The next morning was rough. He slept without a tent and only a mat and blanket to keep him warm, but that wasn’t the problem. The issue was that he was used to sleeping until whatever unruly hour he felt like. Feather never kept a schedule. And he’d gone to bed so late last night… he’d been too giddy with new realizations filling his mind that he hadn’t been able to shut off his brain, so getting called out way too early was enough to make him feel incredibly grumpy.
“Is sleeping without a tent comfortable for you? Those mats don’t look very good either…” Cirrus fretted above him, Feather’s limbs all splayed out as his blanket scrunched up atop his waist. He was a tall man with long limbs, so the blanket didn’t quite cover him properly anyway, but he was so used to regulating his body heat that he’d never particularly cared to have a proper blanket in centuries.
“...I don’t mind feeling the rocks underneath me,” he grumbled out instead, going to claw at his eyes as he peeled them open, stretching his eyelids up and down while he tried to forcefully rid them of sleep. “...what time is it?”
He squinted at the sun that was placed high in the sky, and Cirrus smiled kindly down at him as he gave a thoughtful answer. “It’s nine o’clock. I usually wake up much earlier than this, but since your companions said you would need more sleep, I spent the rest of the time continuing to meditate to prepare for universe hopping. I think that sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?” he offered, Feather forcing himself to sit up as he kept rubbing painfully at his eyes.
“I guess…” he mumbled, his emotions already starting to feel a bit volatile as he kept scratching at his face, his nerves making him want to tear out his eyes, before he felt familiar and calloused hands take them away from where he was aggressively rubbing, Leocadies’ smile far more comforting than Cirrus' fake one as Feather squinted at him in front of the bright sun.
“You’ll hurt yourself if you keep doing that, boss,” came the gentle reminder, and he blinked quickly and repeatedly as he tried to chase away the stinging feeling, before he nearly fell onto his thin mat all over again in his blind exhaustion, carefully being caught and propped up by Kya as she took a comb to his unruly blond hair.
“Just stay still, boss, I’ll take care of you,” she assured him, Feather’s head rocking back and forth as Jayce stared at them incredulously.
What on earth was he even watching? He remembered Cirrus telling him that Feather was just a bit younger than they were by roughly a decade, meaning he was in his early five hundreds like he and his prince, so why was this grown man being treated like he was a toddler? Jayce had also been told that Leocadies and Kya were both in their seventh century, so it was true that those two were the oldest in their little group by far, but still, seriously?
“What are they, his parents? And is he twelve?” Jayce snarked near the back, his voice lowered enough to prevent most people from hearing him, though Eve still smiled and giggled.
“Haha, they treat him like royalty. Cirrus, why don’t we start treating you like that?”
“...please don’t,” came the awkward reply, but even if Feather had been bothered enough to listen in on their conversation, the blond was too busy getting soothed by the feeling of his hair being brushed and the firm hands that encased his own, Leocadies’ calming fingers brushing over his fair knuckles making him feel as if he could drown in the calming sensations.
He didn’t usually need people to take care of him in the mornings so long as he was allowed to wake up on his own terms. But whenever he was forced to wake up earlier than he wanted, which had been a very rare occurrence up until now, he could easily get snappy and irritable if he wasn’t properly taken care of. He just needed something to stimulate him so the rest of his senses would become alert and wake up, and having Kya softly yet firmly comb through his wavy mop of platinum curls usually did the trick. So Feather kept lazily batting his eyes as he let his head get pulled backwards, chin bobbing up and down with the rhythm of the comb as he began to stare at the sun.
“Ah, boss! Don’t do that, you’ll go blind!” Leocadies began to fret, moving his hands to cover Feather’s eyes while the pesky blond grinned.
“Will not! I stare at the sun all the time!”
“Boss, you shouldn’t do that!”
“I’ll do whatever I want, hahah!!” he laughed meanly, jerking backwards as Kya pushed on his back to keep him from toppling over.
“Hey! Stay still while I comb your hair!” the black-haired woman snapped as Feather began whipping around and thrashing his limbs with a manic smile. Luckily, they’d managed to cure his mood for the morning, so not much else was needed… this time, at least.
Still, it had proven to be a good solution for today, and Kya had made sure to buy lots of candy in preparation for the future. Because it was true that Feather had never been able to regulate his emotions well. His past wasn’t… well, it wasn’t ideal, she knew. His obsession with freedom came from the fact he’d been trapped for nearly a century with no autonomy of his own to speak of… and with it came lots of problems with learning how to healthily express himself and how to regulate what he was feeling without letting his emotions explode. Feather had simply never been able to learn those things, even though she’d tried to teach him through herself as a healthy example. She also felt that his disorganized emotions may be what was protecting him from going insane, as contradicting as that sounded... with how often he died, and whatnot. So while he did seem very immature, she was afraid to touch or push his development any further… though, as long as he was happy today, then she could plan for tomorrow.
And Feather looked gleeful as he stood himself up in front of Cirrus, grand smirk on his face while he waved his hand in front of his own features, like he so often did when he was feeling playful. “So, are you gonna teleport us now, mister pushover prince sir? Can you really teleport seven people all at once? I have to say that’s pretty impressive for someone of your age. I know you teleported three people the other day, but that was such a short distance, and you didn’t even leave this world… but you do have a prophecy on your back, so I’m expecting good things from you,” he jeered haughtily, trying to dig under Cirrus’ skin as the other visibly stiffened.
Good. He never had liked how Cirrus was so subservient to prophecy. Maybe it had something to do with every prophet in the Udimeia having the same vision of his great, heroic future all at once on the day of his birth, to the point where the gates of Lilino had been filled with more people than ever before in history. Cirrus’ mother, Queen Nadia Aixon, the current leader of the Central Domain Alliance who had led them elegantly over the past four hundred and twelve years, hadn’t been so certain of what to do, and kept her son mostly behind closed doors for his formative years so that he wouldn’t be as affected, but… well, just look at how much that had helped. It was obvious Cirrus still felt like he had a heck of a lot on his shoulders, which he did. But all Feather wanted to see from him was a little bit of freedom seeking, to prove that he was still his own person underneath all of the tellings of his future that guided every waking moment of his present.
But of course, despite his awkward smile, Cirrus merely moved a hand behind his neck, an action Feather found slightly pathetic, before he admitted weakly, “Actually, I’d only be able to teleport the two of us. Since reality’s bridges have all collapsed from that planet, it takes more effort and concentration to get there... though usually I can teleport at least ten people across universes,” he admitted shyly, as if he was a bit embarrassed by that, and Feather couldn’t help but grimace.
“Wow. You suck.”
“Ahah, yes, I know…” Cirrus laughed awkwardly, carefully going to extend his hand out to Feather as the blond stared at the gesture.
“What? Can’t you just open a portal? You even meditated all night, what have you been focusing so hard for? I don’t wanna touch you.”
“Oh, um…” Cirrus blinked, taken aback by those brash statements as he looked down. “I’ve never been able to open a portal before… well, I’ve tried, several times, but have never succeeded. My mother's tried teaching me the mechanics of it herself, actually, I've just never been able to get the hang of it,” he admitted smally, and Feather winced with a sudden flash of guilt as he found himself feeling like he’d just kicked someone’s poor dog.
“Mmmmm…” he tapped his foot impatiently, not liking the thought of kicking puppies, before he reached forward and snatched Cirrus’ hand in one quick movement, squeezing it like he was trying to break it while giving the prince an unhinged smile. “Fine, then! But if you give me your pushover disease, you’ll never hear the end of it from me! I’ll kill myself and then haunt you from beyond the grave!”
“Ah…” Cirrus’ amber eye blew out wide, his hand throbbing with how hard Feather was squeezing as he stumbled out, “I… I don’t think that’ll be a problem for you… please don’t do that,” he blinked, the entire concept Feather had just suggested making his thoughts halt in slight panic, before Feather got too impatient and dug his nails into Cirrus’ dark, milky chocolate skin, leading him to quickly remember his goal of teleporting them both to the dead planet. And once he managed to recenter his thoughts back to the meditative state he’d embraced for hours the night prior despite the tight ache in his hand, him and Feather’s bodies shimmered like stardust before their physical forms were whisked away.
“...”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“Are they gonna be okay?” Jayce asked first, the only one willing to speak after watching whatever bullying had just transpired.
“Don’t worry, I have a telepathy concept, so I’ll be able to check in on Feather no matter how far away he is. If they're away for too long, I'll make sure to check in,” Leocadies spoke up chipperly, Jayce glaring at him slightly while his eyebrow twitched.
“And how am I supposed to know I can trust you?”
“Haha, beats me! Anyways, let’s play a game! How about charades?”
“What?” Jayce glared at the ginger man, fangs already barring as he went to oppose this idea in its entirety. “Why would we want to—”
“Okay, sure!” Eve agreed in an instant, and Kya immediately started digging out her game cards from inside her satchel while Achitha walked over to join them. Seriously… even her? Wasn’t she supposed to be the smart one? Ah, Jayce really was alone here. Was he the only one who had any sense of stranger danger?
Still though, maybe Achitha had a point. Maybe it really was the best thing to try and understand them. They were going to be working with these three for the foreseeable future because of Cirrus’ choices, after all. Which, as much as he liked to call his childhood friend a pushover, he wasn’t really. The man knew how to defend the choices he made and was very firm in his stance and actions when push came to shove. He rarely ever got angry, but the fact he would calmly and pristinely hand out punishments was possibly even more terrifying. So... ah well, if Feather and those other two psychos ever did something really bad, he didn’t have to worry about Cirrus not being able to handle it. He trusted that his best friend could handle himself, and Jayce would support him in any way he knew how. So hopefully, with Feather being shown that dead, forsaken planet that had been destroyed by the apocalypse all those centuries ago, Cirrus would get the outcome he wanted… and Feather would join their side.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Feather didn’t quite understand what he was looking at. He let go of Cirrus’ hand almost immediately, the other man stifling down a sigh of relief as he went to rub the poor hand of his that had been squeezed to death, but Feather still didn’t quite know what he was supposed to be seeing. This…
Everything was black and white. There was not a single drop of any other color. The ground was made up of black ash and white bone, and there were no trees or grass to be seen in the distance. There were crumbling buildings that looked to have rotted into the ground, and the sky was a bleak white with an entirely black orb that could barely be called a sun radiating above it. Is this what things looked like when a world’s reality was destroyed? There was no sense of life, and no matter how far Feather stretched his concept, he couldn’t feel anything that showed any sign that something had once lived there. It was almost as if reality’s collapse had made time and age turn in on itself, to the point it stopped existing entirely. He moved one of his white leather boots against the black ash that he stood in, wiping it away with his foot to see if there was anything he could find, only to be met with nothing but smooth, white bone shaded underneath that stretched for miles, for as far as the eye could see. And the black ash only continued to rain down, never ending, as Feather’s platinum blond hair became tainted with soot.
“What planet did this used to be?” he asked after a long moment, kneeling down into the ash as he started tracing fair fingers against the white bone, rubbing the toxic black powder onto it as he traced circles and flowers.
Looking at him, Cirrus couldn’t really tell how Feather was processing things at all, though he knew this view would be a lot to take in for anyone. In fact, he was certain most people would be freaking out, instead of calmly kneeling to draw stick figures and hearts among the ash and bone. “Um, this planet was once known as Viscendant,” he answered slowly, amber eye dragging over the desolate landscape as the black sun began to look very unsettling in contrast with the murky white sky that didn’t hold even a single cloud.
“...Viscendant, huh? Were there any survivors?”
“Yes, quite a few,” Cirrus nodded, turning back to Feather as he watched him start decorating his artwork with stars and diamonds. “Most civilians were evacuated when the crack in reality appeared and were relocated to different planets and worlds that had room to spare. It’s been calculated that 75% of the civilians managed to be saved. As for the royalty, the king and five of his children all died fighting the onslaught of monsters that came through the crack. The queen and the remaining two of her children escaped and lived on my planet for a while, but her majesty soon fell ill from shock and grief and died from her own depression a century later. But her two children are both alive, we can presume, although one of them disappeared and hasn’t been sighted in centuries while the other, the youngest of the seven heirs, isn’t very sociable and tends to keep to himself.”
“Hmm… what’s that youngest kid’s name?”
“Lavimo,” Cirrus answered honestly, not quite sure where this trail of questions was leading them both as he kept acting compliant. “He was the seventh prince of Viscendant. Ruba… um, she prophesied that once I restored reality, and once I restored all of the broken worlds as well, he would become the new king of this planet. So even though he’s slightly younger than me, we grew up together for a large portion of our lives. My mother believed that if he were going to rule someday, he needed to be prepared, even if his own parents could no longer do that for him.”
“I see… so you’re essentially surrogate brothers, then?”
“Well, I suppose you could say that… Viscendant was Lilino’s sister planet, so he’s actually my biological cousin… but, um…”
“Do you not get along?” Feather drilled him, not giving him enough time to process the questions as Cirrus began to get a little frazzled.
“I, well, I try to get along with him, of course. I like to think we're fairly close, and he at least acts excited to talk to me… he’s always following me around and asking me questions, so I’d say we have a very good relationship to each other. Why does this interest you?” he attempted to turn things around, Feather’s mind slowing by a large margin as he began to feel a bit overwhelmed with a new sense of dread.
This might sound almost petty of him, but he was trying to figure out if those people might end up wanting to kill him later. After all, he was probably the reason their world had been destroyed, thus killing over half of their family. The fact that the older sibling had disappeared somewhere was also worrying… Feather didn’t like the idea that he might be being hunted. Still, he couldn’t exactly say that to Cirrus.
“I’m just trying to figure out what the survivors of this world ended up like,” he lied smoothly, tracing more hearts against the white bone before he stood up and kicked it all over with his boot. Ah, but Kya was most likely right in her theory as well, he doubted it was solely because of him. Otherwise there would’ve been more consequences to the other people who’d tried using the concept of anything before him. That must’ve stockpiled over time, as well. But regardless, that didn’t matter right now, so… “Let’s go explore!” he suddenly smiled at Cirrus, who merely paled at the clear excitement in his tone as Feather began leading the way, leaving him no other option but to follow. After all, he didn’t know about the other, but Cirrus would most certainly lose his sanity if he was left on this ruined landscape all alone.
“Um… I’m not sure there’s much here to explore anymore,” he attempted to say, but Feather didn’t seem to be listening while he kicked the ash with a grin, letting out a loud laugh before he started to run. “Ah, hey… wait, where are you going?!”
“To explore! I wanna see the remnants of the royal castle over there!” Feather laughed behind him, turning around to spin a few times before he nearly tripped, kicking up mounds of black ash against the white bone as he stumbled giddily. Cirrus honestly didn’t understand where this manic energy came from, especially in a place like this…
“How do you know we’re even close to the castle? There’s no way to tell what those ruins actually are!” he tried hopelessly, forcing himself to start with a fast jog just so he wouldn’t lose sight of the chaotic blond. He couldn’t even figure out if this expedition was helping to get Feather on their side, as the other didn’t seem to have taken things all that seriously…
But Feather just continued to laugh at him, finally coming to a stop when he entered tall stony ruins, smiling widely as he flashed Cirrus a grin. “I know because you’re a prince. You probably teleported us to the spot you’re most used to, right? Which would obviously be close to where the palace used to be, a place you would've visited often,” he pointed out knowledgeably, and Cirrus was a bit dumbfounded at how on point that was as he followed Feather through the ruins.
The stone that must have once built a gothic castle was now crumbling without a form, the spires having fallen to the ground before being covered in dark, dark ash. Feather didn’t really know what he was looking for in all of this, but he kept striding forward with confidence as he examined what was left behind and what had already been decayed by the falling ash.
“Cirrus, is this ash poisonous?” he asked after a moment, brushing some of it off his shoulders as he paused, the other man coming up right behind him with a frown.
“Yes, but not immediately. Its effects are known to weaken someone's immortality if they come into contact with it for too long a time, or if someone were to somehow ingest it or breathe it in, but it won’t harm us if we’re only here for a day.”
“Interesting… I see,” Feather merely grinned, which greatly unsettled his unwilling companion as they kept walking through the broken castle whose ceiling had already been utterly destroyed with the walls having lowered and molded into the bone, leaving nowhere to escape the shining black sun. But there had to be something that was still intact, Feather suspected… he just needed to find a way to go underground… and after another half hour of aimlessly walking and exploring, he finally came to a spot that looked pretty damn likely. There were leftovers of what looked like tubes and vials, along with other scientific equipment and some useless books. There was glass scattered along the ground, the walls of the large testing room molded into the floor as a large metal table sat broken and half overcome by the white bone it was sinking into. How enticing. At the wonderful sight, Feather didn’t hesitate to kick away more of the ash and broken glass to reveal more white bone underneath in the very center of the old room, smiling like a maniac as he turned towards Cirrus.
“Hey,” he said to the prince rather rudely, the poor man flinching at the sudden tone.
“Ah, yes?”
“Break this bone. There’s something underneath.”
“Huh? B… break it? Wait, how do you know that?” Cirrus winced, looking at the spot Feather had cleared away as he watched the blond kneel down to pat it. “This is just the same bone that’s everywhere. It’s what the ground has been replaced with in these worlds. There’s no way to break it.”
“Yeah, okay, maybe that’s what people think, but look around you!” Feather spoke with wide blue eyes that captured the entire white sky in their depths, the man eagerly going to grasp Cirrus’ hand as he dragged him down to the ground to meet him, grabbing the prince’s shoulder with a tight grip as he pointed back to the uncovered bone with his other hand. “We’re clearly in what used to be a laboratory, judging by this building’s structure and what we can see was left behind! If this laboratory has an underground, then this would have to be the entrance underneath this bone! There’s something under here, Cirrus, so just hurry up and smash it to bits!” he gleamed crazily, scooting himself closer to be up in the prince’s face while the man only winced, trying not to feel too flustered or intimidated by their proximity before he used a hand to push Feather back.
“Alright, I get it. But why would you want to do that?” he sighed, needing a hand to massage his temple as he stared back down at the bone. “This world is just a wasteland. Even if there was something under here before, it’s probably just dead space now,” he tried to point out with sense, but Feather’s hand just squeezed his shoulder tighter as he threw his face into Cirrus’ chest.
“No way!! No way, no way, no way, no way!! There’s gotta be something under here, please break it!! I wanna see!! Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please—”
“Um, Feather…”
“Please, please, PLEASE, please, please, PLEASE, please—” his begging only became louder, continuing to bang his head on Cirrus’ shoulder as the tall prince blanched, already feeling far too overwhelmed with everything going on, all while the bratty blond he was handling didn’t make things any easier. “Please, please, please, please, please, please, please… pretty please, please, please—!!”
“Mmgh, okay, fine, I’ll try and break it!!” Cirrus conceded just to make him stop, taking Feather by his shoulders and pushing him off again with more force, the blond giving him the most innocent, joyful smile he’d ever seen on a person. It was pure not in the sense that it was good or kind, but in the sense that it was filled with such a pure unbridled sense of joy it was intimidating.
“Yessss, yay!! You’re amazing, Cirrus!!” Feather flattered him, eagerly moving behind him to watch as the prince could only stare tiredly at the bone. He really didn’t know what he was doing.
There had been teams sent out to explore this world, of course, but every one of them said the bone was unbreakable. No matter what concept had been thrown at it, they could no longer dig underground, as if there was simply nothing underneath the world anymore to discover. No one was really certain if reality’s collapse had just removed the earth’s core or what had happened to underground buildings, but, well… he didn’t think Feather would let him move or go home if he didn’t at least try. And giving something a try never hurt anyone, even if you thought it would be impossible.
Feather must’ve sensed his insecurity, because he eventually laid another eager hand on Cirrus’ shoulder, giving him another wide smile before he offered some words of encouragement. “Don’t worry! Concepts are stronger when you believe in them with everything you have! If you believe your ice concept is stronger than that bone, you can do anything with it. And remember, something used to be underneath there… there’s no way it just disappeared because a little bit of bone was put on top of it, right? Think about what’s hiding under there! It could be important!” Feather squealed, Cirrus blinking at him in uncertainty as the blond tilted his head, eyes still wide and full of that giddy joy of making a new discovery. “And plus, you’re the man of prophecy. I’ve never liked prophecies all that much, but you’re different. You take all of that on willingly. So don’t you think that if anyone can do it, it would be you?”
“Ah…” the prince blinked, his visible amber eye wavering before he turned back to the bone beneath him. That’s right… he was the one the prophecy spoke about. He was the one foretold to stop this mess, to fix reality, and to restore all of these destroyed planets back to their former glory. Feather was insane, but Cirrus could already see his incredible intelligence, and also bits of wisdom he hadn’t been expecting to see displayed so openly… because the man was right. Cirrus was the one the prophets had spoken of. If anyone could break this unbreakable bone, it was him. “Alright, here goes…” he breathed in, taking his ice concept as he felt his body grow much colder, and in his intense focus, he barely noticed how Feather let go and moved farther away. He felt the ice build up on his dominant arm, cold frozen crystals growing on his fist and off the point of his elbow as the bone below him began to freeze over, before his focus landed so hard that the moment he punched the solid bone, it broke and snapped in two.
Coming back to his senses was almost shocking, and Cirrus didn’t know how to process the fact that the bone had actually broken when he punched it. He’d covered it in ice to make it more brittle, as well, but… still, it surprised him. Though Feather just laughed in his face, moving past to be on his warmer side as he easily slipped into the large hole Cirrus had created, smiling widely while encouraging, “Come on, let’s go exploring for real! Don’t look so surprised that you broke it, it makes you look stupid!”
“Ah… right, sorry,” Cirrus apologized, taken aback by the boldness as he followed Feather’s lead, jumping down the hole with his fingers slipping on black ink that was smeared on the ground he landed on, standing up from his squat before glancing at the new black smudges that now covered his milky chocolate skin. And perhaps this was where their first adventure together truly began… inside this underground facility that no one had been able to reach in over four centuries. What would they find inside, he wondered? Was the bone of this ruined planet really hiding something important? Either way, no matter what Feather might think… to Cirrus, the room above them had just looked like a regular laboratory, nothing entirely special. And yet, whatever the case was, or whatever the truth may end up being, if there really was something down here to be discovered, Feather was dead set on finding out what… and Cirrus could do nothing else but follow.
