angsty april: that lay behind them
at long last, i've FINALLY been able to whip my muse into some pathetic semblance of inspiration. and just in time for my favorite month, too, goody!
first off, i'm sorry for neglecting this journal terribly...a truly ridiculous amount of stuff is going on in my life, and as a result, i'm so behind on all the amazing fic out there you guys have been writing that i should basically give up my cool person badge and go sell hemorrhoid cream :/ i need to spend this weekend catching up! i have a bunch of stuff tabbed already, but if any of you have fic to pimp, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do!
second, given that i'm kind of out of the writing groove, i apologize in advance if this fic sucks :P it sort of piggybacked off a flopsie i wrote tuesday night...and from there, went to hell in a handbasket. here goes anyway!
Theme: Angsty April Challenge - Day 1
Title: That Lay Behind Them
Warnings: sooo...a love story. of sorts. THAT SAID, it contains hints and/or explicit references to violence, sex, mental illness, rape, and character death. you know, par for the course...
That Lay Behind Them
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I.
The breeze hardly reaches them in the deep of this swamp.
Endymion lifts his face to it, lets it kiss his cheeks and kindle his eyes, but Kunzite turns away. It’s not that he feels any less need for air in this dripping murk they’ve been driven to.
Of late, the lush, mineral-rich smell of roses it carries brings him no pleasure.
He bends his white head over the black one. “My King?” he murmurs.
Endymion’s neck lolls on his lap. His nostrils twitch like a horse’s at the sweet wind.
“My King,” he repeats, repositioning the head with one hand. The other pushes a morsel of soft, raw meat - hardly bigger than a fingernail - past cracked lips. “I know you are tired, but you must eat. Eat and keep your strength.”
The swamp is silent but for his wheezing and the displeased croaking of frogs. Kunzite’s eyes remain on the spot of red between Endymion’s teeth.
He does not chew. Mouth slack, a little of the blood in the meat oozes to his gums.
When Kunzite glances up, the dusk has gone so blue, it’s almost black.
Another day passed, he thinks. Another day safe.
Another day - for the King to live.
…
“She will tire of him. What use has an immortal’s daughter for a frail heir of Earth?”
It had been Zoisite who first said what they all thought: Nephrite with halfhearted innuendos, Jadeite with cool courtier’s eyes always following the couple’s footsteps around corners, Kunzite himself with the weight of his silence on the matter. Zoisite could never control his acid tongue. But in the end, it didn’t matter. None of them stopped him from following that path, not to the very end. And when she tired of him and left silver dust in the garden for the last time - when moonlight was just a memory like last season’s fireflies - none of them kept their Prince from fading away with her.
“She was never here. Your Prince is yours, and always will be.”
Jadeite had been the one to reassure the crowds thronging the palace gates, demanding the familiar face of Earth's heir. Rumors too close to the truth spread through the capital. But even the king of illusions - of lies, Kunzite privately thought - could not make this tale take. There had been too many suspicious sightings; Endymion and Serenity had been far from discreet. Now he who had a ready word and smile for every challenge stumbled back as they started to throw stones.
“She loves you, as you love her. She must come back!”
Nephrite’s shaking rattled the Prince’s teeth in his jaws. Nobody else would speak to Endymion; his father had passed him in silence for weeks now, and his mother obeyed her husband in all matters. It was left to his guard to tell the world outside that Serenity had never been, and to tell their charge inside that Serenity always would be. They all felt both falsehoods shift uneasily inside them. She had laughed and danced and played with their Prince prettily enough, as a child might a butterfly. But inevitably, she had outgrown such pastimes. What was his life but a spark to hers?
Kunzite glanced out the window just in time to see the gates go up in flames.
…
At times, Endymion is almost himself again.
As the sun rises over the dunes, his guard can see enough of his pale, haunted face to also see intellect returned to his eyes. The fierce presence he remembers - instead of the strange lights that burn there more often than not.
“Where - ” he coughs and takes a skin of water. “Where are we?”
“The desert. Two weeks riding hard from the capital.” Two months on foot.
“And no sign of pursuit?”
“None. Yet.” He hesitates. “You’ve done well. We’ll reach the mountain pass, and then we’ll escape into - ”
“Escape,” Endymion repeats softly. “But…how will we ever go back home, then?”
In lieu of reply, Kunzite stands and pulls his long knife out of his belt.
In the months since they've fled the palace, the knife has rusted with the blood of those who hunt them, not of the rodents he’s hunted for their meals. Endymion eats only in fits and starts, and seeing food rot in his mouth makes Kunzite lose his own appetite.
The knife has his own blood on it as well, blood from the millions of tiny red scratches etched all over his hands. Despite everything, he thinks, his hands still have a purpose. So he does not flinch when he flexes his fingers, reopens the cuts.
And he does not look at Endymion as he speaks: “There is no going back, my King.”
…
Waves of men broke upon the palace faster than Nephrite could throw more men up against them. Angry faces filled every window and angry fists battered every door. The screaming was like nothing Kunzite had heard in his life: it did not stop for breath until its breath was stopped. Another would pick up the noise. Another would go silent. In the throne room, the King and Queen huddled together with Jadeite standing before them, eyes sharp and - oddly - exhilarated.
Endymion made to join his parents, but Kunzite heard a groan at the heavy double doors, and threw his arm out in front of him. Startled, his charge shrank back into the shadows.
The doors were thrown open, and a tall, bloodsoaked figure raced in.
“Run,” he gasped. “Go! They’re here. They’re here. Zoisite is - ”
Before he could finish, a knife lodged itself in his gullet and twisted. His handsome face contorted as the mess of his throat was pushed out by the blade. The Queen shrieked.
In Nephrite’s hand as he fell to the floor - a familiar hank of fiery curls.
…
Night is worse. Memory is cruel. And here, so deep in the earth they can hardly see a way out...night is everlasting.
“This cave…” he murmurs at length. “How did you know to come here, Kunzite?”
He looks over at the slouched silhouette against the wall, trying to make out his mood. Kunzite can't help but notice. Once, that raven hair reflected light even in the darkest room; once, that head wore a golden crown. Now it loses luster and sheds a little more every time he raises a trembling hand to scratch his scalp.
“It is my duty to know the hidden places of your kingdom. Your ancestors always came to this sanctuary when their need was great. We can rest here. Safely.”
“My ancestors, you say,” his voice carries an odd note. “So - the first Endymion.”
Kunzite stiffens, though he knows the other cannot see it. “Yes - he.”
“Like Neph’s stories,” a gurgle of high mirth in Endymion’s throat. “If you could hear how he mocks my house. His jokes about Selene’s ‘visits’ at night - ”
Kunzite’s fingers splay out involuntarily. He regains himself, curls each of them in one by one. “You should sleep, my King. We may have to move on if - ”
“Where is he, anyway?” the other inquires absently. “Where is that fool Nephrite?”
Night is worse. At night, he cannot see what is in Endymion’s eyes. If anybody is there at all, or only the charred bones and ashes of his madness. The dark of this cave hides everything, and makes him see the shining boy he knew and not merely the shadow of him. And then he cannot speak for the pity that wells up, and makes everything he would say a shadow of itself too.
In one way, then, night is better. At night, Endymion cannot see what is in his eyes, either.
…
Kunzite saw no more. He spun around, arms closing around Endymion as the other charged forward, burying the other’s head in his shoulder.
“Hush, now,” he spoke into Endymion’s forehead, a shock of unruly hair tickling his mouth. “Don’t look. Don’t listen. Close your ears, my Prince, and close your eyes.”
He heard Jadeite fall before he even finished.
Endymion shuddered in his arms; Kunzite held him tighter and prayed his strength would be enough to still him, enough to keep the mob from seeing who they really sought. He prayed the boy-prince did not hear his old father suffer too long. He prayed the newly made boy-king did not hear his young mother suffer the longest.
When it was finally over, when the mob filed from the chamber, Kunzite still could not let go. His muscle resisted him. So he lifted Endymion - limp and unresisting -and carried him out. He found the secret door that led to the hidden tunnel. He emerged into the starry night. And he did not look back. He did not know then, how familiar this weight would become.
After what seemed like hours of silence, he finally looked down at the boy's face.
What Kunzite saw there was more horrible than anything that lay behind them.
...
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...
II.
Fresh roses tickle inside his nose, as though petals press to his face. Awakened from a restless, shivering doze, Kunzite leaps to his feet, eyes scanning his surroundings.
They have lived in this cave for weeks now, their backs grown to it like stalagmites. Hardly moving unless they have to, conserving energy through the winter. Resting while they can. So it takes no more than a cursory glance to see - Endymion has gone missing.
Every stiff part of his body cries in protest as he sprints to the mouth of the cave. The cold light grows progressively stronger, lukewarm sun heating his flesh gone pale -
He bursts out into painful, frozen brightness.
In the months he’s climbed to ever higher ground with the King on his back, he’s hardly seen a leaf or flower left, not so much as a skinny goat strayed too far from its herd. Only a few determined shrubs pick out their living on the flat, infertile rock. He supposes Endymion’s shepherd ancestors have long since sought greener pastures, literally. It is too barren here even for frost, which might have fed plants beneath it. Wind slices into his face, unslowed by a single tree or bush.
He does not leave the cave to hunt unless under the cover of night, and so daylight takes a few seconds to adjust to. But when Kunzite stops blinking, he sees the source of the impossible fragrance, and draws a slow, ragged breath.
The entire plateau of stone is awash in red.
The blooms are fully opened and unshy, some the shameless hue of crushed beetles and others the deeper shade of oxblood. Their petals sway back and forth, languorous, scenting the frigid air; their faces tilt up eagerly to his gaze, baring their fragile, flushed centers. Red so shocking that for a moment Kunzite wonders if he’s opened his eyes all. But then he steps forward and feels what’s underneath.
Thorns.
Not ten paces away, Endymion stands exposed to the raw elements. A tangle of roses; a vine twists adoringly around his legs like the back of a spoiled housecat. His eyes are closed and his lips are parted. His bones seem carved out of melting snow. In full daylight, Kunzite can see how pathetic his appearance has become.
“I...” it takes him a moment to realize the other is speaking. “I couldn’t help myself. I tried to control it, like you told me. But my mind wanders. I dreamed of home - ”
“Go inside,” Kunzite orders.
“ - and when I woke, I could smell it all around me.” His voice grows louder, more agitated. “The warm garden, the sun on the stone, the roses I made in her hands - ”
He wades through the knee-high thicket, unmindful of warm welts blossoming all over his calves, and seizes his charge on either side of his gaunt face. “Go. Inside.”
Endymion scoffs. Spittle flies. “You’re not my father or mother.”
“I am both, now,” he says, very slowly. “Save your fight for those who made me so.”
As the young King stares at him, Kunzite observes the gradual passage of comprehension, like matches struck behind the waxy features. His expression untwists from petulance to confusion - to understanding.
Kunzite’s hands drop as the boy jerks away, eyes flaring wildly, and backs into the cave.
After a moment, he walks to the edge, feet picking out a way over the pointed underbrush. His unsparing gaze sweeps over the panorama.
Beautiful, in the loneliest and emptiest of ways. Beyond, blue-white peaks disappear into the ungenerous sun. Nobody occupies these crags and shadows except lean eagles and the cringing rodents they feed on. And now, their fugitive King.
And himself.
He turns back and crouches. Thrusts his arms full into the sweet-smelling thicket, and feels the thorns push back. Kunzite holds tighter, lets them sink into his palms and wrists and chest as he struggles. The pain would be astounding, were he not already accustomed to it.
Welling blood makes his embrace too slick; it takes one desperate heave and then he’s standing again, an armful of flowers and stems and roots grown large from nothing more than stone. All too red to just be the lost lives of a few roses.
Kunzite almost misses it as he turns to the cave with his cargo.
On the opposing cliff, a thing that was not there last night -
A bright enemy campfire bends the wind, and sends up its signal plumes.
...
Magic was a sense like any of the other five, a limb like a hand or foot. But the difference lay in this: it took as much as it gave, mastered and served in equal measure, and easily betrayed its maker. Magic was capricious to the point of cruelty. It weakened the weak and strengthened the strong.
The first time a search party found them, Kunzite thought little of it. He hardly had time to, as they tripped over roots and ducked under branches and arrows hurtled past their ears. They could still see the occupied palace in the distance, after all. These forests were probably thick with prize hunters. Endymion’s bounty was obscenely high.
The second time they just barely escaped, Kunzite blamed himself. He was a warrior, not a woodsman, and perhaps his naivete allowed predators to find prey where Nephrite’s experience would have evaded them. Perhaps he had been a fool to live and let his men die. Implicit in that decision had been a clear, unalloyed understanding - that he was best equipped to keep Endymion from harm.
The third time, after the young King had fallen asleep - his guard finally went to check their tracks.
Instead of footprints - he found flowers.
Roses. Where none had ever grown.
…
Burning them would attract more attention than leaving them - they do not even dare light fires to keep warm or cook their meat. And of course, any use of Kunzite’s destructive power would be as much a beacon to their enemies as lightning striking the earth.
Endymion’s eyes - lucid, now - skim over the angry traceries on Kunzite's arms and legs as he deposits the last armful of foliage in the safety of the cave. He swallows hard.
“I’m sorry.”
He sheathes his knife, now sticky with the lymph of the plants.
“You cannot help yourself, and so should not apologize.”
“They’ve found us, haven't they?” He waits, but his distress suspends anxiously in the silence. “And we - we have to move again, don’t we?”
His guard makes no reply, only continues gathering their supplies.
“A bed of roses - growing on a frozen rock,” Endymion whispers. “Damn it.”
Kunzite passes his palm briefly over his eyes, composing himself - and then stands. “Climb on my back. I’ll carry you down the ravine.”
“You should throw me down the ravine,” he snaps, not moving, crossing and uncrossing his fingers as he rocks back and forth. His words are frantic, but not fevered. “Kill me - before my madness kills us both.”
“My King - ”
“Please.” He turns away; moisture glistens in the corners of his eyes. “There’s no one else left to die for me, save for you. Leave me to the hunters and go.”
Losing patience, he bends down and yanks Endymion’s arms over his neck, pulling up until his bony hips don’t dig bruises into his own. The other doesn’t protest. Lashes thick and glossy as a girl’s quiver wet and hesitant against Kunzite’s nape.
“No one is laying a hand on you,” he informs the boy on his back. “Least of all me.”
“They can’t stop.” The words sound unnaturally quiet in his ear. “Not while I’m missing. Not while black-haired boys still pretend at my throne. They need a body to show the mob.” There is new urgency in his voice. “They can’t stop, Kunzite, and I can’t either. My mind and magic are leaving me. My roses lead them to us. Listen to me - while I still make sense!”
“You’ll gain your mind and magic back. What you've had to endure - ”
“You never used to make excuses for me.”
Kunzite falls silent, and Endymion does not bother to say more. He has won.
They trudge out into the blinding day, and start the slow climb down.
Behind them, the plateau is bare. A few petals blow across its surface, and wither.
…
On that day when he found the trail Endymion had unwittingly left behind them, Kunzite returned to their camp with a lightning in his pale eyes none had seen before.
Releasing his magic, leaving those traces - like a dog pissing a post, or a toddler wetting the bed. He could hardly believe it of the boy he had raised to know better.
He found him asleep where he’d left him. The smallest of smiles lifted his lips, and Kunzite knew he dreamed of her. Unwilling to wake his King - even to reprimand him - he settled against the nearest tree wide enough to support his back, stretched out his legs, and let his mind wander.
He did not blame Serenity for all that had come to pass, though his men had cursed her name long and loud many nights before they died. If she thought less of their Prince and their world than Kunzite thought of ants under his boots, could she help this? No. Every man and woman had their part to play. He would be a fool to demand that she not play her part well.
He did not blame Endymion, either, though those who hunted them shouted to their followers that he would sell them to his Moon whore if she cared to buy. He knew this was not true. With her by his side, Endymion had been rash and selfish. Without her, he was erratic and uncivil. Kunzite knew his faults as well as he knew his virtues. He knew that with time, the vacancy left by her would fill. He knew the makings of a king were in him.
Now, as he looked at the boy at his feet, he was not so sure. What he had not-seen and not-heard in that throne room had changed him, and Kunzite did not know how long it would take for him to return to himself (if ever, a traitorous part of his mind murmured).
Without anticipation, he found his palm pressing the damp, chilled forehead.
Lover, father, mother, brothers - all lost.
Who was left now to root Endymion to this inhospitable earth?
Endymion woke much later, squinting each eye open in slow succession. Beside him, Kunzite's unslept features were composed as ever. He twirled between his thumb and forefinger a rose broken from its stem, scarlet against the gray mist. His hold had already slipped; the first drop of blood welled forth, but he did not appear to notice.
“You are the one who has been leading them to us,” he said casually.
Endymion opened his mouth, but no sound emerged from the confused ‘O’.
Something in his guard's eyes shifted. Perhaps the clouds merely passed shadows over them. He touched the boy’s cheek, and his fingers lingered, leaving a smear of deep red. “It doesn’t matter. I will keep you safe.”
Endymion blinked and pulled back. “I want to go home.” He scrambled to his feet, faster than Kunzite had seen him do for days. “Can we? I know the way.”
His guard shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated, but this time almost to himself, a sound stolen by the wind like all the things he used to want and expect for the young King beside him. He took Endymion's wrist.
“I will keep you safe.”
…
...
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III.
That first day of spring finds them taking refuge in a ruin so ancient, Kunzite wonders if it was even made by mortal hands. Despite its obvious age, it is the tallest structure for miles, and its many steps are a torment.
“Serenity tells me her mother saw watchtowers built here, when she herself was a young girl,” Endymion comments idly. "But of course...you know that."
His weight has lessened enough that carrying him is not the burden it used to be, all those months ago. Small mercies. Nonetheless, by the time they reach the top to have a look at the territory, Kunzite is sucking air into his starved lungs.
The King reaches out, strokes his sweaty brow. “You know everything.”
There are many things Kunzite does not know. How to force strength and soundness of thought back into his King. How to keep him alive long enough for any of it to matter. How to stomp out the path of roses he sees leading all the way up to where they stand now, even up the old and crumbling stone stairs. How to kill the search party he sees in the distance - paused to graze their horses, certain of their victory now that their way blazes clearly before them. How to kill the search party that will follow them. And so on.
As he watches, they mount their horses again. They’re a mile off. Less.
Without asking, Endymion throws his skeletal elbows over his guard’s shoulders and obediently waits for a boost. His hands crossing Kunzite’s chest feel like paper. He used to carry him back to the palace like this when he was young and insistent on playing until his arms and legs gave out. Kunzite no longer recalls the feel of those hot, moist fists. That small boy’s hands, clasped trustingly around his nape while he slept.
…
Endymion’s unchecked magic had achieved a thing Kunzite hoped it would long before he knew their fate would be thus: it outstripped his own ability to counter it. It seemed it outstripped Endymion’s capacity to control it, as well. Everywhere they went, over stone and sand and snow, they left a red trail for their foes to follow. There was no use trying to uproot it; it stretched too far back.
Flowers all but leapt from his footprints, like the pagan gods of old. Kunzite imagined his men laughed and cried with them from the heavens. The irony of it: the King turned this world like a marble in his pocket, rightfully his. His power was everything the stars promised, and brought them nothing but pain.
Their only hope was to run faster than their enemies rode.
...
On a damp night that promises morning storm, he wakes to Endymion’s boiling breath on his shoulder, scratching teeth on his skin. “I need you,” he hears him rasp. “I - ” he pushes against him.
Kunzite holds very still, back and chest and belly tightening so much that he almost shakes. If Endymion notices his reaction, he does not say. He nuzzles his forehead into the sensitized hollow between Kunzite’s shoulderblades, hot lower lip catching on bands of muscle.
It is not the first time, and so he does not need to look behind to know.
Endymion's eyes are wide and unseeing.
He spends himself quickly. Kunzite feels nothing through the barrier of their clothes; he knows the other is finished when he sighs into his hair.
“Serenity,” he mutters, just once, and then he sleeps.
Kunzite does not.
His eyes, too, are wide and unseeing. Morning finds them already filled with dew.
...
Whatever fed on Endymion’s body and soul made a full, leisurely meal. As days passed uncounted, he looked less and less like the smirking brat he once was, and more and more like a sad-mouthed sage. Perhaps if he spoke of it, his suffering would ease. But in this way, they were too alike. Endymion would not - or could not - talk of the past. When his mind strayed backward, so too did his magic.
Kunzite did not admit it, but those weeks - months - took their toll. New cuts crisscrossed over old, and he moved ever slower against the thickening scar tissue. The deeper into the wilderness they reached, the further the King went from his senses. He was only very occasionally lucid. What troubled Kunzite most: at some point, he lost the ability to tell the difference.
In fact, he wished he could live in the fool’s paradise his King did. He found himself less and less perturbed by the simple joy of Endymion’s madness. He almost felt ashamed for his attempts to bring him back to their present. Was that not selfishness on his part, to tether him to this life where they only had each other?
Kunzite was alone. And at times, when Endymion laid hands on him, he could not help but choose to believe.
...
They have been running so hard and so long, Kunzite cannot hear anything in his ears but the sound of his footfalls and the throb of his fear. But when a stretch of days goes by without the drum of hooves, and days turn to weeks...he almost dares to hope they've lost them. Enough to let their heels cool a minute. A real blessing, in the full heat of summer.
The air on the plains blurs and sways before him; the only breath stirring his hair is Endymion's erratic exhaling. He jounces along on Kunzite's back, so quiet, but every time his guard looks back to make sure he's not slipping in his sleep, he's looking around with interest.
"Water," he says suddenly, pointing a pale finger. "Look!"
His guard shakes his head, but his gaze automatically scans the golden expanse, dry and snapping as tinder. "They call that the devil wind, my King. No water would last long in a thirsty land like this."
"I have eyes in my head, you know," Endymion retorts. He jumps off his guard's back lightly, knees like sticks only buckling a little as he lands, and seizes Kunzite's elbow with surprising strength. "I want to see."
Kunzite allows himself to be led. Rare enough that they have time to indulge any of the King's small whims. When he glances behind, he sees no red roses, only yellow grass and blue sky, and though his hands are moist with sweat, there are hardly any new gashes to sting with it.
It is a good day, he thinks, and watches Endymion's steps quicken with purpose. He has seen something -
"I told you!" Endymion crows, shoving through stalks that thin into pond weed, running headlong into the water with filthy clothes and all. He lets out a ringing whoop and dives his head into the shallow water - gone a few seconds too long - before he surfaces and shakes out his shaggy hair like a dog. He swallows an exaggerated mouthful, grinning all the while. "Kunzite! It's fresh!"
Kunzite follows, albeit at a more sedate pace. He's careful to weight their supplies with a heavy rock, not wanting a brisk wind or a quick rat to have a chance at their dried food. His eyes scan the horizon as he divests himself of his belt, and his knife along with it. No point taking chances.
Something soars into his field of vision, coming straight for his face - he catches it by reflex without knowing what it is. Only that it's dripping wet, and - as his nostrils flare - smells salty.
"I'll be a meal for the fishes by the time you finish folding our things like a damn maid," Endymion calls out cheekily. He floats on the shallow water, ribs sticking out with air, naked and sallow.
Kunzite looks at the sodden clothes in his hand, then at his charge.
Some time later, they both lie half-submerged in the cool surface, dark and light eyes lidded against the implacable sky. Their arms and legs drift together and apart, never touching and never distant; their chests rise and fall in syncopated rhythm. The grass murmurs that they are alone. At peace.
Am I asleep or awake? he wonders vaguely, hope flashing white in his mind. Could they really have stumbled so easily into this place where the best of the past was made present, and the worst of the present was washed away like dust?
"I like this best," Endymion interrupts the slow tilt of his thoughts.
Kunzite does not care to determine his state of mind. Not today.
"So do I," he answers softly.
...
On some immaterial evening, Kunzite finally came to understand that this was their life. It was not a memory they would shake their heads at once Endymion had his kingdom back. He had clung too stubbornly, too long to this belief.
It was his way. To hold on too tight.
...
“I think the first Endymion had the right idea,” he tells Kunzite one day. “What’s so terrible about a goddess putting you to sleep forever? Far kinder than what men do to each other. I was taught not to repeat my ancestor’s mistake. You taught me that. But would it really be so bad?”
“I have no desire to debate with you,” Kunzite answers, yawning. “It is an allegory - one you might well have heeded. To never become a plaything of the immortals.”
The field they are resting in is thick with green and purple flax, and for a time, even Kunzite can indulge the brief fantasy that they are home. It would be harvest season in the Golden Kingdom. They left when the buds were just starting to close against frost. He thinks how far they've come, how far the enemy is behind them, and the dread that clenches its fingers in his chest relaxes its grip ever so slightly.
“Better that than to become a mark of the mortals,” Endymion snorts. He speaks with force, with apparent meaning, but his eyes are unfocused and jump around, settling finally somewhere behind and beyond his guard. “Better that than for men to be butchered and women to be raped."
The last is delivered softest of all. "Better forever sleeping than forever running.”
He looks over, startled. He’s never heard the King speak of what happened to his parents, not in the beginning when he was yet rational, and certainly not now that most of what he says is a muddle of rote repetition and null remembrance.
“Why do you say that now, my King?” he asks cautiously.
Endymion smiles - but his gaze remains oddly fixed on a point just over Kunzite's shoulder.
“Because they’re coming.”
…
He lay beside him, searching his face for signs of the boy he once knew. He found none. The boy was melted away - refined - only the man remained. In his unlooked-for adulthood, he commanded all the colors of midnight. Of sorrow. Purple veins standing out, black where night still held sway in his hair, blue in irises gone milky and sometimes-seeing.
“Where are we going next?” Endymion inquired after a time.
Kunzite let out a short, stunned laugh.
“I don’t know,” he confessed.
...
Behind him, sunlight glints off a coming storm of swords and pikes.
Kunzite whirls back around, breath coming in quick, hard gasps -
But Endymion is merely watching their approach.
Has been watching, Kunzite realizes. His expression is devoid of fear, or rage, or anything, really. At most, it is pleasantly curious. As the King stands slowly, the first volley of arrows whistles overhead like birdsong.
After a moment, Kunzite stands, too.
The ground is already moving, responding to its master's call. The first vines break free of the soil; the thorns emerge to defend them; the leaves unfurl. And then - the roses. They burst open like wounds in the earth: fleshly, vivid.
Within seconds, the field is suffused with scarlet as far as the eye can see.
For a moment, it seems as though all the clanking of the war machine behind him has been drowned out. The world is mute, waiting for him to give it voice. Kunzite inhales deep - and decides, then.
What he must do.
He takes a step forward, and Endymion's dark eyes flicker calmly to his.
“Come,” he says gently, and reaches for his charge.
More arrows shrieking overhead, closer this time.
Kunzite pays them no mind. He is looking at his palms, which rest loosely on the other's shoulders. Studying the complicated network of lacerations.
They have found their last purpose.
“You trust me?”
He feels the slight nod; peach-down rubs against his bristled chin.
"Then don't look. Don't listen."
Endymion stands willingly in his embrace, though he makes no effort to clasp him back. Taller than he was in that throne room, so long ago, but so emaciated his heart and pulse push out his skin. He smells not of roses, but of the soil roses grow from, secret and animalic.
“Close your ears,” he whispers against one black brow. “Close your - ”
The neck snaps in one twist of his powerful hands.
As the body falls away from him, eyes flattened and limbs boneless - he takes in a shuddering breath. Everything around him is red: shifting red, sighing red, slipping red. Everything so sharp, so clear. So lifelike.
Kunzite does not bother to turn, to draw his knife. It is almost over anyway, booted feet trampling the roses, releasing their pungency of iron and wine. Any second, they will put their metal through him. They will punish him for robbing them of their prey. He exhales slowly.
As they fall upon him, his last thought sprays out under the sun -
- he had not known where they would go next.
Perhaps now, they can go home.
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p.s.: for anyone unfamiliar with the legend of endymion and selene - here you go.