Chapter Text
Kieran
Eighteen years, six months and twelve days. That is how long Prince Kieran lasted in his father's court. It was shameful almost to the point of being funny; considering a faerie's life span, he was practically a child, barely able to fend for himself. And yet, he had been banished from the Unseelie Court, by his father's own legislation, and he was not even sure why.
He had his suspicions. Although faeries were usually liberal with whom they believed one could fall in love with, his father wanted heirs, and with his younger sister bedridden with an incurable disease, the responsibility fell on Kieran's shoulders.
Kieran had not wanted to give him any heirs. The Unseelie King had tried, oh, he'd tried, to provide him with a beautiful woman to bed, but he'd already chosen - his heart belonged to Orion, the nurse who cared for his sister.
And so, Kieran was banished to the Wild Hunt, a band of faerie hunters who bowed to no court and followed no laws but the rules of the wind and the sky and the cold, harsh nights. A band of faeries to which he did not belong.
On that first night in the cave, stripped naked and left for the winter breeze to bite his skin, Kieran wondered if he was going to die, and if it would really matter, in the end, if he did. He was unlikely to see his lover or his family again; as a Prince, his best hope was to be given privacy by the other riders.
As Gwyn of the Wild Hunt stepped into his view, faeries gathering behind him wearing faces that sang with murder, he knew no such thing would happen. No one breathed when their leader slit his wrist for Kieran to drink or as his eye turned from deep black to brilliant silver, nor did they dare to leave their forest-floor beds for the first night, when Gwyn kept a close eye on him. No, it was not until life had returned to normal for the hunters that the torment started. To this day, it never stopped.
During the day, they would tease him, call him names. This would not have been so bad had it not been for the nights, when they etched those same words into his skin over and over again, until he could not lay on his back to sleep. But Kieran did not get the worst of it.
There was another boy with his stories woven into his skin. Runes, they called them; although these were not the black burn-marks the average Shadowhunter would carry. No, this half-Shadowhunter's back was ruined with scars from knives, scars posing as the runes that had once saved him.
Something about this boy made Kieran's heart flutter. He was not particularly beautiful, although his hair was almost the exact shade Orion's had been, and he was young, very young - even younger that Kieran himself. He felt sorry for him, but it was more than that. Something he'd never felt before. Something he couldn't put his finger on.
A few weeks after he joined, Gwyn came to speak with Kieran. They had not yet exchanged any words, which he suspected was normal, and he was surprised when the leader of the Hunt asked for a private conversation.
Gwyn was a faerie of the Wild Hunt, and so by nature was harsh and ruthless, yet, as they spoke, Kieran wondered if, over the years, the wind had eroded his heart down to something softer - something that would treat all with fairness and, if the situation called for it, sympathy.
"Do not grieve those you left behind, Kieran," he said, his deep voice vibrating through Kieran's bones.
"I don't understand," Kieran replied, not quite able to look the man in the eye.
"If you let them go, you may find that new bonds can be made in the Hunt," he continued. "Many have made the mistake of believing they would return to their previous life." He turned to glance at the Shadowhunter boy. "You would do well to drop the hope and move on."
Kieran followed Gwyn's gaze. He didn't notice Gwyn turning back to him until he said, "Young Mark names the stars after his siblings every night. I do not think he believes he will return to them, but it calms him to keep them in his memory." He took Kieran's chin in his hand and turned his head sharply away from Mark. "Keep your loved ones in your heart, Kieran, but not in your head. You'll find they cloud your vision, which could be lethal here in the Wild Hunt." He dropped his hand, and, without another word, walked away.
Kieran shook himself and returned his gaze to the blond-haired Shadowhunter. He wondered what had happened to the family who were lucky enough to have earned a place in Mark Blackthorn's mortal heart.
That night, they whipped him. Kieran heard the cracks from across the meadow in which they slept. He could almost feel the pain from barely healed wounds being reopened mercilessly. He could see the red, mortal blood forming a pool around the poor, mortal boy.
He couldn't watch. He couldn't stand it. But he also couldn't interrupt: it would just cause problems for the both of them.
So he waited until it was over, then he went to where Mark had collapsed on the floor and knelt down, not daring to touch him in fear of worsening the agony he must now be in. Mark did not stir; Kieran checked his pulse to find it still beating, just. Taking a deep breath, he picked the limp boy up and carried him over to his blanket, laying him down on his front. Then, he took off his own shirt and began to rip it, making bandages to help stop the bleeding. All this time, Mark stayed unconscious.
It was nearly dawn when he was finished. Kieran turned him onto his back to wake him up, but found his eyes were already fluttering open. Awake, Mark gasped at the pain in his back, then again at his surroundings - in particular, the young faerie Prince leaning over him, weariness written all over his face. He tried to sit up and back away from him, obviously scared, but his back was stiff from the whippings and the bandages. After a few failed attempts, he stopped trying, maybe realising that Kieran was not his enemy, was not here to torment him. He relaxed a little, leaning slowly back down onto the ground, wincing.
"Are you going to hurt me?" he asked, his voice hoarse from screaming.
"No," Kieran whispered back, so quiet it was almost inaudible. Then, he reached over and took Mark's hand in his own, squeezing it once, then just holding it, savouring the warmth that spread through his arm and into his body. It wasn't the type of warmth that came with the morning sun, no, this was a tingling spark; it made Kieran's fingers feel alive with a storm of electricity. It was unfamiliar to him.
Kieran thought back to the many nights he had spent with Orion back in the Unseelie Court. Often, there was no time for laying together, holding hands - with secrecy came a rushed urgency that left them breathless night after night, finding obscure closets to soundproof their time together. With Orion, the need for sexual touch became too great whenever they were near each other, and they waved goodbye to the smaller, romantic gestures until another day.
Now, they were unlikely to get another day. Guilty, he slowly let go of Mark's hand. The simple caress felt worse than cheating, stupidly. In Faerie, a touch meant nothing, not if you stayed true to the heart. So why did he feel this way, all of a sudden?
Mark grunted slightly as Kieran got up, missing the heat of his body immediately. Feeling sick, Kieran walked back to where his own bed was, hoping that a packed day of hunting would calm his queasiness.
Mark
Mark's back hurt. A lot. At first, he had thought it would get better with each night - that he would get used to the pain of the whip beating into his back if they did it often enough. Now, he realised he was wrong; the pain would never lessen, especially when his torn skin was never given time to heal properly. And it was always on his back. Maybe they took him for a coward, needing to turn away from pain?
His movements were stiff as he mounted his steed that morning, both from pain and from the layers of fabric that covered his mangled skin. He had been surprised to wake up in the arms of the faerie Prince, Kieran. Not that he was complaining. He had missed the feel of another body against his own.
Relationships had not taken up much of his time back in the mundane world. He had been busy with Shadowhunter training, and besides, he had always thought himself too young, although living with the faeries, even for just this short time, had made him see how soon Shadowhunters forced offspring onto their warriors. It was necessary, he supposed - their life span was cut short due to death in battle, so often, there was not much time to reproduce.
He caught himself on that thought. If he had used such a word as "reproduce" in the mundane world, people would have laughed at him, but in Faerie, it was a normal way to talk. It almost choked him to think about how much he had changed since he left them behind, his family. Would they even recognise him if he went back? Would he recognise them?
And time passed differently in Faerie. What if he arrived to find that one hundred years had passed, and everyone he had known was dead? Would he be able to live with himself, knowing he had, although through no fault of his own, abandoned them?
Mark wiped his damp eyes, hoping no one had seen him. Crying was not tolerated in the Hunt. It showed you as weak. It made you a target for the faeries who couldn't quite get enough of a thrill from collecting the dead.
They rode swiftly through the air, Mark with taught muscles and a stiff back. Trying not to let it be seen that he was in agony, he rode up to Kieran on his beautiful black horse, hoping to speak with him.
"I do not want to talk to you," Kieran said as Mark approached, not needing to turn around to see who it was.
"Last night," Mark began regardless, "You helped me. Why was that?"
Kieran remained silent for so long Mark believed he really wasn't going to answer him. But, eventually, he replied, "I saw your pain."
There was so much emotion in that one whispered phrase that Mark shivered, and his mount momentarily lost its footing. Once he had regained balance, Mark was far behind where Kieran rode close to the front of the pack, and he didn't bother to catch up. The words still resonated through his mind, through his body. What pain had Kieran experienced to speak with such sympathy?
Mark began to wonder; he never actually found out why the young Prince had been banished to the Wild Hunt. There had been whispers, of course, some more drastic than others: "I heard he killed his mother and melted her crown to forge his own wealth,"; "But why would he need to do that? He's royalty, surely he has access to all the wealth in Faerie? I'd say he was caught with a human, you know how much His Majesty hates half breeds,"; and Mark's least favourite of all, "My mam says he fell for a servant boy and his father didn't want a son who refused to give him heirs." It reminded Mark all too much of how the Clave had reacted with Helen and her lover, Aline.
Mark did not miss the Clave. For the first few weeks after he had been taken, he had hoped they might come looking for him, might save him from this monstrosity they despised. But now, after so much time he had lost count of the days, they had not come, and he had lost hope. All he could do now was believe they were taking care of his family when he could not.
Lost in thought, Mark nearly rode his horse into the person in front of him. They had stopped; everyone had. Looking up to apologise, he found himself staring into the black and silver eyes of Kieran. He was confused. He had thought he had been so far behind him.
Glancing away quickly, Mark saw the dark blue tips of Kieran's hair shift into a paler shade. It was barely noticeable - to anyone else, it may have seemed like a trick of the light. But Mark saw it, and wondered what it meant.
They did not stop for long. Within minutes, or so it seemed, they took to the sky once more, but not before Mark could quickly, impulsively ask Kieran, "Ride with me?"
It was a simple question that did not require much thought, yet it felt as if there was a thousand words behind those three. When Kieran nodded, Mark's chest fluttered, heart speeding up. They locked eyes, and this time, neither looked away. Neither wanted the moment to pass. Neither wanted to give up on what could be the start of something immense, something beautiful, something the storybooks would describe "tragic".
Kieran
And so they continued that way, day after day, until it became second nature for Mark to ask, "Ride with me?" as the sun rose, and for Kieran to nod and smile and hope that his hair was staying a suitable shade of midnight. For Kieran had realised something: he enjoyed spending time with Mark - even though they never talked much, it was nice to ride alongside someone who, too, was grieving those he left behind in a way he was finding difficult to hide; who treated him like an equal, as opposed to a weak Prince who needed a servant to guide him every step.
But Kieran was noticing other things, as well, not just about Mark, but about himself whilst he was with Mark. He began to see a pattern in his heart rate - it would beat faster and faster when he was around, and would ache unbearably when he wasn't. Slowly, his hair was turning lighter - instead of the near-black it had been since he had joined the Hunt, it was now a distinguishable shade of navy. It was a small change, but Kieran noticed it, and he suspected Mark did too.
They had never gone further than riding together; at night, they would sleep separately. Near each other, but not next to each other. They rarely touched, either, but when they did, Kieran felt it like an elf bolt through his veins. At first, Kieran would apologise to Orion every night, staring up at his constellation with wet eyes, but as time went on, he found himself feeling less and less guilty about being with Mark so much. Sometimes, though not often, he forgot to think about him at all.
And then, one night, it all changed.
The Hunters had stopped and set up camp for the night. Mark had been quiet all day, and was now sitting alone at the edge of the crowd, head rested between his arms, knees pulled to his chest. Kieran went over to him, sitting next to him. Mark leaned into his chest as he put an arm round his shoulders, sheltering him.
"I miss them so much," Mark whispered. "All of them. Helen, Julian, Livia, Tiberius, Drusilla - and Tavvy. Baby Octavian."
Kieran said nothing, just pulled his arm tighter around Mark's shoulder.
Mark twisted so he could look into Kieran's eyes, and Kieran felt his heart flutter so violently it almost flew out of his chest. His single blue eye was outlined in the rising moon, the gold in his other looking equally beautiful under the wan light. In that moment, Kieran forgot about everything else - the Hunt, his scars, Mark's scars, Orion.
In that moment, there was only Mark.
Kieran forgot how to breathe as he brought his lips down onto Mark's; his chest burst in a supernova of sparks and heat and flame and Mark, Mark was here in his arms, Mark was safe, Mark.
As their lips separated, he whispered Mark's name, over and over again. Mark's eyes were closed softly and his breathing was rugged and fast, like his own. Mark turned his entire body, then he was sitting on Kieran's lap and bringing their lips together again. Mark tasted of strawberries and the wind. Mark.
A familiar feeling pooled in Kieran's gut, deep below his stomach, and he knew he needed to get Mark off of his lap soon, but he couldn't think with Mark kissing him like that, hard and soft and sweet and delicious all at once.
Mark pulled his lips from Kieran's, causing him to groan quietly, following his mouth with his own. But Mark brought his finger up to his lips, pushing ever so gently. Kieran stopped and opened his eyes. Mark was crying softly, cheeks damp. Kieran leaned forward, touching his forehead to Mark's, noses sliding past each other. There they stayed for breathless minutes, and then, slowly, Kieran kissed his again, nothing more than a brush of lips, a seal of approval.
That night, and for many nights to come, two young faeries slept in each other's arms, heads tucked away from the harsh winds that blew at their hair, threatening to rip them from one another. That night, and for many nights to come, two young boys claimed their lovers, protecting them from the wildest of Hunts that ever rode the skies.