This Game We Play~ Act I:4 -- Benoni . . .
A/N: A House of M AU …
This Game We Play
Act I ~ The Opening
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Previous Parts …
:~: A Silician Defense:~: The Sacrificial Pawn:~: Giuoco Piano:~:
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Part IV
Benoni . . .
“Would you like some more, Sire?” the cook wrung her apron nervously.
“Hmm, what is this?”
“You’re going to get sick eating so many sweets this early.”
“I don’t get sick,” Dorrek said after swallowing a mouthful, then turned to the cook, “And yes please.”
William tried not to feel disgusted as the skrull prince started on his dozenth pastry, “Then you’ll have quite the fun introduction to the joys of gastrointestinal issues. God, they aren’t that good.”
“It is said that one does not appreciate what is taken for granted until it is gone. What are these called?”
William rolled his eyes, “It’s rugelach.”
Dorrek furrowed his brow, “Rugelach? That is English?”
“No it comes from Yiddish,” William shook his head when the other boy- was that even applicable?- looked at him blankly, “Nevermind.”
“It is Jewish, is it not?” Dorrek inquired with a sidelong look. William tried and failed not to let the surprise show.
“Yes … How do you know that?”
“It takes nearly a month to travel here from our Throneworld. I had a lot of time to study Earth and her cultures, and …” Dorrek shrugged, nodding a thank you to the cook when she bustled over with another plate of pastries, “I tried to learn as much of your family history as I had access to.”
“What?” William scowled, “To impress me?”
Dorrek gave him a flat look, blue eyes piercing his own, “I thought it might help me understandyou.”
William turned his eyes away, sloshing around a piece of pancake in the syrup pooled on his plate. This was all so ridiculous. He wanted to hate this- boy, but he just made it so difficult to dislike him on anything other than simple principle. He was not disrespectful, or uncouth, or even unkind… William was grasping for a fair reason to hate him and it infuriated him to no end that the skrull would not give him that.
“William,” Dorrek’s hand reached across the table for his, “This would be a lot simpler if we could learn to be friends.”
“This is not simple. None of this is simple. It will never be simple, Prince Dorrek,” William pulled his hand away with a glower, “One of the servants can guide you back when you are done. Please enjoy the rest of your breakfast.”
He rose and left the room without a second glance back, refusing to think about what the skrull’s disappointed look might mean.
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“Thom-”
“Jesus! Will! Make some noise!” Thomas jumped in his seat where he sat hunched over a game on his mobile instead of paying attention to the thick historical tome he was meant to be reading for his lessons.
“Grandfather frowns upon you saying that,” William raised a brow at him.
“He isn’t around to hear is he?” Thomas shot back, “What are you doing here? I heard the maids whispering about you having a private breakfast with your lizard prince.”
“Stop waggling your eyebrows or I will shave them off while you sleep,” Will growled.
“I’d like to see you try-”
“And it isn’t what you think,” he continued, ignoring his brother’s challenge, “It was nothing, we simply ran into each other in the garden and we were both hungry so I led him to the kitchens. But I do not want to spend any more time with him than I need to.”
“So you come to bother me? You are acting like a girl avoiding a bad date,” Thomas pulled a face and went back to his game.
“Thom,” William rubbed at his eyes, taking a deep breathe, “Can you sneak us in to see Mother?”
“Us?”
“Don’t you want to see Mother?”
“Not more than I want to be skinned by Grandfather.”
“Thom,” William crouched by his brother, dark eyes pleading as he looked up into his twin’s green pair.
Thomas frowned, “I ought to punch you in the face.”
“Please-”
“Shut up already!”
But Thomas was already pulling them down the hall.
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The buzz of vibrating through the wall seemed to echo in his ears as they made it into the quiet solitude of the room. William swallowed down his nausea as his late breakfast suddenly rebelled in his stomach.
“Do not get sick on me,” Thomas hissed, fanning his brother until the color returned to his face.
“I’m fine now,” he wiped the sweat off his upper lip, taking a few cautious steps into the room.
The creak of old wood stopped them in their tracks. A chair swayed by the open balcony, wood protesting each swing back and forth on its rockers. William was the first to move towards the frail-looking form sitting there, kneeling beside her with slow quiet movements.
“Mama,” he kissed her hand with a soft reverent smile, “How are you feeling today?”
Her free hand was tangled in the remains of two small blankets draped in her lap. Wanda turned to him slowly, her elegant brow creasing in confusion as she studied his face, “Who are you?”
“Mama-” Will brought her hand to his cheek, soft and cool and a little too thin, “Mama, it’s me … It’s William.”
“Willi- Billy?” Wanda’s eyes widened in recognition, “Billy- when did you grow so big?”
Her hands cupped his face gently, stroking the hair away from his forehead, soft disbelieving touches.
“We turned fourteen last month, Mama. You made us the cake yourself, remember?” He wrapped his hands around hers, tucking them under his chin when the turmoil refused to leave her features.
“I-” Wanda shook her head a little, “Didn’t dream it?”
She looked so … hopeful; it tore his heart, yet he still managed to offer her a smile, “No Mama, you didn’t dream it. You baked us a cake, and Thomas and Uncle Pietro nearly ate it all up before the rest of us could even get a bite.”
“Tommy?” Her smile was thin and watery, “Where is-”
“Right here, Mama,” Thomas appeared, kneeling at her other side and taking her outstretched hand.
“You were both so small the last time I … Now look at you. My little boys … You’re growing up so fast …”
William smiled wistfully, holding back a sigh. He had hoped to come here and find her lucid, to seek solace in her advice and the warm comfort he knew she would offer … Hoping that somehow, she could rescue him from his current predicament. But seeing her like this-
“Mama, we shouldn’t stay much longer. Grandfather will be angry we disturbed your rest already.”
“You came here for something, didn’t you Billy?”
Of course she would know something was off. She was their mother.
“What’s wrong, love?”
“Will, we should go,” Thomas warned him off from saying anything further with a strict glare. She was not well enough to be burdened with the news of his betrothal, not when she could barely recognize them as her own sons.
“Yes …” Will sighed, “Mama, we will return to see you soon.”
“Where are you going?” Wanda was suddenly fraught.
“We aren’t supposed to be here, Mama. And we have lessons we should be completing,” Thomas was gentle in a way no one else ever got to see, kissing her cheek as he disentangled himself from her grasp, “We just wanted to visit you, but we must return before we are missed.”
“But- But you only just got here …” Wanda’s distress only heightened, grasping onto William’s tunic as she pinned him with pleading eyes. “Don’t go-”
“It’s alright, Mama, we’ll be back soon, I promise,” William squeezed her arm, trying to impart all the reassurance and trust back into her as she steadily declined into a frenzy.
“No, no-” She shook her head, tears spilling from her eyes, “I won’t lose you again-”
“Mama-”
The room seemed to quake and warp, electrifying sparks of their mother’s wild magic glowing in tangled lines around them.
“Not again,” Wanda murmured frantic, clutching the blankets to her breast, “I can’t again-”
“M-Mama-” he was at loss, never having seen his mother in such a state, unsure what her manic whispers meant. The glass in the windows splintered and cracked, shuddering violently in its frames.
“Wanda!!”
William found himself colliding with his brother as Pietro ripped him away from his mother to wrap her in a protective embrace.
“Get out!” he hid Wanda’s face away from them, blocking her view and shushing her gently, “It’s alright sister, everything is alright-”
“I’m sorry, I-” William flinched when their Uncle snarled more fiercely than before.
“GET OUT!!”
“Move Will-” Thomas pulled his stunned form towards the door, their skin tingling with the effects of their mother’s magic even after passing through the threshold into the hall.
“Thom, I’m-” William bumped hard into his brother’s back when the older twin abruptly stopped, “Thom, what-”
His voice died as he looked up, standing petrified before the stern, disapproving figure of the King.
“Grandfather-” his voice cracked, and he had to gulp down the heart that was trying to beat its way up his throat.
“Both of you, return to your rooms. I will decide on your discipline later.”
“Grandfather, it was my idea,” Thomas spoke up, serious and unwavering.
“You have grown very bold to lie to my face, Thomas.”
Will curled his fingers around his brother’s forearm, squeezing until Thomas’ hand covered one of his own, gripping tight.
“I only wanted to see her …” he offered in meek explanation.
“Well, now you have seen her,” the lines in their Grandfather’s face deepened with the frown he bestowed upon them, “And you have upset her further, where she might have been recovered enough to rejoin our company tomorrow if you had just allowed her to rest in peace as I instructed you to do. Who knows how long this spell will last now.”
“I- I’m sorry-”
“I will not tolerate insubordination in my house. This impulsiveness of yours is very unbecoming, William. You are no longer a child who will simply be sent to bed without supper- which I suggest you attend with a smile and more welcoming attitude towards your betrothed. I will nothave you insulting our guests in addition to all this.”
The king’s mantle rustled loudly as he stalked passed them into their mother’s room, shutting the door behind him with a firm click that dismissed them to a tense silence.
“Will?” Thomas ventured after a long moment, unable to get a look at his brother’s face when he seemed determined to count every speck in the marble floor beneath their feet, “You … alright?”
“No,” William pulled away with shake of his head, “No, I just …”
He didn’t notice his power activating.
“Will-”
Welling steadily in proportion with his bleak, desperate, and all-consuming desire to just-
“I just want to disappear.”
“Will-”
Thomas dove for his brother’s glowing form, but his arms closed around empty air as the light shimmered out of existence, taking his brother along with it.
“WILL!!”
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TBC . . .
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