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In a far away land, in a kingdom across the sea, there was a house.
The house was a warm cabin. It was not too small, nor too big. In fact, it was just the right size for the people that lived there. It was homey, and warm, and it overlooked the sea. And every night, when the sun would set, the warm cabin and its residents could watch as the sea and sky were set ablaze with the arrival of the night.
But in this far away land, in this kingdom across the sea, all was not well. There was a war that brewed and boiled, not at all far away. And within their borders, the people of the kingdom worried and whispered in hushed stories and rumors about what could be if the war breached their shores.
They were not altogether fearful, these people across the sea. They were confident that their shores would remain untouched; their wards were crafted by the finest barrier mages and defensive magics, and breathed in tune with life in the kingdom itself. They had never been penetrated by an enemy force, safely kept within their wards, so they knew the threat of war would not touch their shores.
But war itself brought about another worry.
The barriers kept them safe, but if they didn’t mount defenses around the wards - fend off their enemy away from their borders - then a smart enemy could get close enough to study their defenses. A smart enemy could force a blockade around the kingdom. A smart enemy could starve them out, isolate them from the world, and simply wait. A smart enemy had, in fact, done so before. It had been the one time their defenses had almost been compromised. It had only happened once.
Once had been more than enough.
So when the bells of war rung out through that kingdom across the sea, and whispers of war were spun, the men and women who could be spared were called up. Warriors, guardsmen, hunters and their ilk were recruited for the first wave, their reserves activated for the safety of their towns and streets. Barrier mages lived, naturally, at various points along the ward, where the activation runes were carved into the very fabric of the kingdom around them. They were locked down, forbidden to leave, lest the wards fall in their absence. Essential workers of all kinds were activated, towns sliding into a war footing with the ease of long practice but with a noticeable disgruntlement.
Families held each other tearfully, parents kissed their children, holding them tight. Friends spent a last night making mischief with each other, cheering drinks and dancing gaily, playing games and sharing smiles with the edge of fear darkening their eyes, left to wonder if they would ever see each other again. And, of course….
A pair entwined, locked into a grasping, desperate embrace on the boardwalk. One amongst other pairs, each radiating devastation from the depths of their souls.
They separated, seamlessly, and a tanned, tattooed hand came up to cup a pale, scruffy cheek. Desperate blues locked with winter-worn violets.
“Come back safe,” was whispered in the quiet air between them, “Come back safe to me.”
The press of two foreheads together, free hands twining like ribbons wreathing a festival crown. A promise.
“I will.”
Lovers shared their goodbyes.
Alfred watched silently, cloaked amongst the crowd, as his husband was carried away from their idyllic little town, swept away with the rest of the warriors and their ilk to brace the kingdom for war. He watched the ships fade across the ocean, watched them reach the haze on the horizon, where the wards lay. He watched, he felt, as almost a quarter of the tattoos on his body warmed, glowing softly under layers of cloth he wore to cloak who he was - what he was, his mind whispered - and the image of the ships wavered, glitching just barely visible, and then were gone. Beyond the barrier, beyond the wards that were inked into Alfred’s skin. Beyond reach.
A mournful sigh raced through the gathering crowd, the forced cheerfulness dimming in its wake, fading to a somber quiet. Then, slowly, the crowd began to disperse; returning to homes with people sized holes, or streets empty of familiar laughter.
Alfred lingered, waving away concerned neighbors and friends alike, staring out at the open ocean beyond the mountains where their little town resided, astride two different worlds. He lingered long enough for the late morning to fade into early afternoon, the noonday heat striking viciously at the cloak and flowing cloth wrapped around him, and sighed as the sea breeze brushed him. Sun ascending high atop the sky, he finally wove through the marina and away from the boardwalk, heading home.
He walked the winding road up the mountain path, weaving through houses and little clusters of shops outside the town center, then through town center itself. He walked, seeing people sized holes next to wanderers doing their chores, and the road ahead of him empty of familiar laughter that would’ve filled the air and turned it warm. He walked and he walked, and even with everything achingly empty around him, he walked still.
Hours later, as the sun reached down just enough to kiss the sea, Alfred stood again, at another boardwalk, one mountain away, overlooking all the world he’d known.
A yelp, a splash, and giggles erupted from the teenager hovering, crouched, on the rocks that once were.
“I thought you’d be faster than that,” the young voice complained, voice still filled with mirth, tanned skin unmarked and gleaming under the summer sun. A pale head resurfaced a few feet away, shaking out pale locks, violet eyes set in a glaring pout at the mischievous blues that had pushed them in. “You’re the one in warrior training.”
“You say that as if you’re not better than half the recruits,” the pale-haired teenager scoffed, eyeing the younger teen with a put upon glare as he swam towards the rocks and pulled himself up against them.
“When warrior recruits lose to a mage-in-training, it means someone’s fucked up,” the younger sing-songed, sniggering.
The pale-haired teen rolled his eyes, shifting to sit on the uncomfortable rocks, “Whatever you say, brat,” he snorted, and then winced, “Ugh, we need to build a proper boardwalk here if you want to keep using it as a swim spot. These rocks take more blood from me than the swords do.”
The blue-eyed teen hummed, looking out at the sea from his perch on the rocks, all the way to the heat-haze that indicated the wards just out of sight. “I want to build a house here, one day,” he said, voice whisper soft and wistful, “So I can wake up every morning to the sun smiling at the sea and go to sleep watching the night turn the world into a cloak of stars. Can’t you imagine it, Ivan?”
Alfred’s eyes flickered shut, closing out the world around him.
Can’t you imagine it?
He turned away.
The clouds rumbled in the distance, creeping through the haze of the wards, inching towards them, and Alfred walked away. Up the mountain side he’d descended, towards the cabin they’d built into sturdy walls. The steps sanded down and worn away into the mountain side over time, sure and unmoving under his feet.
The cabin was dark when he slipped inside, empty and soundless as its occupants had left it this morning, waiting for both when only one would return. And Alfred was alone.
Alone in the cabin. Alone with his thoughts, his duties, with no one to distract him from the weight they carried with them.
Tattooed fingers unclasped the weight of the hood and he shrugged it off his shoulders with an ease that belayed the burden it represented. He hung it up by the door, letting his hand brush against the walls. He considered the wall, for a brief moment, and then let the weight of his palm rest firmly against the paneling.
Which popped out, swinging outwards, to reveal the gleaming contents for his perusal.
His sword.
Swords clashing echoed through the air, grunts and pants of exertion following soon after. A figure lingered, just barely out of sight as the two combatants fought.
The younger of the pair pushed back the elder, a whirl of the dual swords and a spinning kick disarmed him and a split second later sharpened steel rested precisely against a pale throat. A win.
The elder yielded with a grumble, and the golden teenager laughed, stepped back, and then offered a hand out to help him up.
The figure watching them smiled sadly, before stepping into the younger’s line of sight. Her voice was musical and soft, whistling in the wind like the billoughs of cloth that were wrapped around her like a shroud.
“Still beating the warriors with their own weapons, Alfred?” she mused, watching her young apprentice light up at the easy humor in her voice, “You’re still the best of them all, aren’t you?”
The best, she thought, trying desperately not to stare at the unmarked skin wrapped around a sword-hilt and remember her own ink-bare hand curled around a bow, decades gone. The very best, she knew, and more besides.
A tattooed hand reached out and ruffled his hair, soaking in his good cheer.
For however long it lasted.
His ink-marked hands clenched, wrapped around the sword hilt he’d never get to use, and then let go. He slid the sheathed sword back inside its panel, as it stood guard, sharpened and well cared for as it waited for the day he would pick it up again.
He was the very best of them all, to this day. He could outfight the entire contingent of warriors that guarded their small little town, and no end of visiting ones either. He’d known, growing up, that he would probably be amongst the first cohort drafted for war when the time came. He’d hated it - the idea of war taking him away from home, of fighting for something nebulous that he didn’t know - but he knew he would go. He would protect his family. He would protect his friends. He would be the sword and shield at his husband’s back, he’d thought once, when he’d been old enough to know love but young enough to be ignorant of the role he’d been chosen to assume. He’d be fighting right there, alongside his husband, and they wouldn’t leave each other alone.
But Alfred could not be out there, fighting alongside his husband. Alfred was stuck there, in his beautiful, idyllic little town astride the border. Stuck, anchoring runes written into his own skin that kept his people safe, tucked away, while their warriors went to war. Stuck, heartsick, in a golden cage of his own making.
So, as the storm raged in its full fury, stars cloaked and clouds lit up in lightning strikes, Alfred settled comfortably on the window seat in the bay window of his cabin, overlooking the boardwalk touching the sea.
And he waited.
He waited as the armies approached. He waited as the horizon heated and hazed with the destruction of battle. He waited as he vomited into the toilet, feeling as the wards rippled and pulsed, repelling the enemy that had finally reached their borders.
He waited until the ships returned, but his husband wasn’t amongst them. His husband was too good at what he could do, too good at war to be sent home so soon, and so he sat and waited still.
While he waited, he wasn’t idle. He ran maintenance on the ward runes around his small mountain home. He smiled at friends returned from war, and consoled the families of those who hadn’t. He bargained for fine woolen thread for his own warding projects - not the ward that kept them safe, birthed and bathed in his blood and that of those who’d died before him - and baked pies and treats to share at potlucks and street parties when the loneliness became too much.
And still, every night, as the water turned to blood and the skies lit cloaked with ashes, he would go back to that bay window overlooking the boardwalk they’d built together, touching the sea that had taken his husband away.
And he waited.