Chapter Text
“All stories start with a beginning. One that may be dark, or endlessly alight, or not even one of the sorts—but are always, always born covered in the newness of creation’s promising touch. They’re promised, by the writer’s pen, to pulse with passion, and breath, and warmth, and to float across their script of choice and will and life as the scene is performed. That is our gift.
This one… this story… begins with the sun.”
A sun of messily drawn yellow perched upon a thin stick pops up. Firelight shapes around it, casting a shadow on the limestone rock behind.
“The sun, remorseful and mourning the distance between her and her moon, wept a tear that fell all the way from the heavens for ten days and ten nights and planted itself in the soil of earth.” A tear, golden as ichor and placed upon a similar stick is guided down, as if falling from the sun. “When the shadows bloomed, and the sun danced away to shine upon a new part of the world, and the moon was alone in her darkness once more—the flower curled out from its wings of leaves, its petals unraveling and pouring with light as it opened itself to the moon.” The shape of a flower casts a shadow. Its petals are yellowed, veins of purple running along it, pistils of buttermilk decorated messily across it. “Whether the sun had meant for the flower to bloom, or it be a mistaken thing of life, the moon has noooooo idea. But each time the moon wonders if the sun’s love for her has grown dim, the flower glows alight and promises the moon that it has not.
Somewhat doomed yet awfully pessimistic, but ehh; that part’s a love story, after all.
Then—across the sea, there is built a kingdom. Life here, beneath the ever changing sky of light and night-“ A moon and sun swing together in a circle, like they do around the world. “-grew, aged and died in a cycle of creation, end and rebirth. The king and queen of this kingdom were kind, and loved by all!
After years of ruling peacefully, the queen, despite all of the goodness surrounding her, became… ill. The sickness worried the kingdom; worry for her life, and for the one she carried. When no cure worked and no hope healed her, they began to search for a miracle.
After weeks of looking, the townspeople’s ships made dock near where the sun flower was planted all those years ago.” Several ships waddle by on their sticks. One of them sinks dramatically, and the rest travel on and bump into the flower, startledly looking around in affronted surprise, before tipping upward in a silently shouted celebration. “Elated, and filled with more hope than ever before, they carefully dug it from the soil it had rooted in and brought it back to their queen.
The flower’s petals had healing properties, whadayaknow! The petals were steeped like tea and given to the queen, and her illness was cured, mended into all but a memory!
A prince was born, small and soft and well.” A cradle, abloom with light within, is held beneath the sun. “No sickness tainted him. The people rejoiced! From then on, on the prince’s birthday, the kingdom decorated themselves with the colors of the sun as to honor and thank the sun for her blessing.
The kingdom, the people, the queen and king and their child were finally at peace…” The drawings, save for the cradle are swept away. In their place takes a dark, crimson-cloaked figure. “But before that peace can remain and rest, it must overcome the disharmony of change.
… Eugh. Every story has a bad part, every one! It’s needed, it’s needed, yeah—but goodness. Give a guy a break, sometimes…
Ah-hem-hem-hem. In the depths of the night, the prince is stollen from his crib by a figure in shadow. The king and queen had woken to the sound of a child’s cry, to the billowing of robes, just in time to see the crib left cold and the cookie leap from the bedroom balcony with the child in her thin, polished claws.” The cloaked figure is swept away; a moon rises, full and glowing from the firelight. “No one knows who the thief was. A witch, they call her—for nothing, nothing at all was visible—and perhaps not anything even existed beneath her cloak, the smell of scorched cranberry-scented incense was said to linger in the room, and her nails and eyes were described to be unsettling beyond comfort! Oh, me, oh, my! Always with the cloaks…
Cloaks aside—when newwwws got out, the Lost Prince was mourned by all. But with a small, small flicker of hope, the king, queen and their people lit lanterns! and sent them into the sky at the chance that their prince might see them and know where to return home to.” The bids it’s parting, and several small, doodled lanterns are raised up.
“The Lost Prince has not yet been found. Almost eighteen years later, and yet.” His voice begins to slow, nearing its end. “He is a long, long lost fantasy… still fighting disharmony, still drowning beneath the tides of formidable change.”
The paper cutouts remain held there for several moments. Shadow Milk’s eyes linger on the lanterns, flickering slowly between them. Again, like so many times before, he wonders where the prince is. Will he… ever be at peace again? Will he surface?
“The Lost Prince,” a voice behind him muses, gaining a small yelp from him as he’s startled him from his thoughts. “A worthy title. Did he have a name before that, though, I’m curious?”
Shadow Milk sighs, easing from his scare. “It’s somewhere, I know. I have yet to find it. Maybe the kingdom’s library would have… records… but, as far as I know, he’s just called the Lost Prince now. You’d think the king and queen might want us to know who exactly we’re mourning! But, hm. Maybe they wanted the name to stay special to them, and only them. Who knows!”
Silent Salt hums. The sound is considerate, thoughtful in its simplicity.
Another voice chimes in. As it does, Shadow Milk looks over the lanterns, glances to the rock behind them to memorize the shadows they cast. He wonders of the prince, and then lets his arms slump and fall, watching the firelight lick over the now shadowless stone.
“Much like us, hmm? It seems like we all loose our birth names at some inevitable point.” He grumbles a hum, and Shadow Milk can imagine the twist of his nose. Burning Spice is always more expressive than usual when drunk. “Becoming this, and… whatever change turns y’ into can be better than the past, sometimes—but for us, and the prince, it wasn’t. Being a marauder isn’t a wondrous dream. Being lost isn’t beautiful.”
Shadow Milk mumbles to himself, kneeling down and tucking the cardboard and sticks atop each other neatly. “The prince being lost is a beginning, preceding a changing point,” He huffs. He sets the items in his satchel. “It’s a fundamental obstacle, really, Spice. Hate it all you like, but it’s inescapable~ A flower, after all, needs to learn how to grow in his soil.”
”Hah!” Burning Spice guaffs. “And there, my friend, is where your fault is uncovered.” Shadow Milk hears the sloshing of a lazily swirled bottle, and then the crackling of a fire that’s been sprinkled over with alcohol. “Life isn’t a story.”
Shadow Milk stills.
”S’ not promised to have a happy ending, not to change for the better, not to be glorious and filled with plea-“
”Ah, ah, ah-!” Shadow Milk scrambles to his feet, a sudden rush of movement meeting the smile that raptures his lips. “All but one! Every life except one isn’t a story! The Prince—the Lost Prince, he is, he is a story, but he’s real, living, true. He’s not just words and pages and thoughts, he’s out there! He’s real!”
Burning Spice turns his head, squinting up from his lounge across the log bench. A leather-wrapped arm is folded beneath his head, while his second lofts a hand, the bottle held in it sloshing to a halt. His other two fiddle with the grass beneath, or lie across his chest. The rest of his languid limbs hang halfway off the log, as unbothered as a feline beneath sunlight. “Ahhh,” he breathes, and there’s a certain… amusement, or appraising ridiculousness in the way his voice drawls out. “Ahhh! A living fairytale, he is! One that’s got you twiddling your fingers and writing up poems, huh, Jester?”
“I-“ Warmth creeps up Shadow Milk’s throat. “What?! No- no. I’m but a- a storyteller, not-“
Silent Salt chuckles then, light with coyish amusement. “Oh, you tease the boy enough,”
Burning Spice tilts his head to Salt, a lazy smile sewn in his teeth. “Is that envy I hear?”
”Hm? Hardly.” Salt is sat on the ground across from Spice, his lower back pressed against the log behind him. A leg of his is tucked up, an arm slung atop it. The eyepatch on his left side hides the malformed nature of his eye and a pertain of the scar that ruined it, but the paled, thin and jagged line of healed flesh still paints down across his cheek and all the way down his throat, ending at his collarbone.
Shadow Milk recalls Salt telling him, when asked about how he’d gotten such a mark, that even forgiveness cannot completely erase what wounds the past is carved with. Perhaps, then, is it our duty to heal over such wounds with that forgiveness we so spare? A scar may remain, as this one does, yes. But through letting myself forgive, through letting myself heal, I shall no longer bleed. Shadow Milk had stared, blinked, and then muttered, you missed the question a lil, hun…
“I receive more than enough as is.” His smile is tired, small, soft, but edged with a mischief. “Were you to be so kind as to give me more, though… I could find myself awaiting.”
A low, enticed laugh curls from Burning Spice’s throat as Shadow Milk sighs, a sound like blegh muttered from his lips as his eyes roll back and he leans against the stone behind him. “Repulsive.”
Burning Spice chuckles at him, and Shadow Milk eyes the bottle he lofts as its contents slosh around like tides caught in a storm. “You’ve heard worse, boy,” His voice is still humored, but grows less amused, more intentful. Shadow Milk’s gaze flickers to the fire; curtains of honey and veils of amber sunlight dance gracefully there. Embers float upward, swaying through the air like fireflies. “But… hmn. About your fairytale.” A swirl of the bottle. “It’s not promised to end well. Plenty of stories fail to grow, let alone bloom, or ever reach that… changing point you speaking of. Don’t get your hopes up, Jester,” He tilts the bottle back, musing with the gaze Shadow Milk can feel pressed to him. “They always fall.”
Shadow Milk’s eyes remain trained on the firelight. He doesn’t look away; his gaze only flickers, once from side to side, before he lifts his arms and folds them against his chest, shuffling against the stone until it’s comfortable as can be.
He knows this. The Lost Prince, however real and physical, may just as well be another tale that begins, changes and dies before it blossoms. Shadow Milk has read, watched, even written of that. He’s studied the chance of failure more deeply than he cares to admit.
And yet… he is here. Hoping. Like he always has, since the moment his young eyes caught upon the inked words spread at his small fingertips as they seeped with enchantment and curled with a curiosity he hadn’t yet learned to feel—until then. When he began to think that it could be real. Despite all of the stories made purely from thoughts, despite all of the illusion and hurt the World poured with, there was the Lost Prince. A real, living person whose story began, and could become wonderful, and is real. Even Shadow Milk’s life, hapless and jinxed, has the chance to be a story. If the Lost Prince is real, if he’s at his beginning, then perhaps—Shadow Milk is, too. Maybe they are both learning to live. Maybe they will change together.
Years later, and he still keeps that hope close. His changing point hasn’t begun yet—and he doesn’t know when it will. He doesn’t know if he or the Lost Prince will ever unfurl to drink the sunlight, or if the spring will ever be his to breathe. But he has hope, and that warm, fragile thing, however small, has kept him trying.
A scoff leaves him, but it’s soft. “Ehh, maybe. Or,” He gasps. “Or! Orrr, instead of falling, it could lift. Fly. It could be divine! It could be the salvation this dreadful, oh, dreadful world makes us crave, earned at last! It could be anything, anything, actually! You are no oracle, Burnyy~ Leave the story telling to moi!”
Burning Spice huffs a laugh, taking a breath in. “Oh, but-“
Salt waves a hand at him. “Hush,” There’s the beginning of a retort, but Salt shakes his head and the sound dies in Burning Spice’s throat. “Let the boy dream a little, will you?” Salt’s eyes flit to Shadow Milk, and the thoughtfulness in them makes the Storyteller go still. “He’s younger than the both of us. Maybe we ought to learn from him.” His gaze lands on Burning Spice, slowly, again. His voice comes softer. “We forget ourselves, sometimes, Spice…”
“Better than remembering,” Spice mutters.
A beat of quiet passes. The fire crackles softly, and Shadow Milk almost doesn’t hear Salt’s voice when he whispers, “Is it…?”
Shadow Milk’s knowledge of the duo isn’t… much, but it’s clear that their past was entwined and sewn into each other’s, the edges of their fated cloth fraying and splitting or tying anew in a spiderwebbed pattern of life. He wonders of the details, as his curious mind tends to; he wants to ask his questions, but—then again, they’ve only been running with Shadow Milk for a month at most. To them, Shadow Milk is a partner, but still disposable if need be, and vice versa. He often wonders if he’ll ever learn to care enough about them to learn of their past, but that was before they all decided to steal the Prince’s crown, which led Shadow Milk to telling the story he just did, and also have several changes of thought—and, welllllll, as long as he gets the crown and does what he intends to with it, he can deal with the consequences.
He still wonders what it would be like if Salt and Spice continued to exist with him. Would they keep him close, tell him their story? Indulge him, be more honest, caring? Or would they leave, like most things do? Permanence isn’t ever something Shadow Milk is gifted the kindness of. He expects the next beat of quiet, the next moment in which he is left… alone…
Oh, but either way, as long as Shadow Milk gets his crown, he can’t bother to be picky! He’s learned not to get attached. It doesn’t hurt as badly as before, now, when something or someone eventually leaves him, or he leaves it! More or less… just a quiet, small sense of mourning. Because—when will it end? When will he find soil, love, happiness? When will he feel the warmth of the sun at last?
He bristles. An unwarranted shiver rakes up his spine, even despite the fire’s heat.
Hmn.
Burning Spice’s words don’t bother him too much. It’s always been known to him, the chance of ruin stored within hope, and while it doesn’t cause him to back away…
Shadow Milk’s eyes gaze along the thinned edge of a flame. The fire’s warmth coats across his hands and arms, warming the tops of them, but it’s not the kind of warmth that heals away a certain chill that delves deep into his marrow.
Maybe…
His eyes flit up slowly, almost sheepishly. The canopy of leaves above him parts like wings above the fire. Embers float up into the sky, glittering alongside the stars, sparking life against the darkness. Soon, Shadow Milk can’t tell the difference between fire and starlight.
Maybe… he’s… afraid.
… has he ever not been?