[EXO] Hastiludes [1/6]
Title: Hastiludes
Fandom: EXO
Rating: PG
Genre: fantasy/adventure/romance?
Word Count: 56k
Pairing: KyungMyeon
Summary: [BBC Merlin!AU] Kyungsoo has dreams of the future and the Voice of Destiny whispering in his ear. Unfortunately his destiny is Prince Junmyeon, who is, Kyungsoo thinks, a bit of an asshole.
Notes: Originally posted here at sncj_santa for daeseol. This version is slightly different from the one posted on sncj_santa, in that I’ve fixed a bunch of typos (though I’m sure there are more to be found still) and, more importantly, I’ve translated the spells into Old English, the way they appear on the show. Translations are at the bottom of the post in which they appear.
In answer to several questions I’ve gotten, yes, there will be a sequel. More on that later.
As usual, many many thanks to exeuntpbabear and elpis_chan for letting me scream at them and for not letting me quit. A special thanks to sutecha for helping me to beta 56k of this insane monster.
1/15/2015: There is now a Russian translation of Hastiludes! I'm a bit late in adding it to the post, so my apologies for that... Thank you so much to alyssamuse for the translation, which you can find here!
"Once upon a time," the young man panted as he struggled to the top of a hill, "there was a magical kingdom, ruled over by a wise king, where knights errant accomplished feats and rode forth on great quests. The greatest of these knights was the prince, the king's own son." He knocked a bush out of the way with his walking stick. "The king, the prince, and the royal court all lived in the great castle known as Camelot."
The sun was in his eyes when he finally reached the top, and he stood there shading his eyes with one hand, looking down at the roofs of houses below and, in the distance, the stone ramparts of a castle. Kyungsoo heaved a sigh before starting down the other side.
"Well," he said, "let's see just how magical this place is then."
It wasn't that Kyungsoo had any doubts about the existence of magic. Considering the circumstances, it would have been rather strange if he had. No, what he had was merely a healthy dose of skepticism concerning Camelot and the reception of magic (and by extension, himself) therein. Certainly none of the buildings he passed scattered around the city outskirts bore the slightest trace of anything less than mundane.
The problem was that Kyungsoo was very much magical.
It had started when he was very young. It had been small things at first, like the flowers he brought to his mother on May Day always keeping their color just a little bit longer than the other children's, but when he was seven and the rope holding the blacksmith on top of the workshop's roof snapped while he was in the middle of repairs, when a nearby cartload of hay went hurtling to catch the man without a single soul touching it, and when Kyungsoo was seen by his mother's side, hands outstretched and eyes glowing gold... then no one could fail to see that he was special. The village children didn't seem to want to play with him much after that, so Kyungsoo spent much of his free time with the town physician, learning to read and write. If his mother feared her neighbors turning on Kyungsoo for his magic, at least she could be proud to have a son who could read without his lips even moving, even if he still had to check to be sure how you stopped spelling "necessary".
She needn't have worried, however, since the others soon adopted him as a sort of good luck charm. It wasn't uncommon for them to hear a knock on the door and have it turn out to be a shepherd asking to borrow him for a lamb's delivery that he expected to be particularly difficult, or a nearby farmer wanting to have him on hand while he tried to work a new pair of oxen that had never been yoked before. Kyungsoo wasn't sure what they expected him to do if something should go wrong, but he didn't think they really knew either. Just that they figured it was better to have him there, just in case. His mother let him go as long as it wasn't too dangerous, so he would sit in a corner or at the edge of a field and read from one of the books the physician had loaned him while the usual work of the village went on around him. Down in the city, where the rich and noble replaced magic with the comfort and convenience of money, someone like Kyungsoo would have been met with fear, loathing, or even outright violence, but out here they couldn't afford that luxury. When you couldn't pay for expensive medicines or specially trained medics, often the best you could hope for was a magic touch and a whole lot of luck, and Kyungsoo saw his table filled more often than not with the rewards for his services, both real and imagined. On occasion, someone from Camelot would ride through town on official business, someone important or powerful, and the neighbors would warn Kyungsoo's mother to keep him home that day. He was the town's best kept secret.
He had been seventeen the first time he had the dream. When he had woken up, all he could remember was high stone walls rising up around him, the sound of steel clashing, and the sense that he was struggling to guard something. For days afterwards he had the constant urge to run out of the house and down the road, but he had enough presence of mind to realize that he had no idea where he needed to go, so was left pacing the edges of his house restlessly instead. The vague memory of the dream faded, but Kyungsoo could never quite shake the feeling that there was somewhere else he desperately needed to be. When he dreamed it again months later, it only strengthened that impression. Without a direction, though, all he could do was wait around while the ever-present weight of unspecified responsibility pressed heavier and heaver on his mind. It was almost a relief, then, when finally, at the age of twenty, the murky sounds of the dream started to coalesce into a single voice with words that became more and more distinct. By this time, he should have long since settled down into a livelihood, but he had always known that he was waiting for something else, that the dream was something he would have to follow one day, and now for the first time he had an idea of where that dream might take him.
"The fate of a man," the dream voice said, "a sparkling drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. Eternal guardian, who has always lived and always will. Yours is a fight in art and skill, shadow and secrecy; service to the once and future king."
Kyungsoo spent a long time puzzling over that. When asked for her opinion, his mother would only say that it sounded like one of the pompous, self-important lords from the city, and Kyungsoo was inclined to agree with her. Still, it was the only clue he had to satisfying this feeling of obligation that had bothered him for years, so he did his best to figure out what it could possibly mean. Cryptic, semi-prophetic dream or no, he was determined not to act until he had a clearer sense of exactly what it was he was supposed to be doing, so he waited and thought and read, and all the while kept dreaming. The voice got more and more insistent. When he started hearing it while he was awake, Kyungsoo had decided it was time to get moving.
"What on earth am I supposed to be doing, anyway?" he had demanded, stopping dead in the middle of the room he had been sweeping.
He suddenly felt this overwhelming urge to start walking, and his legs ached with the effort of staying still.
"I'm not going anywhere until I know where I'm going!" Kyungsoo realized that he looked very strange, holding a broom and lecturing an empty room. "You're going to have to be a little more clear."
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the red and gold flag that suddenly filled his vision. It was like trying to blink on the inside of his eyeballs, which was unpleasant enough without the phantom texture of cloth that accompanied the flag's image.
"Stop that right now," he said. "That's awful, and you know it."
"The time is now," the voice said in his ear. Kyungsoo thought it sounded petulant. "The once and future king awaits."
"Well, he can go on waiting long enough for me to get ready," Kyungsoo replied, starting to sweep again.
That night, though, he had told his mother that he was headed off to Camelot as soon as possible. She had sighed and smiled and started to pull out his spare clothes from storage.
"I knew it would happen sooner or later," she said when she kissed him goodbye the next morning. "What do you want me to tell everyone?"
"Tell them..." Kyungsoo hesitated. "Tell them I'm leaving to follow my dreams."
He had said it because he knew it would make her laugh, which it had. Now that he was wandering down streets far wider and more bustling than he had ever seen before, he wished there was something that familiar and comforting still with him. Granted, he still had the weird voice whispering in his ear from time to time, which was familiar but not really comforting. It sounded excited and quite pleased now that he was in the city, which Kyungsoo supposed was probably a good sign. He had made it to Camelot, but he had yet to figure out where he needed to go and what he needed to do. The nagging voice wouldn't shut up about this "once and future king" guy, so the castle itself was probably a good place to start looking. Kyungsoo highly doubted it was the king himself, or at least he hoped it wasn't. His Royal Highness King Siwon wasn't disliked or anything, but he was certainly the kingdom's loudest voice when it came to denouncing magic, and Kyungsoo was sure he'd quickly run into trouble if this was the king he was magically destined to protect. Still, the king had a son, didn't he? With any luck, this son would be more open to the possibility of magic as a force for good, which would make Kyungsoo's life a whole lot easier. It had to be either the king or his son anyway; the flag in his vision had definitely been the Pendragon emblem. Kyungsoo mused on the irony of the magic-hating royal family being named after a magical beast while he wandered down the main streets in the general direction of the castle, looking around at the various street vendors and their wares.
He was just looking at the various hats being sold in one of the stands to the side, when he saw a large crowd come around the corner up ahead. They were all wearing matching red capes which billowed out behind them, and they clustered together around one nearby fruit stand. Probably palace guards, judging from their clothing and general air of importance. Kyungsoo watched as they all started picking up the various produce, laughing and chatting and throwing it back and forth to each other as they discussed the relative merits of each one. The stall owner, a tall young man with huge eyes and riotous hair, looked resigned. Kyungsoo wondered if this was a common occurrence and if the group was actually going to pay for any of the fruit they ate or bruised. Something about the owner’s face seemed to suggest not. Kyungsoo was about to sigh and move on up the road towards the castle, when he saw an old woman trying to edge through the rowdy group and being repeatedly rebuffed. She kept trying patiently, but with no success. Finally, one of the men, who was lounging up against the wall nearby and munching on an apple waved her away.
“We’re busy here,” Kyungsoo heard him say. “Go bother someone else for free food.”
That was it.
“I could say the same to you,” Kyungsoo said, marching up to the group, full of purpose and righteous indignation. “This man here doesn’t look like he’s too happy about filling your bellies on the house.”
The stall owner’s eyes got even wider, and he waved his hands in protest as he looked back and forth at the red capes and Kyungsoo’s face. The man leaning against the wall looked gobsmacked. While he was shorter than all the others, something about him made Kyungsoo suspect he was their leader, so he focused his glare there. Kyungsoo put his hands on his hips and stared the man down.
“What,” said the man, straightening up and tossing the apple over his shoulder. The owner caught it and looked ruefully at the huge bites taken out of it. “I’m sorry, I must not have heard you right.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo apologized. “I didn’t realize you were hard of hearing. Of course, people with disabilities should be treated gently.”
There was a collective inhale from the other guards. Something about this felt off. Kyungsoo could feel the eyes of a crowd behind him as more people stopped to stare at what was going on. The shop owner looked horrified. The leader of the guards came right up to Kyungsoo to stare him down properly, and Kyungsoo was slightly amused to note that he was slightly too short to be really intimidating.
“You must be new around here,” said the man, “so I’ll give you a chance to rethink that. A friendly word of advice… You should think hard before saying things that could get you into trouble.”
“The only thing I think is that you should probably pay for stuff you and your cronies destroy,” Kyungsoo said. “I mean, if you can figure out how currency works and all that. Maybe someone can help you with the bigger numbers.”
The man’s hand went to his sword hilt. His eyes were furious, but he kept a huge mock-friendly smile on his face. The fruit stall owner was now watching the entire thing from behind his hands, and Kyungsoo saw out of the corner of his eye that the entire street seemed to be watching with horrified fascination. He felt slightly uncomfortable, like something wasn’t quite right here, but he held his ground. He hadn’t come here to make a scene, but something about this group just rubbed him the wrong way. Standing by and watching casual abuse of power was not something Kyungsoo could easily stomach, and he doubted anyone had ever stood up to these guys before. He felt slightly better about his decision then.
“Alright,” the man in front of him was saying, “I gave you a chance to take your words back gracefully, but it looks like you want me to make you eat them instead.”
“What, you?” Kyungsoo laughed, though he eyed the sword with some trepidation. “Do you need me to stand downhill from you so you can reach?”
That got an eye twitch. With a gesture, the man borrowed another sword from one of his companions and tossed it at Kyungsoo.
“Here,” he said. “You might want that.”
Kyungsoo sighed. “Look, I’m not going to fight you. You’ve already made a fool of yourself in front of everyone, so why not just deal with it like a mature adult and stop making a scene?”
“People like you need to be taught a lesson,” the other man said, twirling his own sword idly. “Need to learn your place and all that.”
He took another menacing step forward, making Kyungsoo back up rapidly as people behind him scurried to get out of the way. He didn’t even particularly mean to do it, but a box off to the side, about shin-high, jerked suddenly out onto the path and Kyungsoo realized that he’d unconsciously magicked it there. No one else seemed to have noticed, though, since they were too busy gasping over the sudden spill it had caused for his opponent. Kyungsoo edged around to the side and picked up the other sword. He wasn’t sure how to use it or anything, but it seemed safer to have something in his hands after this. Still, it was funny and the jab left his tongue before he could stop it.
“Maybe you could use the box to stand on,” he suggested. “If you ask nicely, I’ll stand still and you can try to get a good swing in.”
He only got a growl in response. Kyungsoo had to dodge a fist since his opponent had dropped his sword when he fell. Kyungsoo slid back between the roadside stalls, trying to get some cover, but that only resulted in a chase through the wooden shops and assorted hanging goods. Kyungsoo winced when the retrieved sword sliced through what he thought were some very nice swathes of cloth at a stall full of woven goods. Apparently the owner thought so too, since she let out a cry of dismay and clutched the tattered ends. Kyungsoo frowned and this time it was no accident when a nearby bucket of iron tools came clattering down onto the other man’s head. Kyungsoo ducked to avoid anyone seeing what he knew was a sudden flash of gold in his eyes. Self-defense or no, he was in Camelot now, and it could only get him into more trouble if someone saw him using magic. Anyway, he had more important things to worry about, like the wild swing he saw coming towards him, which he quickly blocked with a broomstick he spotted leaning against a nearby counter. The sword bit into the wood and stuck there, so it only took a flick of the wrist for his opponent to disarm him, and Kyungsoo scrambled backwards over the cobbles, looking around for something else he could use. He spotted a hanging set of chains, which he quickly tangled around the sword when it came up for another swing, and he laughed when it jerked out of the other man’s hands to swing back and forth over his head. Kyungsoo might have ensured that it swung a little bit higher than the man could reach, but he didn’t think anyone in his position could be blamed for taking such an opportunity to make their aggressor jump so comically up and down, getting increasingly more angry each time he failed to retrieve his weapon. Even in the middle of the nervous muttering, Kyungsoo could hear snatches of muffled laughter from the crowd that had followed them here. He stood up and bowed dramatically.
“Yes, yes, thank you! This has been your street theater for the day! Please visit all our lovely businesses and make sure not to screw them out of their wares!”
He waved and bowed over and over again, and almost missed the stares going over his head right before he was hit very hard. The group of guards had formed a barrier across the road behind Kyungsoo and their leader had retrieved the broomstick he had snatched from Kyungsoo and was now proceeding to wallop him thoroughly with it. A sharp blow across the shoulders was followed up immediately by one to his rear end and back, until he doubled over and collapsed under a sharp crack to the skull. Kyungsoo’s eyes watered, but he could see the figure standing over him even as he clutched his aching head.
“Guards,” the other man said haughtily, “I command you to seize him and clap him in chains for his insolence.”
He sounded just as pompous and smug as the voice in Kyungsoo’s dream. Kyungsoo thought that it felt highly unfair to have self-important assholes telling him what to do at every turn.
“Pretty sure you can actually be imprisoned yourself for impersonating royalty,” he snapped peevishly.
“Yeah?” came the reply as Kyungsoo was hauled to his feet. Kyungsoo could hear the smirk. “Well, I know for a fact that you can be thrown in the dungeon for mocking royalty, so...”
Kyungsoo’s clever plan started to seem like worse and worse of an idea.
“Nice to meet you,” the man smiled. “I’m Prince Junmyeon. And you’re an idiot.”
Well, shit.
All in all, it could have been worse, Kyungsoo decided. He had pissed off royalty through a misplaced sense of civil heroism and had managed to get away with only a couple lumps and bruises and some smelly straw to sleep on. Of course, he had no idea how long he was expected to stay in this cell, but he was prepared to grovel and play up the “ignorant rustic” angle as much as need be to get him out of this. Like it or not, he still had a mission to fulfill, and that was to find this once and future king and keep him safe. Having now met the crown prince of Camelot, Kyungsoo had to hope that this wasn’t the person he was supposed to dedicate his life to, because if it was then he had half a mind to just pack up and head back home. There was still this strange tug in his mind, though, like there was a thread connecting the inside of his head to something very close by. It had gotten better since he entered the city, like he was getting closer and the line wasn’t pulled quite so taut anymore, but if he left the city again, he thought the sensation might eventually drive him insane. Kyungsoo sighed, lying back on his arms in the straw. The faint chatter in the back of his mind had quieted somewhat as well, so all in all he found himself more comfortable here in the city than he had been in a while. It was like there were two parts of him-the normal village boy who was overwhelmed and skittish in an unfamiliar crowded city, and the magical part of him which was no longer on edge and straining for something so far in the distance. Kyungsoo was not one to be idle, so he started coming up with plans for whenever he got out of his current predicament. He would have to find somewhere to stay and some way to make a living since he could no longer count on food appearing at his table simply for being present during regular farmland chores. For the first time he wished that he had spent more time learning an actual productive skill, like metalworking or something like that. He could always make a few coins moving boxes and barrels for various merchants, he supposed, but he had spent his entire childhood reading rather than working in the fields and he rather doubted he’d be very useful in that area. He sat up. That was an idea though. He could read and write, so there was bound to be work for someone with those skills. He had a fairly good head for numbers, so he could always do bookkeeping if he had to. He would just have to go through the more permanent businesses in the city, preferably those who had not seen the mess he’d gotten himself into today, and see who needed assistance of a more scholarly nature. Satisfied with his plan, Kyungsoo lay back and let himself drift off to sleep.
The next morning he was shaken awake by another guard in a red cape who told him to get up and led him out of the cell. Kyungsoo was apparently not free to go wherever he liked though, since he was flanked by two more guards and taken through several winding hallways back up and out of the building.
“So, where are we going?” Kyungsoo asked. The guard to his left just laughed, but the one on his right managed to turn his laugh into a cough long enough to reply.
“The prince decided you had guts, so you’re getting a relaxed punishment,’ he said.
So he wasn’t off the hook just yet. Kyungsoo’s speculation as to exactly what counted as a “relaxed” punishment got an answer when they came out into one of the large market squares just outside the high castle walls, where a large wooden board was standing just ahead. Oh. Kyungsoo thought that the stocks were probably a better deal than a million years of dungeon, but the number of people waiting around was slightly intimidating. Once he was securely locked into the wooden yoke, the fruit vendor from the day before came up to him carrying a huge basket of suspicious-looking fruit which he set about twenty feet in front of Kyungsoo’s face.
“Sorry,” the man told him. “The prince was really particular about this part. He wanted me to tell you that he paid for them and everything.” He leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “Don’t worry, I made sure they were mostly the really bruised and mushy ones. Nothing too hard or spiky.”
Kyungsoo braced himself for the oncoming storm of produce. Most of the people throwing stuff, he noticed, were either guards in red capes, probably getting a bit of amusing revenge for the day before, and very small children. Many other people gathered to watch without throwing anything, and Kyungsoo thought that they looked mostly goodnatured and pleased to see him, so he waved and smiled as a particularly overripe tomato hit the side of his head. The fruit vendor stayed nearby to replenish the baskets and to make conversation, which Kyungsoo was grateful for. Kyungsoo learned that his name was Chanyeol and got the impression that he was generally a cheerful and exuberant person to be around, at least judging from the way he was laughing uproariously over some of the particularly splattery things that landed on Kyungsoo. He called out scores for the children and organized contests to see who could make the biggest mess and land the most direct shots, but even as the butt of the massive joke, Kyungsoo couldn’t help but laugh along with the rest of them. When the sun started to get too hot, Chanyeol awarded the winner of the latest contest with a bucket of water to dump over Kyungsoo’s head, and he thoughtfully draped a cloth over Kyungsoo’s neck to keep it from getting too badly burned. Hours and hours passed, but at least it was more exciting than sitting in a stone room and counting the number of black beetles he saw running in the cracks between the flagstones.
Around the time the sun started to disappear behind the surrounding rooftops, the guards decided that Kyungsoo had served his time and one of them unlocked the padlock to let him out. Kyungsoo leaned back and twisted, hearing each of his vertebrae crack and pop back into place. Chanyeol was still waiting nearby to gather up his baskets, which he did before turning to Kyungsoo with a smile and inviting him back to his house for dinner. Kyungsoo’s stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten a single thing since before The Confrontation yesterday, so he accepted gratefully. It turned out that Chanyeol lived in a small house attached to the ones on either side, so that it looked like a single whitewashed wall with multiple doors and windows peeking out all in a row, right behind where his stall had been set up the day before.
“I like to be able to move it around a little bit, he explained, kicking open the door with one foot since his arms were full of basket. “Some of the people all the way on the other side of the city don’t tend to come all the way over here, at least not very often, and they have to want fruit too, you know? So if I have a cart, I can just bring the fruit to them!”
Kyungsoo nodded, his arms also full of baskets. The room inside was fairly simply decorated, but something about it seemed almost as friendly as Chanyeol himself.
“We’re back!” Chanyeol boomed, and the two people at the table inside jumped slightly.
“Oh, you brought him,” said the shorter of the two. He came over to Kyungsoo and relieved him of his basket load. “Hello, my name is Baekhyun. I’m sorry your first introduction to this city was Chanyeol. And, well… that other business.”
“You were there?” Kyungsoo winced.
“Saw the whole thing,” Baekhyun smiled reassuringly at him. “It was actually pretty impressive. I’m glad you stood up to him; he’s a bit of a bully sometimes, and heaven knows Chanyeol won’t tell him off.”
“You won’t either,” Chanyeol pointed out with a pout.
“Yeah, well. You can’t just tell off a prince without consequences.”
“Like getting put in the stocks and having rotten vegetables thrown at you?” Kyungsoo suggested, picking a bit of lettuce out from behind his ear.
“Like that.”
“Anyway,” said Chanyeol, “Yixing would tell him off, wouldn’t you, Yixing?”
He nudged his second friend, whom Kyungsoo assumed to be Yixing, with his elbow. Yixing smiled faintly and continued setting out plates on the table.
“Yixing would tell anyone off, though,” argued Baekhyun. “I’m pretty sure he sasses the king on a regular basis.”
“That would be unwise,” said Yixing quietly, but he was still smiling.
“Do you tell the prince off, though?” Kyungsoo asked curiously. Yixing stopped, tilting his head to the side.
“I suppose I do,” he said. “Junmyeon doesn’t seem to overly mind it, though.”
“Yixing is the royal physician,” explained Baekhyun. “He’s pretty much in tight with all the important people up in the palace. Probably because he’s had to deal with all their embarrassing illnesses at one point or another.”
“They’re really not all that bad,” Yixing said, causing Baekhyun to scoff.
“That’s the first batch of fruit His Royal Highness has paid Chanyeol for in as long as I can remember,” said Baekhyun. “No, wait. He paid for that truckload of apples the week before last.”
“I think the king paid for those actually,” Chanyeol said. “I think he was just bringing the money down to make a good impression.”
“Oh, then yeah. I can’t remember the last time he paid us for fruit. The point is, you-” Baekhyun turned sharply to Kyungsoo, jabbing a finger at him, “What did you do yesterday? Don’t forget, I saw everything.”
Kyungsoo gulped. His heart started racing, even as he told himself that Baekhyun meant the ill-advised confrontation and not… anything else more specific and damning. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Baekhyun said. “You’re not going to tell me inanimate objects were leaping to your aid just because you’re so charming. I know what I saw. That was magic, wasn’t it?”
Kyungsoo was definitely panicking now. He looked around for a polite way to excuse himself, but Baekhyun seemed to anticipate his escape attempt, instead ushering him further into the room with a firm grip on his arm and sitting him down in a chair.
"Now, don't worry," Baekhyun assured him, "We're not going to turn you in or anything. Your secret's safe with us. But don't think you can get away, either."
"I don't know what you're talking about," insisted Kyungsoo. Baekhyun could promise all he wanted, but Kyungsoo knew his safest bet would be to keep all knowledge of his power strictly to himself. "How would I know anything about magic?"
Baekhyun moved so suddenly that Kyungsoo jumped in his chair. Baekhyun's elbow jerked out into the cup sitting next to him on the table, sending the ceramic flying over the edge, and Kyungsoo could feel the unconscious surge of magic bubbling up a split second before the cup hung frozen in midair. Both Baekhyun and Chanyeol, who had dove to catch the cup with a yelp, were staring dumbfounded at the object, but Yixing sat across the table from Kyungsoo the entire time, his gaze never wavering. Kyungsoo knew there was no way Yixing could have missed the gold flash that always accompanied Kyungsoo's magic and turned his eyes bright. The cup resumed its downward plummet a moment later, once Kyungsoo reigned in his instincts, but luckily by that point Chanyeol was close enough to catch it before it hit. He made a sad face at the puddle of water all over the floor and his arms.
"Interesting," said Yixing.
"You're telling me," Baekhyun whistled.
"What?" Kyungsoo demanded. His hands were shaking. He knew it was pointless to keep denying anything now. "What's interesting?"
"You didn't use any verbal spells or incantations," Yixing frowned, chin in hand as he leaned on the table. "At least, not that I heard. Have you mastered nonverbal casting? Who taught you to do that?"
Kyungsoo was confused. "No one? I don't know any spells, no one's taught me anything."
"Nothing?" Baekhyun pressed. "You've had no training at all? How do you do that?"
"I don't know?" Kyungsoo was becoming increasingly disoriented by all the questions. This was not how he'd expected a revelation of his powers to go. "I don't really think about it. It just... happens."
"So what you're saying is it's purely instinctual?"
"I guess?"
Baekhyun exchanged meaningful glances with Yixing.
"A 'warlock unlike any other,'" Yixing murmured. "Indeed he is."
"What are you two talking about?" Chanyeol sounded exasperated. He went largely ignored, so he huffed and went off to stir something simmering in a large pot over the fire to one side of the room.
"Yixing, haven't you been saying that you needed an assistant?" prompted Baekhyun.
"I have," Yixing agreed. "Kyungsoo, if you're new to Camelot, you'll be looking for room and board. How would you like to come stay with me?"
"No, that's fine!" Kyungsoo hurried to say. "I'm sure I can find work and a room somewhere. I wouldn't want to... impose."
"You've already made yourself quite infamous for that little scene yesterday," hummed Yixing, "so unless you were planning to get yourself into the castle dungeons every night, you might have some trouble locating someone on this side of the city who will house you."
"Then I'll go to the other side of the city," said Kyungsoo firmly. Baekhyun sighed.
"The thing is," he said. "That we've been waiting for you for some time now. Not you, specifically-" he added, seeing Kyungsoo's face, "but someone like you, who can use magic in a way unlike anyone else."
"There are a few holdouts and repositories of magical objects," Yixing continued. "I happen to know of several, including a book which has come into my possession. Most of it is just a regular spellbook, which is fairly useless to me-I have no talent for magic of any significance-but at the back it contains what appear to be several interesting prophecies. They're written in the Old Language and are quite extensive, but I've managed to translate bits and pieces."
"What does any of this have to do with me?" Kyungsoo asked.
"As Baekhyun said, we've been waiting for someone with magical powers as unusual as your own," explained Yixing. "The sections of the book that I've been able to decipher talk about a time of great threat to Camelot, coming sometime in the near future. A lot of it is confusing, but it mentions 'a warlock unlike any other; magic in blood, not in book' as well as the image of two dragons waking under the mountain, whose war will shake the earth. I wondered if part of that could refer to the Pendragon family, though I have no idea why it mentions two dragons. It does spend a great deal of time expounding on the idea of a ruler who appears over and over again, whom it calls 'the once and future king.'"
Kyungsoo, who had been starting to tune out Yixing's rambling, sat bolt upright at that.
"The what?" he choked.
"The once and future king?" Yixing repeated. "Have you heard of him? I can't figure out anything about him, but the book seems to assume that the reader already knows all about him. Since it's in such close proximity to the dragon imagery, I suspect it might be someone in the royal family."
"I don't know anything more than you," Kyungsoo admitted, "but I've heard that name before. That's... it's actually why I came to Camelot." As reluctant as he was to further reveal his powers and get himself wrapped up in whatever prophecy Yixing was caught up in, this was the first solid lead Kyungsoo had gotten about where his dream voice might be taking him. "I've been having these dreams for years now, but I've just recently figured out what they were saying. Whoever this king is, I think I'm supposed to find him and serve him somehow."
"See, this is interesting!" said Baekhyun. "What are the odds you'd both run into the exact same phrasing unless you were both looking for the same thing?"
"He's got a point," said Chanyeol, deciding to contribute to the conversation for the first time. "It sounds like you're both headed the same way, as it were, so why not see what you can do to help each other out? And anyway, if Yixing can't use most of the spellbook, why not let Kyungsoo take a crack at it? That way you both win."
Yixing met Kyungsoo's eyes and nodded. "That sounds fine to me."
Personally, Kyungsoo thought he'd prefer to stay with someone like Chanyeol than with someone who stared at him as disconcertingly as Yixing did. Something about the offer intrigued him, though, and the promise of getting to look at an actual spellbook and maybe finally understand something more concrete about his magic was no small part of that. He nodded as well.
"That settles it then!" Baekhyun clapped his hands, pleased. "Chanyeol, is dinner ever going to be ready?"
"I've been waiting here this whole time for you to notice the soup's ready," Chanyeol complained. "You just wouldn't stop talking."
"Sorry, Chanyeol," Yixing said, smiling apologetically. "Let's eat before it gets cold, instead of discussing all this on an empty stomach."
The meal was good, though Kyungsoo suspected he could have eaten just about anything. Apparently getting rotten produce flung at your head all day was tiring work, and the enervation that spread over his limbs was one he recognized as coming from a day spent outside under the sun, compounded now by a full stomach. He had a much harder time getting back up to the castle than he had had coming out of it that morning.
The bed that Yixing led him to threatened to swallow him whole, which Kyungsoo was more than happy to let happen. He took the book when Yixing handed it to him, tucking it under the mattress unopened, and was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, sinking immediately into blissful unconsciousness. As the night wore on, the dreams started to surface again. Kyungsoo could feel himself being tugged upwards out of empty blackness into scattered images and the sound of the familiar voice. This time the images in his dreams were scenes of massive winged serpents rolling and wrestling in caverns until the walls and ceiling shook and rocks clattered to the cavern floor around them. They turned into painted and embroidered flags after that. Battle standards, Kyungsoo thought, for the armies he saw fighting all around him. From where he stood on a tall hilltop, he recognized one of the flags now as the Pendragon emblem, but he had never seen the other one before. Two dragons, gold and black, fought in the sky above the armies. Whenever one of them gained the upper hand, one of the armies would seem to have the advantage, but when the other dragon recovered itself, so did the opposing army. The golden dragon crashed to the ground in a pool of red blood as the Pendragon army faltered and broke. Kyungsoo could see them fleeing around the huge flanks of the fallen dragon, and watched as the black serpent stood ready to deliver the killing blow. Two armored figures stood between the two dragons, swords at the ready, but the knight wearing the colors of Camelot seemed to be hurt and he struggled to keep his feet. There was a flash from another hilltop opposite Kyungsoo, behind which he could just barely make out another figure, standing as if to mirror Kyungsoo. At the same time, an answering flash came from jewels around the necks of the black dragon and the knight in black armor, which had gone unnoticed until that moment. The black knight raised his sword to strike Camelot's champion, who now had taken off his helmet to gasp for breath, and recognition hit Kyungsoo like a punch to the gut.
It was Junmyeon.
Kyungsoo heard himself cry out, both hands coming up to glow with more power than he had ever wielded before in his life. The scene swam before his eyes, fading black around the edges, no matter how hard Kyungsoo tried to hold on to it, to see what the outcome would be. The sounds congealed together, flowing into one to form the voice that Kyungsoo now dreaded to hear.
"Your destiny lies on this path, young warlock," it said. "Protect the Pendragon. Protect the once and future king."
Kyungsoo's eyes flew open. He was lying on his back with both arms raised in front of him, the way they had been in the dream. There was a circle of scorched wood on the rafters above, still smoking from whatever Kyungsoo had thrown at it in his sleep. Clearly not as powerful a spell as whatever he'd been using in his dream, which was something to be grateful for, he supposed. He was still staring at the ceiling in shock when Yixing burst through the door, stumbling slightly over the threshold in his haste.
"What is it?" He sounded on the edge of panic. "You shouted and- what happened? What did you do to the ceiling?"
Kyungsoo let his arms fall to the bed on either side of him, lying there for a beat longer before rolling over and writhing on the bed with his face smushed into the pillow.
"Kyungsoo, what is it?" Yixing came over to the bed and grabbed his arm. "Kyungsoo, answer me! Are you alright?"
Kyungsoo raised his head long enough to wail in frustration.
"Why did it have to be that asshole?" he demanded of the universe at large before slamming his face back down into the pillow and screaming furiously.
It took a while to communicate the reason for his distress to Yixing, considering that for the first fifteen minutes or so Kyungsoo was too busy cursing every natural, supernatural, divine, and cosmic power that might ever have existed for plotting to ruin his life to actually convey any actual information, but even once he had heard the dream’s content, Yixing seemed remarkably unsympathetic to the fact that Kyungsoo was apparently destined to spend his live covering the ass of a pompous brat of a prince. He was far more interested with what the dueling dragons might symbolize and the implications of the other figure than with Kyungsoo’s mental well-being or the prospect of Kyungsoo dedicating his life to someone who had tried to wallop him with a sword.
“Are you forgetting the part where he hates me?” Kyungsoo asked incredulously.
“Junmyeon’s not actually that bad once you get to know him,” Yixing waved a hand. “He’s a little full of himself sometimes and yes, you got off on the wrong foot, but his heart’s in the right place. Maybe he just needs someone like you around to point him in the right direction.”
Kyungsoo grumbled. “More than a little full of himself, if you ask me.”
Yixing simply smiled and urged Kyungsoo to finish up his breakfast.
“We’re going to have a lot to do today,” he said, “and the sooner we start, the better.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. As soon as Kyungsoo finished eating, Yixing had him cleaning up all traces of food so that he could spread out a vast assortment of bowls, pitchers, vials, bottles, and other containers, many of them containing ingredients Kyungsoo had never seen before in his life. Just about any space left free on the table after that was covered with pages of notes and stacks of books. Kyungsoo tried to flip through one but Yixing slapped his hands away before sending him off to bring back several buckets full of water. As Yixing worked to assemble various cures, he explained the entire process step-by-step to Kyungsoo, pointing out where in his notes it listed each of the remedies. As he handed things to Yixing one by one under careful direction, Kyungsoo found that many of the ingredients he actually had heard of, but they had been modified or prepared in some way as to make them largely unrecognizable. He recognized even more names from the reading he had done as a child, now finally able to give them a visual. Yixing’s words filled in many of the blanks in Kyungsoo’s knowledge as far as herblore went, connecting many dots he’d never associated before, and he came away with an overall far more complete picture than he’d started with.
Just when Kyungsoo’s eyes were blurring and his head felt like it was about to burst, Yixing sat back and announced that they were done mixing up remedies for the day. Kyungsoo sighed with relief, which turned out to come a moment too soon. Yixing dropped a bag into his lap and told him to start carefully packing up the mixtures that were finished so that they could make their delivery rounds. Kyungsoo followed Yixing all through the upper town before following him back up through the gates and throughout the castle itself, squinting at Yixing’s spindly writing on the bottles and labels as they distributed the medicine. Yixing introduced him to each person they delivered to, all the while explaining directions and ways to remember various locations that Kyungsoo found more confusing than helpful, though he refrained from saying so. Finally they were down to the last delivery. Kyungsoo hefted the jar in his hands as he read the label.
“‘Ointment for bruises and aches,’” he read out. “Who’s this for?”
“This would be for the prince,” Yixing said lightly, watching Kyungsoo’s face. He caught Kyungsoo’s arm as he turned to beat a hasty retreat. “Oh, no. You’re coming with me.”
“Why?” Kyungsoo asked, still trying to sneak away. “He hates me, remember? What good will possibly come of me delivering him this- wait,” he paused. “Why does the prince need something for bruises? This sounds like he got beat up or-”
Yixing’s face was serene. “I’m sure he has quite a lot of knocks from combat training and the like. It’s not at all unusual for a prince to catch a few lumps in the course of a day’s work.”
“All right,” Kyungsoo smiled. “This I’ve got to see.”
Yixing led the way, and Kyungsoo stood to the side with the jar as Yixing knocked politely on the door. He pushed it open when they heard a voice from inside call out ‘enter’, walking confidently across the stone floor while Kyungsoo tried to stay as much behind him as possible. Junmyeon was sitting at a table near the window, picking at a plateful of food, and he barely glanced up enough to see who it was.
“How are you feeling today, your highness?” asked Yixing cheerfully.
“Like someone walloped me over the head,” Junmyeon complained. Kyungsoo bit back a smile. “Have you got anything for this goose egg someone left on my skull?”
“I think I have just the thing.” Yixing gestured Kyungsoo forward. “This ointment was designed to bring down swelling and soothe aches. I didn’t realize you needed something specifically for your head, so it might be a little hard to wash out, but it will still help.”
Junmyeon didn’t seem to hear a word Yixing was saying. He stared at Kyungsoo like his eyes were about to fall out of his head. Kyungsoo kept a vague pleasant smile on his face which he had to struggle to keep from becoming a laugh, since Junmyeon seemed offended and betrayed by his very presence there.
“Yixing,” Junmyeon finally managed, through clenched teeth, “what is he doing here?”
“Kyungsoo is my new assistant,” Yixing said easily. Kyungsoo nodded graciously, pleased by the way this made Junmyeon splutter. “He’s been helping me mix my remedies all day, and I decided to show him the way around the castle, since he’ll be staying here.”
Junmyeon glared. “Perhaps you don’t know yet, but your new little assistant is the reason I-” he stopped and bit his tongue before he could say any more. “He insulted me publicly, you know. He’s an insolent troublemaker, and who’s to say he didn’t piss in the ointment? I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“I wouldn’t stoop so low,” Kyungsoo sniffed. “Though, I mean, even if I didn’t piss in it-”
He trailed off meaningfully. Yixing coughed to hide a surprised laugh at Junmyeon’s face.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Junmyeon demanded.
“I just think you probably don’t want to know what goes into your joint cream here,” Kyungsoo shrugged. “Gotta decide whether the creaking and aches are worth the risk here.”
Junmyeon snatched the jar away from him.
“You’re lying,” he said, unscrewing the lid and sniffing it tentatively. “There’s nothing suspicious about this at all, is there? Yixing?”
“As your highness says,” Yixing bowed. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Kyungsoo didn’t miss the tactful phrasing, though it seemed that it had largely escaped Junmyeon, who was now smearing it on his shoulder and smirking.
“You’ve got a lot to learn if you think you can pull one over on me,” Junmyeon told him. “You’re not nearly as clever as you think.”
“Of course,” Kyungsoo imitated Yixing’s bow. “The second lesson this week. I’m learning fast.”
He followed Yixing out of the room before collapsing against the wall in laughter.
“I thought you might like to be there for that,” Yixing said mildly, his tone carefully not full of ‘I told you so.’
“I think helping a physician has made me less likely to want any medicine at all,” Kyungsoo said. “Knowing exactly what goes into it kind of puts you off to the whole idea.”
“Never become a chef,” advised Yixing. Kyungsoo pulled a face.
“Noted.”
The next day Yixing set him to checking up on the medicines that required a longer period of preparation. He called out colors for various liquids, poked to check the consistency of others, and filtered out particles that collected on the surface of others, while Yixing made notes of each one in chalk on the massive board he kept off to one side of the room for that very purpose. It was important, he explained to Kyungsoo, he keep a written record of every concoction, to speed up or improve the process for the future. Kyungsoo thought it was probably more to keep track of the massive volume of medicine being produced, but he kept that to himself. They spend most of the day this way, interrupted occasionally by knocks on the door leading to the outside. There were two doors in and out of Yixing’s quarters; one leading into the castle, and one which could be accessed from the town. It was this second one that their visitors were coming today, and Yixing did whatever he could to provide small cures to aid the townsfolk. Most of them could not afford to pay, though that didn’t stop them from offering. Yixing turned down whatever payment he could, or bargained them down to some trifling amount, often asking for some worthless, easily found weed from their gardens, which he told them was vital for his work. He got baskets and baskets full of dandelions, for example. Yixing dutifully packed away as much as he could into his ingredient cabinets and then sent Kyungsoo to get rid of the rest.
Kyungsoo ended up taking a basket of dandelion leaves to the kitchens, to be used in salad, and found everyone there scrambling all over to produce more food than he had ever seen before in his life. When he asked a maid what was going on, she looked at him like he was stupid.
“The feast, of course,” she said. “It’s less than a day away now. Of course we’re busy.”
She shooed him out of the room, back down to Yixing’s rooms, where he saw Yixing bowing an old man out of the door. He had another handful of dandelions.
“Why do you keep taking more of those?” Kyungsoo asked. “There’s no way we can use all of them, even if we hand them out to everyone in the castle. There’s got to be something else out there.”
“These are common and easy to find,” Yixing said. “They want to feel like they’re repaying me for the medicine I give them, but most of them don’t have the time to go looking for anything rarer. At least this way their gardens are getting a good weeding at the same time.”
“I guess so,” sighed Kyungsoo, “but you’re going to overwork yourself. They’re running around almost as much as you down there in the kitchens. What’s this feast they’re getting ready for?”
“Nothing particularly special, I don’t think,” Yixing said. “It’s that time of the year when traveling entertainers come through Camelot, so the king likes to invite them into the palace for a night. It’s mostly a chance for everyone to relax.”
“Everyone except the kitchen staff.” Kyungsoo tossed a dandelion blossom from hand to hand. “Well, have fun with that. Does this mean I can have the night off?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Yixing. “All the castle servants are supposed to serve at the feast that night. You won’t be working for me, exactly.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kyungsoo stopped to stare. “I don’t count as a castle servant, do I?”
“You serve me, and I serve the king,” Yixing pointed out. “Purely from the hierarchy of things, it does put you firmly in servant territory.”
“When exactly were you planning on telling me this?”
“When it came up. Which would be now.” Yixing dropped a stack of book into Kyungsoo’s arms. “If I were you, I would get to bed early tonight. Rest up for tomorrow.”
“I haven’t even had time to look at that book you gave me,” Kyungsoo complained. “How am I supposed to learn magic if you never give me any time to study?”
“The day after the feast everyone is usually in too much of a food stupor to do much,” Yixing told him. “I’ll leave you in charge of handing out medicines at the door, but other than that you should have the entire day free to read as much as you want.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Kyungsoo sighed, carrying the books away.
NEXT -->
Fandom: EXO
Rating: PG
Genre: fantasy/adventure/romance?
Word Count: 56k
Pairing: KyungMyeon
Summary: [BBC Merlin!AU] Kyungsoo has dreams of the future and the Voice of Destiny whispering in his ear. Unfortunately his destiny is Prince Junmyeon, who is, Kyungsoo thinks, a bit of an asshole.
Notes: Originally posted here at sncj_santa for daeseol. This version is slightly different from the one posted on sncj_santa, in that I’ve fixed a bunch of typos (though I’m sure there are more to be found still) and, more importantly, I’ve translated the spells into Old English, the way they appear on the show. Translations are at the bottom of the post in which they appear.
In answer to several questions I’ve gotten, yes, there will be a sequel. More on that later.
As usual, many many thanks to exeuntpbabear and elpis_chan for letting me scream at them and for not letting me quit. A special thanks to sutecha for helping me to beta 56k of this insane monster.
1/15/2015: There is now a Russian translation of Hastiludes! I'm a bit late in adding it to the post, so my apologies for that... Thank you so much to alyssamuse for the translation, which you can find here!
"Once upon a time," the young man panted as he struggled to the top of a hill, "there was a magical kingdom, ruled over by a wise king, where knights errant accomplished feats and rode forth on great quests. The greatest of these knights was the prince, the king's own son." He knocked a bush out of the way with his walking stick. "The king, the prince, and the royal court all lived in the great castle known as Camelot."
The sun was in his eyes when he finally reached the top, and he stood there shading his eyes with one hand, looking down at the roofs of houses below and, in the distance, the stone ramparts of a castle. Kyungsoo heaved a sigh before starting down the other side.
"Well," he said, "let's see just how magical this place is then."
It wasn't that Kyungsoo had any doubts about the existence of magic. Considering the circumstances, it would have been rather strange if he had. No, what he had was merely a healthy dose of skepticism concerning Camelot and the reception of magic (and by extension, himself) therein. Certainly none of the buildings he passed scattered around the city outskirts bore the slightest trace of anything less than mundane.
The problem was that Kyungsoo was very much magical.
It had started when he was very young. It had been small things at first, like the flowers he brought to his mother on May Day always keeping their color just a little bit longer than the other children's, but when he was seven and the rope holding the blacksmith on top of the workshop's roof snapped while he was in the middle of repairs, when a nearby cartload of hay went hurtling to catch the man without a single soul touching it, and when Kyungsoo was seen by his mother's side, hands outstretched and eyes glowing gold... then no one could fail to see that he was special. The village children didn't seem to want to play with him much after that, so Kyungsoo spent much of his free time with the town physician, learning to read and write. If his mother feared her neighbors turning on Kyungsoo for his magic, at least she could be proud to have a son who could read without his lips even moving, even if he still had to check to be sure how you stopped spelling "necessary".
She needn't have worried, however, since the others soon adopted him as a sort of good luck charm. It wasn't uncommon for them to hear a knock on the door and have it turn out to be a shepherd asking to borrow him for a lamb's delivery that he expected to be particularly difficult, or a nearby farmer wanting to have him on hand while he tried to work a new pair of oxen that had never been yoked before. Kyungsoo wasn't sure what they expected him to do if something should go wrong, but he didn't think they really knew either. Just that they figured it was better to have him there, just in case. His mother let him go as long as it wasn't too dangerous, so he would sit in a corner or at the edge of a field and read from one of the books the physician had loaned him while the usual work of the village went on around him. Down in the city, where the rich and noble replaced magic with the comfort and convenience of money, someone like Kyungsoo would have been met with fear, loathing, or even outright violence, but out here they couldn't afford that luxury. When you couldn't pay for expensive medicines or specially trained medics, often the best you could hope for was a magic touch and a whole lot of luck, and Kyungsoo saw his table filled more often than not with the rewards for his services, both real and imagined. On occasion, someone from Camelot would ride through town on official business, someone important or powerful, and the neighbors would warn Kyungsoo's mother to keep him home that day. He was the town's best kept secret.
He had been seventeen the first time he had the dream. When he had woken up, all he could remember was high stone walls rising up around him, the sound of steel clashing, and the sense that he was struggling to guard something. For days afterwards he had the constant urge to run out of the house and down the road, but he had enough presence of mind to realize that he had no idea where he needed to go, so was left pacing the edges of his house restlessly instead. The vague memory of the dream faded, but Kyungsoo could never quite shake the feeling that there was somewhere else he desperately needed to be. When he dreamed it again months later, it only strengthened that impression. Without a direction, though, all he could do was wait around while the ever-present weight of unspecified responsibility pressed heavier and heaver on his mind. It was almost a relief, then, when finally, at the age of twenty, the murky sounds of the dream started to coalesce into a single voice with words that became more and more distinct. By this time, he should have long since settled down into a livelihood, but he had always known that he was waiting for something else, that the dream was something he would have to follow one day, and now for the first time he had an idea of where that dream might take him.
"The fate of a man," the dream voice said, "a sparkling drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. Eternal guardian, who has always lived and always will. Yours is a fight in art and skill, shadow and secrecy; service to the once and future king."
Kyungsoo spent a long time puzzling over that. When asked for her opinion, his mother would only say that it sounded like one of the pompous, self-important lords from the city, and Kyungsoo was inclined to agree with her. Still, it was the only clue he had to satisfying this feeling of obligation that had bothered him for years, so he did his best to figure out what it could possibly mean. Cryptic, semi-prophetic dream or no, he was determined not to act until he had a clearer sense of exactly what it was he was supposed to be doing, so he waited and thought and read, and all the while kept dreaming. The voice got more and more insistent. When he started hearing it while he was awake, Kyungsoo had decided it was time to get moving.
"What on earth am I supposed to be doing, anyway?" he had demanded, stopping dead in the middle of the room he had been sweeping.
He suddenly felt this overwhelming urge to start walking, and his legs ached with the effort of staying still.
"I'm not going anywhere until I know where I'm going!" Kyungsoo realized that he looked very strange, holding a broom and lecturing an empty room. "You're going to have to be a little more clear."
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the red and gold flag that suddenly filled his vision. It was like trying to blink on the inside of his eyeballs, which was unpleasant enough without the phantom texture of cloth that accompanied the flag's image.
"Stop that right now," he said. "That's awful, and you know it."
"The time is now," the voice said in his ear. Kyungsoo thought it sounded petulant. "The once and future king awaits."
"Well, he can go on waiting long enough for me to get ready," Kyungsoo replied, starting to sweep again.
That night, though, he had told his mother that he was headed off to Camelot as soon as possible. She had sighed and smiled and started to pull out his spare clothes from storage.
"I knew it would happen sooner or later," she said when she kissed him goodbye the next morning. "What do you want me to tell everyone?"
"Tell them..." Kyungsoo hesitated. "Tell them I'm leaving to follow my dreams."
He had said it because he knew it would make her laugh, which it had. Now that he was wandering down streets far wider and more bustling than he had ever seen before, he wished there was something that familiar and comforting still with him. Granted, he still had the weird voice whispering in his ear from time to time, which was familiar but not really comforting. It sounded excited and quite pleased now that he was in the city, which Kyungsoo supposed was probably a good sign. He had made it to Camelot, but he had yet to figure out where he needed to go and what he needed to do. The nagging voice wouldn't shut up about this "once and future king" guy, so the castle itself was probably a good place to start looking. Kyungsoo highly doubted it was the king himself, or at least he hoped it wasn't. His Royal Highness King Siwon wasn't disliked or anything, but he was certainly the kingdom's loudest voice when it came to denouncing magic, and Kyungsoo was sure he'd quickly run into trouble if this was the king he was magically destined to protect. Still, the king had a son, didn't he? With any luck, this son would be more open to the possibility of magic as a force for good, which would make Kyungsoo's life a whole lot easier. It had to be either the king or his son anyway; the flag in his vision had definitely been the Pendragon emblem. Kyungsoo mused on the irony of the magic-hating royal family being named after a magical beast while he wandered down the main streets in the general direction of the castle, looking around at the various street vendors and their wares.
He was just looking at the various hats being sold in one of the stands to the side, when he saw a large crowd come around the corner up ahead. They were all wearing matching red capes which billowed out behind them, and they clustered together around one nearby fruit stand. Probably palace guards, judging from their clothing and general air of importance. Kyungsoo watched as they all started picking up the various produce, laughing and chatting and throwing it back and forth to each other as they discussed the relative merits of each one. The stall owner, a tall young man with huge eyes and riotous hair, looked resigned. Kyungsoo wondered if this was a common occurrence and if the group was actually going to pay for any of the fruit they ate or bruised. Something about the owner’s face seemed to suggest not. Kyungsoo was about to sigh and move on up the road towards the castle, when he saw an old woman trying to edge through the rowdy group and being repeatedly rebuffed. She kept trying patiently, but with no success. Finally, one of the men, who was lounging up against the wall nearby and munching on an apple waved her away.
“We’re busy here,” Kyungsoo heard him say. “Go bother someone else for free food.”
That was it.
“I could say the same to you,” Kyungsoo said, marching up to the group, full of purpose and righteous indignation. “This man here doesn’t look like he’s too happy about filling your bellies on the house.”
The stall owner’s eyes got even wider, and he waved his hands in protest as he looked back and forth at the red capes and Kyungsoo’s face. The man leaning against the wall looked gobsmacked. While he was shorter than all the others, something about him made Kyungsoo suspect he was their leader, so he focused his glare there. Kyungsoo put his hands on his hips and stared the man down.
“What,” said the man, straightening up and tossing the apple over his shoulder. The owner caught it and looked ruefully at the huge bites taken out of it. “I’m sorry, I must not have heard you right.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo apologized. “I didn’t realize you were hard of hearing. Of course, people with disabilities should be treated gently.”
There was a collective inhale from the other guards. Something about this felt off. Kyungsoo could feel the eyes of a crowd behind him as more people stopped to stare at what was going on. The shop owner looked horrified. The leader of the guards came right up to Kyungsoo to stare him down properly, and Kyungsoo was slightly amused to note that he was slightly too short to be really intimidating.
“You must be new around here,” said the man, “so I’ll give you a chance to rethink that. A friendly word of advice… You should think hard before saying things that could get you into trouble.”
“The only thing I think is that you should probably pay for stuff you and your cronies destroy,” Kyungsoo said. “I mean, if you can figure out how currency works and all that. Maybe someone can help you with the bigger numbers.”
The man’s hand went to his sword hilt. His eyes were furious, but he kept a huge mock-friendly smile on his face. The fruit stall owner was now watching the entire thing from behind his hands, and Kyungsoo saw out of the corner of his eye that the entire street seemed to be watching with horrified fascination. He felt slightly uncomfortable, like something wasn’t quite right here, but he held his ground. He hadn’t come here to make a scene, but something about this group just rubbed him the wrong way. Standing by and watching casual abuse of power was not something Kyungsoo could easily stomach, and he doubted anyone had ever stood up to these guys before. He felt slightly better about his decision then.
“Alright,” the man in front of him was saying, “I gave you a chance to take your words back gracefully, but it looks like you want me to make you eat them instead.”
“What, you?” Kyungsoo laughed, though he eyed the sword with some trepidation. “Do you need me to stand downhill from you so you can reach?”
That got an eye twitch. With a gesture, the man borrowed another sword from one of his companions and tossed it at Kyungsoo.
“Here,” he said. “You might want that.”
Kyungsoo sighed. “Look, I’m not going to fight you. You’ve already made a fool of yourself in front of everyone, so why not just deal with it like a mature adult and stop making a scene?”
“People like you need to be taught a lesson,” the other man said, twirling his own sword idly. “Need to learn your place and all that.”
He took another menacing step forward, making Kyungsoo back up rapidly as people behind him scurried to get out of the way. He didn’t even particularly mean to do it, but a box off to the side, about shin-high, jerked suddenly out onto the path and Kyungsoo realized that he’d unconsciously magicked it there. No one else seemed to have noticed, though, since they were too busy gasping over the sudden spill it had caused for his opponent. Kyungsoo edged around to the side and picked up the other sword. He wasn’t sure how to use it or anything, but it seemed safer to have something in his hands after this. Still, it was funny and the jab left his tongue before he could stop it.
“Maybe you could use the box to stand on,” he suggested. “If you ask nicely, I’ll stand still and you can try to get a good swing in.”
He only got a growl in response. Kyungsoo had to dodge a fist since his opponent had dropped his sword when he fell. Kyungsoo slid back between the roadside stalls, trying to get some cover, but that only resulted in a chase through the wooden shops and assorted hanging goods. Kyungsoo winced when the retrieved sword sliced through what he thought were some very nice swathes of cloth at a stall full of woven goods. Apparently the owner thought so too, since she let out a cry of dismay and clutched the tattered ends. Kyungsoo frowned and this time it was no accident when a nearby bucket of iron tools came clattering down onto the other man’s head. Kyungsoo ducked to avoid anyone seeing what he knew was a sudden flash of gold in his eyes. Self-defense or no, he was in Camelot now, and it could only get him into more trouble if someone saw him using magic. Anyway, he had more important things to worry about, like the wild swing he saw coming towards him, which he quickly blocked with a broomstick he spotted leaning against a nearby counter. The sword bit into the wood and stuck there, so it only took a flick of the wrist for his opponent to disarm him, and Kyungsoo scrambled backwards over the cobbles, looking around for something else he could use. He spotted a hanging set of chains, which he quickly tangled around the sword when it came up for another swing, and he laughed when it jerked out of the other man’s hands to swing back and forth over his head. Kyungsoo might have ensured that it swung a little bit higher than the man could reach, but he didn’t think anyone in his position could be blamed for taking such an opportunity to make their aggressor jump so comically up and down, getting increasingly more angry each time he failed to retrieve his weapon. Even in the middle of the nervous muttering, Kyungsoo could hear snatches of muffled laughter from the crowd that had followed them here. He stood up and bowed dramatically.
“Yes, yes, thank you! This has been your street theater for the day! Please visit all our lovely businesses and make sure not to screw them out of their wares!”
He waved and bowed over and over again, and almost missed the stares going over his head right before he was hit very hard. The group of guards had formed a barrier across the road behind Kyungsoo and their leader had retrieved the broomstick he had snatched from Kyungsoo and was now proceeding to wallop him thoroughly with it. A sharp blow across the shoulders was followed up immediately by one to his rear end and back, until he doubled over and collapsed under a sharp crack to the skull. Kyungsoo’s eyes watered, but he could see the figure standing over him even as he clutched his aching head.
“Guards,” the other man said haughtily, “I command you to seize him and clap him in chains for his insolence.”
He sounded just as pompous and smug as the voice in Kyungsoo’s dream. Kyungsoo thought that it felt highly unfair to have self-important assholes telling him what to do at every turn.
“Pretty sure you can actually be imprisoned yourself for impersonating royalty,” he snapped peevishly.
“Yeah?” came the reply as Kyungsoo was hauled to his feet. Kyungsoo could hear the smirk. “Well, I know for a fact that you can be thrown in the dungeon for mocking royalty, so...”
Kyungsoo’s clever plan started to seem like worse and worse of an idea.
“Nice to meet you,” the man smiled. “I’m Prince Junmyeon. And you’re an idiot.”
Well, shit.
All in all, it could have been worse, Kyungsoo decided. He had pissed off royalty through a misplaced sense of civil heroism and had managed to get away with only a couple lumps and bruises and some smelly straw to sleep on. Of course, he had no idea how long he was expected to stay in this cell, but he was prepared to grovel and play up the “ignorant rustic” angle as much as need be to get him out of this. Like it or not, he still had a mission to fulfill, and that was to find this once and future king and keep him safe. Having now met the crown prince of Camelot, Kyungsoo had to hope that this wasn’t the person he was supposed to dedicate his life to, because if it was then he had half a mind to just pack up and head back home. There was still this strange tug in his mind, though, like there was a thread connecting the inside of his head to something very close by. It had gotten better since he entered the city, like he was getting closer and the line wasn’t pulled quite so taut anymore, but if he left the city again, he thought the sensation might eventually drive him insane. Kyungsoo sighed, lying back on his arms in the straw. The faint chatter in the back of his mind had quieted somewhat as well, so all in all he found himself more comfortable here in the city than he had been in a while. It was like there were two parts of him-the normal village boy who was overwhelmed and skittish in an unfamiliar crowded city, and the magical part of him which was no longer on edge and straining for something so far in the distance. Kyungsoo was not one to be idle, so he started coming up with plans for whenever he got out of his current predicament. He would have to find somewhere to stay and some way to make a living since he could no longer count on food appearing at his table simply for being present during regular farmland chores. For the first time he wished that he had spent more time learning an actual productive skill, like metalworking or something like that. He could always make a few coins moving boxes and barrels for various merchants, he supposed, but he had spent his entire childhood reading rather than working in the fields and he rather doubted he’d be very useful in that area. He sat up. That was an idea though. He could read and write, so there was bound to be work for someone with those skills. He had a fairly good head for numbers, so he could always do bookkeeping if he had to. He would just have to go through the more permanent businesses in the city, preferably those who had not seen the mess he’d gotten himself into today, and see who needed assistance of a more scholarly nature. Satisfied with his plan, Kyungsoo lay back and let himself drift off to sleep.
The next morning he was shaken awake by another guard in a red cape who told him to get up and led him out of the cell. Kyungsoo was apparently not free to go wherever he liked though, since he was flanked by two more guards and taken through several winding hallways back up and out of the building.
“So, where are we going?” Kyungsoo asked. The guard to his left just laughed, but the one on his right managed to turn his laugh into a cough long enough to reply.
“The prince decided you had guts, so you’re getting a relaxed punishment,’ he said.
So he wasn’t off the hook just yet. Kyungsoo’s speculation as to exactly what counted as a “relaxed” punishment got an answer when they came out into one of the large market squares just outside the high castle walls, where a large wooden board was standing just ahead. Oh. Kyungsoo thought that the stocks were probably a better deal than a million years of dungeon, but the number of people waiting around was slightly intimidating. Once he was securely locked into the wooden yoke, the fruit vendor from the day before came up to him carrying a huge basket of suspicious-looking fruit which he set about twenty feet in front of Kyungsoo’s face.
“Sorry,” the man told him. “The prince was really particular about this part. He wanted me to tell you that he paid for them and everything.” He leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “Don’t worry, I made sure they were mostly the really bruised and mushy ones. Nothing too hard or spiky.”
Kyungsoo braced himself for the oncoming storm of produce. Most of the people throwing stuff, he noticed, were either guards in red capes, probably getting a bit of amusing revenge for the day before, and very small children. Many other people gathered to watch without throwing anything, and Kyungsoo thought that they looked mostly goodnatured and pleased to see him, so he waved and smiled as a particularly overripe tomato hit the side of his head. The fruit vendor stayed nearby to replenish the baskets and to make conversation, which Kyungsoo was grateful for. Kyungsoo learned that his name was Chanyeol and got the impression that he was generally a cheerful and exuberant person to be around, at least judging from the way he was laughing uproariously over some of the particularly splattery things that landed on Kyungsoo. He called out scores for the children and organized contests to see who could make the biggest mess and land the most direct shots, but even as the butt of the massive joke, Kyungsoo couldn’t help but laugh along with the rest of them. When the sun started to get too hot, Chanyeol awarded the winner of the latest contest with a bucket of water to dump over Kyungsoo’s head, and he thoughtfully draped a cloth over Kyungsoo’s neck to keep it from getting too badly burned. Hours and hours passed, but at least it was more exciting than sitting in a stone room and counting the number of black beetles he saw running in the cracks between the flagstones.
Around the time the sun started to disappear behind the surrounding rooftops, the guards decided that Kyungsoo had served his time and one of them unlocked the padlock to let him out. Kyungsoo leaned back and twisted, hearing each of his vertebrae crack and pop back into place. Chanyeol was still waiting nearby to gather up his baskets, which he did before turning to Kyungsoo with a smile and inviting him back to his house for dinner. Kyungsoo’s stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten a single thing since before The Confrontation yesterday, so he accepted gratefully. It turned out that Chanyeol lived in a small house attached to the ones on either side, so that it looked like a single whitewashed wall with multiple doors and windows peeking out all in a row, right behind where his stall had been set up the day before.
“I like to be able to move it around a little bit, he explained, kicking open the door with one foot since his arms were full of basket. “Some of the people all the way on the other side of the city don’t tend to come all the way over here, at least not very often, and they have to want fruit too, you know? So if I have a cart, I can just bring the fruit to them!”
Kyungsoo nodded, his arms also full of baskets. The room inside was fairly simply decorated, but something about it seemed almost as friendly as Chanyeol himself.
“We’re back!” Chanyeol boomed, and the two people at the table inside jumped slightly.
“Oh, you brought him,” said the shorter of the two. He came over to Kyungsoo and relieved him of his basket load. “Hello, my name is Baekhyun. I’m sorry your first introduction to this city was Chanyeol. And, well… that other business.”
“You were there?” Kyungsoo winced.
“Saw the whole thing,” Baekhyun smiled reassuringly at him. “It was actually pretty impressive. I’m glad you stood up to him; he’s a bit of a bully sometimes, and heaven knows Chanyeol won’t tell him off.”
“You won’t either,” Chanyeol pointed out with a pout.
“Yeah, well. You can’t just tell off a prince without consequences.”
“Like getting put in the stocks and having rotten vegetables thrown at you?” Kyungsoo suggested, picking a bit of lettuce out from behind his ear.
“Like that.”
“Anyway,” said Chanyeol, “Yixing would tell him off, wouldn’t you, Yixing?”
He nudged his second friend, whom Kyungsoo assumed to be Yixing, with his elbow. Yixing smiled faintly and continued setting out plates on the table.
“Yixing would tell anyone off, though,” argued Baekhyun. “I’m pretty sure he sasses the king on a regular basis.”
“That would be unwise,” said Yixing quietly, but he was still smiling.
“Do you tell the prince off, though?” Kyungsoo asked curiously. Yixing stopped, tilting his head to the side.
“I suppose I do,” he said. “Junmyeon doesn’t seem to overly mind it, though.”
“Yixing is the royal physician,” explained Baekhyun. “He’s pretty much in tight with all the important people up in the palace. Probably because he’s had to deal with all their embarrassing illnesses at one point or another.”
“They’re really not all that bad,” Yixing said, causing Baekhyun to scoff.
“That’s the first batch of fruit His Royal Highness has paid Chanyeol for in as long as I can remember,” said Baekhyun. “No, wait. He paid for that truckload of apples the week before last.”
“I think the king paid for those actually,” Chanyeol said. “I think he was just bringing the money down to make a good impression.”
“Oh, then yeah. I can’t remember the last time he paid us for fruit. The point is, you-” Baekhyun turned sharply to Kyungsoo, jabbing a finger at him, “What did you do yesterday? Don’t forget, I saw everything.”
Kyungsoo gulped. His heart started racing, even as he told himself that Baekhyun meant the ill-advised confrontation and not… anything else more specific and damning. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Baekhyun said. “You’re not going to tell me inanimate objects were leaping to your aid just because you’re so charming. I know what I saw. That was magic, wasn’t it?”
Kyungsoo was definitely panicking now. He looked around for a polite way to excuse himself, but Baekhyun seemed to anticipate his escape attempt, instead ushering him further into the room with a firm grip on his arm and sitting him down in a chair.
"Now, don't worry," Baekhyun assured him, "We're not going to turn you in or anything. Your secret's safe with us. But don't think you can get away, either."
"I don't know what you're talking about," insisted Kyungsoo. Baekhyun could promise all he wanted, but Kyungsoo knew his safest bet would be to keep all knowledge of his power strictly to himself. "How would I know anything about magic?"
Baekhyun moved so suddenly that Kyungsoo jumped in his chair. Baekhyun's elbow jerked out into the cup sitting next to him on the table, sending the ceramic flying over the edge, and Kyungsoo could feel the unconscious surge of magic bubbling up a split second before the cup hung frozen in midair. Both Baekhyun and Chanyeol, who had dove to catch the cup with a yelp, were staring dumbfounded at the object, but Yixing sat across the table from Kyungsoo the entire time, his gaze never wavering. Kyungsoo knew there was no way Yixing could have missed the gold flash that always accompanied Kyungsoo's magic and turned his eyes bright. The cup resumed its downward plummet a moment later, once Kyungsoo reigned in his instincts, but luckily by that point Chanyeol was close enough to catch it before it hit. He made a sad face at the puddle of water all over the floor and his arms.
"Interesting," said Yixing.
"You're telling me," Baekhyun whistled.
"What?" Kyungsoo demanded. His hands were shaking. He knew it was pointless to keep denying anything now. "What's interesting?"
"You didn't use any verbal spells or incantations," Yixing frowned, chin in hand as he leaned on the table. "At least, not that I heard. Have you mastered nonverbal casting? Who taught you to do that?"
Kyungsoo was confused. "No one? I don't know any spells, no one's taught me anything."
"Nothing?" Baekhyun pressed. "You've had no training at all? How do you do that?"
"I don't know?" Kyungsoo was becoming increasingly disoriented by all the questions. This was not how he'd expected a revelation of his powers to go. "I don't really think about it. It just... happens."
"So what you're saying is it's purely instinctual?"
"I guess?"
Baekhyun exchanged meaningful glances with Yixing.
"A 'warlock unlike any other,'" Yixing murmured. "Indeed he is."
"What are you two talking about?" Chanyeol sounded exasperated. He went largely ignored, so he huffed and went off to stir something simmering in a large pot over the fire to one side of the room.
"Yixing, haven't you been saying that you needed an assistant?" prompted Baekhyun.
"I have," Yixing agreed. "Kyungsoo, if you're new to Camelot, you'll be looking for room and board. How would you like to come stay with me?"
"No, that's fine!" Kyungsoo hurried to say. "I'm sure I can find work and a room somewhere. I wouldn't want to... impose."
"You've already made yourself quite infamous for that little scene yesterday," hummed Yixing, "so unless you were planning to get yourself into the castle dungeons every night, you might have some trouble locating someone on this side of the city who will house you."
"Then I'll go to the other side of the city," said Kyungsoo firmly. Baekhyun sighed.
"The thing is," he said. "That we've been waiting for you for some time now. Not you, specifically-" he added, seeing Kyungsoo's face, "but someone like you, who can use magic in a way unlike anyone else."
"There are a few holdouts and repositories of magical objects," Yixing continued. "I happen to know of several, including a book which has come into my possession. Most of it is just a regular spellbook, which is fairly useless to me-I have no talent for magic of any significance-but at the back it contains what appear to be several interesting prophecies. They're written in the Old Language and are quite extensive, but I've managed to translate bits and pieces."
"What does any of this have to do with me?" Kyungsoo asked.
"As Baekhyun said, we've been waiting for someone with magical powers as unusual as your own," explained Yixing. "The sections of the book that I've been able to decipher talk about a time of great threat to Camelot, coming sometime in the near future. A lot of it is confusing, but it mentions 'a warlock unlike any other; magic in blood, not in book' as well as the image of two dragons waking under the mountain, whose war will shake the earth. I wondered if part of that could refer to the Pendragon family, though I have no idea why it mentions two dragons. It does spend a great deal of time expounding on the idea of a ruler who appears over and over again, whom it calls 'the once and future king.'"
Kyungsoo, who had been starting to tune out Yixing's rambling, sat bolt upright at that.
"The what?" he choked.
"The once and future king?" Yixing repeated. "Have you heard of him? I can't figure out anything about him, but the book seems to assume that the reader already knows all about him. Since it's in such close proximity to the dragon imagery, I suspect it might be someone in the royal family."
"I don't know anything more than you," Kyungsoo admitted, "but I've heard that name before. That's... it's actually why I came to Camelot." As reluctant as he was to further reveal his powers and get himself wrapped up in whatever prophecy Yixing was caught up in, this was the first solid lead Kyungsoo had gotten about where his dream voice might be taking him. "I've been having these dreams for years now, but I've just recently figured out what they were saying. Whoever this king is, I think I'm supposed to find him and serve him somehow."
"See, this is interesting!" said Baekhyun. "What are the odds you'd both run into the exact same phrasing unless you were both looking for the same thing?"
"He's got a point," said Chanyeol, deciding to contribute to the conversation for the first time. "It sounds like you're both headed the same way, as it were, so why not see what you can do to help each other out? And anyway, if Yixing can't use most of the spellbook, why not let Kyungsoo take a crack at it? That way you both win."
Yixing met Kyungsoo's eyes and nodded. "That sounds fine to me."
Personally, Kyungsoo thought he'd prefer to stay with someone like Chanyeol than with someone who stared at him as disconcertingly as Yixing did. Something about the offer intrigued him, though, and the promise of getting to look at an actual spellbook and maybe finally understand something more concrete about his magic was no small part of that. He nodded as well.
"That settles it then!" Baekhyun clapped his hands, pleased. "Chanyeol, is dinner ever going to be ready?"
"I've been waiting here this whole time for you to notice the soup's ready," Chanyeol complained. "You just wouldn't stop talking."
"Sorry, Chanyeol," Yixing said, smiling apologetically. "Let's eat before it gets cold, instead of discussing all this on an empty stomach."
The meal was good, though Kyungsoo suspected he could have eaten just about anything. Apparently getting rotten produce flung at your head all day was tiring work, and the enervation that spread over his limbs was one he recognized as coming from a day spent outside under the sun, compounded now by a full stomach. He had a much harder time getting back up to the castle than he had had coming out of it that morning.
The bed that Yixing led him to threatened to swallow him whole, which Kyungsoo was more than happy to let happen. He took the book when Yixing handed it to him, tucking it under the mattress unopened, and was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, sinking immediately into blissful unconsciousness. As the night wore on, the dreams started to surface again. Kyungsoo could feel himself being tugged upwards out of empty blackness into scattered images and the sound of the familiar voice. This time the images in his dreams were scenes of massive winged serpents rolling and wrestling in caverns until the walls and ceiling shook and rocks clattered to the cavern floor around them. They turned into painted and embroidered flags after that. Battle standards, Kyungsoo thought, for the armies he saw fighting all around him. From where he stood on a tall hilltop, he recognized one of the flags now as the Pendragon emblem, but he had never seen the other one before. Two dragons, gold and black, fought in the sky above the armies. Whenever one of them gained the upper hand, one of the armies would seem to have the advantage, but when the other dragon recovered itself, so did the opposing army. The golden dragon crashed to the ground in a pool of red blood as the Pendragon army faltered and broke. Kyungsoo could see them fleeing around the huge flanks of the fallen dragon, and watched as the black serpent stood ready to deliver the killing blow. Two armored figures stood between the two dragons, swords at the ready, but the knight wearing the colors of Camelot seemed to be hurt and he struggled to keep his feet. There was a flash from another hilltop opposite Kyungsoo, behind which he could just barely make out another figure, standing as if to mirror Kyungsoo. At the same time, an answering flash came from jewels around the necks of the black dragon and the knight in black armor, which had gone unnoticed until that moment. The black knight raised his sword to strike Camelot's champion, who now had taken off his helmet to gasp for breath, and recognition hit Kyungsoo like a punch to the gut.
It was Junmyeon.
Kyungsoo heard himself cry out, both hands coming up to glow with more power than he had ever wielded before in his life. The scene swam before his eyes, fading black around the edges, no matter how hard Kyungsoo tried to hold on to it, to see what the outcome would be. The sounds congealed together, flowing into one to form the voice that Kyungsoo now dreaded to hear.
"Your destiny lies on this path, young warlock," it said. "Protect the Pendragon. Protect the once and future king."
Kyungsoo's eyes flew open. He was lying on his back with both arms raised in front of him, the way they had been in the dream. There was a circle of scorched wood on the rafters above, still smoking from whatever Kyungsoo had thrown at it in his sleep. Clearly not as powerful a spell as whatever he'd been using in his dream, which was something to be grateful for, he supposed. He was still staring at the ceiling in shock when Yixing burst through the door, stumbling slightly over the threshold in his haste.
"What is it?" He sounded on the edge of panic. "You shouted and- what happened? What did you do to the ceiling?"
Kyungsoo let his arms fall to the bed on either side of him, lying there for a beat longer before rolling over and writhing on the bed with his face smushed into the pillow.
"Kyungsoo, what is it?" Yixing came over to the bed and grabbed his arm. "Kyungsoo, answer me! Are you alright?"
Kyungsoo raised his head long enough to wail in frustration.
"Why did it have to be that asshole?" he demanded of the universe at large before slamming his face back down into the pillow and screaming furiously.
It took a while to communicate the reason for his distress to Yixing, considering that for the first fifteen minutes or so Kyungsoo was too busy cursing every natural, supernatural, divine, and cosmic power that might ever have existed for plotting to ruin his life to actually convey any actual information, but even once he had heard the dream’s content, Yixing seemed remarkably unsympathetic to the fact that Kyungsoo was apparently destined to spend his live covering the ass of a pompous brat of a prince. He was far more interested with what the dueling dragons might symbolize and the implications of the other figure than with Kyungsoo’s mental well-being or the prospect of Kyungsoo dedicating his life to someone who had tried to wallop him with a sword.
“Are you forgetting the part where he hates me?” Kyungsoo asked incredulously.
“Junmyeon’s not actually that bad once you get to know him,” Yixing waved a hand. “He’s a little full of himself sometimes and yes, you got off on the wrong foot, but his heart’s in the right place. Maybe he just needs someone like you around to point him in the right direction.”
Kyungsoo grumbled. “More than a little full of himself, if you ask me.”
Yixing simply smiled and urged Kyungsoo to finish up his breakfast.
“We’re going to have a lot to do today,” he said, “and the sooner we start, the better.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. As soon as Kyungsoo finished eating, Yixing had him cleaning up all traces of food so that he could spread out a vast assortment of bowls, pitchers, vials, bottles, and other containers, many of them containing ingredients Kyungsoo had never seen before in his life. Just about any space left free on the table after that was covered with pages of notes and stacks of books. Kyungsoo tried to flip through one but Yixing slapped his hands away before sending him off to bring back several buckets full of water. As Yixing worked to assemble various cures, he explained the entire process step-by-step to Kyungsoo, pointing out where in his notes it listed each of the remedies. As he handed things to Yixing one by one under careful direction, Kyungsoo found that many of the ingredients he actually had heard of, but they had been modified or prepared in some way as to make them largely unrecognizable. He recognized even more names from the reading he had done as a child, now finally able to give them a visual. Yixing’s words filled in many of the blanks in Kyungsoo’s knowledge as far as herblore went, connecting many dots he’d never associated before, and he came away with an overall far more complete picture than he’d started with.
Just when Kyungsoo’s eyes were blurring and his head felt like it was about to burst, Yixing sat back and announced that they were done mixing up remedies for the day. Kyungsoo sighed with relief, which turned out to come a moment too soon. Yixing dropped a bag into his lap and told him to start carefully packing up the mixtures that were finished so that they could make their delivery rounds. Kyungsoo followed Yixing all through the upper town before following him back up through the gates and throughout the castle itself, squinting at Yixing’s spindly writing on the bottles and labels as they distributed the medicine. Yixing introduced him to each person they delivered to, all the while explaining directions and ways to remember various locations that Kyungsoo found more confusing than helpful, though he refrained from saying so. Finally they were down to the last delivery. Kyungsoo hefted the jar in his hands as he read the label.
“‘Ointment for bruises and aches,’” he read out. “Who’s this for?”
“This would be for the prince,” Yixing said lightly, watching Kyungsoo’s face. He caught Kyungsoo’s arm as he turned to beat a hasty retreat. “Oh, no. You’re coming with me.”
“Why?” Kyungsoo asked, still trying to sneak away. “He hates me, remember? What good will possibly come of me delivering him this- wait,” he paused. “Why does the prince need something for bruises? This sounds like he got beat up or-”
Yixing’s face was serene. “I’m sure he has quite a lot of knocks from combat training and the like. It’s not at all unusual for a prince to catch a few lumps in the course of a day’s work.”
“All right,” Kyungsoo smiled. “This I’ve got to see.”
Yixing led the way, and Kyungsoo stood to the side with the jar as Yixing knocked politely on the door. He pushed it open when they heard a voice from inside call out ‘enter’, walking confidently across the stone floor while Kyungsoo tried to stay as much behind him as possible. Junmyeon was sitting at a table near the window, picking at a plateful of food, and he barely glanced up enough to see who it was.
“How are you feeling today, your highness?” asked Yixing cheerfully.
“Like someone walloped me over the head,” Junmyeon complained. Kyungsoo bit back a smile. “Have you got anything for this goose egg someone left on my skull?”
“I think I have just the thing.” Yixing gestured Kyungsoo forward. “This ointment was designed to bring down swelling and soothe aches. I didn’t realize you needed something specifically for your head, so it might be a little hard to wash out, but it will still help.”
Junmyeon didn’t seem to hear a word Yixing was saying. He stared at Kyungsoo like his eyes were about to fall out of his head. Kyungsoo kept a vague pleasant smile on his face which he had to struggle to keep from becoming a laugh, since Junmyeon seemed offended and betrayed by his very presence there.
“Yixing,” Junmyeon finally managed, through clenched teeth, “what is he doing here?”
“Kyungsoo is my new assistant,” Yixing said easily. Kyungsoo nodded graciously, pleased by the way this made Junmyeon splutter. “He’s been helping me mix my remedies all day, and I decided to show him the way around the castle, since he’ll be staying here.”
Junmyeon glared. “Perhaps you don’t know yet, but your new little assistant is the reason I-” he stopped and bit his tongue before he could say any more. “He insulted me publicly, you know. He’s an insolent troublemaker, and who’s to say he didn’t piss in the ointment? I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“I wouldn’t stoop so low,” Kyungsoo sniffed. “Though, I mean, even if I didn’t piss in it-”
He trailed off meaningfully. Yixing coughed to hide a surprised laugh at Junmyeon’s face.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Junmyeon demanded.
“I just think you probably don’t want to know what goes into your joint cream here,” Kyungsoo shrugged. “Gotta decide whether the creaking and aches are worth the risk here.”
Junmyeon snatched the jar away from him.
“You’re lying,” he said, unscrewing the lid and sniffing it tentatively. “There’s nothing suspicious about this at all, is there? Yixing?”
“As your highness says,” Yixing bowed. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Kyungsoo didn’t miss the tactful phrasing, though it seemed that it had largely escaped Junmyeon, who was now smearing it on his shoulder and smirking.
“You’ve got a lot to learn if you think you can pull one over on me,” Junmyeon told him. “You’re not nearly as clever as you think.”
“Of course,” Kyungsoo imitated Yixing’s bow. “The second lesson this week. I’m learning fast.”
He followed Yixing out of the room before collapsing against the wall in laughter.
“I thought you might like to be there for that,” Yixing said mildly, his tone carefully not full of ‘I told you so.’
“I think helping a physician has made me less likely to want any medicine at all,” Kyungsoo said. “Knowing exactly what goes into it kind of puts you off to the whole idea.”
“Never become a chef,” advised Yixing. Kyungsoo pulled a face.
“Noted.”
The next day Yixing set him to checking up on the medicines that required a longer period of preparation. He called out colors for various liquids, poked to check the consistency of others, and filtered out particles that collected on the surface of others, while Yixing made notes of each one in chalk on the massive board he kept off to one side of the room for that very purpose. It was important, he explained to Kyungsoo, he keep a written record of every concoction, to speed up or improve the process for the future. Kyungsoo thought it was probably more to keep track of the massive volume of medicine being produced, but he kept that to himself. They spend most of the day this way, interrupted occasionally by knocks on the door leading to the outside. There were two doors in and out of Yixing’s quarters; one leading into the castle, and one which could be accessed from the town. It was this second one that their visitors were coming today, and Yixing did whatever he could to provide small cures to aid the townsfolk. Most of them could not afford to pay, though that didn’t stop them from offering. Yixing turned down whatever payment he could, or bargained them down to some trifling amount, often asking for some worthless, easily found weed from their gardens, which he told them was vital for his work. He got baskets and baskets full of dandelions, for example. Yixing dutifully packed away as much as he could into his ingredient cabinets and then sent Kyungsoo to get rid of the rest.
Kyungsoo ended up taking a basket of dandelion leaves to the kitchens, to be used in salad, and found everyone there scrambling all over to produce more food than he had ever seen before in his life. When he asked a maid what was going on, she looked at him like he was stupid.
“The feast, of course,” she said. “It’s less than a day away now. Of course we’re busy.”
She shooed him out of the room, back down to Yixing’s rooms, where he saw Yixing bowing an old man out of the door. He had another handful of dandelions.
“Why do you keep taking more of those?” Kyungsoo asked. “There’s no way we can use all of them, even if we hand them out to everyone in the castle. There’s got to be something else out there.”
“These are common and easy to find,” Yixing said. “They want to feel like they’re repaying me for the medicine I give them, but most of them don’t have the time to go looking for anything rarer. At least this way their gardens are getting a good weeding at the same time.”
“I guess so,” sighed Kyungsoo, “but you’re going to overwork yourself. They’re running around almost as much as you down there in the kitchens. What’s this feast they’re getting ready for?”
“Nothing particularly special, I don’t think,” Yixing said. “It’s that time of the year when traveling entertainers come through Camelot, so the king likes to invite them into the palace for a night. It’s mostly a chance for everyone to relax.”
“Everyone except the kitchen staff.” Kyungsoo tossed a dandelion blossom from hand to hand. “Well, have fun with that. Does this mean I can have the night off?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Yixing. “All the castle servants are supposed to serve at the feast that night. You won’t be working for me, exactly.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kyungsoo stopped to stare. “I don’t count as a castle servant, do I?”
“You serve me, and I serve the king,” Yixing pointed out. “Purely from the hierarchy of things, it does put you firmly in servant territory.”
“When exactly were you planning on telling me this?”
“When it came up. Which would be now.” Yixing dropped a stack of book into Kyungsoo’s arms. “If I were you, I would get to bed early tonight. Rest up for tomorrow.”
“I haven’t even had time to look at that book you gave me,” Kyungsoo complained. “How am I supposed to learn magic if you never give me any time to study?”
“The day after the feast everyone is usually in too much of a food stupor to do much,” Yixing told him. “I’ll leave you in charge of handing out medicines at the door, but other than that you should have the entire day free to read as much as you want.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Kyungsoo sighed, carrying the books away.
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