(no subject)
Title: Silent Earth
Rating: R for general messed up-ed-ness. No sex.
Summary His king is everything
Notes: don't even know, okay. Based off of this song
edit: I LIED. Really based off thewhole album, I just didn't want to say anything until I had the playlist made. (Aren't you impressed withmy lj-formatting-fu?)
EDIT2: Jeeze, I suck at notes. This is totally for thestraychild as a christmas fic, and, ah, I hope she likes it?
EDIT 3: My beta (autumnestuary ) was beta'ly. Fixed last section, gave sorcerer better name, fixed typo. THERE IS ALWAY ONE.
WARNINGS: Inderict refernces to: blood, abuse, incest. Direct ref. to suicide (happy ending, I swear! You guys know I'm a huge sap)
My king is waiting for me when I return, poised and perfect and so pretty next to all my things. My things have their beauty too, of course, but their beauty comes from use, pretty pretty splatters that leave their mark forever, while my king’s has always been there, in the shape of his jaw, his eyes, his lips.
I had heard the advisors mumble, when they thought I wasn’t there, that the king pays more attention to his pet madman than to the possibility of marriage contracts.
Sometimes I considered telling them they were wasting their time, but I don’t like the advisors and the thought left my head before I could. Besides, it’s not my job to correct them, and if they won’t be bothered to know that the master on the other end of my strings is the sorcerer than I certainly am not the one to tell them. If I am a pet, it is not to my king.
“You’re thinking,” My king says mildly, stretching as he rises from my bed. It’s the one thing he always insists has no red on it, and despite how much I grumble I let the servants keep them white, boring.
“Yes,” I answer, fingers undoing the tie of my outer robe. It’s a rule now, after I’d given one too many ladies a scare, that I have to wear something over my work clothes when I come back. My king has tried to explain, has told me that my red bothers some, and I nod, accepting but still confused.
“That’s good.” My king says, and I smile as I let the rest of my robes fall to the bare stone, hitting it quietly wit a wet plop.
There’s red on my skin, I notice, and if my king wasn’t here I would leave it, but he is, so-
My king has noticed, of course, and already as a damp rag and a towel waiting for me. My smile grows as I wipe the red away, fetching an unsplattered set of clothes to slip into.
It’s only then that my king steps close enough to touch, even if the first thing he does is reclaim the rag and slowly clean out from under my nails. I let him, standing as still as I can. “What were you thinking about?” My king asks, and it takes me awhile - long enough for him to move onto my other hand-to remember, but my king doesn’t seem put out.
“Your advisors,” I tell him honestly, as he releases my hands, satisfied.
“Oh?” It’s not visible on his face, but I have spent my entire life listen to my king, and I can hear hidden worry there.
“It burns,” I remind him. “I can’t touch them.” I lean forward to rest my head on my king’s shoulder. I am not a small man, but my King towers over even me.
“That’s right,” He murmurs, wrapping an arm around me, and I think I might hate the relief in his voice.
“I was just thinking how silly they are,” I mutter, and if my weight isn’t quite as heavy on my king he doesn’t say anything about it.
“My advisors?” My king’s other hand is tangled in the mess I always pin my air up in, to keep the red off of it. I don’t mind red in my hair, but I know my king likes to be able to touch it, so I try and keep it dry.
I’m sure it’s something he already knows, but I tell him anyway. “They call me your pet.”
My king’s hand is slowly rubbing a pattern on the back of my head, and I tilt into it as I wait for his answer. “Some might see it that way,” He says carefully, and I make a hurt noise.
“I am loyal to you,” I say, and I try to make him hear, “but He is the one on the other ends of my chains.” I sweep my wrist out, and they jinglejinglejingle silently, invisibly. There is no iron there, but I can still feel it, the grip the sorcerer has on me.
My king frowns, and takes the hand that I have outstretched. He kisses the back of my palm once and leaves it clasped in his grip. “I hadn’t realized you cared so much.”
“I hate Him.” I say. “I kill for him, and I hate it.”
I can my king is shocked, and I am…disgusted. I’d known, of course, that my king hadn’t thought that much more about it than anyone else, but I’d thought he’d known…
“I hadn’t realized,” My king says softly. “I thought you were happy with your work.”
I try and find the words to explain it - I am happy, I enjoy what I do, but the sorcerer is the one who picks, and He is getting questionable in His choices, and I have no choice but to obey.
“Choices,” I finally manage, and I can feel the magic on me enforcing my silence on His plans.
No matter. I have my own plans. I’m mad, not stupid, and He’s left me loopholes.
My king looks enlightened, and I wish I could tell him more, but what he knows is enough for
now. I’m tired of plotting, plotting, if there is no king who rules the kingdom?
“I’m sorry,” He says, and I shrug. If there is no king, there is no kingdom, just a war, which is something the sorcerer has forgotten. I remember my lessons, faded and cracked as the memories are.
“It is nothing for you to be sorry for,” I tell him. If there is war, no one wins.
Everyone dies, but war speeds up the process more than I ever could.
“Now what are you thinking about?” My king asks.
He can probably tell I’m hiding from him when I answer, but this isn’t the time. “I’m tired,” I tell him, and it’s not a lie. Lie lying liars, another sure way to end up dead faster.
If fate doesn’t get them, I do.
“Than sleep,” My king says, and I understand. Tonight is not one of my nights. Never is my night, now, since the advisors won and my king took a queen.
“Send up food?” I ask, because suddenly I am too tired to even consider going out. I like the servants, and I don’t want to catch one on the edge of my temper.
“Of course,” My king says, but runs his hand down my neck and off my shoulder, looking at me worriedly. Worried, troubled, disturbed, my mother had looked at me like that, before nature came for her. My father, the king before my king, had only seen potential gain. My eldest brother - my king - had watched sadly, while my other brother, older than me but younger than my king, had become the sorcerer and taken control of the magic on me.
I miss the old sorcerer, when I can remember him. He was kinder than his successor, at least a little, and he was fiercely loyal to the kingdom. Not a king, always the kingdom. It’s what got him killed.
“You look like my mother,” I tell my king, and I can see his flinch. He forgets, sometimes, fifteen years older than me and a child of another marriage.
I try and remember who the sorcerer’s mother was, and am unsurprised when I can’t. It doesn’t matter now, both of them are long dead.
~~~
One night - I don’t know how long, time loose meaning after awhile, with only events standing in my mind-- my king is there again, standing, waiting.
I haven’t had any work today, and I sit down on my bed, looking up at my king. “The sorcerer wants a higher title,” I tell him, and it’s the closest to a warning I can give.
The laugh my king lets out is surprising. At my confused look he smiles. “I just finished assuring Isabel-” Isabel, Isabel, the queen is a belle. “-that I have nothing to fear from you, and you come and tell me, in your own way, that my brother will use you to kill me. It’s amusing, in a twisted sense.”
“He won’t.” I say, seriously.
My king is startled by my pronouncement. He doesn’t know the contract on me like I do. “What?”
“Loops,” I giggle. Loops, holes, in and out, you can manipulate anything if you study it enough, and I’ve had fifteen years. “There’s nothing prevent my death,” I tell my king.
“You ca-”
“Do you know what happens when I die?” I ask him, standing up and twirling. My hair is escaping, I see out of the corner of my eye. “Where all the magic on me goes when I’m not here anymore?”
My king looks alarmed, and I am glad to know someone will be affected when I’m gone. “Anth-”
“Shh,” I say. I lost my name years ago, when I was ten, I don’t want to hear it now. “It all goes back. Ten years of magic, back to the source all at once.”
“Wait,” My king frowns, “ten years?”
“I’ve been holding on to it.” I say smugly. “Ever since He took the position. I can’t use it, but I can hold it, and He doesn’t know any better, because He got impatient and never finished learning.” The old sorcerer had possessed me for five years, and he’s been dead a decade.
“You never told me.” My king is accusing, now. I don’t care.
“It’s my gift to your heir,” I say quietly, and watch my king piece it together.
“Yes,” I say, before he can ask. If he asks, I can’t answer. “Yes, I’ve been planning this for years. I needed to.”
“Isabel is with child,” He whispers. “But we’re not sure…”
The confirmation hurts, but I suspected it. “I still have some time,” I assure my king, and let my eyes unfocus. So much time has passed, me on the edge of life and wrapped in magic, that I can see the lifethreads now, if only for moments at a time.
My king’s is long and golden. My queen’s is just as long, and the thread tied to hers splitting off in a few months - I can see it, now that I know it’s there - has no end in my sight.
Mine is much shorter, and the sorcerer’s isn’t more than a few minutes longer.
They're not alway completly the same, of course, but in my entire life I have only seen one change more than a moment's worth.
“You’re lying.” My king exhales. “I know you just as well as you know me, Anthony.”
I feel my temper flare at the use of what was my name, but I don’t deny the name, or his statement.
“So I don’t live,” I hiss. Hiss hiss His, I always belong to someone else. “Who does it matter to?There are other killers. Don’t tell me you expected me to reach old age.”
“I never thought about it,” My king whispers. I want to hold him, but I no longer have that right. It’s been months since the last time he touched me.
“You should have.”
~~~
Joyous months pass, the kingdom set on celebrating the birth of new heir, and I wait. I watch.
I plan, and so does the sorcerer.
My plans are better, because his fail to take me into account.
~~~
The day it happens, the physicians try and block me from the room, but I bare my teeth, and my king snaps at them, and I am allowed in while the rest of the court isleft sitting on their heels.
Isabel is very round, and my king is bent over her, whispering in her ear.
The next few hours are frantic, but I stay back, stay calm while the rest of the room joins my madness for a while.
When it’s over, a healthy baby boy, I’m ready. Watching.
It’s the tiniest flicker of sickly green, over the child and my king, and I move fast, laying a gentle hand on both of them - no suspicion, not till I’m done - and pulling the magic towards me. I may have no magic, but this is pure death, and death is my domain, so it comes easy.
I step back, watching the spell flicker over my skin for a moment, and let myself smile slightly. No one has noticed -
A lie. My king is watching, but he doesn’t move towards me, just kisses the side of his wife’s head.
I close my eyes, and feel ten years of prison rush towards the sorcerer as the spell does its work.
Epilogue:
Suppose, just for a moment, that Anthony dies quietly, his death - and his life -- lost among his nephew’s birth. Suppose his brother, King Nick, lets this happens, and makes sure that their other brother’s death is put down as natural causes, and if people whisper about it no one minds, since they’ve been trying to get rid of Sorcerer Adrian for years. Suppose Isabel is shocked and saddened, and that the boy is named Anthony, despite the protests of everyone but her husband.
The only part of that story that is true is the bit about the name.
What really happens is that Nick, having lost a decades long battle over getting married, had chosen the most independent and strong willed wife he could find, and Isabel, having just gave birth, promptly starts screaming at her doctors until they react, keeping Anthony alive for three days before he wakes up, dazed and confused.
Adrian’s corpse - what’s left of it-is salted and burned, all his possessions checked over for dark magic and most of them joining his master, to huge celebration.
The position of Sorcerer is left unfilled, and with out the magic driving him Anthony slowly reaches functional, even if he never quite is as healthy as he should be.
There's more to it than that, of course.
--Anthony Jr., crown prince