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Keith wakes up moments before lightning strikes.
He rolls off the branch he was sleeping on and uses his blanket to slow his fall as Zeus' anger tears his sleeping spot apart. Thunder echoes behind him as he lands far enough from the tree to admire the storm's work.
It's beautiful in the most horrifying way. The place where he was sleeping only moments before is now completely gone, a cavern between charred wood and stuttering flames that won't survive in the rain.
But neither will he unless he finds adequate shelter.
Keith lets out a shaky breath. He can feel his heart threatening to break out of his chest. And it is cold. It is freezing. The world has not yet shaken off winter's coat, and despite the green flowers and dewey mornings, the night is still cold. Still dangerous.
There is only one place Keith can go.
Fortunately for him, it is not far away. It is never far away. Or perhaps Keith is the one who's never far away. Perhaps it is a flaw. Perhaps, it is a weakness. But it is true that one cannot survive alone in the forest, and Keith knows this very well. He pulls the now sodden blanket closer around himself, the woolen material obscuring his scarred face.
Yes. Keith knows it very well.
The neverending rain. The howling wind. His shoes as he struggles not to get stuck in the mud.
Thunder, echoing somewhere far away.
Is it a song? Is it a song about the hunt? Or is it just the beat of fox feet on the forest floor, and the howling of wolves and other scary things that made Keith run faster. He clutched the berry close to his chest, for heaven's sake, it is only one berry , and forced himself to run faster.
Is it a song? Is it a song about camaraderie? Or is it just the way the frog jumped along at the same speed as him, clutching a handful of berries and Keith's heart to his chest. Lance. The frog's name is Lance. And he said he's a prince and Keith said he's a frog, and honestly, was that the kind of conversation they want to be having while they're being chased by a hungry fox?
Is it a song? Is it a song about sanctuary? Or was it just a hollow log rolling over at just the right time to let them slip inside, safe from the fox's snapping maw.
"Steal berries from a fox he said, it'll be fun he said," Keith said, and Lance started laughing, dropping the damned berries all over the floor.
"Oh come on, Keith. It was fun," Lance answered and reached for a berry off the floor.
"You have blueberry stains all over your mouth, your frogly highness," Keith smirked, and Lance scrambled to wipe it off as Keith laughed.
Keith slips in through the same entrance as they did back then. They'd cleaned up the interior as best as they could, and Lance had covered it with handkerchiefs and little glass bowls he put little flowers in. In truth it was a small space, big enough for a bed and some dreams, but creatures like Keith and Lance didn't need much more than a comfortable place to spend the night.
Creatures like Keith... and Lance.
Keith had guessed Lance wasn't a normal frog, what with the ability to talk and everything. Sometimes he wished Lance was a normal frog, because then he would finally stop . But that would be cruel to both since Lance did have nice stories to tell and Keith was lonely.
Being the shape of a human but the size of a human’s thumb came with all the complicated emotions humans felt and none of the comfort. Keith's family home burned down some time ago, and he was too small to go out into the world and look for two regularly sized humans.
So he stays in the forest. And Lance helps make it all the less lonely.
Even if he is annoying at times.
The log Lance sleeps in smells sweetly of lilac thanks to the little cluster of purple flowers they'd gathered earlier that day. Lance likes to keep flowers because he likes to think that, even though he had been turned into a frog, he still has to uphold his princely standards.
Oh. The prince thing.
Keith doubted anyone in the forest believed Lance when he claimed he was actually a fairy prince. Fairies weren't real, and even if they were, it was a big forest. Whatever the odds that a fairy prince was actually cursed to become a frog and placed right in Keith's part of the forest were, the odds that Lance was just an annoying, flirty, talking frog were bigger.
Though the inside of the log is strangely dry for a frog’s home. As far as Keith knows, frogs enjoy moisture.
But then again, what would he know? He was kidnapped and almost forced to marry a toad princess, not a frog princess. There was a difference.
Or at least that’s what Lance had said.
“If it were a frog princess you’d count as married before you even touched their pond,” Lance explained as he kicked a toad attendant in the face.
Keith only rolled his eyes.
“Why’d you even come here if you were just gonna lecture me?” he whined as he avoided the grabby arms of the toad mother.
“Well, I thought I liked the peace and quiet, turns out I like you more,” Lance had such an unabashed grin on his face, like he’d swallowed the sun and promised he’d be its replacement. It was radiant. It was beautiful. It was bright enough to burn Keith’s cheeks and make him scowl.
“Did that frog knock your brains out?” Keith yelled.
“They’re toads ,” Lance shouted as he corrected him.
Keith makes sure to avoid toads from then on.
He avoids badgers for the same reason. Foxes and wolves—he could trust their intentions, even if they were just to eat him. Badgers lure you in with their false sense of security, a warm meal, a dry place to sleep. All that luxury in exchange for Keith keeping the blind badger’s house clean.
“All this luxury, if you were mine.”
Keith made sure the badger was blind in both eyes before he escaped.
Lance stirs in his frog bed, and Keith drops his wet blanket.
“Keith? Keith is that you?” he calls, still half-asleep by the sound of his voice.
“Yes,” Keith says, and then awkwardly adds, “Can I sleep here tonight?”
“Did something happen?” he asks, but he’s already shifting in his makeshift bed to make space for Keith.
“Nothing, it’s just raining,” Keith answers, keeping his voice quiet so as to not wake Lance further. He doesn’t want to say he narrowly avoided getting struck by lightning, and he doesn’t want to say he’s cold and wet and muddy.
He doesn’t want to say he’s scared.
Instead, he takes off his wet shirt and carefully hangs it where a green handkerchief was. He wraps the warm cloth around himself and takes his boots off.
Keith lays down, and the bed is… warm. Not something he’d expect from an amphibian creature, but he isn’t about to complain. He snuggles into the handkerchiefs that serve as blankets, noticing an odd pattern as he does so.
“Hey Lance?” he asks, because he knows his friend would answer, because he knows his friend wouldn’t mind. “Did these belong to anyone?”
The little patterns embroidered there are initials, one ‘A.A.’ and ‘K.H.’ , one pink and one green.
Lance, half-asleep and unconcerned whether or not Keith should know, mumbles something that Keith barely understands.
“What?”
“Pidge and Allura. They tried to help me,” he says again, not bothering to turn around.
“And it didn’t work?” Keith regrets the words just as they leave his mouth. Of course it didn’t work, Lance is still a frog isn’t he?
“No, it has to be true love’s kiss. You know, like in the stories,” Lance replies, all of his usual sass already asleep.
Keith stays quiet after that, but he can’t sleep. He can blame it on the pitter-patter of rain on the log, he can blame it on the thunder in the distance, but deep down he knows it’s Lance’s words holding him back from the sweetness of sleep.
“You know, like in the stories.”
Keith knows those stories. His mother had read them to him before he went to sleep. But that was a human thing, wasn’t it? The forest mothers—foxes, bears, birds—they told their children different stories. Stories about how to hunt, how to find food, how to survive when you were just a beast—a child of the forest. Human mothers told their children different stories, about hope, about love, about always knowing to find your way home.
Stories with a true love’s kiss at the end.
Stories that Lance knew.
He wonders who told Lance those stories. He wonders if Lance had a mother who cared about him just like Keith’s mother cared for Keith. He wonders if Lance had a father who loved him just like Keith’s father loved Keith.
He wonders, hand outstretched, nearly touching Lance’s frog skin but not quite, if Lance had someone to love, just like Keith had.
True love’s kiss.
True love’s kiss.
Does true love have to be a princess?
Lance had already kissed two, and Keith didn’t know what exactly that made him feel, but it sure wasn’t pleasant. He remembered he liked the stories of princesses his mother had told him, he’d been so small back then, so young that the only thing he remembered was his mother’s soothing voice as she read to him, and a feeling of hope.
He’d found that same hope with Lance, in this log in which he now sleeps, even though it was a hollow thing in the forest. This little log is their sanctuary, Lance’s home, warm and smelling of lilac. The pitter patter of rain feels far away, the buzz of lightning a distant memory. At home, rain isn’t dangerous, it's comforting.
Keith hasn’t felt home in a long while.
He wonders, for a moment, if maybe he could ask Lance to move in permanently. Or just to let Keith bring in his own blanket, so he can have somewhere safe to sleep at night.
He wonders, for a moment, so close to Lance he can hear his heartbeat, what would happen if he kissed Lance.
Keith was so close, the distance was almost nothing—the width of a spider’s leg. It would take nothing more than a little bit of confidence to close the distance and press his lips to Lance’s head.
Keith blushes and turns around, opting to look at the cluster of lilacs nearest to him instead of Lance.
What a silly thought, Keith breaking Lance’s curse.
What a silly thought indeed.
He wakes up before Lance the next morning, his traitorous heart beating faster every time he looks at the ‘Prince. ’ Oddly enough, he realizes he never asked Lance who he was even supposed to be prince of, but that doesn’t matter right now. Keith has to get out of the log-house and away from Lance before his feelings suffocate him like the smell of lilac in the morning.
He puts on his slightly damp shirt and braids his long black hair, very quietly closing the door behind him as he leaves. The sun greets him with kisses on his face and a soft gentle embrace—sweet Apollo missing his subjects. Keith doesn’t want to go back to his charred tree yet. Just the thought of it makes him start shaking, so he focuses on the good things. The mud under his feet and the raindrops on moss like memories of the rain. The birdsong and the bright colors of spring flowers around him as he makes his way to a stream to gather drinking water. The soft smell of the world after a storm.
He finds a wild apple blossom, pure and clean of mud, and tucks it behind his ear. If he doesn’t find anything else, spring flowers can provide him with enough sustenance.
He knows all the water streams in the forest, which ones are safe and which ones are full with toads. The one closest to the log-house is wider than it is deep, and the water is slow and calm. Slow enough for a few lily pads to grow and only be tugged gently against the water current.
Slow enough for Keith to be able to jump on one and manage his balance safely. The rain had stirred up too much mud to make the water close to the shore drinkable, so he needs to be closer to the middle to actually fill up his flask so he has water for the day. He’ll worry about food later.
He jumps over to another lily pad and shivers, did he—did he just hit something through the water leaf? He looks around hastily, but there is nothing to see. It’s quiet, so calm and still. He can’t even hear birdsong anymore—a squirrel must have chased them away.
There aren’t that many birds in the forest since it's early spring after all. Storms and watery snows still made their angry appearance, as if to make sure the forest creatures don’t forget winter just because a few pretty flowers have sprouted.
And true to his theory, he sees a squirrel run through the tree branches. Little white spring blooms making it seem as if the fast creature was running through snow.
Keith sighs, relieved, and continues his journey to the middle of the stream.
Not long after quiet humming joins him. It must be Lance as he’s the only frog Keith knows who sings instead of croaks. He jumps again to the nearest lilypad.
Gently, he crouches and looks into the water, a pale face looking right back at him. A boy, a boy in the water. His hair is long, black and braided, a little red kerchief touching the water where it’s tied at the end of his braid. His eyes are the color of a bruise, the color of a tulip, the color of a witch’s blessing unto a childless home. The boy’s white shirt clings to him like a mother’s tears, and a silver belt circles his waist.
Wait—
All of a sudden he is pulled back, the whisker of a catfish wrapping around his waist and squeezing the air out of him. He doesn’t even manage to scream before he hits the water with a loud splash . Whatever breath he has left escapes him as his back meets the barrier of the water, and his last cries leave him like bubbles. He struggles and pulls against the silver catfish whisker around his waist, but it only slithers up and around his arms.
There is only one kind of fire that can survive underwater, it lives and burns in the lungs and throats of drowning boys and sailors. It kindles in Keith’s chest as he struggles against the catfish, as he loses sight of the morning sky. It burns until Keith has no other option to gasp and swallow water.
“You smell so sweet. What a fine meal you will make for my children.”
Keith curses the day he was born as the child of a flower.
He hears a sound that vaguely resembles another splash, but the fish-mother’s humming and his own dying consciousness aren’t able to recognize it. Keith is terrified. He can’t move, he can’t breathe, he os going to die at the bottom of a pond and be another animal’s food. A boy, a boy dead in the water.
Black spots dance in his vision as he looks to what he could only hope was up. A last glimpse of sunlight for him. But the only thing he can see is an abundance of green, and he wonders if the angel of death was not the color of ashes but the color of greenery.
The green flies past him and hits the fish over the head enough times until the bindings around Keith loosen.
Swiftly, hands are upon him. Human hands? Frog hands? Keith can’t tell anymore. There is only green in front of him, green and water and the bluest sky he’d ever seen.
No, that isn’t the heavens in front of him, it is Lance keeping an eye on Keith as he pulls them both up as quickly as he can.
‘Oh, Lance,’ Keith thinks to himself, pessimistic. ‘I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see the sky again. But it’s alright. I have your beautiful eyes as the last thing I see, and I’m fine with that. Oh, Lance, you carry the weight of the sky in your eyes like it’s nothing.’
‘And it won’t be long now, I can feel my heart struggling. And I have no regrets, truly, you are the best friend anyone could have ever asked for. Or perhaps, I at least hope I won’t have any regrets after this.’
Keith presses his lips to the corner of Lance’s mouth, and hopes it's enough.
Did true love have to be a princess?
Keith wakes up suddenly, gasping for air and still coughing out water. There’s a burning in his lungs and bruising on his ribs and an awful, awful pain in his neck but all that is secondary to the face of a beautiful boy—no, angel hovering above him.
And the angelic boy looks so relieved when he sees Keith breathing, the smile on his face so bright Keith almost doesn’t notice the tear rolling down the boy’s cheek.
“Don’t cry,” he says and coughs, mind still trying to catch up with what he is seeing. “You’re too pretty.”
“Oh, Keith ,” the pretty boy sobs, and Keith only recognizes his voice because he heard that same sob the time Lance’s failed attempt at a boat-house ended up at the bottom of a pond.
“Lance?!” he stands up too suddenly but he still sees the small nod Lance gives him before he falls into a coughing fit. Choking and wheezing as he tries to get the last bit of water out of his system.
He calms down soon after and manages to get a better look at Lance and oh, heavens , no wonder Lance was so full of himself at times. He had every right to be in Keith’s opinion, he’d never seen anyone as breathtakingly beautiful as Lance before.
“You broke my curse,” Lance says as if it wasn’t already obvious, and joy blooms inside of Keith like a shy flower in early spring.
“I did?” Keith asks because he can’t quite believe it. He can’t quite believe he’s still alive and still in love and still allowed to breathe and sigh in a world with someone as beautiful as Lance.
Lance nods, slowly, gently, and the motion is so familiar to Keith because he’s seen it hundreds of times already. Because he knows this frog turned fairy prince.
Because he knows—
Oh.
He is Lance’s true love.
And that means—
“You’re my true love,” Keith blurts out, and pretty wings on Lance’s back flutter. Keith smiles, and Lance returns the smile with a grin that rivals the sun.
“I’m glad it was you,” Lance confesses gently and takes one of Keith’s hands. He presses a kiss to his knuckles, and Keith chuckles.
“Would it be rude to say I’m glad it was me, too?” Keith admits, and they both laugh before Keith starts coughing again. He sits up, coughs and takes a proper breath. He smiles at Lance, and Lance smiles at him, and Keith feels as if he can conquer the entire world with the strength of which he says “I love you, too.”