blood! Much like I, much like whoever branded your neck!”

Carl’s hand reached up to cover the ‘S’ and he looked at the dirt. “He was a wizard.” He muttered.

“No! Wizards don’t exist! There would have to be magic left in the world for wizards to exist.” 

Carl rolled his eye. “I’m here. But alright, where did it go if there’s none left?”

Ron shrugged. “Hunted out.”

Carl looked at him confused. As though he hadn’t even considered that possibility.

“We’re selfish, stupid creatures by design. If humans saw someone like you, they’d probably sell you to men until you were raped to death.”

Carl’s eye widened. He suddenly became fascinated with a small rock in the dirt and picked it up, running it between his fingers with a blank expression.

“And for the ones they couldn’t catch, the ones they couldn’t sell?” Ron took his knife and rotated it. He slammed it into the ground, the blade going deep into the dirt path.

He expected Carl to jump. Wince. Something, but he didn’t.

“They’d be killed,” Ron explained. “The unicorns would be skinned. Their fur used for coats. Mains for hair ribbons. Horns sold as cheap gifts. Or crushed up and used in recipes.”

Carl shook his head. “We’re still here.”

“No, you’re not. You must have just avoided the rapture.”

Smiled again. “There’s never been a time without magic. It lives forever.” He said softly.

Ron tore his knife from the ground. “And the forest of Alexandria? That’s where all the magic is hiding?”

Carl bit his lip. “I’m not sure.”

Ron sighed. He stood up.

Carl did as well, dropping the rock back onto the road.

“There’s more of me.” He assured. “More magic.”

Ron groaned. He grabbed Carl’s chin and pulled his face close. “Listen to me. You’re the last.”

Carl’s nostrils flared. For a moment, Ron was worried he was going to freeze him again. But as he braced himself for pain, none came.

“How can I be the last?” He whispered. “There’s not supposed to be an end…and you! You’re a wizard—” “No, you blasted cunt!”

Carl backed up.

Ron ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. “I’m not a wizard. I’ve never been a wizard. My performances are based on the gullibility of those around me. I’m not a wizard. There is nothing special about me. You are the last magic this world has.”

Carl wrapped his arms around himself. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

Confusion must have been clear on his face. How in the world did he come to that conclusion?

“No—” “Sell my corpse, like you said. This is an important opportunity. Further your career. If you bring a dead nymph on your travels to the next town, and present me, people are bound to believe you more.”

“You don’t think I’m capable of making people believe me without a nymph?” Asked Ron. “Because let me tell you, you are more valuable to me alive than you are dead. Nobody cares about a corpse. A corpse won’t squeak when you poke it.”

“Then you’ll sell me.”

Ron winced. “I thought I told you to not accuse me of such things. I do not care about fucking you. Or making money off others fucking you.”

Carl huffed. He chuckled, almost. “Are you sure? I’ll go for quite a lot.”

“I know that. But no.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I’m…” Ron paused. He thought. There wasn’t much he could do. He could lie. Say he wasn’t going to kill him, and then do it. Sell his corpse in Woodbury. Take his eye as a souvenir. 

He would not sell him while he was alive. Ron would sink low, but not that low.

People who sold other people had no talent in any other business, and in Ron’s opinion, should have been strangled by their mothers at birth.

His mother did not strangle him. And Ron had talent in the business of lies.

“I’m going to get you home.” He said.

Carl’s arms fell back down to his sides. “Why?”

“I’m not sure.” He answered. “If you make me regret it, I will sell you. Kill you, sell your dead body, and keep your eye as a reminder of the fortune you gave me.”

He nodded. Walked toward Ron again and put his hand out. “I promise I will not attack you, steal from you, or intentionally harm you.”

Ron looked down at Carl’s hand. He took it and folded all the fingers back besides his pinky, and interlocked Carl’s with his own. “I promise to not kill you or rape you or sell you to someone who will.”

Carl looked down at their joined pinkies and mumbled, “And if either of us breaks the agreement, we get to kill each other and sell the other’s corpse.”

Ron nodded.

His own corpse wouldn’t go for anything. But he wasn’t going to tell Carl that.

He let their pinkies drop.

Ron turned back to the road and started to walk down the road, with a nymph beside him.

It didn’t rain that night, thankfully.

But due to the detour he took that morning regarding the rethinking of every belief, he held, they had to stop that night and build a fire.

Carl seemed fascinated by it.

Ron watched in slow motion as he reached forward and placed his hand into the fire, and then yank it back with a yelp.

“Fool,” Ron mumbled.

He glanced over and saw the tips of Carl’s fingers. Red, and angry.

“Fire burns.” He explained. “It hurts. Don’t touch it.”

“Yes, I know that now.”

Silence rose between them while Ron examined the clouds of smoke race. The smell of burning always calmed him.

It was an odd smell to feel calmed by, but it always had. It was especially favorable to salt.

The burning mixed so well with the smell of the wet forest. The storm certainly did a number on the place.

Behind them, there were puddles in the grass. Pooled in the grass and mixed with the dirt.

“If they had salt in them, I could make them float,” Carl said.

“What?”

“The puddles, if they had salt in them, I could make them float.” He explained.

“Is that all you can do?” Asked Ron. “Make water float?”

Carl snickered. “Much more than that. I could kill you.”

“I know you could.”

“So easily,” He said quietly. “I could kill you right now, and you wouldn’t even notice.”

Ron’s heart thumped in his chest. “But you’re not going to.”

“No. I’m not.” He looked down at his burnt fingertips. “But I could. Like how you could take me by my throat and carve out my other eye with your knife. Just as easily as I could pull the water from your body.”

He shuddered. 

“I could do more than just cut your eye out. I could carve out your heart. Throat. When I was young, I used to have dreams of carving the bone out of my father’s finger while it was still attached to him.”

“Which finger?”

“It varied.”

Carl hummed and rubbed his neck.

Ron’s eyes were drawn to the gills once more. 

He didn’t need water to breathe? How was that?

“Your neck. Gills?”

Carl nodded. His eyes trained on the fire while he spoke, “So I can breathe while below the water.”

“But you don’t require it to breathe regularly?”

“No. But I prefer it. It makes it easier. On the land, I constantly feel as though each breath is my last.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

Carl scoffed. “You don’t want to. Have you ever felt incredibly close to death, but never actually died?”

“Yes.”

Carl went quiet. Ron could see him swallow. “Oh.”

“Humans are selfish,” He said. “Like I said. Not only poor, unfortunate creatures, such as you, are victim of it. We torture our own.”

“You’re all horrible,” Carl whispered.

Ron nodded. “Yes. We are.”

He reached forward to the fire again. For a moment Ron was worried he was going to stick his hand in, instead, he chased the smoke with his fingers.

His nails were still cracked and bloody. Ron wondered how they got that way.

You never heard of Nymphs getting hurt. You heard of them getting protected.

He thought of the brand on Carl’s neck, and the bruises, and the familiar shape of hand prints they had been in. 

Where they had been placed.

He hadn’t examined him, but he had seen a lot when he had him pinned to the ground. And when he stood up to put on clothes.

Ron didn’t want to think about the amount of pressure that had to be applied to result in those kinds of bruises. He didn’t want to think of all the injuries he’d seen and figure out the struggle he must have gone through to get them.

Or try to figure out if the blood under this nymph’s fingernails was his own or someone else’s.

A gust of wind came through and pushed the fire further toward them. Carl’s hand shot backward. 

The wind rustled his hair and blew it back, his ears. They were almost pointed, but not quite. They almost appeared to be ripped. The outer part was shredded. The tip was purple, it bled down into blue. The colors spilled down his skin to an area of his jaw his hair had been hiding.

Another question, then. Were his ears always shredded, or was that related to the ‘S’ burned onto his neck?

Ron had seen the ‘S’ before. In towns, larger ones, mostly.

Mostly on women. 

Then again, almost every nymph he had been read stories of was a woman as well.

He supposed, that if you didn’t have good eyesight, Carl could seem like a woman. Long hair, slender body. But you have to be close to brand someone, and he didn’t sound like a woman.

If you still thought him a woman once you heard his voice, you were either completely delusional or just a fool.

Neither was favorable.

Ron supposed, though, he’d rather one be delusional. 

Some could say he was delusional, thinking he could get through life on lies.

He wasn’t, however.

He knew that one day, all of his lies would catch up to him, and he would be killed for his deceit.

But he would die laughing, knowing these people were so angry about being led astray by lies of something, that was already untrue.

At least they used to be untrue. Before he met a nymph.

He wasn’t entirely sure now, how many lies he had spread, how much of it was just simple ignorance.

It angered him, to think how stupid some of his spiels would sound to Carl.

He’d sound something of a moron to him, going on about magic snails and leaves, when it apparently revolved around salt.

At least for him. Salt.

Ron was not a fan of morons. He’d rather not be one.

Since he agreed to take Carl home, he had been trying to think of something he could get out of this.

He didn’t do anything for fun. 

He found something to get out of everything. The smaller and unnoticeable, the better.

And information was a form of payment many people disacknowledged. Ron had tired of gold coins and precious furs long ago. He carried none on him, relying on lies, and the occasional, well-placed, bit of valuable truth.

He did find it repulsive that words on horrible people could get him a meal, or a place to sleep, but it came in handy more to him than any gold coin had.

And so, if he was to get anything out of taking Carl back to the forest of Alexandria, he was to get information.

Let the nymph learn the values of words, and let Ron learn the importance of the salt.

He wouldn’t ask all the questions at once, no, that would be too obvious.

Then again, Carl had said that he wanted to repay Ron for sparing his life. He was bound to try to repay him again for taking him home, for that was a greater kindness.

He could have very well given Carl clothes and then left him in the woods to be picked up and harmed in various ways, but he hadn’t.

He was going to try to repay him, and he must at least have some kind of idea of how much Ron despised the form of repayment he was accustomed to offering.

Ron wouldn’t ask for that.

He hadn’t asked for that. It was offered and he had declined.

It made him miserable to think that Carl had expected him to want that in return.

Then he remembered the towns of branded necks and remembered what he’d said to Carl just moments ago.

“Humans are selfish, Like I said. Not only poor, unfortunate creatures, such as you, are victim to it. We torture our own.”

Chapter Text

Watching Carl walk never got less interesting.

It was as though he had never placed his feet on the ground before, he was awkward and gangly and most fascinating to watch.

Ron only wished he had shoes.

During the two days they had been on the road to whichever town came upon them first, Ron had learned much more than he intended to.

Only regarding the gills, how his magic worked.

“When you first used your eye on me, you said it was much easier with two. Why is that?”

“I have to focus. Very hard. And when I can only see half of the world, it's harder to focus on it all. It requires more effort.”

“What are you doing when you do that?”

“Raising the water and salt in your body to the surface of your skin and…pushing it against it.”

It truly was disgusting to think about, but Ron didn’t mind all that much.

He was getting what he wanted from the deal. Information.

He hadn’t asked about the brand, or the bruises, or even how Carl ended up in the forest.

It was only once that Ron found himself concerned for this nymph that didn’t involve extensive examination of the various injuries on his body. 

They were on the outskirts of a small town named Woodbury, and Carl was lagging behind. Taking heavier steps, shivering even in summer heat.

Then, he tripped.

Over his own feet.

Ron caught him, wrapped one arm around his back and the other around his stomach. “Are you alright?” He asked.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” He gasped.

“Are you ill?” 

Carl shook his head. “Magic doesn’t get ill.”

“Well, then you must not be magic. You’re shivering in heat.”

He shook his head again. “No, it’s—this happens when I’m away from water too long.”

“We have water. In my bag.”

“No, no. Salt water. Ocean.”

Ron stared down at the road. Dry dirt, While he was glad that they were out of the woods, where the mood came up to his ankles and he felt strangled by humidity, he was also greatly worried about the wellness of Carl.

He seemed to do well in the forest, even if they weren’t around salt water, there was a certain constant moistness that was sure to help even a saltwater nymph.

“We – we can get a map. In Woodbury. We’re not far from an ocean, we couldn’t be.”

Carl nodded. “Just give me a moment. This…spell will pass and I’ll walk again. Just give me a moment.”

Ron lowered them down to sit against a fence.

Carl let his head fall back against the posts. He looked absolutely miserable. 

Sweat covered his forehead. His gills opened for oxygen he could not get from the same air that Ron breathed so easily.

Ron took off his bag and reached inside. He searched for his bottle of water, he could hear the other bottles clink against each other, but everyone he pulled out didn’t have water in it.

His wrist was grabbed.

“Don’t,” Carl said. “It’ll only make it worse. I can’t… I can’t drink or breathe in water, not from the ocean. Just wait. This will pass, and I’ll be able to walk again.”

Ron hesitated. He looked back at the bottle in his hand. He was pretty sure it was the remaining vodka he had.

Ron lowered it back into his bag and latched it closed.

He wasn’t sure how long they waited up against the fences, but it started to grow close to sunset when Carl began to remotely seem better. 

Ron recognized the familiar sound of horses pulling a wagon.

He stood and threw his bag over his shoulder. He waved wildly, trying to flag down the driver.

It worked. He stopped and said, rather loudly, “Is your friend okay?”

His wagon was filled to the brim with merchandise of all kinds.

“No!” Ron called back. “Could you give us a ride into town? We won’t be of much trouble! We can sit in the back!”

He contemplated for a moment, before waving them back.

Ron let out a breath of relief and helped Carl stand. He still felt like dead weight, even though his breaths were less shallow.“Thank you!”

He nearly threw Carl into the back before climbing in himself. Once the wagon started again, the driver called back, “My name’s Glenn! Why are you two passing through Woodbury?”

“Passing through?” Ron inquired. “Who’s to say we’re not residents?”

Glenn laughed. “Because I’ve been delivering merchandise to Woodbury for years, and never in those years, they have never gotten a new member from the outside! It’s always new babies!” He explained. “So, where are you two going?”

Ron mused for a moment, watching the fields fly past him. “Somewhere that doesn’t exist!”

“Oh! Well, how lovely!”

Ron focused back on Carl.

He seemed more alert. His head no longer dropped, and he was gripping onto a trunk for dear life.

Good.

Ron would rather Carl be actively fearing for his life than not be aware he should be fearing for it due to exhaustion.

Ron barely understood the concept of exhaustion. Maybe it was because he didn’t have time for it.

He was only ever exhausted when he woke up in these cold sweats. He didn’t know where they came from, he rarely had dreams, and he’d been without nightmares for the majority of his life.

But every so often, he would wake up covered in sweat and trembling. He’d reach up and touch his face, and it would come back damp, and salty with his tears.

Ron never knew why or what he had dreamt of to put him in such a state, but it left him nothing but heavy. 

His limbs were too weighted to move, his body was a boulder, and he could not move from the bed he had slept in that night. 

Never once had he wondered what caused the sweat and terror. He figured it a waste of time to decipher his own head, when he could spend his time deciphering others, and making money while he did it.

Ron only mattered if he lived. To live, he needed money. To get money, he needed to manipulate other members of his species around him. To do that, he needed to know how their heads worked. 

His own was not nearly as important to him.

The cart stopped, and Ron hopped out.

Carl looked down at him, confused. 

“Swing your legs over the edge. Good. Now…fall.”

“Fall?”

“Yes, fall.”

Carl closed his eyes and did.

His feet hit the ground and he stumbled.

Distantly, he wondered how someone could look so graceful doing everything, including stumbling.

“Thank you, Glenn,” Ron said.

The man waved to him and then his horses began to trot off further down the road.

Woodbury truly did seem a pathetic little town.

Perfect.

At some point, the dirt road turned into stone, and the buildings and houses were lined up in two strips.

Most of the buildings looked identical. Same shapes, different colors.

Except for one.

“Yes,” Ron said.

“What is it?” Carl asked.

“We’re getting you a weapon.”

“What?”

He started walking down the path to a structure he was sure was a blacksmith.

Ron was right.

An open area with anvils and weapons. Swords, knives, axes.

Everything.

Even things not made on an anvil, such as bows and arrows.

There was a tree stump off to the side with a small log of wood on it. Perhaps for axe testing.

A rather large, red-haired man watched over them.

Ron looked over all the knives. He didn’t dare touch them, in fear they’d somehow break. But he let his fingers graze over them in awe.

“These are beautiful.” He said idly to the blacksmith.

“I know.” He replied.

Ron snorted.

At least he was sure of his work.

“Ron.”

He turned and found Carl examining an axe. He walked over to it. Its handle had carvings in it. They were intricate and…wonderful.

Carl picked up the axe.

“Do you know how to use it?” Ron asked.

Carl scoffed. He walked over to the tree stump and picked up another log to stack on top of the one already there.

“Uhm. Carl. You’re only supposed—” “You’re only supposed to chop one.” The blacksmith interrupted. “And you…don’t look like you could chop one.”

Carl stepped back. Gripped the axe harder than before and brought it down through the two logs.

The blacksmith’s eye widened and Ron jumped at the crack as the logs split.

Carl smiled. He rested the axe on his shoulder and tucked his hair behind his ear.

How could Carl barely be able to walk one moment, and wield an axe well enough to chop through two logs the next?

It still somehow managed to hide the gills on his neck.

“I do two at a time at a minimum.” He explained to the blacksmith.

“Well. Hot damn. Alright.”

Ron looked at the large man. “How much for the axe?”

“How much do you have on you?” He asked.

Ron glared at him. “ How much for the axe?”

Carl glanced around awkwardly. “Okay. We don’t have the money.”

“ Carl—” “But…” He walked over to Ron and shoved the axe into his arms while he fumbled in Ron’s bag.

He pulled out the bottle full of water. It sloshed around half empty.

“Do you have salt anywhere?” Carl asked the blacksmith.

He nodded and pointed across the street.

Carl ran to the other side with the bottle.

“Now,” The Blacksmith said. “What in God’s good graces is axe boy going to do?”

“I… I am not sure.”

Carl came back moments later with a jar of salt and a small crowd. He popped open the bottle and poured the salt inside. He put the cork back in and shook it violently.

Carl set the salt down on one of the anvils and then put the glass bottle down onto the dirt.

“You have more of the bottles, right?” He asked.

“…yes,” Ron answered hesitantly.

Then, Carl put his hand out, and the glass burst. Pieces flew everywhere, some of them stuck into the tree stump.

But the water did not melt with the dirt like it should.

It floated in the air in a bubble while Carl’s hand remained outstretched. He brought his other hand up and split the bubble in two.

He sent them too close to the ground for comfort, then brought them back up with little effort. It seemed as easy as talking for him.

He ran them in front of children’s eyes as more of a crowd started to build.

Carl moved his hands in obscure ways and formed the water into snowflakes, and a dragon, a unicorn. A cloud. 

He moved one bubble in front of a woman’s chest made it into a heart and brought it forward to then transform into a star.

Carl turned around toward the blacksmith. He made both of the bubbles into thin strips of water and made them circle the man’s head repeatedly. Once they were done chasing each other, he created a halo above his hair.

The crowd was grinning. More than Ron had ever seen a crowd grin.

They seemed giddy.

“Ron!” Carl called. “Bottle!”

He reached into his bag and pulled out an empty glass bottle that used to be another water bottle before he drank all of it.

Ron watched in morbid fascination as Carl separated the salt from the water as if it had never been mixed in with it. He let the salt drop onto the ground with hardly a care and then forced the water into the new bottle.

Everybody was silent, and for a second, Ron was worried he was going to have to drag Carl out of the town so that he wasn’t burned alive.

Then the first clap sound. Then another. And another, until the area was filled with nothing but joyful praises of his performance.

Carl turned around to the blacksmith. “May I have the axe?”

“I don’t see any correlation between your ability to do… that and pay for an axe but sure. You take the axe, and I’ll think about the fact that water just circled my head.”

He reached under a table and pulled out something leather. The Blacksmith walked forward and handed it to Carl. “It goes around your waist. To carry your axe.

Ron handed Carl’s axe to him and took what the blacksmith had given him. He successfully put it around Carl’s waist and then put his axe so that it hung down against his leg.

They actually had enough to pay for a room at an inn in Woodbury. 

The only problem with this was that neither of them were used to sleeping in beds.

Ron wasn’t sure what Carl was accustomed to, but Ron rarely slept in beds. If he was lucky, he took blankets and hay and called that a “bed.”

Or, he would sleep in trees. Against stress. Wherever he could, really.

This lack of experience regarding beds ended in them taking their pillows and blankets onto the floor and lying next to each other while staring at the ceiling.

“Ron?”

“Hmm?”

“Are people still hanged?”

Ron blinked rapidly.

That was not the question he had been expecting. No, not at all. “Someone. Somewhere. Every day will be dropped from a platform with a noose around their neck to meet their sweet release into Death’s arms. Why?”

“There was a lullaby I used to be sang when I was young. It was… Are you? Are you? Coming to the tree?”

Ron swallowed. Hard against his throat, and he wished he hadn’t answered the question. “Where they strung up a man, they say who murdered three.”

“Yeah…that one. How much of it do you know?”

“All of it.” He replied. “Every damn word.”

Carl frowned. “You make this sound as though it’s a bad thing.”

“It is.” He said.

“No. It’s a beautiful song.”

Ron sighed. “I suppose it is.”

“Why do you hate it?” Carl asked. He was so quiet, it nearly pained Ron to think this was the topic he was timid over.

Ron looked over at Carl.

The colors in his eye swirled and tried to mix, but pulled apart from each other just as they began to.

His hair fell to cover only certain parts of his face. The light from the moon that showed through the window made his skin nearly shimmer, and Ron couldn’t help but think he looked better under moonlight than sunlight, but he didn’t look repulsive in either one.

He seemed so pure here.

Ron knew he wasn’t, but it was an illusion that was hard to break.

“I don’t hate it.”

“Liar.” He said desperately. “Why do you not like it?”

“My mother used to sing it to me.”

“And your mother is…”

“Dead.”

Carl inhaled sharply. “Oh. How?”

“I killed her,” Ron replied. “Stabbed her in the throat.”

“Oh,” Carl repeated. “I killed my mother, too.”

Ron turned his head to look at Carl. “What?”

“When she was trying to give birth, she died. I killed my mother.”

“No. Your mother happened to die. I killed my mother.”

Carl let out a long breath. “Well, then. I like the song.”

“How delightful for you.”

Carl pulled his blanket further over himself and then muttered. “You lied to me.”

“About what?”

“You said if humans saw me, they would rape me to death. I’m still alive.”

“They saw magic tricks. They didn’t see you. Not how I did.”

“They saw my magic. My water. It moved. It flew. They clapped. They said amazing things. I was given a weapon. They didn’t hurt me.”

Ron swallowed. “Carl. Continue to be cautious. I don’t want you hurt. At all.” He paused. “Ever.” He muttered.

“I know humans are terrible. You’re a wonderful example. Making your career off of lies.”

“Yes, but I will not rape you or beat you. That’s what you need to concern yourself with.”

Carl was silent for a long while. Ron thought he had fallen asleep, then, “There’s another song I like. It reminds me of you, now that I think about it.”

“Oh?”

“ I’ve built a little empire. Out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working class. But they’ve overcome their shyness. Now they’re calling me Your Highness. And the world screams, Kiss me, son of God.”

Ron snorted. “Oh, you think so highly of me.”

“I destroyed the bond of friendship and respect between the only people left who’d ever look me in the eye. Now I laugh and make a fortune off the same ones that I tortured. Now the world screams, Kiss me, son of God. I look like Jesus, so they say. But Mr. Jesus is very far away.”

“Oh, there’s more is there.”

Carl laughed but kept going, “Now you’re the only one here who can tell me if it's true. That you love me, and I love me. I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working class.  But they’ve overcome their shyness. Now they’re calling me Your Highness. And the world screams, Kiss me, son of God. Yes, the world screams, Kiss me, son of God.”

Ron smiled and shook his head. “And that reminds you of me?”

“Yes.”

“That reminds me of an egotistical fool who philosophizes more than he should.”

“Is that not you?” Carl questioned, amusement laced into his tone.

Ron scoffed and rubbed his eyes while grinning perhaps a bit more than he should. But he couldn’t deny the lack of hesitation Carl hadn’t been impressive.

He kept impressing him.

Chapter Text

Ron despised the unconscious thoughts that sleep brought on.

Not simply the ones that caused him to wake drenched in his own sweat, without memory of what caused it, but the pleasant ones.

The queer ones.

The unexplainable ones.

This one was unexplainable. 

He had seen the moon turn into a face and laugh at him, red waves washing against a blank shore. No sand, simply nonexistent land with orchids hidden below the layers of water.

He saw a hand lying down against the blank mass of ground, water washed up over it before being grabbed and pulled back into the simple crowd of waves.

When he woke, he found Carl uncomfortable close to him. Fast asleep with his head on Ron’s bicep, his legs tangled with his own, and his fingers barely grazing his side, the other hand simply laying against what little ground was left between them.

Ron looked down and examined how peaceful he seemed. His chest rose and fell properly, and he continued to smell of salt. His gills opened and closed as he breathed, and Ron was glad he wasn’t choking on the oxygen anymore.

It had scared him when he had tripped on the round yesterday and then not been able to get back up for hours.

He thought he was going to die.

Ron was no fool, he knew that if he didn’t get Carl to a source of seawater soon, he was going to die.

Whether it be of dehydration or suffocation, he wasn’t sure. 

Most likely dehydration, since he couldn’t drink fresh water.

Ron prided himself on his ability to detach from the situation. When he killed his mother, he thought of only what was in her best interest.

She was already dying. Laying there in the field of corn with a wound in her stomach from where she was stabbed, the knife still lying next to her.

He remembered his mother reaching up with a bloodied hand and putting it against her cheek, the blood was sticky, and her hand was cold and shivering.

He could still see the look in her eyes, and he could remember his own trembling as he put her head in his lap and ran a hand through her hair. He sang a song to her, which she had always found to be comforting. 

“Upon one summer's morning, I carefully did stray.” Ron’s voice was horrible and nothing like his mother’s. But she still seemed to relax when he started. “Down by the walls of wapping, where I met a sailor gay.”

He grabbed the knife next to her and plunged it into her throat.

He sang the rest of the song, and by the time he was done, she was dead.

She was going to die anyway. He didn’t want her to suffer.

Ron pulled himself away from what was happening and thought logically. 

When he looked at Carl sleeping so peacefully next to him, he found himself near trembling at the thought of this nymph dehydrating and dying.

He couldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t.

He was too beautiful to die yet.

Truth be told, Ron never had met someone with such a complex sort of beauty as he.

It was hard to explain. To describe in simple words and not tears.

He had thought of this before while walking through the forest and watching this nymph stare at a squirrel running up a tree as if he had never seen such a thing, and whenever he had, he shook himself.

Reminded that this was a nymph, and they were always beautiful. There was nothing special about this one.

Ron hated to wake him, he really did, but they must be going.

They needed to get Carl to seawater, and for that, they needed a map.

Hopefully, Ron could trade for a map. Or, at the very least, a man pointing in the general direction of the nearest ocean. 

It couldn’t be far, if it was, Carl would already be dead.

“Carl.” He whispered. “Carl.”

He stirred and made an unhappy noise to being awoken.

“What?” He asked.

“We need to leave Woodbury.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re dying.”

That woke him up fully.

He sat up, skillfully untangling himself from Ron’s body.

Ron sat up too, watching in confusion as Carl shook his head and scoffed at him. “I’m not dying. Magic does not die.”

“You may never die of old age, but I guarantee you, you are nothing less mortal than I,” Ron replied.

Carl huffed and stood, running his fingers through his hair and shaking his head at the same time, as if to say, “Silly little human. Read fairytales.”

It angered Ron irrationally. 

He stood as well, he opened his bag and took out a comb he had found a long while ago. He had never used it but kept it with him in case.

Carl needed it, now.

He offered it to him, and he took it.

“I will not die.”

“No,” Ron agreed. “You won’t. Because we’ll get you to the ocean.”

A thought occurred to him then, “Carl, might I ask you something.”

He sighed and continued to run the comb through his hair. “Go on.”

“How did you end up in the forest where we met?”

He didn’t answer. It was a tense silence and Ron despised it. “I mean, there was a storm, and you…showed up. With no clothes.”

“I was in a shipwreck.” He answered quietly. “I was running.”

Ron raised an eyebrow. “Running? From whom put an ‘S’ on your neck?”

Carl sharply inhaled. He nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, what ocean were you in?”

“I don’t know.” He snapped and turned towards Ron, holding the comb tightly by his side. “I was blindfolded and gagged until I woke with my wrists and ankles tied to opposite sides of the room. I was not focused on where I was, being focused more on the hot iron pressing to my neck.”

Ron took in the information as best he could. He hated to picture Carl suspended in such a way, it felt as though he was violating him just by imagining it. But he couldn’t get it to leave. 

His chest tightened as the image refused to leave, it was a strange feeling. Something akin to horror and anger, but rooted with the deepest intentions of care and worry.

Everything was silent. It was a deafening, strangling, noise.

However, instead of voicing the many apologies he had heard issued to women when they were found bleeding in alleys with their dresses ripped up the side, he asked, “You don’t remember anything?”

“No. Not once I entered the forest. I remember swimming from the broken ship, then going through your bag. Nothing more in between.”

“Well,” Ron replied. “I suppose we won’t be going to that particular part of the sea, then.”

“No. I suppose we won’t.”

Carl was talking to the townspeople. His axe swung by his hip as he laughed joyously with children and mothers alike.

Ron was given directions from Glenn, who had returned to try to sell merchandise to the people of Woodbury.  He was waiting for to finish his spiel about magic, and never dying, and how wonderful it is when a hand gripped his arm and pulled him away.

He punched the man, but he barely seemed phased.

“Oh, hush. I’m trying to help you.” He said, and Ron realized it was the blacksmith.

“How’s that?” Ron asked, cursing himself for not putting his knife in his belt like he always intended to, but never did.

“You have a nymph with you.”

Ron felt himself go cold. “No… I—” “Oh stop. I know one when I see one. I knew one once, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She left this town and said she’d come back in a few months, so I waited. A year. Then I went to go deliver some knives to a town not too far from here, and found her dead in a barrel with an ‘S’ on her stomach.”

Ron listened. He was horrified, but he listened.

“Don’t let them find yours.” He said.

“They’ve already found him,” Ron corrected. “They’ve done their damage and took collateral. He already has the ‘S’.”

The blacksmith chuckled lowly and said, “Well, then he’ll just be easier to find, won’t he?”

Ron’s mouth turned dry as desert, and his stomach dropped. Everything around him muted and the only thing he could focus on was the sound of his heart in his ears and the overwhelming fear that had blanketed him.

He pulled away from the blacksmith and walked backward to where Carl was. 

It felt as though once he was out of sight of that tall, tall, man, it was normal again.

He could focus, and he could focus on getting Carl to the nearest sea.

The conversation echoed in his head while they walked down a seemingly endless dirt path to what was supposedly sea.

Carl’s movements were sluggish at best. He was still slow like his body was more weight than what he could handle.

“How is it you’re skilled with the axe?” Ron inquired.

“Alexandria is a forest, you need wood to start fires, you need fires to keep warm during harsh winters. My father is better with the axe than I am. But, I suppose, I am quite good.”

Ron laughed. “Quite good? Never have I seen someone that was able to cut through two logs as though it were butter.”

Carl smiled at him, and much like the others, his smile was closed-mouthed. No teeth showing, just a small, simple smile that almost wasn’t there.

“Ron.”

“Carl.”

“Why did you kill your mother?”

Ron was sure he’d stopped breathing for a moment. “She was already dying.”

“How’s that?”

“She was stabbed. In the stomach.”

“You could have taken her to a doctor.”

Ron shook his head and he chuckled, no humor or warmness behind it. “No. I couldn’t have. We were in the middle of a field, I wasn’t strong enough to lift her. So I held her, and I sang to her, and I killed her.” His voice wobbled and for the first time in a very long time, he felt tears bubble beneath the surface.

He put his hands into his pockets and stared down at the ground with a sudden fascination in his feet stepping in front of each other. 

“She was beautiful. Even as she was dying, she was beautiful. The older I get, the more I think about the things she would say to me. And how little they meant to me when I was young.”

“How old are you?” Carl asked. 

“Nineteen. And you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Do humans and nymphs have different definitions of ages?” He questioned.

Carl shrugged and held his hand out to swipe against tall blades of grass. “I don’t believe so. I simply live forever, while one day you’ll turn to dust.”

Ron sighed. “You do say the most disturbing of things.”

Carl took a flower from the grass. Its petals were white, its stem long. He picked off the petals and dropped them on the ground one by one. The wing brushed them further behind them, and he said, “Well, it’s true. You’ll die. I won’t.”

“You will,” Ron insisted. “If we don’t get you to the sea, you’ll die.”

“My death can be avoided. Yours can’t. In the short-term, possibly, but not the long term.”

Ron bit the inside of his cheek. “Your own can’t be put off for very long if we don’t get you to the water. Right now, you’re just as vulnerable as I am.”

Carl went to respond, but by the time he opened his mouth, there was a whooshing noise. Ron whipped around just in time to see a dart land in Carl’s neck, for panic to soar through him before another one landed in him.

It was just like all the other times Ron had woken up in a cold sweat, except he didn’t feel better in the world of the conscious now.

He was on his back on the ground, the sky was dark and empty, and he could hear people around him.

When he sat up, he looked around, and disgust burned him inside out. It peeled him open, and he let out a shaky breath, “Oh God.” He whispered.

He’d heard mumblings of a place such as this one, where magic was put on display for people to gawk at.

Cages all around him, filled with…well. They looked ordinary to him.

A hairless cat perched on a rock, a parrot with few feathers doing its best to stay in the air, a horse whose ribs could be seen through its skin.

And, to his sheer horror, Carl.

He was standing in a cage, with a bucket of water next to him. Ron scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, tripping over nothing and falling unceremoniously into the bars of Carl’s cage.

They looked at each other, and Ron swallowed. “Have they hurt you?”

“No. They haven’t.”

Ron looked down at the bucket. “Is there seawater in there?”

“No. It’s fresh water.”

“What do they want you to do with it?” Ron asked.

Carl stared down at the bucket. He kneeled and put the tip of his finger through the surface. “Magic.”

“Magic?” Ron scoffed. “You’re the only magical thing here. This isn’t…this isn’t one of those carnivals I heard of, this is…”

 “You see them as they are because you’ve seen real magic and known it,” Carl explained. “You’ve seen me. Those are illusions. They’re just as you are.”
Ron frowned. “And what am I?”

“A lie.”

Ron was pulled away from the bars and thrown back to the ground. A man with grey hair, and a covering over the same eye Carl had his, glared down at him.

“This is your wizard?” He asked.

“I’m n—” “Yes,” Carl answered. “He is.”

“Well,” The man picked up his bag and opened it. He dumped it all onto the ground. “Show me something to entertain me, wizard.”

Ron looked down at the spilled contents of his bag. He reached and picked up his rock and a stick.

He struck the stick against the rock and caught it ablaze, then hovered it over the flesh of his right hand.

He did not flinch.

He did not scream.

He couldn’t feel anything in that hand, it was smashed under a rock when he was young, and he hadn’t been able to feel anything in it since.

“Ron—!” Carl called as he did. 

“Fire burns.” He explained. “It hurts. Don’t touch it.”

“Yes, I know that now.”

He shook his head and let it burn for a while longer, then put out the fire by pressing the flame between his two fingers.

The man chuckled. “Wonderful.” He offered a hand.

Ron took it and stood.

“I think you’ll do just fine here.”

“Where am I?” Ron asked.

The man chuckled, and said, “You’re at The Midnight Carnival.”

Ron looked past the man at a table near a covered wagon. He saw Carl’s axe and his own knife.

He only had heard of things such as this in hushed whispers behind buildings and in crowds.

He hadn’t thought they were real, but he also hadn’t thought that magic was real, and so he supposed he was a fool.

If a person wanted something to exist, they would make it so even if it weren’t real.

That’s what his acts were based on, he threw around cards and burned his hand, and people thought he was magic.

He wasn’t sure what they saw, he could not see through people’s eyes, but knew with certainty that some of the people he performed for were not in true belief that he was a wizard. They wanted to, even if just for an instant, believe there was magic in the world.

To believe something as pure and horrible simultaneously could exist. Something to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

Magic hadn’t disturbed Ron at any point in his life, the thought of it simply seemed outlandish to him.

He needed reasons, not spells. Answers, not tricks.

He supposed, though, he was never comfortable, yet never disturbed.

The people who were comforted by the notion of magic held on to hope because they had nothing else. They believed in it because they had nothing else to believe in.

The people who were disturbed by it had many other things to do with their time and only thought of magic in the way that some thought of God. That it was foolish to think was real, but had some comforting notions, for certain crowds of people.

And perhaps Ron’s own participation in his false wizardry was a harmful add-on to an already horrible stereotype of what magic was, but he never did explain how to do his tricks.

If a child walked up to him and asked, he would put a finger to his lips and say “Thus this will be a secret, and will always be a secret, for secrets to keep are safe.” 

It was nothing but gibberish that happened to seem like something a wizard could say in response, and then he would pack up his things and leave.

He never tried to give an explanation for what he did so he didn’t have to pretend to believe and do magic verbally, he couldn’t bring himself to.

He knew this man in front of him would show off his creatures in cages and gloat about how hard he had fought to capture them and offer great epics about his struggles to tame them.

Ron dug his nails into his palms to calm his rising anger over the thought of Carl being roped into the same category as these poor animals that the rest of the population would see as great beasts. The deceit that spread from this man’s mouth would cause them to see these animals as nothing but rapid, horrible creatures, and it disturbed him.

The man leaned against the cage Carl was in, “I will say, for a creature of force, you are pleasing to the eye.”

Carl stared at him. Not blinking, not moving.

Ron scoffed. “Do not boast, old man,” He eyed the axe on the table again. “Your death stands before you in that cage, and he hears you.”

Chapter Text

Ron couldn’t remember the last time he was worried about a person.

He hadn’t been worried about his mother while he held her and blood seeped from his stomach and throat into her dress.

He hadn’t been worried when a rock came down on his brother's temple and split his head open, and his blood stained the grass.

But now, he sat with his back to the cage Carl was designated to, and he was worried. It was a horrible feeling, truly.

He hated that the thought of him trapped there made his chest curl up and twist into nothing but a ball of yarn, doomed to never be untangled.

The man—whose name Ron learned is Philip—put Carl in different clothes. No longer was he in a modest shirt and pants, he had been put in lace. 

It started at his ankle on one foot and swirled up around his leg, it was large enough that it covered most of what needed to be covered, before swirling up around his torso and stomach. 

Ron corrected a thought, it covered what was between his legs, but very little else. 

The lace made a display of every pit of blue-purple skin Carl had. 

He sat on the floor of the cage, his head resting against the bars.

“You’re right,” He whispered. “I am going to die.” 

Ron wasn’t looking at him, couldn’t bear it. “No. You’re not.”

“I am. I can feel myself dying. Like this body is decaying all around me.” 

Ron shook his head.

He hadn’t been given a cage. He hadn’t been given anything else, either. Just told to sleep until the sun came up, and then to put on a show for the attendees of the carnival.

He felt as though the gods themselves were testing his loyalty to this nymph. 

He had all the means to run away from this carnival, take the axe from the table, and leave Carl to die in this cage.

But he couldn’t.

He had thought about it, how easy it would be, but every time he went to stand, he found himself rooted into the ground, much like a tree.

He heard Carl sigh, and he turned his head to glance behind him briefly. His eye was closing, his head drooped.

Ron panicked.

He reached through the bars of the cage and took his hand back out of it, into the chilly night air.

“Carl. You’re not to fall asleep.”

“Why?” He mumbled.

“Because you won’t wake back up.”

He nodded and took in a sharp breath as best he could.

Ron watched Carl gaze out among the other creatures in cages. “Look at them,” He said. “They’re all so pathetic. Such sorry things. I feel bad for them. Being trapped here.”

He nodded along, even though he felt as though Carl was speaking rubbish.

“A cat with no fur, a bird with no feather, and a malnourished horse turned into a vicious lion, a harpy, and a unicorn.” 

Ron knew he should ask how Carl knew exactly what the other people would see lined up behind those bars, but instead, he said, “Why have they put you in that?” He nodded to the lace.

Carl looked at it, too. “To make me appealing to the audience. To make me beautiful.”

Ron scoffed and looked back forward, his head falling against the bars. He held onto Carl’s hand, still, to keep him awake. “They hardly needed lace for that.”

“I won’t be able to do what they want me to do,” Carl said. “This water has no salt. I can’t do anything with it. They’ll want me to do something else—Ron, I can’t go back to that.”

Ron frowned. “To what?”

“They’ve put me in lace. Lace to make me appealing. To make money. People…people will pay to be able to say they took a nymph.”

“Do what you did to me,” Ron replied. “Except don’t stop. Pull the water and salt from their bodies. Leave them to be nothing but a rug for squirrels and horses to walk over, as they are more dignified than men who would pay to fuck an unwilling person.” 

The only sound besides the rapid noise of Carl’s breathing was the owls hidden away in trees.

He wondered distantly if Carl was too close to death to use that trick, given it was already difficult for him to do, with only one eye now.

“Maybe they wouldn’t fuck me,” Carl replied. “Perhaps just stare. Ogle. Touch, possibly.”

“My statement is the same. Just because they possibly would not do serious physical damage to you, does not mean they are nothing less than sickness that needs to be cured.”

“And you think I could cure them?”

“No. But you could certainly convince them to discontinue their habits.”

“If I drain the water from their bodies, they’d be dead.”

“Exactly.”

Carl went quiet, then said. “I’ve thought of it before. Taking an axe to their joints.”

His voice was weak, and Ron was scared.

He could not allow this nymph to die here without him doing something about it. 

“Tell me,” Ron said. “About your parents.”

“Why?”

“You’ve said nothing of them.”

Carl hummed. He leaned his head against the bars. “My father is a warm man. My mother died while giving birth to me, but my father remarried when I was young. The age of nine, I believe.”

“What’s her name?” Ron asked. “Of your stepmother?”

“Michonne. She’s also warm.”

“Is your father like you?” Ron questioned. “Magical?”

“No. Neither was my mother.”

“How is it that you are, then?”

Carl sighed. It was long and drawn out. “I’m not…sure.” He said, then he went quiet.

“Carl…” Ron said. He turned around.

His eye was closed while his head rested against the bars.

Ron panicked.

He reached through the bars and cupped his face. “Carl! Carl!” He yelled.

His eye opened slowly. “Ron…”

“Oh, thank god.” He pressed his forehead to the cold iron. Ron continued to hold Carl’s face, and he took deep breaths.

“You mustn’t go to sleep.” He insisted.

“I woke up, though,” Carl argued.

“Yes, but next time you won’t.”

Ron held his face for the rest of the night and would press his pointer finger hard into Carl’s cheek when he saw his head lull.

Carl began to hum at one point, to keep himself awake.

Even without words, it was melodic.

Ron couldn’t tell what song it was, but it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.

The sun came up and Philip tapped Ron’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“He’s dying,” He explained. “If he doesn’t get water, he’ll die.”

Philip pointed to the bucket. “They’re plenty of water in there.”

Ron stood up slowly, carefully letting go of Carl’s face. “Not that water, salt water. From a sea.”

Philip scoffed. “He’ll be alright.”

Ron performed false wizardry for the crowds.

Women, men, and children all gathered to look at the animals in cages that appeared to be something great to them.

There was a girl in the crowd who stuck out to him. Her hair was long and dark brown.

Her shirt was a silky red that tucked into a dark shirt, and a brown vest layered over.

She was alone.

While the newest crowd moved from cage to cage, Ron walked to her.

“Not enjoying the show?” He asked.

She stared at him blankly. Her face was stone. 

“You’re a damned fool.” She said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a damned fool to think that anybody here actually believes that these are creatures of true magic. Especially that one.” She pointed to Carl. “What creature would be as pathetic as that one?”

Ron bit the tip of his tongue. “So, you don’t believe?”

She shook her head. “If it were real, it would have appeared to me long ago.”

“One day, you’ll meet someone so beautiful, you’ll believe magic is real, simply because there’s no other way something that wonderful could exist.”

She frowned at him further. “Jesters such as you are why philosophers are no longer taken with seriousness.” 

Ron gaped at the girl as she walked away, to look at all the cages.

There was nobody around him, at the moment, Ron was obsolete.

He moved over to the table that Carl’s axe rested on.

He peered at it, it also housed his clothes, and Ron’s knife.

“Mother!” A child called. Ron’s attention turned to the noise. “Why isn’t it doing anything?”

“I’m not sure…perhaps it’s hurt.”

Ron moved from the table and instead looked at where the people were crowded.

In front of Carl’s cage, people pressed their faces closer to stare at him. Staring at him while he slowly rotted there, and not even knew they were watching the slow demise of the only real magic left in this world.

Philip walked forward and peered over the people. “Well, this won’t do.” He said. “I’m sorry, everyone. Let me have a chat with our nymph.”

He walked around to the back and took out a ring of keys. Ron watched him flip some of them back until he found the correct one, and he twisted it in the lock.

The sounds of the door creaking open and once it was, Ron watched as the man stopped moving.

His keys fell to the ground.

Ron rushed forward and picked them up from the count, and he ran around the carnival unlocking the cages, he struggled with the keys, but he watched the cat hop down and out, and the parrot fly past his head.

The horse stumbled out before galloping away.

“You’re all fools!” Ron called. “Fools who can not see what’s real! What is made of flesh and blood and not illusion? Fools who are forever damned to stay in your world of falseness when the supremely real is in front of you!”

He wasn’t sure why, but the horrified look on the carnival goer's faces made his chest soar with pride, and so he yelled out, “We were all born to die, but he was not!”

He heard a woman scream and for a moment, he thought it was because of what he had just screamed. But it was in fact due to Philip’s body turning into a rug on the grass as water seeped from it.

All the people scattered, running from the scene and out into the endless trees.

Ron made his way quickly to Carl, who was leaning up against the table weakly. Stripped of the lace he had been wearing and instead wearing his pants.

Ron stepped into the puddle of damp grass where the liquid inside of Philip had spilled, but he hardly cared.

He took the shirt from the table and slipped it over Carl’s head. The axe he put back into the leather holster that allowed it to hang down against his hip, and they ran.

Ron wasn’t sure how long they ran, or where they were, but they ran.

He nearly tripped over his legs, and he could smell that it was about to storm. The harsh sunlight of the morning faded and instead turned to the mellow undertone of grey that came with thunder and lightning that would surely kill Carl. The storm would slow them down, weigh them down, and he would choke on the water that fell from the sky.

It was a horrible thing to think, but he was certain that would be the reality.

“Ron!” 

He stopped, his feet dug into the dirt, and he turned around.

Carl was leaning against a tree. He looked paler than he had before.

When Ron first met him, when the sun hit him right, it almost shimmered.

Perhaps it was due to the downcast, or how heavily he was breathing, but now even though the bit of sun was cast down directly on him, he simply looked sick.

Ron ran back and draped Carl’s arm over his shoulder before wrapping his own arm around his waist.

Carl felt like a dead weight. Like was lugging around a boulder, yet he was also light. Very light.

“Where are we going?” He whispered.

“I’m not sure,” Ron said. “I’m not sure.”

They could no longer run, only limp along the forest with no path. There was no longer a dirt path, instead, it was created by their feet pushing leaves from the grass.

Time passed as honey dripped down a wall, slowly.

It felt as though Ron was swimming without water. There wasn’t supposed to be any resistance, yet it felt as though each step was a feat of endurance he had no clue how to accomplish.

Carl was doing his best to place his feet firm against the ground and give lift off to steps, but mostly it seemed he was trying to stay awake.

Ron dropped him.

He kneeled down and saw Carl’s eye shut, and his body go completely slack.

He grabbed the side of his face and he pressed his fingers hard into them, as firm as he could, and he did not wake.

Ron’s lungs hung heavy against his ribs as he shivered with warmth while dread blanketed him.

He slapped him.

“Wake up!” He yelled.

Ron punched him. Blood smeared down Carl’s face.

He did not wake up.

Ron pressed his forehead to Carl’s chest.

He could not feel breathing.

He could stab him in the heart. It would be the quickest way to make sure he was dead.

And Ron could move on.

He reached for the knife in his boot, and just as he did, it thundered, and he heard another sound behind it.

Sea.

The noise of waves crashing onto a shore, picking up due to a storm to come.

Ron picked Carl up, one arm under his knees and the other under his back, and he ran again.

His feet thumped against the ground and he heaved.

Ron’s bag swung from side to side, and Carl’s arms hung down limply.

He maneuvered through the forest to make sure that Carl’s head wasn’t being knocked against anything.

He felt the grass turn to sand under his boots, and he could smell the salt.

Not from Carl, but from the sea.

He saw the water wash up against the shore, and he nearly cried in relief.

He tripped a few times while rushing to the edge, but he never dropped Carl.

Ron kneeled on the sand and laid Carl down in the water.

It washed up against him, but he showed no reaction.

Ron pushed him further so that the wave would fully wash over him.

He dug his fingers into the sand and mumbled, “Please.”

He wasn’t sure to whom or what he was begging to, but he pleaded with it.

If it could bring Carl back to the land of the conscious and keep him breathing, he would bow down to it. 

Sing its praises and worship and would devote himself to a force he didn’t believe in it if he saw Carl’s chest rise and fall. Hear his laugh that was nothing but pleasantness.

Ron would tear himself limb from limb to call him by his name and not refer to him as a story of the past, the story of the nymph and the false wizard.

Carl gasped.

Ron looked forward and saw his eye open, and his chest heaving. 

He sobbed in relief, dug his fingers deeper into the sand, and let his shoulders convulse with cries while Carl sat up in the water.

Ron looked back up and watched Carl wade deeper into the ocean.

While Ron stared down at the shore, he watched clothes wash up.

They were Carl’s.

He thought for a moment and realized that he had gone further out into the sea to heal more, to recover from being away from it for so long.

But he hadn’t said a word to Ron when he’d woken back up, and he was reeling for a sort of reassurance that he was alright.

Even though he watched him breathe and gasp as an alive being, he didn’t fully believe that he was alive once more.

Because he had died.

He hadn’t been breathing, he had been limp in his arms, and Ron could feel the phantom weight of Carl against his arms and chest.

He stood and stripped himself, leaving nothing but his necklace of leather hide and a pendant to hang against his chest, and he ran into the waves.

One of them took him under the water, and he realized he had never been in a sea, only lakes and ponds.

But he could manage.

Once he was at the surface again, Ron ran a hand over his face to try to clear the water from his eyes.

“Carl!” He yelled. “Nymph, where are you?” 

“Here.”

Ron turned around.

Carl looked less sick already, the gills on his neck were not pathetically opening and closing like before, and he no longer seemed weak.

No, in the water, Ron almost wanted to rely on him to keep him alive out here.

He had never been in the sea.

Carl swam forward with barely any effort.

He looked at Ron’s chest and ran his finger over a long scar down the middle. Ron shivered.

“I was cut open.” He said.

“I see.”

Carl looked back up at him.

That eye.

He would never get over the way the blue and green almost molded together but never fully. 

He examined Carl and was sure there was no way that he was real, he was surely too beautiful to be real.

He was the prettiest lie Ron had ever been told. 

Yet, as Ron ran two of his fingers along the side of Carl’s face to his jaw, and he felt him get goosebumps, he knew that before him was in fact a truth.

A beautiful, wonderful, amazing truth that would trump any lie Ron had ever told.

Carl put his hands on Ron’s shoulders and leaned up. His smiles were almost closed-mouthed, no teeth ever shown, just lips tilted upward.

This kiss was different from his smiles. His mouth was open and pressed against Ron’s in a feverish, horrible, wrong way that made Ron’s stomach fill with warmth.

He gripped Carl’s sides under the water and pressed back with an equal amount of heat.

Carl pulled away but just barely, Ron could feel his words against his lips. “You’ve saved my life again.”

“Yes, I did.”

“How is it that you keep doing that?”

“I suppose, I just follow the salt.” He whispered.

Carl stared into him, and Ron felt as though he was being torn open and examined. Then, Carl kissed him again, and whatever other thoughts he’d had before were drowned.

Their lips moved quickly against each other. Carl wrapped his legs around his waist, and Ron ran his hands up his sides and then back down again.

They didn’t do anything more but study each other that day, they ended up back on the shore once it started to storm. They filled all the jars in his back with water from the sea, while Carl lay on the shore with an arm over his face, and let the rain beat down onto him.

Yes, Ron thought, This is the most truthful lie I’ve ever been witness to.

Chapter Text

Ron had never healed.

He never had time too. Once his father’s body had hit the ground, he had run. Taken a bag and never looked back.

If he tried hard enough, Ron could still feel the blade of grass brush against his legs and arms as he ran through a field he wasn’t nearly tall enough to run through at the time.

He’d ended up with small cuts on his face and under his chin, but nothing to worry of.

And while those small, minor, incisions had healed easily, Ron never had.

He never would.

He would never fully feel relief and as though a “weight had been lifted off his shoulders.”

He would never get to lay down on his back in a cool river on a hot summer day and let the water wash over him, soothing his burning skin.

No, instead, Ron was given a sea.

A sea that was warm during the summer, and would not provide the relief he was looking for.

Ron would never heal from his past mistakes and the pain he’d inflicted on others, but perhaps Carl could heal from the hurt that had been cast onto him.

Just as he was healing from the water deprivation he had experienced.

Along the beach, they had found a town, called New Babylon.

It was small, quaint, and they had an inn.

Ron had no money, so instead Carl used some seawater in the glass jars Ron had collected, and spun them around in the air to make wonderful shapes.

Impressed, the innkeeper informed them they had a week to get their things together and rest.

Two, three, days ago Ron would have been concerned about a bed meant for two in their inn room, but he wasn’t now.

Not after Carl had wrapped his legs around his waist while in the ocean, and dove his tongue into his mouth in such a way it felt sinful to even think of.

The only worry was that Carl would not accept the bed, but instead sleep on the floor, like they had at their previous inn.

This was not the case, as soon as Ron had latched the door to their room, Carl had fallen onto the bed and sighed greatly.

“This is remarkable,” He’d said. “This is amazing.”

The first night, they had done nothing but slept, wrapped up in each other in such a warm and comfortable way, that Ron was certain it was fake.

He’d woken before Carl that day and left him a note stating he was going to get food from a place in the town.

It only occurred to him once he’d left the inn that there was a chance Carl could not read and that he could think Ron had left him.

However, he knew that Carl was smart and that he could deduce from the bag still on the ground that Ron had not left.

He told a wonderful epic of a nymph and a sailor to get food, but he was given more than five oranges and three rolls.

A roll of bandages, a bottle of olive oil, and a leather vest.

The vest did not fit him, but he assumed it would fit Carl.

He returned to the inn and found Carl sitting up in the bed with his legs crossed. He was running his finger along the blade of his axe.

“Careful,” Ron said while he closed the door. “Don’t slice your finger open.”

He set the axe down on the floor.

Ron through Carl an orange. 

“How did you get these?” Carl asked, bewildered, while he began to peel it. “I thought we had no money.”

“Correct, you are.” Ron sat down with his small sack of things, and the leather vest. He began to peel his own orange. “I told a story of a nymph and a sailor.”

Carl smiled while he took a piece of orange in his mouth. “Did they lock lips in the sea?”

“As a matter of fact, they did.” He answered. Then, “I had never been in the sea until yesterday.”

“Never?”

“Never. I was too busy on land, the land makes money, the sea does not.”

Carl shrugged. “I suppose. What else did you get?”

“Bandages, olive oil, and a leather vest I believe will fit you.”

“Oh?” He grinned.

Carl set his orange down on the table near the bed and took the leather vest.

Ron laid down on his stomach and watched him swing it over his back.

He was right, it did fit him.

He could button it or leave it open.

Carl spun, then took off the vest and set it on the ground next to Ron’s bag, and sat back down on the bed.

He took his orange back and put another slice into his mouth.

Ron sat up and leaned against the backboard of the bed, while the light from the window considerably darkened.

“I suppose it’s going to storm again,” Carl said as he put the last bit of orange into his mouth and set the peel on the table. He scooted up and too leaned on the backboard.

“That, it is,” Ron replied.

Carl played with a thread in the large quilt. “Tomorrow, I will need to go back into the ocean. But today I can drink from the jars.”

Ron nodded.

He swallowed his last slice of orange and leaned across Carl to place his peel next to the one already present on the table.

Once he had, Ron felt a hand on his jaw.

His face was turned to Carl, and they looked at each other for a moment before his lips were brought forward.

Ron, in the awkward position he was in, raised one hand to press hard onto Carl’s side before, suddenly, he was on top of him.

Carl’s legs were on either side of his own, and he had rearranged them without once breaking their kiss.

He tasted of citrus and salt.

Both of Ron’s hands went down to gently grip Carl’s waist. Carl rolled his hips forward and then back, on a broken wheel it seemed, over and over, and Ron had no idea if he meant to do it or not.

Carl’s palms were firmly pressed into Ron’s shoulders, so he assumed he meant to be doing it, and that was his leverage.

Ron found himself moving his hips upwards without realizing he was doing so until his chest trembled and he groaned.

His grip on Carl’s waist tightened considerably, and he began to manually move his body back and forth, with Carl having to do very little but continue to kiss him with such a feverish speed to keep them both satisfied.

Ron went to bring his lips to his neck but stopped. He loosened his grip on him and leaned back.

“What—what is it?” Carl panted.

“Are you sure?”

“What?”

Ron sighed. “Are you sure? You’ve offered this to me before when I’ve saved your life—or at least spared it—if you’re doing this solely because of what I did yesterday, I wish for you to get off of me.” He paused. “We will not do this if you feel it is payment.”

Carl chuckled. He took one of Ron’s hands and brought it up to his neck. He placed it over the ‘S’ brand. “I’m not doing this as payment.” He assured. “I believe you to be a good, warm man, who will not make me close my eye and think of Hagsgate while he properly fucks me senseless.”

Ron let his hand rest against the side of Carl’s neck and he swallowed. “Good.”

He leaned forward and brought his lips to Carl’s collarbone, his hand previously on his neck now pulling his shirt past his shoulder, so he could properly paint the skin there purple and red.

He could taste salt even against his skin, yet it felt somehow sweet against his tongue.

Carl pulled away and lifted his arms above his head, Ron helped yank the shirt off of him, and it was tossed to the other side of the bed.

Ron dragged his tongue up from the base of Carl’s throat to where he found his larynx. He stopped there and kissed him.

Carl’s fingers gripped fruitlessly at the back of his shirt.

Ron let his hand drop back down to Carl’s hip, and he pressed him backward onto the bed.

Ron climbed on top of him and kissed from his neck, down his chest and stomach.

Carl wrapped his arms around the back of Ron’s neck while he lapped at his skin, desperate to taste the salt more than he already had.

He pressed his lips to Carl’s hip bone and sucked, he yearned to cover this nymph’s body with red to accent the blue and purple.

Fingers wrapped around the hair at the base of Ron’s neck.

He sat back onto his knees and took off his shirt, it got tossed in the general direction of Carl’s.

Carl was already beginning to shimmy out of his pants, Ron helped him out the rest of the way.

It was then he was reminded of Carl’s lack of underclothes.

While not an unwelcome revelation, it surprised him for a moment.

Ron dove once more, right below his navel, and mumbled, “You are quite possibly one of the loveliest things I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness.”

He could hear the sheets rustle as Carl’s legs opened further, and he smiled. 

“Would you prefer to be on your back or your hands and knees?” Ron mumbled against him.

Carl hummed, then said. “I’d like to be where I was before, with my legs around you.”

Ron smiled. “Wonderful.”

He drew his kisses downward to the in-between of Carl’s legs. Ron kissed the skin there tenderly. No bites, little sucking, only short and sweet kisses along them.

Ron shuddered nearly every time a sound fell from Carl’s lips. They all dripped through the air in such an amazing, sickly sweet way.

Ron’s stomach curled at the noises and the feeling of Carl’s legs beginning to close around his head.

He put his hands on either thigh and pushed them back apart. He held them down against the bed and continued to trail his tongue and kisses along them.

Carl squirmed and his body trembled. His fingers dug hard into the sheets, and his moans would increase in volume when Ron’s teeth caught on the skin he kissed.

“What—” Carl whimpered. “What will we…use.”

Ron had to ponder the question for a moment before he realized what it meant.

He sat up and reached into the bag of goods he had gotten from the town.

He pulled out the bottle of olive oil.

“Oil.” He replied.

Carl nodded.

Ron poured some onto his fingers, a bit more than he should, so he could lather it onto Carl properly.

Ron had done this twice before, both times had been successful, and only one other had been with a man.

But it seemed he was doing it right, given Carl’s body jolted, and he tried to push with Ron’s hand, up against it further.

And when it was done, Ron removed his own pants and underclothes with a sense of haste he had not felt before.

At least, not as positively as this.

He sat back against the backboard once more while Carl crawled on top of him.

He went to lower himself, and Ron stopped him. His hands drew slowly up his sides and he said, “Slow. No use hurting yourself.” He whispered.

He distantly heard the rain beat down against the inn outside, and the waves from the sea crash onto the shore.

But he could only smell the salt here while he helped Carl lower himself in a way so as to not hurt him, and both of them let their heads dip back.

Ron’s grip didn’t loosen as Carl put his hands back onto Ron’s shoulders and used them once more as leverage to move his hips forward and up.

Ron had a difficult time comprehending the beauty he was holding onto, his voice, his smell, his laugh. It was all so horribly beautiful, it nearly made him sick.

Made his chest clench and fight in a way he had never experienced, he nearly trembled at the thought of how much power Carl held over him, and how he might not even know it.

It truly was a sickening thing to love someone as much as he was certain he loved Carl, but he forced himself to not think of it.

He could remember the first woman he had ever done this with saying to him, “You might think you love me after this, you don’t. Don’t think you do, because you don’t.”

He would think about that after they were done, and laying next to each other as the storm continued to abuse the roof of the inn.

“Ron—” He heard his name be croaked out hoarsely by Carl, who had begun rolling his hips faster than before. He was surprised he hadn’t tired yet.

Ron brought Carl up and down quickly, and the warmth in his stomach that had been subtly building since Carl had first kissed him at the beginning increased in fever.

Ron decided he’d had enough, and with a firm grip on Carl, pushed him once more onto his back on the bed.

He leaned down and pressed their bodies nearly impossibly closer. He kissed Carl and felt legs wrap around his waist.

The weight of the legs weighed Ron down and he was pushed deeper. He chuckled against Carl’s lips briefly before arms again wrapped around his neck and he was roped back into a kiss.

Ron didn’t mind, really, as their mouths opened against each other, and he could swallow each sound being pulled from Carl.

He could feel Carl’s legs shake around him, and one fell back down onto the bed. Ron took it and placed it back around his waist.

His fingertips pressed bruisingly into Carl’s sides, damned to leave purple imprints.

With another rock of his hips, Ron looked up just in time to watch Carl’s eye roll briefly into the back of his head before his vision went white and he collapsed.

He wasn’t sure how long exactly they lay there before Ron pushed himself up and pulled away from Carl and moved the covers for both of them.

Carl crawled under the heavy quilt and placed his head on his chest. Ron kissed the top of his head. “Are you alright?” He whispered.

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

Carl shook his head. “No. Well, I’ll be bruised, but that is….” He smiled. “Better than not being bruised.”

Ron chuckled and ran his fingers through Carl’s now tangled hair.

He could hear the storm outside. It thundered wildly.

“I only do wish there was a mirror in this room,” Ron mumbled.

“Why’s that?”

“So you could have seen yourself.” He replied.

Carl laughed quietly. “I’m glad there’s no mirror.”

Ron frowned. “Why?”

“The art of looking in a mirror and admiring what I see is something I have not mastered.” He explained.

Ron’s frown deepened. “If I were to stand behind you and look in a mirror, I’d love every single thing I saw.”

“Yes, well, love is blind, isn’t it.”

Ron shook his head. “No, no. Love may be blind, you are not a love. You are a lie. A beautiful, wonderful, sick lie that I am doomed to forever believe because you are also one of the rare, glorious truths made of flesh and blood and supremely real that I seek out almost as much as I do deceit.” 

“And you,” Carl said. “Are a horrible, terrible, hurtful truth that makes all lies look wonderful. But under all of that horribleness is something raw and aching and lovely. You started as most—not all, but most—lies start. With good intentions.”

Ron scoffed and he laughed. “I was not built off good intentions.”

“And I was not built on beauty.”

Ron smiled at Carl. Because maybe both of them were damned fools, forever doomed to spend their time telling each other pretty lies to make up for all the sick truths they had to face.

Perhaps, though, they were just foolish enough to be alright with that.

Chapter Text

To see water crashing that fiercely and then see it calm only a short time after was jarring.

When Ron had been in the sea with Carl, he was worried about being carried away and lost to Davey Jones's locker, but now it seemed the waves were no longer angry with him.

He couldn’t see Carl out in the water, but he knew he was. Under the water, breathing better than on land.

That was alright, Ron didn’t need a distraction.

He was very well occupied with attempting to remember any mention of Alexandria he had seen on a map.

He couldn’t recall anything.

He had seen maps of the world. They cataloged the oceans, forests, and towns, yet he could not remember seeing The Forest of Alexandria on a map.

He had heard of it. Yes, he had heard of it.

In hushed whispers in taverns and crowds of people who believed it to be real.

It, to him, had always been a part of a fairy tale told to him when he was young, of a forest for magical people.

Ron knew Carl must know the general area of where it was if he was from there. But some part of him, a deep, selfish part, wanted to continue to stay in New Babylon with him.

They were near the sea, and the town obviously had a large group of gullible people for Ron to pick off and tell stories until he ran out, died, or they stopped believing.

Carl could use his axe-wielding skills to help chop trees, or if he preferred, he could be a dismemberer.

He would be a feared, yet respected man.

People who stole, killed, or raped would be taken to him, and he could cut off a limb corresponding to their crime.

Theifs had their hand removed.

Murderers had their heads removed.

Rapers crimes were taken into consideration by a few other factors. How many? How young? What damage had been done?

But all rapers had their cocks removed. Only a few lost their heads.

Distantly, Ron wondered if Carl would ever get to remove the head of the man who had branded his neck.

Ron knew he hated it.

When they walked down the street, Carl would insist they only walked on the left if they could, so that he didn’t have to see it in the reflection of glass windows as they passed the shops.

He only looked at the left side of himself in mirrors, and if he was forced to look at the right, he arranged his hair so that it covered the ‘S’.

Ron was not a moron. He knew what that man had done to Carl.  “I was blindfolded and gagged until I woke with my wrists and ankles tied to opposite sides of the room. I was not focused on where I was, being focused more on the hot iron pressing to my neck.”

He shivered.

It truly was one of the most unpleasant thoughts he had ever had. Every time it crossed his mind, he felt disgusting.

And he could only imagine how Carl felt.

Ron only had the fabricated pictures in his mind that came from horrific things he had heard and seen, but he had not been there. He had not been through the event, and he knew that whatever he thought he knew of the situation, what Carl remembered was a thousand times more brutal and real.

It made his skin prickle to try to comprehend what it must be like to live with the burden of memory and guilt.

Ron had memory, yes, that was true, but guilt was something he lacked.

He wasn’t sure he felt guilt over anything, truly. Regret he felt only rarely over selfish things—such as not buying the umbrella that seemed so far in the past, it was only a quiet murmur, but still it remained. 

Ron tried to act to a degree he could justify to himself later, and if he thought he was going to do something that would cause him to feel guilty later, he would not do it. He did not have time for guilt.

It interfered with survival almost as much as the truth.

Ron realized that on some level, that probably made him inhuman. But he didn’t do completely horrible things and then walk still with pride and an ego, no, he simply did not do things that would cause him to be remorseful later.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t the ability to feel guilt, he purposefully made choices that settled comfortably in his mind, so he did not dwell on them.

However, Ron found himself strangled by guilt as he sat on the beach—guilt over something he did not cause.

Guilt over the brand on Carl’s neck.

He was puzzled as to how that was. He had not put that brand there. He had not been the one to tie his wrists and ankles. Gag him and blindfold him. Why was such a horrible, drowning, feeling rumbling inside his chest?

It was most troubling.

Ron swallowed. 

It clicked, then.

He did love Carl. He didn’t just love how he tasted, or how he felt, but he loved him.

And he loathed it.

Ron dug his fingers into the sand and was enveloped in fear at the revelation that he did love this nymph. 

He should be nothing more to him than just that, a nymph. But he was not, and it sickened him.

To think he could still loved after going so long without caring about a soul he happened to stumble across.

He did not give food to the homeless, no help to the hurt, he had never read something to an illiterate person. 

Ron thought of nobody but himself, and now, Carl.

It terrified him to think that in such a short amount of time, his chest was forced open by someone else's hands.

He reached up and ran his finger down the front of his top, which hid his scar.

He remembered being cut open by his father, attempting to give him the same fate he had given his mother, but Ron did not have somebody to hold his head and sing to him and stab him in the throat. 

So, instead, he had kicked the man. In the jaw and run.

To a doctor not far by, who had assured him he was alright and bandaged him, “If your father is truly that horrible, you can come with me. Stay here, I can teach you medicine. You’ve always been polite. The people trust you. You’d make a wonderful doctor.”

But, Ron knew that leaving his brother with that man would cause him guilt, so he declined.

He was disgusted that the love he felt for Carl and the ache of his chest being sliced open caused the same dread to blanket him.

“Ron!”

His name being called quite possibly was the only thing that could have broken his daze. Ron snapped to attention and saw Carl lying on the sand.

He had kept on his clothes this time.

“If I get them wet, and they have to dry, I only have one set, I’ll have to be naked in our bed for a long period.”

“Are you certain you won’t get in the water?”

Ron shook his head. “I will not be getting in today, no.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “Where is Alexandria? I’ve never seen it marked on a map?”

Carl smiled. “It’s an island.”

“Of course.”

“In the middle of the Grand Sea.”

Ron raised an eyebrow. “Is that where we are now?”

Carl hummed and nodded. “A corner of it, yes.”

“And from our corner,” Ron said. “How far is Alexandria?”

“Oh… I’m not sure.”

“Oh, good Lord.”

Carl laughed at him.

The man laughed at him.

In his despair, trying to get him home.

“Carl,” Ron said. “Could you come sit with me for a moment?”

He stood up. His shirt clung to him, much as his pants, and he sat down next to Ron on the sand.

“What?”

“How…would you feel about staying here?”

He frowned. “What?”

“Here. In New Babylon. You could use your axe in many jobs, well, two. But there are still options. And I can continue with false wizardry. We’re close to the sea, so you can stay…breathing. The people here already seem to at the very least tolerate us, and at the best, enjoy our presence.”

Carl’s frown only deepened, but Ron had started, and so he had to finish. “Also…neither of us seem to know how to get to Alexandria.”

Carl took a single grain of sand between his fingertips and pressed it hard. “I do enjoy the idea of staying here. In this place. But I have to see my father and stepmother. Tell them I’m alright.”

Ron raised an eyebrow. “Why would they think you weren’t.”

Carl let out a heavy sigh and said, “Well, you see, I did not exactly tell them where I was going when I…” He laughed. “I suppose I haven’t told you either.”

“No,” Ron agreed. “You haven’t.”

“I’m not a storyteller,” Carl explained quietly. “It isn’t beautiful, or interesting, or adventurous like yours are. It’s quite dreadful, actually.”

“Well,” Ron said. “Mine are fiction. Fiction is supposed to be all of those things. Yours is fact. Fact is truthful, and the truth is hurtful and horrible.”

“Is that why you lie so much?” Carl asked.

Ron nodded. “Yes. I enjoy beauty.”

“Even if you ignore what’s real?”

“I don’t ignore what’s real. The only way to craft good lies is to accept what is real and learn what people like to hear and believe, then craft a perfect fantasy for them. I am very aware of what’s real, so I can tell other people what isn’t real.”

Carl let out a long, heavy breath, then said, “A man came to the island on a ship. He was in search to prove magic was real, he said. And I thought he was…extraordinarily beautiful. I told my father, and he told me that I was not to try to have a relationship with this man, because I didn’t know him, and he was far too old for me. I didn’t believe him.

“I spoke to the man, and we got along just fine. He asked me questions, I let him draw me. He asked to draw me without any clothes on, and I agreed. Two weeks after, he came to me and told me he was leaving that next night, and that if I wanted to, I could come with him. That we would go to a place called Terminus and would live happily.

“Perhaps if I hadn’t been on such outs with my father, I wouldn’t have gone with him, but my association with this researcher and a tension in my home led me to join him on his ship. Once we were on the water, I was hit on the head and when I woke, I was naked and being tied with my hands above my head and my legs apart.

“There was a cloth in my mouth, and a cloth over my eyes. He branded my neck and talked about how much money he was going to make off of me. How much people were going to pay to do things with me. And how lucky he was to have found me. Then he took the gag and blindfold off, and I looked at him and had no clue who I was seeing.

“All of what he was before had been melted away. And he…he did it so much differently than you. He untied me at some point, but then it only got worse. I could run away and felt so useless when he caught me. I tried so hard to jump off the side of the ship into the water. 

“The night of the storm, he was so fed up with me, and that sometimes I would hold him in the grip of water and salt that he cut out my eye, to make it harder…then we capsized.”

Carl laughed.

“And I swam to shore and left him to drown, and I felt…alive.”

Ron had only dug his fingers deeper into the sand while he spoke.

He knew it was going to be worse than he had thought, so he didn’t understand why he was surprised at the horrific story.

“I’m sorry,” Ron whispered, and he realized he’d never said that before.

Carl smiled at him and, oh, how he wished he could believe it was from relief to tell the story, but he knew it wasn’t.

“I don’t want anyone to be sorry. I’m to blame.”

“You may be foolish for falling for the man, but you did not think you were going to be tied in a ship and raped.”

“Exactly. I didn’t think it through. I acted only on impulse and childish anger at my father.” He grumbled. “You think everything through. You calculate every step you make. Every breath you take is thought out.”

Ron swallowed. “Maybe, but even then, unexpected things can happen. I can only control what I do, but the people around me are unpredictable as the weather.”
Carl scoffed. “Do not act as though you can’t control what everybody around you thinks. All you do is lie to people to get them to act and think exactly as you wish them to.”

“I suppose you’re correct, but you do realize that what that researcher did to you is one of the crimes you can get dismembered for? One of the Deathly Actions?”

Carl scoffed again, as though this entire conversation was so incredibly foolish to him. “It doesn’t matter how long you talk, I know what you do, I won’t be tricked into thinking I can blame this on anything other than ignorance.”

“And there’s no way you can turn this into something that you are to blame for,” Ron replied.

Perhaps this conversation was foolish. To think that what happened to Carl was the fault of anybody besides the man who had branded him was beyond moronic. 

But Ron had met enough people in his life to know that sometimes, the people who the crimes are committed against will place the blame upon themselves.

He didn’t know why, but he knew they did.

“What was his name?” Ron whispered.

“Shane.”

“What would you do if you saw him again?”

Carl thought for a moment. “It depends. If I saw him now, I would dive into the water and wait until he was gone. If I saw him when I had my axe, I would cut his hands off. Then his feet. Then slam it into his eyes.”

Ron nodded. “A more than fair punishment.”

“But I must go home, Ron. Maybe not forever, but to see my father and stepmother. Tell them how sorry I am. That I’m…alright.”

“I understand,” Ron said. “But…please tell me you’ll consider my offer? Fantasy? Whatever you wish to call it.”

Carl smiled again, this time it seemed to be something genuine.

“I promise… I am.”

Carl took his clothes off the moment they got to the Inn and hung them from the door of their room.

The sky darkened, but it did not storm, only clouded. Yet they still spent the rest of the day wrapped in each other.

Everything about it was wonderful, Carl no longer tasted of citrus, but salt would always linger. He would always taste of it.

Ron was almost disgusted with the thought that whenever he smelled salt now, he would think of Carl, on his back, with his hair sprawled above him and his legs open on a bed.

Mostly because he knew he would have to clear the thought from his head rather quickly. Or he would have to excuse himself from whatever festivity he was at and try his hardest to find an unoccupied room to spend some time in.

But he tried to not dwell on the thought for rather long. Instead, he focused on listening as his name slipped from between Carl’s lips effortlessly in a quiet chorus of pleading, accompanied by the smallest moans that came in tandem when Ron would bring his hips forward once more.

And later that night, while it did storm and Carl’s head rested on his chest and he shimmered under the faint light of an oil lamp. Ron would spend far too long thinking of when Carl pushed him onto his back.

Laid him down and then sat on top of his legs, but most of the thinking on that would turn to when he felt Carl’s tongue against him, soft and warm as it was. He licked all the way up.

Or how well he had moved his head up and down and how happily he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand afterward.

Ron would think of his mouth open against Carl’s while he wrapped his hand around him, and the marveled, blissed look on his face when Ron had licked his hand afterward.

Carl was, indeed, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

The more Ron thought about it, the more sense it made that he would live forever and himself wouldn’t.

Ron didn’t deserve the immortality—then again, maybe he did.

It must be tortured to have to live and watch any mortal you ever meet rot away as nothing more than bread.

It should be reversed, He thought. I should be damned in a life of eternity, he should be allowed to be free of his mortal coil in a way of his choosing, to be quick and painless. To go into the arms of death, however, he wished.

Yes, immortality was a perfect punishment for those as apathetic as he.