Archive of Our Own

Mythland is a grand country, if a bit too small, a bit too packed. It can’t be helped, really. To expand would be an invasion into the fae forest that surrounds three of the country’s four sides, or into the Cod Empire.

Neither of those are an option. Sparking a war with the fae would end in a quick, but bloody, annihilation of every single one of Mythland’s residents. Mythland’s rulers hold no impressions that that is a conflict they could win.

Invading the Cod Empire would last only as long as it took for word to reach the Ocean Empire. While they are under no illusions that it would be a more merciful fate, everyone could easily agree that it would be preferable, if it were necessary.

But it’s not. Mythland doesn’t need to expand, and protected on three sides as they are, there’s no need to raise tension with their neighbours any more than they already do by accident.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, Sausage’s Dad had argued when one of the advisors complained about the disadvantage of being so close to the fae’s forest, that their children would be in real danger without the alliance.

Mythland is careful to keep out any visitors from other empires, and never invades the forest, and in return, the fae kept their dealings and thefts away from the people of Mythland. And anyone who was stupid enough to wander into the forest despite their warnings was fair game to the fae. But they couldn’t really expect the fae not to take offence to the intrusion. Better to let the offenders pay for their own errors than to bring that ire to Mythland’s doorstep.

It comes with an added bonus, too, that while Mythland has no changelings, its people are imbued, to a certain extent, with magic.

It’s small, never enough magic to really change a lot, but it’s a little. And usually, a little is enough.

It’s not enough magic to grow entire fields of crops, but it’s enough to help them survive through a harsh winter. It’s not enough magic to construct a building, not enough to hold it up forever, but it’s enough to hold it up long enough to evacuate. It’s not enough to cure an illness, but it’s enough to hold it off for a few more days.

They make do with what they have; they make it be enough.

Everyone has it, or everyone who was born in Mythland anyway.

The royal family has a bit more, likely a gift from the fae for the continued alliance, or maybe to pay a favour long enough ago that no one alive knows what it was.

But they have a bit more than everyone else.

Until Sausage is born, completely void of it.

Maybe the favour had run out, maybe the fae couldn’t be bothered.

The advisors insist it’s a curse. They have angered a deity, or several, or a witch, or perhaps his mother (may Vayœris guide her spirit) was unfaithful. Something.

And that something, whatever it is, is a flaw in Sausage. The blame rests firmly at his feet, regardless of his age or his weak constitution. (That too, is the product of the something. No one wants a weak prince, after all.)

The advisors counsel that the King should dispose of him, be rid of the cursed child before whoever ensured his weakness becomes angry and decides to bring down further demise on Mythland. Perhaps it will be a drought, or famine, or an illness. Perhaps their next actions will not be so merciful as to be contained in one useless baby.

But the King will not hear of it, threatens any who speak of it further with exile. With their borders the way they are, no one ever survives exile. There’s no need to threaten with life in exile when they wouldn’t survive days anyway. And it’s more painful than a simple execution.

The whispers still leave their mark.

Though no one outside of the palace knows of his damning secret, it seems everyone inside does. They whisper when he passes by, often too quiet for him to really make out, but their derisive glances say all the same.

Sausage has no magic. There is something wrong with him, something that makes him less than.

He can learn magic anyway, he tries to tell himself. Maybe it has only come in late.

The Oracle is quiet when he steps into the fog-filled room. She stares blankly for what feels like forever, eventually focuses back on him and shakes her head.

The gods are ignoring him, it seems. They don’t care for a weak magic-less child.

He’ll try, keep trying, everything he can to find even the smallest shred of magic in him.

Plants die under his insistent care, but they die by drowning or drought or darkness.

Shadows gather under his feet, but only in the presence of light, and they move only with that light.

His pleas to deities, one after another after another, are all returned with resounding silence and Dad’s quiet plea that he turn his attention back to his studies.

But his studies speak of magic he can never wield and heroes he could never hope to emulate.

He hates it.

He hates everything, really.

The only thing he doesn’t mind is fighting. 

He meets a girl on the border of the woods, when he’s wandering. 

She doesn’t look like a fae. Not really.

She has big blue eyes, and blonde hair that fades into brown at the tips.

“Hello!” She waves. He waves back, awkwardly shifting the heavy tome he hadn’t really been reading anymore to only one arm.

Her ears aren’t pointed, he realises, and maybe that’s the weirdest thing about her. She’s standing in the forest, the distance between the two of them is almost two entire dark oak trees.

Sure, sometimes fae leave the woods to venture into town for one reason or another, but the reverse is never true. Humans stay on the path if they want to leave Mythland and survive.

So she must be fae.

“Hi.” He greets.

“Will you fight me?!” She shouts, enthusiastic. She’s holding a wooden practice sword, the kind found in the courtyard of the castle, where all the squires train, the kind he isn’t allowed anywhere near because he’s weak and sickly, and surely he will die if he even touches a single practice sword.

“I don’t have a sword.” He tells her, and maybe he’s a bit disappointed.

“I have two.” She grins, bounding forward, till she’s just barely not out of the trees. And it’s true. She has a second one, tucked into her belt.

“Alright. But you have to promise that I’m allowed to leave afterwards, and I owe you nothing.”

“I’m not fae.” She tells him, still grinning as she pushes one of the practice swords into his hand. “But sure. I promise that you’re allowed to leave afterwards, and you owe me nothing.”

He awkwardly sets the book under a nearby bush, and holds the practice sword in two hands.

She moves out of the woods, grinning and bouncing full of energy, and she wins soundly.

Sausage has never held a sword before, and he’s only seen people use them from a distance. He trips over his own feet and his fingers shake on the grip. His swings are hesitant and his jabs are slow.

“You don’t know how to fight.” She sighs, when he’s flat on his back, the tip of her sword resting on his chest.

“No.” He agrees. 

“Well, I can’t find anyone else to fight, so I’ll have to teach you.” And she does.

She’s surprisingly patient for someone who’s barely older than him, and she’s a good teacher.

She nudges his feet into position and pulls his shoulders and arms this way and that, over and over until he can step into a good fighting stance without issue. She adjusts his fingers and has him swing at invisible opponents until he can’t hold his arms up anymore, and then she’s the one carrying whatever books he brought back to his room.

And on bad days, when he can barely walk but still manages to stumble out to their spot, in the place between the boundary of dark oak trees and the line of stones that marks the edge of Mythland, he teaches her to read.

She isn’t always there, but they agree to meet every day the day after Midweek.

She tells him to call her Pearl.

Sausage isn’t a very good teacher. He forgets that Pearl is still stumbling over the pronunciation of bigger words she never learned, and turns the page before she’s ready. But she reminds him with a poke at his shoulder or a nudging elbow in his side.

She teaches him how to braid flowers into crowns, even when his fingers are shaking, and he teaches her how to hold a quill and how to get the curves on the letters. They surprise each other, really, with things they don’t know how to do. 

Pearl can whistle with just about anything, though she doesn’t need it. Sausage can’t manage to get his hands to hold the blade of grass tight enough, and his lips won’t move in a way that lets him whistle. But Pearl doesn’t ever really learn to do arithmetic. And neither of those things are anything that they might need to know.

“I’m going to be a farmer when I grow up.” She announces one day, when they’re both laying in the grass, sweaty from their most recent spar. Sausage is getting better, and Pearl has suggested bringing a bow next time, so he can learn to fight with something other than swords.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Aine, that’s the one who takes care of me, says that when I’m an adult, I can leave the forest for good. So I’m going to go and make myself the biggest farm you’ve ever seen, and I’m going to be a farmer.”

“That’s a good plan.” Sausage agrees. He hadn’t known she’d ever be allowed to leave the forest. He doesn’t think that most humans claimed by the fae get that kind of deadline. 

Farmers are important to any country, and while Pearl’s magic is subtle, it seems suited for farming. He could swear the grass grows whenever she laughs.

“What are you going to be?” She asks, kicking him gently in the leg, the only part of him she can reach at the moment. 

“King, hopefully.”

“Really?” She asks, sitting up. 

“Yeah. As long as I can get magic.”

“Why do you need magic to be king?” Pearl asks, tilting her head. 

“The king has to have magic. It’s a rule.”

“Well, it’s a stupid rule. None of you are even fae. Where are you even supposed to get magic from?”

“We’re supposed to be born with it.” Sausage huffs.

“Well, I think that’s stupid. You’d be a good king. You know all kinds of things, and you’re always learning.”

“Thanks.” 

“Now get up. We’re going to spar again.”

Sausage is good with a sword and even better with a bow. When he’s fighting, even if he’s going to lose because he almost always loses to Pearl, nothing else really matters. Nothing except the weak points of his enemy and the destination of his blade and his arrows.

What everyone else says doesn’t matter.

It only matters later. After.

He is not, the advisors insist, capable of ruling Mythland without driving her to ruin in a matter of months.

The king’s firm glares and sharp words silence them only for a moment and then they return to whispering, and the king would not dare to be rid of those who are chosen by the gods, so he can only send Sausage from the room and change the subject.

“Magic isn’t everything,” Dad tries to tell him, as if the whole kingdom isn’t held together by thin threads of magic, as if Sausage is not the only one devoid of it.

As if Dad’s magic hasn’t saved the kingdom in over a dozen droughts, pulling more water up from the wells than was there before, dragging clouds over the fields until they eventually gave way to rain.

Even if Sausage had had another kind of magic, perhaps if he’d been able to create fire instead, or still, if he’d been able to summon lightning, he could have been a good ruler. After all, a ruler ought to be able to protect his people, if not from drought than maybe from flood, and if not from natural disasters than perhaps instead from invaders.

But Sausage does not have magic, and until he manages to get some, somehow, he will not be able to rule Mythland. The advisors are right, no matter how much he hates them.

Dad disagrees, because he’s kind like that, even if he lies when he shouldn’t.

Plenty of people live without magic just fine.

There are whole empires out there that never once have a single magic wielder within their borders, and they live and survive without issue.

Sausage knows better.

He knows, no matter how much Dad insists, that it’s true. And even if other kingdoms do somehow manage to survive without magic to aid them, Mythland would not survive without a magical ruler.

Dad won’t listen to him, though, and so it is with great dread that Sausage watches his dad write a letter about attending a festival in the Grimlands, something that they have never done before.

Grimlands is a country that thrives without magic, a country where magic is banned on pain of death within its walls, and it does its best to kill everyone with magic outside of its walls too. 

The two countries are allies, technically, though relations are obviously strained for reasons his Dad claims he doesn’t know. Sausage knows it must be the magic and the surrounding fae forest.

Well, the Grimlands can stumble into a faerie circle for all Sausage cares, because he hates them just as much as they hate his country. He doesn’t want to go the Grimlands for some stupid festival and he doesn’t want to meet any magicless people either.

It’s dumb and stupid and Sausage isn’t going to make any friends, purposefully out of spite. (He wouldn’t have made friends regardless, Sausage is just the kind of person who can’t manage, but this time, he’s doing it out of spite. This time it will be on purpose.)

(Not that magicless kids from a magicless kingdom that hates magic would be interested in being friends with a magicless kid from a magic kingdom that loves magic more than pretty much anything else. Not the point.)

The journey is long, excessively so, though Sausage hasn’t ever actually left Mythland’s borders before.

There’s a thin path through the forest that apparently belongs to Mythland, or it’s no man’s land, or something. The fae leave them alone, and they pass through unharmed.

Sausage hadn’t really been worried. No matter how often he’s been warned about fae and how dangerous they can and will be, he’s never really been afraid of them. As long as he follows the terms of the alliance, he doesn’t have anything to fear from them. As long as Sausage follows the rules, he can guarantee that nothing will happen to him. So he doesn’t need to worry.

They’re dangerous in theory, but in practice, the rules are straightforward and easy to follow. He’s yet to offend a faerie, and he’s talked to them dozens of times, though if anyone asks, he’s never even seen one because Dad worries and Sausage worries what he’ll do if he learns that his poor magicless son has held entire conversations with the fae. 

Emerging from the forest, which had at some point changed from the fae forest he knows to one that is empty and void of any but animal life, is like stepping into a new world. 

The land seems to stretch on forever, unhindered by thick trees or giant mushrooms or magic illusions.

It’s empty in a way that Sausage didn’t think it could be. There’s a few groups of travellers on the road, but the plains are almost abandoned. 

The grass grows tall, but not tall enough to hide anyone who isn’t lying down.

He feels exposed, even though they haven’t actually left the forest yet. 

“Try to make a friend.” Dad tells him. Sausage pretends he hasn’t heard, too busy staring at the world outside of Mythland.

The Grimlands comes into view long before they’re even close to it, the pointed roofs stabbing the sky, reaching to poke through the clouds.

Sprawling fields of wither roses surround the kingdom, almost oppressive in their aura, the closer they get.

Sausage wonders if this is how the Grimlands keeps away travellers, in the same way that Mythlands has its fae forest.

Except, that while Mythland is keeping magic in, Grimlands intends to keep the magic out.

The carriage door is pulled open by one of the servants. They’re from the Grimlands, clearly, the colours displayed on their clothes.

Sausage and his dad follow another servant through a few hallways and into a suite of sorts.

It’s not fancy, with bare walls and floors. The curtains and blankets are embroidered with the Grimland’s family crest, and while the room isn’t plain or common, it’s hardly lavish.

Sausage waits until the servant leaves to pull out his book on the customs of different empires. He would have studied the Grimlands specifically for this trip, but it had been rushed (before Sausage could come up with a way out of it) and he’d been busy protesting it. He hadn’t had time to read.

He had at least thought to pack the book, though. 

It’s a political snub, of sorts. Their room is placed far from where the Count and his family live. While the Grimlands don’t invest in lavish clothes or furniture, the presence of tapestries and paintings and extra (but mostly needless) furniture, is a sign of importance and wealth.

That their rooms have been left bereft of these means that the Count cares little for them, and does not value their allyship.

Sausage knows this makes sense, the Grimlands hardly feel comfortable with Mythland, as far away as they actually are. He resents it anyway.

They barely have half an hour to freshen up before the servant is knocking on the door again, saying that the feast will start soon.

Dad rushes them down, a bit unnecessarily.

Sausage doesn’t want to mingle with arrogant rulers and nobles and their even more annoying children.

They get there earlier than most anyway, and they are announced quickly, and shown to their seats.

They’re all assigned, of course.

The adults sit by order of rank and something else Sausage isn’t quite sure of yet, perhaps favor, with men on one side and women on the other. The Count sits at the head of the table in an ornate throne of sorts that still manages to display the feeling of stiff order. His wife sits on his left, and someone else, the Captain of the guard, maybe, or an esteemed advisor, sits on his right to avoid any offset. Sausage thinks it would be rather amusing if despite all their planning, a man ended up seated across from someone else’s wife. But that doesn’t happen. 

Everything is clear cut and expertly planned. He can’t help but hate it.

The kids table is much the same, with assigned seats and ornate but bland dishes and cutlery. 

The Count’s two kids, twins according to Sausage’s father, are seated at the head of the table. The boy is on the left and the girl is on the right, and this sets the trend for the rest of the table.

Sausage is put on the boy’s side of the table. He can’t tell if he’d rather sit on the other side or not. He focuses on something else, notes that he’s seated near the foot of the table. It’s a sharp contrast to his father’s seat, which ranks enough to be within five seats of the Count himself.

Sausage, however, is nearly at the foot of the kids table. 

It’s rather obvious, really. A way to avoid a direct insult to Mythland’s King, but still clearly showing their displeasure.

They’re not wanted here, and it’s obvious.

Sausage finds himself glancing at the twins often, throughout the meal.

They’re eleven, he’d been told.

They don’t look eleven. They look small, a bit smaller than they ought to be, maybe, or at least the boy.

He doesn’t really look like a boy, though. Not that he looks like a girl, or anything else for that matter. But he looks like his sister. Identically.

So much so that Sausage couldn’t really find another way to describe him if he tried.

It comes with a certain sense of wrongness, wondering why they look completely identical despite being fraternal twins. Wondering why his mind defaults to ‘he looks like his sister’ and not ‘they look identical to each other.’

The kids seated nearest the twins are a pair of tall brutish boys and a couple of proper girls. The kind who will grow up to be wonderful women of the court. The kind who breathe lies more often than they speak them. The kind who are viciously cruel but still manage to leave their entourage enamoured.

The meal drags on forever, at first. Sausage doesn’t really try to make conversation with the kids seated around him, and they ignore him in turn.

The food is good, but not excellent. It is, somehow, both bland and sharp, just like its country. He already misses the flavorful food Mythland serves.

There’s an angry yell, followed by a sharp crack and a pained shout, before Sausage can turn enough to see what’s happened.

It’s the Count’s son, because of course it is, and one of the boys who’d been sitting near him. The Count’s son is holding his own, somehow, though the other lands quite a few blows.

His sister is, perhaps more surprisingly, standing back and watching it happen with an unusually apathetic expression.

Like this is common, expected even, like she is somehow completely unbothered by this.

A mere moment later, the boys are dragged apart and the Count and the other boy’s dad, a thin surly man, are exchanging apologies for the situation, both arguing that they ought to take the blame while they both secretly blame the other for the brawl.

The Count has a firm grip on his son’s shoulder. It looks painful, bruisingly so, and given the expression the boy is trying to fight down, it clearly is.

It’s only now that his twin steps in, cleanly inserting herself between her brother and her father, knocking away his hold with a bright apologetic smile in her father’s direction as she ushers her brother back to the table.

She makes a bit of a show of holding tight to her brother, like she’s doing her best to rein him in. But she’s swapped places with him, and her hold on his arm is more a comfort than a leash.

“There’s something wrong with him.” The boy seated next to Sausage hisses to the girl across from him.

“Yeah. He’s so weird.” The other agrees. “I heard Mother say that he’s a changeling.”

“Really?”

“I heard that he’s secretly a girl, but they’re hiding it because he’s so violent.” Another cut in.

Sausage blocks them out, and turns back to poking at his food.

He hates this place. And it has nothing to do with its lack of magic.

The feast, an important yearly festival that drags on for a whole week, is slow. Sausage wants to go home, but he can’t because his dad is trying to mend an alliance when he doesn’t know what damaged it, and Sausage can’t explain his suspicions.

It doesn’t matter, really, if the boy is a changeling or a girl in disguise or just a really violent kid. What matters is that the twins were born in Mythland because Mythland doctors have magic on their side and they can make miracles happen.

Sausage has no one to confirm it, but if the boy’s parents believe he’s a changeling, and he was born in Mythland…

It’s an easy conclusion to draw.

But he’s not sure how to explain this to his dad, and his dad is too forward to bring it up without being insulting, so he lets the matter rest.

Sausage stays away from the matter, and focuses on his own problems.

Avoiding the other kids is easy. Sausage doesn’t want to make friends with these people, but they’re not that interested in him either. He’s an obvious outcast from a world of magic. He doesn’t want to talk to them anymore than they want to talk to him.

Every night, without fail, the Count’s son gets into a fight, if not multiple, and every night his sister remains an obvious beacon of perfection to outshine her brother’s shortcomings.

Magic has a certain smell, if someone’s been around it long enough.

Sausage doesn’t ever get close enough to the twins to check.

He doesn’t want to know.

His dad asks every night if he’s made any friends, and Sausage shrugs and shakes his head and pretends that he did put in the effort, and that he’s disappointed that it failed.

Dad tries to comfort him, and Sausage tries not to snap. The last thing he needs is for gossip about the magicless prince from Mythland floating around the Grimlands, courtesy of some servant he didn’t notice when he does finally get mad enough to say something.

The week eventually drags to a close, and Sausage is relieved.

They climb into the carriage and ride home, and Sausage is elated to be back. He missed this.

He missed the thick sense of magic that he can always smell, that he hadn’t realised was always present until he was somewhere it wasn’t. He misses the actually good food that he’s used to and the way every banner and flag has the Mythland crest on it, and not the Grimlands one.

He missed how everyone uses magic so casually, even though he still might feel a bit bitter about it, because Sausage will never get to.

Sausage likes Mythland more than anything.

He’s going to be the best king it has ever seen, he just has to figure out how to use magic. If he can figure out how to wield magic despite his lack of it, maybe he can finally prove that he’s good enough.

Much to his dad’s chagrin, he throws himself into his magical studies with renewed vigor. He knows more about magic than most people who can use it do. He knows the theory behind every branch of magic and the limits its users exhibit due to their magical potential.

He learns that sometimes, in the olden days, when it wasn’t so widespread, those who weren’t born with it still managed through the use of magic items that held the power for them.

Sausage will be better.

He’ll find a staff, or some magical mushrooms, or a wand, some artefact that holds enough magic to let him wield it.

He’ll pray to a god for power, and eventually, a god will have to grant it.

Sausage doesn’t even care how much magic he gets, as long as he gets something. Even a little, and he could make do.

He doesn’t get the chance.

Or maybe the chance passed him too long ago, and he’s too late.

The next year, still no progress, and his father takes him to the Grimlands Festival again. Sausage hates it just as much.

Maybe next year, he’ll pretend to get really sick, so he won’t be able to go. His father couldn’t exactly force him to the festival if he’s bedridden, after all.

It’s a good plan, he thinks.

He’ll get someone to brew him a potion, or maybe he’ll take just a little bit of poison, or maybe he could just fall down a flight of stairs and break a bone.

Sausage doesn’t get the chance.

That summer, plague hits Mythland like a goddess scorned.

Sausage isn’t sure they haven’t. Maybe he’s angered Heshira just by existing.

Maybe the advisors were right, and they really should have killed him when he was born without magic. Maybe he was a sign of disfavour from the gods.

It’s probably true, he thinks, because Sausage is one of the first to fall sick.

It’s a terrible disease.

Deep coughs wrack his lungs, and he’s coughing up blood in a matter of days. His skin loses all colour by the end of the second week, and by the end of the third, his fingers are grey.

He can’t move, so they’ve put pillows in his bed to keep him on his side, so he doesn’t choke on his own blood.

It’s painful, even drawing a breath feels like he may as well be breathing thorns, and water does little to soothe his throat.

The doctors can do nothing, can’t even guess how long he has to live because this isn’t a disease like anything they’ve ever encountered before.

Sausage is barely fourteen.

He doesn’t want to die here.

None of this was ever supposed to happen.

He was supposed to find a way to get magic, prove himself to his dad’s advisors, and then rule Mythland to the best of his ability, the way he was supposed to.

His dad is going to be sad about losing Sausage. Or at least he hopes he will.

Maybe he, just like the rest of Mythland, will be happy to be rid of the magicless prince. Sausage doesn’t think he’d be able to blame him if he was. 

It’s not like he’s any help at all, not like he’s ever been.

He’s been a burden on his father since he was born, and a curse on everyone else too.

Sausage falls asleep, except it feels heavier than sleep usually does.

He’s probably dying, then.

With nothing else left to really do, he can only pray.

There’s no point in praying for magic one last time. Not when he’s dying.

So he prays to Griftinol instead that his dad will be okay, to Yariven and Mnerya’a that they’ll find someone else more worthy than him to rule Mythland, and finally, he prays to Heshira that she will show mercy to his people, now that he’s dead. That her vengeance for his existence ends with his death.

“Well, you’re a curious thing.” Something, someone hums, uncaring. The voice is apathetic, and its owner hardly cares about the gruesome image Sausage makes, laying motionless in bed, maybe only one breath from death. “That’s a lot of blood. Do you mind if I keep some?”

He can’t move to answer, let alone speak. The voice/person/god doesn’t seem to care.

They reach forward with red-stained fingers.

“I supposed I should give you something in return. Vayœris might get angry with me otherwise.” They laugh, and it sounds more like wheezing, like they’ve eaten gravel a few times, maybe. It’s strange. Their voice doesn’t sound like it at all. “That’s a joke. Vayœris is already going to be mad at me for stealing you from them.”

Sausage coughs, and finds himself a bit surprised that he can cough at all. 

It hurts, maybe more than all the others, and a glob of blood drips slowly from his lips, onto the already bloodstained sheets below. 

“It’s hardly a terrible price, though. Vayœris is always angry with me. And your blood is great plunder.”

Sausage doesn’t know who the speaker is. He’s trying to remember, but his countless lessons on the gods never mentioned one who stole from Vayœris. Maybe this isn’t a god at all, though Sausage doesn’t know of any non-godly being capable of stealing from a god.

“Now, what should I give you in return, hmm? Magic or life?” The being, whatever it is, doesn’t wait for his response. Not that it matters. He wouldn’t be able to give one. “How ‘bout both? Then you’ll owe me.” 

Sausage is unable to protest, but if he could, he probably would. He knows better than to be indebted to anyone, especially someone he doesn’t know or trust.

Of course, it’s not like he’d know which to choose, if he had the option.

His life is useless, he’s a burden, without magic. But he’d hardly be able to use magic without life, if it were given to him.

Sausage needs both.

He can’t have both, though.

Maybe he’d be alright without magic. He’d be alive, he’d still have his skills in other things, fighting, knowledge. He might not be able to be king, but he could be something.

If he could choose between magic and life, he’d choose life.

He doesn’t get the chance.

He coughs and coughs and coughs, and there’s so much blood, and above it all, he can hear their rasping laughter.

The being, or creature, Sausage doesn’t know, leaves. Or he assumes they do.

They have apparently given Sausage life, at least, though it’s a slow recovery.

Slower than it took to fall ill.

He does get better, though. His coughs don’t come from quite so deep in his lungs, he coughs up a little more blood and then a little less blood as his throat slowly heals, he gets back the slightest bit of colour.

The first thing he tries to do isn’t magic.

Part of him hopes that the being/creature/god had been able to read his mind and understand his wishes. He hopes, for the first time in his life, that he doesn’t have magic.

Magic means debt to whatever being gave it to him, and Sausage doesn’t even know how to repay that kind of debt.

Instead, the first thing he does when he can finally walk across his room without assistance, is try to shoot a bow.

Of course, he can’t shoot it, can’t even pull the string back all the way.

The illness had robbed him.

It’s a slow recovery, only worsened by the knowledge that the plague isn’t over.

It’s killing dozens of Mythland’s citizens, and doesn’t seem like it will stop any time soon.

Some survive. Many do not.

Sausage is lucky. Or as lucky as he can be when someone, something forced a deal onto him. He never even agreed.

He thinks that the fae surrounding Mythland might be angry with the being/creature/god, and that Pearl definitely would. The deal he’s been given doesn’t follow their laws.

It leaves a fog of bitterness in his lungs that doesn’t fade as the illness does.

Sausage does have magic.

It isn’t good magic, not the kind anyone in his kingdom would be proud of him having.

Instead, it’s blood magic. He coughs blood into his hands, still not quite healed, and things happen around him.

The shadows flicker, plants grow, crops flourish just a little more than before.

Sausage has heard about blood magic. About it's horrible mages who tortured people for their blood to perform even worse rituals. About the terrible demons they summoned and the countries they destroyed.

He can hear them laughing sometimes, the being/creature/god. They never speak, but they laugh a lot.

At first, he resolves not to ever use his magic. Not on purpose, anyway. Not if he can help it.

It’s bad, taboo magic for a reason, and he doesn’t want to incur the debt any more than he has to.

The thought of helping his people wins out eventually, and he’s digging every book even relating to blood magic out of their admittedly extensive library.

He hides them between books on plant and water and light magic, and pretends that he reads the stacks of decoy books to disguise what he’s actually researching.

His dad, thankfully still untouched by the plague, leaves with a heavy sigh that has Sausage almost wilting.

He reads between training sessions, and trains on his own while he reads.

If he can fix this plague, maybe he won’t hold so much of the blame, just by existing.

The ritual requires so much blood that he’s left taking it from himself via syringes for two weeks before he’s even close to being prepared.

He finds an out of the way room in the basement of the castle, and gets to work.

Sausage is still deathly pale, his arms and hands are still nearly skeletal in appearance, his fingers have only lost the last of the grey a few days ago. His coughs still drag blood from his throat, they just don’t sound so deep anymore.

But his people are dying.

Sausage has the magic to at least try and heal them.

And this is all his fault.

What kind of future king does it make him, if he leaves them to suffer for his own transgressions?

So he spends hours drawing chalk circles before he paints it in blood, and he gathers all the weird items he needs for the ritual, crystals and mushrooms and plant roots and salt.

He chants for hours, until his throat is bleeding without the help of the coughs.

The laughing in his ears is a bit louder when he opens his eyes.

The figure in front of him, standing outside the blood circle, is the being that gave him the magic and life. 

Or he thinks it must be.

The only thing he remembers is bloodstained fingers, and the being before him has them.

They look like a kid, inasmuch as Sausage still looks like a kid. So they look like a teenager.

White hair is pulled up into a ponytail that flows down their back and over their shoulders.

The front of what was once a white tunic is bloodsoaked, the tips of their hair glued to the fabric by blood.

Blood covers their hands up to their elbows, and their feet up to their knees too.

Their eyes are dark, though he doesn’t know the colour.

“Hello!” They cheer, waving joyfully.

“Hello.” He greets in return, unwilling to be rude. “You’re the one who gave me this, right?”

“Yeah.” They agree. “It’s good that you’re finally using it. I was getting bored. Well, it wasn’t a gift. It was a trade.”

Sausage thinks he ought to argue. After all, he didn’t agree to this, he didn’t ask for or even want this.

What use is taboo magic when he won’t even really be able to use it in front of others.

“What for?” He asks, instead. He doesn’t want to argue. He isn’t sure why.

Maybe because magic is all he’s ever wanted, just to be enough to wear the crown.

And even if he can’t tell anyone the origin of his powers, maybe he can hide it.

Maybe he can still help his people from the shadows.

Maybe Sausage could be the first blood mage to use the power for something other than destruction.

“What are you doing?” The being asks, tilting their head almost unnaturally to the side, as they consider the runes painted on the floor. “You’re healing them?”

“Yeah.” Sausage nods. The being laughs. It has a childish tinge to it this time, a little louder than the rasping.

“This is great! I steal one mortal from Vayœris, and you’re going to steal hundreds! Oh, I’m so glad!” They do seem happy. Their smile stretches wide, revealing two rows of sharp pointed teeth, gleaming but bloodstained.

At least he can be pretty sure that the ritual will work.

He finishes the last couple chants, despite the pain he feels everywhere, and lights the fire.

It rages a dark red, and Sausage allows a small smile.

The ritual might have cost him, but at least it’s worked.

“I suppose you’re wondering how you’re meant to pay me back?” The creature muses, tapping at their chin idly, casually. 

Sausage nods again, and the creature’s face holds the delighted grin.

“It’s easy. You just need to give me blood sacrifices every once in a while. It doesn’t need to be your blood. It doesn’t even need to be human blood. It just needs to be blood.”

“How many? And how often?” He asks, apprehension building in his shaking hands. Sausage feels lightheaded, like he’ll pass out any moment. He’s not sure why. He’s not even bleeding anymore.

“Just a couple. Maybe every couple weeks? Does that seem fair?” Sausage stays silent, trying to think. He’s not even sure where he can get that much blood. “What, do you need help?” The creature sneers, the grin falling into something much less happy and much more sinister. Somehow, their teeth are on display even more than before. “Well, I guess you could have a couple wolves.” It’s mocking him, maybe. But it waves a hand, and a couple wolves materialise from the shadows.

There’s nothing unnerving with them, nothing obviously wrong. Their fur isn’t bloodsoaked or matted or even an odd colour. It’s grey, wolf grey. The only thing he really notices about them that’s abnormal is the red tint to their eyes. 

The being turns to leave, and it’s only then that Sausage speaks.

“What do I call you?” He asks, wincing at the hoarseness of his voice. If the laughter sounds like it’s eaten gravel, Sausage feels like he’s eaten bucket loads of gravel.

The creature laughs, all rasping wheezes.

“Sanæri.”

He cleans up the blood ritual first, and then he moves to go up the stairs, back to his bedroom to research or find any mention of Sanæri in the books still stacked there.

He barely gets a few steps, though, before he’s collapsed. He almost falls, only catches himself on the wall just in time.

One of the wolves pads forward, and stands next to his leg, the fur of its shoulder brushing his waist.

Sausage doesn’t think wolves are normally that big, but he’s not quite sure. It’s not as if he’s seen many wolves before.

It whines, bumping its head against his stomach, and it’s only when he hesitantly puts a hand on its back, between its shoulders, that it stops.

It steps forward, and Sausage lets it. He’s not sure what it wants.

It twists its head back and grabs hold of his pant leg, pulling him forward suddenly. He nearly collapses, only his hand on the wolf keeping him from falling all the way.

It wants him to walk, he realises. He sighs, suddenly exhausted.

He’d be better off waiting for the lightheadedness to pass, checking that he isn’t bleeding anywhere, and then getting there on his own.

The wolf is insistent, though, and the second one follows its lead, nudging him forward.

It’s slow going, but he gets there eventually, even avoids nearly everyone, and anyone who does see doesn’t give him a second glance. Maybe that’s magic too. Or maybe they just don’t care.

He’d think they’d at least care about the giant red tinted eyed wolves, but maybe not. 

In three days, everyone who’d been infected with the plague is completely cured.

They’ve lost eight more people in those three days, and those eight people leave a crippling weight on Sausage’s shoulders, almost more than the hundreds lost before them.

It was Sausage’s job to help them, and Sausage’s fault they were sick in the first place.

He’d tried his best, and his best wasn’t good enough to save them.

His books hold no mention of a god or being or creature named Sanæri. Maybe they had given him the wrong name, or not the one they told others. He’s never heard of them before, and he doesn’t dare ask. If someone else does know, they’ll likely know what he’s done. And he can’t risk that.

It takes nearly a week before he’s able to walk on his own again, without support from the wolves or furniture or walls.

He spends them learning as much blood magic as he can without drawing his own blood.

Sausage had worried about the wolves at first. They were clingy, following him everywhere if he didn’t lock them in his bedroom, and wolves were hardly known for their kindness. 

They don’t attack anyone, though, don’t even growl at anyone. They draw no attention to themselves, somehow. They’re acknowledged a few times, and Sausage wonders what kind of magic it takes to make everyone think there’s nothing odd about seeing giant wolves trailing behind him.

His strength is returning, albeit much slower than he’d like, and his magic is growing stronger.

More strange things happen.

Sometimes, his shadow disappears entirely. It’s like he’s not walking by at all, except that he’s still clearly visible. 

Crops grow visibly after he’s walked by, and sometimes it rains on days when it wasn’t predicted to rain for weeks.

Of course, it’s helpful, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something wrong.

He works at controlling it. 

Sausage wraps his arms and hands and fingers to avoid spilling any blood he doesn’t mean to, and maybe to hide any blood he did mean to spill too. 

He keeps clouds over the dock area, and holds them still for hours at time. 

He sets a couple potted plants down next to him while he shoots. He finally has enough strength in his arms that he can hold the bowstring back for a bit, and his hands don’t shake as much anymore. His aim is almost  back to the way it was before the plague hit. He focuses on not growing the plants, not using his magic at all, almost more than he focuses on trying to hit the bullseye.

Two weeks have rolled by before he knows it, and he’s got to get a blood sacrifice in order.

It’s easier than it should be, really.

The wolves disappear for a few hours, and then return with a sheep.

There’s something wrong with it, he can tell. Its wool is stained red with blood that clearly isn’t its own, and its eyes look like a black abyss. It’s unnerving.

He almost doesn’t mind when he takes it down to what’s quickly become his blood ritual room, and slits its throat over a cauldron.

The blood doesn’t burn itself this time, no goal to the sacrifice beyond the sacrifice itself and the appeasement of Sanæri. He lowers a torch to it, almost dropping the torch into the blood when it bursts into flame.

Sanæri doesn’t appear, and Sausage doesn’t know whether he’s glad about it or not. 

When the blood has burned away, he turns to the body of the sheep.

The wolves are staring at it hungrily.

It’s probably not safe for people to eat, he’s heard many horror stories about those who eat the meat of an animal sacrificed to a god. Sanæri might not be a god, but he doesn’t want to risk it.

The wolves are from Sanæri, though, so it’s probably alright. He shears the wool away first, before he cuts it up into portions for them. No point in letting them get sick from eating too much.

It takes months before he’s unsupervised enough to walk to the boundary, even with the help of a cane. He leaves the wolves locked in his room.

“Where have you been!?! I was worried you’d died!!!” Pearl shrieks, and she looks like she might attack him, except he can barely stumble into her, and then he’s crying.

Pearl holds him, arms wrapped tight around his chest, but he barely notices that it’s a bit harder to breathe, and when he falls, she falls with him, so that they’re hugging in the grass.

“What happened?” She asks, and it’s a relief to tell her. She probably knows at least the basics, the plague that ravaged Mythland and killed so many, and she knows that it must be his fault because he exists without magic.

“This god is terrible. I hope they die.”

“You’re not supposed to curse the gods.” He mumbles half-heartedly.

“Yeah, whatever. I’ve never heard of Sanæri, though.”

“Me either.”

“I could ask Aine?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. Anything for you, little brother.”

“You don’t even know that I’m younger.” He huffs, but he doesn’t really mind. He’s wished for siblings more than a few times, and he thinks he’s known Pearl for long enough.

“I’m definitely older.”

“I’m going to be taller than you, one day.”

“Sure.” She grins, and it’s like nothing’s happened at all. It’s like everything’s fine.

It takes over a year to recover, likely in part from how often he ends up taking his own blood for rituals and spells. 

He still coughs sometimes, but it’s never as deep or scary-sounding as it used to be, and it doesn’t drag up blood from his throat and lungs. 

Sometimes he spends entire days with Pearl, practising with swords and axes and bows. 

Other days he spends buried in the library, trying to find the answers to his latest question about his magic.

The answers are usually difficult to find. Blood magic, as a taboo form of magic, doesn’t have any real research documented. Obviously others have done it, there’s thousands of stories of powerful, if wicked, mages. But finding their discoveries without doing all their research is rarely achievable.

Pearl rarely has any answers, and Aine knows just as much as Pearl does, apparently.

Sausage’s dad hates him, he’s pretty sure. Or maybe he’s just given up on him. He doesn’t know.

He’s definitely been avoiding Sausage, and he barely ever talks to him anymore. When Sausage does emerge from wherever he’s been all day to the dining hall for meals, he’s always alone. His dad is busy or out of the country or taking his meals in his rooms for reasons no one is willing to tell Sausage.

Sausage gives up eventually. He can take his meals in his own rooms too, and he can read about his magic while he’s doing it.

If Sausage is the one avoiding his dad, then it doesn’t have to sting as much, because it’s his own fault that they’re not eating together like they used to before the plague.

The wolves bring so many of the blood sheep that he lets them wander around the country sometimes. There’s too many for one blood sacrifice, it’d just make a mess, and they’ll be around if the wolves ever stop bringing in more blood sheep.

In spring, the wolves each have a litter.

There’s seven pups in total, and not a single one of them manages to look like their mothers. Only one even resembles them, but he doesn’t have the red tint to his eyes that makes his mother so distinctive. The seventh pup is smaller than the others. Her head and legs are a light brown, and her back is dark, almost black. It blends into the brown with spots, and it looks a bit like bubbles, so he names her that.

Bubbles isn’t like her predecessors.

She doesn’t leave every so often, and she never brings him blood sheep. 

She’s not like her siblings and cousins either, though. She sticks close to him, and brings him things she thinks he needs.

Bubbles is usually right. When she brings him a bottle of water, Sausage is dehydrated, and when she insistently drops steak into his lap, he’s forgotten to eat for days. 

She whines at him and tries to drag him away from a ritual when he'll feel lightheaded in moments, and she goes to find Pearl whenever he passed out.

Pearl scolds him for it, but only because she cares. Pearl doesn't understand, not really, why this magic is so taboo. Arguably, she doesn't have a soul either.

She cares more that he's passed out in a pool of his own blood again, and that he's still bleeding. She cares more about his eating and sleeping schedule than whether he's been condemned to an empty eternity.

When Sausage gets a letter delivered to his room, he's confused, and then anger burns through him so quickly that he feels faint.

He has to sit down, and Bubbles rests her head on his thigh.

Sausage wonders if his Dad really knows how hard it is to get through the day anymore.

His bad days are more frequent.

He can’t afford to go to the Festival alone. What if something happens? What if he gets sick again?

Sausage doesn’t really get a choice, though. Dad says he has to go, and he’s not even here to argue with. Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell Sausage in person. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to see him.

Maybe he’s hoping that this time, Sausage will stay in the Grimlands.

He decides to take Bubbles with him, she’d probably be inconsolable if he left her, and she looks like a normal dog. Not like her ancestors.

The Grimlands is exactly like he remembers. Tall spires and dark roofs, everything dark and red.

This time, though, he’s alone. He’s not really here just to hopefully make friends. He’s here to represent Mythland. 

His seat is at the adult’s table, where his father would have sat if he was here. He’s next to the Count’s son, who is three seats from his father. His sister is given the second seat on the opposite side of the table, right next to her mother. It’s clear who the favourite child is.

He smells of magic. It’s a bit odd to have those childish rumours confirmed. He doesn’t look like fae, but that’s expected. He’s a changeling, and as much as he looks like his sister, Sausage would be surprised if he looked anything other than human.

They greet each other awkwardly, and wait for the Count to finish his speech. When the Count extends a greeting to Prince Sausage of Mythland, Sausage stands like he’s supposed to and says something about how happy he is to be here.

The Count’s son grins at him, like he can sense the lie, and Sausage smiles back, only a little, and tries not to slump into his chair. He sits up straight instead, and tries to be reassured by Bubbles’s weight on his feet.

“So what do they call you?” Sausage asks, while the servers are carrying out platters of food he remembers hating so much. 

“fWhip.” He says, giving Sausage an odd look. Sausage doesn’t acknowledge it. Sure, the Grimlands might hate magic viciously, but Sausage is good with words. He knows how to phrase his words to mean exactly what he wants to know.

“I’m called Sausage.” He introduces, somewhat unnecessarily, since the Count had just introduced him. But maybe fWhip wasn’t paying attention.

“Is that your name?”

“No one in Mythland knows their own name. Just to prevent any accidents.” fWhip nods.

“You’ve got a fae forest nearby, right?”

“We share a border on all but one side.”

“A fae a big problem there?”

“No. We have a deal that benefits us both.”

“That’s good.” fWhip nods, glancing towards his sister, who meets his stare. She gives her brother an encouraging smile and a short nod, before she turns back to her mother’s conversation. “How old are you?” fWhip asks, whispering.

It takes Sausage a moment to remember, and isn’t that sad? Everything’s been so disrupted, he hasn’t even seen his Dad in weeks, he definitely missed a couple birthdays.

No, he isn’t still fourteen.

“I’m seventeen.”

“I’m sixteen. What’s your dog’s name?” fWhip glances under the dark red tablecloth to Bubbles, who is staring at Sausage expectantly waiting to be given bits of food from the table.

“Bubbles.” 

They exchange meaningless questions for the rest of the meal, and for the rest of the Festival too.

It’s none of the politics Sausage probably should be doing. It’s not the networking or the strengthening of an alliance they maybe need.

It’s exactly what Dad wanted Sausage to do years ago, but it’s not what Sausage should be doing now.

Maybe it’s selfish. 

Maybe Sausage has only ever been selfish. Dad didn’t want him to have magic, he wanted him to learn. Dad didn’t want him to sneak out, but he met with Pearl every week anyway.

Maybe wanting magic wasn’t so selfish, though, when Sausage was only trying to live up to expectations he was born with. He was supposed to have magic, so he’d better figure out how to get it.

He doesn’t know.

But fWhip is nice and honest and he doesn’t twist words and veil insults like everyone else at this Festival.

Sausage doesn’t really get a chance to talk to his sister, Gemini, but he meets her.

Of the two of them, she behaves more like a fae, and Sausage thinks he understands. 

He’d hidden Pearl from everyone in the castle, not because they’d hurt her, but they would certainly cast her out.

fWhip is in more danger.

Sausage understands.

When he gets back to Mythland, Pearl is waiting at their spot. She has an armful of planks and a bag full of seeds over her shoulder.

They take the path out of the forest, and then they walk around the outside perimeter until they find a place to build her farmhouse.

It’s their first time building anything, and beyond a few diagrams in books, neither of them know what they’re doing.

They eyeball more than they probably should, but when it’s all done, it’s sturdy and unlikely to collapse.

Pearl is plotting out her first field of wheat when he starts the walk back to Mythland.

She runs to him, throwing her arms around his shoulders, and hugging him tight. He hugs her back.

“You’re welcome to visit whenever you want, okay? Don’t you dare get rusty on me.”

“You either.” He grins, and then he sets a crown of sunflowers on her head. “You’re the Farmer Queen now. We’ll be the closest allies you’ve ever heard of.”

“Okay.” She laughs, pushing yellow petals out of her eyes.

And then he’s heading home.

It feels like leaving something important behind, but it’s not forever. He’ll come see her soon.

When Dad summons him, it’s face to face for once and Sausage is angry but not angry enough to say anything, he knows that he understands, how couldn’t he when he’d understood on his deathbed if his Dad really did hate him, and clearly he must.

Sausage deserves it for all that his existence has done to hurt Mythland, and it’s so clear to see because none of his friends, neither Pearl nor fWhip, are from Mythland.

He’s handed a letter, and the seal bears the Grimlands quest.

They need a magical expert. For some reason, they send Sausage.

“Is he a changeling?” fWhip’s mother asks, her nails digging into her son’s shoulder, her voice cold.

fWhip looks terrified, and Bubbles presses insistently against Sausage’s leg. 

The smell of magic is thick, thicker than before. Like fWhip knows what he is now, and he’s learning of the power that comes with it.

“He’s completely human.” Sausage lies. It feels monumental, and maybe it is. Sausage isn’t sure he’s ever really lied before. He never needed to before. At least not outright. 

Since his sister isn’t anywhere to be seen, Sausage heard she’d been exiled, he puts on a sympathetic smile.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” fWhip’s mother sniffles, and it’s almost impressive how real it looks when Sausage knows it isn’t.

She pulls her son into a hug, and fWhip looks even more scared than before, though he seems a bit relieved too. fWhip sends Sausage a thankful look as Sausage awkwardly leaves the room.

fWhip struggles under the weight of the iron crown of the Grimlands, it’s Sausage who adds a cloth lining to the inside to keep it from burning his skull, and who walks fWhip through the spell to hide the lining.

Sausage spends almost as much time visiting the Grimlands and Smallholding as he does in Mythland, trying to help fWhip with the numerous responsibilities he wasn’t prepared for.

The schooling fWhip got was subpar they find, and while Gemini had done her best, there’s only so much one kid can teach another.

Sausage thinks he’s happy like this.

He’d be happy to live like this forever.

Reading legal documents over fWhip’s shoulder and misdirecting his mother away from him, Bubbles sitting at his feet.

Sitting on the fence of Pearl’s fields, watching as she harvests her crops.

The week Sausage’s Dad dies, only a couple months later, Sausage isn’t given the time to grieve.

Apparently it doesn’t matter that he was born without magic, that as far as anyone knows, he never got any.

Apparently it doesn’t matter that he’s only eighteen, and he wasn’t prepared for this, no one was.

He’s given scrolls to sign and disputes to settle and the crushing weight of a gold crown to rest on his head.

It’s supposed to be everything he ever wanted, but it isn’t.

Not when the only thought he manages to think that isn’t about his new responsibilities or missing his friends is ‘I don’t want this’.

But Sausage doesn’t get to go back.

He is King of Mythland.

When Sanæri appears in the empty throne room, late one night after everyone else has left and Sausage has only a few more scrolls to look over before he can go to bed, Sausage doesn’t have anything he wants to know. He doesn’t have any questions.

He doesn’t want to know why Sanæri chose him, why he was granted both life and magic.

“I don’t think I ever wanted magic.”

“Well, you have it. You might as well use it.” Sanæri shrugs, and then they laugh. The rasps echo in the throne room.

Maybe that’s all there really is to it.

What good is losing his soul if he doesn’t even help his kingdom with what replaced it?