Chapter Text
The moon set and kissed the sun a farewell. The stars were replaced with clouds and South Park kingdom embraced the warmth of early fall days. The birds chirped above and the people moved briskly in and out of the castle. The hours of daylight dwindled down, the colors of the day phasing from a nice yellow to a mix of oranges, pinks, and purples as the sun set over the region. The moon rose again and the sun kissed a farewell as it lowered more and more, only leaving the dark colors of the sky behind. This routine was certain, it happened every day and every night because even when it stormed out or you couldn’t see the moon at night because of the clouds, they would always bid a farewell and see you later.
“C’mon Kenny!”
His arm was being pulled out of his socket, thanks to Butters. He was being dragged to the medical ward once again. The castle was asleep, only knights roamed the hallways that the two boys avoided. If they were caught not in their sleeping quarters at this hour they could receive some sort of punishment. What kind? No one knew, the knights refused to tell the recruits what it could be. But Kenny didn’t care and neither did Butters.
Both boys agreed that being drawn was significantly better than their lives in their respective towns. They discussed during the little time they knew each other that leaving their towns behind was the best course of action to adjust to their new lives. That was easy for Butters, he was an only child and hated both his parents anyway. He told Kenny horror stories of their punishments for reasons as simple as him existing. For a long time, he thought that was the way love worked, you punish them because you love them and want them to do the right thing. But then Butters had a girlfriend and told Kenny how eye opening it was to really experience love, and although it didn’t work out for the two, he told Kenny how alive it made him feel. His eyes lit up with the burning sensation of a thousand suns, and Kenny watched in amazement as how his friend was able to take the bad with the good so well. He never asked Butters if they were the ones to give him the scar that ran from his forehead to his cheek, he just assumed.
Kenny was also grateful that he was drawn to become a knight. The neverending, grueling work that came with being a man in Woodstock was exhausting. When he shut his eyes at night, all he dreamed about was mining more and more coal for the kingdom to run. The mines were in his dreams and his nightmares and there was never any progress made, he just kept mining and mining.
But unlike Butters, Kenny was leaving something he loved more than anything, his little sister Karen. She was, at least, spared from having to work in the mines like his mother, instead doing everything else to make the town run. She used to tell Kenny stories of how she was going to get out of Woodstock, maybe get an education. He never had the heart to tell her that people in Woodstock don’t get an education, that these were the poorest people in South Park and all were crammed into one town to mine coal to produce power, and that if you were born in Woodstock, you could never leave. She would live and die there and Kenny couldn’t do anything to change that as he watched the town grow further and further out of his sight. The only person that he knew escaped from Woodstock was his older brother, Kevin.
Kenny was never close with him, he had the same anger problems as their father and Kenny couldn’t be bothered to deal with either man. Kevin was the type of man that you wouldn’t remember a minute later, even if he was in the background or talking right at you. Did Kenny hate him for running away? Obviously. The family didn’t hear him rustle to collect his things, didn’t hear the door open and shut, and didn’t hear the quiet footsteps pick up speed outside their house. They awoke with the sunrise and were met with an empty bed. No note, no sign, nothing.
Kenny was pissed because, not only was there one less man helping with the mines, but it was his 13th birthday, the age where boys in Woodstock turned into men and joined their fathers in the neverending tunnels. Kevin was supposed to show him around, teach him what to do, and integrate him with the others. But Kevin was selfish and Kenny resented him for that. He also ruined Kenny’s birthday, but nobody in Woodstock celebrated them anyway. He kept that pent up anger inside him because if anyone deserved to run away in the McCormick family, it was Karen.
“Why are you pulling so hard? The medical wing will still be there, it can’t move,” Kenny chuckled. Butters stopped and turned to face him, his face still held the wonder that Kenny first witnessed in line. It was a wonder that no one ever had in Woodstock, not even his own sister when she described her unrealistic dreams.
“I don’t want to get caught by the knights and they force us to go back to our sleeping quarters.”
The boys resumed walking, accompanying the time with quiet conversation about everything and nothing. Out of the group that was subconsciously formed between the five boys, Butters was his favorite. The conversation flowed effortlessly between them, like they had known each other in a past life and are catching up again. He was close with the others, but Craig and Clyde had each other and Stan had everyone else. He grew up in the kingdom, all his friends were still there, but the other four boys started fresh in a new, unknown environment and only had each other to lean on. To Kenny at least, he only had an inkling to trust them. He didn’t question it.
“Do you think we did well in training today?” Butters questioned in a hushed voice.
“Well,” Kenny responded with the same volume, “considering there were always at least five knights watching and taking notes when almost every other pair barely had one, I would say probably not.”
“It’s not fair. Everyone else got feedback, why didn’t we?”
“I think you’re forgetting that Craig and Clyde also didn’t receive any. They said so at dinner.”
“There’s no feedback to give them. They were perfect.”
Butters was right, they were perfect. If there was a word to describe the way Craig and Clyde sparred, Kenny would use it. If there was a word to describe the emotion it evoked, Kenny would use it. But the word “perfect” seemed so insufficient. “Maybe they think we are too.”
At dinner yesterday, the other three were quick to give Kenny and Butters their praise. The way they described it was enough to write home about and they unwillingly accepted the kind words. But Kenny didn’t understand. That’s what he always did, he was just given a sword this time.
But when Craig and Clyde asked about their spar, the three boys returned the question with thousand yard stares and a lot of stuttering. Kenny opened and closed his mouth like a fish trying to gasp for air when being lifted out of water. He couldn’t form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. The sparring match was occupying every corner of his memory.
So even Kenny’s statement of perfection was laughable, which is exactly what Butters did as they rounded the last corner, the medical wing stationed at the other end. He picked up, still dragging Kenny by his wrist. The death grip was enough to leave a mark for the next week.
“Do you even know what you’re looking for?” Kenny questioned as they walked under the archway.
“No. But that’s why we are here, I have questions that need answers.”
Butters pulled until they were by Kyle’s bedside. His chest rose and fell with normal rhythm and the wound had long stopped bleeding. Stan made a comment that Kyle had woken up and was feeling better, which snowballed into Butters begging Kenny to sneak out to visit the wing. While he was apprehensive about doing something this risky this early in their new careers, he would never let Butters go alone.
“So? What now?”
“I’m gonna wake him up,” Butters whispered. And before Kenny could even think about stopping him, Butters reached out and shook the sleeping boy. They watched as he slowly tossed and turned before rubbing his eyes, the two boys the only things in his field of vision.
“Um, hello? Do you want to tell me why you just woke me up??” Kyle’s face grew redder and redder, he looked like a tomato. Kenny had to swallow a laugh.
“Oh jeez, sorry Kyle, but my friend Kenny and I wanted to see how you were doing.”
Great, Kenny was being dragged into waking him up when a second ago he wished Butters didn’t do that.
“I know who you are,” Kyle muttered. “A normal person would come during normal hours, but I guess you guys aren’t normal, so why don’t you tell me what you really want.”
Kenny ran on adrenaline when Kyle was stabbed, he couldn’t completely register the man in front of them when they were actively watching him bleed out, but now he was sitting here in bed and looked fine enough. His red curls were poking beneath the ends of his ushanka. His freckles traced an undefined path across his cheeks and nose. His eyes were angry and his mouth held a strong frown.
This didn’t make sense… and Kenny’s head hurt from thinking so hard. That green color, it was so unusual and so bright that he thought he imagined it his whole life. But the same green color that he convinced himself didn’t actually exist and never existed was right in front of him.
“Do you know where the girl is? She’s around our age and she helped us when we brought you here,” Butters asked. Kyle’s face immediately softened, something that also seems familiar to Kenny.
“You guys brought me…”
“Well, yeah! Our buddy Craig carried you but Kenny and I helped keep you stable.”
Kyle’s eyes held so much emotion, but Kenny wasn’t worried about that. It was everything else that was concerning. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Before Butters could respond for them, Kenny opened his mouth, a reckless question was on the tip of his tongue, and he didn’t know how else to shake this feeling. “Do I know you?”
Butters and Kyle turned to face him, both with equally confused looks. “Uh, yeah. I was the guy that got stabbed.”
“No, no,” Kenny shook his head. He wasn’t smart enough to convey what he was trying to say, but he had to try. “Before this, before even the drawing, before probably everything, do I know you? You look so familiar.”
“I still don’t know what you mean. You guys were brought here a couple of days ago, how would I know you before then?”
Kenny opened his mouth before quickly closing it. He was never booksmart, but he knew he would sound crazy if he tried to tell Kyle that he wasn’t familiar, but the color of his hat was. How could he explain to both Butters and Kyle that the bright neon green color haunted his entire childhood because he swore he’s seen it before when he’s never met Kyle outside the castle.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. He was embarrassed, he was the least educated out of the three and it was obvious. He didn’t want to make himself seem more like a fool than what he was already showing. His distressed face was clear as the sky on a sunny day, and Butters read it like a book.
“Anywayyy, do you know where the girl is? Her name is Heidi.” Butters asked, gaining Kenny and Kyle’s attention once again.
“I think she’s in her office. She’s probably trying to sleep…”
As if on cue, a side door swung open and quickly closed. Approaching footsteps echoed the medical wing, and Heidi quickly appeared. Her face held a frown and furrowed eyebrows, she was definitely woken up by them. In a second, it melted into a smile she gave the boys when they brought Kyle yesterday.
“Hi guys, what are you doing here so late?” She tried not to sound pissed off, she had years of experience to master it, but even Kenny could pick up the aggravated tone hidden beneath her niceness.
“Sorry Heidi, we just came by to check up on Kyle and to ask you a couple of questions.” Great, Kenny was being dragged into whatever Butters was trying to say now.
“Can’t we do this in the morning?” She questioned. “It’s awfully late right now and I think everyone needs some sleep, it’s been a long day.”
“Please, miss. I don’t know when else we can separate from training.”
A beat of silence followed as she contemplated his statement. Her eyes looked tired, her feet probably hurt, and she was the overnight nurse after probably working all day. Kenny immediately felt bad for her and was about to open his mouth to say they were leaving. He was reaching towards Butters, his hand almost wrapped around Butters’s wrist when a quiet whisper of a response came.
“Ok.” It was all she said, but it was all Butters needed before listing off random questions. He was talking a million miles a minute, not even Kenny understood what he was trying to ask.
“Woah, woah, woah. Why don’t you ask one thing at a time and let her respond?” Kenny said over Butters rambling. He stopped and took a deep breath. Kenny had never seen him look this way.
“Why do I know you?”
Kenny’s hand instinctively slapped his forehead and dragged down his face. Apparently both boys were stupid. “Butters, how is she supposed to answer that? Heidi doesn’t know why you know her.”
“Oh hamburgers, sorry Heidi. Let me rephrase, do I look familiar?”
She took a step closer to Butters and grabbed his face. She inspected him carefully, as if one specific pore on his face was the key to figuring out the answer to his question. Her thumb ran over his scar, feeling every line and crevice. Kenny watched in awe as she tilted and turned his head, her face determined to figure out if he looked familiar. She answered his question with one of her own, “how did you get this scar?”
“I… I don’t know.”
Kenny and Kyle turned toward each other, both with astonished looks that reached every part of their own faces. How could something that permanently altered his face and eye be a source of mystery? If Kenny had a scar like that, he would ask every single person what happened if he didn’t know. Kyle was thinking the same thing.
“Did you never ask someone?” Kyle questioned.
“Well… every time I asked my parents about it, they threatened to punish me. I have a feeling it's from them.”
The group fell into silence once again as Heidi continued to inspect his face. Her face was determined, but otherwise unreadable.
“No.” Her hands dropped from his face, crossing her arms over her chest. She didn’t look determined anymore, she looked upset. The two boys wouldn’t be able to tell though, only Kenny knew that look like the back of his hand. It was the same look his entire town carried throughout his childhood. Except, their upset faces were because the grass wasn’t greenier on the other side, they couldn’t even see the grass. Heidi’s face looked upset because… well, Kenny didn’t know why, she said Butters didn’t look familiar, and there wasn’t much else she or anyone could do. “Why would you look familiar?”
“I don’t know, but I feel like I’ve seen you before. Maybe it was a dream, but we were toddlers and we were running around. Have you been to my village? Crest?”
“Nope, not that I remember and I’ve been shadowing my parents since I was born. We mostly just stay in the castle, other doctors and nurses go to the villages and elsewhere, but my parents and I are important so King Richard basically locks us down to the castle and the people in it.”
Butters expression dropped, maybe he felt embarrassed by wasting their time or maybe he was upset by her response not helping him, Kenny didn’t know, he just slowly started to walk to the exit and Butters took the hint. As the boys were walking, Butters said without turning back, “sorry, I didn’t mean to waste your time.”
They were under the arch, their feet about to touch the hallway carpet, when someone yelled out “what was it like?”
They stopped and turned to gaze at the others.
“Crest… What was it like?” Heidi asked again. Her warmth from yesterday returned and Kenny felt beckoned to walk back in. But he didn’t because Butters wasn’t moving or responding.
“Why do you want to know?” Butters questioned. Kenny turned to him and saw how accusatory the question was, it was written all over his face. Butters' time in Crest was a conversation only reserved for the other four boys because, for some strange reason, he trusted them more than he ever trusted his parents. And Heidi was trying to intertwine into that.
She remained silent, maybe she was shocked she even asked the question in the first place. Did Heidi really want to know what one of the plumbing villages was like? Did she really even care about someone like Butters and what he went through? She grew up in the castle, received high class education, and was the heir to the most prestigious medical position in the world, she didn’t want to know what it was like. At least, that’s what Kenny thought before she opened her mouth again.
“I’m not talking about the thing that’s making you this upset. I’m talking about what it was like when you were happy. I don’t need to know the bad parts unless you want to tell me, but tell me about the things that you enjoyed in that village. That would paint a better picture for me anyway. The furthest I’ve been in South Park is Kupa and I want to know what it looks like and what it made you feel.”
Kenny watched as Butters face softened into a version that was only shown to him and the other four boys. He watched as Butters’ body visibly relaxed as he made his way back to Heidi and Kyle, Kenny following right behind him.
Butters smile was bright, he did enjoy some parts of Crest that he could look back on and tell stories about. Stories that Kenny, Kyle, and Heidi listened to with open ears and laughs. He recited them like they happened an hour ago when some of them were easily experienced over a decade ago. He described with such detail that Kenny was positive he was reliving the story with Butters leading the way and the other three close behind. He explained every part of Crest to the exact inch, he knew every blade of grass and every animal that lived within the village’s limits.
A story that Kenny heard once but could listen to it a million times was when Butters discovered music for the first time. It was an unusually warm spring evening and Crest was the same. People worked, people went to sleep, and those people woke up and relived the same day, forever stuck in a time loop of boredom and gray. Butters was outside, playing with other local children, not a parent in sight. It was perfect, he felt the love from his friends that his parents never showed and the weather wrapped him up like a warm blanket. The lake was sparkling and shining and he could almost forget they were slowly destroying it for some plumbing. He and his friends were running around, over and across the boards that engulfed the entire town. When the sound of feet finally reached Butters’ ears, the rhythm and beats caused him to pause and try to mimic what he was hearing. When his friends questioned what in the world he was doing, he orchestrated them to tap, stomp, and stop their feet. They finally understood what he was trying to do, and they figured out the puzzle of what sounds went well together and which ruined it. The rest of the evening involved what Butters would later understand to be music and dancing. He swayed with the noises the children made and closed his eyes. He imagined being on a stage with special shoes that made special tap sounds. He was smiling to the crowd of thousands as they threw flowers onstage and applauded. When he opened his eyes again, his friends did just that. They told Butters they’ve never seen anyone move like that. Granted, he was five years old and was playing with other young children that barely knew anything too. But what they said still meant a lot to him, so much so he remembered every compliment he received that day and reiterated them to Kenny, Kyle, and Heidi. The three smiled as he explained what discovering dancing and music meant to him, because they all experienced the feeling of being alive through him.
None of his stories involved his parents. He never even whispered a syllable of their names. Butters' openness to share part of his life with them made Heidi more comfortable to talk about hers.
She grew up in the castle, more specifically the medical wing. She rarely left and pointed toward a door that was almost hidden and clearly locked, her living quarters. She ate, slept, and breathed medicine. Sure, she still hung out with other children her age and did whatever she needed to, but the medical wing was her home. It was her past, present, and future, and she loved it. She loved how quickly and efficiently her parents worked and how it reminded her how they got the jobs in the first place. She loved the smell of a freshly clean, newly made bed and loved even more when there was a person that needed help was laying in it. Obviously, she wished people didn’t get hurt and the castle wasn’t so reckless, but she loved how her hands or her parents’ hands were the ones that saved those same people. The medical wing was her domain, her home, and she couldn’t imagine leaving it like Butters and Kenny did after the drawing.
Kenny could tell Heidi was incredibly smart, there was no way that he could remember and memorize even a fifth of what she had. Unlike Butters, she told her story with a soft smile and quiet laughter. Her stories were chronological while Butters was all over the place, jumping around year to year of his life. She wasn’t afraid to say how much she loved her parents. Kenny was amazing at hiding the jealousy that seeped into every cell of his body, even Butters was buying it.
But then Kyle opened his mouth. The stories he had of different villages, far away kingdoms, and things that seemed too good to be true made everyone else’s life so much more insignificant. Kenny didn’t know who was smarter between the two heirs in their respective fields. But unlike Heidi and Butters, he spoke with distaste and no enthusiasm. There were some parts he enjoyed being the Junior Judicial Adviser, but most of it was just spent clashing with his father about the punishments, the crimes, and everything in between. His father was the judge, jury, and executioner of South Park and Kyle was walking right in his footsteps. While Heidi spoke of admiration for her parents that had long started when she was born, he never once spoke that word. He didn’t admire his father for the things he did. He didn’t admire his mother because she was somehow even crazier than Gerald. He was ashamed of who he was becoming and his brother, Ike, reminded him of that every single day.
Kyle’s stories and past experiences could best be summed up by his first memory he can still recall. The children were sitting, everyone was about three years old. The faces have gotten fuzzy over the years, but he remembers it was him, Stan, Eric Cartman, and one other boy that he is almost 100% positive was Tweek. The four boys were surrounding a statue of a mother and her child running. Kyle hasn’t seen the statue since, but he described the marble figures as if they were desperately trying to catch something, but it was always out of their reach. But that didn’t matter, what mattered was the four boys were standing around and just talking and laughing. They weren’t talking about the statue or about art at all, they were three and barely even knew what that was, but Kyle described the laughter and conversation as if it was the most important thing that happened in his life. At least, it was to him. And while he and his friends were laughing and enjoying each other’s company, his father and mother came to ruin it. They dragged him away, forcing him to go back to his law lessons and sit in on boring meetings and remind him that this was all there was for his life. When Butters asked why he specifically remembered that, Kyle attributed it to feeling happy before realizing that his future was an open and shut case. When he described it to his friends years later, Stan felt the same way, Eric loved his role because… obviously he would, and although Tweek didn’t remember seeing the statue, he still agreed he felt the same way.
“If you had the choice, what would you do instead?” All three turned toward Kenny, who was even surprised he asked the question too. He hadn’t spoken all conversation, barely even laughed or moved his face, but he felt an inkling to ask Kyle what he would do differently with his life. Actually, he felt such a strong urge to know Kyle. Maybe it was because of the fleeting neon green color that haunted his childhood that Kyle had possessed.
“I’d move far away, maybe to the mountains and just kind of live in nature. I’ve always wondered what the mountains outside of South Park actually contained.”
Kenny wondered about the mountains too. Who lived there and how could they even survive? As far as the kingdom was concerned, no one lived up there. But he didn’t believe that, it would be almost impossible to endure, but if he had the will to run away like his brother, he would run towards the peaks. Maybe that’s where Kevin ended up.
“What about you? What’s your story and your memories?” Kyle questioned. The other three watched as Kenny stood there in silence. He had good memories, but like Butters, a majority of them were terrible, they contained either exhausting labor or screaming or both. But they were waiting, so he needed to say something.
“Well, it’s Woodstock. Everyone’s poor and an alcoholic and covered in black soot from the mines. What else is there to know?”
“Well,” Kyle started, “that’s everybody else. What about you?”
“Who cares?” Kenny questioned.
“Obviously we do,” Kyle responded. Maybe if circumstances were different, Kenny and Kyle would be friends since birth. Maybe Kenny would fit perfectly within Kyle’s group.
He studied the red head’s face to determine if he was lying. But Kyle’s look of curiosity and eyes full of wonder were hard to fake. Even if he was lying, Kenny couldn’t pick up on it. He wasn’t smart like Heidi or Kyle, but he knew when people were putting on a front, and Kyle was genuine and Kenny couldn’t help but smile. Maybe they could be friends, even in these circumstances.
“I guess I’ll start at the beginning.”
Talking about his life was challenging, especially because he didn’t want to talk about his family, but they were so intertwined with who he was and how he got to this point. Their drunk fighting and screaming was common in Woodstock, all of the children were products of their parents' violent ways. If you were born in Woodstock, you were 100% going to turn out exactly like your parents if you stayed and most people did. The cycle of generational poverty was inescapable, they couldn’t afford to move or afford good education, they were stuck.
His family was strange, all of them besides Karen treated him like a black sheep. Maybe it was warranted because he looked nothing like his parents or siblings. He told stories of starvation and a sense of lost hope. Kenny spoke of his first memory like it hurt to be reminded of it after all these years, but the three of them listened so attentively, something he never experienced before. Usually when he spoke, people couldn’t understand him or people chose to ignore what he was saying. He doesn’t even remember the last time he spoke for this long.
When Kenny spoke of his brother, his voice shook with rage. He described growing up with him as a ticking time bomb, he never knew when Kevin would blow up and get in a drunken rage like their father and mother did. He was always told that they were turning him into a man, but he just felt like a helpless child. Kenny realized he truly hated his brother more than anyone else when he woke up on his 13th birthday and Kevin had vanished in the middle of the night. It had been five long years since anyone saw him and Kenny hoped he never had to see him again.
But when he spoke of his little sister, Kenny calmed down and spoke of admiration and love. If there was any light in his life, it was always because of Karen. He didn’t talk about how he felt now being away from her, it hurt too much. He only spoke of the stories that sit close to his heart that were easier to share than the hard times they faced together.
“I’ve never met another person that cares about their little sibling like I do,” Kyle said.
“She’s the only person in my family that I love.”
“Do you think we would have been friends? All four of us?” Butters questioned, to no one in particular. The question hung in the air like stale air, it was suffocating. Because Kenny constantly thought about how his life would turn out differently if he was handed better circumstances. What could have been was always on his mind, but never on the tip of his tongue. It was just something he never talked about, even to his sister who felt the same way and vocalized it to anyone who listened.
“Well, why can’t we be friends now?”
It was a simple statement, but the look on Butters’ face showed it was so much more than that. Like he waited his entire life for someone to say that.
—--
The footsteps on the rug were muffled, and the sun was starting to rise over the region. But neither of the boys cared, the conversations that flowed under the moonlight still rattling around in their memories. They would have to go to breakfast soon with another full day of training after that, but they were too giddy to even think about how tired they were. It didn’t matter anyway, their fighting could be awful for one day without drawing suspicion.
Kenny watched as Butters bounced from wall to wall as quietly as he could, but he just couldn’t help how ecstatic he was that he made friends. He didn’t even have to tell his parents about them, he can experience these friendships without the people that constantly ruined his life and made him think he didn’t deserve them.
But one thing was still stuck in the back of Kenny’s head and he couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “Do you really not know what happened to your eye?” Butters’ smile faltered, and something close to a frown grew in its place. He wasn’t frowning at Kenny, he was his closest friend since arriving to the kingdom, and they both knew that. Some silence fell as they continued down the hall, finally reaching the sleeping quarters. He stopped right outside the door and blinked back tears.
“It eats at me every single day. No one ever confessed to it, I just assumed it was my parents. But not knowing is killing me some days. I think I should just try and forget about it, just another mystery in this world where nothing makes sense anyway.”
“Why do you say that?” Kenny questioned. His statement seemed to come out of nowhere, something else was definitely eating at him.
“Cause I think Heidi and Kyle are lying. I think they do recognize us, but don’t know from where.”
“That’s crazy, why would they lie? We are all friends now and friends don’t lie to each other.”
“I think they’re trying to protect us from something, I just don’t know what,” Butters said. He pushed open the heavy wooden door and quickly walked to his bed to lay down before the other knights woke up and realized they were gone. He didn’t even hold the door open for Kenny or wait to see if he was right behind him. It didn’t matter though, Kenny knew he was just talking out of his ass because he was tired.
An hour later, the recruits were up and eating breakfast. Kenny hid his tiredness pretty well and from what he saw from Butters, he did too. Which is good because walking to breakfast, he apologized to Butters for asking an insensitive question about his eye and he didn’t mean any harm by it, he was just worried and curious. Thankfully, Butters didn’t take it that way, he was just upset because his memory failed him time and time again. But breakfast was still too quiet, the other three boys were exhausted and barely lifted their heads from their plates.
“We should walk around one of the courtyards,” Kenny suggested. “We have some time to kill before more training and the sun is out.” The four boys all agreed, so they abandoned their plates and walked through the castle until they found the perfect courtyard; there was no one there, it was tucked away from the main corridors, and the fountain was beautiful - a woman with a bowl on her head. She reminded Kenny of his little sister.
After a long stretch of silence, Stan picked at the grass the boys were sitting on and soaking up the sunlight, a question on the tip of his tongue. “Ok I have to get this off my chest… where did you four learn how to fight like that?”
“Fight like what?” Clyde questioned. “For all I know I’m just swinging around a sword.”
“Yeah, dude. No one is giving us feedback, what else are we supposed to think?” Craig said. “No one is saying anything actually.”
“Yeah,” Stan started with, “because they can’t give you feedback because there’s none to give. All of you, you’re fighting is perfect. If there was a better word then I would use it.”
“That can’t be true.” Butters said. “If it was, then why are there like five knights watching us every second?”
“Dude, they’re taking notes. I know what the knights are saying, I grew up with them. They’ve never seen anything like this and probably never will again.”
That seemed stupid to Kenny. These knights have trained for years, some even decades. There was no way that four boys who have never held swords before were being handed praises behind their backs. At least say it to their faces.
Against his better judgment, Kenny steered the conversation away from whatever Stan was talking about to about the boys’ personal lives before the drawing. He wanted to press further, truly understand what Stan was saying, but he feared he wouldn’t like the answer. Kenny didn’t know why he fought like that, he just did what came natural, you couldn’t teach that, it was something he was born with. Whenever he fought with his brother or father or other men in the mines, he always won and just correlated it to he was stronger and less drunk than them. He didn’t need to think there was some science behind being good at throwing punches or maneuvering because there wasn’t, he was just a little bit better than his opponents always.
He also loved hearing about their lives because it made him feel seen. He never knew who out of the five of them had it the worst, but it was never a contest about comparing trauma, they were just looking to rant about something that had built up in their bodies since they were born.
For example, the way Clyde talked about losing his mom made Kenny realize he never felt that way about losing his brother. When his brother left, he breathed a sigh of relief, he finally had an actual reason to hate his blood relative that wouldn’t make him look crazy to the other people in Woodstock. But Clyde described losing his mom as a nightmare he can never wake up from, even after eight years, he still sees her everywhere. Like actually seeing her. He’s convinced that losing his mom that young made him a little bit crazy. He talked about how sometimes he’ll be walking by a woman, and she won’t even have the same hair color as Clyde’s mom, but he’s sure he just walked by his mother. But when he turns around and catches up to them, it’s just a random woman with a disgusted look on her face.
“It took me five years to stop crying about her everyday. I think sometimes it’s hard because I think about everything that she’s missing, like I have all these memories that I’m making and those are taking up space in my head that she’s consumed. And I’m worried I’m going to forget the sound of her voice.”
Clyde’s description of his mother and his feelings are so raw and emotional that Kenny wished he was that emotionally intelligent. Which didn’t make sense because Clyde is kind of a dumb person. But he could explain grief like you were feeling it too. Kenny couldn’t imagine losing someone that important to him, he knew he couldn’t live much longer after that.
Someone that constantly surprised him was Craig. He never really talked about Fairplay or his family. The only thing he said was he looked nothing like his family. Kenny told him he looked nothing like his family too, a mutual respect bridging between them. And he stayed quiet during their discussions, but he always stayed and added his own comments to his friends’ stories. He was so mysterious to Kenny, but he never pressed Craig to share, God only knows what happened in Fairplay. One day he’ll crack, Kenny knows that for certain.
And every time Stan opened his mouth, the boys were fascinated with what it was like in the castle. In the courtyard, he talked about his old teacher, Professor Garrison. Everyone was paying close attention to every detail that Stan was giving that no one even realized how tense Craig’s body went.
Stan talked of his old professor as an insane adult and he didn’t understand how he was even given the job as their class’s teacher. With his luck, Professor Garrison followed them every year until he vanished when Stan was 10. He said his teacher spoke stories of witchcraft, inappropriate topics, and how he actually hates children but needed a job.
“When was the last time you saw him?” Butters questioned.
“I last saw him after class that day. He was carrying a bag, I assume, full of his stuff, but when he walked, the bag rattled like it was filled with glass. When I stopped and asked him where he was going, he just told me how much the kingdom sucks and they’ll pay for what they did. I haven’t heard a thing about him since. I think everyone is kind of scared to bring him up.”
The boys’ conversation kept flowing like the water overflowing the woman’s bowl that balanced delicately on her head. They were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t even feel the two sets of eyes that pricked the back of their heads. None of them looked up to see the Prince and the Junior Commissioner leaning over the balcony and peering down at them, the only people in their favorite courtyard. And none of them heard how loud Tweek’s heart was beating because Craig was glowing in the sunlight.