A concept that I might do more for later, I just had to get it down so it would leave me alone. Hope you enjoy it!
Victor weeps as the forest burns.
He can't control his body, the shakes that tear him up from the inside out. He's sobbing, barely able to breathe. The plumes of smoke are not black, rather, they're green and grey, but the smell is ten times worse. Victor chokes, retching between his sobs. There is nothing left in his stomach but his body still convulses.
Eventually, he's dragged away, back the castle, back to his room.
There is a whispered apology but he doesn't care.
Victor curls up on his bed and cries himself out. He's so sure that he's cried all of his tears out, there can't possibly be anymore. But he continues to cry. Words are impossible, so he screams. Ungodly, he wails into the night, screeching his anguish until his voice fails him.
He passes hours like this.
When, finally, the pain has left him numb, Victor crawls toward his nightstand.
The cracked stone is untouched, no one within the castle walls knows truly what it is and Victor intends to keep it that way. Carefully, he picks it up and cradles it to his chest. It fits in his palm, but gives off a warmth that floods Victor head to toe. He curls around it, as though doing so will protect it, and begins crying once more.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I couldn't stop them. I let you down, and now you're gone."
The stone gives no verbal response, of course it doesn't.
But it pulses once, the warmth is all encompassing, then returns to its usual state.
Victor falls asleep still curled around the stone.
The day after he's crowned, Victor kicks all the groundskeepers out of the garden. Yuri tries to get in but Victor shuts the entry gate in his face.
Victor ties his hair up and out of his face, pinning back the loose pieces that still fall forward. With a shovel over his shoulder and a small cart worth of supplies and saplings, Victor gets to work.
He has about fifty trees, and all the time in the world. He'd studied with their head gardener for a while, figured the ins and outs, and spent a few years honing his ability.
Dig, backfill, plant, fill, tamp, water.
Over and over.
Again and again.
It won't be the same as the forest, not nearly so majestic or filled with magic, it will just be a grove.
But he hopes it's enough.
The thick ivy cables that climbed up to his bedroom window fell away when the forest burned down. The sapling that grew along the boundary wall grew sick and died a few days after. The forest is gone, nothing but charred remains.
Victor had managed to sneak out once the flames died down. There was no trace of the sights he'd seen when he visited. The glowing pond and its field of small boulders? The underground entrance covered in lillies? The mushroom field and its floating lights? The private grove shielded with flowering vines?
Gone.
Not burned.
Non existent, as if they'd never been part of the land to begin with.
Once the fifty saplings are planted, Victor carefully steps his way into the center of the plot. He kneels down and removes a velvet pouch from his pocket and lays it in the grass. He keeps the cracked stone with him always, has never left it off his person since that night.
But now it's time to return it to the ground.
He digs the last hole with his hands and, when he deems it deep enough, removes the cracked stone from the pouch. His fingers are caked in dirt and clay, his arms streaked in dried mud, but the cracked stone shines brightly in his hands.
Victor sets it in the hole and, ever so slowly, begins covering it with dirt.
For years, Victor tends his grove.
He takes care of it as though his life depends on it. His counselors whisper that he's lost his mind. Victor doesn't have time to entertain their criticism,
He lost once before, he refuses to again.
The grove is his to maintain, he spends hours resting just outside of it. Every day, when the sun sets, Victor is just on the cusp of the tree line. He reads, or signs his paperwork. He talks aloud, though he has no conversation partner. He tells the trees about his day, about new trade deals, about new soldiers and merchants he's interacted with.
He likes to think that the trees listen.
The years pass much faster than Victor would like, and there is still no response from the grove. Still, he doesn't lose faith.
Victor doesn't feel old though, his spirit still as young as they day he stumbled into the forest. His love and awe for the magic within still burns bright in his heart and he hopes it's enough.
He's fast approaching his ninetieth year, taking shuffling steps as he walks down to the grove. There's a small stone bench just outside it for him to sit on. It's a world easier than getting up off the ground, his body simply can't do that anymore. He's felt it coming for a while now, but he doesn't regret what he's done with his life. He sits down, steadying himself with his cane, and opens his mouth to greet the grove.
And there he is.
Yuuri hasn't changed at all from those days. His eyes, a mess of swirling green and pink, throw colored spots like torchlight onto whatever he's looking at. His hair, long and interspersed with thorns and flower blossoms, floats freely about his head, stopping just at his shoulders. He wears his cloak, the writhing vines of soft green hide a pair of damaged wings. They're butterfly wings, mostly white but speckled with black. The vines and flowers and bark that dot Yuuri's body glow slightly in the dark of the night, a particular patch of blue moss on his shoulder dims and glows in time with Victor's breathing.
The only difference is that Yuuri looks incredibly tired.
Victor manages to get to his feet, a thrumming energy making its way through his body. He all but collapses into Yuuri's arms.
"You came back," Victor whispers.
"You got old without me," Yuuri says with a smile.
"It's not like I had a choice."
Yuuri pulls him close and presses their foreheads together.
"I've missed you, Oathbreaker's kin," he says, his smile evident in his words.
Victor rolls his eyes at the old jab and starts to laugh, clinging to Yuuri to stay upright. Yuuri holds him tight and they stay like that a moment, simply existing.
"Are you ready?" Yuuri asks.
"Ready for what?"
"To come with me, of course. I would love to show you my new home. So long as this grove stays here, you can always look in, should you choose." Yuuri doesn't loosen his grip on Victor, if anything he holds tighter. "I can make you young again, Victor, would you like me to?"
Victor blinks.
He thought this would be the last time he saw Yuuri, that this would be his last vision before death.
But now?
"If it means I can spend more time with you, my Yuuri, yes."
"Time is something you don't have to worry about anymore."
Yuuri kisses him and Victor feels the same wave of warmth he used to get from the cracked stone, only ten times as strong. He's felt magic like this before, and it feels home. The fatigue and aching drains out of his body, he feels himself shift and change until he stands before Yuuri on his own two feet, on his own ability.
Yuuri pulls back a ways, and lets his hands fall from Victor's body, He steps firmly within the tree line and holds one petal covered hand out to Victor.
"You know how this works," Yuuri says.
Victor takes Yuuri's hand without hesitation and steps into the grove.
All at once, they are elsewhere.
The trees are brighter, full of color. Patches of the grass glow, or give of floating specks of light that drift this way and that. Small creatures appear in his vision, some with feathers or leaves sprouting from their skin, they oddly colored with disproportionately large eyes. Some of them have wings, gossamer and unnaturally shiny. The leaves and branches rustle overhead as trails of dancing light swerve through them. One such trail drifts toward Yuuri and Victor, drifting between the two of them before disappearing into the night.
The air is warm but not cloying, light breezes occasionally making their presences known. There is a shimmer all around them, and Victor can't keep the smile of his face.
Yuuri presses a kiss to his hair, and pulls him close.
"Welcome home."
This is my second update today, I'm on a roll. Anyway, hope you liked it, let me know what you think?