marlowemuses | A cruel reality when you've had too much to dream

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A cruel reality when you've had too much to dream

On most days, Adam thought he knew all there was to know about himself. He had studied his skin and the capabilities of his muscles. He had interrogated every thought inside his own mind. He knew the depth of his capacity for exhaustion, and how much he could do on how little sleep.

He did not know, on the afternoon of the prince's eighteenth birthday, that over the course of the day things had been learned about him, through spell and revelation, that he did not know about himself.

Adam knew that there were celebrations throughout the kingdom for the prince, but Adam had no time for them. He had the day off of work at the shipyards, but that only meant that he had time to catch up on his chores at home, which would allow him some time to catch up on his studies. He knew that the royal family was magic. A fairy king and his family, and the middle son, the magic son, who would inherit everything. He knew, esoterically, that the fairy-dreamer kings of their realm took magic consorts who aided and increased their power.

Adam had no interest in any of it. This was mostly due to self-preservation for his pride and his heart. He knew he was not magic and did not belong in that world. Nothing he could do would ever produce an aptitude for that kind of magic. So he forbade himself from wanting it.

And if, in the months since his own birthday, he'd found lost things easier and broken things were more swiftly fixed by his hands, he attributed it only to his own intelligence and aptitude. If the weather suited itself to his mood and the flowers grew around his parents' house in a riotous profusion that he'd never seen before, Adam thought little of any of it. All these things had logical explanations, or they were mere coincidences.

He did not know that the king had cast a spell for his son, and his face had appeared in a basin of water, and a map had glowed to mark his home and the back field where Adam was hard at work repairing a broken fence.

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Ronan waited, staring at Adam for longer than he should have before finally realizing why he wasn't.

"Can you ride?"

He couldn't imagine anyone not knowing. He thought back to when he first met Adam: dirty, sweaty, and apparently as poor as he'd looked.

Adam hated admitting he couldn't do things. He was so used to being clever, despite his poverty, so that he could figure things out just by trying. Put a saddle on a horse, sure, tighten all available straps, but horses had hooves and teeth and didn't respond to logic, so it wasn't a problem that cleverness could solve if he just plain didn't know how to approach a horse without being kicked.

"No," he admitted at last, stiffly defensive. His hands clenched, shoulders hunched, because he couldn't see a way forward that didn't involve asking for help in some capacity, so Adam's pride prickled up and got ready to dig his heels in.

Ronan sighed, gave Adam and appraising look, and decided he was scrawny enough that this would work. This time, he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut about that assessment.

He adjusted his position so Adam had enough room to sit behind him. "Alright, you can ride with me. I think the horse can take it."

Edited 2018-09-03 00:26 (UTC)

Adam didn't love the idea, but he didn't have any better suggestions. He knew he was light, and if Ronan thought that the horse could take the two of them, Adam accepted his expertise. Which only left the question of how he was going to get up on the horse. "Okay."

He hooked his foot into the stirrup, accepting Ronan's arm to help him swing his weight up. He settled close behind Ronan, thighs on either side of Ronan's hips and hands very lightly on Ronan's sides. Then he let Ronan have the stirrup back, tucking his heels close against the horse's sides. He'd never been this close to anyone, though he did his best to keep their contact as minimal as possible, not wanting to press too close against Ronan's body.

Ronan noticed Adam's reluctance. A flare of annoyance burst in him, one he had difficulty smothering. It would have been easier if part of him didn't want arms around him. The knowledge that Adam had shut him down so thoroughly and shut down that hope ever coming true ruined any enjoyment of the moment. But this once, he didn't have time to be petty.

He looked over his shoulder. "You're going to have to hold onto me unless you want to fall off and break your neck."

"I'm holding on," Adam insisted, irritable, but then the horse shifted under them and he immediately hugged his arms fully around Ronan's waist, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. This felt very high off the ground, and the thought that this creature was going to start moving at high speeds was horrifying. "Sorry," he murmured, because he couldn't imagine that Ronan liked having him clinging like this, and Adam hated the helplessness that put him in a situation where he had to cling.

Ronan reminded himself there was still a demon to face. He couldn't afford to be distracted by having Adam press up against him.

"Don't. You're supposed to hold me like that. Remember what I said. Don't fall off." He lightly kicked the horse's sides and he bolted. This wasn't the first time he'd rode this horse before and it seemed he remembered the prince's preference. Nice and fast.

The horse surged beneath them and then sped off, faster than Adam had ever moved in his life. Terror washed through him, and Adam's heart launched into his throat. He held on tight, face pressed against Ronan's back and breath coming in shaky little gasps. Ronan was warm and solid, the only steady thing in the world as the horse rippled beneath them and the road whipped by.

Wincing his eyes shut, Adam clung to him, doing everything he could to stifle the waves of panic as the horse galloped down the road.

At any other time, Ronan would have been self-conscious. Adam was pressed against him, making his body feel... a lot of different things all at once, some of them pleasant but all of them inconvenient. Fortunately for both of them, he was distracted by their race down the road. It almost made him laugh before he reined himself back in. This was a serious matter. He'd drilled that into his head again by the time they reached the village and he pulled back the reins.

Now that they'd stopped, he looked at Adam. "You survived."

It felt to Adam like the ride went on forever. After some time his grip relaxed from panicked to merely terrified, but he kept his face pressed to Ronan’s back and his eyes closed.

He lifted his head when they stopped, warily assessing their surroundings and the distance to the ground. His hands were shaking badly as he unclenched them from Ronan. He felt in no way stable enough to get himself down, but there was no choice.

As carefully as he could, Adam swung his leg around and slid down the side of the horse. He landed on his feet, but his knees failed to hold him and he crumpled to the ground.

The humiliation of it was crushing as he took a moment to try to gather himself, but he was deeply shaky, and none of his muscles would cooperate. He tried to remember when he had last eaten--yesterday? He wasn't sure.

"Hey, it's too late to break your ass now." Ronan dismounted quickly and offered his hand to Adam. "You'll get used to it."

Ronan didn't have anything more to add. He wasn't in the mood to tease him any further and they were in too much of a hurry for him to even consider trying to force any kind of bonding experience that came from a shared horse ride.

Adam's pride balked slightly at accepting help up, but quivering on the ground was worse. He clasped Ronan's arm and accepted the help up, feeling the way the muscles moved beneath the skin.

Standing, he still felt shaky, but at least he was upright. He was all the more grateful for it a moment later, as people appeared from one of the cottages and came forward, recognizing Ronan and beginning to explain the situation. Adam stayed by his side, glad that he knew where he belonged and that people recognized and respected it.

Ronan didn't have to ask many questions from the villagers. They offered up all the details. While some of it conflicted, it all confirmed his suspicions.

"Don't worry," he said. "We'll take care of it."

Uncomfortable with everyone crowding around him, he quickly excused them. Leaving the horse in their hands, headed off in the direction the people spoke of. This time he did check to make sure Adam was following.

"Shouldn't be too far. Then we can ride back and you can tell everyone you killed a demon on your first day."

Surprised by Ronan's confidence in the matter, Adam glanced over, studying him to make sure Ronan wasn't mocking him. No one had ever before had so much confidence in Adam's success at anything. "You're that certain it will be easy?" Adam asked, because it was a safer question than the one he really wanted to ask. You really believe I can do this?

"I never said it'd be easy, just that we'd do it." Ronan tried to keep his own fear out of his voice and kept his eye ahead of him so he wouldn't make any nervous glances. Part of being a prince was knowing how to act a part. He might not be as good as his brother, but he knew how to show confidence as long as he wasn't rattled.

Honestly, he had very little idea what he was doing. He just knew that he needed to act now and with Adam by his side, he stood a much better chance at killing the demon than he would on his own. But he was the prince. He was of age. He had magic and, theoretically, knew what to do. It'd be fine.

Yeah. Yeah. He was the prince. He'd beat it.

Having successfully ~~lied to~~ convinced himself, he gave Adam an encouraging grin.

Adam's glances were plenty nervous, but he stayed by Ronan's side. He'd faced down plenty of fearsome things. He could deal with a demon, whatever that was.

As they came around the corner of a house, Adam stopped short in surprise, mind struggling to process what he was seeing. It was nothing, in an awful sort of way that was the acute absence of anything. It was a slick blackness that seemed to absorb light and anything else it touched, until there was just a depthless black seeping up from the ground.

Instinctual horror lurched up in Adam's throat, but he advanced again, more carefully now and a little closer by Ronan's side. "You've dealt with things like this before?"

Ronan's imagination was not unparalleled-- after all, he was his father's son-- but it was extraordinary. And yet all his previous attempts to picture a demon fell short of what this was. Just staring at it, Ronan felt inside him how wrong it was. He felt it so keenly he was sure that it wouldn't subside even if he closed his eyes. If closing his eyes would stop him from seeing it at all. Maybe he would still see the black nothingness that was the demon.

Ronan swallowed. He kept staring at it and then slowly stepped forward. "First time for everything," he said quietly.

He stopped closer to the demon this time. It wasn't moving quickly, just as they'd said.

"So if you-- stand close to me, I guess." They hadn't figured out how to work together yet. Ronan only knew that the connection was supposed to be instinctive, at least start with. He also knew that physical touch helped, especially at first, but he wasn't about to ask for Adam to hold his hand... even if he wanted him to.

"I'll stay close," Adam murmured, and he did, close enough that their shoulders brushed. He stayed a little bit behind Ronan, since he didn't know what they were doing and hoped Ronan had some idea of a plan.

Nerves roiled in his belly, and he wanted very earnestly to press Ronan on the topic, but Adam didn't have anywhere near enough information to make a plan for him, and Ronan's lack of certainty worried him. Especially since Adam still had no confidence whatever in his own magical abilities, even if he was just here to support or amplify Ronan.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, keeping his voice quiet because he didn't want any of the villagers to realize how clueless the two of them were.

"As long as it's not too powerful, I can zap it or--" He took a moment to double check his own memory. "Create some kind of magic feedback loop then overload it? But..." He studied the demon closer. "It's too big for that now."

Actually, it looked like maybe it was a bit too powerful to outright kill. When the villagers described it, it sounded terrible but smaller. This had grown.

All the more reason not to wait before a sacrifice was needed.

He folded his hands together and focused on the small sliver of space between them. He filled that space with a crackling energy until he had to spread his hands to make more room for it.

Adam's mouth went dry at the sight of the sparkling energy between Ronan's hands. He wanted so badly to have magic like that. To be something rare and special like Ronan was. Adam still couldn't come anywhere near believing that he belonged by the side of this beautiful, capable prince, and he hated the certainty in his belly that sooner or later Ronan would realize what Adam had told him from the first, that he'd picked the wrong boy and Adam wasn't anything special.

But he couln't resist the chance to test it. If his presence helped strengthen Ronan, if he had even that much magic, that might be enough.

Adam curled his hand around Ronan's arm, ignoring the way his cheeks heated at the feeling of warm skin and strong muscles beneath his palm.

Ronan doubted the tingling sensation where Adam touched him had anything to do with magic, even when the magical energy between his hands sparked and doubled in size. He started. The glow of the energy lit up his surprised face, then the laugh that followed it.

Any time he'd done this before, it had been a struggle to maintain. But this? This was easy. He pulled one hand away and balanced it so it hovered over one hand. This time he'd shaped it as a ball of lightning but it no longer felt right. It changed into pure light. Magic often reflected one's mental state and he could think of no better way to kill a demon than with... the way he felt. Which he promptly denied to himself once again.

"Wow," he said, still smiling. "I don't know what you did but keep it up."

"I'm not doing anything," Adam insisted, but he shifted a little closer, chest brushing Ronan's arm and hand curling a little tighter. He could almost feel it, the magic in Ronan's hands. He wanted to touch it.

Ronan's laugh made something in Adam's belly flutter. He slid his hand down Ronan's arm, palm against the back of his hand and then fingers woven through Ronan's so that he could feel the energy of it pulsing against his fingertips.

"Now what?" he murmured against Ronan's ear, close enough that his breath stirred Ronan's hair.

A shiver spread through Ronan's body the light flared, the edges of the orb turned to flame or at least something like it. It didn't burn his hand. With Adam this close he could barely breathe. He struggled to remember how to.

Then Adam spoke and Ronan remembered why they were here.

"Now, we throw this at it. Light it up." He turned his head in Adam's direction. At this angle, he couldn't see his eyes, but it did bring their faces closer, almost cheek to cheek. "Ready? he asked.

Close and intimate as they were, Adam couldn't help but think of the tendency--the tradition--for royals to marry their magicians. His chest felt warm, and he got butterflies in his stomach at the feeling that Ronan could want him.

Together and trusting like this, Adam's cheeks reddened as Ronan turned toward him, so close that Adam had a sudden whim to kiss Ronan's cheek, and only barely resisted it. "Do it," he said, suddenly skittishly nervous about the touch and the intimacy and wanting to retreat so that he could process and cope with all these feelings.

Ronan focused his attention back on the demon. With Adam by his side, it no longer seemed so disturbing. That said, he no longer felt quit as warm when he stared at the blackness.

He raised his hand and threw the magical energy. It arced toward the demon, trailing a brilliant light behind it. The demon recoiled a moment before impact. There was a brief burst of light that blinded Ronan. The next moment, he heard not something but nothing. A distinct absence of sound as the blackness rippled. The demon shrank back away from them, revealing barren earth. Chunks of a wall that it had touched crumbled.

"Alright, looks like we need to hit again."

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