Chapter Text
Chapter 13 - Opposites attract
Cold snow covered the landscape as far as the eye could see. The carved rock path provided limited protection from the overgrown flora leaning over each side of the road. Thankfully the various grasses and flowers that managed to peak out from the snow were harmless and painless. No nettles or thorns plagued the running legs of the strong horses racing down the decommissioned pathway. It lay barely usable after being neglected for many months after the latest war. Large fallen branches from the trees dotting the countryside riddled the weaving road cutting through the mountains just outside Hosa City. Only one out of the three riders smoothly sat atop his stallion as it leapt over various obstacles in their way. The other two held on for dear life as their beasts jumped high up in the air, throwing their figures up uncomfortably and painfully back down onto the saddle.
Mark had lost count of the amount of nut shots he had suffered during the taxing ride.
Ethan’s brown hair was held at bay by a makeshift bandanna tied tightly around his head and knotted messily at the back, some of his hair swept up into the thigh fabric knot by mistake. The beat of his horse's gallop matched his own movements, the two moving in sync effortlessly, as if they were one. The Cladion was an experienced equestrian, having been forced to learn from a young age, he was more than capable of handling the tall beast. Leaning all his weight forward onto the metal stirrups his feet sat in with focused eyes cast squarely between the stallions he appeared to float above the animal. His stance was low and crouched over the animal, only letting the leather seat of his saddle pat his butt when the horse's back end reared up to bring the back legs forward again. The horse was free of any halter or reins around its head as Ethan preferred the intimacy of clutching the very mane of the animal he rode. He felt like when the horse could feel his touch directly, it could almost anticipate what he wanted. It is widely known that horses possess keen senses for their surroundings. The medic believed that the species could read the tension, the intention of his hands as they held the very matter of the animal. He felt like the horse could feel him.
Behind the speeding Ethan rode two bubbling riders atop their own stallions. The weathered horses went unfazed by the flailing, loud riders on their saddles. The animal’s effortlessly corrected weight distribution as they ran and leapt down the dimming pathway leading deeper into the undeveloped expanse of white land laying to their northwest. The sunlander’s muscles tensed to max capacity as his hand held the horn of his saddle, his only real handle connecting him to his horse. His legs flopped out with every beat of the beautiful stallion’s pace, his inner thigh muscles were undeveloped and thus unable to sit strong and bent like that of Ethan’s. He had long ago tied the leather strips of his reins around the horn he held with both hands like a giant joystick. Having lost grip of them too many times and unsure of how to truly use them, he had wrapped the flopped material around his clenched hand. The strong leather length now tying his tight grip to his horn he used as his anchor. As much as did not trust himself, or feel happy about using a horse as transport, he trusted the intelligent animal. He could tell how confident the horse was with every leap and bound over the various things in their way. The stallion repeatedly landed gracefully on his hooves, his stance accounting for the wavering weight he held proudly on his back.
One last pair trailed behind, last in the pack of riders. The horse was the largest of all, sporting a shiny coat over rippling muscles. The animal stood so tall it was able to travel over branches the first, smallest horse had to jump over. Its strong legs effortlessly handled the heavy-set man atop his back. His inexperienced rider had no effect on the horse's gliding movements through unfamiliar terrain. Bob fumbled as the horse took a small leap over the large branch the others had to cross, the ginger man lost grip of his saddle’s horn for a breath. His right hand blindly fumbled around in his lap to find and hold his seat’s anchor again. Despite his struggle, he had the best posture out of them all, his eyes glued to the road ahead in fear that distraction could lead to a crash.
Bob didn’t think the horse would leap down a hill or run into a tree if he steered it that way, but with how fearless the stallion seemed on the unkept path, he did not want to test the animal’s courage.
Mark’s horse followed every twist, turn and step Ethan’s horse did, as if it knew the rider ahead knew better than his own. The Sunlander wasn’t sure he could understand it, let alone describe it. How the beast seemed to sense him in a way that transcended words or language. He felt like the animal could tell that the prince didn’t know when to brace for a jump, or how to balance over a galloping being bigger than him. The smart horse made up for all his riders' shortfalls during the journey. From correcting his balance to taking each leap smoother than during practice, always landing gracefully back into a running pace.
The prince squinted as the icy wind stung his eyes. For the first time during the hour-long sprint for Geminus pass, the leader of the group looked back to the two men following him. Not only was the medic glad that the two men were still behind him and hadn’t fallen off, he was also glad that they seemed to have made good progress. He couldn’t even see the Hosa hills anymore, just the plain white expanse of even white snow that was the void between cities. It had no water for the people, no viable soil for the plants so it lay in an icy wasteland. Now only home to the groups of Rampion flowers dotting the countryside. The Cladion man held out his arm in a general gesture. At first both foreigners were confused, but as his raised arm slowly descended down in sync with his animal's speed, they understood. The man was warning them of sudden pace change. The experienced horses appeared to know the silent command, as they matched their leader’s gradual speed decrease.
The horses slowed to a trot before ungracefully stopping rigidly at the edge of the paths clearing. It was one of the many chunks of raised stone that poked out from the white landscape, thus providing a clear place for the man to disembark and rest. The animals stopped at the side of the large rock face in an orderly line. Ethan was the first to step down from his transport, easily whipping one leg back to swing down from his saddle from one side. He landed smoothly on the course rocks surface with two feet. Face red from the exercise, the boy huffed as his relaxing body ached with bruises and spent muscles.
It had been too long since he had been able to ride the royal stallions, now that he was reminded of how freeing and good it felt, it made him miss it more.
The sight of the two other men still perched on their animals amused Ethan, there was no way that he would be able to help them down and there was no stepstool to fetch like in the royal barn. The servant shrugged as he gestured to both of them, a smile across his frost bitten face.
“ You have to get down somehow, you can’t stay up there all night”, Ethan chuckled.
Bob’s sweaty and panting self made a point to scoff at his words. He threw his gloved hand in the air and shook it in protest.
“ I will have you know, I could sit here all night AND day”, the night boasted.
“Mainly because I don’t think I can move my legs from this straddling position but that is totally unrelated-”.
A loud groan of try followed by a pained yelp of surprise came from Mark. The man had attempted to copy his guide's actions by swinging over the horse and down to the ground. However, he gained too much momentum and sent himself crashing onto the hard stone. The unfamiliar bulkiness of his leather boots led to one foot catching on his stirrup where it rested. The royal crashed down square on his back, legs up in the air as the prince didn’t realise his foot was free wherever it had gotten caught.
Bob’s albeit tired and sloppy laugh still stood as contagious as before. The guard shamelessly pointed and laughed, one hand clutching his spasming belly. The humour caught on to Ethan, who also joined in making fun of Mark’s failure. The defeated man lay on the space he had fallen, letting his legs rest out on the cold surface, he stared up at the beautiful sky. White tinges of cloud cover highlighting the blue sky. The laughter of his company didn’t bother him, it was the digging longing deepening in his chest. It’s sorrow extinguishing the angry flames sparked by frustration from his fall and leaving him feeling blank and mute.
If only he had the power to reply, the thought of using his sore voice made him wince inside himself.
“ Well I was afraid I would do bad but after seeing that, I think I can do better than that at least”, Bob spoke through his laughs as they died down.
The knight made sure that each of his feet were not caught until their rests, he jiggled his leather-clad feet around in the metal frame to make sure he didn’t have the same complication. Leaning from side to side, checking that each stirrup wouldn’t hinder him, he deemed it safe enough to try and get off his horse. Leaning forward, the man eased one foot down off its placing towards the ground. He let himself slip off the side of the animal as he essentially rolled down onto his feet. Although he slightly stumbled as he caught balance on his feet, he successfully disembarked his transport. Hands on his hips, Bob stood proudly with a grin.
He had gotten it right on the first try, a rare occurrence for the trained knight.
As Mark gathered himself to his feet he clapped his gloved hands in the direction of his friend. The muted drumming of his palms sounded nothing like the applause intended by the royal, however it was taken all the same. Bob dramatically bowed at the singular round of applause, mumbling thanks to the crowds that weren’t there. The sound of Mark’s clapping died down and the chattering of Ethan’s teeth took its place. The servant pulled his iced mittens from his hands in order to warm them with his breath.
Both Sunlander’s looked to their guide to see a shivering, cold individual. His cloth garments topped by many layers of leather provided just enough heat retention to keep the human from suffering from hyperthermia. The medic’s place nose was tinted the palest shade of blue as the skin froze in the harsh atmosphere. In sync, both foreigners looked to the dipping sun over the horizon, night would soon come and with it, an intensive cold. The temperature would dip even further below freezing, now both men knew why the other had stopped their fast convoy.
They had to start a fire before night falls and they all succumbed to the cold, only the hot royal had a chance of surviving the frozen night hours. Ethan turned excitedly to Mark, as he thought their worries of the cold would not be in the presence of the hot Hiems man.
“ Can you start a fire?”Ethan's question was direct and expected, the same cadence Mark knew well.
It was the same tone his own people had spoken in when enquiring into his royal powers from a young age. He rolled his eyes as he turned away silently, not that he could exactly speak. The medic’s hopeful expression dropped as he watched the man walk onto the snow and to the nearest dot of brush. Mark bent over and rummaged through the snow and dirt to source the fallen twigs and sticks hidden underneath. He started to gather the kindling material in small handfuls, taking whatever he could get his hands on.
Bob noticed Ethan’s sad eyes watching the grumbling royal gather fuel for their fire. A few small steps of crunching snow brought the sunlander to stand by the medic’s side. The foreigner extended a comforting hand pat to his shoulder, the recipient jumped at the unexpected touch. Ethan relaxed as he reminded himself that these men had no reason to hurt him, their culture was just much more physical affection than his own.
“ Mark can’t get a spark, but his heat will dry the wood and leave for us”, Bob’s wise words spoke and struck the servants' curiosity.
Eyebrows furrowed with confusion, the medic turned to the ginger knight next to him. His pale hand gestured in the direction of the royal across the way who still appeared to ignore them even though he was clearly within earshot of the conversation.
“ Tyler told me he saw him melt metal though, you aren’t lying to me? Are you?”, Ethan interrogated.
Things didn’t add up to him, how Mark could reduce a sword back down to its kiln form but not start a small fire? Tyler had even mentioned that the prince was able to morph the strongest metal in the kingdom in his grip. There was no way that the hot royal was so incapable of controlling his celestial abilities, Jack had been able to freeze things with touch since he was a preteen. Ethan was becoming wearier of his travel mates the more he learnt about them.
“ Well..” Bob trailed off as he didn’t know where to start. “ He can’t do anything without the tiger's eye ," he clarified for the servant.
“ Mark was only wearing Opals when it happened before”, Ethan deadpanned in his reply..
This time it was the knight's turn to melt into confusion. He looked up at the prince who now held a full arm full of brush, twigs and sticks. Bob knew that his knowledge of the royal traditions, laws and rules was limited. But he thought he understood the principal when it came to the royal stones. Only the appropriate stones can power the right clans.
Mark should not be able to tap into the Opal’s power.
“He could have used the opals if they consented to the use of their energy”, Ethan added.
“ Now you sound like a quack”, Bob replied.
The idea of an inanimate object understanding choices, having sentience and some kind of cognition, it was insane. As a skeptic understood that people attributed human characteristics onto animals, but projecting personification onto rocks? It was madness.
“ What is a quack?”, The medic questioned, getting sidetracked by the unfamiliar name.
Mark’s nearing footsteps crunched through the ankle-height blanket of frozen precipitation as he came back to his comrades. The prince unceremoniously dumped his pile of rubble at the group's feet. Sticks, brush branches, twigs and some small rocks fell to the icy surface of the exposed stone.
“ It’s another world for crazy”, Bob replied.
Ethan’s face dropped into disappointment at the sunlander’s comment towards him. Did the knight truly not understand the power his royals held?
The medic didn’t have time to process his forming thoughts as he was taken aback by Mark’s sudden disrobement. The royal had shed his outer protective layers as well as his regular shirt. He threw the clothes near his feet, just left of the messy pile he had gathered. It left him in just his leather shorts with legs wrapped in cloth lengths, his bare, tanned chest on display. The opal waist band still sitting pretty just above his hips. A reminder of why they were there running in the first place.
Seeing the perturbed expression on Ethan’s face, the guard found it only right to inform their guide of what was happening. To the inexperienced, it looked like the start of an ordeal he was sure Ethan did not want, but was thinking of.
“ He can melt the ice away easier with this body temperature if there’s direct skin-to-object contact”, Bob explained softly.
Ethan’s face shifted from disgust and fear to a light dust of worry over his cognition. The boy was glad his phallic thoughts were just mere thoughts and not reality. He wordlessly watched as the prince knelt down and got into a comfortable lying position on the stone ground. Once comfortable enough, he swiped armfuls of the frozen debris towards him. The man cuddled into the mess of fire fuel he had gathered, dipping his head, he closed his eyes for focus. The scene was unlike anything the Cladion man had ever seen.
Childlike wonder and amazement filled through the nurse as he saw increasing plumes of steam rising off the tanned royal. The frigid atmosphere reacted to Mark’s rising internal temperature. It was a small feat for many Hiems men, but a mighty task for this man. As useless as the royal was, he was sure he could channel his reservoirs of ancestral anger in order to burn hotter than normal. He only hoped that the opals remaining around his body would let him.
It was the least he could do for the two men who had done much for him in the last week or so.
Ethan’s hand extended out to point to the man now at their feet. His eyes stern on the opal band around the royals waist. A different kind of excitement pitched in the Cladion man’s chest as he saw the flash of opaque opal shimmer with metallic, rainbow accents. He recognized the sight immediately.
“ The stones, they know much more than you think”, The medic stated ominously.
Bob opened his mouth to reply but his confused, jumbled thoughts silenced the idea of talking as he watched Ethan kneel down on one knee towards Mark. The ginger began to question what their guide was doing as his small, pale hand was held out, palm facing the lying being like he was a raging campfire.
The focused Sunlander was deep in his pools of focus, pinpointing his cognition of thoughts to one topic, revenge. Flashes of lilac hands gripping his bruised sides made his heat lick hotter at the bottom of his heart. The overwhelming feeling of helplessness leaking from his memories fueled Mark’s anger further.
The kneeling nurse felt the influx of pressured heat waves off the royal man. Ethan’s looming hand stutters back slightly at the heat increase. His eyes lit up as he saw the stones clad within his various adornments flash in response to the change, now holding a richer colour than before.
“ They know him”, Ethan added, to no clarification to his audience.
This was fascinating to him, how a foreigner was able to wield the very gems his royals claimed to have soul power of. How the stone reacted to him so gently, enough that the wielder wasn’t even aware of their energy responding.
Even Jack described the stones as vibrating souls stuck in white soundless opal.
The medic’s hand made contact with what he expected to be a cold gemstone surface. His fingers brushed over the jewellery piece before quickly jerking away and running over the man’s hot skin in the process. The Cladion man yelped in pain as he held his ungloved hand, at his chest, the frostbitten skin now burnt from the intense heat he’d touched. The medic frantically began packing snow on the wound in an attempt to alleviate the burning sensation.
Mark was pulled out of the depth of irritating anger by a yelp and tuned into reality to see their helper bracing in pain.
“ Don’t touch me!” He snapped, not meaning to sound as harsh as he did through his almost non-existent voice. His words sounded more like a weak squeak between airbursts.
At first the touch had sparked bothering within him, any outward disturbance was often met with hostility. However, as he watched the man experience pain, Mark quickly found that it wasn’t warranted. All angst and rage melted back into its confined container at the back of the prince’s mind as he took in the sight of his injured comrade.
The medic plopped his affected finger in his mouth in an attempt to return moisture from the wound area. Although no blood was shed, the red stinging skin hurt all the more as it laid over frigid flesh. Ethan shook his hand in the cool wind to reduce the heat on his skin’s surface, his face grimaced in discomfort as he did so.
“ The stone, they’re hot though!”, Ethan protested, his unhurt hand gesturing to Mark’s general direction.
Mark propped himself up on one of his elbows, skin no longer tinged with the red rage he had felt moments before. His expression softened into a shallow feeling of humour, with a smile he regarded his guide. His hand fiddled with some of the brush he had gathered, fingertips picking off the snow crystals that were yet to melt from his heat.
“ Yeah, hot royals tend to heat any kind of material”, Mark sarcastically remarked half-heartedly.
The servant shook his head as he raised to his feet, his one knee now moistened with snow sleet. Ethan’s eyes looked over his red, raw fingertips as he assessed if there was any permanent damage. Seeing that his pale skin went unbroken with no boils or rashes in sight, he figured that he wouldn’t be pain free until morning.
Until then it would burn like a bitch through the night.
“No, opals have only ever taken on a cold touch when they’re tapped into-”.
“ I didn’t-”, Mark interrupted with anger, his voice nothing more than a weak rasp.
The royal braced in pain as his throat rippled with pain at the sound forced through it. It stole his words, the pain took away his anger that willed him to try and speak. He silently cursed himself for letting his emotions get the better of him. It was so hard to see the world around him and be unable to interact with it. He was usually the one to be outgoing socially and often one to contribute to the conversation, now, that was not possible. It made his simmering rage gather in larger waves of effect as they came, the last causing the man to snap and use his spent voice twice now. At the very least, he wanted to explain to them that the stone felt nothing like his royal gems, he couldn’t call on them in the same way.
The Opals chose when and where to give their power, he had no control over the gems.
“ I think Mark can use the Opals, he just doesn’t even know it. How else could he have melted that sword into a puddle?”, Ethan questioned.
The medic crossed his arms as he turned to the ginger who had been silently watching them until now. The knight offered nothing more than a confused shrug, it seemed the Cladion man was the only one among them that understood some of what was going on. The servant pointed to the length of gems around the half-naked man’s waist. The jewellery had never been removed as they had been in a hurry, so Ethan had only removed the shackles required to help them escape. He never got around to solving that jewellery problem, but to him, it dwarfed in comparison to the real issues at hand.
Little did the medic know, the King could track them with those very same crystals.
“ Did you, or did you not see the stones shimmer or like…light up?”, the nurse questioned.
Bob gave a small shrug as he mulled over which words to choose in order to explain his point of view. His head dipped to the side as he found that Ethan had a good point, the gems did seem to reply to his heat. He had seen that much at least, his eye had caught the glimmer of light waving over the surface of the still stone like waves of colour.
“ I mean, they were certainly doing something”, Bob answered vaguely.
“ But like, I don’t know what….it…was”, he added, unsure. “The stone’s glow red hot when he uses them back in Lasser and it definitely wasn’t that”.
Mark slid a slender smooth stick through his loosely closed fist, his palm collecting the snow that fell from it and then depositing it onto the ground. He tapped the end of the stick on the hard stone surface they were perched on to get the attention of the other parties within his convoy. Surprisingly, both of their eyes staring down at him felt intimidating for a moment, like he had some sort of stage fright or something. The prince ignored the feeling while he demonstrated what he wanted to say, using actions in place of traditional words.
Sitting up straight in the cold ground, his left hand held up the stick he had been stripping and drying this entire time. His other hand also raised, frozen in preparation to make a click. He gave Bob a knowing glance, the same one he gave him during practice.
The pair of friends had spent many hours trying to call upon his abilities, endless days of repeating the same hand articulation and action to no success. Everytime Bob saw that nervous look his way, he knew Mark had doubts about his chance at successfully gaining a spark.
The prince could never get past heating his skin to an inhuman temperature without royal gems, the first step to growing one’s natural ability.
“ He’s going to try and use the stones to set fire to the stick,” The guard explained.
Ethan excitedly nodded at the man's words, eager to see the magic for himself. He was sure the man would be capable of even this much, by the tone of Tyler’s amazed voice, he could do that and much more. Then man had melted steel with just the touch of his blood, surely he could start a campfire for them while they made their escape through harsh, cold plains.
“ If what you said is true, he should be able to do it”, Bob stated.
The servant only gave a brisk nod as his attention was focused on the prince, who was waiting for both of their undivided attention before he began. Once both their eyes were on him once again he closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath in, he internally requested the ancient power of the souls trapped within the cool stone. His mind’s words had to take the place of his physical words. He knew that they would do just as good, speaking aloud was just part of their cultural traditions.
‘Royal gems, bestowed upon blessed lines of celestial blood, please lend me your powerful energy, so that I may start a fire and warm those who assist your ancestors. For the people, for the royals, for the animals’.
His brown eyes opened to see the white landscape once again, the harsh pure white hurt while his eyes adjusted to the influx of light. He snapped his fingers, a strong click sounded through the cold atmosphere. A small smile of pride lined over Mark’s face as the stick stood untouched and unbothered. He had been right about everything all along, he couldn’t burn the stick with the gems after all.
Mark felt the familiar heat of his pressured flames, the sound of flickering of hungry flames caught his attention. The soggy pile of wooden debris that he had collected moments ago had sparked alight even in its sodden sta\te. The flames held a vibrant hot red, the known signature of the hot royal. The small fire started in the center on the pile, but quickly spread. The reaching flames ate away at the fuel they’d been placed into, happily burning away the matter the wood provided. The prince shifted back a small bit to save the little amount of clothes he had from catching alight as well.
As Ethan cheered and clapped along, happy to see the flames that would warm his cold shivering body. He chanted Mark’s name in a deliberate horsey whispered tone to mimic a large cheering crowd. Next to him Bob stood stunned, a large prideful grin over his face.
Mark had finally exceeded his expectations, after all these years.
The guard joined the Cladion servant in the small celebration, adding his own applause to the cheering. The prince himself didn’t seem to notice the others praising him. Instead, his dejected look fell on the raging flames burning his specific shade of Canary red. The colour took over most of the flickering flames, little yellow to see in them. The shade of red only brightens into a blinding yellow at the flames fuel source, where it was hottest. Mark cradled a bubble of sadness in his chest, it drowned out all the gleeful happiness that came with his success. Instead, he felt a strange sense of foreboding that brought his mood down. It had taken many years for the hot royal to harness just one of the tigerseye bestowed upon him, yet, it seemed he could tap into these opals without much preparation. He barely had become familiar with these gems. It didn’t make sense to him, how he was unable to conjure his rageful flames within the confines of the underground cell then suddenly capable of making a useful spark now. He had lost count of the amount of times he had tried to melt the chains that held his hands at bay, but every time, no heat manifested in his hands. Like even the scope of his natural abilities was hindered or halted in some way.
It felt like the opals had control of him and his powers, not the other way around. Suddenly the feeling of being leashed by the stones wracked through him again, the same feeling he had gotten when the collar was first put on him. Mark didn’t feel in control of his own body again, just like back in the cells. In his soul, he felt like he had not escaped the cell his sworn enemy had thrown him in, only changed it. The presence of the stones felt more like a hindrance than an assist to him.
“Run”, a female whisper blended with the wind.
Mark snapped his attention to his two friends, now gathering wood within the immediate area, each of them went unbothered. They hadn’t heard the same ominous warning that he had. The singular word sent fearful shivers up his spine.
“ Run. Now”, the hushed voice clipped in and out.
The Hiems man froze in place like he was under the sight of a weapon. His instincts held him like iron chains in place when all he wanted to do was frantically search for the origin of the words. Mark’s still eyes stared at Bob as he piled an ever-growing armful of wooden debris together. A strange sense of cool calm swam into his suspended cognition, like a leak of cold water into a hot pool.
“ Trust us Soldier”.
*Flashback*
“ Trust me Soldier", Nate licked the words into his prey’s ear.
Mark struggled under the greater weight of his distant cousin, the firm grip he had around his wrists made it impossible to squirm away and the true prince had no brute force to speak of on his adolescent body. The paler man’s knee dug into his lower abdomen painfully, forcing the teen to fight back his groan of agony.
“ Fuck you Nathan!”, the prince spat back in his face with newfound rage.
How dare he use that word when he knew what significance it held for him. The boy knew his enemy was using the term to get to him and he was embarrassed to feel it working. His true anger finally bubbling over the frozen calmness his own energy brought upon him when he grew in proximity to the false prince. A fitting name given his undeserved position, he was of dirty blood after all, being a child of a royal and a commoner, Nate was impure. Mark was only able to see a flash, a spark of anger flooding over Nate’s face before his open back-hand came down on his face.
“ That’s not my fucking name and you know it”, Nate replied with equal venom.
Angry red head resides deep in the flesh of his cheek, the royal ignores the pain to shoot his attacker a deathly glare. His inner rage seething so deep that it struck out of his eyes in waves of sensible energy toward his target. The grip around his arms strengthened for a beat before releasing. The hands retreated back to rest on either side of Mark’s head on the thin bush-derived bedding.
“ Your fire comes out at the strangest of times”, The aggressor commented, clearly unfazed by the attempt at intimidation. “ I would say it’s cute but it just feels so pathetic to watch”.
Mark turned his lips up at the other man, disgusted by how casual he was being during his attack. Out in the Nudus Plains, there were no royal assistants or guards to keep the boys apart. Only the vast valleys split up by raging streams, no Heims or Cladions on the small island. Both sides regarded the land to be sacred where spirits made home and therefore left it bare of permanent settlements. However, only the hot royals still used the land for their coming-of-age rituals to the present day. The harsh, isolated climate only fostered the strongest of men, the island picking out the weaklings out of their royal line. An ancient practice deemed too barbaric by their colder counterparts and by Mark’s father as the prince himself understood.
Why else would he have been shipped here with Nate to babysit him through the full year? It couldn’t just be because they were of similar age…
“ Get off me” Mark demanded through clenched teeth.
Nate smirk sounded through his reply. “ Make me” He challenged.
The words angered the hot royal pinned to the very place he slept, that he had made with his very hands. His chest swelled with courage as he pushed up against his attacker, his palms pushing on his chest with all his might. Two pushes in, Mark realized that the other man hadn’t budged a single bit. His full power didn’t even phase the man.
Nate revelled in the scared eyes stared up at him, the realization clicking in. Even when the prince had the courage to fight, he could do nothing against his enemy. He had convinced himself all these years, single that awful day in the grass next to the river, that he simply failed to fight back and that was why everything happened. The reality of the situation was much more daunting to him, it happened because Nate had the opportunity to and he took it. Without a third person to stop it, Mark was hopeless to stop it single-handedly.
Just like he was powerless to stop it happening now.
Nate’s strong hands gripped around Mark’s frozen hands, still planted firmly on the man’s chest. The enraged assailant pulled the limbs away from him, one hand encasing both of the boy’s small wrists easily trapping them. Mark felt his own hands dig into his chest, pushing the air out of his lungs as Nate pinned his limbs to his torso.
“Why-” Mark began to speak, but cut off the word with a sharp grunt as he felt pressure on his lower privates.
Nate’s lilac knee was rhythmically rubbing back and forth on the small patch of soft between Mark’s legs. The sensation was both painful as it was rough but also pleasurable, as it was an erogenous area. It closed thick, terrifying foggy confusion over his mind. His thoughts are scrambling to find reason in reality. Sure, his cousin had always been hostile and aggressive towards him, even during sexual attacks, but this time, he could tell he was trying to be gentle. Or at least more gentle than the last time…
“ Because I can Mark,” Nate chuckled.
Mark gasped for air as his cousin’s free hand snuck around to clamp down on his windpipe. The prince tried to keep his panic at bay, knowing that the suffocation wouldn’t last much longer, Nate had been ordered to return with him after all.
“ Be grateful I’m not using my anger to murder you instead” The evil man reminded his prey.
The prince’s lungs waved off screams of pain as they were neglected of their precious oxygen. True terror clued into Mark’s mind, urging him to fight back. His body flailing and writhing where it was pinned. Nate found deep amusement in watching the raw fear present itself underneath him, his body vibrating with excitement as he felt the body move and jerk under his legs.
Finally, the hand was removed from its place on Mark’s neck. The royal man sputtered and coughed wildly between desperate gasps as he roughly made his recovery. The situation was dawning on him. Not only was he stuck with his evil cousin for the next nine months, he was essentially a hostage to him, unable to fight back, run, or refuse him.
So what was the point? To waste energy fighting back?
Nate’s smile increased in sincerity as he felt the weight underneath him relax into the ground, the muscles letting go of all tension and resistance. The aggressor tested this new behavior and let his grip on Mark’s wrists loose. To his surprise, the egotistical prince didn’t attempt to use the situation to get the upper hand, instead, he just stared back at him blankly. It was an expression void of emotion, not even a trace of fear or anger behind his eyes.
“ Finally learnt who is in charge Mark?”.