Chapter Text
The morning brings a strange sense of dread as Ren finds himself curled up with Goro yet again. The parlor has been their preferred sleeping location and Goro has taken up the habit of cradling Ren’s head in his arms throughout the night. Ren doesn't complain even if his neck is cramped when morning comes.
It's dawn, he thinks. Even though the house betrays little of the true time. Ren sneaks out of their bed, careful not to cause Goro to stir. Their routine is fun but the same every few days: garden, parlor reading, chess games, and repeat.
So why not use this free moment for some investigating? His hands itch for a lead, something to bring back to the prince or…maybe a way out.
It would be nice to contact help, or his friends. God knows they must be worried sick.
He peels himself away from Goro, watching his sleeping form carefully. The rings on his finger pulses oddly.
...
The halls are quiet and empty as Ren wanders through them, full of locked doors and unexplainable hallways. The manor feels infinitely more ominous than it does in the full light of day, not that time seems to hold a semblance of meaning in this place.
Ren has lived his life stealthily, always clinging to walls and managing to get in and out of places entirely unseen. It's in his blood so to speak.
He'd like to think he has finely tuned his instincts at this point; he's not prone to paranoia or unfounded fears. And yet…the feeling of being watched clings to him, raising the hair on the back of his neck and driving him insane as he silences his footsteps and makes his way to the wide, yawning hall.
It was just to sate his curiosity. He was surely helping in some small way. It wasn’t abandonment he plans to be back by morning. But a curse shouldn’t bar Ren from leaving.
But there is a small selfish part of his mind that can't stand this place, that finds the crawl of time and the dullness of his mind horrifying. The prince, in all his glamor and beauty, unsettles something deep within his soul that Ren has not been able to properly place, he wishes it were easier to appease the man.
He places a hand on the cool metal of the door’s handle, the whole room smells of copper and burned-out incense.
A beat passes after some great contemplation before he presses forward. The doors creak open for him, complaining all the way as they do. The wood aches and groans but peels itself apart, allowing Ren a glimpse of the beyond.
And his stomach sinks.
The doors only open to brambles as thick as one can see, thorns dig themselves into the soft wood, the entry is blocked off, nothing to see and nowhere to go.
“It appears we are both trapped. What a dreadful shame.”
Ren startles, flinching as he turns to see Goro standing at the top of the stairs. His eyes shimmer faintly, and a smile graces his lips even now.
“There is only one way for both of us to leave Ren. I’m afraid we are trapped here until my hero steps up to save us both.” His eyes curl into small crescents. He continues.
“I wish my savior would stop trying to abandon his sworn duty.”
The words are intended to cut, and yet Ren feels a deep, deep guilt.
“I did not mean to…walk out, but if I could bring help I—“
Akechi smiles, his grin tearing wider and wider.
“There is no means of escape for us through here. I’m afraid there is but one way for both of us to leave with our sanity.”
Ren stares into Goro’s eyes for a long while before Goro turns his back to Ren in a quiet voice, hardly perceptible, Goro whispers, “You will not leave me here.”
The scene bleeds away after that. Into a dull, dull haze.
Ren falls asleep shortly thereafter, at least he thinks he does. He wakes up in his bed all the same, left with the strange idea that last night was all a dream.
His head hurts.
He is determined to find a way out. A way to break this curse. If stories have taught Ren anything, it’s that he’ll do it somehow or otherwise signal the rest of his troupe. He worries about them more than he vocalizes; he feels the prince would be displeased with that. Or the idea that people exist beyond his desolate walls.
Truly, how long has he been here? Waiting all alone.
When Ren properly talks to Goro again, they are out in the garden. Wandering aimlessly as they have taken to doing.
Ren feels fuzzy and hazy when he is apart from the prince. His mind is sharp now, finally able to pull himself together enough to say something.
“I want to free you.” It’s a simple statement. Ren hovers over a dense patch of roses, deep red their thorns pointing out towards him, warning him not to get closer.
The prince makes a noise beside Ren.
“You’d like to be my savior after all. A real knight in shiny armor.” He says it with a degree of humor, but there’s a genuine twinkle in his eyes, almost childish.
“I wouldn’t go that far, but…” Ren spares a look back at the manor, its yawning doors instill a sense of creeping dread in him.
“You deserve to see the world again. Feel the sun. You know, live.”
Goro smiles with soft eyes, a glint in them that Ren is unable to place. “There is a way..” He trails off, turning back to the roses, their buds face him with eager petals.
“A way?” Ren tastes escape on his tongue, something true for both of them. Its strange how caught up he is with a prince he has shared a single night with, but it feels like more than that. Or maybe it is a poor cover-up for desperation.
“There's a crypt beneath the manor, I haven't been able to cut my way past it, the man who cursed me, he...” He sucks in a breath. “He sleeps down there.” For a moment, a darkness passes over Akechi’s expression an ugly scowl plays at his lips before smoothing over into something more digestible.
“What will it take to free you?”
Goro takes his hand and leads him through the meandering gardens and to a wall of the house, hardly matching the geometry of the inside but is covered with thick thorn-choked vines and moss. The door is thick wood and laid with cobblestone
“There is a sword. They say only those worthy of slaying him may take up its mantle.” Goro gazes at him his eyes curling into something almost playful. “I wonder if it will accept you as my knight. As my savior.” He breathes it out reverently, but there’s something unmissable in his expression that makes Ren itch.
“How should I…prepare for such an encounter. If this guy had been dead for a while, do you have any idea of what is…sleeping down there?”
Goro smiles at him, and it is all teeth.
Our brave knight.
Our brave knight. Clad in silvery armor and armed with a blade fit for such rough hands.
How beautiful he is when he is nervous. His askance gaze and his awkward determination. All knights have some kind of naïveté.
Oh poor savior, to you our audience watch him, observe his desperation to save his damsel.
Poor wretched thing.
You know he listens to the prince's every command, listens to each instruction regarding the cursed crypt, the holy sword, the beast he must slay.
An obedient knight ready to do what he was fated to.
Save.
Ren grips at the handle of a blade, one lodged deep into the heart of a mighty stone.
It’s almost laughable how cliché it all is.
And yet. There is an air of somberness that clings to this whole place, it's dreamy the way he plays hero for a prince of fairytale proportions. His goal remains getting out, and hopefully that will be with Goro at his side.
If he indulges his savior complex along the way, so be it.
The sword manages to slide out. As Goro said it would.
He gave Ren a peck on the cheek before letting him down the yawning doors of the crypt. Ren didn’t ask how he manages to cut past the vines and thorns. He’s afraid of the answer, as he worries about Goro with shears in his hands. Who knows what he would be capable of. Ren thinks with only a half-humorous nature
Ren takes one last look at the entrance where Goro watches, he smiles. The prince waves, blowing a small kiss then returning his hands to be clasped behind him. Akechi said he was not able to come with Ren because the curse was too heavy down there it would kill him.
So Ren turns away and begins his journey into the jaws of whatever beast or corpse still rests down here.
The place is filled with faded grandeur, tapestries torn up and slices down, scones and candles knocked out of place and left abandoned on the floor. The whole shaft looks as though it could crumble if Ren breathed the wrong way. He keeps going under some strange trance. Vines grow thick down here, choking out the cobblestone. They resemble the rose vines but are about as thick as his forearm surely, they cannot be the same species.
It seems like the vines and roots intend to follow one path and Ren finds himself following them, he tracks them t another opening this one more grand than the last. An inscription is written on the stone wall but is far too faded to make out, it appears to have been scratched up beyond recognition.
The only thing that lies beyond is a coffin, almost painful in how simple it is layer out. Wooden, polished, and plain. Nothing that would suggest some eldritch horror keeping Akechi trapped. Ren takes a step forward, urging his hands to steel themselves. He was used to headfirst eager but Ren has grown too used to companionship at his side.
His metal shoulder pads clang distantly. He lays a hand on the lacquered surface of the coffin, he fumbles around until there is a latch.
All he has to do is cut the head off of this man. It should be simple.
The clasp comes undone having been rusted away.
Falling to the floor
The coffin peels open, revealing a treasure trove beneath it. This man. This king buried with gold, jewels
The man starts to shake petals forming a face over the skull that lies there, the flowered creature shambles up and takes a mighty swing at Ren. He dodges within an inch of his life. He angles his sword for the neck but the creature is faster, and yet it is lethargic at the same time.
Ren struggles around the room, wadnering why there seems to be so many openings in this battle. He takes a gamble with the creature made of petals and leaves. He stops moving his hypothesis, proven correct as he watches the creature stop before it can actually land a solid hit.
The creature pasues Ren's blade pressed to his neck. But he does not strike, he watches the creature frozen, unable to land a hit on Ren or rather. Not wanting to land a hit on Ren. A farce.
The creature stops and shambles to the floor like a scorned dog. It shakes and shakes until the vines slither off away from view. The whole crypt trembles with fear, the coffin wood starts to splinter and rot right before Ren's eyes.
“You failed.” A voice cuts through the atmosphere. Cold, sharp, and so much unlike the prince of yesterday.
“It wasn’t meaning to hurt me, this—“ he is cut off with another tremor.
“You do not know anything of him! You do not know anything at all! What kind of a savior are you?!” Akechi’s voice cracks as he yells. Ren stares wide-eyed.
“A pathetic knight.” His lips turns up into a sneer. “You were supposed to be the one to save, won't you please?” The voice turns soft again, pleading. But more than anything, confused.
“Goro. This isn’t needed, we don’t have to play this game, just let me—“There is an instant of calm the expression on Akechi’s face soft and innocent, considering even.
"Why does my hero stop so soon? Do you not care about your prince anymore? Were the riches too much? Was the promise of a life together too constricting?" Goro laughs a broken bitter thing.
But then he breaks. The whole thing falls apart and Akechi’s hands and around tens neck he knocks them both to the floor vines thrash around, Ren grabbing hold of his hands, his sword and his face.
Goro tightens his grip.
As Ren gasps and writhes his windpipe crushed beneath the weight he sees Goro blurry and angry. His face is pallid and pale now, his eyes like roses and his teeth like thorns.
Ren thinks Goro might be crying but perhaps that is a dying man’s delusion.
Even still. Ren can’t help but think in his last remnant of consciousness that the prince is the most beautiful he has ever been.
…
…
…
There is a breeze from somewhere. Ren imagined he would see someone before it all fell away. His friends or Sojiro. But it is just a faint buzz that peels away into something sharper.
His eyes peel open crusted over and slow.
The room is the same, and the person at his side is dressed in that same white outfit and that same red coat.
“My I was worried sick!”
Ren opens his mouth to speak but no words come out.
“You took such a fall down those stairs I was worried you had broken your head open, but it seems that it made a good recovery. I’m glad I was there to keep you Fromm being worse off. Perhaps you should rest for a bit.” Goro fires off rapidly keeping that same steady, pleasant pace but Ren can see his hands tense and balled in Goro’s lap.
“You….” Ren rasps his throat a shredded mess. He moves his hand for Goro but it falls at his side.
“You are much too weak for now, but give it s night and some tea and you’ll be patched right up and ready to go.” Goro gets closer “I’ll meet with you for dinner tomorrow”
Tomorrow should be a whole day away but Akechi leaves him with a floral tea that coats his mouth and leave him hazy until he is well enough to pull himself from the bed.
He feels fine. Normal.
And somehow it is the evening they meet for dinner. Time no longer holds any vague construct of meaning and it is clear to ren that he is as trapped here as this prince is
Goro visits him nightly, even when Ren is careful to avoid him in the evenings. He sits next to Ren wherever they are located and rubs ointment across his skin and neck. It almost feels line an apology, or perhaps a threat. It's damn near impossible to tell what the prince is thinking after his outburst in the crypt. Ren allows him to do it feeling his resolve is already paper-thin.
“You are deep in thought my dear.” Goro says softly as he rubs oil into Ren’s knuckles.
Ren startles prying his hands away from the other boy. “I’ve just been,” He pauses trying to find his words. “Trying to keep my mind together.”
Goro hums setting the medicinal bottles down. “Would it be so horrible to be trapped here. It isnt as though we arent surviving.”
“Do you realy. Truly. Do you want to leave? Do you want me to leave.”
“Of course I–”
Goro pauses when he looks back at Ren’s face, distressed.
“You know its more complicated than that. You have eyes Ren, you are observant. There was never any hope for either of us.”
“I disagree, but if you be honest,” He reaches for Goro but the prince stiffens and jerks away cape swishing as he stands.
“Don’t pretend to know anything here. You have a role to play and I suggest you keep doing that.”
Ren laughs earning a glare from Goro. “A hero? A knight in shining armor? Is that realy what you want from all this?” Ren gestures around, exasperated.
Goro scowls an expression previously thought impossible on his gallant face. He opens his mouth to respond but clamps it shut and walks away. Ren watches him feeing quite exhausted, he instinctively wants to reach out and call for the prince but it is better to let him go and disappear into this breathing monolith of a home.
When Ren looks down at his feet, there are vines curling near his ankles. Perhaps Goro is more earnest than he seems.
...
Ren likes to think he's good with plans. He heists for a living so you have to be in his line of work, stealing, thieving, impersonating. It was his job to lay the groundwork for their jobs. Perhaps that can be a transferable skill.
So Ren plans, he can do that surely.
The ring tightens around his finger on occasion; it seems to have grown a mind of its own somewhere along the way.
The manor doesn't like to lead Ren in the right directions, no parlow peels out for him or anything for that matter, so he turns to his own intuition. This includes opening and rattling every door he comes across. Most are locked, some are just servant quarters or storage, one was a pantry, and one was indeed a separate entrance to the parlor. But Ren grows tired to locked doors and endless hallways, he takes matters into his own hands.
It starts when Goro visits him in Ren’s room, it was nighttime, or somewhere close to that. He saunters in like usually and starts his routine of ointments and tall tales carefully skirting around anything too serious lest Ren push back on him again.
This time Ren plays along.
“Goro?”
The prince hums as he runs a comb through Ren’s hair
“Do you think you could pin my bangs back tonight. I think they are getting in he way of my gallant image,” He sends a wink back watching a calculation fall across Goro’s face. He considers for a moment a small amused smile playing on his lips. It's hard for Ren to not find that overwhelmingly endearing.
“If you insist,” Goro drawls but Ren can see the excitement that laces his expression. He pulls a pin from his own hair and starts to weave it into Ren’s, pushing his gracefully messy bangs back and away from his eyes. It feels foreign but Ren knows the style won’t last for long.
Goro admires his work, having used three or so pins to tame the dark curls. He takes Ren’s face into his hands and tilts it back and forth
“Adequate I suppose. Much more like a knight now.” He smiles and for a brief moment Ren feels guilty playing on Goro’s wishes like this but he quickly stamps that down.
“Just like you wanted.”
Why does our hero wander these halls.
Why does he insist on being so difficult that one could not possibly track his actions why does he make it so hard—
Audience, watch closely now, for he is about to take a gamble that will surely end poorly. This is what happens when someone tries to defy their fate and subvert the story.
Its a pain the prince knows all too well.
Why does a narrator know this. Because it's all part of story, this is a fairytale and it will be told one way or another.
WIth a huff Ren inspects the handle of yet another door. There was one out of this bunch that was different and Ren is not going to squander teh few shots he has at this on yet another linen closet.
Its concerning how many of those were here, unless Ren kept opening the same one over and over. He isnt sure what possibility is worse.
Ren presses his ear to several of the identical doors, listening for anything that could happen. He works quickly and silently, even as the halls darken and the feeling of being watches gets worse and worse. He spares glaces backwards expecting eyes to stare at him from the endless dark hallways that stretch out before him. The manor has seemingly given up all idea of being a truse home, all geometry has been forsaken in this place.
Ren is careful to keep his footsteps light and untraceable.the
He wanders.
And wanders
And wanders
And grows careless. Just a momentary slip over a fallen vase that was shattered across the floor. Broken porcelain cuts into Ren’s knees. As he scrambles back up the house seems to suck in a breathe around him, the ribs of the home creaking and aching as sharp footfalls call from the beyond.
Ren knows the hallways behind him is where the prince is coming from. So he runs, he heaves and chokes but he runs. He is fast but the prince is faster, teh footfall increases.
The blurred scenery flows by Ren but within a flicker of clarity he spots it. His freedom
This door is different. The wood is a faded birch, lighter than the rest of the house, the handle is a dull gold and the frame has delicate etchings across it. Birds and flowers and in the corner a single crow with a gem between its beak.
The presence grows closer and the clicking of heels grows frantic. Goro must be running now.
Ren crouches pulling free his pins and breaking them into something useful. He slides them into the lock his heart hammering audibly, whole be listens for the telltale click.
The pick turns and the running gets closer. The pick slides around within the apparatus if Ren could just reach it, he listening a strange sense of calm coating the adrenaline running through his veins. He can see something approaching from the darkened hall. It is chasing him.
Click
Within these last few seconds before he is caught by whatever shambles around, resuming the prince, he slams the door open the lock breaking.
He shuts it firmly behind him pants as he leans his back against it.
There is a beat of silence as Ren contemplates pulling away from the door.
The door soon erupts into slams. Something on the other side causes the frame to shake violently, the whole wall rattles anxiously, Ren pushes back his heels digging into the soft, rotting wood beneath him. The slmas do not ease as a strange garbled shouting starts. Its hardly human, like the wail of a wounded animal it shouts at Ren in screams.
With one last terrifying slam the noise falls away. Ren’s heart twists with fear and guilt, he almost wishes to open the door, take whatever poor thing the prince has become into his arms, but he won’t. Not when hes so close to knowing the truth of this place.
He just has to find the entrance.
He peels himself from the door moving an adjacent chair in from of it. That won’t hold such violent attempts to break in but its better than nothing.
Ren then takes the opportunity to examine to room before him.
Its covered with brambles and thorns. They cut into every drapes and tapestry, upholstery and bed.
It was once an elaborate bedroom, one fit for a prince. The faded radiance is palpable from the first entrance. The bed is made perfectly, the pillow filled with a fine embroidery, white gloves sit by the bedside table, folded and covered with a thick layer of dust. Ren picks one up the soft fabric instills a melancholic feeling within him.
The whole room, Goro’s room has been left untouched and rotting. The ceiling dips in threateningly and the windows are a useless feature on the side wall.
Ren opens the drawers most of which are empty. There is but a knife, a key, and an illustration of a woman with a small child. Ren pockets each of them careful to keep teh delicate paper of the drawing intact. His heart breaks fir the prince that must have once inhabited this room. It smells of roses with an undercurrent of blood.
Ren feels the ring on his finger tighten as he approaches the dismal windows. They are clouded and covered with something Ren cannot properly name. It could be foliage ror just general grime thats solidified with time. Given the whole style of the room Ren would bet at least a century.
He spares a glance to the sad sight. A room that once belonged to a real prince, a real boy who has been stuck for ages alone and isolated. Ren will be the one to break this curse, this awful cycle. He won't be stuck as a broken hero and he won't let Goro stay stuck as the damsel in his own narrative.
He reels back his arm and smashed the window through, the shards fall apart easily like paper he manages without more than a few scratches.
He sees through the window the rose garden, now dim and dull.
Ren jumps from the window down into the expansive garden, an opening prepared for him. This garden is different though, lacking the grandeur of the one Goro has presented to him.
The cobblestone is warped and moss-filled. Much is all the fixtures of broken benches and dead planters. The whole place is full of withering plants, dull and grey.
Amidst the atmosphere of decay and sweet rot, there lies one thing untouched by time a centerpiece in the middle of this sordid place.’
A blooming bramble of roses. Red and bright the blooms grow taller than Ren stands. It's breathtaking truly, he approached the gaggle of buds with reverence.
They stem from a single planter and what seems to have been hedges bordering each side. The brush is full of thorns hardly able to be seen, much like everything else this house has attempted to hide from him. He touches one of the buds watching it curl along his fingertip, the plants seems lively his ring pulses evenn still. But Ren is not content just to gaze upon this beautiful sight. There is something more to be seen.
He crouches on his knees bowing his head and starts to cut through the vines, they writhe and thrash wildly thicjh as his arm and about as heavy as one too. He cuts through multitudes watching them slink back.
And there.
Ren gasps a hand clasped over his mouth his eyes fixed on one sight and one along.
Was the prince settled beneath a bed of roses. His face pale and blue the blood drained from the body, a cut across his nose rawling beneath his eye has been rendered dull without any heat to supply it blood. The roses grow in the crevices of his outfit tearing at the worn fabric. Hsi chest—his chest is an empty cavity, full of flowers, the brightest, most vibrant of the bouquet. They have made a home in his ribs which have become visible. He is younger than Ren, maybe by a year or two. Or was when he was laid here.
There is a sword buried somewhere in between his ribs only the metal glints now taken over by leaves and branches.
Ren feels a tear slip past his lid, he doesn't fully know this man and yet…
He reaches a hand down to the prince, the skin cold.
Red eyes peel open and gaze at Ren, he startles ready to pull back but a hand grips his own a vice-like hold that prevents ren from leaving. He has no doubt a bruise is blooming beneath those icy gnarled fingers.
“Why” The prince rasps eyes burning with some kind of passion akin to rage.
“I–” He chokes on his words, rendered speechless as the whole places shakes around him.
“I am npt the one deserving of saving. Lay me here or I will make sure you wake up in that very same bed again, neither you or I deserve this peace. You with your selfish, foolish desires.” Goro grits out his hand gripping Ren’s harder.
“You can leave, you can break, I will put you back together myself if I must.” He takes a shaky breath “But I will not have this be in vain, there has to be penitence.” He's rambling now his words held together by nothing but bitterness.
His face, a cold dead thing twists into something awful.
And Ren...
Ren hugs him, he falls into the brambles the ring cutting into his finger, dripping blood down between their wrists. He whispers Goro’s name and the prince quiets.
There was a place of splendor once. As I’m sure you know.
A manor owned by a man so powerful he could command the city with a wave of his hand. He was feared by many but respected by many more. He was a man made up of vices, he laid his claim across as many towns as their were within his perimeter. None could touch him, he was an unstoppable force of nature. An unstoppable force of nature with a bastard son that snuck his way into the manor. It was an easy enough task ro earn his father’s favor, play nice and obedient enough be a good enough tool to take out the competition.
But the newly positioned prince had no need for fame or riches, the prince didn't want a princess or a family.
He wanted his father dead. And he wpuld see to it that his ruination happened. For years and years the prince planned and worked and carefully maneuvered his way around the manor ready to strike. He had sewn a blade into the fabric of his shirt cuff, always ready to strike.
His mother was already gone all that was left was vengeance. It should have been simply, a happily ever after for him, for anyone who had been made a victim at the hands of that man.
But dramatic irony has a way of changing the narrative.
The garden was alive all those years ago, the father had a habit of taking his meetings within the hidden middle of a hedge maze one covered with acreful of tended blooms. Once the prince knew his father was alone he struck He was so careful, so good at silently sneaking up within the corner of the hedge. He has taken his knife and sent it straight for the heart.
But his father had known of this. Had taken that knife and sent it back to its wielder, they struggled but the prince would not give up, even bleeding out he lunged for his father, clawing and scratching wildly in some anamaliutic desperatii. But the man had strength that prince did not. The estranged prince left his body in the overgrown rose bush. He intended for it to rot. It would look like an ancient, a poor servant that fell and snapped his neck and impaled by his own carefully concealed knight. If the man spoke it it was true.
But oh those servants could not retrieve the prince’s body from the bushes, when they found him the thorns and branches had grown so thick around him that no one could retrieve him.
So they left him.
And he rotted but he did not die. The roses kept him living there for years and years and years.
The whole of the manor had died away left to its faded glory, now only inhabited by a ghost long mad from isolation.
He took on the form of hismelf, of crows, of flowers and wind. But only one day when a thief ventured far enough into his ruins, far enough to spy a shiny bit of silver in a bush that he had found his company.
He would make this thief his savior as desprate as it was. His awkward determination, his kind eyes. The prince was ravenous…
It was pathetic.
It was doomed.
But he wanted his ending, his knight, something to give meaning to this awful existence spent wandering dilapidated libraries.
And now the hero is…
He is walking away, the battered body of what was a prince at his side. He walks to the doors.
He shouldn't, he can't he can't.
He can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he can't leave me he—
.......
Ren pries the doors to the manor open, he expects the sight he finds: thorns and branches too thick to see through. But is its something, it is better than nothing. Goro watches at his side eyes glassy and wild but his is quietly contemplating something that Ren worries will be another desperate attempt.
He grabs for Goro’s hand holding it within his.
“I can cut us a way out. Please come with me.” He presses a kiss to his knuckle, praying to any god that exists that this can be a happy ending.
Goro shakes and trembles. Wracked by something uncontrollable.
“You won’t make it. If you go you leave me here, I’m not anything but a dead man.”
“Please” Ren pleads with the prince. “Let me try,”
Goro pulls himself away, walking back to the foyer where he falls against the wooden floor his knees hitting the ground harshly. “You cannot leave me here. Why won’t you stay.” He whispers frantic.
Ren looks to the door then back at Goro.
“I will come back for you. I will find a way.” He vows. He takes the ring from his finger and slides in on Goro’s the blood mixes. Some kind of promise.
“I won’t leave you here, but I won’t stay. I don’t know how but I will take you with me, You dont deserve this fate and neither do I. I am not a prince,I am not a knight or a hero. But I'm alive and I’m not going to give up on life.”
Goro just stares his eyes wide but with a passing understanding.
Ren leans forward to press a parting gift to Goro’s lips, something soft and gentle.
He turns to the door bares his knife and starts to cut. nOt before he looks back to Goro who is on his knees staring with wide eyes, something akin to pity swimming in them.
Ren moves quickly but the brambles are never-ending and they grab at his wrists, his ankles his waist. They drain him of his blood and all too soon. They grab him entirely, his mind slips away and all he can think is that he sees the sun.
Just a single ray graces his face. Maybe if he could move further he would have been free.
Just a step further, and he would feel the ground beneath his feet.
…
…
…
“I thought I had lost you,”
A voice cuts through the painful buzz of unconsciousness.
“I found you shaking on my doorstep I couldn't help but step in, I hope you do not think that is too forward. But you were in need of saving.”
Ren wakes, draped in delicate lace bedsheets and a silk gown.
Goro is beside him again. Different and the same, he is lively, youthful as he was before but his cape is collapsed with a metal insignia, and there is a crest of armor beneath it.
“Goro…” he rasps, tears welling in his eyes.
“You have heard of me?”
Ren wants to cry. Goro seems to be playing at the knight now. Ren his damsel tarpped in this tower yet again.
“Never mind that, I promise we will be happy here. I won’t let any harm come to you. You have my word.”
Goro's hands shake as he grabs Ren’s. It's tragic, really.
Ren makes a silent promise. They will make it out of here, no matter what. Ren will make it free from this prison.
