WHO: Younger!Rhy and younger!Alucard, cameo by Anisa Emery (NPC) WHAT: Waking up in bed together, patching things up and then figuring out wtf is going on, in that order (part 1 of 2 logs) WHEN: This morning WHERE: Maresh Palace WARNINGS: Mentions of the abuse, torture, homophobia etc in Alucard's past. I think that's it?
Rhy woke slowly to the unfamiliar sensation of someone beside him as he slept.
It felt like a dream at first, and was at once pleasant and a little unsettling; the person’s presence was warm and comforting, but he didn’t know who it was or how they had gotten there. He hadn’t taken a lover home with him the night before, and even if he had, he wasn’t in the habit of letting them stay the night. If he let them stay, they could leave him anyway, and then he would wake up alone; even though he had not grown attached to any lover since Alucard had left him, he still didn’t need anyone to add insult to his already injured heart. No, it was far better for him to choose when they left. Then he was never abandoned except by his own design.
He drifted towards consciousness, and the body against his became even more solid and real and familiar. There was an awful lot of skin to skin contact. Rhy’s heart squeezed, the broken edges ground together as his senses recognized who it was before his mind did, sending a warning spike of adrenaline through his body to bring him fully awake. He stared at Alucard’s face for a brief moment before it fully sank in that he was here, in Rhy’s bed.
And they were both naked. Had he given in, in a moment of weakness, let Alucard sweep him off his feet again? But he didn’t remember it, that was the scariest part. How could he not remember that? Was he under some kind of enchantment?
He tried to pull away subtly, quickly, but he was tangled in the sheets. He thrashed for a moment and finally managed to get to the edge of the bed, but not before realizing that he’d awakened Alucard. He gripped at the sheet to keep at least his lower half covered.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, with as much royal dignity as he could muster under the circumstances. It wasn’t much. His voice trembled, and he had to clench his fingers to keep them from doing the same.
--
The moment the sheets pulled at him, Alucard awoke. His hand reached for his sword he kept within arm’s reach when he slept but didn’t find it. In fact, the bed was too large to reach it, another person was in it, said person did seem enthused to be in his bed (or whatever bed this was), and as his eyes settled on their naked form, partially covered, said person was Rhy Maresh, crown prince of Arnes. “I would like to know, myself,” Alucard muttered as he took in the regal surroundings he recognized readily as the prince’s room.
One hand wrapped around his other wrist, and Alucard left both hands in his lap. Naked, there wasn’t much he could do to cover them without drawing attention to it. “If this is the time Kell decided to actually track me down and return me to London, a year late isn’t funny,” Alucard declared. Antari magic was the only way he knew to have gone to bed halfway around the empire and wake in Rhy’s bed. He sighed. It was the only possible answer he had, but it wasn’t Kell’s style to mess with his brother. With Alucard? Sure. But not Rhy.
His eyes narrowed on a familiar white cat who leapt onto the bed and meowed loudly at them. “Esa?” he asked. It was downright strange. He pinched his nose and looked at Rhy. “Last I was awake, I was at port weeks away from here. I haven’t sneaked my way into your quarters, Rhy. As much as I wish we had talked back when… this isn’t how I would do it,” Alucard said.
--
Alucard didn’t react how Rhy had expected, which unsettled him even further. He looked genuinely startled, especially with that quick instinct to reach for something that wasn’t there. Somehow Rhy had expected wooing, flirtation, trying to ensnare him again, and he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed or worried by that.
Ultimately all that mattered was that it hurt. Whatever the reason they were here, Alucard clearly didn’t want to be, and he really hadn’t needed the reminder. It hurt enough to distract him from all the other little details that didn’t add up.
“Talked,” he repeated bitterly. “When? Before you left? You had ample opportunity for that. And if you thought me foolish enough to get you out of betraying your country just because we slept together, well. That plan didn’t work out for you, did it?”
He should have called for a guard, but he didn’t. He didn’t want anyone to know Alucard was here. They were unlikely to believe he hadn’t intentionally gotten himself in this situation, and even if they had, would it make them judge him for it any less to know someone or something else had gotten the better of him? Probably not.
“Just go,” he said tiredly, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice. “You already know the way out.”
--
There was a plan. Alucard had determined a way he could legally return to London and make a way to have a conversation with Rhy. It was long and slow and challenging, and it was worth every ounce of effort he put into it. Being deposited nude in Rhy’s bed had not been a part of it. Alucard had inferred that Rhy was angry with him and knew he didn’t understand what had happened. No one did, except those who had done it to him.
“I don’t want you to get me out of anything,” Alucard replied coolly. “I didn’t then, and I don’t now.” The mess wasn’t of his making, save for having been outwitted by Berras, but he was damn well good enough at all the necessary parts to get himself out of his banishment and, patience willing, at least to have Rhy reject him for the right reasons.
He combed his hands through his hair, tidying it so much as that was possible by hand. “I wanted to talk with you, Rhy,” he said. “Not with the thought it would change a single thing that happened with that travesty of a trial. It didn’t care about truth, only the most expedient way to resolve a thorny political situation. Even if no one else heard, even if no one else cared, I wanted you to know the truth. You’d be free to despise or to hate me as much as you do now, but you could at least do so for the right reasons.”
He rose out of the bed and crossed the room. His eyes scanned the place, remembering it clearly, and they snagged on every item Alucard could identify from his ship. Truly, it was an absurd amount of effort for someone to put into a prank that caused injury to someone they cared about. Out of curiosity, he opened the wardrobe. And there he recognized a few of the outfits he’d had made at the start of his banishment. Alucard pulled out a few articles and began to dress. This situation looked stranger and stranger with everything he saw. “What do you say?” Alucard asked as he turned around, still working on securing his clothes that he had found in Rhy’s room. “Wouldn’t you prefer to be accurate in your dislike of me?”
--
Rhy told himself to do something, anything, to regain some of his dignity, but he couldn’t think what that might be. Getting up to follow Alucard brought them closer together again, and revealed his bare skin. He didn’t want to give more of himself away like that, he thought, even as his eyes tracked Alucard around the room. (It was because he was being wary, he told himself. He knew it wasn’t.) He stayed in bed and tried to make it look like it was because this was his place and he had power here, not because he was weak and broken.
He couldn’t make heads or tails of what Alucard meant. What could he possibly say that would change Rhy’s opinion of the situation, for better or worse? He didn’t want to hear it.
But he was also already dreading the way it would feel to watch him leave. At least maybe the excuses would make him angry enough to get through that without feeling worse about himself.
“Fine,” he said, and this time his voice just sounded flat. More defeated than he’d have liked, but it was better than trembling or cracking. “Tell me the truth.”
--
Alucard considered his options for where to tell this story from. He settled to lean against the back of the couch, so he was not standing before Rhy as though this was the throne room. Though… a throne room empty of all but them with Rhy naked on the throne was an appealing mental image. He focused on the matter at hand. For all his tousled undressed state, Rhy was clearly not in the mood to be ravished.
“I have never told anyone that we’ve slept together or that we were lovers,” Alucard spoke softly, kindly. It was not meant as a barb. “I wasn’t with you so other people would know. Quite the opposite, I feared what would happen if they did. More precisely, I feared what my father would do. I’ve known of my inclination and preference for years, and what I had explored of it in London had always been secret—secret from the world, secret from my friends and acquaintances, and most of all secret from my father and brother. My father is what he would call old-fashioned… proper. He expects his children to be what he demands of them. So long as one is, he can act as generous, kind, and benevolent as anyone.”
With care, Alucard began to push up his sleeves. “I don’t know how closely you were paying attention when I was brought to court,” he said, lifting his arms to show the scars wrapped around each wrist. “But these wounds had not been inflicted yet. Reson Emory talked or paid or however else made his way to my cell, heated an iron poker, and held them to the manacles around my wrists. He wanted my vow that I would say not a word about my relationship with you or anyone else I had unnaturally laid with. He wanted me to renounce that such actions meant anything. And he promised, as a bribe should the pain not be reason enough, that he would see no harm or punishment would come to me, if only I made that promise, if only I would live my life as the son he wanted.
“That is not the truth I wanted to speak to you about, when I was brought to court,” Alucard clarified. “After all, it hadn’t happened yet. But it left scars you can see, and you know the palace guard. They would not do such an act themselves. It speaks to the veracity of what I have to say.” Because no one saw the terrible deeds Reson Emery did in the privacy of his own home. Maxim Maresh was king of Arnes. But Reson Emery was king of his estate.
“As I said,” he continued, approaching the point of the matter. “I told no one of us so that he would know nothing of us. I was careful. I went out drinking with friends. I flirted with the barmaids. I occasionally accompanied one out the back of the bar and paid them to take a break, so long as they insinuated they had spent their time with me. And only once I had laid a trail to cover my tracks, I came to you. Here.” He motioned around them. Off though the room was, it was Rhy’s bedroom.
“My father paid little heed to my evening festivities. They were what he expected of me and sometimes even encouraged. But Berras,” Alucard sighed, stood, and began to pace the room. I was still more spacious than his quarters on the Night Spire. “Berras could never please my father, no matter how hard he tried. He’s become more and more like him over time, both with his interest in court and attempt at politics and with his cruelty.” Truly, it was a wise call on the part of all ladies that none had agreed to marry him. Certainly, he wasn’t as appealing an option as the Crown Prince. But he still was third in line for the throne and heir to the second most powerful house in Arnes.
“He grew suspicious. I don’t know when. And that night, the last night I was in this very room, he followed me here. Seeing as you only have a brother, it didn’t matter whom I came to see, it was a man. And that was something worse than the lack of magic to my father, for one could not be chosen and the other could,” Alucard grimaced. “Berras was home before I was, and he told my father before I ever left this room. When I got home, Berras confronted me. I tried to weave around his insinuations, but he was a dog with a bone. And he didn’t matter. My father practically cracked my skull with his cane and made me feel every ounce of his displeasure I could take before I passed out. By the number of ribs I woke up with broken, he continued on some time after that.
“And I woke at sea, in chains, in the belly of a merchant ship he’d had Berras bribe to beat me into proper shape,” Alucard explained. “I didn’t leave you, I was thrown away at sea. My crime, the way I have wronged you, was that I was too afraid to return to London, to anywhere civilized my father’s power reached, to return to you. In the tiny port I found myself, unfed without a coin or the use of my name, piracy was the only other option I had. It was a terrible decision, but the dangers of life at sea — as pirate or privateer — are less terrifying than those of my own father. And I was too much of a coward to brave it for the chance to see you and to let you know I had not left you of my own choice.”
--
Those were dangerous allegations to lay against Reson Emery, and yet they had a ring of truth to them. Rhy reflected back on the night he had come to report his son missing, and when Alucard had been brought back on charges. He’d been distracted by his own emotions then, but that meant he remembered it well, and it was not so long ago. Yes, there had been something… off about Reson’s expression, not quite right for a loving father. He had felt it then and he remembered it now.
And in spite of Alucard saying that he didn’t want Rhy’s help with any of this, Rhy felt the pull of a wrong that needed to be righted, and in its wake, a flicker of fear. Reson wouldn’t have done this to them, but he was still here in London, and now Alucard was here again, had been in his bed. It probably wouldn’t matter to him that nothing had happened, he would try to hurt Alucard again.
“That’s enough,” he said, after he found his voice; his mouth had gone dry. “I’ve heard enough. If what you say is true, you’re risking your life every moment that you’re here.” His head felt clear, finally. He believed that he hadn’t been made a fool of, which didn’t really tell him where he stood with Alucard (though the possibilities there were making his heartbeat unsteady), but that was far less important than his safety.
He looked around the room, finally seeing it for the first time, searching for clues of who might have done this to them and how much danger they were in. And then his attention snagged on the giant portrait hanging on the wall across from the bed. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened slightly in surprise. Faintly, he managed to say, “Presuming, of course, that he doesn’t… we haven’t…”
He couldn’t find the words. He merely gestured to it to make his point.
--
Alucard glanced at the rather magnificent if large artwork of them Rhy’s attention had momentarily been distracted by. He rather liked it, though the piece was premature. “You haven’t pissed off any antari with a dark sense of humor have you?” Alucard asked. He waved away the question. It wasn’t the point.
He had stopped pacing, watching Rhy react once he was done, and Alucard stepped closer. Not so close as to crowd Rhy or presume too much about them. But closer. “I was afraid he would kill me after he ambushed me and sent me to sea. I was afraid he would kill me when he visited me in my cell,” Alucard said. “But I’ve had some time at sea. I’ve fought pirates and spent the first months of my life free from his grasp.” He was smiling now, strong and sure of himself.
“While I acknowledge the risk is real, I refuse to be captive to the yoke of fear. Getting caught in London would be inconvenient, as I doubt it would win me any favors with your father. But my father will find I remain as uncowed as I was in my cell and I am rather more difficult to injure or kill when I am prepared,” Alucard said. He sighed. “I’m here, in your room, without Berras watching. I, for one, would like to make the most of this most unexpected happenstance before I must go.” He said it without salacious intent. Rhy was an incredible beauty to see, and Alucard had imagined many times what he would do if they were ever naked in a room together, but reforging their bond mattered more. If all went well, they would have the rest of their lives to ravish each other.
--
Rhy found it more difficult to stop looking at the portrait, especially their faces. The likeness was exquisite, and yet not quite perfect; they looked older, particularly Alucard, who had been painted with silvery lines on his face, throat, and hands.
And there were rings on his hand that Rhy hadn’t seen before, except for a few moments ago, when Alucard had shown him his wrists. He looked at Alucard’s hands again, and then back at the painting. They were the same, and when he looked down at his own hands, he had one too.
He didn’t know what to make of it, and before he could say anything, he became aware that Alucard had come closer. He blushed, not just in his cheeks but all the way down his throat and into his chest. His hands grasped the sheets to ensure they had not moved, still covered him from the hips down, not that it made him feel any less exposed.
“Suppose we did,” he managed to say, “What then? You would still leave again.” Whether because he had to, because he was banished, or by choice. And Rhy would be left picking up the pieces, again.
--
It was a sticky point, and as he had disappeared without explanation, Alucard knew it had to be an especially painful one for Rhy. He yearned to stay with Rhy, to convince the king and queen that he was the best magician in three kingdoms and worthy of their son’s hand. But such matters could not be done in a single conversation. And what conversation it took required planning and maneuvering, so as to make his points. It could not be done that day, nor the day after or the one after that. And as he had said, he did not wish King Maxim to think him any more traitorous, impertinent, or rebellious by being spotted in London. In the palace itself.
Still, Alucard had a plan. He knew it wouldn’t be forever. Not so long as he continued his work on it and stayed alive. “Only for a while, a couple years at most,” Alucard said, “and if someone wanted to make that shorter, I would arrange for that as much as I am able. It couldn’t be often, likely twice a year, but I would not be leaving you. I would only be making my long way back.” He smiled softly, bittersweet. “A banishment is no small thing to overcome.”
--
Two years.
Rhy’s stomach dropped. That was such a long time to contemplate, and most of it spent alone. He wanted to take this story to his father, undo the banishment now, whether Alucard wanted his help or not.
But he knew how that would go. He licked his dry lips. “Even if I wanted to help,” which he did, but Alucard didn’t need to know how badly, “And if you wanted my help, my father doesn’t trust my judgment in regards to you.”
And in truth, Rhy couldn’t blame him. He could see how this would look to literally anyone else, Alucard coming back and spinning a sweet story, Rhy falling for it immediately. As soon as Alucard was gone, Rhy knew he would start to fear they were right, and it was possible those fears would get the better of him. He let himself look at Alucard, caught between the impossible strength of his attraction and feelings for him, the ring of truth in his story, and the voice in his mind that sounded like his father, calling him weak, soft, reckless, easily fooled.
“I don’t see how you could overcome it from afar,” he added, voice soft.
--
“I saw the way they looked at you,” Alucard said. “You are strong and powerful, and more incredibly you are kind and fair and open to the world around you. You are not stuck in a circle of violence. And I would not have you weaken yourself at court or in your parents’ eyes on my account. They would be wrong, but you would be the one to pay the consequences.” He wanted to reach out and take Rhy’s hand, but it was not yet his place to do so.
He stood there, only a short ways away. There should Rhy want more of him. “I do not plan to,” Alucard answered simply. “You have ruined the surprise. But my father caused me to miss the Essen Tasch — I was invited to represent Arnes — last year. By right, I can audition for the next one.” He smiled, sharp and fierce and proud.
“I have enough humility to admit I likely would not have won that tournament,” he said, “but I have enough pride to declare I will win the next. And the determination and time to match my claim.” He turned and made a striking silhouette. “I am not simply freeing Arnesian waters of pirates for love of crown and country. I am sharpening my skills and becoming a stronger magician for it. It’s no longer just a sport, a show of skill. It’s life and death. And at the Essen Tasch, the prize is my freedom and a chance for the life I want.”
--
Oh, Rhy wanted more of him; he couldn’t seem to help himself. And even more than wanting Alucard, he wanted to believe the picture Alucard painted of him, a symbol of strength and power. That had been part of the draw to Alucard: how good he made Rhy feel about himself. And in turn, that was the worst part about losing him, the belief that it was all manipulation, none of it real, and Rhy a fool for falling for it.
He got out of bed, finally; he cared less now about his naked body being seen than about being on the same footing as Alucard. No, he wanted to be seen, too; he wanted to see how Alucard looked at him, reacted to him, if it cracked his composure. He also wanted to kiss that sharp, fierce, proud smile, but he didn’t, not yet.
“And when you have your freedom,” he said, this time in a different kind of low voice, “What will you do with it?”
--
Though he could see so much of Rhy, Alucard impressively managed to hold his gaze on Rhy’s face. It had been intoxicating to speak the words aloud — the broad brush of the plan he had formulated and even then was working on. Rhy’s question was not a surprise. Alucard had thought many long hours on what would come next. It simply had depended on so much that was outside his control. Mareshes were not the easiest family to prove himself worthy of, and he started at a disadvantage.
His heart thundered. Again, it was so early, and Alucard had not done all the work necessary to be prepared for what came next. “To court a prince, not because he is a prince but the man I love,” Alucard said, his voice so much more confident than he felt. “And as he is a prince, to masterly play the politics of court such intentions necessitate. Else I could not be a match for all of him in his entirety.” It sounded cocky and foolish. And glad he was that he would not yet be held to that standard. Alucard had time. He needed time. He wasn’t enough, yet, to marry a prince. But he would be.
--
Rhy was a little disappointed that Alucard didn’t take in the view, but he could see the effort it cost him to resist, and that was flattering, too. His heart stopped for a moment, fluttered, at those three words: man I love. He felt like someone Alucard could love, someone worthy of being courted by a champion of the Essen Tasch. He wanted to take hold of this feeling in both hands and never let it go.
“A prince would be very lucky to be courted by you,” he said, low, teasing. It was the only way he knew how to respond to such a statement. “I hope it’s me. Otherwise I’ll be very jealous of this other, mysterious prince.”
He reached out, took hold of Alucard’s hand -- the one wearing the rings he’d noticed in the painting. One silver and gold, set with a beautiful ruby; the other a white gold, engraved with flowers and set with diamonds. The second one matched the ring on his own finger. He ran his fingertips over them thoughtfully. “Assuming you do go through with this plan… does it feel to you as though we have somehow ended up in the future? Or at least, in a room that is designed to look like it?”
--
“I have not yet gone to Faro and Vesk,” Alucard teased back. “I don’t know whether they have any mysterious princes.” Princes Vesk had aplenty. But Alucard was not particularly impressed with what he had heard about them. They reminded him of his brother. But he let go of talk of his plans because that was what they were… plans. Actions not yet taken.
His rings had changed, along with so much else in this room. And Rhy had made an excellent point. It rather looked as though Alucard had moved into the palace with full and official approval. Those paintings didn’t happen overnight, nor the level of lived-in everything had. If it were some elaborate prank, he was impressed.
“I have researched rare magic,” Alucard said, “and seen more of it at sea than ever I did in London. But I know of none that would transport us to the future.” He paused, wary of what that meant. “It would be a most rare and unheard of magic, one I suspect neither of us used. And I am suspicious of what it might mean for Arnes, for its people, if you and — by extension in this future — me have been targeted by it. It is less aggressive than pure assassination but perhaps more readily managed and just as dangerous.” It could get them killed, whatever that did to time.
He smiled, slightly. “I will admit it does not seem as though anyone means to harm us right this moment. So I prioritized… sorting this out first.” He motioned between them. It was unfortunate that such an unusual possibility made celebrating their reunion a more foolish proposition.
--
“You can stop showing off now,” Rhy teased gently. “My heart isn’t won by politics and championships and magical knowledge and talent.” But it was very much endeared by the kind of love that would go to such lengths to have him, and after everything he’d endured.
He hadn’t truly considered the danger of their possible circumstances, but Alucard had a point. Still, as he’d also pointed out, it did not seem to be an immediate danger. So Rhy lingered, enjoying the feeling of Alucard’s hand in his.
“If there’s no one lurking in the shadows to attack us,” he said in the same low, teasing voice, “Do you suppose I could claim a kiss before I have to get dressed and investigate?”
--
He relaxed his stance. It wasn’t that Alucard felt relaxed, but he had practiced casual confidence and calm enough times that the pose was easy to find. In this context, it felt far different. Less necessary for survival and more a matter of flirtation. “I know,” Alucard said, “that is all to win your hand, once I have your heart.” Because he couldn’t assume he had it. Even if Rhy wanted him to have it, after all this time, with all Rhy had been through, loving him wasn’t something he could presume.
His thumb rubbed against the back of Rhy’s hand, running gently along the skin. “That I do,” Alucard agreed. “Your family’s peculiar habit of having water in every room means I can be ready in an instant, should something happen.” But he didn’t ask after it. He looked at Rhy, at his untamed curls, at his warm eyes, and at his soft lips. Yes, he wanted to kiss Rhy. He wanted more. But Alucard would settle for that little, until they figured out more of the mystery.
--
“Ah, my hopeless heart,” Rhy said softly, wistfully, like a confession. “You’ve had it all this time.”
There was no point in hiding it now. If this was a trick, he had fallen for it and would get his heart broken again one way or another. He could only make the decision that felt right, and hope that it worked out for him. For them.
His skin tingled at the brush of Alucard’s fingertip, a sensation that went all the way through him. It was unfair that Alucard was already dressed, that their circumstances were a mystery that needed solving. He wanted so much more than a single kiss, especially if this was the last chance he’d get to kiss Alucard for half a year at least. But he was too pragmatic to argue with it.
He raised his free hand to touch his fingertips to Alucard’s cheek, and leaned in to kiss him.
--
Alucard brought up his hand to rest it on Rhy’s chest, just over his heart. It lay there gently, so as not to push him away. No, Alucard could hardly believe his circumstances, so sudden the shift in his fortunes were. He leaned against Rhy’s hand and into the kiss. Alucard remembered well how Rhy liked to be kissed, but he didn’t focus on that. The soft press of lips against his, the beating of his heart, the heat he felt standing so close to Rhy… it was an experience he lived in fully, so as to carry it with him, whatever else happened. However long it was until they saw each other again. Despite the powerful magic, Alucard did not expect it to last.
His forehead leaned against Rhy’s, and Alucard did not force himself to pull away. Just another moment, he told himself. The water rippled, as Alucard maintained his connection to it. In case something happened. He wasn’t going to lose Rhy now.
--
Saints, Rhy had missed the touch of his hands, the taste of his mouth. It was unbelievably tempting to take off his clothes, drag him back down to the bed. He could feel how much Alucard wanted it, too.
He made himself be the one to pull away, because he didn’t need to feel the echo of all the times Alucard had pulled away from him before. He raised Alucard’s hand to his lips and kissed it before letting it go as well, and turned to the closet to find something to wear.
“These are strange styles,” he commented. Not just a different cut, but seemingly of a lesser quality than those usually tailored to a prince. There were deep reds, but none of them were quite the right deep red. It wasn’t until he got to the very back of the closet that he uncovered familiar clothes, true royal reds and black and white, covered in ornate embroidery, usually gold. “Do I go as a commoner in the future?”
A less pleasant possibility occurred to him, which was that he had truly become a commoner, disowned and cast out of the palace. But this was his room in the palace, for all that it looked different. He shoved that thought aside and chose a simple but princely white.
Just before he closed the closet, he found… a crown. Not the simple gold band he wore as a prince, but something worthy of a king. And yet it was tucked away in the back of his closet, as if he’d hidden it there. Had he been made such a crown already, and set it aside for the future? Or… no, there was no use in wandering down darker paths of thought. He just had to find the answers. Hopefully, like the answers that Alucard had given him, they would bring good tidings, even if they revealed the darker sides of things as well.
“This is a strange place indeed,” he murmured, and set the crown back. It didn’t feel right to wear it.
--
A second scan of the room, while Rhy explored the depths of the closet, revealed further oddities but nothing which suggested danger. He wandered across the room, petting the cat who was indeed his, and over toward an object that glowed brightly with magic. Rare magic. Alucard had never seen it, not even at sea, but he pulled the mirror out of the black velvet protective case and recognized what the bands of magic through it and around it were. A liran. Curiouser and curiouser the future became.
He turned back toward Rhy, returning the mirror to its place, and made his way over. “Those are not what I have seen commoners wearing,” Alucard said. “At least those who live at or near the sea. Perhaps they are something else.” Kell was the only person who could flaunt the laws on objects from other worlds, and no one would arrest Rhy for having or wearing such things. They were absolutely mundane but foreign, in a way the clothes of Faro and Vesk were not.
“What do you wish to do first?” Alucard asked. “See what has changed in the future from your balcony or to explore the palace for what other clues we may find?” He was not yet going to stroll out into central London until they had truly established firmly and definitively they were in the future. Alucard was still cautious.
--
He was right; Rhy had never seen such styles on anyone. He liked them, though, and could imagine them looking good on him. They appeared to all be cut to fit him, at least. Perhaps if they were here longer he could try them on, but if Alucard was caught here and there was any trouble, he wanted to look like a prince.
Having dressed, he took the opportunity to put his hand on Alucard’s back, run his fingertips down his lover’s spine. “Mm,” he said thoughtfully, “Balcony, I think. I’ll go out first, in case there’s anyone around who might see you.”
He stepped away from Alucard, then, and opened the doors onto the balcony. And it became immediately apparent that something was wrong, something more than what he’d guessed, or perhaps just… different.
The first clue was that the world was not glowing red, as it should be with the Isle below. When he looked down, there was no Isle at all. Just dry ground, and the walls of the palace were an off-white in a texture he’d never seen on a structure before. The balcony itself wasn’t quite right, either. And as he looked around, all he saw were houses, some of a similar style to what he could see of the outside of the palace, but many of them different.
“You can come out,” he said faintly, “I think it’s safe to say no one in London can see you from here.”
--
Alucard had approached the doors to the balcony moving next to the wall, so as not to easily be spotted even were someone to look up at them. His instinct was to be the one more exposed to danger. Rhy was trained to fight, but Alucard had gained real experience as a privateer. No one wore armor on the open water. It guaranteed going overboard as a death sentence. But Rhy in his own palace ought to have been safe. Ought to be.
It looked wrong in a way the world shouldn’t have been able to look wrong. London changed all the time. But it always had the Isle. And some landmarks had stayed around, like the palace itself. Stepping out to the balcony showed some other city, some other country or portion of it. London was never so dry or hot. “Hmmm,” Alucard hummed, taking in the foreign city. Most shocking of all was the way it was almost entirely devoid of magic.
“Have you heard descriptions of the other Londons?” Alucard asked. “Might this be one of them?” Nevermind how he or Rhy traveled to one when the doors had been closed for centuries. But the reality before them forced Alucard to consider options wider afield.
--
“I have,” Rhy answered, his voice still faint. It felt so wrong for this to be the view from his balcony. His room looking different was one thing, but he was out of his depth here entirely. How was he in a place like this? How was his room in a place like this, fit inside a building like this? “But Kell never described them like this.”
Kell.
He turned around and went back inside, suddenly consumed by the need to know if his brother was here, if his parents were. He opened the doors to his room and stepped outside. “No guards,” he called back, even as he started down the hall towards Kell’s rooms. “No one’s here.”
The hall at least looked normal, relatively unchanged. There were Kell’s doors, just as they should be. He threw them open without knocking. “Kell?”
These were Kell’s rooms, alright. But they were empty.
--
They were not, Alucard very much suspected, in Arnes, nor even in Faro or Vesk. They very well could be in the future, but if so, it was a future in another world. He did not know what that meant, save that it dashed his plans to ruins. And that was possibly the least of his problems.
He followed Rhy into the deserted corridor and down toward Kell’s midnight themed rooms. They were as dramatic as ever, framing Rhy for a moment of dramatic tension that artists wished they could see and capture. What had happened to Rhy’s brother, the antari who walked between worlds, in a future that saw them in another one? Had he paid some price, or was he somehow back in Arnes working desperately to get Rhy back.
Footsteps came down the hall, and Alucard pulled a thin stream of water from the ever present ewer near Kell’s bed. It wrapped around his wrist and arm, ready to act as armor or to attack. The young lady who walked toward him looked utterly and remarkably familiar, save that she had grown far more than the year since he had seen her permitted. “Anisa?!” Alucard exclaimed.
“Alucard,” she said in a friendly manner. Her face looked puzzled slightly but only for a moment. “You look… so young,” she said, laughing a little but pulling him into a large hug. Alucard wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground. He twirled them in a couple circles before returning her to the floor.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. It had been strange enough he showed signs of living in the palace. For Anisa to wander it freely…
“Checking on you fools,” Anisa replied. She looked around him at Rhy and waved. “He looks as young as you do. This is going to be so much fun.” She looked pleased, to know so much when they did not.
He leaned back against the doorframe. “Since you are so grown and wise, would you care to fill us in on what is happening here?”
--
Rhy was as surprised as Alucard to see Anisa. He wasn’t sure he would have recognized her if not for Alucard saying her name. He watched the two of them with a twinge of jealousy, missing Kell, but it was impossible not to be uplifted by the happy reunion. He hoped that this meant Alucard was safe here, since Anisa had expected his presence.
“So we have stepped into the future,” he said. “And another world?” When Anisa confirmed, he asked, “Is Kell…? My parents?” He glanced at Alucard. “Your family?”
Negative responses to all. The first two were sad, although perhaps convenient for the purposes of not having to worry about Alucard’s banishment. Even Kell would have possibly caused some problems there. Though in the future perhaps they didn’t need to worry about that regardless. But it ached, a little. Alucard had his freedom and his sister, and Rhy was the one separated from his family now. He supposed this was his family in the future, but he wasn’t used to that idea yet, and so he felt a little… adrift. Lost. And now that it was clear there was no danger, nor really any pressing matter to attend to aside from further explanations, he really didn’t know what to do with himself.
“I think I’ll let you two catch up,” he said, doing his best to smile as if nothing was wrong. “Come find me when you’re done.”
--
Alucard had lost everything and everyone he knew before. Arguably twice. This time and place set them adrift from Arnes, from what they knew there. Alucard had Anisa, the only part of his family he wanted there. Finally the two of them were safely away from Reson, from Berras. And with Rhy also here, he was granted so much of what he ever wished for.
But Rhy had lost so much. It was evidenced all around them. Kell’s empty room and the empty palace. Alucard wanted to be there for him, someone he could rely on. But he also could not make up for all that Rhy had lost. And being alone… Alucard knew it was polite of him, that Rhy had to know Alucard and Anisa had their own private relationship to catch up on, but also… when feeling so lonely, sometimes one had to be alone.
He clasped Rhy’s hand and squeezed it. “I will,” Alucard said. “I’m here, and I’m not leaving you.” It was simply a pause, the natural parting of people who twined their lives together.