abraxaslogs | [open] wasn't it easier in your firefly-catching days

As fall deepens, it drags with it a certain weight. Fall will always reek of burning skies and lives extinguished. The Thornean queen's violent whims may have been the spark that ignited the flames, but Wilhelm still carries the guilt of burning the card that broke the spell that should have protected Grigory Jannus. He doesn't know if he'll ever fully put it to rest.

The cooling weather pulls him back to the days after his brother's death, a muddled confusion that seemed to tumble by without him. The changing leaves remind him of falling in love. All the trees are the color of secret glances and stolen afternoons and everything he misses.

Like colliding stormfronts, all these emotions feed into his loneliness. That constant companion he has never learned to live with. So, maybe that's got something to with his haphazard suggestion to Kelson, over another round of drinks, that they should be roommates. Wilhelm meant it as a joke. They're already working the courier gig together, so why not add another thing?

Except, it's not really a joke. He'd gotten used to having Elrond around, a steady presence to temper his volatile everything. Now that he's gone, Wilhelm's room feels too big. Too empty.

Well, in any case, Kelson misses that it's supposed to be a joke. Or maybe he innately understands that it isn't. He agrees.

Now that Wilhelm is pushing through the door to his room with an armload of Kelson's things, he begins to question the wisdom of inviting a gorgeous boy, who is in all likelihood straight, to share a room with him. But it's already in motion, and it's probably fine.

"You can take whichever bed you want," he invites, tipping his chin toward the three pristine beds standing at intervals around the room. The fourth bed, half made and guarded by a pile of discarded clothes, is obviously his.

Each season for Kelson also brought sorrow. Fall was his father's death, and his own coronation. His mother's harsh words before she ran away from him and her own problems. Winter was a sorrow unto itself. He couldn't imagine celebrating holidays without the memory of his murdered wife of a whole 20 seconds encroaching on his thoughts. Or his second betrothed who also was not to be. So much blood had been spilled to let him accomplish and live. It wasn't fair. He wasn't worth it, was he?

He looked over the beds and picked one at random, dumping what he himself was carrying onto it and nodded for Wilhelm to do the same.

"Thanks, I'm not used to sleeping alone anymore." Usually there were squires and guards and people milling about and around. He was never alone. Except here. And now once again, he wasn't. Back to normalcy?

Unable or unwilling to let himself stop, he started organizing what items were dropped on the bed. Folding, moving, sorting. Kelson eyed Wille's clothes pile, thinking he was either used to servants or never had Kelson's uncle Nigel berating him for not cleaning up after himself.

"Did you always organize your clothing like that or are you just rebelling now that you're here?"

Following Kelson's lead, he sets his load on the bed. Silently, he's glad it's not the one that used to belong to Elrond. It would be nice to have a little space carved out to hold the elf's memory.

Now his expression turns sheepish, and his eyes slide to the disorder around his own bed. Kelson is half right. He was used to servants in his old life, but he tried to tidy up after himself too, because his parents stressed the importance of discipline. Because it just felt like the right thing to do. The mess is a symptom and side effect of his depression, which hits hard and takes days, weeks to lift.

"It doesn't look like it, but it's actually a super complicated and, um, efficient way to organize things."

Even as he stumbles through this retort, Wilhelm crosses the room to start picking things up. Never mind that he's tossing clothes into his trunk unfolded. It's a start.

The rest of the room is in good shape. The mantel over the fireplace is decorated with a collection of knick-knacks: a snow globe, a frog carved out of wood, and another frog made of black and blue blown glass. A vase filled with dead flowers, which Elrond picked and Wilhelm hasn't been able to throw out.

Kelson notices the flowers, and makes note of them but doesn't say anything. Instead, he just smiles. He folds some of his own things, giving Wilhelm a minute to himself.

"I shouldn't exactly talk. Back home I have servants whose express purpose is to bathe and dress me." He paused, smirking. "We're talking multiple people. If you want to rebel by throwing things in a pile, by all means do so." He still wasn't sure what Wille's background was, but he thought for sure it was something similar to his own. At least there was something about him that screamed nobility. Or at least, noble upbringing. There were too many subjects they'd found themselves agreeing on, mirroring each other.

He was sure his many of his own people would have had a fit at what he just said. But, they couldn't hear him and they didn't know the pains that such a role played on the mind as well as the body. The strain, the headache.

By now, he's all but certain that Kelson is royalty. Was royalty, in his old life — a mantle that, although heavy on his shoulders, Kelson is not as eager to cast aside as Wilhelm was. He also gets the sense that the other boy comes from a different sort of time from him, and now that suspicion solidifies into certainty too. The image of a prince surrounded by servants, scrubbed and washed, rubbed with perfumes and wrapped in fine clothes, is something out of a movie set in a century long gone.

For a second, all he can do is shake his head and chuckle in disbelief. It was bad enough having body guards shadowing him everywhere he went. He would go insane under that level of coddling.

"I hope you've figured out how to bathe yourself by now." He looks up from the shirt he's shaking out for inspection, eyes warm with mirth. "Because I'm not helping you with that."

Kelson outright laughed at that one, it almost reminded him of himself. When he found out he had to have dressers. " I was quite capable of bathing and dressing myself for a whole fourteen years. But, I was told, it was just one of those things I was going to have to 'get used to.' And get this, that my mind shouldn't be cluttered up by the mechanics of bathing and dressing." He rolled his eyes at that.

But, Kelson had gotten used to it. It just goes to show that maybe you can get used to anything, if you have too. How adaptable people are to their circumstances. "I take it you've never had the ....privilege of needing dressers? How about guards to follow you to the privy?" At least they let him pee by himself?

Being king meant having a lot of power. And almost none of it for yourself.

He rolls his eyes in solidarity with Kelson. Those on the outside might see their complaints as the whining of spoiled brats. They had wealth and status and, ostensibly, power — wasn't that enough of a salve for everything else? But Kelson understands better than anyone that all the expectations that come with the wealth and status and power are a prison. A life sentence.

"Yeah, because getting dressed takes up so much brain power."

Deeming the shirt clean enough, he haphazardly folds it and tosses it into the trunk.

"My parents actually trusted me to do that by myself, believe it or not," Wilhelm jokes. "But I had body guards following me everywhere."

Only after he became Crown Prince, the only remaining heir to the throne, and it suddenly mattered to the future of the country whether he lived or died. He hadn't had to put up with it for long before he crashed into this world. But he thinks that even if he'd had body guards from a much smaller age, he wouldn't have gotten used to it.

"I did try to ditch them." A grin turns up the corners of his lips. "It worked, a few times."

"Doesn't it? I do admit having dressers for my coronation was.....useful, even if I didn't see it at the time. I was wearing something I'd never seen before, much less knew how to put on. I believe I threw quite a fit. And stuck out my tongue. It was absolutely the display of maturity everyone had hoped for."

He thought Wille would understand. Being thrust into a role you felt completely unprepared for. Or at least would have come much, much, much later. But it didn't, his father died when he was only thirteen and that was life. It had been much harder than Kelson had expected.

"You'll have to teach me how you did that." Kelson eyes Wilhelm for a good thirty seconds, stealing himself. He was just going to say it. And ask.

"We've been dancing around this a while, Wilhelm." His voice changed, from casual to not quite stern, but expecting himself to be heard, listened too. " I'm Kelson Haldane, King of Gwynedd," Okay, that was his short title, but he was pretty sure Wille didn't need the entire thing. "And I suspect you are royalty as well, if not nobility. So which is it Wilhelm." It was not a question.

Edited (slight edit an addition) 2023-11-26 04:43 (UTC)

For all his certainty about Kelson's status, coronation still throws him off. He'd assumed that because Kelson is around the same age as him, he must be a prince in line for the chopping block — the throne — too. It hadn't occurred to him that his father or mother might already have died, that the full weight of his country might already press on his shoulders.

He wonders how young Kelson was. His heart knots up in sympathy even as he puffs out a dry whisper of a laugh at the display of maturity everyone had hoped for. Wilhelm knows exactly how it feels to disappoint a whole country. They'd wanted Erik, and they got him instead.

Feeling Kelson's eyes on him, he looks up. Whatever story about sneaking out of windows he'd started putting together fizzles out on his tongue. So, cutting right to the quick, then. It's not that he's hiding his title. It's just that it's a relic of his old life, and he's trying to make the most of his new life.

"Crown Prince Wilhelm of Sweden," he rattles off in the bored tone of an insubordinate student made to recite the rules he's broken. Sighing, he rolls his eyes. "Shit, Ambrose must have a thing for royalty."

That tone right there Wilhelm? They were going to have to fix that. Kelson would not be able to live with himself if Wille got sent home to...where ever Sweden was, and he still was using that tone of voice. They were going to have to start somewhere, you certainly seemed to have a long way to go.

"Crown Price." Kelson repeated. He would have guessed royalty. He would have guessed second or third in line, not the heir. Wilhelm did not come off as someone who had been trained from birth to be next in line for the throne. He reminded him almost of Liam, thrust into the role after an...unfortunate accident befell his older brother.

"You think Ambrose is summoning royalty on purpose?" They'd talk about that tone of voice later, Wille. Kelson continued to put his things away.

"And thank you for trusting me."

Excuse you, he knows what tone of voice he's supposed to use to project confidence and authority and whatever the hell else people would want from him. —Well, okay, he hasn't actually figured out how to fit all of those things into his own voice, but he grasps the general theory. And he knows what tone would cause more grey hairs for his mom if he ever used it during a state function or televised interview. That's why he's using it here, in a private room, literal worlds away.

"There's you and me," he counts off on his fingers. "There's Rhy and Kell." Two more fingers. "There's..."

He trails off, realizing he's run out of names. He passes a hand through his hair.

"More than you'd expect, anyway."

While Kelson continues settling in, Wilhelm gives up on sorting his clothes and transfers the whole pile to the trunk. Closing the lid, he comes over to perch on the edge of Kelson's bed with hands knotted between his knees.

"Why wouldn't I trust you?" They have a built-in understanding informed by their mirrored paths. "It's not like it's a big secret."

Edited 2023-11-27 01:01 (UTC)

Teaching had been a hell of a lot easier when he had an entire court around him, Liam could watch and learn and eventually mimic and try his own spin. This would undoubtably be more difficult--also Wilhelm was not Liam. Liam wanted to be a good king eventually. Also, Liam had been 10. As for his mother? Well, Kelson knew a lot about that too. That might be lesson number two.

If Kelson didn't know better, he would have thought someone was summoning royalty as a 'just in case' scenario. But he did know better and he certainly wasn't going to say that out loud, especially within Castle Thorne. Instead, he just said "That is a lot."

"It seemed like you didn't want too. That you wanted to keep your past in your past, and viewed your future as here. Unless I'm mistaken?"

The thing is, if Wilhelm had to be king, he would want to be the best king he could be. He would try. For the sake of his brother, if nothing else, the memory of whom commands a sense of duty and loyalty stronger than any stupid crown ever could. But that's just it: he won't have to be king, as long as he stays here.

"Well, yeah," he shrugs. He shakes his head, hair flopping. "I mean, no, you're not mistaken. But I wasn't going to lie to you."

Even if lying didn't spawn more problems than it side-steps, there's the simple fact that Kelson understands in a way that so few can all the complications that come with a title. He's not going to be intimidated by it. He's not going to try to ingratiate himself to Wilhelm because of it. This piece of Wilhelm's past is safe with him.

That was called hiding, Wilhelm. Kelson knew it well. He was good at it. It was what he did whenever someone brought up the subject of marriage or tried to introduce him to their cousin's sister's husband's niece. He ran. Until he no longer good.

Kelson let a small smile break his facade. Good. That was a start. "Good, I could tell you know. If you lied." It was probably something that he should admit to Wilhelm now, before anything else happened. He deserved to know. "But I know you wouldn't. It wasn't out of malice that you were keeping it hidden."

He shifted, noticing his own change in demeanor and really trying to not sink back into the role of King of Gwynedd rather than Kelson. But he couldn't. Not yet. Not until he got answers. " What do you think will happen to your kingdom if you don't go back?"

A ripple of surprise passes through his expression as Kelson supplies the very useful fact that he's a human lie detector. Wilhelm knows about the kind of magic you sharpen with your mind. He himself has learned the basics of mental defense from Istredd, and the Singularity has bestowed on him the power to shove some of his emotions into somebody else's head. That one he has mostly used by accident. It feels like a violation, an invasion. So he appreciates Kelson's honesty about his own abilities.

He wants to ask more, but Kelson's question commands an answer first. He feels the shift in Kelson, from a boy just coming into manhood to something stiffer and stalwart. It reminds him of how Erik, standing before the public, would shift from his big brother to the Crown Prince. Wilhelm never learned how to pull off the transformation.

"I don't know," he begins, buying time. The truth is, he has avoided pondering the question, because that weight is not his to haul anymore. "I guess...things would be chaotic for a little while, but my mom would figure out another heir. A cousin, or something."

A grimace, nose wrinkling, as he remembers August. He hasn't thought about the asshole in a while. His shoulders bunch in a shrug.

"Honestly, the country is probably...pretty much running as usual without me."

Edited 2023-12-05 02:47 (UTC)

Ahh, so Wilhelm wasn't expecting that kind of magic from Kelson. Kelson didn't know why he was surprised, it wasn't as if he had been upfront about his abilities. Even here he was still pretty guarded. He wondered how he would feel about him if he learned everything. His own people were scared of him, he hated to think that Wilhelm might be too.

He noted how the other paused, played with his words, trying to match words to thoughts that he hadn't prepared.

"And how well do you think this cousin would do? Someone who hadn't been prepared for the throne, who hadn't been taught. Someone plucked out of the family tree for no other reason than an accident of their birth and a tragedy that befell the family."

He could tell Wille exactly how well that would have worked. Kelson had just finished beheading his cousin before he had been summoned here. He took a breath, forcing himself to relax and not be King of Gwynedd right now.

" Why do you think your own kingdom is running better, or as usual, without you?"

Edited (spacing) 2023-12-05 03:10 (UTC)

That strikes a match in him. His shoulders tighten, his expression cracks and hardens, and his words pour as easily as smoke.

"I wasn't fucking prepared either. My brother...got in a fucking car crash, and suddenly everything was different. I was Crown Prince."

All it took was one phone call, and his life twisted into something that happened outside of himself. Like in nightmares which render your limbs immobile as terror converges on you. It's been more than a year since his mom, softened with sympathy in the immediate wake of Erik's death, lamented that he had no time to prepare for a thing that she had known from birth would be hers to shoulder — and in the next breath, reminded him that, with every step he took for the rest of his life, he would always be compared to his brother. Back then, he didn't know what to do but bow his head and try not to be crushed under the weight of everything he was taking on.

Now, he knows he has another choice. Wilhelm lurches to his feet, cutting an exasperated gesture with his hand.

"I don't care what's happening in my country without me. I'm serious, I don't care. I never asked to be put in that position. I never...I never asked for any of it. It's not my problem anymore, and you can't guilt me into thinking that it is."

Kelson stayed seated, realizing he couldn't answer Wilhelm and continue on as Kelson. Kelson might agree. Kelson might care. Kelson might get angry back. He slipped back into King of Gwynedd, his own face emotionless as Wille stood and screamed out his frustration. His own face was impassive, his hands folded in his lap. He waited a few moments, waiting for the prince to finish his tantrum. When it became clear Wilhelm had finished, he raised his hand.

Wilhelm was absolutely not prepared. At all. If Kelson could goad him with a few words, what would he do with an entire kingdom? The answer horrified Kelson, even more than the knowledge that his mother had a spare prince she never bothered to actually prepare in the event of him needing to step up.

"I do know what it's like for your life to change in a moment." When Kelson finally did speak, his voice was calm, level, in sharp contrast to the tirade the other boy just raised. "To be unprepared for what has been laid before you. You have been faced with a choice, and now, given the opportunity, you are choosing to flee." He paused again, his face utterly impassive, although Kelson's resting bitch face was not a happy one. His opinion of Wilhelm was originally one of good nature. He did think he could help him. But not if he didn't want the help. He did not like the choices the other was choosing.

" At the very least you do yourself a disservice in doubting not only your own abilities, but any connections you had back home. You learned. You did. Maybe not to the extent as your elder brother, but what did you learn by watching him? By being next to him? My father had me sit in court when I was old enough to sit up unaided. Was an infant at that age an active participant? Of course not. But I still learned. You may not like it Wilhelm, but you were prepared, at least more than anyone else in your family."

What he wanted to say was 'stop being a child Wille!' but he was quite sure that also wouldn't go over well. Instead, he stays seated, looking up at the prince with that impassive, almost furious stare.

"No one ever asks to be put in any position. It's how we react that defines us." And he has quite seen how you reacted. And he did not like it.

No one ever asks for this, his mother's voice cuts through him. Suddenly, it's as if all the progress he's made toward becoming someone he actually wants to be — and it wasn't much, but it was hard-fought and hard-earned — has been ripped away from him. After all this time, he's right back where he began: defending his feelings against someone who would minimize their weight, who would rather he keep that shit to himself in the name of duty.

If Kelson is coming from a place of concern, Wilhelm is too upset to realize it. His hands hang in fists at his sides, holding in the urge to knock that granite look off of Kelson's face.

"I'm not running away from anything," he insists, as much to himself as to Kelson. "I'm just choosing myself. I'm allowed to do that. Nobody else ever fucking did."

When it came down to it, his mother chose protecting the family's reputation over protecting her own son. His life was ruined, his privacy violated, but it didn't matter. Avoiding a publicity mess — wiping away a potential stain on their legacy — was more important. This is an old wound, but it never got a chance to heal. And now, Kelson's infuriatingly calm words are bluntly prodding at it.

Kelson actually flinched. Maybe it was the words Wilhelm spoke, maybe it was the upcoming holidays, but he remembered everything that had been ripped from him too, the duty that was strangling him even as he continued to feed it. He too had once fought, screamed and yes, ran, trying to escape. He was still running. But only from some of it. Wilhelm was running from all of it.

He watches Wilhelm's hands, curled into fists and was at least respectful of the willpower that must have taken. While he didn't know the details of exactly what Wilhelm and his family had gone through, he could guess in broad strokes. Things weren't that different. He tried a different approach.

"You are running." God he was a complete and utter hypocrite. "I tried to choose myself too once." In a way he still was, otherwise he'd have picked any of the eligible brides brought before him and that would be one less very big problem on his horizon. But he hadn't. "I suppose I still am. I can't say it's going to well Wilhelm. I don't know what your future is, but I know what it could be. And I know what you don't want it to be, what will happen if you're not careful, if you're not prepared. It may look bad now Wille, but, it can get worse."

He took a breath, craning his neck up to see the other since he was still sitting. " Now sit down, so I don't end up with a crick in my neck. Please."

The next argument waits on his tongue like gunpowder, ready to explode, until he's walloped by the recognition that Kelson is fighting the same fight as him. The only difference is the weapons that they've chosen. That please hangs between them for a long moment as Wilhelm casts down whatever sharp words he was going to wield next. His shoulders sag; his fists loosen. Rolling his eyes, he shakes out a sigh. And then he folds himself back onto the foot of the bed.

"Maybe I am running," he finally admits. His gaze points at the ceiling instead of Kelson. "But so what?"

You're allowed to run away from the thing that's going to kill you.

"I'm telling you, my future is here. There's nothing for me back home." Sensing Kelson's incoming rebuttal, he heads him off with a look. "If giving up your own happiness out of some stupid sense of duty is what you really want, then...I can't stop you. But you can't stop me from making my own choice either, Kelson."

Because he's felt it, the unhappiness swelling inside Kelson like an unseen ocean. It infuriates Wilhelm that he wants to cling to his title, his throne, his responsibilities, when he doesn't even seem to like any of it.

Kelson wants to hold his head and scream and cry at the hopelessness in Wilhelm's voice, at the senselessness of the situation he was bringing upon himself. He knew he could fix it. But only if he let him. And, Wille didn't want help. He flashed back to his cousin's head on the chopping block, the 3 strikes it took to put him out of his misery, and the entire horrific mess leading up to the execution. He couldn't save Conall, no matter how hard he tried, he did it to himself. He flashed back to Alroy, dead at fourteen and his ten year old younger brother Kelson took hostage, rather than let him fall to the same fate, unprepared for what was awaiting him. Kelson only hoped Wilhelm wouldn't be caught in the same fate. That his lack of training wouldn't end as horribly as he thought it would.

"You're right. I can't stop you. But I am afraid for you. I wish you'd let me help you but, I can't force you. All I can do is hope you see reason and prepare for whatever circumstances you find yourself in."

If he knew the dire bend of Kelson's thoughts, Wilhelm might reassure him that nobody's been executed in his country since way before he was even born. That the worst that could happen to him, in the event that he fumbles the role as badly as he always feared he would, is a plunge in popularity and a flood of negative press. A different kind of firing squad, maybe, but he would very much get to keep his head.

Although ignorant to Kelson's thoughts, he can see the concern marking his countenance as clearly as bruises. The realization that all of this is rooted in care forces Wilhelm to drop the last of his anger. Reaching across the few feet of bed that separate them, he grabs Kelson's sleeve to tug his hand closer.

"I'll be okay," he promises, fingers still knotted in the fabric above the cuff. "As long as I stay here, it won't matter anyway."

Wilhelm is aware, of course, that he might not have a say in the matter. He pretends that his raw determination to stay will have the strength to bind him to this world.

In Kelson's opinion, that was almost as bad. And something he was used too. He didn't want Wilhelm to be subjected to the same things he had been, whispers behind his back, fear, people literally spitting on the ground in front of him. Just because Gwynedd didn't exactly have a press didn't stop the plunge in his own popularity. There would always be people who didn't approve, it just helped if you didn't give them fuel for the fire. But, both of them had the same sign, the same arcana. Maybe them not adding fuel to the fire was a moot point.

While Wille might have dropped the last of his anger, Kelson is still holding on to his. Mostly because the boy opposite him was a giant pain in the ass.

"You keep saying that as if you have a choice. Sometimes, we have very little choices in our life. You should know that."

His thumb brushes over the back of Kelson's hand and he watches, with a tight mouth, for the monarch to recede back into the boy. Wilhelm liked his expression better when he was teasing him about his messy side of the room and sighing about the tedium of having guards shadow you everywhere.

He doesn't know why it bothers him so much, that from the vantage point of so many mirrored experiences they can't see eye to eye. He thinks it must be because Kelson won't leave it at agree to disagree — he won't accept that Wilhelm's choice is right for him. But something else beats underneath, something lurching and vast like the ocean. Kelson says he's afraid for Wilhelm, but Wilhelm is heartbroken for him.

"I know," he admits quietly. "That's why...I'm going to keep making choices that actually make me happy for as long as I can."

Edited 2024-01-04 00:47 (UTC)

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kingforboth - 2024-01-07 02:26 (UTC) - Expand

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ordinar - 2024-01-13 22:42 (UTC) - Expand

[open] wasn't it easier in your firefly-catching days

kelson - and they were roommates

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