Chapter Text
The steady clip clop of horseshoes on cobblestone was a sound Nicholas was largely unused to. His hold in Angelina's saddle was still rather stiff, unaccustomed to the gentle back and forth movement of riding. He'd never thought he'd see the day where a horse would willingly carry him, but since Vash had vehemently protested the idea of traveling the length of both kingdoms on foot — again! — Nai had set heaven and earth in motion to find two horses that would stand his brother and Nicholas.
Heaven and earth in this case meant simply asking Legato, who'd all but fallen over himself in an effort to please Nai and further secure the still tentative alliance between their two kingdoms. Ever since the day of the botched wedding, Nicholas had been witness to Legato's obvious and rather pathetic mooning over Nai, who didn't seem to mind taking advantage of the other king's infatuation to lock down a beneficial alliance for Gunsmoke kingdom.
Not that Nicholas was complaining when it meant being presented with an absolutely massive, retired destrier the next day. Luida had also been there and had helped the process significantly when she presented them with charms that were meant to pacify the animals; the horses taking in their scent without panicking for the first time. His mare was pitch black except for the small white blaze on her forehead and carried countless scars from past battles on her flanks and legs. When Nicholas stepped forward and offered her a hand to sniff, she'd merely huffed at him, started nibbling on his hair and drooled all over him. He loved her already.
Vash on the other hand got saddled with a slightly smaller, sleek apple-gray gelding which he'd named Stampede after his tendency to prance away at the slightest command. The horse had been a bit more nervous at first but was easily pacified when Vash fed him a continuous stream of apples.
Both horses had been saddled and outfitted with supplies and were currently carrying them to the last stop they'd make before leaving Julai behind them entirely. They'd be traveling the two kingdoms as ambassadors of peace between the magical and non-magical peoples — well, Vash would be the ambassador, while Nicholas' sole job was to be his personal knight. Not that he was complaining in the slightest, when that was already what he'd been planning to do for the rest of his life.
Nicholas was glad to leave the palace and Julai at large for a multitude of reasons. One, he could not take another day of seeing Legato making heart eyes at Nai, who gave no indication of returning the other's affections. Second, any time he so much as looked at Vash for too long — or, God beware, drew him in for a quick kiss! — he felt daggers being glared into his back and smoke started curling out of Nai's nostrils. Lastly, he simply missed traveling with Vash. Just the two of them, without the constant interference and needling of other people and the city's confines. He missed the open sky above them; he missed seeing places he'd never set foot in before.
Nicholas could tell Vash felt the same. While his blondie was more than happy to speak to everyone in the palace and on the street and Nicholas also enjoyed properly introducing him to Milly, Meryl and Livio, he could tell that Vash was also itching to get back on the road. He assumed getting stuck in a tower with only your brother for company would do that to you.
They passed through the city's eastern gates in companionable silence, content to simply be in each other's company. The late spring sun was warm on their backs, the chill of winter gone for good. They reached the orphanage just as the bell inside rang to signal the end of Sunday school and the children were streaming outside into the yard. When they spotted Nicholas and Vash dismounting from their horses, they were immediately swarmed and bombarded with shouts of his name and pleas to play with them. Nicholas had to take care to shoo any of the more curious children away from the horses, lest any of them get too close and get accidentally trampled by the large warhorse.
He'd just gotten both horses safely situated in the fenced-in backyard when the door opened and a middle-aged woman wearing a patterned head scarf rushed out. "Nico! You're back! And you've brought company!"
Miss Melanie hadn't changed at all, if one discounted the first strands of gray in her black hair and the noticeable crow’s feet around her eyes. Her smile was still as warm-hearted and jovial as he remembered, and although he’d outgrown her years ago, the firm hug she pulled him into felt the same as well. When she finally let him go again and gave him a scrutinizing look, her eyes fell on the cross-choker around his neck. "Oh! Don't tell me you found your faith again?"
Nicholas laughed. He snuck a glance towards Vash, who'd been watching the scene with a fond smile. "Somethin’ like that, yeah." He gestured for Vash to step closer, drawing him against his side the second he stepped into grabbing range. "Miss, I'd like you to meet Vash. I'm gonna be travelin' around with him for the next while, so I thought we'd come by to say goodbye first."
Melanie's eyes sparkled. "Oh, so it's like that. I see." She stepped forwards and reached for Vash's hands. "It's lovely to meet you, Vash. You take good care of our Nico here, yes? God knows that little rascal needs someone to keep him out of trouble."
Nicholas felt his cheeks heat up, while Vash grinned brightly. "The pleasure is all mine. And I'll certainly try my best to not let him out of my sight again, I can promise you that." He winked at Nicholas.
Nicholas was about to defend himself against this slander and insist that it was usually Vash that ended up dragging them into trouble, when he felt a small body colliding with the back of his legs. He peered down to find Nina clutched to his legs. Behind her, more tiny faces peeked up at him. "Nico! You gotta play with us! Pretty please!" She'd grown in the two years since his last visit, and his heart clenched at the thought that she still remembered him. Some part of him regretted not stopping by the orphanage more often in the past, but he also knew that he hadn't been mentally ready for that kind of vulnerability. He'd just have to settle for doing his best to make up for it now.
He bent down towards her. "Can my friend also come to play? I promise he's nice, too."
Nina threw a scrutinizing glance up at Vash, who gave her a little sheepish wave. She pretended to think hard for a second, face all scrunched up. "I guess…but he has to promise to be the dragon guarding the castle! I'll be the princess, and you're obviously the knight that's coming to save me!" She looked rather self-satisfied with that idea, oblivious to the slightly strained smile that had appeared on Vash's face.
Another boy stepped forward, affronted. "Nina! That's no fair, you can't just keep them all for yourself! What about the rest of us? And don't you know that the people are sayin' that dragons aren't actually supposed to be evil?"
Nina huffed. "Fine. You can be the king, Vanessa can be my loyal maid, and Ciarán can be the evil mage that's coming to attack us! Happy?"
Nicholas saw Vash covertly wiping his slightly dampened eyes, before he stepped forward with a slightly more sincere smile. "Nobody is born evil. Not dragons, not mages, not humans. It's all about the choices we make. Love and peace for all, yeah?"
Nina scoffed. "That's not how the game works, dummy. We need somebody to be the bad guy, otherwise who are you gonna protect me from?" She hesitated for a second. "Maybe Maylene should be the dragon instead."
They followed her gaze to the small girl in one of the yard's corners, who was busy feeding flowers to her bunny plush. Nina herself also seemed to doubt her own suggestion. Vash grinned and leaned forward. "Ah, but could Maylene do this as the dragon?" He waited till Nina and the rest of the kids were looking at him, before huffing out a cloud of smoke, and letting his eyes flash brightly while his horns sprouted gracefully around his face. The kids immediately shrieked in excitement, grabbing his hands and dragging him off to the large tree they'd designated as their 'castle'.
Nicholas and Miss Melanie stayed behind to watch for a moment. "He's not gonna hurt them, I promise," Nick said.
Miss Melanie merely smiled. "I know. I'm not worried in the slightest." She made a shooing motion. "Now, off you go, otherwise Theo is going to steal your job." But Nicholas had barely taken three steps towards the ruckus unfolding around the tree, when she called out for him once more. "Oh and Nico?"
He turned and made a questioning noise. Miss Melanie's expression was tender and filled with so much love that Nick's heart clenched painfully. "I'm proud of you. Always. I hope you know that."
He pretended very hard not to sniffle, ignoring that he had to blink rapidly to chase away the moistness gathering in his eyes. His voice was rough when he answered. "Yeah. I know." And with a lighter heart and shoulders free of the cross he used to carry, he walked ahead to join in with the laughter and playful chaos his prince was creating.
***
They'd played with the children the entire afternoon, although Nicholas had excused himself at one point to help Melanie prepare dinner in the kitchen. The repetitive motion of shaping dough into flat discs, pressing a hole in the center, filling it with cheese and then closing it again brought him right back to his childhood, where he'd often ended up helping Melanie in the kitchen. Soon enough, the heavenly smell of frying arepas had filled the kitchen and wafted outside, quickly luring in the wayward knights, princesses and dragons.
Afterwards, they'd politely declined Melanie's invitation to stay the night. After weeks of staying in the city, both of them were yearning for a peaceful night under the stars, and so, after waving goodbye to everyone, they'd resaddled their horses and got onto the road again. There were no large forests on the way to the coast but after about an hour of slow riding, they crossed a small grove of fir trees. It was almost nostalgic to spread out their bedrolls onto plush moss, only that this time their routine had the added step of tacking down the horses and securely tying them to a tree by their halters.
Settling down next to Vash on the ground felt like homecoming. The smell of pine all around them mingled with Vash's innate honey-flowers-magic smell that filled his nose and soothed an itch he wasn't aware he'd been missing. When Vash rolled over and immediately tangled their limbs together, Nicholas' mind was still reeling, struggling to believe he'd really gotten this lucky, that he was allowed to hold the other man, to touch, to draw him down into a tender kiss.
It no longer scared him when his wandering hands traced over a small scattering of scales on Vash's cheeks or found feathers in between golden strands of hair. Discovering Vash in his entirety, now that the curse was fully broken, had been one of his greatest pleasures in the last few weeks. He’d been there when Vash had returned to his true form the day after the botched wedding, for the first time in a century and a half. And what a moment it had been to behold!
They’d gathered at one of the palace’s many courtyards while Vash had stood visibly nervous in the center. Then, under Nai’s watchful and insistent eye, he’d slowly breathed out and shucked the human skin he’d been trapped in for so long. It was a fluid, graceful thing, watching him flow into a rapidly growing form, pearly-white scales sprouting all over his body. On his back, three large pairs of brilliant white wings broke through, feathered like a swan’s and gracefully rowing through the air.
When his transformation was finally complete, Vash had opened his jaws and let out an earth-shattering, triumphant roar that echoed through the entire city. While this showed off the two rows of large gleaming teeth that now lined Vash’s mouth, Wolfwood wasn’t afraid in the slightest. This was still Vash, from the turquoise chitin prosthetic that had grown to match the three other powerful dragon legs and now ended in sharp claws to the way Vash had lowered his head after his triumphant roar and lightly chuffed at Wolfwood, speaking of immense self-satisfaction.
“Go on then, Spikey”, he’d said in response, a proud grin on his face, “Up ya go.”
Vash needed no further invitation. With several powerful beats of his wings that sent gales of wind through the courtyard, strong enough to almost bowl Wolfwood over, Vash swung himself into the air. He’d hardly cleared the courtyard when Nai followed suit, jumping up and transforming mid-air to join his brother on their first flight together in decades.
Watching them circle high over the city, diving in playful swoops and reckless wing maneuvers woke a strange sense of awe in Wolfwood, like seeing something vital restored to its proper place after a long period of dormancy. It was almost as if the two gleaming dragons reflecting the sun’s light so resplendently belonged in the sky up there; and made the memories of any other distinctly dragon-less sky seem somehow less real and vibrant, like something had been missing all along. When he’d looked around the courtyard, he’d seen that same awe reflected on dozens and dozens of faces of the curious onlookers that had assembled to watch the proceedings. It had given him hope, hope that peace between the magical and the mundane wasn’t as unachievable as the Eye would have led him to believe.
There was still one thing that bothered him though.
"Say, did you ever find out what broke your curse in the end?" he asked, hand stroking through Vash's hair and idly musing if he could convince Vash to give him a ride in his dragon form. Maybe he could get Vash to ride him first, then demand recompense later.
Vash raised his head from where he'd laid on Wolfwood's chest, mirth sparkling in his eyes. "I did. Well, Luida figured it out and then spent hours chewing me and Nai out for misunderstanding the curse for so long." He grinned ruefully, "We always thought true love's kiss would break it, but as Luida pointed out to us, that's not how these curses usually work. The book we found only ever mentioned ‘true love’; we just assumed that meant true love's kiss. I think, in the end, what ended up breaking the curse for good was me realizing that you actually, truly love me." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the tip of Nicholas' nose.
"Damn straight," Nicholas grumbled and pretended not to notice the blush creeping up his cheeks.
For a moment, there was silence, as they both enjoyed the other's closeness. Then, Vash spoke up, "I also have a question." When Nicholas only hummed in sleepy acknowledgement, he continued. "You never ended up telling me what the 'D' in your name stands for. And I swear, if you make another dick joke, you'll sleep alone tonight," he threatened teasingly.
Nicholas took a long time to respond. Vash seemed to sense that the answer carried a heavier weight than he'd expected and patiently waited for Nicholas to gather his thoughts, for which he was grateful. He cleared his throat, before finally confessing the embarrassing truth, "…I don't actually know. That's all it said on the slip of paper in the cradle when I was dropped off at the orphanage, Nicholas D. Wolfwood. That name sort of feels like it's all that I have left from my parents, y’see? So I've always held onto it, even though it's kind of stupid and meaningless to hold onto somethin' you don't really know, I guess."
He avoided Vash's eyes, instead staring off into the canopy of trees above them, before he felt his face being gently turned towards infinitely kind, sapphire eyes. "Nicholas. It's not stupid. Never." Vash's hands smoothed over his cheekbones, down his slightly scruffy jaw. To Nicholas’ embarrassment, he felt tears welling up in his eyes and he felt overcome with emotion.
Vash merely smiled at him and continued. "In fact, it's kind of beautiful. It can stand for anything you want it to. After all, we write our own future. You've taken that blank ticket that was handed to you and made it into something. A kind man, a brave knight, a good person. The man I want to spend my tomorrows with. Nothing about Nicholas D. Wolfwood is without meaning."
He leaned downwards and pressed a gentle kiss on Nicholas’ forehead, kindly ignoring the wetness running down his face. Clutching Vash tightly against his chest, Nicholas quietly sobbed, for the parents he never knew, for the childhood that was taken from him too early. When the tears finally ebbed and his sobs first turned into choked off breaths, then evened out completely, he felt strangely peaceful. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried; and maybe he had not cried like this, ever. He felt exhausted, but it was a good kind of exhaustion, like after a particularly grueling work-out.
All throughout his breakdown, Vash stroked through his hair, simply holding him as Nicholas cried his heart out. Now, he looked at him, his gaze so soft and affectionate that the Nicholas from three months ago instantly would have deflected in panic for fear of ruining the one good thing that had ever happened to him. Yet Nicholas was done being that person; he was tired of drinking from the dregs of life and not allowing himself any good thing. Through some miraculous stroke of luck, Vash actually loved him back, and Nicholas would be damned if he squandered the chance at happiness he'd been given.
He'd just have to continuously prove himself worthy of Vash's love and trust. And if all went according to plan, he'd have an entire lifetime to do just that.
***
