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They had demanded he do it. A forced storyteller. Joktan stood outside the museum to his old family and friends. Once royals had started to dig up artifacts from the old times, they demanded he spill about those times. It felt like they were ripping body parts from him as they treated each thing like they were from some other world. They treated each item like his family and friends hadn’t actually existed.
Yet they demanded stories. Joktan would rather rip off each scale one by one than be ogled at. It almost drove him mad. That’s why he never left the small cottage in the swamp.
There were a few times people had actually made it to his door. Researchers with questions, poking and prodding around his house, his memories. Joktan made sure the swamp was never the same every time someone entered. He made sure people would get lost.
Sure, it may have been lovely to some to keep the memories of those loved ones alive. But to him, it was just a reminder of his failure and the destruction. Same reason he still kept on The Codfather mask, the scars running down half his body from the explosion too much to bear to look at. Even millennia later, his right eye was still fuzzy and each breath sounded like a dead accordion out of those gills.
In the museum, those researchers had even built a room for him. All twelve rulers of the old age. They treated him like he was dead, forever speaking in past tense.
But at least he had full control. Joktan made sure his sister's room would have been to her liking. Of course, it was right next to her husband's room. Their statues forever faced each other, only a glass wall separating them. His bias’ did come out slightly, with some minor tweaks here and there that his enemies would have hated. He had to have a little humor in these times. Joktan knew he couldn’t do them all justice, people like the copper king, the grand mage, and the protector of mycelium would have hated statues of themselves. Nevertheless, some things were out of his control.
One thing he was in complete control of was Montague's room. No one was allowed in. Joktan made those researchers swear that he had full control over that room. He made sure they could never have a say in what was in there, if people could go in, and many other things.
Instead of a museum, it was a mausoleum.
There were a few copies of their letters, poppies grew in planters, and snowy owls would rest on the statue itself. There were tapestries and cottons, a few paintings dotted the walls. A few mentions of X, but most of it in the Lost Kingdom exhibit. There was a window in the ceiling that cast moonlight perfectly over the statue. The only light permitted in here were the moonlight and candles. The statue dominated the room. It depicted Montague, wings spread out, rapier in one hand the other charging up some spell, looking out for approaching danger. It felt fitting. Montague had always been a protector, but soft to those he truly loved.
In the back, on the wall was the most important piece. It was a replica of their engagement painting. It was enlarged for effect. The real one was still in his cottage. The waterfall, the blooming flowers, and Montague's smile always warmed Joktan against the cold room.
He never allowed anyone in. This was his own personal church.
The researchers could bang on the door and call his name and he wouldn’t even cast them a glance. The door forever locked.
Today was one of those days Joktan had to grin and bear his teeth. For some god-awful reason, teams of researchers had managed to get the date of the rapture. So, they celebrated it. Calling it some sort of renewal celebration. They all pretended they were handed the world on a silver platter. Ignoring that they had come from people who dug themselves out of destruction to rebuild society without any help. With no rulers to follow.
The music swung as Joktan gripped the pint of beer so hard he was surprised the glass didn't shatter. Royals, researchers, and common folk alike smiled and laughed. Nobody mourned the great loss of life. Joktan was the only one to carry the burden.
One of the researchers, clearly drunker than they were supposed to be stumbled up to him. They gripped onto his jacket, he didn’t care to learn any of their names. Their speech slurred as they almost tripped over themself, “Codfather,” they stuttered recatching their words, “You have to let us into the Aeo Serine exhibit. We’ve been,” a hiccup interrupted their sentence, “dying to know what’s inside.”
Joktan shoved them off, “Ye signed that agreement. Stop asking.”
The researcher laughed, smacking him in the forearm like it was some kind of joke, “I think you’re a little too late. We called in this mage, finally, we can pick that spell lock you put on there.”
It was like an arrow through glass. Joktan stood up, “Ye what.”
They threw their thumb over their shoulder towards the Aeo Serine exhibit, “Yeah! He said he's already like,” they paused thinking, “Like halfway through? Mighty tough spell you put on there!”
Joktan shoved them with every bit of force he had in his body, sending the person tumbling head over heels for several feet. Eyes looked towards him as the music came to a halt, “Ye promised me! Ye swore it to me! If one thing is disturbed in that exhibit it will be all ye heads and the place burnt to the ground! Every research note ye have ever worked on destroyed ye understand me?” The researcher tried to scoot away on the floor, dragging themself with one arm behind them. All in futile efforts. Joktan quickly stood above them, drawing that old cutlass from the sheath, “Did ye hear me?”
The researcher hiccuped, then nodded, “We were just-”
Joktan didn’t care what their reason was he swiped along the researcher's chest, “It will be a ‘Yes Captian’ and nothing else!” The person held a bloodied handprint up to their pale face before muttering out the phrase. Joktan looked around, “If I find the person who set this up, and something in that room is out of place, your bloodline ends here and now.”
Joktan pushed past the crowd, not caring who he ran over. There were some yells in his direction, but the flap of his ear fins quieted them. There was one requirement to this deal. And the damned fools had violated it. He just about made that mage run for the hills as he approached. They had made the right decision.
Joktan slammed his shoulder into the marble doors, his own magic registering against itself, unlocking it. He opened it the rest of the way with his hands, flinging the doors wide open. His blood was boiling over until a cold snap froze his veins.
A dreamy voice filled the space. The moonlight window had been flipped open. All the owls had hopped to the back of the room. The statue hid the owner of the voice.
But he already knew who it was.
He’d know that voice in every lifetime.
Slowly Joktan closed the doors, returning the room to the darkness. He was careful with every step he took, making sure to roll his weight along his foot. The air got colder as he approached.
The voice was accompanied by another voice he recognized. The southern drawl hummed along with comments.
Joktan forgot how to breathe when he finally saw Montague. The moonlight reflected off all the jewels, gold, his skin, and the snow pile he was lying against. Maybe having used some magic to put himself at eye level with the painting. Montgues white and spotted wings twitched here and there. Montague looked like an angel in this light.
Joktan swallowed the stone that had appeared in his throat. Chester was the first one to notice him. Both of them made eye contact at the same time. He couldn’t ignore Chester's sly smirk at his tensed shoulders.
Joktan was too busy praying this wasn’t a dream or some kind of sick illusion.
If it was, he was begging it to not end.
“Chester, did you know this is the only painting ever of me smiling?” Montague smiled, eyes still focused on the painting.
Chester simply hummed back, nodding.
“I had chosen the painter because they had such a unique style. Instead of mixing the painting onto the canvas, they would almost sculpt it. If you were to stand on the side you would see that they used a palette knife to build the paint on,” Montague was usually a cold individual. Montague never gave more than a few words on an issue but, when you really got to know him, it was a whole other story. Montague could talk for days on end about the things around him. From the trees, to the rivers, to the sheep farmer down the street to the food he was having for dinner. It didn't matter. Joktan had missed it in all these years of incurable insomnia.
The voice carried and almost echoed in the room. It soothed out any wrinkles in Joktans forehead and shoulders. He was in too much awe to move. He was too in love to look at anything else in the room.
“And this must be a replica. It was never painted that big,” an owl hopped up and landed next to Montague. He smiled, running a hand over its feathers, cooing, “Well aren’t you just handsome? Strong too, or maybe a little chubby. Someone has been feeding you extra.” Montague's giggle plucked at Joktans heartstrings, creating a melody he had long since forgotten.
Joktans heart crumbled like paper when he saw his old pirating hat on Montague's hip. Maybe it was a sense of pride that welled up in him at that point. Soon it dissolved as he realized, those golden horns were gone.
Joktan didn’t know what compelled him to but his feet guided him over. Joktan ran his hands through the hair where the horns used to sit, messing up the braid. Montague finally tore his half-lidded eyes away from the painting, looking up at him.
Maybe Montague had learned some kind of telepathy, because he immediately gave Joktan the answer he was looking for as Montague curled into his hand, “The war is over. Finally, those old bastards lay still, nothing to latch onto anymore.”
Relief he didn’t know he needed washed over Joktan like a broken dam. He knew how that god had driven Montague mad. The years of exile still haunted him. Joktan pushed his face near Montagues, barely holding back the crashing waves he felt. Montague's hands landed on either side of his head, careful of the fins as he slid the mask to the top of his head.
Joktan watched as Montague searched through all the scars. Before his eyes stopped on the poppy flower tattoo on his neck. Montague's lips felt like fresh snow against his neck before placing one more on his lips.
It was like the whole world had been ordered to stop as Montague rubbed his thumb over the scars on his face. Slowly, without judgment, Montague held him. Joktan wanted to say something, anything really, but his fins flapped and his gills squeezed.
He knew he didn’t need words to profess his love, but by the gods, it would have been nice too.
Montague giggled again, placing soft kisses over his face. There were no grand confessions of love or longing. No monologues that lasted ages. No screaming and wailing to the gods about it. No apologies.
There was just the gentle whisper of, “Hello Love.”