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In all his years of life, Cardan had never believed that he would get to be a father. He had heard the remarks made of him through his life, of course. The tales of how vile he was. The admiration for his body. The countless numbers of the folk that would try to veil their words in pleasantries enough to make way into his bed.
There was a period of his life where he had believed that that was the most he would ever hope to achieve. That the mortal books would tell lies upon lies with their tarnished tongues and all of it was a farce meant to delude them into one thing or another. His father had certainly never loved his consorts, not in the human terms of it.
His meager experience with love had extended only to the cat that nursed him and his brother as he lashed stripes of raw flesh and hot blood across his back. Love, Cardan had believed, was something only for fools. For a time he had been a fool. Before he had carved out his own heart and turned it to stone. Before he had stared himself in the mirror and traced the lines of silver scars across his flesh and painted them over with golden streaks. He made himself into something beautiful. That he might think of a way to lie to himself even when his mouth would not be able to say it.
He had seen it was capable for his kind, however, in the mortal girls raised in their world. He had seen how true love could be between a parent and child, between siblings, and Cardan had been left staring at the shards of what was meant to be his and filling himself with malice so potent he thought he might choke on it.
He had never believed that something would be kind for him in the end. He had always found his dreams drowning him at the bottom of a bottle or stumbling drunkenly off a cliff or onto the edge of a sword. He hadn’t minded. All the lessons that were pointless in his mind. All the anger and all the hate and all the sorrow and rage that he could do nothing with aside from release it into the ones he blamed for making him feel something still in the first place.
The mortal girls that caused it. The mortal girls that had so much more than a Prince of Faerie.
It wasn’t fair.
The years had turned molten in his mind. Reaching and burning and searing themselves through mangled flesh and shades of blood. The sounds of screams and the taste of poison and wine and ash. It made him ill.
He had never believed that he would be able to turn into something that could be considered kind. Not when his family was slaughtered and he had played hide and seek as if he were a boy again beneath a table.
It had been fitting back then. Hiding away and knowing that no one would find him until he was needed. That was the way it went when one became a monster. He was not sought for by any of his family. He never had. He had convinced himself that it was otherwise but the ceremony had begun and no one noticed he was gone. It had been his plan.
It stung regardless.
His heart of stone crawling with vines and eroding with every wash of the wave that was named Jude.
He’d dulled his thoughts and still he found himself beneath that table thinking if they would look for him when he was the only option left. If they would want him. If they would kill him too and be rid of the stain that had plagued the family line.
He had been treated as a curse his whole life without ever knowing why.
He looked at his hand, shaking in the dark as it held the chalice he’d drained empty, he thought they had a point.
Cardan breathed now. Filling his lungs with the clean air of the shore and looking out over the water that he had hated since he’d thought he might drown in it when he was younger. The water that had nearly stolen his wife from him. The water that had caused so much issue to all of them
This was not that shore. This was not that water. This was not Faerie, this was mortal.
The thick smell of salt in the air was nearly suffocating but Cardan did not move. Sitting with his pantlegs rolled over his calves and allowing the ebb and flow of the tide to wash over his feet and brush sand into his skin.
He had felt the pressure of his own thoughts building as they spent time here. The family that he had built despite all the odds of the world that told him such a thing was impossible. Cardan had breathed and he had felt the weight of his past around him. It had been easy enough to look at Jude when they woke up beside each other. Skin pressed to skin and a calm that was shared between them that only they could truly share with one another. They had become the safety that neither of them thought they would ever get to have and there was nothing that Cardan would not do to protect her.
Her and their little ones.
Three children. Their twins, one boy and one girl, and their daughter. Jude had wanted to bring them to the mortal world to see the rest of their family that resided here. He didn’t mind, he never truly did when it came to time like this. To see the way his children would light up with excitement getting to practice with their magics and disguising themselves to look like normal humans. How he had spent time with their youngest and doted with his daughter as she made her ears round to match her mother. As she beamed to Jude with pride that they could match.
The High Royals of Elfhame and they came to the mortal realm to eat pizza and popcorn and unholy concoctions of sweets and sugar and watch movies and listen to conversations and slang they could learn to use.
Cardan had told Jude he had a plan for himself for the day. For her to take their young ones to see their Aunt and cousin and enjoy their days. That they would meet with each other later.
The sun was beginning to set now.
Streaking the world over in colors that would put the finest of paints to shame. It was astounding sometimes, how the folk often told their stories as if the mortal world held nothing but disgust and disease compared to them and yet despite being the same sky it somehow felt more real to be here. Feeling the land around him in the same way he would if he was in his palace and knowing that it was different.
The world here was different. Bitter and cruel and human. Human in the way that for every viper and venomous lie spun there was a soothing balm of a truth ready to be shared as well. For each mind set to destroy there was one that was kind and caring and wanting to heal.
The story books of love and heroes who slew monsters.
The stories that he had read that he and Jude had worked to make true.
The stories that Cardan had banished his own heart for once upon a time.
His skin felt too tight against him. Pulling and stiff and he hardly felt like he could breathe around the feelings that threatened to hang him. He had a family here that he was meant to be looking out for but he couldn’t shake the memories of everything that he had done. Everything that was part of him. Everything that had been done to him and the hate he held in his heart because of it.
What would stop him from becoming like his father when they shared the same blood?
His brothers?
He hadn’t wanted the crown in the start but he knew that he had grown fond of it. His father and brothers had been consumed with the power of the crown, what was going to stop him from doing the same? That same curse that was in their veins ran through his. He was a Greenbriar as truly as they were and all of them had been monsters.
He was a monster.
On stiff muscles and sore legs, Cardan made himself to stand. He walked forward into the water. Feeling the waves as they lapped at his exposed flesh and sent shivers through his spine. He walked deeper despite the water soaking into his rolled pants. Letting it follow him until it was spanning across the center of his chest.
He had no crown here but he could still feel the weight. He brought his hands up to run wet fingers through his hair. To scratch his own scalp and try to prove to himself that he might still have something in him that was able to be redeemed.
Might.
It was still in his blood.
From the edge of his waistband, Cardan worked out the small, thin blade he’d taken to carrying after the many misadventures they’d had through their lives. He knew it made Jude feel better to know that he had some way to protect himself if the worst might happen. She called the worst him being without his magic. He said it was being without his tongue.
He knew how to do it now but Cardan still did not find himself a fighter. Not truly.
He’d broken all of his other virtues. He’d broken his final ones for his family.
Piece by splintered piece, Cardan had allowed himself to become the monster he’d needed to be to survive. It was settled in his veins now like a rot. The power that he held. The vines that cracked through his heart of stone and made it beat again. Blooming with flowers as his children’s first cries reached his ears. Making it into something new that he did not know how to believe.
Cardan placed the metal of the blade to the thin skin of his wrist.
Held above the water so he could watch. So he could confirm. So he could be certain.
He pulled.
The thin line of red that beaded and smeared to the drops of water that clung to his skin. Cardan angled the blade again. He pulled. He set it to cut the length, he pulled. Again.
The blade when it touched the water cleaned itself with a small cloud of red. He breathed, counting it in the way the Roach had taught him ages ago now.
He placed his arm down into the water.
He let the salt sear into his blood.
Cardan relished the burn of it.
He’d been afraid of the water for so long that he wasn’t sure what to feel in a moment like this. If his fear should still be the first thing in the front of his mind. If he should be looking at it waiting for the waves to reach up and steal him away beneath the surface. Part of him even wondered what it might be like. He’d been under before. He’d panicked that day when his hand was held by a person he believed might love him. He’d thought he was going to drown and then later when he’d watched Jude surface and her condition, he’d felt his hate for the sea grow more and more. It had been a threat. An emblem of the loss of all power and ability to speak and breathe. it had seemed like a death sentence to him for years. There was a treaty now and there was compassion that was meant to be there but Cardan simply smiled and threw his revels as if that could bridge the bond where his tongue lacked the lies needed to seal it out loud.
The tide pulled his blood from his body and Cardan shuddered at the thought of it. This sea didn’t feel like a threat to him and yet it was the only one that tasted his blood. The salt numbed him and burned from the inside out but he didn’t pull his wounds away. The moment he stepped out of the ocean and back onto the shore the land would heal him. One command and he could seal the wounds against his skin. The salt kept it open, the salt let him feel it. It let him confirm the monster inside him was bleeding out into the water and being washed away. Seared out of his veins in a way his family never experienced.
They were dead. They couldn’t hurt him or the family he’d built but Cardan couldn’t shake that they were there living still in his mind. That they would see him and hear him or that they knew the thoughts in his head. That they were going to watch over his children while he couldn’t see them and they would hurt them. They would say something to them. They would poison their minds on what the meaning of love was or that they would convince them their mother’s kind was something to be looked down on. He feared that they would look at him one day in the same way he once looked at his own parents. He wondered if his children would have the same dynamics between them as him and his siblings. If he had passed the poison in his blood onto them. If he had cursed and doomed them by simply being their father. He could try to raise them to be better than him but what would stop fate from twisting against them cruelly?
It would only be fair.
Fair to the ones he was cruel to. Fair to the ones he had killed. His virtue stained and shattered and Cardan imagined the prophecy his father had been told when he was born. What he would do. What he had done. If there was more that he might learn now that he would hurt his family. If it would be better for him to sink himself beneath the surface of the water and feel it take him away. If he should breathe in the salt and sand the waves would push into his lungs until he choked on it and struggled. If he should command the land to hold him down beneath the water edge so that he wouldn’t be able to change his mind from his task.
If that would save his family. If they would be protected from him.
The monster would be dead and they wouldn’t have to be afraid. They wouldn’t have to worry themselves for what he might do or what he might become. He would be able to watch over his children from his grave then. he would be able to fight his family away from them and without the corruption of what ran in his veins he could keep them safe. He could guide him.
They were all still young. They would all still care. They would still listen if he didn’t have the chance to deform himself in their minds.
Cardan shuddered and took another step into the water. He felt resistance pushing back against him and in part he wondered if it was the water or the sand beneath his feet. The way it shifted under his weight and pushed to make his instinct take a step back toward dry land. If it was the land trying to save him when he was choosing not to be saved.
“Stop it now, it’s alright.”
His heart was beating fast. Would that make him bleed more into the water or would it turn him into a monster faster? He couldn’t tell what made more sense in his mind and he wasn’t sure he could stomach whatever answer came to his conclusion first. He had to end this faster.
One step after another. The same way he’d waded into his position in the first place, Cardan continued. He took a breath on reflex before forcing his head beneath the tide. it was cold. Crisp and powerful against his body. It made him feel small. The pressure of it all around him that was so unlike the air and yet in the same moments, so similar. He forced himself deeper below the surface. he buried his feet into the sand and let himself sink. His blood flowed from his arm into the water around him in ribbons. the salt burned his eyes, his nose, his ears.
He waited until his lungs began to beg.
Cardan breathed.
Bubbles floated in front of his face and then in seconds it was like a fire seared through his body. Blinding pain burst through his chest and he gagged. He tried to cough. There was only water for him to suck into his lungs. Sparks and flashes of light danced across his vision and it took all of his will to keep himself from thrashing his way back to the surface. He’d heard stories that drowning hurt. he’d known that since the first time he’d ever come close to the water. He’d been taught about it and he knew the threat of it from the day his fears began. The day he dreaded to drown.
He was doing it himself.
Cardan focused on his heartbeat. On the pain he felt. The numbness that reached the edges of his fingers and toes. His body was turning heavy.
Drowning was meant to be slow, he thought. Lazily, he remembered the cuts in his arm. How the ocean had sucked his blood from his body. What every attempt could truly be doing to him. If he could just hold this for a little while longer his family would be safe from him. The Greenbriar poison could be fixed by Jude. His children weren’t damaged yet. They weren’t filled with hate yet. He could—-
The land pulled roughly beneath his feet. He was moments from fighting back against it and willing himself to drown when he felt the vibrations through it. The running steps of his twins. The familiar gait of his wife.
In the span of a stuttered heartbeat, Cardan kicked himself to the surface. He choked and heaved and a wave splashed him in the face. For a blinding moment, he couldn’t see anything around him. The world was nothing but smears in front of him and his ears picked up nothing other than the thundering of his heartbeat. His lungs seared like they were filled with iron and Cardan struggled to pull himself back to land. He had never been the strongest swimmer. He doubled over as his legs threatened to buckle. Choking up salt water and heaving until his lungs understood he was taking in air now and not the sea.
The moment sand touched beneath his feet he hardened it to be stable for him to walk on. One step after the other. The same way he got here to begin with. The same thing that would now pull him out.
The land had given him enough warning that his family wasn’t here yet but they would be soon and he was running out of time to cover himself. He needed to make sure Jude didn’t catch on to what he had been doing.
He lifted his arm from the water. Blood ran down in rivers to his fingertips. The salt ached. The land, with his order, healed him immediately. It was something he wasn’t sure he could really get used to. The way the land would seal his skin back together like nothing had ever happened to him. He could hurt himself as much as he wanted and his blood would allow his skin to knit together without any kind of a seam.
No silver scars like his back. No mark of what he’d done.
One dip back into the water washed away his blood.
He was in pain. He still felt it.
“Daddy!”
His daughter’s cry. His youngest. He turned in the water and saw her running towards him. The twins weren’t far behind and Jude followed at a more relaxed pace. She was smiling even though he could see the calculation in her eyes. She knew he hated water. She would question him what he was doing. She would figure him out. He had to decide if he was going to confess it or not. If she asked him he could not lie.
Cardan lowered himself to a knee just beyond the water’s reach. His little girl collided into his chest hard enough to make him choke on coughs. It was easy enough to disguise them with laughter that she didn’t notice.
“You’re all wet!”
She squealed with joy for it despite the exclamation.
“You knew that when you jumped, Little Light.”
His voice was hoarse. He saw the way his little girl looked at him for it. How she began to frown with the same contemplation her mother always had. The twins bombarded into him next and nearly toppled him backwards into the sand. They were laughing, they were happy. They made him smile too.
“Hello there.”
They climbed him like he was nothing more than a tree. Their youngest stayed clinging to his chest as he rose to stand. The twins wrapped themselves around his legs to make themselves into weights as he tried to make his way to his wife.
Jude laughed at him.
“Trouble?”
“I’ve been attacked.”
“So I see.”
She was looking him up and down. Trying to find the truth in the words he was saying. With his free arm, Cardan opened himself to her. Jude came to her place like they were made for it. He kissed her.
“Hello.”
“You’re soaked.”
“Observant as always.”
“You hate the sea.”
“I read it’s meant to be good for you. Purifying.”
“Nothing about you has ever been pure.”
The words stung more than he thought they would. He couldn’t muster the same smile and wit he would have given to her at any time. Only a second of silence passed between them but Jude seemed to understand it all the same.
“Do you feel better now?”
With his family attached to him. With all of them there and smiling, laughing, happy, safe.
“Much.”