Chapter Text
It was dark in the castle entryway, footsteps and voices echoing off the stone walls as if the moody lighting could amplify their sound. The knights were walking back from their afternoon training, weary and ready to unwind. They chatted amongst themselves about where they’d all split off to next: the dining hall, the common rooms, or perhaps straight to the bed chambers for some of them.
A blonde knight had fallen too far behind from her posse. They began to slow their pace as they waited for her to snap out of her daze and catch up to them, but she eventually came to a complete stop.
The dark-haired knight of the group lazily called out to her, “Narukami, you coming?”
She jumped and turned to face her friends. “Sorry, I was planning to meet someone tonight. I’ll return to the common room after that. I shouldn’t be long!”
A silver-haired knight scoffed. “Ugh, are you going to see him again?”
The blonde frowned and straightened her posture. “So what if I am, Sena? You make it sound like he’s going to hurt me.”
“I don’t think he’s going to hurt you,” The silver one replied. “I just think he follows you around too much. He can’t expect you to be his personal bodyguard.”
Now it was her turn to scoff. “It’s not like that! We’re friends, is that so hard for you to understand? My goodness, you treat him like he’s rotten to the core.”
More of the knights were about to give their unwanted opinions, but Arashi stormed off, heading back the way they all came from. The others watched her go before shrugging and continuing on their way. Her group could be quite… particular, when it came to personal matters, but they were some of the best fighters in their kingdom, and they could depend on one another. She knew that beneath their sass and complaints, they were just concerned for her.
Arashi wandered around the perimeter of the castle, looking for her friend. She eventually found him tucked into a crook of the stone walls that were blanketed in untrimmed greenery.
“Ah! There you are, Mika!” She exclaimed.
“Ngah!?” He cried out. “How did you notice me!?”
Widened with surprise, his mismatched blue and yellow eyes were a dead giveaway. But the thought of saying that almost made Arashi laugh, so she went with, “I just know you well enough to tell you apart from some bushes.”
She helped her friend out of the shrubbery, and waited as he brushed himself off. Honestly, with his stringy dark hair and tattered, messy clothes, his camouflage was pretty good. It was just his eyes — those eyes were always getting people's attention.
“Nahh, I’m sorry, Naru,” He said sheepishly. It caught Arashi by surprise.
“Whatever for?”
“Yer friends… I heard them giving you a hard time.”
“Ahh, Mika, it should be me apologizing to you. ” But the boy just sadly shook his head.
“That’s… what I wanted to talk to ya about tonight. Er, it’s related, at least.”
Arashi felt worry blossom in her chest. Whatever Mika was thinking, it couldn’t be good.
“Ya know the place they all talk about? …The Rosy Castle?” He said its name wrong, but Arashi froze in recognition anyway.
“The… Rosé Castle?” She wanted to confirm that’s what Mika was referring to, but it was pointless. It was the only kingdom people talked about besides their own. Calling it a “kingdom” was a stretch, though — it was simply a lone castle, located on the far north side of the forest.
Besides trees, it was also shrouded in rumors. Everyone speculated whether it was abandoned or occupied, or what sort of person would choose to live in isolation like that. There were conspiracies of the master being a witch, or even some kind of force of evil. Arashi knew Rosé Castle did have a master, as the knights were given strict orders to avoid its territory during patrols, but she knew nothing about him besides that he wanted to be left completely alone.
She didn’t like the sound of a castle with no kingdom and supposedly one man living inside. It wasn't right. It gave her a bad feeling, and she dreaded what Mika was going to say next.
“Yeah,” he nodded with uncertainty. “Usually, it’s a bunch’a mismatched drabble, nothin’ I can really keep up with. But recently, everyone’s been sayin’ the same things about it.” His eyes sparkled with something Arashi did not like the look of.
“They’ve been sayin’... That someone spotted the person who lives there. And apparently, they’re super beautiful. Like, magically beautiful, Naru.”
She felt her brow furrow. “Mika, I don’t know if I—”
“Wait,” Mika stopped her from speaking. “Lemme, just— people were wonderin’, er, they were sayin’, that, uh—” He paused and took a breath. His eyes fell to the ground. “They were talkin’ about if you were to go to that castle, that the master could grant wishes. I thought maybe tryin’… a wish ta make me beautiful, too.”
“Mika, you can’t!” Arashi cried. The absurdity of his statement was shielded by a seriousness that made her frantic. “You want to go by yourself to Rosé Castle!? That would be such a dangerous risk for who-knows-what reward? Spending days in the forest alone on foot, oh what if you get hurt, or ill, or die on the way? Not to mention you don't know how the Master will react to sudden company. Don't you remember what happened to that last boy? He—”
Mika grabbed ahold of her shoulders, his grip firm. “I’m goin’, Naru. I’ve already made up my mind.”
They stared into each other's eyes for a moment, but then Arashi broke the silence. “But… why?”
“You know why." He let go of her. "I can’t go anywhere without people starin’ at me, or makin’ comments about me. Pointin’ at me in the market, pushin’ me down to the ground, grabbin’ at my face and sayin’ all this and that about my freaky eyes and ugly teeth. They all exclaim at me, all gawk at me. Yer friends didn’t even see me and they still sounded disgusted at the thought of me.” Mika shook his head, and his voice broke. “It’s awful, Naru. Every day is awful. You can’t imagine how it feels ta be so hated.”
Arashi felt tears of frustration well up in her eyes. Of course she couldn’t understand why he was so hated. She couldn't begin to comprehend why people terrorized him every day, even if he looked a little different. Mika was her friend, she really and truly thought of him that way, and it hurt when anybody tried misconstruing that relationship — saying he’s too dependent on her or hanging around him will ruin her reputation. It was all horrible. But… running away? Running to this random, god-forsaken castle out in the middle of nowhere at the mere whisper of something there that could change him? She couldn’t believe he was considering the option so seriously, but at the same time… yes, she could.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “There isn’t anything out there. Nothing good, at least.”
Now Mika looked ready to cry. “I know that’s a possibility, but… wouldn’t it be better that way? Maybe I’d be where I actually belong, with all the animals and them.”
“Mika!”
“I mean it!” He snapped. “I thought long n’ hard about it, that if I had to choose between goin’ out and tryin’ to find somethin’ to change myself, or stay here n’ be miserable fer the rest of my life, I want ta go out fightin’. I want to go and see what’s out at that castle if it's the last thing I do.”
Arashi stayed silent. She wanted to yell at him, she wanted to knock Mika to the ground and scream in his face about how this wouldn’t change anything and he was risking his life for no reason, but she knew it wouldn’t make him stay. She knew that if he called her here to tell her he was at his limit, he meant it. He was going to run away, whether she agreed or not.
The best thing she could do for her friend was prepare him for the journey.
“Fine,” she breathed and blinked her tears away. “I’ll give you some supplies for the trip.”
***
Mika was on his way. He was grateful and a little shocked that he was able to stand his ground so well. It felt like a different person took over when he told Naru he was going to leave no matter what. He kind of liked it.
Her last words to him as they parted ways were, “Please come back.” He would really like to honor them, just in a successful way. Mika wanted to come back a different person; one that was easier on the eyes, one that knew how to talk and act properly. One that could be friends with a knight and nobody would think he was just using her for protection. One that could maybe become a knight himself someday.
He wished that person from before would take over him again. Trudging through the ominous forest was already overdoing his nerves. He’d never been outside of the kingdom’s territory before, which ended somewhere a few kilometers of forest behind him.
Triple-checking the map Naru gave him to confirm he was going in the right direction, he forged on. He was super thankful for the supplies she gave him, which included a pack with a couple of day’s rations of bread and dried meat, a large flask for drinking water, and a singular chest plate, which he wore now. It was bulky and uncomfortable, being too large for his scrawny body, even though it was supposedly the smallest size the kingdom had — but still, he was grateful. A big chest plate was better than no chest plate.
Mika always had trouble fitting into things right these days. Food was getting harder to come by as winter was approaching, and always being on foot meant he could never store any extra fat. His feet themselves were so cut up and sore from the amount of travel they had endured, and for the thousandth time, Mika wondered if he made a wrong turn somewhere. He felt like it should be easier to get to this castle you could see on the horizon line from the kingdom, but what did he know? Nothing, really. He didn’t know much at all.
He looked up to the sky and saw gray clouds above the treetops. The weather was as bleak as his mood right now, it seemed. He wasn’t fooling himself, however. He spent enough time outside to understand when a storm was coming. As if on cue, a gust of wind pushed Mika around like he was made of straw. His clothes were thin — a cheap linen that was rough to the touch and gave his skin rashes — and shredded from years of wear and physical activity. He shivered and wished the chest plate he was wearing could have been insulated. He had better get a move on and find some kind of shelter before the storm arrived.
He had barely made it by in the kingdom. Mika was orphaned at a very young age, and his strange eyes frightened everyone who saw. Nobody took care of him, out of fear or out of pressure, he didn’t know. But he’d heard lots of terrible comments about him; things people said when they didn’t think he could hear. Comments about how scary he looked, theories that he was truly some kind of half-blooded creature, or his least favorite: that he was somehow responsible for the absence of his parents. That him looking strange was reason enough to leave him for the vultures. He was always left to fend for himself, and grew up mostly on the streets, not learning much about proper etiquette or socializing. How he spoke as a result of that was now another way people ostracized him.
The only good thing about Mika’s being an outcast was that people did not care what they said around him. That was how he found out about Rosé Castle in the first place, and how he finally felt a glimmer of hope that he could change his situation.
The rumors had begun simple enough; people mumbling about a castle past the forest that must be enchanted or cursed, due to how just one lone person seemed to live there. Nobody understood how one man could survive alone in a castle, especially when there was no other civilization around besides the kingdom, and it was known that the man had never been seen entering or exiting his abode.
Eventually, curiosity got the best of everyone, and soon people began to venture out to visit the castle themselves. They always returned home with different information, though:
“It is unoccupied. The windows were dark and no noises came from inside. I was stuck outside for days, just watching the grass grow, so I know for sure!”
“No, there is someone there. I heard music playing from the inside when I went.”
“It's a family! I saw a little girl with long, curly hair. She must have parents there too!”
It was the day a small blond boy returned to the kingdom after his venture to Rosé Castle that convinced Mika to look into it himself. The day the boy left, he was eager, as if he was proving himself by daring to go visit. He remained gone for a few weeks, sending ripples of worry over the townsfolk. When he finally came back, he was completely different. He was quiet and solemn, the spark that he had when he left was gone without a trace. His eyes were large and sad, and everyone pitied him, and wondered what could have happened for him to end up like that. However, Mika felt something different when he saw that boy return. He saw the boy’s perfect posture, his politeness, his gentleness, and he thought it was enrapturing. Mika saw beauty where everyone else saw tragedy, and he understood why the boy had transformed so drastically.
Most of all, Mika desperately wanted to be in his place.