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Buried deep within the forests of Rosaria, nestled amongst bramble and pine, sits a peaceful homestead circled by a lush garden of healing herbs. It is far enough from ducal lands to earn a semblance of privacy, but not so far as to be difficult to find. The cultivator of the gardens, the tender to the sickly, enjoys his peace and quiet; or so the story goes.
Joshua himself would freely admit the serenity of his little plot of land is a balm to the soul; growing up in Rosalith’s bustling village had endeared him to the soft life of solitude. He tends his garden, he heals the ill. He is at peace. The political machinations of Valisthea hold little interest to him; witches often used by the powerful and the wealthy to further their own ends. No, Joshua much prefers his small slice of land in the towering trees to any comforts a village filled with self-centered rulers could offer.
He ignores his father and brother both, as much as it pains him. There are certain … demands, of one possessed of his unique brand of magic. Phoenix ever in his breast, warming him with her inherent fire. Other responsibilities, as heir apparent to Rosaria. He should be in the heart of his country, learning lessons of propriety and history and what it takes to rule. His mouth twists at the mere thought of it; Joshua simply wants to heal, to help where he can. Not to be paraded about in a show of power. He chooses, instead, to impart his magic where it is sorely needed.
He is not running away, thank you. Clive knows where to find him if the duchy begins to fall apart around his ears. Until that day comes, Joshua is content to sit in his small slip of sanctuary, healing and guiding. Walking the earth as a witch, not gawked at for being Phoenix.
They would come from every corner of The Twins to seek aid from his magic. And yet, these days, most things are quiet. The calm before the storm, as his father would undoubtedly say. Joshua gazes through the smudged pane of a window, clouds drifting listlessly high above the canopy of his forest. And something both within and without -the trees themselves seem to huddle closer than usual; needles and leaves dropping like tears- trembles with anticipation.
He is elbow-deep in a bowl of powdered antlers when the storm reaches his door. A shadow passes over the sun, darkening the natural light that floods in from the windows. Joshua glances up from his work, pushing up the wide brim of his hat with the back of a wrist. There is a too-loud thump from the direction of his garden, accompanied by the crackle of magic and the smell of ozone; his brows furrow as he pauses to wipe his hands, calling forth the power of fire to gather in his palms.
His leather boots make nary a sound as he crosses the kitchen, though when he gently coaxes the door open the hinges squeak rather impressively. Joshua winces -he really meant to fix that- before crossing the threshold, wondering with a bit of an impatient twist of his mouth at who could possibly be stomping around in his garden.
What he expects is a misbehaving pixie. Perhaps a familiar, come to pick and poke at his herbs. Unlikely to be an entirely unmagical beast; they can sense the power that ensconces Joshua’s homestead and keep their distance. Unlikely to be any sort of threat, he’d placed fresh wards against any with ill intent on the trees, not a tenday past. Maybe, maybe another witch; come to call for a favor or, perhaps, to pluck out his eyes.
What he doesn't expect is a heap of a prince, curled in on himself between the cheerful flowers of yarrow and the stalks of ginger. He’s crushing the feverfew, Joshua notes with a bit of a pinched expression, dousing the magic in his hands and crossing his arms over his chest.
“I possess a perfectly favorable front door if you needed my attention quite so badly,” Joshua says with a tsk, glancing over the prince with a practiced eye from beneath his hat. He seems no worse for wear; touched by magic as the stranger is.
The prince gives a wheezing sort of laugh, finding the strength to roll and push himself from the ground. “My apologies,” he says, genuine enough even as he brushes soil from the shining silver of his armor. Joshua glances from him to the sun, seeing broken branches of the surrounding trees and quite a large muck-up in his garden centered around where the prince must have fallen from the sky.
A sigh. He’ll have to rework half the garden; painstakingly weaving magic through each root and stem and breaking his back beneath the sun to till and bury and whisper words of growth to the now quite unhappy plants.
Joshua offers a hand to the stranger, fingers aglow with healing magic. “Joshua. How can I help you?” He asks with yet another put-upon sigh, though his mouth quirks into a small smile to bely the impatience.
The prince looks from his offered hand to his eyes, lips pursed for just a moment before the weight of the world seems to curve his shoulders forward. He takes the offered hand, bringing Joshua’s knuckles to his mouth for a whisper of a kiss. “Prince Dion Lesage,” he introduces himself, Joshua barely reigning in the desire to roll his eyes. I know, I can practically smell the touch of Bahamut on you. His healing magic moves into Dion, singing through his veins to heal any aches from his fall.
“Please,” Dion whispers, both hands holding tight to Joshua’s as though he held each answer to his every question, “would you help me?”
It isn't every day that one has a dragon prince calmly sipping tea in one's kitchen. Even for a witch. Joshua watches the prince over his steaming mug of chamomile, hat perched jauntily over his head to hide most of his face from Dion’s curious gaze.
“I’ve been searching for you,” Dion says after a time, breaking the silence. “The tales of a goodly witch hidden in the woods have ere long reached my ears.”
“And now you’ve found me,” Joshua responds, sipping his tea and wondering if he should perhaps have offered some biscuits.
“That I have.”
Once more there is silence in his home, as Joshua stares at the prince expectantly. But he seems content to do naught but stare straight back, head tilted inquisitively to the side. Joshua feels an eyebrow twitch; a dragon quite literally crashes into his garden and then can't even summon the words required? Hopeless.
Just as he begins to lose patience, Dion speaks once more. His tone is dulcet and low, bellying a severity that shoots right through Joshua, any earlier humor gone in a blink.
“I need your help,” he repeats himself, fingers tightening around his chipped mug and turning his gaze down to watch its swirling contents. “I need not your healing, though I know it’s your specialty. What I need is - quite a bit more personal. Potentially impossible.”
Riddles upon mysteries. “Are you - perchance cursed?” Joshua prods, palm curling beneath his chin as he leans forward. Curses are not uncommon, though the more convoluted sort usually have a clause that keeps the cursed party from speaking on it.
“Only by my own duty,” Dion mutters beneath his breath, taking a long sip of tea. Joshua’s brows raise to near his hairline, watching Dion relax back in his seat with knees spread and arms crossed over his chest. Have his cheeks gone the slightest bit pink? Joshua would chance a closer look if he thought he’d survive the undertaking.
“There’s - a decree. That the emperor, my father, has decided. Long have I been a tool to be used for my people; I’ve accepted it, gladly. To protect that which I hold dear is not a calling that I turn my nose up at. Sanbreque is my heart, my entire life dedicated to her protection. My life has never truly been my own, but I had thought -naively, it would seem- that this part of my life would be mine to decide.”
He says it all in one breath, as though a practiced and rehearsed speech. Joshua listens attentively, humming beneath his breath even as he winces internally. Duty to one's people he knows intimately well; he’s only slightly chagrined to realize just how similar and yet different they are, sat across one another. Born of duty; one chose to flee from it whilst the other upheld it happily.
He clears his throat, gesturing for Dion to continue. “And that - decision, decree? That the emperor is forcing on you? What is it?” How do I account into all of this?
The prince has definitely gone pink. He shuffles in his seat, bringing a hand back to rub the back of his neck nervously. “Marriage.” He says it in a hoarse whisper, like something illicit or dangerous.
Joshua blinks. Blinks again. And once more, for good measure. “You’re to marry. And you find issue with that.” Perhaps he should have thwacked him with a broom when he first landed in his garden after all.
“I know how it sounds,” Dion grouses, hand moving from his neck to shield his eyes, as if to hide from the unwavering impatience burning deep within Joshua’s expression. “But it isn't - I’ve never even met them. And it’s for the betterment of our lands, for unity and peace. But I can't shake the feeling of - being as a bird in a cage. Not even on this may I choose for myself.”
Joshua exhales sharply through his nose, expression settling into one of understanding. Again, he knows the feeling all too well; that your life is already written upon the pages of history, that your own earthly desires and feelings are worthless in the face of what must be done as heir to a throne. He smiles, genuinely, as a small slip of laughter bubbles free of his throat. “You’re a romantic,” he realizes, something unspeakably warm plucking at his heart.
Dion only groans further, folding in on himself in his seat. “Don't say it like that.” Is that a smile peeking through? Joshua finds himself delighted all the more.
“And how, exactly, would a witch figure into this request of yours? Plucking the bride from their bedroom, turning them into a shrew perhaps? Or maybe I should throw myself into all the cliches and whisper in the emperor’s ear, convince him with the lightest touch of magic to his mind that this is a terrible, rotten idea, and the prince should be free to choose for himself?” He’s joking. Mostly.
Dion barks a laugh. “Would that you could.” He sobers, glancing up to catch Joshua’s eye. “To speak plain, I don't know what it is I ask for. Only that if there were - a chance, perhaps you could help me. The tales sing your praises, that you can cure all ills and heal the soul as well as the body. If you can think of a way to free me of this alone then I would be in your debt.”
Joshua hums beneath his breath, fingertips tapping a rhythm against his cheek. In all honesty he’s - quite perplexed. A part of him simply wishes to insist that Dion take the reigns of his own fate, duty or no; not even an emperor can command a heart to move as he so wishes. But that sort of inherently selfish freedom - it’s a knife’s edge that Joshua knows only too well. With as much riding on this union as he assumes -a marriage for peace; as good as one could get for an arranged marriage- then where is the line that cannot be crossed, when faced with expectation versus desire?
“I’ve heard Phoenix is as reclusive as they are kind, but I’m not sure how much of that is truth or simply pontification from their parents. My father seems to believe it’s all sincerity, but the fact remains -”
Joshua chokes on his tea. Splutters out a coughing breath, mug slipping from between his fingers to shatter upon the wooden floor. His chest heaves as he chokes and gasps, pounding a fist on his chest even as his eyes go comically wide. Dion rises immediately from his chair, hands gone out to hover somewhere near Joshua’s shoulders in an attempt to offer aid.
“Sorry, sorry,” he croaks out, clearing his throat and waving an impatient hand with a flash of magic to gather the broken pieces of porcelain. “I’m - did you say Phoenix?” Beseeching, begging; serendipity has often come to call with cackling laughter to his door, but this -
Dion looks bewildered as he sinks slowly back into his seat. “Yes. I’m to wed the heir to Rosaria’s throne. I assume you know of them, being Rosarian yourself.”
After a short pause, Joshua can do naught but throw back his head and laugh. Ridiculous, all of it. Maybe he should have paid attention to the increasingly frustrated letters demanding Joshua return from his father that Clive had dropped on him during his last handful of visits.
He has a remedy for this. Or, well - something of the sort. Joshua tells as much to Dion -who still watches him, utterly perplexed- as he pushes himself from the table, muttering beneath his breath. He goes to the cabinet of prepared tonics, glancing over labels and jostling glasses and bottles in his search. His grin is so wide it nearly aches him, and for half a breath he wonders if he has indeed gone mad. Handsome prince quite literally falls into his lap and now this. It’s practically storybook.
“Aha!” He says when he’s found what he’d been searching for. A tall and thin phial filled with pale pink liquid, swirling about and glittering dimply from the magic dropped into it. “This,” he says, moving back to the table and plopping it without ceremony beside Dion’s forgotten tea, “is a potion designed to open one’s mind. Half of it for you, half of it for your father. Drink this just before your meeting with your perhaps-fiance, and things might just go in the most unexpected way.”
Bullshit, the lot of it. It’ll make his fingertips tingle and his head feel breezy for an hour or two; a potion created lovingly by Joshua’s hands some moons ago and kept ever on hand when someone who comes knocking needs only a nudge and not magic.
Well. Magic of belief is its own sort of magic, or so he thinks.
“And this will - give me what I desire?” Dion asks, suddenly dubious as he looks from the swirls of light within the phial to Joshua’s face.
“Of that I cannot guarantee. But it’ll certainly be something.”
Joshua makes his return to Rosalith as dramatically as he can manage. Marching up the steps toward the castle with staff in hand, the wide brim of his hat flopping just so over his face. He enters the main chamber with heels echoing over stone, the room gone into a hush.
He can see his parents seated on the dais, Clive standing just behind the duke as guard and aide both. Joshua offers them all a cheeky smile that is returned with the collective relieved exhalations of his nearest and dearest, though Clive grins at him and Mother’s expression turns thunderous for just a moment before she schools herself once more. Ah. He remembers why he’d kept himself away for so long, this time.
“Hello,” he says, verbose as ever. “I’ve come to hear the terms of our apparent union with Sanbreque.”
“Joshua,” rings out in the room, by several different voices. Clive’s in relief, Mother’s impatiently. Father with laughter, good humor crinkling his eyes. And -
The prince of Sanbreque seizes his shoulders. Fingertips digging into his bones, Joshua merely eeks out a small grin, face dusted with a smattering of pink.
“Phoenix,” Dion says, voice a pained whisper as all at once everything comes together in a neat little arrangement in his mind. Joshua can’t tell if he’s relieved or elated or planning some sort of physical harm to his person.
“Bahamut,” Joshua responds jovially, delighting in the shock spreading like wildfire throughout the room. Connected by the most ancient and powerful magic, chosen by beings of pure magic themselves. Of course it’s all come to this. “I thought it pertinent to perhaps make your acquaintance. Seeing as we’re to be the catalyst for peace, and all. Seemed rather important, if you ask me -”
His words are cut short as Dion lets him go, barking out incredulous laughter. He studies Joshua, from his hat to his heeled shoes, lingering on the corset of pale Sanbrequois blue that wraps lovingly around his middle. “It would seem I have been quite bewitched.”
Joshua grins, reaching to sweep his hat as he offers a low bow to the prince. “Comes part and parcel when one is entangled with one such as I.”
Dion watches him bow, schooling his smile and a roll of his eyes. He heaves a sigh, perhaps questioning every decision that had led him to this moment, before bowing to Joshua in kind. “So it would seem,” is all he says, an amused glint colouring his warm brown eyes, and for half a breath Joshua wonders if, perhaps, he were the one enchanted.