Chapter Text
"They are pursuing nothing at all," said the switchman. "They are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes."
"Only the children know what they are looking for," said the little prince. "They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry..."
"They are lucky."
—Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Memories came in the depths of sleep. They made people out of figments.
He bore night for a face. Silver bells giggled at his knees, speckling his sleeves with twinkling light. Ribbons fluttered around his neck, sometimes red, other times blacker than the coals that fed the hearth. The old stories claimed he swept down from the sky on the back of a dragon, tailed by chittering flocks of ruby wyrms, and he hid alms away in every nook and cranny the rolling carpet of day couldn't swerve to touch. He left spare eyes, too, under shady eaves, among the ashes of old fires. Best offer payment in good manners, lest he drop naught but the shells of nightmares in unsuspecting pillows.
Yaad had first met him in browning pages. In Grandfather's eyes, he was the first and last of guiding stars. Though duty had tethered him to his forest since long before Yaad was born, it took only a rare invitation whispered into the breeze to see him shadowing the steps to the King's throne for the first time. Nary a monster bit at his heels; he came alone, and he fell at once into Grandfather’s waiting arms, burying his face in royal silk as if to hide from the thorns that sprung under his boots.
“Thistle!” Grandfather sang. He lifted him off the ground, spun him around with boyish fervor. “Oh, Thistle!”
The Mage laughed, whole and bright as the sun.
He called forth miracles that day. Magic sparked from slender fingertips, crusting his lashes like grains of sugar, carving perfect stones out of violet irises. An incantation summoned basketfuls of honey cakes and spiced meat, here and there a clatter of jewelry against brightly-painted toys, while embroidered gowns spun themselves into shape without need for hands to guide them. Heavenly blessings; blinding allure; the barest hint of supplication.
There was something else as well, visible only to Yaad through the veil of time and dreams, an eagerness that swam with fear—a palpable hunger, distorting elven features. The memory of himself in childhood watched it all unfold, yet lacked the sense to notice, let alone dwell. Precious little else but magic drew his toddler-eyes: Mother was a slow-beating heart and steady arms holding him aloft, while Father was a voice that dashed against the walls, saying, “You didn’t listen.”
Revelry withered in an instant. King and Mage stood amidst their treasures, stunned into silence. At Grandfather’s side, Thistle acted the part of his mirror, shoulders drawn taut and unsure, gemstone eyes wide with confusion as they flickered first to Father in his sternness before moving carefully, laboriously, onto Yaad, as though fearing that the simple act of noticing would draw retaliation.
Grandfather clung to him like a child to his mother’s leg. “He is ours, Eodio.”
Father said something Yaad didn’t understand, whether then or now. He threatened to leave. One hand on Mother’s arm, one foot behind the other, he said he’d take them both far away and never return, said it with so much conviction that Yaad in his dreaming feared he’d storm out of the castle right then and there. No voice to protest, no time to bring along his favorite stuffed animal. Strange anger would sweep them away without a trace.
But Grandfather had no head nor need for argument. Weariness bled through his expression, stretching the lines of his face. “Come, just say hello,” he said, once the words had died in Father’s throat. “You know he means no ill.”
Father was silent. Then, “I will not.”
It was then that Thistle stepped forth. The world shifted in response—Mother drawing back like a startled doe—but he only knelt low in obeisance, white locks of hair streaming onto the floor as he reached into the nearest basket and pulled out something small, bumpy, and round. This he held out in offer, his voice parched as leaves crackling in a fire when he said, “Your Highness.”
And Grandfather came close, following his lead. A silent exchange between him and Mother and she loosened her grip. He took Yaad up in his arms, though not without a strangled protest from Father. The room shifted with purposeful movement, and Yaad soon found himself marveling at a face normally dressed in ink and paint as Grandfather set him gently down before their guest. Inches from his nose, cupped in earth-dark hands, was a perfect apple.
“Go on,” said Grandfather, nudging him forth. “It’s for you.”
It was red as a beating heart, smoother than a glass bead. Nothing like the sugary wafers he was accustomed to, and he’d stuffed himself full on those already, spending the hours afterward cradled against warm bodies that had rocked him until the heaviness of sleep had settled under his eyelids. Theirs were gentle hands, always certain, but now they'd left him to a stranger at one man's urging. He could muster no interest for this gift; he’d rather go back to Mother, to where it was warm and soft and asked nothing disquieting of him.
On the other side of time, his dreaming-self bore the indignity and confusion that squirmed in his little chest, recoiling from injustice he had yet to learn to endure. Thistle wished for him to eat. He could not. Surely the Mage knew, for he possessed a thousand eyes with which he scoured the Kingdom for wrongdoers. He surely must have seen the wafers clutched in little hands that morning, the empty basket littered with crumbs; nothing escaped his notice, so said the tales.
Silence pooled around them, slow and heavy like a trail of honey. Thistle’s hands started to quiver. He kept his head down.
Unsure whether he was forfeiting some unspoken game, Yaad took a step back. Though it was tantamount to blasphemy to think this, perhaps the Mage had made a simple mistake—hadn’t noticed it was small, clueless Yaad he was offering to, had instead expected Father or Mother to come, or even Grandmother lingering in the periphery. It had been ages since the days he’d fed Grandfather with his own hands. Time must have carved out room for error. Perhaps he’d even forgotten how to curry favor with young children, saw far too much where what was instead too little stood before him.
And there was that constant hunger pulsing beneath his skin. His nails threatened to dig grooves into the flesh of his gift, yet still he held strong. Waiting. What could he want that magic couldn’t bestow?
Was Yaad meant to know?
At last Thistle’s hands gave way, sending the fruit tumbling to the ground. His face bloomed with fear; rarity among rarities, fanning its wings and raking its claws across the whole of him.
The apple rolled slow, coming to a stop at Yaad's foot. His own face stared back at him from its polished surface.
He knelt down to take it.
The world fell away; someone had swept him off the ground. “See him off,” came Father’s voice, a gentle hand resting on the back of his head, and they started to drift away from those two shining figures in the throne room, King and wayward magician. Yaad had no voice to protest nor conscience to cry foul. Over the slope of Father’s broad shoulder he watched Thistle grow smaller, smaller, until he could fit in his hands, a thing of violet silk and black ribbons and little jingling bells that one might find sitting in the cabinet.
Grandfather knelt down to stroke Thistle’s hair in slow, comforting motions, leaning over to whisper into one of his pointed ears. This seemed to alleviate his distress for the time being, and he gave the tiniest of nods—but his gaze lingered strangely on Yaad’s retreating face, refusing to let go even as they rounded a corner and vanished into the cold, dim halls of the castle.
Caught between waking and sleep, the King’s words echoed:
Be still.
A flurry of knocking. Urgency trembled through the oaken doors guarding his chambers. “Master Yaad, arise!” came a voice, blunted like its owner was shouting from the far side of a meadow. It took several repetitions for the words to make sense to his still-dreaming mind: “Quickly, quickly, the King is waking!”
He should have leapt from his bed. He should have called for the people to sound the bells, should have been spurred to teary relief for Grandfather, poor old King, returned to his senses at last. He should have at least pictured his face as it had been once: shriveled yet smiling, untouched by the spell of drink.
Instead Yaad saw a boy in plain clothes, held down by thin silken sheets. Pale hands folded into one another at his chest in mimicry of prayer. He was the only thing in the world that breathed.
Taking silence as its own command, the servants saw themselves in. They came chattering, prying the doors open to glide into their lord’s chambers. No need to bother with his hair or sheets; those had remained as they were before he slept, neat and pressed as the orchard rows. Soft hands banished the tiniest of creases anyway. Thin bristles stroked his scalp while a pressure at his shoulder bade him to sit upright, and in no time at all he found himself standing with his back turned to the mirror.
Words colored with meaning as they helped him out of his linens. Look, said the maids. Things had changed during his sleep, hadn’t he noticed? They tugged velvet curtains over the windows to put him at ease, each patterned with doves that fluttered along with the movement of one’s eyes. Overhead lanterns shimmered with rainbows trapped behind glass, while rosy candles flickered to life to perfume the darkening air.
“Excess!” they twittered—he couldn’t tell one from the others just yet; in the smattering light, they swam into one another’s shapes like wine mingling with water, drunk with excitement for something new. He was getting greedy, demanding so many tributes. How were the serfs meant to keep up? How would he fare if the tradesmen were to riot at his doorstep? They’d snatch his crown off his head in vengeance. Maybe the whole head!
“We jest! You’ve no crowns to take, anyway,” they amended, herding him into the washroom. “Although the tapestries would fetch a handsome price at the market... Oh, at least throw a fit, Master Yaad. You’re too quiet. Always too quiet.”
They sat him in the tub. A splash of cold ought to have washed the haze from his soul, but reclaiming oneself called for no less than weary patience—a newborn scarcity. Dreaming made its nest behind his eyes and hated to go. Though Grandfather was awake, the one who'd waited longest for his return was not. How lonely.
Fingers pressed against his wrist. “Do you think he’s…?”
Someone shushed her gently.
They scrubbed in between toes and fingers. Sponges left delicate spots of pink blooming over arms and legs. A sharp breath, drawn from the lungs like muck as they doused him again, holding his chin above water while lathering his hair with some herbal concoction. Though he’d spent his meditations in the company of memories already, he found himself able to string together a prayer as they washed him down, busy bodies all fuzzy through the gaps in his hair where it fell over his eyes. He learned himself piece by piece—skin, limbs, lungs, ribs; boy and prince and master of a hundred lost souls—tended like a field by strange and careful hands.
Once they'd gotten to drying him up, the one tying his belt said, “He was in high spirits, last we saw. You might just draw talk out of him yet.”
He shivered in spite of the day’s heat.
There had still been birds to sing the last time he’d spoken with Grandfather. Between then and now, the world had succumbed to grief. One could find no better proof of it than in the palace garden, where a small pond held a piece of the sky, its clouds fixed in the same cotton-puff shapes since Yaad had been young enough to climb the trees for amusement. Their leaves were unruffled by wind. Only the baying and shuffling of monsters in the nearby pastures disturbed an otherwise ubiquitous silence, alongside the occasional merry-making of restless villagers.
Rose bushes around the outdoor table preened in compensation. They might have smelled as lovely as they looked once, when his senses had yet to desert him and had filled him with love for all the world's miracles. Now, as he stirred honey into Grandfather’s tea, he let the gentle clinking of the spoon soothe him in their place. Not all of them had weathered time with grace. "How are we today?”
Grandfather breathed. They'd dressed him in his finer robes for the occasion: gems sparkling along his crown, the emblem of the Winged Lion guarding his heart. Yaad had come as he was; the thistles along his shoulders, spun from thread of purest gold, caught the light and held it jealously.
“You slept well, I hope. I’m glad to see you up and about. They said they found you wandering out here, calling for someone.” Steam wafted through the gaps in his fingers as he passed the cup over, the thud of porcelain on wood disrupting the quiet. "The weather has been... predictable.”
Grandfather breathed.
“If you’re wondering why I’ve not bothered to make my own,” Yaad said, gesturing to the tea, "I simply see no use for it. Maybe if I could still feel, though... I don't mean to be ungrateful. You understand, I hope. Look, you’re not touching yours.”
They used to dine in the castle. Warm stew had filled his belly as Grandfather spoke of Days of Old, his words tinged with desperation to keep the memories. He'd cinched the clock-bell tight between white-knuckled fingers. Every single story, like every single book, uttered Thistle’s name.
Then he ran out of stories. Not long after, food ran dry of flavor. They stopped eating together. They stopped eating altogether.
“I saw Thistle the other day," Yaad said. "Though not in the flesh—you only ever see the Red Dragon if you’re insolent. But I watched you dance with him in a dream. You seemed happy then.” Their shared happiness had burst, as if from a cage where it had been leashed to the bars and fed nothing but bones and spoiled milk. He recounted it as best he could, weaving story out of hazy memory. “He looked at me like I’d wronged him, and... I think the stillness followed soon after. It has to be him. Who else but Thistle would have this kind of power?”
Grandfather breathed. Sometimes, it was hard to notice he was asleep. Take him by the hand and he’d walk and smile like any living man, though Yaad long suspected that his eyes were unseeing, ears catching no sound, skin unable to feel. Age made a feast of him and turned its nose up at his people. It bit and pulled at the corners of their eyes, chewed between their fingers, painted their hair with streaks of white—but that was where it lost interest, leaving the rest tender and bland.
“I couldn’t know what he’s thinking. Not like you, but... I think the fault was partly mine. I did spurn his gift. It comes with being firstborn, I suppose, these incidents.” Father's anger lingered in his memory, but even now Yaad couldn't begin to piece the shape of him together. In lieu of wondering, he spared a polite glance at his reflection on the pond’s surface: colored pebbles huddled together underneath, but the fish had died out once their keeper had migrated to a new hobby. If he were to return, he'd come home to barren water. “But why leave the choice in my hands? I knew nothing then.”
He still didn’t. At times he wondered if the flaw lay in Thistle’s character rather than his. It was a private blasphemy, though hardly anything to smite one to the ground over... at least, he hoped so. Part of him also hoped it would summon the Mage to the castle regardless, raving his intentions for all to bear witness.
It was then that Grandfather’s lips parted, mumbling, “Madness..." He shuddered, as if straining to move within the confines of his own body. "He’s... gone…”
Yaad was kneeling at his side in an instant. “Can you hear me?” He laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s... dangerous thinking. But I remember. You knew him. You were the only one who knew him. Is there anything he might want from us? Reparations we can make?”
Grandfather breathed.
Yaad took his hand—a comfort to himself, more than anything. “Talk to me, please. Tell me a story. Tell me how you sat on the hill and watched the sky turn dark. Thistle was there, and he carried you up to see when you were just a babe and taught you the names of the stars that night. He stayed at your side until the day he was sent away.” He hesitated. Promises were delicate things, vulnerable to the turning whims of fate, but nonetheless this might be the only time Grandfather could hear: “What if I found him for you? If he returns what he’s taken from us, would you come back then?”
Grandfather was a good listener. Eyes wide open, unfailing smile.
Wearily, Yaad stood. “I’m so sorry. I slept in.” He returned to his seat, letting the weight of his vestments anchor him to the backrest. “Don’t strain yourself for me.”
Grandfather breathed.
In celebration of the King’s waking, the good people unfurled the festival banners. They brought their Lord Delgal to the nearest meadow in a carriage pulled by their finest unicorns, cheering in waves that he was well enough to amble to the cushioned throne they'd set up for him at the head of a long table. Yaad sat between him and the herdsmen and watched the world spin.
Each and every citizen burned, dreams catching on immortal souls like flame to phoenix feathers. Each staved it off in their own way. Some bustled here and there with the urgency of rabbits, balancing platters of meat and fresh-baked pies up and down their arms; others chased their herds over the hills. Much like the King, there were those—some might say ill-fortuned while others named them wise—who slept under their thatched roofs and never rose. Yaad watched the ones who still lived playing at indulgence. Each plate offered his way found its place off to the side, cold as the sky around the mountain. All pleasantries; no use for food.
Nonetheless, they made a game of urging him to partake. First a platter nudged in front of him, followed by its accompanying utensils, delivered piecemeal. He turned away a mug of ale, but let them trick him into accepting a cup of water. Eventually someone succeeded in handing him an apple, and at this he couldn't help but stare, passing a finger over its fresh bruises. He peeled back a strip of skin to reveal soft white flesh hiding underneath.
He excused himself for a walk.
Much of the time, his dreams were liquid, an ocean of roiling color; the vain attempts of a sheltered mind to lay the bricks of a world unseen, things that lay beyond this Kingdom. They came when he beheld the land, watched the hills sloping and rising and imagined wild wolves in the bushes, ready to steal them away before their forefathers could return to save them. He frightened himself on things that would never come; better, perhaps, than languishing on a hope that might be for naught.
This time, however, it was tangible. Solid ground that clacked under his soles. Assurance in his steps, as though he’d dwelt there, wherever it was, his whole life. There must have been a hundred mirrors stretching out across the hall that sprung at his feet, each gilded pane presenting his face like a young artist swelling with pride over shoddy work. Among them, one stood out as the sole exception: broad and foggy, studded with amethysts. He didn't even think to hesitate.
He reached out to touch it.
The Winged Lion blinked its jewel eyes from behind glass. Its gaze carried an innocence one could only find in a creature that had never found cause to fear nor tire, and when it bowed its head, its mane danced like a field of wheat under a strong wind. Perhaps that glass, cold under Yaad's fingertips, was at fault for what came next: not a sound reached his ears when the Beast opened its mouth and spoke. Regardless, in visions of meadows and streams and a dark timeless forest, it taught him the path to the Mage.
There was a cottage. Its door swung open to reveal the hall where he now stood, returning him to the the Lion, and there the Beast stretched and slinked out from the confines of the mirror, enfolding Yaad in its wings. When it withdrew, he found himself sitting across from a shadowed figure at a barren table.
A rhythmic flipping of pages sliced through the quiet. There the Mage pored over a tome, murmuring under his breath.
He stopped. He glanced up, eyes bright as crushed fruit. Trails of poison-violet magic dripped down his cheeks.
A sharp stinging against the legs. Blearily, Yaad passed a hand over the thorns. His palms bled.
He picked his way free of the brambles.
“Master Yaad, Master Yaad! You’re not leaving already, are you?”
“I’ll only be gone a while, to see the Mage.”
“Is that wise? You know what he did to all the others.”
“Those are just rumors…”
“You’d better not go! Who would judge the upcoming games?”
“Don’t die.” — “Don’t get cursed.” — “Don’t leave us!”
“Are you ill? You can still hear us, can’t you?”
“I can. I feel well, really—”
“But you won’t for long! You’ll get turned into trees or who-knows-what-else like the rest of them!”
“A rare flower, I reckon.”
“A rich pastry?” — “Custard...” — “I was thinking of cherry pie.” — “Master Yaad wouldn’t be cherry pie, you loon.”
“Ghastly business! Does he eat innocents too?”
“We’d not taste very good. No flavor. Hopefully he’s got seasoning.”
“How do you know that?”
“Master Yaad! Please don’t get eaten!”
“Settle down, please, everyone. I won’t be long.”
“You say that, but...”
A day’s journey on horseback. He passed dryad fields and soundless meadows haunted by the footsteps of long-lost golems. He stopped to let his steed graze in the hills for a time before moving on to skirt the shore of the lake. Every corner of the world was mapped to the stones, save for the beating heart of the Mage's forest.
This year’s offerings lay waiting on the threshold, resting at the feet of a vanguard of oak trees that lunged at the unicorn cantering their way. They descended like a flock of birds upon a worm, engulfing monster and rider together as they wove through neat towers of corn and fine craftsmanship, and dark air congealed until Yaad felt as though he were breathing water.
He drew rein, heaving a breath to steady himself. Losing himself to fear would only draw the looming branches closer. When his eyes fell on a wyvern sitting perched on an overhanging branch, it chittered like iron scraping on gravel and he offered a bow, declaring that he would see its master. It shortly vanished in a blur of sleek red scales.
The trail narrowed into a ribbon of detritus, slithering around brambles and old roots that arched their backs in warning against intrusive hooves. Light choked between the leaves, and the Mage’s many eyes tracked his descent from the hollows. He was said to judge trespassers with no less than cold vengeance; for that, Yaad's first nightmares had been populated with severed limbs and breakfasts of hot coals. Thistle had stolen away the rest of the people, Grandfather had claimed once, his words drenched in the acrid tang of wine.
In spite of that, Yaad clung to the memory of dreaming. The ghost of Grandfather’s laugh settled in his bones, seeping into the marrow that crafted their shared blood. He’d sworn to find the King's magician, see the world renewed. Perhaps Father, Mother, and Grandmother had sought the very same thing. Perhaps he now walked the path of their failure.
Or perhaps he, youngest of the King's line, with his wispy visions from heaven, would have to clear the path to good fortune for them all. He'd see to it no matter the cost Thistle laid out before him.
The shadows parted like a curtain, steed and rider breaking into a sunlit clearing. All of a sudden there it was, that great circle of light, casting its unblinking gaze upon a little house through a hole in the canopy. It was a ramshackle dwelling, if Yaad dared the insolence, all crumbling white brick and loose purple shingles with patchwork curtains draped over the windows. It marred the greenery, yet it could belong nowhere else but here.
He left his unicorn to graze. She would await him with the patience of generations and stomp richness into the earth, although here it seemed like it needed little blessing to thrive with lush, dewy grass. From her saddle, he took up a basket of fruit, silently running through his greetings as he made his way to the door. Epithets and pleasantries and platitudes, reasoning to make a sphinx purr; an elf demanded no less. He’d studied for occasions such as this, had spent long and curious stretches of daytime in the candlelit solitude of the castle library, recounting the foregone motions of allegiance and ambition that had once been the lifeblood of kingdoms. He kept Grandfather at the forefront of his thoughts.
He raised a hand to knock.
“Halt.”
And he froze, startled by the thrum of his own heartbeat. It pulsed in his ears, dangerously loud. There was a figure on the roof where there hadn’t been a moment ago.
Thistle held his chin high, embossed tome in hand. “You’ve strayed far.” He blinked magic-hued eyes, liquid and light trapped within them. His voice was clear as the sky. “Who have you come for?”
Composure threatened to shrink behind Yaad's knees. When at last he found his voice, it quivered at first before settling, like water going still. “I… I seek the one who shapes the leaves. He who keeps wind and storm at bay, who took the stars down from the sky and set them to watch over this land. I seek the peacekeeper, the Winged Lion’s divine messenger. The one who hid the sun behind the hills.”
Except he’d kept it for company after all. Thistle didn’t seem to mind the discrepancy. He stitched his brows together, pointed ears flicking just the slightest, and said, "You are… his. You’re here for him.” Vines curled around his ankles, reaching out through gaps in the roof. “Why else would you leave your castle?”
“I was called by a vision.” Yaad drew himself up. “I’ve come on behalf of my grandfather, King Delgal.”
The name softened him, turned his voice into dove feathers to cradle it. “King Delgal?” As the words left his tongue, his pupils split and danced like grapes bobbing in clear water. “It has been… far too long. Circumstances must be dire, if he sent his own kin to me. Does the King require my presence? Is he well?”
How much had he seen from afar? His eyes rarely found their way behind castle walls; all the best, Yaad had hesitated to think in privacy. He wouldn’t know of Grandfather’s helplessness. “He’s in fair health,” he answered, formality easing him along, “but he has lost his true smile, and so I swore to find the one who first gifted it to him. We were hoping you’d be open to a negotiation.”
“With regards to what?”
“The state of Melini. Matters of restoration.” Yaad took a step and bowed. “Hear my appeal, O’ Mage, for love of the King and his Golden Kingdom.”
Thistle loomed like a monument. Yaad thought his eyes deceived him when the ribbons strung around his neck fluttered, along with tiny strands of his hair. A leaf on the ground turned over, jostled by the barest suggestion of wind.
He snapped his book shut. “I’m listening. If you speak true, then… come inside. Let us address His Majesty’s concerns.”
A low, taunting creak of wood. The front door swung open on rusty hinges.
Yaad crossed the yard in slow, measured steps. He held firm on the basket, even as he found the sea of glass and gold waiting on the other side of the threshold, using his own eyes to stare back at him in wonderment. How unsettling it had become to see the same delicate, youthful features time and again. They never changed, never spoke true. At the castle, he’d long foregone mirrors in favor of paintings—faces uneroded by fleeting years.
No sign of the Lion. He murmured a prayer and tore his gaze free.
Tea scalded his tongue in the way he’d let it sometimes, whenever a trite burn helped to sting the monotony away. To spare himself the indignity of folding under an ancient gaze, Yaad drew the rein of his focus towards what little sensation sputtered: the warmth of it, the tangible curve of glass between the reddening pads of his fingers. Paintings that hung around the blistered walls offered no solace; within them were faceless people poised against hazy shapes—what might have been forests, or cages.
He passed off a gulp as one of polite satisfaction. “I’ve never seen a blend like this before. What is it?”
As if pulled from dreaming, Thistle straightened. “Jasmine, Lord Yaad.” He was unmoving as stone, the satin centerpiece of this cottage living room. Hair white as chalk, whiter than Grandfather’s silver crown; fingers dark like gently-watered earth, toying and twining around one another in strange but unthreatening motions.
“Ah,” Yaad said. “From the Far Eastern islands, yes?”
Thistle blinked. “You know of them.”
“The royal archives host a wealth of obscure knowledge. I’ve read many a tale of Lands Beyond in my time. Fierce kobolds and regal elves from the West, hard-spun men of the North, the war of the Ancients… although, at times, the poets do like to embellish.” He set down his cup before his hands ripened into cherries. “I find it makes for pleasant downtime. And, if it pleases you, just Yaad is fine—if what I’ve heard is true, then we’ve not much use for formalities between us.”
Small curls of steam rose from Thistle's cup, dancing for attention he refused to give. “Yaad,” he tried, sounding as though he were biting down on hard candy. “Pray tell, what exactly have you heard?”
“Grandfather often spoke of you. His stories outnumbered the stars.” But Yaad had never seen the stars, nor could he hope to trace the shape of a small child cradled in loving arms underneath them. All he knew of stars was that they’d been named and stolen in turn. “After all, it was you he called brother; you who sowed the seeds of magic into our home. Now that I am here, I’m no less than honored to be welcomed into yours.”
Thistle hummed, giving a firm nod in response. “And so you are. Any and all from your bloodline may come whenever they wish.” His shoulders fell by a hair. “This has been true before, and it remains true now. You speak nothing but the truth. With magic, not a desire in one's heart lies out of reach. All the world was built by magic. From the smallest of grasses to the sky above, everything is set in its rightful place, in His Majesty's name.”
“I see,” Yaad said, minding the flourishes with which he garnished his own reputation. And didn't the world belong to the Lion before the King? “That must be plenty of work. Not to say that one like yourself ever tires, but… speaking as a mortal—or at least mortal-born—it all sounded a little wearisome from the stories. Shaping the clouds, measuring the streams, counting the leaves...”
“I pride myself on thoroughness. After all, the Kingdom deserves peace eternal. In my hands, your safety is assured.”
“Safety from… invaders to the country?” Yaad guessed, uncertainty digging its roots into a well of inexperience.
“Thieves, usurpers, murderers," Thistle confirmed. "All manner of filth."
Relics of a time of strife. Over periods of wakefulness, provided good fortune favored him, Grandfather would go so far as to reminisce about the world before. He spoke of laughter and breathless chases across his father’s realm. He’d once held the juvenile hope that they'd never pass into his hands, that he’d never have to watch the crown be lifted from King Freinag’s cherished, lifeless brow.
In the same breadth, he’d shuddered at warnings of assassins and raiders come to pillage his inheritance, monsters bursting from the womb of the earth to steal the children away. The common folk’s cries had danced off his lips, and like a mournful starling he’d slurred out, King Delgal, save us! Brave and bold King Delgal!
Then there was the Mage. Reverence and terror made for suitable bedfellows. At some point Grandfather had crossed the threshold from one into the other, kept his stories close to his chest where they swelled and leaked a horrid miasma. Yaad would see him sulking. He’d grown ragged with his years, he hardly spoke at all anymore, except to set cinders to Thistle’s name. Keep away from his forest. Pay your respects, but never give thanks. Do not look into his eyes.
And yet... Thistle didn’t seem especially mad at the moment; neither flighty nor vengeful. He conducted himself like a mere guardsman, stern and expectant as any king's right hand should be, and before Yaad could get another word in, he spoke up. “You came to discuss restoration. If anything has happened to the Kingdom without my knowing…” He frowned, bunching the fabric at his knee as if to restrain himself from assailing Yaad with questions. “You said Delgal was in fair health, but his smile...?”
“Grandfather spends his days in comfort,” Yaad assured, “under the finest caregivers, myself included. However, he's suffered from loss as we all have."
Something glinted in Thistle’s eyes.
Turn your gaze away, said Grandfather’s voice, a ghostly figment. Yaad obeyed.
"The Kingdom lies still. We've cause to fear that this was your doing—perhaps wrongfully,” he continued, fixing his gaze on Thistle’s abandoned cup. Better than the paintings, or the dolls peeking out from high shelves, and certainly better than Thistle's cutting stare. It was unfortunate he’d left the fruit basket in the kitchen, pretty as it was. “I ask if you'd be willing to enlighten us as to what’s truly going on, whether there’s anything we must do to appease you, to undo any dishonor we—or rather, I—had shown you in the past. I need you to know that I meant no ill.”
Who would fault a child for its ignorance?
And there began a shift in Thistle’s demeanor, but he didn’t jump on the chance to speak of his grievances. No accusations or haughty speeches rehearsed in his solitude. He held off on demands for compensation, saying instead, “The Kingdom’s curse... You think this a punishment inflicted upon you.”
Choosing his words carefully, Yaad went on, “The Kingdom burns under an endless day. Wind no longer blows. Clouds have forgotten how to rain. Trees stand perfectly still unless disturbed by the animals—and the animals have vanished.” He held out his hands, soft like a newborn’s, wrong. “Our forefathers had the privilege of growing, but they are long gone. We the children, however, remain as we were, left to while our days away in monotony. At first we thought it to be a blessing from the Winged Lion, but as endless dreaming consumes us, we’ve begun to fear we might end up as corpses walking: seeing but uncomprehending, hearing without listening, touching without being able to feel.”
Without pause Thistle said, “That sounds rather serious. Just how many have fallen?”
"A dozen and nine thus far. They sleep in their homes as we speak."
"And the rest?"
"I see to it that they remain in good health, lest the same fate befall them. Again, I mean you no disrespect by any of this, I swear it. We just want to see an end to our suffering.”
Thistle seemed to think on it. “Is that right? Because what I am hearing,” he said slowly, “is excuses."
Yaad fell silent.
"For your own self-negligence," he clarified. He straightened a wrinkle in his sleeve. "You said it yourself—the people's wellbeing is your charge. Beyond that, what is there to worry about? That daylight shines without end, sparing you all from the horrors of the dark? That invaders won't ever set foot in these lands? That you'll never want for pleasant dreams? Is that your suffering?” He mirrored Yaad’s silence for a long moment, then shook his head and stood up. “You’re sorely mistaken, Your Highness. I am not… angry. I have never been angry. Not at you, nor any citizen. Understand that what you now possess is a gift—one I went to painstaking measures to bestow.”
“A… gift? That isn’t what…” Yaad trailed off. Heart stuttering, his fingers reached out to curl around the handle of his teacup. “You're claiming this for yourself? So it was you after all, then. You’ve done this of your own accord.”
“I’ve done nothing but keep you all safe.” A shadow passed over Thistle’s face. “If you’ve come here solely to flaunt ignorance, you’re wasting your time and mine. What did Delgal have to say about any of this?”
“Grandfather and the Winged Lion itself sent me.”
“No.”
Yaad flinched. Treason and blasphemy in a single word: “‘No'?”
Thistle had pushed his cup aside to free space for his tome. Pages fanned out like a shapeshifter’s tails. All of a sudden, he looked as he had in the vision. “That can't be..." He gripped the edges of the book hard enough to leave marks. "I know what you need.”
"... You do?”
“Amusements,” he declared. He took up a flute that sat off to the side of the table and waved it in small, circular motions, an inexplicable smile on his face. “You’re bored out of your skulls, all of you. I’ve failed to provide adequate entertainment, busy as I am, isn’t that right? It’s been too long since I’ve dropped off any gifts.”
Without waiting for an answer, he went and disappeared behind one of the far doors, leaving Yaad in the forlorn company of paintings, stacks of books, and bells that hung silently along the walls. He emerged after a little while holding a wrapped box tied off with a bow, which he set pointedly down on the table. “Treasures for your people. This should occupy them for the next millennium.”
And he folded his hands behind him, looking deeply satisfied for having provided something Yaad hadn’t wanted at all.
Yaad swallowed hard. “The next… millennium? But this is, uh…” He stumbled on his words. “This isn’t what I was—”
As though an unseen clock had chimed, Thistle made a shooing motion, ushering him out of his seat and into the hall. “No thanks necessary. So many gifts, you couldn’t even count. Go on, now, go, and show this to Delgal. If he requires me for anything at all, simply pass a letter to a wyvern and I shall see to it at once.”
“But the curse—I mean, your spell—”
"There is no curse,” Thistle said. He wrenched the door open and all but shoved Yaad outside. “You need only mind your people’s health from time to time. Such a duty falls to you as Lord, does it not?” He nodded as if he'd just managed to convince himself of something. "Take care on your way back, Highness."
“Wait—”
The door shut with a harsh, insolent click.
He stood there for an age. Daylight soaked through his garments. Somewhere behind him, his unicorn pawed at the ground, snorting to announce that she'd had more than her fill of grass.
He couldn't very well barge in again.
But he'd promised Grandfather...
It struck him then, or perhaps that was harsh for the apprehension with which it crossed his memory; it fluttered in, gentle as a whisper in the dim. He hadn't sworn a thing.
The box sat heavy in his hands, gleaming under the midday sun.
For lack of choice, he wandered back to his mount.