Who: Jonathan Lockwood & Abraxas Vex What: Prince Jonathan is cursed and a warlock is called to help him Where: Alicante, Idris When: Late afternoon, an hour before sundown Warnings: Entirely PG-13, just some flirting and admiring glances! Status: Complete, part 2 of 2.
Jonathan didn’t realize he was holding his breath while Abraxas reached out until he started to feel like he couldn’t breathe, momentarily mistaking the light headedness as a direct cause of the physical contact until he remembered to exhale. He felt nervous, obviously not because Abraxas had to put hands on him to do this, even though Jonathan couldn’t remember another instance where someone else who’d come to the castle to try and fix him had needed to touch him for any reason. He wasn’t questioning it, Jonathan took Abraxas at his word. He was a High Warlock, after all. He obviously knew what he was talking about. (Jonathan was maybe a little bit gullible.) Which is why he relaxed a little when Abraxas reassured him that it wouldn’t hurt, quieting some of his nervousness as he watched those hands covered in a strange, blue flame reaching out towards his chest, no longer actively bracing himself for some kind of impact.
He breathed out more steadily when Abraxas’s hands flattened against his chest, relieved to find that what looked like fire around the warlock’s hands wasn’t actually hot. Jonathan relaxed even further, for a moment looking down curiously at the other man’s hands on him and the blue fire that seemed to spread out from Abraxas’s hands now that they’d made contact. Then he felt it, and Jonathan couldn’t help gasping a little. He didn’t exactly flinch, though he did briefly tense up again. It didn’t hurt, just like Abraxas had promised, but it did feel… more than a little odd, actually. Jonathan couldn’t describe it, but he’d never felt a sensation like this in his life. Obviously. Because until now, he’d never been touched by magic, or a warlock attached to it.
It felt… well, it did feel oddly intimate. Jonathan hadn’t known what to expect, but he hadn’t expected to actually be able to feel the magic inside him, and yet he thought that maybe he could. Or maybe he was just imagining things. What did he know about what magic felt like, anyway? The only magic he’d ever experienced before this was the curse that had put him in his current position in the first place, and that had never felt like this. It had felt like an intrusion, while this curiously didn’t. It felt like Abraxas himself was somehow reaching inside of him in the gentlest way possible that was also somehow completely all consuming. Jonathan felt like every part of him that Abraxas touched with his magic was lighting up for him, a kind of physical closeness to another person, to Abraxas, that he’d never imagined would be possible.
“... Hm?” Jonathan realized, heart beating a little more quickly, that Abraxas was asking him something, finally looking up from Abraxas’s hands on his chest to the warlock’s face, still a little transfixed. How did this feel? Jonathan could barely even describe what it was like to have Abraxas’s magic inside him to himself, let alone try to put it into words out loud. …Oh. Right. He’d never actually answered the question from before. That’s probably what Abraxas had meant, and Jonathan cleared his throat with a sheepish laugh. “Uh, it feels… like nothing, actually. For something that completely changed my life, the transformation feels like nothing. One minute I’m me and the next… I’m not.” He paused. “It definitely doesn’t feel… like this.”
"Not painful?" Abraxas sounded distant, as if he wasn't entirely focused on what it was that he was asking Jonathan. He wasn't, of course. His attention was under Jonathan's skin, winding into the core of him, as deep as he could get. It wasn't a superficial curse, at all. Even if it had been, to start with, he imagined it would be deeply set by now. That was what made it surprising that the transformation didn't hurt, if that was the case. He'd have thought that it would have, if it was a punishment... except, of course, that the punishment was meant for the father, instead of the son, really. Perhaps whoever had cursed Jonathan had been kinder than Abraxas had imagined. After all, as far as things went, becoming a horse wasn't a horrible curse, as long as it didn't hurt. Mildly inconvenient, yes, but he imagined that was far easier to deal with than some.
Ah, there was the root of it, deep in Jonathan's chest, where he'd started. That was... unfortunate. Abraxas only really knew about curses in theory, not practice, but the theory said that the place where the curse was hooked had to be what broke it. A curse hooked into the mind sounded more delicate, more impressive, but the mind was an easy thing to change, wasn't it? People's minds were changed every single day. Hearts, though... not that Abraxas knew that from experience, either, but hearts were a difficult thing to change. The heart could hold on far more stubbornly than the head ever could. Abraxas wasn't saying he couldn't do it, of course. He was entirely certain that he could. He was powerful, after all, even if he would be playing the entire business with breaking this curse almost entirely by ear. It simply wouldn't be the easy in and out to unravel it that he'd hoped for, when he'd been invited to Idris to cure the prince.
Somehow, he found himself not entirely minding it. In fact, he wasn't certain that he minded it at all. Jonathan was pleasant, after all, and while Abraxas was certain that he was eager to get rid of the curse, he hadn't been pushy about it at all, after all, expecting Abraxas to have the answers on hand for him immediately. That, Abraxas thought, likely had quite a bit to do with being used to being disappointed, when he was expecting someone to fix the problem for him. He knew very well that he wasn't the first person brought in to try to break Jonathan's curse. He was simply the one who was going to do it, regardless of how long it might take him. Unless, of course, Their Majesties got tired of waiting around for him to finish and booted him before he'd managed it.
He'd simply have to keep that from happening, wouldn't he? Abraxas thought that he might be able to persuade Jonathan to his side on that, at least. He welcomed Abraxas's magic with very little resistance at all, honestly. Abraxas thought he could have stayed curled under Jonathan's skin happily for a very, very long time, it was such a comfortable fit. "How much of your mind do you have, as a horse?" He'd see for himself, soon enough. After all, there was absolutely no way of breaking a curse tied to the heart in the space of one night, and he hadn't anticipated being able to do all that much before he'd seen the transformation itself, anyhow. That was still the case, regardless of whatever new information that Abraxas had picked up, with his examination. He didn't withdraw quite yet, didn't remove his hands from Jonathan's chest, simply lingered for as long as it took Jonathan to answer him.
Jonathan felt strange, under the attention. Under Abraxas’s hand, which was perfectly still against him and Jonathan felt himself oddly conscious of the weight of his finger tips on his chest. He couldn’t say why exactly, only that he was more aware of that one hand on him than he was usually aware of himself. The blue flames spreading out from Abraxas’s hand and covering Jonathan’s chest were mesmerizing, and Jonathan caught himself wondering what it felt like for Abraxas. If it felt similar to how it felt for him, or something entirely different and just as consuming. Jonathan didn’t know anything about magic, but if other magic felt anything like this, he thought he could actually understand why underworldlings seemed to like it so much.
Everyone in Alicante, and most people in Idris, were either afraid of magic or looked down on it, or some combination of the two. It was one of the main reasons his father had tried so hard to keep his ‘condition’ a secret for as long as they could, and why they had to find a cure for him before he could assume his rightful position on the throne. The people of Idris couldn’t have a cursed man for a king, someone who had been touched by dark magic. He would be considered tainted, and unfit to rule. With no other heir to choose from, it was very possible that the crown would go to one of his uncles if they happened to outlive the king. Jonathan’s father wouldn’t tell him why, but it was obvious that the current king of Idris wasn’t in favor of that outcome.
“Not painful,” Jonathan echoed after a moment, bringing his thoughts that had briefly strayed back to the matter at hand. Or rather, the actual hand that was on his chest, and the man attached to it. There were many extremists in Idris who didn’t even view underworldlings as people, believing that all that depravity and magic took away their humanity. Jonathan had never actually believed that about those that lived outside the walls, but now that Abraxas was sitting in front of him, he was even more skeptical of that than before. Abraxas seemed perfectly human to him, not some kind of monster or demonic wielder of dark magic. Jonathan still wondered if Abraxas was much older than he looked, if the rumors about warlocks and aging were true. He considered it too rude to ask outright, though. “I guess I’m pretty sore in the morning, once I’m back on two legs.”
He said this sheepishly, as if he was embarrassed to talk about himself this way. He wasn’t used to describing his physical ailments to anyone who wasn’t a castle physician, and Abraxas still had his hand on Jonathan’s chest, which kept distracting him from his answer. He didn’t know how long Abraxas needed to keep it there, but oddly, Jonathan wasn’t in a hurry to remove the warlock’s hand from him. It was strangely comforting. He stopped watching the blue fire around Abraxas’s hand and his chest, focusing on the warlock across from him as he thought about the question. “I can still think. Or, I have my own thoughts, but they get… muddled. I guess I would say that while it can feel like it’s still my mind, when I’m a horse I tend to get distracted by what a horse would want. My thoughts… my… urges, are conflicted. Overshadowed. Most of the time I just give in. As a horse, I find myself preferring to do things like gallop through the castle grounds and eat a lot of hay. So… I do. … I must sound strange to you.”
And that was Abraxas's cue to back away quickly enough to avoid his magic surging along with his interest. Really, if Jonathan had been trying to make everything a double entendre, he couldn't have done a better job of it than he had entirely innocently. The fact that it was entirely innocent didn't help in the least, of course. There was something appealing about that, too, about Jonathan having absolutely no idea what it was that he was doing to Abraxas. Not that Abraxas objected to be a bit of seduction, from the right person, if they were attractive enough to bother with, but Jonathan... Jonathan was the worst sort of temptation, really. The sort that didn't know it was a temptation at all, and thus, would never intentionally stop itself.
Before he could think about what other sorts of activities might leave Jonathan sore when he was back on two legs in the morning, or tell him that he wouldn't mind helping him make sense of those urges at all, Abraxas eased his hands away from Jonathan's chest, the fire there flickering and dying. "Not at all. I do believe that's the sort of thing a horse does, though I'm not intimately acquainted with any of them, myself." Why would he ever take a horse when he could open a portal and walk right through, instead? Far more pleasant, and far less smelly. Not that he thought that Jonathan, as a horse, would be as smelly as he believed the norm to be for the beasts. Clearly it was different, when one was a man turned into a horse. Men, after all, bathed regularly, and Abraxas did hope that was enough to prevent that horsey smell that he had absolutely no interest in being familiar with. "On the bright side..." Not that there was much of a bright side, of course, except Abraxas could always find ways that something could have been worse. "At least you don't maintain your human body and an entirely horselike mind."
It would be far more embarrassing for the king, Abraxas thought, to have his son galloping about trying to eat hay looking entirely like himself. At least with a transformation, it was obviously a curse, and not madness. Of course, he'd still have locked him away the same way, Abraxas was certain. Didn't do to have the people believing that madness ran in the king's family, even though they were entirely fine with the sort of atrocities their leaders had been willing to commit against innocent underworldlings in the past. Ah, but underworldlings weren't people, of course, so it didn't even count. Abraxas thought that, perhaps, Jonathan might be a bit more familiar with how the underworldlings felt than any king in the past might have. After all, he knew what it was like to be made to feel less than a person, didn't he?
"And..." Abraxas spread his hands with a flourish. "It matches exactly with what I found out." He paused, considered making Jonathan actually ask for the information, but that did seem cruel. There were certain individuals with whom Abraxas wouldn't have thought twice about making beg. He'd probably make Jonathan's father beg him for the information, once he went back to present it to the king. He did hope that this was something new for him; if he'd already known precisely where the curse was centered, had been told by someone who'd failed at unraveling it, and hadn't thought it was important enough to share with Abraxas... well, that was the sort of stupid decision that led to people leaving your son cursed while they bashed their head against the same brick wall over and over, when there was a gate just out of sight. "The curse is centered in your heart, not your head, and so it stands to reason that your head is left, for the most part, alone."
When Abraxas finally removed his hands from Jonathan’s chest, Jonathan felt a flicker of something he couldn’t quite name. Was it disappointment? That didn’t make sense, but there was no mistaking that sudden feeling of being a little off balance, as if Abraxas had somehow been grounding him with his touch. Whereas before Jonathan had gotten used to the weight of the warlock’s hands on him, in their sudden absence he felt curiously… empty. It was just nerves. The whole situation made Jonathan nervous, and a little unsure of himself, but his lack of self-confidence wasn’t Abraxas’s fault. Jonathan thought that anyone in his position would be feeling insecure enough that they started latching onto the first solid thing that made them feel - maybe not normal, but something close to it. Jonathan didn’t think he’d ever feel normal again, but somehow, with Abraxas’s hands on his chest, he thought he’d almost come close to feeling it. Even with the strange looking blue flames touching his body.
“That would be even more bizarre than my current predicament.” Jonathan actually laughed a little, at the thought of his human body operating with an entirely horse-like mind. At least it didn’t look out of place to see a horse munching on a bail of hay, but it would look incredibly off putting to come across the prince of Idris doing that while galloping around the castle grounds on his own two feet. Despite his currently distressing predicament, the mental image did make him laugh. It was good to know that there were some things he could still laugh about, and apparently he had Abraxas to thank for it. Jonathan couldn’t remember the last time his heart had felt this light.
Which is why what Abraxas said next made him blink. “... My heart?” He didn’t know much of anything when it came to magic, that was obvious enough, so of course he didn’t understand how any of it worked. Even the magic that had been inflicted on him. All he knew was that the curse had control over him physically, but he couldn’t piece together for himself the mystery of how his heart was involved in all this. Did that mean something significant? Did that mean that Abraxas would know how to fix this? Jonathan had never heard anyone else who came to see him say something like that, which gave him hope, despite how much he desperately tried to squash it before those hopes got too high. He’d felt disappoint too many times before.
Chewing on the information, almost afraid to ask in case it being his heart somehow meant that there was actually no cure for it, Jonathan looked down at his own chest as if that would somehow give him the answers. It didn’t, obviously. There was no point in putting off. He glanced up at Abraxas again, a feeling of dread washing over him as he steeled himself for all the possible outcomes. Maybe he was being somewhat melodramatic, but this felt a little bit like asking after one's own death sentence. “What does that mean?”
Abraxas could have taken the time to explain enough about magical theory that Jonathan would have been left with his head spinning, and, perhaps, a rudimentary understanding of what the difference between spell anchors in one place versus spell anchors in another meant. He'd explained far more complicated, before, after all, to far less educated audiences. Of course, he'd been attempting to shut them up by making them understand that they truly didn't understand anything, but he most certainly could have given Jonathan a thorough enough explanation that he'd never have bothered asking about it again. If, of course, he was interested in Jonathan never asking him a question about it again. He found himself rather looking forward to questions from Jonathan, though.
Instead, he smiled, again, as reassuring as he could possibly make it. "It means I've gotten a start at figuring it out." That was the only really important part, so far as Jonathan would be concerned, he imagined. Whether he could fix it. Whether the possibility of no longer turning into a horse every night was within his grasp. It wasn't, quite. Abraxas required quite a bit more solidity in his knowledge before he'd consider a thing within grasp, no matter how very good he was. This, though, this was a step in the correct direction. It did narrow things down, quite a bit, when it came to coming up with some sort of cure for Jonathan's curse. Not quite as good as knowing precisely how to fix it, but... better than nothing. And if nothing was all that Jonathan had recieved, before... well, that did make Abraxas look far better.
"I'll get a better one when you..." Abraxas gestured, vaguely, as if that would clear up precisely what he meant. Given that it was a rather broad, flamboyant gesture, he imagined that it really did, quite a bit. What else could he be referring to, after all, than Jonathan's transformation into a horse? There were only so many things that Jonathan could do that would illuminate the curse itself further. "There's nothing quite like seeing a thing in action, I'm afraid." As much as Jonathan would likely have preferred it to be cut off at the quick, right there.
Abraxas did still hope that the disappointment didn't dissuade him from any gratitude he might have felt. It would be entirely bad for Abraxas's ego, to have someone as pretty as Jonathan grateful for whatever services he could provide, but Abraxas had never been careful in regards to keeping his ego at a reasonable size. He did like to know how very good he was, and the message was all the more better when it came from someone as incredibly pretty as Jonathan. "How far off is that, now?" Sunset, Abraxas knew. It wasn't as if he bothered keeping track of precisely what time that might be, though. After all, he'd never had much reason to care. He was usually far more interestingly occupied than keeping track of the comings and goings of the sun. For Jonathan, though... well, knowing was far more vital.
That made Jonathan feel a little better at least. Both Abraxas’s answer, and the smile that came with it. He couldn’t remember the last time someone smiling at him made him feel so impossibly warm, but Jonathan didn’t spend too much time dwelling on it. His situation was so bizarre that Jonathan was willing to assume that he was so consistently unsure of himself that any amount of genuine sincerity from a person, even a complete stranger, could make him feel that way. The fact was that before Abraxas, none of the other people who'd come to see the cursed prince had been nearly as warm to him, so his reaction to Abraxas stood out in his mind.
For the first time, Jonathan actually started to let himself believe that maybe he could be cured. That it would be Abraxas who broke the spell for him, and he could finally live his life the way he wanted to again. He could ride a horse instead of be the one ridden (though no one had ever actually ridden him, they weren't allowed, but it still stood to reason that he would be the one ridden if put in that situation), he could stay up late reading again, or if he chose to, he could even go to sleep early, tucked warmly into his own bed. Even thinking about that now made Jonathan ache, crawling into bed in the morning after being on four legs all night just wasn't the same. It still wasn't his choice, which made all the difference in the world.
Part of Jonathan wanted Abraxas to be the one who figured out how to cure him. He liked Abraxas, which was only surprising to him because he hadn't liked any of the ones who'd come before to examine him, not surprised because he was an underworldling. His father had made several unfavorable remarks at the warlock’s expense before Abraxas had arrived, and even before Jonathan had met Abraxas the things his father said had made his skin crawl, but now that he had met him the memory of those words made him angry. He’d never shared his father’s views on underworldlings, but now even moreso. Abraxas didn’t deserve that sort of disrespect, not even from the king himself. None of them did. Why was it such a crime to be different?
At Abraxas’s inquiry, Jonathan squinted up at the sky, noting the position of the sun and realizing that they only had a few minutes before the sun went down. Time had flown by surprisingly fast, and Jonathan actually found himself wishing they had more time, just to sit there and talk. Strange, he’d never really wished for that before, with anyone. But since that was his cue, Jonathan sighed reluctantly and pushed himself to his feet. “It won’t be long now.” Once he was standing, Jonathan’s hands were already on the buttons of his shirt before he realized what he was doing, glancing awkwardly at Abraxas. “... I’ll need to…” Undress, was the word, but the word got stuck in his throat, and Jonathan cleared his throat. “Before it happens.”
As much as Abraxas really did need to witness the transformation in order to cure it, he was strangely disappointed that the time had passed so quickly, and that he'd be left without Jonathan's company for... the rest of the night, really. Without his human company, at least, though Abraxas was certain that he'd be as delightful as it was possible for a horse to be, not that Abraxas was acquainted with them enough to know whether they were or not. He supposed he'd be finding out soon enough, whether that was a situation he should have remedied before. Of course, it was entirely likely that Jonathan would be as exceptional a horse as he seemed to be a human, and it would be an unfair standard that every other horse in Abraxas's future was measured against.
A ridiculous train of thought, perhaps, but Abraxas did excel at those. You could ask anybody, really, that had known him for longer than it took for him to fix their problem and move along. Not that Jonathan knew that, or would have the occasion to know it, something that was almost as disappointing as the fact that he'd be keeping company with a horse before much longer. He shouldn't have been altogether disappointed about that, either; there was no point in letting Jonathan get to know him (and letting it would be, Abraxas did tend to remain inscrutable until he decided to do otherwise). After all, he'd only be there long enough to solve the curse, not long enough for the two of them to get to know each other better. Not enough time to become friends.
Friends. With a Lockwood. That was the most ridiculous idea that Abraxas had entertained, yet.
"What..." Lost in his own thoughts as he was, it took Abraxas a moment to recognize precisely what it was that Jonathan had meant by that. What could Jonathan possibly think he had time to do before his transformation, if they didn't have long? "...oh!" Of course, he couldn't transform clothed. Not only would it entirely ruin his clothing (not that it was much of a loss, of course, with that particular outfit), it would likely be extremely confining and uncomfortable for his horse self until he managed to pry himself out of the shreds of it. "By all means, be my guest." It would have been polite to look away. Abraxas... did not. He could at the very least pretend that he needed to see it. For his magic.
Jonathan might even be innocent enough to believe that was the whole of it, something that Abraxas really should feel worse about taking advantage of. Except, of course, that he really should keep his eyes on Jonathan throughout the entire transformation, and that would include watching him unclothed at some point. It would even be more awkward, Abraxas told himself, to look away now only to have to look back later. They were both men, after all. Very attractive men, who really ought to run around naked more often. Honestly, if that was the norm, Abraxas was legitimately surprised that there weren't dozens of people attempting to sneak a peek at the courtyard where they knew their prince would be stripping.
Jonathan paused awkwardly, before it didn’t seem like Abraxas was going to look away so he somewhat reluctantly kept going. He sort of assumed that when he indicated that he’d have to undress, that Abraxas would do what anyone else probably would have done in this situation and respectfully turn around. Or at the very least obviously avert his gaze. Then again, it was already abundantly clear that Abraxas didn’t do much of what everybody else would. Jonathan surprised himself by realizing he admired that about him, maybe even envied it about the warlock, or he would have if he weren’t presently so supremely conscious of the fact that Abraxas was going to see him undress. Despite never being very insecure about his own body, Jonathan was suddenly inexplicably nervous about undressing in front of Abraxas, in a way that he’d never been nervous about someone else seeing him without a stitch on. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but it was there, in the form of a brief, nervous flutter in his chest.
He didn’t stop and think to question why the warlock would need to see him undress, though in retrospect perhaps he should have. Jonathan assumed he might need to see the very beginning of the transformation, in order to get a more complete grasp of the nature of the curse Jonathan was under. It wasn’t like he knew anything about how curses or magic itself worked, so he wasn't going to question Abraxas’s reasons for not looking away. At this point Jonathan had very little time to remove his clothes entirely before the change started, so he needed to get undressed quickly if he wanted to avoid the discomfort of torn clothing stuck to his horse body. Usually he was better about keeping track of the sun and giving himself enough time to undress without hurrying, but Jonathan had been a little distracted by their conversation. By Abraxas.
Clearing his throat and ignoring the way the tips of his ears burned a little, Jonathan turned around himself and took a deep breath. It made him feel better, somehow, to at least have his back to Abraxas, though he still thought he could feel the warlock’s eyes on him. He tried not to think about it, and instead steeled himself to the task, starting with his shirt first and unbuttoning it completely before shrugging it off of his arms and throwing it to the side, revealing the sort of compact, muscular upper body that came from years of intensive training. They weren't nice clothes, so it didn't matter if they got grass stains on them. Then came the pants, which Jonathan pulled down with minimal embarrassment to reveal the braies he had on under them.
That was when he paused, uncertain if he should bare all or sacrifice one pair in the name of keeping some of his modesty. He didn’t look behind him to see if Abraxas was watching him, but something told Jonathan that he was, and that knowledge made him hyper aware of himself. He didn’t have enough time to sweat it too much, though, because the sun was dipping rapidly below the tree line. He could already feel that familiar tingling, just before it happened. “It’s starting…” Wasn’t much of a warning, within seconds he would be changing, and just as he was pulling down the last of the material that covered him, offering Abraxas only a brief glimpse, Jonathan’s entire form tipped forward and shifted into the body of a large, white horse.
Although Abraxas had known that Jonathan would be stripping, had in fact chosen deliberately not to turn away from the sight of it, he still nearly choked on thin air when Jonathan actually did start taking his clothes off. Admittedly, he hadn't known enough to expect that. That being the trim lines of Jonathan's upper body, the muscular shoulders, back, and arms. Not bulky muscle. Lean, the muscle of a man who Abraxas imagined would rely more on speed than strength (though it looked as if he had quite a bit of that, too). Abraxas wasn't precisely a weakling, or badly out of shape, but his body tended more toward the tall and willowy than the muscular and impressive. His eyes scanned Jonathan from neck to hips, and then further as the prince slid his braies down to join his shirt. His legs, Abraxas noted, were just as nice as his upper portions, not that it ought to have come as any surprise. It was entirely unfair, he thought, for the prince's body to be just as appealing as his face was.
If anyone had asked him, at the moment, what his plans were for observing the curse in action, if anyone had asked him his own name, Abraxas very much doubted he'd have been able to answer. It would have been absolutely shocking if he'd even heard them, to be perfectly honest. His jaw was dropped, entire attention fixed on the human in front of him, at the way his braies just barely obscured all the details that Abraxas would most like to see about the prince's body. He would bet that his hindquarters, in their full bare glory, were even better than the compact expanse of his back, the arms that Abraxas imagined would be perfectly capable of holding him down, if Jonathan happened to want to. Too bad there was no way that he could convince the prince that a bit of wrestling was a very necessary part of breaking the curse...
Alas, once those no doubt glorious globes of flesh were revealed, it wasn't as if Abraxas had time to actually get a decent ogle in before he had to remind himself of his actual purpose there. Right, he was observing Jonathan turning into a horse, not admiring the fact that, whatever else the king might have done in his life, his truly best accomplishment was making that, and somehow managing to neglect Jonathan just enough that he seemed to have turned out a more than decent person, in spite of his parentage. "And I'm back," Abraxas muttered, under his breath. He didn't know precisely how much Jonathan would hear of it, during his transformation, or how much he'd hear and understand as a horse, once it was all over. He'd likely have no idea what he meant by it, anyway.
The transformation, at least, looked as easy as Jonathan had said it was. No matter what Jonathan had said, Abraxas had expected it to be painful. Grinding bones. Screams. Something more than a quick tip forward and then suddenly, smooth as butter sliding off a baby's behind, it was a horse's hindquarters that he was staring at instead. They were far less appealing than the ones he'd seen in that split second between stripping and transformation. The transformation itself... there was barely enough time for Abraxas to have tapped into it, to have sense the magic of it, but he managed to get a glimpse. Just a glimpse. Just enough to know that it was going to be a bit trickier than he'd expected. Well, then, at least he could get a good look at the horse version of Jonathan, too. He stepped forward, slowly, understandably cautious about approaching a horse from the back. "Now, aren't you a handsome fellow. Still much nicer the other way, of course, but you do make a very pretty horse."
Jonathan was always a little disoriented right after the change. When he’d first had the curse put on him, he was always somewhat surprised when he was suddenly a horse and he could still have thoughts that were decidedly his own, if not with a little equus influence lingering along the edges of some of them, with distinctly more beastial urges. Now it made sense, Abraxas telling him that the curse was in his heart. That had to be why Jonathan still sensed his own mind during and after the change, why he could still mostly separate his own thoughts from the things he felt that he knew were more animal than man. Somehow knowing that much about himself made it all a little easier. Even if Abraxas didn’t succeed in finding a cure to this curse for him, Jonathan was grateful to the warlock for helping him understand his own curse a little more.
He could hear just as well as a horse as he could while a human, Jonathan thought. Being able to hear and understand conversation around him was always strange when you couldn’t respond to it the way you normally would, but then again, Jonathan didn’t usually have the sort of company at night that spoke to him. Sometimes his mother would come out to talk to him before she went to bed, just to be nice, but for the most part it was just Jonathan and the other horses. And sadly, there was no such thing as horse-to-horse telepathy, and despite being cursed to turn into one every night, that didn’t seem to give Jonathan an edge on understanding what all the different snorts and grunts meant that the other horses in the stables made. The real tragedy of his situation was that he was still too human to really be a horse, and too much of a horse to be considered ‘normal’ like everyone else. He was caught in between two worlds, against his will.
While he didn’t catch the thing Abraxas muttered entirely, the warlock’s voice registered enough with him that Jonathan’s ears flicked back in recognition before Jonathan turned his head to look back at Abraxas with large, blue eyes similar to his own. It was uncommon for horses to have blue eyes, most often they were a dark brown color, but it appeared that the curse had not seen fit to suppress the brightness of Jonathan’s eyes when he changed form. It was maybe the only part of his new form that resembled him, and Jonathan couldn’t even see it for himself, never able to catch a good enough reflection of himself in this body. Not that it would have made a difference. So what if he still had his own eyes? The rest of his body was no longer his own.
He didn’t move much as Abraxas approached him, except for a brief shake of his mane. It was obvious that the warlock was exercising caution, and Jonathan couldn’t blame him. Horses were large, powerful creatures, but Jonathan still had enough of his mind as a horse that he wasn’t as easily spooked as some others, and Jonathan certainly wasn't going to hurt him. He let Abraxas approach him, tail switching and snorting in response to the warlock’s praise. That Jonathan had heard loud and clear, and while he might have stuttered and fallen all over himself as a human if Abraxas had called him pretty, as a horse he wasn’t nearly as embarrassed. In fact, Jonathan suddenly had the overwhelming urge to show affection and appreciation the way a horse might. So when Abraxas got close enough, Jonathan turned his large head and bumped Abraxas gently in the shoulder with his muzzle.
That was unexpected, the bump of a broad nose against his shoulder. Normally, Abraxas would have been far more concerned about the potential fate of his clothes, if a horse chose to get its mouth that close to them. Not that he was afraid that Jonathan would bite, of course. Even if he had been entirely a horse, without an ounce of humanity left during the transformation, Abraxas would have expected him to be well-mannered enough not to bite. Horse spit on his nice clothes, though, that was something that Abraxas would have been extremely concerned about, if he hadn't been oddly touched that Jonathan chose to demonstrate what Abraxas decided to interpret as some sort of equine show of affection. What else could it be, really? It wasn't as if Abraxas happened to have any treats to hand out to him stashed away anywhere. Though, that might not have been a bad idea, in case Jonathan's temperament had been far less sweet than Abraxas had found it.
It would probably be very degrading to call the prince a 'good boy', not that Abraxas didn't think he deserved the title, at the moment. He was being a very good boy, after all, as a horse and as an unfortunate cursed prince. After all, he could have chosen to be bitter about it, to lash out. From what Abraxas had seen, he hadn't in the least. Of course, he could simply be putting on a good front for the new warlock that was expected to put him to rights. He could be entirely a brat, when all was said and done... but Abraxas didn't think so. He thought that Jonathan was likely just as good a boy as he seemed, as a horse. He wondered if he heard it often, or if his father was far more concerned that he was a boy that happened to transform into a horse at night. Well, if nothing else, Abraxas could make certain that Jonathan knew that he was entirely exceptional, before he left.
Abraxas raised a hand, placed it against Jonathan's smooth, warm neck, a rush of something almost affectionate making itself at home in his chest. He wasn't certain it was in response to his praise, of course, but it did seem likely. That, or the fact that he'd promised assistance. Either way, the same reaction seemed appropriate. "You're welcome." It was strange, talking to a horse as if it could understand him, except that Jonathan had said that he did have his own mind. Slowly, he stroked his hand over the fur there, pressure of his hand firm and steady. If nothing else, he could come out of this entire experience saying that he'd gotten to pet a prince. That was one that you didn't hear every day, or at all as far as Abraxas was aware. He'd never heard anyone bragging about that sort of thing before. Of course, that did require a prince that was under the sort of curse that would lead to being petted. That, or a very close relationship with a prince.
Really, Abraxas could leave now. There was nothing left for him to observe, now that the transformation was complete, not until Jonathan changed back to human in the morning. If Abraxas was going to be present for that, it would have been wise of him to leave, then, to go back to the room he'd been assigned and get a bit of rest so that he could get up ridiculously early to see a horse turn back into a man. Except... it seemed wrong, leaving Jonathan there entirely on his own. Abraxas didn't mind being alone, of course, but he didn't know if Jonathan was the solitary sort, or if he wished for company, these nights running around as a horse. Abraxas wouldn't stay the entire thing, of course. That would be ridiculous. But... for a while. He could linger for a while, his fingers tangling in Jonathan's mane, his head tilted toward the prince's. Just until he felt better about leaving him.