Archive of Our Own

“If, one day, I am not at your side and you have to venture somewhere far beyond our borders…” the lady knelt down. She paid no heed to the way her dress met the ground. “There is something you must not forget to bring with you, alright?”

Her child blinks upwards at her, clueless. “Food?”

She laughs, the sound warm. “No, silly, there will be food where you go—know that Luna, the fair goddess, would never fail to provide for you as she has done for me.”

“I have no more guesses,” admits the child.

“If you must go somewhere,” his mother said, pressing a kiss onto his forehead, “you must venture alongside hope.”

“How come?”

She takes him into her arms and stands up, carrying him dear as she passes through the long corridor. “You will figure it out when you are older, my moon. For I shall loathe the day you do, so do not hurry to do so just yet.”

“Are they happy?”

The dark-haired mercenary places a bowl of pumpkin soup in front of the friend that he’d accompanied. There is sand clinging onto the soles of their shoes, but Mariana had allowed them both in without any fuss into her stall. She was surprised that they had come to visit the regressing kingdom, but had been kind nonetheless.

Her’s is one of the few places left open, when most have given up on trying at all. 

“It is hard to be happy at these times.”

“I cannot see it for myself,” the unseeing man responds. He taps the corner of his eyes and then points an accusing finger Pauline’s way. It is entirely playful. “And you have promised to become my eyes, Pau. Do they look happy?”

The truth was nothing to be argued with, and Pauline remembers all of his oaths— he takes each one seriously though they may not come to pass. Even now, there is an empty sheath left clinging on his waist, and an old blade left beside a grey throne. As he is with mortal possessions, he also carried very few things close to his chest, but what he held dear he was sure to hold onto stubbornly.

Justus was among them.

The wind blows, and it lifts upwards what fabric had been used as the entrance.

He gazes onwards, out the wooden stall, where the people are gathered around a man who flashed a smile that was bright as it was genuine, and contemplates.

There are those who look wary, hesitant; but they do not close their ears to talking. There is no sword being drawn although the people carry their own, and the ones escorting the bright-eyed man had theirs.

Josiah, Pauline already met long before, their ties dating back to far older crowns. He looked better now, charming and still confident as before, but it is with an ease that he lacked back then. He had been a ticking bomb afraid of himself but it is all too easy to tell he’s grown into his being.

The bright-eyed man must have been the one Josiah had written to them all about: the one who had the heart to try his hand at restoring the parts of this old kingdom that have long hardened into being unusable. 

Sylvester, was it? His name suited him.

And one more, the one behind them both, who was hardly talking but looked just as involved must be the knight Josiah took in.

The three of them were well-matched, indeed. Silver and gold, and black that allowed both to mesh together without appearing messy. A heart, a soul, and something to carry them all with.

“Not quite,” Pauline answers. His friend, Justus, appears resigned at the words. “But it is not all that bad.”

Mariana was also outside, apron still tied around her waist and a ladle in her hand, but her eyes were trained solely on the man. She was listening, and doing so close.

Pauline places a wooden spoon into his hand. “Taste it, Jah,” he says, “it is warm.”

Justus’ eyes are white, there is no means to tell his emotions through it, but Pauline has been at the seer’s side for a majority of his life. He would know him even if he’d been blinded, too.

He needs little guidance. His eyes may not see but he is a man of working parts, he is to be assisted but not to be treated a child unable to do anything.

Justus dips into the soup and raises the spoon close to his mouth, he blows on it. Outside, there is laughter startled out of the same people who had been hesitant.

Justus swallows. “You’re right, it’s warm.”

Pauline does the same. And it was warm, satisfying, though simple it was light to the palate. If Pauline had a home that lasted long enough to be cooked in, then it would probably have reminded him of it. Justus, who had been a beloved son of an upright family, must know it better than he does.

“The people look hopeful,” Pauline says. “It is not quite happiness but it’s enough.”

He chances another glance outside and is surprised when his gaze is met by another. The knight, that he guessed was Kenneth, was looking at him— why was that?

Pauline tilts his head in acknowledgement, and partly in confusion. He did not know if he had done anything to attract attention. Perhaps it was as Mariana said. Travelers were few and in between.

Or, perhaps, Josiah had already told them he’d invited friends over.

Still, his mother raised him to be polite.

Pauline offers him a nod, before he turns back to Justus, who begins to talk about the coming days.

Word came by the form of a letter and, entirely to Justus’ amusement, a crow.

It did not take much for him to determine the sender. Little could locate this place and fewer the number of those who were able to know, and carve, Justus’ name.

He runs his finger across the surface of what he could guess was a gilded plate. Then, and now, it seemed that his friend still had a fine taste for what glimmered. Justus would know the script anywhere, and at any time.

As he does so, there are flickers of visions: people he has yet to meet, a kingdom he’d long left, and all that was coming.

The plate was stored snugly inside the letter, small enough not to weigh down what crow brought it, but at a size big enough for the letters to be recognizable.

The crow, though, appeared to find it much less amusing. As if it was able to recognize that Justus was blind and, perhaps it did, for it sounded as if it was outraged on his behalf: shrieking still.

Josiah has made interesting friends.

“Pau,” Justus calls. The crow quiets. “What did I tell you? See, I was right.”

There’s silence, and then a heavy sigh. Perhaps he was rolling his eyes again, he’d made a habit out of it lately. “Yes, Jah, you do tend to be.”

The next time that the crow shrieks, Justus’ unable to do much but laugh.

Pauline has no trouble writing a response, even with a crow sitting on his head. Justus had handed him the small piece of paper, ripped from a larger scroll, lips fighting a grin as the crow let out another loud caw.

“Perhaps it thinks your hair is a fine place to nest,” Justus, ever-brave, comments.

“Not another word, Jah,” Pauline warns. He’s hell-bent on keeping the reply about as brief as possible, partly for the avian who will have to carry it back and mostly to annoy Josiah. “Lest I speak to Josiah about your affections for him.”

Justus blinks. “What? What do you mean, not another word about what? I don’t even recall ever speaking. Are you unwell, Pau?”

They share a smile—something they may not do much in the coming days—though only one of them can see it.

“That’s more like it.”

The crow, although it did not seem to like him as much as it did Justus, only nips at his fingers once when he ties the letter to one of its legs.

That night, when the crow has left, doomed men sit together around a campfire. Tonight, the wind is still. Perhaps, it was still occupied with providing for that feathered visitor.

“Are you certain that you will come with?” The words are spoken soft, almost faint. “It will prove to be more perilous for you, this one. I have been hearing the sounds of metal and I dream of swinging swords, of glass shattering. It is beyond crowns.”

The answer that follows it is certain, firm.

“A friend has asked we celebrate with him, it is unfair to be with him in joy and leave in his sorrows.”

“It will take more than we have prepared,” comes the other, “more than I have seen.”

“Then let it, I loved that kingdom’s people then and I have much of it left to give now. Let the people have what belongs to them as all must be returned eventually, no?”

Quieter comes the response, “And if it would mean that you must cut your hair again?”

“Then I shall have it cut, and dream again to have it grow.”

Pauline presents what Justus received at the gates of the castle. It is of no surprise that they are allowed in without a fuss— Josiah, though he may have been hunter and is well-suited to become a protector, had a taste for intricate things.

Overhead, crows caw, and the wind all but presses tender lips on his scarred cheek. Pauline knows that they have come to the right place, even before he hears Josiah rushing down the tower; even before there are arms thrown around him and Justus; and even before he is greeted in affection, “Welcome back, I missed you both!”

Josiah takes them wherever he pleases and he is allowed that simply because he is loved.

Justus may feel for him greater than Pauline did, but he loved him all the same. And so he does not contest when calloused hands drag him courtyard to courtyard, amicable even as Josiah introduces them loudly to anyone and everyone who would be foolish enough to stop and listen.

Still, Pauline notices it when Josiah steers them both clear of the noble families and, again, notices it when no knights but those directly under his command and Kenneth cross their way.

Somewhere between having started the dinner and finishing his round of greeting everyone, they quietly hold Josiah upright. Pauline is there at his left and Justus is content at his right.

He’d stumbled, in time for the first clap of thunder to crash through the skies, but it wasn’t new for them both.

It is something Sylvester and Kenneth catch onto, but both bard and knight only nod when Pauline places a finger over his lips, and so it goes by unmentioned.

Josiah mumbles his gratitude and as always, Pauline shakes it off. Justus scoffs.

“You should take more care,” Justus says. He’d tapped Josiah’s shoulder. “I’ll get you more food. Sit tight, won’t you?”

“But you are both my guests,” he complains. “Should I not be serving you?”

“We are friends,” Pauline reminds. “Between us there is no need to implement unnecessary formalities. You are still hurting, we are not. Best that you sit yourself down and wait for Jah to come back.”

“Relish being in Pauline’s arms, won’t you?” Justus teases, his smile sly. “Lately all he’s hugged is me and a crow.”

Josiah raises a brow. “A crow?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pauline interjects.

Justus is laughing as he leaves.

“I have begun dreaming again,” Josiah says quietly, when Justus has left their shared table. “Do you think that it is foolish of me to do so, Pau?”

Pauline runs a hand through his hair. “No,” he says, “it is human to do so.”

“We are hardly that, though, are we?”

He shakes his head. His mother had been a dreamer, and Justus was as Pauline is. “It is alright to have a few of their tendencies.” 

Across them, he can see Sylvester and Kenneth helping Justus pick out what food he wanted to eat. They didn’t take the ladle from his hands, or put the food to his plate, they only served as guides.

It was exactly as Justus liked. To be helped, not aided in whole. His eyes may be unseeing but he was no more functional than the rest of them.

The two also kept glancing back at their table, every now and then, as if checking to see if Josiah was faring well.

It wasn’t a surprise that Justus got along with them.

Josiah pursed his lips. His cheeks are pale. His, a body that could not stand the burden thrust upon it. “Humanity is often cruel.”

“Perhaps, but it is also human to be kind in spite and despite of all things.”

It quiets him. Perhaps it takes him aback, perhaps it reminded him of all that once was. Maybe he thought of the time they’d met: Pauline pointing a sword onto his neck and him asking that he push through with it.

Still, whether it be now or then, Pauline had no intention of slaying anything but those who have unforgivably hurt people: the kind with fangs that draw blood to kill, not to survive.

He had no interest in killing one who was only called a monster for the way his body was asked to carry the sky.

It was a good choice. It earned him a friend, after all. A friend who had become a hunter himself when, once, he had been the hunted.

Pauline pushed one of the three bowls he’d gotten towards Josiah. “That aside, try this won’t you? Jah will not stop talking to me about it. This way, he can also talk your ear off about Mariana’s soup.”

“It’s warm,” Josiah says, smiling after a spoonful. “Jah was right. It tastes good.”

“Speaking of good,” Pauline says, “those friends of yours— they’re good for you.”

Sylvester is easy enough to get along with, he’s charismatic as he is sincere.

Pauline knows that Justus is taken by him the moment that he cracks an admittedly corny joke, and Pauline was doomed to be soft for him all the same simply because Justus and Josiah adore him.

Pauline takes his time watching him, still, because a good friend does not necessarily amount to a good ruler; but he is earnest. He takes his time talking to people himself, even when a crown is on his head, and he acts upon what he learns from listening.

What leaves an impression on Pauline is the means he answers the need for food.

He makes use of what land he owned by right—the one that once belonged to the royal family—deciding it was suitable for cultivation, and planted crops. Radishes, this time. Potatoes and corn, as well.

He’s there when Sylvester plants the first seed, there in the field alongside Kenneth when Sylvester fills in an entire row.

Often, it’s Kenneth who does heavy work with Josiah in tow, but Pauline has his own means of determining what goes on inside castle walls and he knows of the sleepless nights and early mornings.

He finds himself feeling fortunate to have been able to be a part of this.

“I am afraid, most times.”

Sylvester admits it to him softly, a whisper he would not hear if the winds were not so kind to assist.

Their friends are still out on their duties, keeping an eye out for insects and pests. They continue to check on the crops often and it is by Mariana’s help that the work does not need to be done by the palace alone.

“No man is without fear,” Pauline says. “And to those in power fear is perhaps what draws the line between ruler and dictator.”

“How so?” Sylvester questions.

Pauline thinks of an angry mob, of his tired mother, and of the foolhardiness of his father that had long doomed them all.

“The dictator fears nothing but only for himself, the ruler fears all things simply because of how it will affect his people.” He glances at the man. “You are good, perhaps not perfect, but you are good.”

He bites on his lower lip, leaning close to Pauline. His hands are anxious.

“What am I to do if it fails?”

And if Pauline were Justus, he would say, “Then we will try again,” or “I am sure we will not!” and leave it at that but he is nobody but himself.

And so, he squeezes the calloused hand. “Then we will clean up the mess, salvage what we can. We will either feed the rest to livestock or turn them into fertilizer for the next time we try again. We will gain a better idea on what grows and what doesn’t. We shall pick better and we will do it with better chances of succeeding. Regardless how it goes, there will be the five of us starting over again.”

The man is quiet if only for a moment.

And as if it was something to be revered, he repeats to himself, “And there will be the five of us starting over again, huh?”

Pauline pretends not to hear it. The wind blows, the crows caw. The sun still shines.

“Thank you, Pau.”

He smiles. “You are most welcome.”

They continue to do as before.

Pauline is watering the fields together with Mariana when the four make their rounds. He'd managed to convince people into helping out and they have been doing shifts with overseeing the growing crops.

Mariana is among the first to have joined.

When Sylvester’s eyes light up at the sight of Mariana and the others on site, Pauline finds himself motivated to keep working even as the afternoon’s sun continues to weigh on them.

Kenneth hands him a ribbon to tie his hair with at some point, and Pauline takes it, before he continues farming.

“It is my dream to make this kingdom flourish,” Sylvester tells him as they water the land. “Not necessarily in commerce or agriculture, but enough so that those who live within it would have it in them to call it home.”

Pauline smiles. Beneath him, a peek of green had sprouted and was looking up into the sky. “That is a good dream to have,” he says, “may you bring it to life.”

“I did not dare think I could, once,” says the bard who had become more. “It was Josiah and Kenneth who gave me the courage to try.”

They’d discussed how they met during one of their dinners. They’d competed against each other many times across town, particularly in swordsmanship. Pauline had winced at the mention of it, but he’d been happy to know of their bonds.

They hadn’t asked, but Justus had also divulged a little bit about themselves. He’d said that Pauline and he were old friends, jests that Pauline was an extension of his eyes.

Josiah, in turn, knocks both of their shoulders together. “We are friends. We are children of the very same homeland. You speak as if it is something to be thankful for.”

There is fondness in his tone, something that cannot be faked.

“It is a dream we share,” Kenneth says. “It is only right that we move towards it together.”

“And it is also ours now,” Justus comments. He had taken to walking alongside them even if there were already enough hands to do the work. Pauline has allowed it. He knows it was something the seer used to do back in those times before. Justus was a shadow constantly beside his older brother and Pauline was the darkness that trailed after his mother. “Us five.”

The passing breeze has Pauline raising a hand to stop his hair from becoming a bird’s nest.

He’s sure that it’s unnecessary effort: there will be a crow sitting on top of it soon enough, if the winds humor his attempts and let him go, but it was instinct by this point.

“Well,” he says, tone light, “I suppose I can add it to mine.”

Sylvester snorts. “Great pretender, come off your high horse. Do not think I have forgotten how you told me that it would be us five starting again together in the case that this fails.”

At the time, he’d meant it. Now, too, Pauline felt the same and just as strongly.

Pauline shares a smile with them and for once, just as Kenneth lends him the straw hat he’d put on to keep his hair from messing up, Pauline thinks he did not loathe the act of dreaming.

When the time for harvest comes around, Sylvester is among the first one to come to the fields, digging his hands into the soil.

It’d be silly anywhere else, the cheer and the little dance the five of them shared as the Prince pulled out a fully grown radish from the ground and announced it, but it was more valuable to have food than gold. They were not a kingdom short on gems, nor treasures.

Pauline finds that the first harvest was not abundant as it should be, with techniques still clumsy at best, but it is sufficient until the next one.

By noon, Pauline leads Mariana to them as they oversee and count the sacks of crops to be distributed and he is there to witness Sylvester attempt to dry the tears from her face as she thanks him, while his own eyes grew watery.

He catches Josiah unfolding a handkerchief, handing it to Sylvester, and watches from where he stands as Kenneth does the very same for Mariana.

In the distance, a murder of crows caw, and Pauline has long learnt their calls to be a sound of hope.

Perhaps next time, they could plant a few fruit trees.

Like apples.

At his side, with hands stained with dirt, Justus asks: “Aren’t you glad we came?”

“I am,” Pauline leans down to carry two sacks brimming with radishes over his shoulders. “This way, no matter how it ends, I will at the very least be content. I will know this story was written down by familiar, dirtied palms.”

He moves a little and winces.

Maybe he should have done this slowly, after all. That made his neck feel uncomfortable.

Justus also had one, though smaller in size, held between his arms. “Help me count them later and maybe we can convince Mariana to make soup out of these, too.”

“Why is it always soup with you, Jah?” Pauline asks. “But alright, we can try.”

“Excuse me.”

Kenneth takes one of the sacks off him, and only then does Pauline notice that both he and Josiah have given Sylvester space to further converse with Mariana.

“Oh,” he murmurs. The load was lighter. “Thank you.”

“Sir Kenneth!” Justus grins. “Have you placed your cape of fur away for this? There is a bet between you doing so or choosing not to. I was almost tempted, dastardly, into believing you would not.”

The knight seems to smile. 

Privately, Pauline thought that it looked good on him to be doing so. Especially when he was quite serious during work, and he was always working somehow.

“I am in appropriate clothing,” he says. “Just as Sylvester and Josiah are. Plain shirts and pants, all are easy to move in.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “But I do carry my sword with me even now.”

“Well, it is just as I guessed,” Justus says. He hummed. “After all, you’re similar to Pau.”

The breeze passes, laughing along in agreement.

If Kenneth had anything to say about that, he loses the chance to do so when Josiah begins to have them count the radishes in each sack.

The week after, more are willing to have their lands be cultivated in. It is a strong step into the right direction.

They say so as much during a meeting that Sylvester has asked Pauline to attend with him, while Justus and Josiah were free to go explore, and Kenneth was… well. Pauline had a good guess where he was, really.

It was hard to miss the patch of black feathers.

Still, it meant more crops for the next harvest.

Pauline does a little cheer, his arm pumping up, and nobody catches it but the crow that has—yet again—decided to settle at the top of his head.

Sylvester takes his hand and squeezes it, “Thank you, again, Pau.”

“Do you think,” Justus begins cautiously, “that this one will last?”

Josiah had invited them over to witness the coronation of a new prince and they had answered to it easily.

“No,” Pauline answers. “They never do.”

Below them, the people continue to sing. Their voices are carried high by the wind, whose hands find their way into Pauline’s. The breeze was the most familiar thing in this entire continent, bar the grey throne, as it was the only thing sure to remember.

Still, the song the people sing is warm— Pauline allows it to wash over him and he tests the tune of it on his tongue with one hum. The wind picks up on it.

Still, it is not happiness, but it is hope. 

And just as Pauline had said back then, hope was well enough. It was the only thing that was more persistent than love.

“But I suppose,” Pauline says, “that they will certainly try their utmost to do so.”

Below them, the president officially presents the newly appointed court. Glimmering silver and gold, indeed, although Pauline knows them all as humble.

Pride wells up as the breeze does, and it was easy to forget Justus’ concerns in the face of friends achieving great heights. When Sylvester is presented the crown, flanked by the knight Kenneth and the adviser Josiah, both Justus and Pauline are among the first to clap their hands.

They are also among the last to stop.

If Sylvester is easy, Kenneth is a little harder to place.

Perhaps it was because of the fact he did remind Pauline of himself, or the way he is introverted the way Pauline was when it is to do with new people, but he is harder for Pauline to open his heart to.

His eyes, however, have become increasingly familiar.

“Your hair,” he says, “why keep it long?”

“It does not obstruct me if that is what you’re meaning to ask.”

“I was curious about that factor as well,” Kenneth says. “But I know what I asked. I’m not the type to speak with my mouth that I do not mean.”

Pauline glanced back. He does not know what he’d been expecting, but it’s not a sincere gaze. It moves him more than he would prefer, more than he would allow, but he was raised beneath no greater law than that of reciprocity.

His mother had been a woman of mirrors, who smiled when she was smiled at and tore down what sought to tear her down.

While Pauline may not have inherited her easy warmth, he took her values to heart.

“I like it,” he answers, plain and simple.

It is perhaps the most genuine that he has allowed himself to be throughout the day, and he will be sure to mention it to Justus later, but for now it is decidedly enough.

There is a look in Kenneth’s eyes that he cannot decipher, but it was kind enough.

Pauline didn’t want those eyes on him too long.

“If there’s no more that needs to be discussed, I shall retire to bed now. Goodnight, Sir Kenneth.”

Pauline has a lot of knowledge about most things. It’s an amalgamation of things he’d caught from the wind: whispers of farmers, tales of wives, and practices of children.

He was much more willing to dirty his hands with soil than blood, but he carries his sheath wherever he goes. And Justus did warn him.

In truth, he should have seen it coming.

Pauline steers clear of the knights. He does.

He does not particularly enjoy hearing the sound of metal clashing against each other, for it reminded him of worse times and of what Justus had seen coming. He busied himself in the gardens and enjoyed it, but Kenneth had looked so pleased at the thought that Pauline might watch them spar.

And he’d given in. He’d given in so easily that he forgot what else fueled his distaste.

Men with power often think what they have is absolute. Such was the case of Pauline’s father and such had been the dictators of kingdoms past. But it is not only a crown that elicits this ugliness, no, it was the kind that came to life whenever a weapon is held or a majority is in favor.

He’d thrown a dagger Pauline’s way.

Pauline had stepped aside, just in time, but across the field he could hear someone all but gasping in horror.

He’d bent down to pick the blade up. “May I ask what I should take this to mean, Sir Knight?”

The knight that steps forward is a tall man, clearly someone with experience. He is of high rank, that much was clear, because it wasn’t only his badge that appeared big but also his head.

“I thought it would fit the vessel you carry.”

It was a dagger no longer than Pauline’s wrist. His sheath, on the other hand, was fit for a sword. He knew an insult when he heard it.

“It would not do, I’m afraid,” he responds. He humors the man and puts it up to his sheath. It looked small. “No, certainly not. It will not do.”

He meets the knight’s gaze. “You have thought wrong, Sir Knight. This appears to be lacking.”

Someone snickers. The knight’s expression worsens.

“Good sir,” says he, “if you are with a sheath on your waist then you must be mighty. For the honor of your unfit lord, will you not face me?”

Unfit lord, he’d said. Did he mean Justus?

Justus was anything but his lord. Pauline served no one but the people, whom he owes. He loved but none had no such lordship over him, he would loathe to condemn himself to a life of being served as much as he would condemn himself to a life of servitude.

But unfit? What gave him the qualifications, then, to dare call people unfit as he willed?

Pauline placed the dagger into the palm before him and tapped the sheath on his waist.

“I only have this with me, but I shall face you.”

The wind blows, and it blows in his favor.

Pauline refuses to face another foe when he bests the senior knight, who’d been foolish enough to come forward and challenge him to a spar haughtily.

Disarming him would have been easy, but Pauline had his downfalls: he was prideful, too.

Had the man not brought Justus into the conversation, perhaps Pauline would have gone easier—he would have saved him face, at least. But he had called his brother unfit. What use were his own seeing eyes when he did not care to look beyond appearances?

What use was he a knight, when he spoke as bandits did and sought to rob as they did?

Pauline was skilled with swordplay of nobility as much as he was well versed with the kind that you needed to survive out in the streets. He knew to provoke, knew what to do to best undermine an opponent— and if it is trampling on honor then so be it, though he doesn’t think that there was any honor to be trampled on in the first place.

When the man is faced downwards at the training grounds, the first thrum of regret comes.

Someone announces his win.

By formality, it is followed with the question of who else was willing to challenge him.

Pauline, very clearly, says: “I will not be entertaining another challenge.”

He thinks his refusal mattered very little. Few of them looked willing to face him at all again, bar perhaps Kenneth, who looked to be more concerned than he was fearful.

He ignores it all, unwilling to face those eyes right now.

Justus gets to him in time to hold him upright as he staggers, he hears a crow squawking in tandem with Justus' own worried inquiries, before the memories come in hordes.

His mother was kind. She’d ruled well, just and balanced: a scale of things.

But their nation was one that believed in the prowess of men, of kings, and so they saw her great influence as a threat.

At nine years of age, Pauline remembers wondering why his mother was suddenly so around so often. He didn’t understand until much later, that it had been by his own father’s orders.

Wolf King, the title of the mantle that should be passed onto him.

It is his birthright.

But when, at eleven, he sees his mother holding her hand to a bruised cheek— he begins to resent the man who shouldered it.

“There is unrest,” his mother says.

”What kind?” Pauline asks. He continued to polish his blade. “Is there not always?”

She walked towards him and takes the empty space as her own, leaning her head on his shoulder as she would have during their time together beyond the castle walls. They do not get to do a lot of that and the last excursion had been sometime before her birthday.

The people loved them, but he could see it in their eyes: they did not love his father, nor the system. He understood. He felt the same way.

Who could love a system that was built to stand against people?

”There is a someone who has been gifted the ability to see past what we cannot,” says she. She does it as if they were talking only of what to eat later and not the imminent calamity. “And he speaks of a kingdom that is under a rain of steel and fire. I believe him.”

Pauline quiets. He understood what that meant. As with most things: it was only a matter of time.

”Has father gotten to him yet?”

”He cannot,” she says, “this is a noble son. Loved by his family, this one is. Although there is a price for his vision— his eyes see past ours, but cannot see what we do.”

”What would you like me to do about it?”

She smiled. He could hear it in her words. “Meet with him, will you not? He is a little younger than you are. He will need friends, now that he has become enemy of many.”

And his mother was right. It did come, that rain of steel and fire.

She was right, too, to say that the boy had needed a friend. Pauline was the same.

At the end of it, Justus and Pauline only had each other.

“It does not matter to me what they say, Pau,” Justus whispers. “I know my place in this world better than anyone ever will. I see as I must.”

The crow from earlier rests away from them, watching beyond the window. Somehow Pauline felt as if it was keeping a lookout. Perhaps it was.

They were intelligent, magnificent creatures. Intelligent enough to be tactical but not to the point of understanding conversation.

And, yet.

He looked up. The crow meets his gaze without flinching and, as if having gotten the message, it leaves.

After all, he was no crow.

But that was something to deal with later.

”Pau,” Justus repeats, “All I care for is the wellness of those around me. Let not the noise scramble your thoughts and reach into your heart.”

“And if I were in line for a throne I would have remained stoic, if I were burdened with some legacy I would have held my blade. I would have done it in a way that was less clumsy,” Pauline grips onto Justus’ hands. “But I sit on no throne and I have at my disposal no sword. I am only Pau, your friend, and I cannot be faulted for my anger when they speak of you that way. If I had my sword, I would have drawn it all the same.”

“I am thankful for your anger,” he says, he sounded as if he meant it. Still, he grips onto Pauline just as tightly: “As much as I regret to have brought you into a place where the sword reigns.”

“Do not be,” he responds, “for my anger is just and the sword is mine to carry.”

“Oh, Pau,” he squeezed his eyes shut as if he were hurting. “Often, I ask myself if it was I who doomed you.”

“It is not.” He says, firm. “The fault of the father is not for his sons to carry.”

”If I had kept quiet, perhaps it would not have passed as it did.” Justus shakes his head. He gripped onto him tighter, and with a voice that cracked he asked: “Pau, was it I, bearer of these dreams, that doomed you?”

“No,” Pauline says, “you have laid out the dreams for me and I have walked into the nightmare of my own choosing.”

There is a knock on his door.

He knows it is not Justus, nor Josiah or Sylvester. Justus had gone to the fields, whereas the latter two had already come rushing over earlier.

Crows, Pauline knows, make a habit of returning.

“Enter if you must,” Pauline says, tired.

“I have had him sanctioned,” says the voice outside his door.

Pauline closes his eyes shut. He hadn’t entered, he’d chosen to stay outside. “Whatever for, Sir Kenneth?”

“He could have hurt you,” Kenneth answers. “No matter if you consented and won the duel which followed. We have our oaths to keep, our standards to uphold.”

“Ah, yes,” Pauline drawls. Bitter is the weight that lies heavy on his tongue as he spoke it, “Chivalry.”

“You were skilled,” says Kenneth, voice lower this time. “I saw how you defeated him easily, and how familiar you were with fighting that it looked as if you were a veteran of the battle. Why did you run when you won?”

Why did you run when you won?

What a thing to be asking.

“You have spoken to me about your dreams, Sir Kenneth. For you and yours, it is to build this kingdom fit to be called home to all. And, before I had claimed that dream mine, I spoke of having my own.” Pauline opens his eyes— sitting up, he stares at his bare reflection that was displayed by the mirror. “I shall disclose this only once, so listen well. I dare to dream that one day I will be able to grow my hair out to whatever length I may so please. This, without needing to worry if it makes me an easier target to kill.”

He thinks of his mother, her heart too caught up to go. Of his father, his heart too cruel to have stayed. Of himself and all he has left in the dust to become dust: from the earth he is, though he may be carried by the air where it willed.

He thinks of his people, of those who he had loved and loved him in turn, but lost.

“I dream of a future without swords,” he says. “And while I apologize for having ran, I do not take pride in having won.”

Softly, he begins: “Pau—”

“Goodnight,” he interjects, “Sir Kenneth.”

There is a moment of silence, hesitation perhaps, but just as kind as he has been prior: “It would be nice if you were to call me Ken, next time. But goodnight, I wish you good dreams.”

“I think,” says Josiah, “that you should be a little kinder to yourself.”

Justus had left him together with Pauline, not trusting anyone else to understand it. After all, their paths had crossed the earliest and it was Josiah who knew him during the days that his hands still held his sword.

He and Sylvester were busy with palace affairs, things Pauline didn’t have the heart for.

“Am I not kind enough?”

He’d rested his head on Pauline’s lap again, both of them overseeing the growing crops. It’s their turn to take a break.

Below them, Pauline could see Kenneth still working away alongside Mariana.

“Not as I hope you would be,” his friend says. “If you would treat yourself as you treated me, then would that not be nice?”

“What, as if I were an old man?”

Josiah glares at him. “I am not old! It is only a year apart that separates our birth.”

“Then, pray tell, what would it entail?”

He eases. “Things like this—allowing yourself to rest without worry for the coming days. It is chances, and mercy, and kindness. Humanity. And those other horribly gentle and optimistic things.”

“I am a pessimist, you know this.” Pauline reminds. “Focused enough on the things that may kill me, a habit that has made it all the more harder for me to die.”

“Oh, I know,” Josiah laughs. “But you are an optimist when it comes to us. You hold each of us as if you were holding onto hope.”

“But you are hope,” Pauline says, indignant.

“As are you,” he says, “and to some of us—”

Kenneth met his eyes. He smiled at him, bright and warm. Pauline can’t look away.

“To one of us,” Josiah repeated much louder, his voice sounding borderline smug. “You are a whole lot more than that.”

Pauline pushes him off his lap and laughs when he nearly rolls down into the soil.

If he were looking, he’d have seen Mariana elbowing Kenneth for laughing just as loud alongside him. But for now, Josiah’s biting complaints fill his ears as the breeze dances past.

He’s thrown back into planning.

Another day finds him and Sylvester looking at a map of the tillable land, holding little pins that Justus had designed to symbolize what variations of crops they were planning to put effort into.

They were planning for next season’s fruit trees. Both of them were thinking apple but they’d also considered other varieties.

“Ken,” Pauline calls, absentminded. “What do you think? Which ones should we present to Mariana and the others?”

There was a moment of silence.

Then another.

When he becomes impatient at the lack of response, he whirls around to look.

He turns around to find the door swinging close and Sylvester snickering quietly to himself as if he were trying to exhibit some form of self control.

He breaks only when Pauline turns his gaze towards him fully. He bursts out laughing as if he’d witnessed something incredibly funny, the way he always did when the five of them dined together and Justus had made another joke.

“What? How rude of him,” Pauline frowned. “Did he just leave without even answering? Really, I’d asked him a question.”

His friend wipes a tear off his eyes and walks a little closer to him.

Sylvester pats his back. “Give him a moment to recover,” he says, “you’ve just called him ‘Ken.’ He’s been hoping you will for a while— let him get used to the way it ruffles up his feathers first.”

Had he?

Oh, right. He had.

Pauline reddens. “Well, but, he asked me to?”

“He did?” Sylvester brightens up. “Well, finally. Maybe he will finally have the guts to continue asking you about the more important things.”

“Apple trees,” Kenneth says when he returns, about as red as one. “I think we could go with apple trees, Pau.”

He had to bite his lip from smiling. “Alright, Ken.”

Quietly, he hears Sylvester mumble: “I can’t believe Jo and Jah left me to deal with this.”

“Pau,” Sylvester says, “do you like jewelry?”

He blinked. “I find them fine, I suppose? Not nearly half as much as Josiah does, though.”

The man leaned closer. The crow that was sitting on the window squawked as if it was protesting.

“Oh, shove off,” Sylvester glares. He shoos it away into the skies and locks the window as it goes.

Pauline fears for it only for a fleeting moment, “Should you have—”

“He’ll live,” he simpers. “He’s been hogging you, you know? He keeps on squawking and complaining but I have yet to get my turn this week! And I dare say I deserve to also have my own time with you, Pau. It is really unfair.” As if he has just realized what he’d just said, he pauses. Sylvester backtracked with haste. “I mean, uh, what?”

Pauline has to fight a smile. “I already know, don’t worry. It was easy enough to put two and two together when he’s called the Crow Knight in broad daylight and otherwise— make enough crow jokes during dinner and everyone gets the hint.”

“Oh,” he says. He clapped his hands together. “Thank god. How long?”

“A while,” Pauline says.“Before the harvest. Maybe when we arrived here.”

“Thank god,” Sylvester parrots. “It is strange to have a person, who you barely know at this point, stalk your every move as a crow. Was it initially the standard security measure? Yes, but it is hardly one now that we know each other, you know? Do you know how many times I have scolded him for tagging alongside you?”

This was amusing. “A lot, apparently.”

“Oh, a lot doesn’t justify its scale. But,” he holds out his hand and lists off his fingers. “Bracelets? How do you feel about those? Any particular preferences? Opinions?”

“Alright?” Pauline echoes. “They can get loud. Does that count?”

“Earrings, then? Rings?”

His nose wrinkles. “Not practical to wear in combat, though, aren’t they? I don’t think about jewelry often.”

“Then what is it that you do like?” Sylvester leaned close. “You know, other than Ken.”

“Something practical, perhaps?”

He raises his brow. “No denial? No acknowledgement of my other statement?”

“Don’t push it,” Pauline crosses his arms. “I’ve just come to terms with this recently myself, you know. I am trying very hard not to—” his voice breaks, “be that flustered.”

As expected, he’s there when Pauline leaves Sylvester’s room.

It tired him out to be at the face of such a bright person, with his brimming energy almost rivaling Josiah’s, but Pauline had already grown attached all the same.

He’s sure that he loves Sylvester dearly, similar to how he held Justus and Josiah closely.

And so, too, did he have affections for the feathered thing that has continued to stay close.

“You really do not need to be following me all the time,” Pauline says. “I’m doing quite well, all things considered— I’ve not thrown one of your knights into the ground since.”

The crow quiets. The flapping of wings ceased.

“Forgive me,” he says. He was sincere. “For not telling you any sooner. I’d grown fond of you but didn’t have the heart to bother you quite as a man would have, Pau.”

Pauline only smiles at him. “Forgive me for not thanking you any sooner, Ken?”

And the knight smiles back in turn, shy almost, but nevertheless he was beaming.

“There is nothing to forgive,” he says.

He holds out an open palm. “Guide me back, then? This time as you are, of course.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“Do you remember,” Justus says, “what we talked about the night the crow had left?”

Pauline nods. “I am not one to forget our conversations, especially not the ones that are quite like those.”

“I said that it would take more than what we have prepared and more than what I have seen,” the seer leaned his head on Pauline’s shoulders. “It will come. I know it will— fate always does, it allows none to get past it without paying due.”

“I am aware,” he answers, “I held your hand as the kingdom fell. Just as you’d said.”

“...Did I ever tell you that I’d dreamt of darkness?” When he shakes his head, ‘no’, Justus continued. “The last I saw were the arrows flying. Fire and steel. I’d lost my brother and you lost your mother, but where I saw you leaving I saw myself rooted to the ground, unable to move but able to hear the sounds of carnage. I saw what was happening around me—I had to keep looking. I had to until I couldn’t.”

To dream of darkness, for a visionary, meant only one thing.

Pauline stiffens. “Jah—”

“I knew I was meant to die,” he says. “That day, I knew for sure that my fate had come. And I was prepared to welcome it.”

Pauline had come back that day.

He could not save his mother, who refused to abandon his father, who doomed them all for he was a fool who refused to abandon his throne. Pauline could not save them, not when the people were just in the wrath they felt, but he could grab onto the arm of his motionless friend.

And he had.

And Pauline had taken Justus by the wrist, ran quickly, and never looked back.

They didn’t talk much of the fall. Maybe this was why.

Justus straightened up, removed himself from Pauline’s shoulder, and used his hands to have Pauline face completely his way. This tenderness, it felt like being seen.

“But, Pau, you showed me that there is still destiny.” Justus smiled. “So if it makes you happy here, then make a home out of it. And if fate comes for it as well, then I will be at your table with Jo and Syl, eating warm soup. And you and Ken will cut apples for us.”

There is a difference there: in fate and in destiny. One was inevitable and the other was forged by one’s own hands, taking into consideration the actions people take.

“Damned brat,” Pauline says, blinking away tears, “why are we slicing apples for you?”

“Why not?” Justus asked. “I think that it is a good dream. It is a scene that I seek to dream of more than once.”

Pauline is seeking refuge where the wind is highest, a balcony adjacent to Josiah’s tower, when he is disturbed.

He hears the flapping of wings and silence, and waits for the words to come.

Nothing does.

Instead, there is a tap on his shoulder and he turns around only to be met with something that caught the light of the sun and shone. He takes it without much need for any questions. Kenneth had a habit of bringing things lately, much bolder than he had been.

“A gift,” Kenneth says. “My sister began using one when she grew her hair out— and it’s sharp. If you would ever need to then it can also serve as a weapon.”

Pauline runs a finger over the metal again. 

Indeed, it was sharp. Blunt to a soft touch but it would perform well enough together with force. Opposite to the hairpin’s edge, metal carved similarly to feathers lined by what looked to be silver.

It reminded Pauline a lot of the moon. Bright, fair goddess. She was whom he prayed to.

“It’s intricate,” he says.

“Syl and Jo were there to help me forge it,” Kenneth says. “It’s not much but it will not break on you, I guarantee it.”

There are many questions to ask from such a simple breath.

“You had Syl help you with this?”

“You don’t care for Jo?”

“I understand your point,” Pauline felt partly hysterical. “I’m growing more and more worried that what I am holding is something that should be stored inside an old box at the royal treasury.”

Kenneth laughs, and over the course of the months Pauline has discovered he wasn’t as stoic as much as he was awkward around people he didn’t know just yet. Regardless, his laughter has Pauline’s shoulder easing. He did that a lot lately.

“You might not be able to make use of it now,” Kenneth says. “But when all this is settled and you decide to grow your hair out…” he trails off, hesitant. “It would be convenient to have it.”

Convenient, he calls it. Pauline did not think this to be simply a matter of convenience. Convenience would have been a purchase and not a gift forged by a knight’s hands.

“Why the feathers?”

Kenneth meets his gaze. “The people call me the Crow Knight,” he says, “and Jah said that it would make it easier to tell that it was mine.”

Pauline pursed his lips. His cheeks felt warm, warmer than the soup Justus had taken such great liking to.

He could not tell if he was partly afraid, or too embarrassed, to ask further.

“Jah was in on it?”

When Kenneth answers, he is honest. “He is your closest confidant, bar Jo and Syl and I. So, in place of customs… I thought it best to ask him for permission first.”

His eyes met Kenneth’s. “To give me something to pin my hair with?”

“No,” he says, “to ask if it would be possible to court you.”

Pauline hummed. “And what did he say to you this time?”

“That he would make sure my fate found me faster than it should if I broke your heart.” Kenneth replies, as if he had been made to repeat the words many times before. There is a lull, where Pauline is left smiling and he is left in a stupor. “‘This time’?”

“He said that he wanted to see if you’d waver, knowing all that he does,” Pauline says. He tries not to think of its implications. “It’s fair to say that you didn’t.”

“Is this—Pau, is that a ‘yes’?”

Pauline laughs, something that the wind carried far as if it were a piece of treasure. He slots the pin into his hair, wrapping his arms around the knight’s neck. 

“It has been for quite a while.”

“Are they happy?”

Josiah hummed. “They looked like it last I saw. I turned away the moment that Ken grabbed Pau—I do not want to see them making out yet.”

There are five bowls on the table, three already full of steaming hot soup that Mariana had prepared.

“I wish I could see it for myself,” the unseeing man responds. He sounded as if he yearned for it. “Do you think they will last?”

“They will try,” Sylvester says. “And, besides, I think we are all hoping that they will. But what does it matter? I think it is the very essence of living, to dream of good dreams despite what fear you may hold.”

“To dream of good dreams despite being the monster in others’ nightmares,” Josiah hums. “To be human, in spite and despite of it all.”

“To be hopeful,” Justus concurs, soft, “and for hope to be enough.”

And, then, one day: Kenneth hears something break in Sylvester’s quarters.

”Syl?” He asks. “What was that?”

”Nothing,” he’s told. “Nothing at all. Just… well, I woke up from a nightmare, that’s all.”

Kenneth peeks through the door to find him standing over one of his vanities, a particularly large mirror in his collection. “Are you alright to go, or would you like more time? They’re waiting on us at Mariana’s.”

Sylvester glanced back into his reflection.

”No need. I’ve never felt better,” he says, “we can go now.”