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Once upon a time, there was a boy.
His name was Niall Horan, he had seen twenty and a half autumns, and he was the king and queen’s only son, but just about every villager, every creature, and every tree in the wild Southern Forest knew that. As the kingdom’s only prince, there would eventually come a day when the crown would be placed upon his head—
—perhaps after he mastered the art of arriving to his lessons on time.
“Where is he,” Zayn snarls, dripping pink-dyed milk and his boots leaving the faintest of wet trails on the plush carpet.
“We want him to come out,” mumbles Liam next to him, prying the last of the mousetraps from the sleeve of his tunic, “not scare him into hiding for the rest of his life. Louis?”
“I heard you the first time!” comes a call from the other room, and finally, the third boy’s head pops out from around the doorway. “His instructor is h—“ He stops upon seeing the state of his friends, managing to keep a straight face for approximately four and a half seconds before he simply gives up and bursts into laughter.
Once upon a time, there were also three metaphorical dragons that were tasked by the king and queen to look after their son: Liam, Louis, and Zayn. Just about every villager, every creature, and every tree in the wild Southern Forest knew about them, too; contrary to the title they earned, they were very human and very ordinary. The only unordinary thing about them was their allegiance to the kingdom and its prince and their determination to keep it.
Evidently, however, that allegiance has its trials.
“Hilarious.” Zayn does not sound amused. He shakes his arms and pink droplets go flying, splotching the nearby maroon drapes. Louis has to wonder what kind of mayhem Niall concocted this time.
“Go clean up,” he tells them, stepping completely out of the room now. “I’ll find him.”
And Liam and Zayn simply sigh and concede, because if there’s anyone that Niall will most likely listen to, it’s Louis.
With that taken care of, Louis makes sure that his broadsword is secured in its place and begins his search for the prince. Fortunately, it only takes several minutes—once he checks the ballroom and finds it empty, he makes his way to the pasture out back.
As he suspected, Niall is there, combing the mane of the tawny-colored horse he fondly named Dusty. Louis has no trouble approaching him silently, unsheathing his sword. When he’s within a foot away from the boy, he barks out, “Die, fiend!” and thrusts the blade forward a little.
Predictably, Niall startles, somehow manages to trip without even taking a step, and lands on the grass next to Dusty’s hooves. The horse whinnies, as if in laughter.
“Louis!” He kicks Louis’s shin.
Louis smiles smugly. “This is why you need to attend your training sessions.” He tucks the sword back in its place – no, he never had any intentions of stabbing the poor boy – and extends a hand. Niall huffs and ignores the proffered help, picking himself up from the floor.
“Is it the same man from last time?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like him.”
These are the moments in which Louis has to remind himself of Niall’s actual age. “He’s the fifth swordsman we’ve found you, and that’s just this month.”
“I want to go back to alchemy lessons.”
“We found you seven teachers for that, and you didn’t like any of them either, remember?”
Niall sulks visibly. “I guess.”
(Louis decides not to bring up how he also managed to scare off most of them with his pranks, and none of them wanted to come back under the reasoning that “Niall was a fair alchemist already.” This was despite Liam’s attempts to explain that Niall, in fact, was no alchemist; he just managed to slip a copious amount of salt into their teacups.)
“Come on, then.” Louis wraps an arm around the prince’s shoulder and around Dusty’s neck with the other. But Niall just wriggles out of his grip and opts to mount his horse instead.
Once he’s settled atop the saddle, he clears his throat and straightens his posture. “March on,” he says in the same voice he uses to mock the way his father delivers orders in court, and Louis snorts but indulges him.
They’re halfway back to the stables when they run into a boy.
Not literally, thank goodness. Niall manages to stop a few paces away.
“Hi,” says the stranger. He’s got a head full of brown hair like Niall’s own, except a little darker and certainly curlier. He’s wearing a plain white shirt and breeches, and his bare toes are half hidden by the grass. There’s a small book tucked under his arm.
Louis immediately pulls out his sword and starts advancing, demands on the tip of his tongue.
“Wait!” Niall yelps, and it’s the only thing stopping Louis from completely skewering the interloper. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Niall scramble off Dusty and land rather ungracefully on the grass.
“Niall,” he says tersely, “get back on the horse.”
“Don’t stab him, please!”
How eloquent.
Niall hurries up to him and lowers his sword arm, squeezing his wrist reassuringly. “I know him, don’t worry.”
Louis’s eyes narrow, but the expression is directed more to the nameless boy than Niall. “Who is he?” he says under his breath, in case the other is listening.
“His name is Harry and I met him at the market.” Niall’s eyes, big and blue, stare up at him pleadingly. “He’s a friend. Zayn said I had no friends, so I found him.”
Louis makes a mental note to have a stern conversation with Zayn about his “constructive criticisms.”
Turning away now, Niall smiles at the curly-haired boy, who looks rather unfazed for someone who Louis nearly charged with a sword. “Hi, Harry.”
At the sound of his name, Harry From the Market beams back. “Hi, Niall.” His voice is surprisingly deep—well, not so much deep as low. A little gravelly, too. His eyes, green and attentive, drift over to Louis.
“You’re not allowed to be here,” Louis says sharply.
“Louis.” Niall tugs on his arm.
“Oh.” Harry’s smile falters a little bit, and he looks at Niall again. “We were supposed to meet here…”
“Niall’s busy.” And with that, Louis whisks the prince and the horse away, making sure to circle widely around Harry From the Market. He is clearly the mature one here.
Niall’s still holding his arm and his fingers dig in a little tighter at Louis’s blatant dismissal, but he doesn’t say a word.
Not until they’re back in the stables and Harry has begun the walk back around the castle, at least.
“I can’t believe you,” Niall fumes, releasing Louis’s arm. His nails have left slight crescents into the skin, but Louis has felt worse. He smacks him for good measure.
“You can’t just invite people randomly past the gates.” Louis struggles to keep his voice level, because Niall doesn’t respond well to being yelled at.
“He’s not just a random person.” Niall scowls as he hangs the saddle on a hook. “I’m in love with him.”
Then he turns and storms away.
Louis stares after him. About a minute later, he sputters to the empty stables, “You’re what—“
♛
“He’s what?”
This is also Liam’s reaction when Louis tells him.
“He says he’s in love,” Louis hisses, trying to stay silent because Niall is just on the other side of the door and still probably asleep.
The hallway is rather comfortable during this time in the evening. They’re sitting against the wall just a few feet away from Niall’s door, Liam with his legs out and Louis quietly stewing with his knees pulled up to his chest. Only lit by the moonlight peeking through the window at the end of the hall, the entire area gives off an aura of peace.
However, Louis feels rather not-peaceful.
“What’s his name?”
“Harry. Niall didn’t even know his last name. He’s just Harry From the Market.”
“He’s young.” Liam settles for a while, leaning against the wall and appearing to think. “He’s probably just saying things.”
“Let’s hope so,” Louis grumbles. “On that topic, what’s Zayn been telling him? I thought we agreed to keep constructive criticisms to a minimum.”
Liam clears his throat and does not reply.
Louis groans, dropping his head into his knees. “Perfect.”
“He’s young,” repeats Liam, setting a hand on Louis’s shoulder and squeezing. “It’s just infatuation.”
♛
“He’s great, Liam.” Niall is supposed to be concentrating on his assignment, but instead of pinpointing capitals to the correct nations, he finds himself using one of the pins to scratch something into the wood of his desk. “He baked me bread, and then while we were waiting, he wrote me a poem about my eyes and my hair.”
“Ah,” Liam says gingerly. He’s not good at these kinds of topics, but he is flattered that Niall is being open to him about it all. “What did it say?”
Niall perks up like he’s been waiting for him to task. He pulls something out from his pockets with a single swoop of his arm, and Liam takes the proffered paper, unfolds it, and reads the neat scrawl written there:
you are the clear, sunlit skies
and spring soil for flowers.
“He compared your hair to dirt,” Liam comments.
“But he doesn’t say dirt,” Niall argues, running a hand through his dark hair. “He says spring soil for flowers.” He probably has it memorized already.
“Let’s focus,” Liam says decisively, folding the paper and handing it back to Niall. Unfortunately, Niall doesn’t put it away; he unfolds it again and sort of sets it on the corner of his desk, right next to where he has engraved NH + HS into the wood. Needless to say, there is very little focus for the rest of the lesson.
♛
“He’s what?”
This is also Zayn’s reaction when Liam tells him.
“He says he’s in love,” Liam tells him, a little bit tiredly. “Apparently, Niall went to the market to try their bread and happened to walk into Harry’s shop.” He passes Zayn a pan. “While the bread was baking, Harry wrote him a poem about the sky and dirt.”
Zayn just stares at the pan with an impassive face for a little bit, only snapping out of the reverie when Liam hands him a ladle.
They’re helping cook that night’s dinner, because apparently Harry has a pet snake and Niall thought it was a good idea to invite him and the snake for dinner. Zayn and Liam had arrived to a scrambled staff who were panicking about “a serpent roaming the halls.” They found Niall and Harry sitting at the long table, cooing random things to the small, brown snake curled around Harry’s arm.
So Liam told the cooks to go home and get some rest, and then he dragged Zayn to the kitchen. It’s been a while since they cooked their own meals, anyway.
“When did Niall go into the market?” Zayn asks gruffly, filling the pan with water.
Liam pauses and thinks of all the times Niall has managed to elude their grasps. “Some time,” he replies vaguely. “Louis said that Niall said he brought Harry back because you told him he didn’t have any friends.”
“He doesn’t,” says Zayn. “It’s inevitable, when we’re barely allowed to let him past the gates.”
Liam glances at him, slightly surprised at the reasoning behind it. He assumed that it had been one of Zayn’s blunt, unintentionally harsh comments—then he remembers that this was the same boy who arranged Niall to meet a mermaid for his sixteenth birthday, that Zayn cares for the prince just as much as they do, and he doesn’t feel so surprised anymore.
“As long as he doesn’t go off proposing to him,” Zayn continues, grabbing a few potatoes from the shelf, “let him have some company. It’s healthy. Pass the knife.”
Liam acquiesces. As Zayn begins peeling the potatoes, he goes off to find some cabbage; by chance he happens to glance through the opened door and see Niall and Harry, laughing at something with their heads bent close together.
It’s healthy, Liam chants in his head. We need Niall to be healthy.
He watches Harry reach up and thumb something from Niall’s chin. Like, affectionately.
Friends are healthy, he tells himself once more, then grabs a head of cabbage and returns to Zayn’s side.
Dinner consists of the five of them gathered at the far end of the table: Niall and Harry sitting together on one side, Liam and Louis and Zayn on the other. Louis seems hell bent on staring holes into Harry’s forehead, and Zayn has to elbow him a few times to get him to focus on his food.
If Niall or Harry notices, they’re too busy playing with each other’s feet under the table. Liam would know; Niall accidentally nudges his foot once.
♛
It is two mornings later that Niall emerges from his room with tufts of blond hair. By pure luck, it’s during one of his parents’ three-day stopovers before they head off for Portugal, supposedly for a diplomatic visit.
“Niall!” exclaims his mother, embracing him upon sight. She ruffles his hair, as if expecting the light color to come out on her hands. “This is new.”
“Harry did it.” Niall is all smiles, glowing under his mother’s attention. “He made a mixture for me, and originally we didn’t think it was going to work but—“
“Harry?” his father inquired.
“Niall’s late,” Louis cuts in swiftly, “for his voice lessons, Your Highnesses.”
It works. The Queen presses a loud kiss to Niall’s forehead and draws away, holding him at arm’s length. “I think it looks nice,” she promises. “Don’t be late to your lessons, now.”
Neither Niall nor Louis volunteers the fact that it wouldn’t be the first time—to be specific, there had been six other times. Instead, Niall allows himself to be led away by the older boy, waving at his parents as they disappeared down the hall.
“So,” says Louis, when they were out of earshot, “Harry did that?” He gestures to the general vicinity of Niall’s head.
Niall’s cheeks dust a light pink. Fiddling with the edge of his dress shirt, he gives Louis a small, “Yes.”
Louis has half the mind to argue. But since the boy’s parents seem to have no problem against it, he decides to let it slide. “No trying to escape your lessons this week,” he warns.
Just like that, the cheeriness is back in Niall’s expression. “No problem!”
♛
It’s a problem.
“Niall!” Louis calls. The stress is there at the edge of his voice—honestly, he loves Niall, but he does not love Niall’s eschewal of his lessons. Important lessons.
He opens the door to Niall’s bedroom. He doesn’t see the bucket of dirt crashing down until it’s too late.
“Oh,” comes Niall’s quiet voice behind him.
Louis flicks a worm away from his face in resignation.
♛
Zayn doesn’t mean to find them.
Well, he does mean to find Niall—that’s the whole reason he dragged himself out of bed. He just doesn’t expect to find Niall in the pasture with his horse and Harry.
If he’s honest, Harry isn’t that bad. Louis has developed some sort of grudge against the boy and Liam just seems avoidant about the subject, but Zayn doesn’t see anything outstandingly dangerous about him. Maybe he’s just getting used to the boy’s frequent appearances around the castle (courtesy of Niall), but from the few short conversations they’ve had, Harry sounds mild-mannered and polite. Zayn just can’t see why Niall is so infatuated, which is partly the reason why he decides to lean against the castle doors and watch the scene.
From where he’s standing, he can’t hear what they’re talking about. However, it looks like Niall has said something amusing, because Harry’s suddenly laughing: grinning, shoulders shaking a little. It seems like genuine laughter. On the other hand, Niall’s expression is bright and he’s smiling too, like making Harry’s laugh is his biggest accomplishment.
They’re both sitting with their legs crossed, close enough that their knees bump together every time one of them makes the smallest movements. Then Niall suddenly shifts on his knees and brings something to Harry’s head—a wreath?
Curious, Zayn watches him sit back again, a little bashful smile on his face. Harry reciprocates the action, placing something atop the prince’s newly-blond hair too. Zayn can’t help but notice the extra seconds that Harry’s hands linger by Niall’s face, the purposeful way he suddenly shifts closer and—
He decides he’s been lenient enough. “Niall,” he calls, and watches as the two practically jump apart at the sound of his voice.
Harry is on his feet first and offers Niall a hand, who doesn’t even hesitate about taking it.
“Coming!” the younger boy calls back, waving.
Zayn retreats inside, trusting that Niall will find his own way back.
And Niall does. By the time he meets the prince in the hall, he’s got a happy little smile on his face. There are flowers in his hair, and that’s when Zayn realizes that they hadn’t made wreaths at all—they’re quaint little crowns of interwoven vines and leaves and flowers. They’re lilacs, and they contrast quite nicely against Niall’s new hair color.
“How long is that going to last?” he asks.
Niall shrugs. “Harry said it’s pretty permanent.”
“You didn’t have to let him do it.”
“I wanted him to.” Niall blinks up at him.
Zayn represses the urge to sigh. He’s just—concerned, is all. “Aren’t you worried that his poem won’t make sense now?”
“He wrote me a new one yesterday.” Niall fishes around his pockets and pulls out a piece of paper, and after hearing from Liam about what happened during his geography lesson, Zayn wonders how much of Harry’s poetry Niall carries around with him.
He opens the piece of paper.
you are sunflowers dipped in gold:
bright and vivid, you put the
sun to shame. i stand with you,
and it feels like daylight.
Disgusting.
Niall looks enamored.
“Keep walking,” Zayn reminds him, because he’s still standing by the doorway with a boy who looks like he might just float off his feet.
“I’m walking,” Niall says, dreamily, and starts walking indeed.
♛
“It’s becoming a problem,” Louis says. The three of them are sitting together in the gardens and the weather is nice and the wind is cool, but it feels like some group therapy session.
Liam is trying to pry mousetraps from his pants. Again. “Niall really likes him,” he sighs.
Zayn pushes the cards away—invitations they’re supposed to help finalize for Niall’s twenty-first birthday. He still doesn’t really see why it’s such a big problem, but then again, he hasn’t fallen victim to Niall’s pranks since the pink milk. In fact, he thinks things might be getting better.
Liam and Louis are either very protective over Niall, or they have some kind of streak against Harry.
“I know he really likes him,” Louis says, holding up the seventh piece of paper that Niall had tucked into their list of invitations. It was a reminder to send one to Harry.
“You know what,” Liam speaks up slowly, “I have an idea.”
♛
“You—“ Niall sputters, jerking around and nearly poking himself in the eye with the comb. The stylist grumbles at him to stay still, but the blond is already trying to squirm around in his seat, staring at the other boy in the doorway with a horrified expression. “What did you do, Liam?”
“Um,” says Liam nervously.
“We sent him off to get you a birthday gift.” Louis’s voice is clipped and leaves no room for doubt, as with his set gaze.
Niall groans, his head pitching forward into his hands, much to the displeasure of his stylist. “I can’t believe you three,” he says, muffled against his palms. “He already got me a gift.”
“Another piece of paper to put in your pocket?” Zayn deadpans.
“You’re the prince,” Louis insists. "You should get nice things."
“I don’t care about that—!”
“Well, he did.” Liam sees this as his chance to jump in and maybe justify his actions. “He asked us what sorts of things you already had and what you might want, and we gave him a few…suggestions.”
Niall sniffs. The stylist grabs him by the sides of his face and put him in the correct position, and thankfully, the prince keeps his head upright this time. “Will he be able to make it in time for tonight?” he asks glumly.
“He promised he would,” Louis says, and Liam can’t help but wonder when he’s gotten so good at lying.
♛
“Well,” says Zayn blandly later that night, watching as the dragon obediently lowers its neck so Harry could hop off, “that didn’t work.”
Niall had been terrified at the sight of the giant, winged creature when it first came in sight—and judging by the horrified screams rising from the people attending the celebration, he wasn’t the only one—but now his face is alight with awe. “You got me a dragon?”
Harry has the mind to look sheepish, flushing slightly and rubbing the back of his neck. “Neither of us wanted to fight each other. I think he was just lonely in that forest.” Harry strokes one of the dragon’s scales absently, and the creature practically preens under the attention. “It was mostly your friends’ idea, though.” He flicks his head in the direction of the others watching them.
Liam waves back, weakly.
“So what’s next?” Zayn asks, keeping his voice low enough so only the three of them could hear. “Now that we failed to get rid of him, I mean.”
“We weren’t trying to get rid of him!” That’s Louis.
“We were making sure he was good for Niall.” That’s Liam.
And Zayn believes them, despite evidence that might say otherwise. Maybe they tend to go overboard, but at least they do it in the prince’s best interests. “So?” he prompts.
“So,” Louis answers, and he’s watching the way Harry mounts the dragon again and this time invites Niall with him, “I think we should say something about that, because it doesn’t look very safe.”
Liam looks ready to agree.
“Come on,” Zayn says, unable to keep the exasperation from leaking into his voice, “he just tamed a dragon for Niall. I think Niall’s pretty safe with him.”
“They should at least have some safety harnesses…” Liam mumbles absently.
Zayn groans and grabs them both by the shoulders, forcing them away from the scene. “They’ll be fine.”
He can’t help but glance one more time over his shoulder, though—not out of concern, but because he hears Niall’s delighted laugh. And when his eyes land on the odd couple astride the dragon’s back, one of them clad in a simple white tunic and pants and still barefoot while the other is practically draped in regalia from head to toe, he thinks that they look…good together. Like they fit.
The dragon lifts itself from the ground, ignoring the second wave of screaming from onlookers, and flaps its wings twice. The last thing Zayn sees is Niall holding onto Harry tightly, their hands linked, and then they’re in the air and being whisked away.
He leads Louis and Liam back to the banquet.
♛
A week later, one of the guest rooms’ renovation is finally complete, and Niall manages to lead Harry into the castle, up the stairs, and down the corridors with his eyes covered. When he reveals his new room, Harry takes a mere three seconds to look everything over, turns to Niall, and kisses him.
His new room is just in front of Niall’s. It has a writing desk with copious amounts of ink and paper, and there are glass doors that lead out to a balcony where he can look out to the gardens below, or up at the sky where their dragon sometimes flies lazy circles over. The kitchen is open to him, and some mornings he’ll wake up earlier than Niall and surprise him with little muffins in bed. In return, Niall has a wire cage built for him, and it houses his snake approximately eighty percent of the time. The other twenty percent is when the whole west hall gets shut down because they decide to take the critter out for a walk. Indoors.
There’s more to their story, including a number of marriages and problematic spells, but those are for another day.
For now, this is their ending.
Louis becomes Niall’s permanent swordmaster, because there is honestly no one left in the kingdom who hasn’t heard of the “serpent incident.”
Liam finds himself helping take care of the castle’s new winged asset and every morning he meets Harry by the pasture, and after some time he wonders why they ever felt like Niall was in danger with him.
Zayn witnesses most of their affections—not on purpose. He simply happens to be walking past when Harry decides to visit Niall’s room and they forget about the door, or he’ll be trying to sketch a decent picture of the dragon and Niall and Harry decide it’s a good time to go horseback riding together.
Niall and Harry fall a little bit more in love each day. Niall has never believed in love at first sight, he thinks; but he believes in infatuation at first sight and then the slow burn of falling in love afterwards. This is the latter.
As an afternote, he never really gets better with his lessons, nor do his pranks stop.
Nowadays, there just seems to be more flour involved.