Work Text:
“Hallo, Rudolf!” Carl calls from across the yard as Rudolf walked towards him. Carl, one of Rudolf’s only friends, as well as one of his many tutors, was often his travelling companion. But today, Carl had invited Rudolf to a fencing duel, and Rudolf, eager to prove himself in acts of war, regardless of the lack of the chaos of war from fencing, had accepted his proposal.
Rudolf had dressed himself, with very little assistance, in his padding and armor. He carries his sword in his left hand as he walks to where Carl stands in an open section of the grass behind the palace.
“Are you ready, then?” Carl asks, bumping Rudolf’s shoulder with his own. “You certainly took long enough getting dressed for the battle,” he says jokingly.
Rudolf ducks his head in an effort to hide the blush that he knew would bloom across his too-pale cheeks. He had managed to dress himself all on his own, but that independence came at the expense of time, and he had not anticipated how long it would take to figure out which parts of the armor connected to each other and how best to assemble them on his body.
“No matter,” Rudolf replies curtly. “I am ready. Are you?”
“Ready as the day I was born!”
Rudolf nods, and the two move to stand at arm’s length from one another. Rudolf raises his sword, and Carl follows suit.
Rudolf makes the first move, jabbing forward with his sword towards Carl’s shoulder. The blade makes impact against Carl’s armor, but Carl is not harmed, and the duel continues.
Carl aims with his sword for Rudolf’s chest, but his armor deflects the attack.
And so the duel continues, strictly regulated by the rules that Carl and Rudolf have both known since they were each ten years old. Dodging and flinching are not allowed, and the duel ends once either participant earns a wound at least two centimeters long that yields at least one drop of blood.
Rudolf is determined that he not be the one to end the duel, but the thought of victory has scarcely entered his head when he feels the cool metal of Carl’s blade against his cheek and the rush of blood as it drips like teardrops down his cheek and onto his armor. It is a deep wound, deeper than intended.
Carl drops his blade to the grass. “My prince, are you alright?” he asks, all pretense of a simple fencing duel gone as soon as the Crown Prince begins to bleed.
Rudolf brushes the hand on his shoulder off. “I told you not to call me “prince,” Carl,” he retorts. “And I’m fine. Besides, isn’t in honorable to have earned a scar?”
Carl smiles and nods. “Indeed it is. This Schmiss has proved your worth. But let’s get you inside – I would not want you to bleed all over this yard!”
Rudolf smiles back at him and they walk back inside. Rudolf lets the darkness of the corridor that leads back into the main wing of the palace hide his pained wince. He knows that it is honorable to wear a scar such as this, but the method by which it is obtained it is more painful than he thinks it is worth.
Once Rudolf is safely inside his rooms and he has removed his armor, he sends Carl away, claiming that he can certainly apply a cold cloth to his cheek to staunch the bleeding without any assistance. He knows that Carl will tell his father, the Kaiser, that Rudolf has been marked by a blade, that Rudolf is now scarred, that Rudolf has earned his honor, when they next meet to discuss Rudolf’s studies. He almost laughs at the idea of Carl telling his mother, the Kaiserin, that her son has been wounded in a fencing duel, but the movement would pain him too much for him to even attempt a smile.
He lays back on his chaise lounge, pressing a rag, soaked with cool water, to his cheek. He draws it away from his skin and sees the blood, its redness saturating the rag. The wound is more painful than he imagined a fencing wound could be. Despite the many injuries that he has earned in his fifteen years alive thus far, each new injury bites as badly as the first.
Rudolf would not admit this to any living soul, but tears began to run in rivulets down his cheeks. Their saltiness stings as they meet the blood of his wound.
He closes his eyes and bends his head into his arms without a care for the possibility of staining his good coat.
And then there is a hand on his shoulder, and another ghostly hand is tilting his head up. He opens his eyes, blinking as he focuses in on the face of his friend. That pale face is looking with concern at Rudolf, and one of those too-white hands cards through his hair.
“Dear, sweet prince,” his friend croons. “Were you valiant today?”
The hand brushes across his cheek, right over the wound. Rudolf winces.
“No, I was weak,” Rudolf murmurs in reply.
“It is possible to be strong and vulnerable at the same time, Rudolf,” his friend says with a smile across his lips. He slides beside Rudolf, their legs touching.
Rudolf allows himself to be brought in closer to his friend so that he is leaning on his friend’s shoulder. He closes his eyes and listens to his friend speak.
“This wound, this fencing scar, means that you are an honorable man, am I correct?” his friend asks, and Rudolf nods, knowing that the movement will be understood even though their eyes do not meet.
“So why are you not proud of your blood, my prince?” Only his friend can call him “prince,” because on his tongue, the word is not an cold honorific but a warm name, just as Rudolf calls his companion “friend” rather than the name that both know he has. Rudolf will not use that name until this game that they play, of nighttime visits and cold hands, is over.
“I think it is silly that I can only prove myself a man through spilt blood,” Rudolf says, turning his head so it rests against his friend’s chest.
His friend’s arm tightens around him, the coolness of his ethereal body somehow comforting.
“Sometimes, dear prince, it is necessary for physical evidence of worthiness to be presented. It is hard to judge a person’s merit by their thoughts alone.”
“But is this blood the answer? Could merit not be judged by writing and speeches?”
“Surely those may help,” his friend replies. “But they will not stand on their own. The people will not believe in a prince who is afraid of a few drops of blood.”
Rudolf sighs and presses closer, impossibly close, to his friend. “It is hard enough to act like the prince that the people want, much less fight like the prince that they want.”
“No one ever said that it was easy to rule a kingdom,” his friend laughs. “But the people do not want only a prince who can fight – they want one who can love as well.”
“Loving is easier,” Rudolf murmurs into his friend’s chest, close to the non-existent heart that does not beat.
“I know,” his friend whispers into Rudolf’s hair, and they are so close, so close, but Rudolf knows that if they were to become any closer, their relationship could become dangerous. He is not afraid of dying as he once was, but he does not wish to die today.
“But sometimes, people must see the blood of their prince to know how much he loves them,” his friend continues. “No symbol is quite as powerful as spilt blood.”
Rudolf sighs. “Why must it be my blood? I am but one person, barely a man. Surely a prince does not bleed more red than a common soldier.”
His friend grasps Rudolf’s hand, interlacing their fingers. “Your blood is far more precious than that of a common soldier,” he says, and there is a quality to the way he says those words that makes Rudolf want to run far away from this embrace. Occasionally, he forgets who his friend really is and what he really does, and when he says things like this, Rudolf understands why people say that they fear dying.
His friend pushes up Rudolf’s sleeve and traces the path of his vein from the crook of his elbow to his wrist. Rudolf shivers, for his friend’s hand is cold.
And then, his friend brushes soft, sweet kisses along that vein, and Rudolf shivers for an entirely different reason. He lets his friend mouth at his skin, and it is terrifying and thrilling all at once to know that those kisses, had they been laid somewhere else, could kill him.
“Your blood is precious to me,” his friend says with a smile against Rudolf’s wrist. “And one day, your people will see just how precious it is to them.”
Smile widening, his friend grasps Rudolf’s wrist with a bony hand. He leans forward, and Rudolf turns his head, because today will not be the day of his death.
His friend shushes him. “I mean not to kill you. Hold still, my sweet prince.”
And he leans forward again, and suddenly he’s kissing the wound that only stopped bleeding moments ago, and Rudolf feels ready to collapse. He has never felt so free, yet so bound, as he feels when he is with his friend. His friend’s lips touch Rudolf’s cheeks, his forehead, the corner of his mouth, and Rudolf wants to fly away like the birds on the tree outside his window always do when his friend arrives. But he also wants to stay here, locked in this cold embrace that somehow offers him comfort.
“You are safe with me,” his friend murmurs. He moves so that he is laying on the chaise lounge, bringing Rudolf to lay beside him. He snakes his arm around Rudolf’s shoulders, pulling him close against his chest.
“Trust me, my prince, when I say that your blood is precious. One day, you will need to let it spill so that your country will wake up from its monarchist stupor,” his friend says. “The world is changing every day. What will happen must be allowed to happen. But your blood will be the impetus.”
Rudolf feels himself grow sleepy, tired by the day’s events. Sometimes, when his friend comes to him, he speaks of things that seem impossible. Yet there is truth to his words that scares Rudolf, and he wonders just how much of his blood will have to be spent to see the change that his friend speaks of occur.
When he wakes the next morning, his friend has gone, and his wound has begun to heal.