Work Text:
“UNCA LEONA!!!”
Leona winced as the unnervingly loud voice of his nephew somehow caught up to him midair. He made the mistake of glancing down, confirming that Cheka was, somehow, really in the field below, and thus earning him an excited wave from the cub. Great. Now Leona couldn’t pretend to ignore him.
Still, he let the broom hover at its current altitude for a minute longer. Leona wasn’t about to let Cheka know that he would always come running at first call, and, he needed another minute to mourn his loss of peace and quiet.
Despite his perpetual exhaustion, Leona had grown restless, and the cool yet sunny weather outside was alluring. He was still on break, though, and the last thing he wanted was for somebody to assume that he had energy for them, so Leona employed a trick from his childhood. On the other side of the garden, there was a stretch of plain savanna, separating the backside of the palace from the main road. Between the curvature of the land and the denseness of the garden, it was virtually hidden from prying eyes, with only the perimeter of the plain being patrolled by the palace guards. It was the perfect place to make a presence without being seen.
When he was younger, it became the only place he could practice his magic without causing panic or undue attention. Now, he just wanted to fly around, do a solo spelldrive drill or two, and enjoy the silence.
But the brat somehow found him. What a headache.
Leona jumped off the broom when he was close enough to the ground, landing softly and catching the broom once it fell. Cheka bounced on his heels excitedly, as he always did.
“That was so cool!” the brat burst out, waving his arms around. “You were all ‘WHOOSH!’ and ‘BAM!’ and, and, surfing in the air! The spinny thing you did was unstoppable! It went super far!”
Of all the languages Leona knew, deciphering ‘kid’ barely made it onto that list. “Slow down,” he requested, a headache blossoming. “What are you getting on about?” Leona also wanted to know how the hell the kid got out here, but Cheka was oddly good at that, so he decided that the question wasn’t worth the effort.
“You’re practicing spelldrive right?” Cheka answered with a question of his own. He pointed in the direction Leona had last flung the disc, leaving him vaguely impressed with the kid’s powers of observation. It wasn’t in eyesight from the ground. “That spinny pass was so cool! And then, and then, your drive-shot went waaay across the field! And it was so fast too!”
It was still mostly kid-jargon, but a few terms had Leona raising an eyebrow. “How did you know I was practicing passes and drive-shots?” Or, rather, how did he correctly guess which was which? Without an actual goal or any teammates, the squirt would have had to pay attention to the technique itself, which required more than passing knowledge of the sport. Sure, Farena probably played the kiddy-version with him, but Farena barely knew where half-court was, let alone this stuff.
“Because I watch spelldrive all the time! It’s always on after the exploring show I watch! And! I have this really cool game where you set up the teams and then play! I’m really good at it! You gotta time the passes juuuust right so the other team never gets the disc.”
Huh. As Cheka rambled on, Leona recalled when his nephew declared that spelldrive was his favorite sport. He hadn’t taken it seriously, because he figured it was just the kid being excited about watching the NRC game, but now he was rethinking his evaluation. The kid did tend to hyper-fixate on random things and stick with it to the point of being annoying. Or until Farena waved some new shiny thing in his face.
“So? Can we?”
Leona realized too late that Cheka had ended his babbling infodump about how long passes were hard to do in his video game and apparently hit Leona with a question, judging by his expectant gaze.
“Eh? What do you want?”
Luckily, the talkative kid never had a problem with repeating himself. “I wanna play with you! I know we don’t have seven people, but I can help you practice!”
Great. He was aiming that face at him. With those big damn eyes.
Leona took a casual step back, remounting his broom. He guided it into the air, both to get some distance between his nephew and to get a better vantage point for the disc. It was a bit of a tricky range, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. (Draconia wasn’t special for his court-length steals. Really. He wasn’t. He was just good at it.)
When Leona retrieved the disc in a blaze of gold, he guided it to hover just above his nephew’s reach.
“This is different from your video game,” he reminded him. “You need magic to play. And either a broom or longer legs.”
To his surprise, Cheka reached up and attempted to levitate the disc on his own. Leona dropped his grip on it and the kid actually took over, keeping it aloft—albeit shakily. (Only after Leona spotted the little training magestone on the kid’s bracelet did he release the disc entirely. His attempt to dissuade the brat aside, Leona wasn’t going to let him do anything reckless.)
“I’ve been practicing!” he chirped happily. “Because I want to play for real one day!”
Well shit. The kid wasn’t kidding. Leona knew for a fact that his tutors wouldn’t encourage the young prince to practice magic at this age, so it really was of his own doing. At least he had a stone—though Farena would give that kid anything, no questions asked.
“You’re really invested, huh?” he mumbled, unsure what to do at the sheer magnitude of his enthusiasm. Sure, the kid was excitable, but he didn’t hear the kid string together that many intelligent words about anything since crocodiles. (Heaven forbid if you call an alligator a crocodile around that kid.)
Cheka nodded, eyes shining brightly. “I wanna play on TV when I grow up!”
Leona scoffed. Kids and their wild dreams. “Pfft. Yeah right.”
For all of his naive sunshine disposition, Cheka chose that remark to take offense to. “I can!” he insisted. “I’ll work really hard and I’ll get really good at it! Just like you!”
That headache was making itself known again. “That’s not the problem.”
Cheka pouted. “Then why can’t I?”
Because you’re the prince.
The words died on his tongue. They turned to ash and tasted like blot.
“Leona, that is not behavior befitting of a prince. Now cease your boorish running around and go to the tailor with your brother.”
“Medicine? Your academic prowess is appreciated, but you are a prince. There is no need to become dedicated to such disciplines.”
“Leave the combat magic to the guards, your highness. You need not concern yourself with your own safety.”
“Farena is the king. Foreign policies are to be left to him. Now stay put and don’t give the crown a bad name. As a prince, our reputation is carried by you.”
“You’re a prince. You can’t galavant outside the palace like that.”
“A prince cannot enter a tournament without a significant amount of press. I must dissuade you from this endeavor, no matter your fondness for the game. I can schedule another private match, if you would like?”
“I don’t know why you’re so interested in all that ancient stuff. You’re a prince, not an historian!”
“Quit yawning, Leona. You’re a prince: act like one.”
“Your highness, I must insist that you leave this… ah, potionology to professionals. It is above your station to experiment in such dangerous endeavors.”
“Come on, little brother. Being a prince isn’t anything to complain about. You got it made! You don’t even have to deal with these stuffy hearings, like I do.”
“Why? Because you’re still a prince, Leona.”
Leona found himself incapable of speaking at all, in that moment. So he didn’t try to. He turned his head, using the broom to angle himself away from the baring eyes of his innocent kid nephew, and he schooled his expression.
(A tear dripped down his chin, but it made no sound, and it went unseen, so really, it didn’t exist at all.)
He couldn’t find it in him to lie to the kid and fuel his fantasy. He also couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth. He could not utter those words, nor could he be the one to kill that light in the kid’s eyes.
So he didn’t. Luckily, Cheka was easily distracted.
With an exasperated sigh and a quick wipe to his face with the hem of his shirt, he gestured to Cheka to follow. “Fine. Let’s play baby spelldrive. I’ll teach ya’ how to pass, and then we’re getting you inside. It’s too cold out here for a cub your age.”
Cheka took this as a victory. “Yay! Thank you, Unca Leona! Now don’t get too close! I’ll throw it far, just like you!”
But Leona knew better.