Rated: PG
Language: English
Categories: Humour/Romance
Title: Blurring the Lines of Reality
Summary: With a Lord Knight who prefers listening to music rather than training, a sadistic Paladin king, and a Clown who's prone to being pulled into memories of other people's past lives, it can get pretty hectic around the town of Prontera. Yep, looks like it's just another day for the castle residents. (Xabel/Chrnos; unrelated but slightly relevant to the RoChronicles series.)
Author's Note: As I said, this is a story that stands alone from RoChronicles but deals with a piece of what becomes very important to that story, regardless. So far, I don't plan on them getting together whatsoever in the actual story; this was just a challenge piece my sister insisted I post. -_-; Xabel Vanhaerents is my Lord Knight, Chrnos Bari is my Clown, and Gakudon Girard is my Paladin. I took creative licensing with the entire history of Ragnarok Online so Gakudon can be the King of Prontera if he wants to be. :o
Blurring the Lines of Reality
Blurring the Lines of Reality
Chrnos smiled up at the Lord Knight as he took a seat beside him, the breeze gently whipping through his light blonde hair. "Hiding from training again today?" he inquired softly, a hint of a chuckle underlying in his voice.
"It's much more peaceful out here. I like listening to your music." Xabel replied with a returned smile.
The Clown sighed, shaking his head gently but continuing to strum on his oriental lute nonetheless. "Why did you ever choose to become a Lord Knight in the first place, I wonder? You avoid training, you try to avoid confrontation, you're terrified of King Gakudon..."
"I'm only afraid of him because of the cruel and unusual punishments he comes up with if he catches me skipping out on training."
"Which, by the way, he always does. So it's really more of a matter of when he catches you. Not if."
"He won't this time," Xabel stated with a proud smile.
If the minty-haired warrior had been a dog, Chrnos decided, his chest would have been puffed out and his tail would be wagging, waiting for a treat on a job well done. The image struck him as amusing, but he chose to ignore it in favour of prodding for further information. "How are you so sure of that?" He glanced across the field from the corner of his eyes back towards the large walls surrounding the castle.
"Because he won't be able to come find me today. He's busy with official matters, so we have a stand-in trainer today."
"I always thought it was unusual for the king to train his guards, himself, as it was.."
"A little, yeah, but he's very hands-on about these sorts of things. He wants to make sure we all know what we're doing and have the opportunity to learn from someone of proven accomplishment. I never understood why he chose to do it himself, though."
Chrnos restrained the laughter that attempted to bubble up at the unintentional stab at their ruler. "You really should attend at least one or two training sessions. It might do you some good and get you closer to the general area of his good side, you know."
Xabel sighed, rubbing the back of his head in frustration, his brows knitted. "He doesn't have a good side."
"Then I won't feel so badly when I get your sorry, lazy hindquarters back to the castle dungeon." boomed a deep voice from behind the Lord Knight and Clown.
Both men jumped at the sudden shout, Xabel more so than Chrnos, and turned to see who the man dreaded knowing it was.
The Paladin king stood behind them, his arms crossed over his chest. His snow white hair fell slightly over one eye as he glared down at the terrified Knight. "After all the times I've had to discipline you and drag you back to the castle, after all the lectures you've sat through, and after all the warnings you were given, you still continue to try my patience by sneaking away from training. And for what? To sit on your rear outside while the others work their backsides off to learn how to better defend the country they serve? You're a disgrace to the title you bear, soldier! On your feet this instant!"
Xabel leaped up, terrified. "Yes, sir!"
Chrnos giggled softly as he watched the two interact. It was a common exchange - one that they seemed to have memorized to the letter. Every time Xabel weaseled his way out of the training grounds, the king would track him down relentlessly and then yell at him for three or four minutes over how useless he was, then grab his ear and forcefully drag him back to the castle to punish him. Xabel, during the exchange, would be cowering like a puppy caught gnawing on his master's shoes and promise not to sneak out again. It was a tired cycle that Chrnos knew was as reliable as the sunrise.
"Please don't hurt him too badly." the blue-eyed performer chuckled as Gakudon began to cart Xabel away.
"He'll live," promised Gakudon with a curt nod, "He's a spry, hardy young brat."
Xabel gulped.
Back at the castle...
"I've told you time and time again not to sneak away."
Gakudon's tirade had yet to let up, as always, and he was still going strong. He paced back and forth in front of the seated Lord Knight, his hands clasped behind his back at some points and at other times flailing wildly through the air as if to prove his point and vent his frustration at the young man.
"Don't miss training, it's too important. Your service is a privilege and an honour to the kingdom, and if you skip something so important, you aren't fit for your position. You should have just been a Priest - you could have been as lazy as you wanted then! Bah! Useless! Pathetic! Despicable! Irresponsible!"
Xabel nodded at each word, too afraid to argue the comments. "Yes, sir! Yes! I understand! Yes, sir!"
"Your punishments have been lenient up until now, Xabel Vanhaerents. I'll make you realize you can't just skip out on your training sessions one way or another, if it kills both of us!"
Lenient? You try to kill me every time you bring me down here for punishment! Your methods of keeping me in line border on inhuman torture! Xabel's thoughts sobbed inwardly, and he had to fight the urge to ball up his fists in self-pitying fury. Eating feathers my Peco Peco molted, peeling and then re-painting the entire castle with only my spears as utensils - it's horrible! Horrible, I tell you!
Gakudon strode over to stand directly in front of Xabel, his glare replaced with a cunning, mischievous smirk. "I have a special drink that I ordered to be made just for you, however. You'd better appreciate the effort that went into it, too, because two of our new recruits just went through a lot of trouble to obtain the ingredients for it."
Xabel's eyes shot up to meet the dark ones of the king, terror etched onto his face at what that could possibly mean.
Gakudon patted his shoulder in feigned reassurance. He leaned down until he was at eye level with the green-eyed Knight and said, "We all wanted you to really get to taste the fine work that made this concoction. As I said, it was specially made for you, and your pallet is so refined as it is that you should really be able to appreciate the balance of flavours and the harmony of the ingredients."
Gakudon stood upright again, turning and walking over to the cooling areas the royal chefs had set up for the purposes of preparing drinks and meals for prisoners should one ever be brought to the dungeon. He retrieved an elegant-looking cup from the counter, swirling it around gently. A huff of what could only be described as neon green fog rose up from it in the shape of a bat that folded inward on itself until it formed a skull that looked as if it were in pain, and the sound of half a dozen men wailing in tormented agony echoed around the chamber. The sounds died finally when the fog-like smoke disappeared, and Gakudon smirked wider.
Xabel's eyes couldn't have gotten any wider if he'd cut them open as much as possible. The king expected him to drink that terrifying thing? Really? He couldn't seriously want him to, could he? He was human, right? He had a sense of right and wrong, right?
Wrong...Xabel's mind reasoned with a whimper as he watched the Paladin approach him.
"Down the hatch, Xabel." the king stated cheerfully, holding it out to him.
"You're kidding, right? I can't drink that stuff; I'll die, I know it!" Xabel squeaked.
"Then you should have thought about that before you skipped training for the five trillionth time. Now, drink up."
Xabel took the cup hesitantly, peering down at it warily as if it would bubble up and bite him if he moved down too close to it. He forced himself not to gag as he asked, "What did they put into this, poison?"
"Close," Gakudon murmured.
"Wha'was'at?"
"Let's see. One recruit went to the Prontera Culvert to fetch some sewer water. Another went to the caves in Payon for a bit of mucus from the Zombies that hide out in the cave there. Another went through the Sograt Desert to hunt down a few Condors and raided their empty nests for leftovers...There were two more things, but they escape me right now."
Xabel looked down to the contents in the cup again, recoiling when the smell of it finally hit him full-on. "Ugh, it smells like something's rotting!"
"Oh, that's right!" Gakudon shouted, snapping his fingers. He smiled and looked down at Xabel again. "Rotten scales from the Megalodon monsters in Mao, the eastern part of the dungeon by the beach, and ectoplasm from Quves and Ludes in the fields near Niflheim!"
The Lord Knight stared harder at the man. "You seriously want me to drink this stuff? I'll definitely die!"
"Think about that next time you want to skip training. Like I said before, you're a hardy young man - you'll live. I haven't gotten rid of you yet, have I?"
"Yet!" Xabel screeched, eyes wide in terror. "Are you trying to kill me? And does that mean that if you drank it, you would die?"
"Don't get any funny ideas, soldier. Now drink."
"Highness!" shouted a soldier from the doorway, his eyes wide and his tone frantic. "Come quickly!"
Gakudon and Xabel turned to face the man, brows furrowed and similar expressions of concern on their faces. "What's the cause of this urgency?" asked the king.
The soldier shook his head, motioning for the two men to follow him as he took off. Once they had caught up with him, he shouted over his shoulder to him, "It's that crazy Clown again; he's on the ledge of the roof! He's shouting like a mad man about destroying everything!"
Xabel and Gakudon both felt the colour drain from their faces rather quickly at these words.
"He's- well, someone get him down!" Xabel shouted, frowning. He felt horrible; he should never have stayed away from the musician for so long. He knew the man had those strange spells where he seemed to turn into someone else or dove into someone else's memories. It made the blonde unstable whenever one of those "flash-grabs" occurred - made him unsafe to be left on his own. Now he was up on the roof making a public spectacle of himself, and the poor thing probably wasn't even aware of himself to know it!
Seeming to sense his follower's frustration, Gakudon reached over and placed a calming hand on his shoulder. When their eyes met he shook his head slightly, his expression serious. He wouldn't allow the youth to blame himself for something that was beyond their control. All they could do now would be to get up there and try to bring the man back to his senses and get him away from the roof.
They neared the stairwell that lead to the top of the castle's highest point and they could already hear Chrnos's voice echoing down towards where they were. From what they heard, it seemed as if the knight that had come to get them wasn't exaggerating in the slightest - he did sound something of an anarchist. It was sure to be sending the people who were observing from below either into fits of rage, confusion, or possibly even worse, panic. They had to get him down and find a way to explain the situation to everyone quickly.
"My whole life, you've been nothing but in my way!" Chrnos screamed down at a random villager. His eyes were wide and held a glint of unbalanced insanity that matched perfectly with the mad smirk upon his face. "That ends today! You, my brother, the Bishop, the king, the entire world - they'll feel the same agony they put me through if it kills me! Aahahaha, hahahaHAHAHA!"
Xabel and Gakudon stared in silence at their friend, too stunned and confused at what was going on in the memory to react immediately. At last, however, Xabel broke free from the trance and raced forward, his arm outstretched to the man as he leaned over the edge of the roof dangerously in the thralls of his laughter. His eyes widened and his heart constricted painfully when he noticed the blonde begin to tip uneasily and fall.
What happened next was a blur to both Gakudon and Xabel, but the knight that brought them to the roof and the people of Prontera would say, if asked, that the Lord Knight took on an unearthly red glow as he dashed forward so quickly that he was almost hard to keep track of. His hand gripped that of the Clown he had vowed to protect, leaving the man dangling just within reach.
Relieved that he had caught the musician, Xabel hoisted Chrnos back onto the rooftop, his expression set and serious, and pulled the man into his arms in a protective embrace. His friend was safe and the balance of life was restored for the minty-haired man.
When Chrnos came back to his senses, he blinked and glanced around, bewildered. Why was he on the roof of the castle? When had he gotten here, and why were Gakudon, one of the Knights, and practically the whole of Prontera staring at him? The last thing he remembered he had been outside the city walls, staring off into the sky and watching the clouds float by.
He glanced down when he noticed a pressure around his body, blinking in further confusion. The arms around him were pretty strong...
"Are you okay now?" The voice called Chrnos from his thoughts and brought him to look up at its owner. "You had all of us terrified you were going to fall."
Xabel gazed down at his comrade gently, his smile soft and eyebrows furrowed in the remains of concern for the other man's well-being. His arms were looped tightly around Chrnos's body as if he hoped to prevent him from further endangering his life. (Although that wasn't far from the truth, he just couldn't bring himself to let go yet for some reason.)
Chrnos shook his head slightly and then looked back up into Xabel's eyes, frowning acutely. "I'm fine, yes, but..what happened? Why am I on the roof?"
Gakudon finally brought himself forward and, realizing that everyone was still waiting to know what had happened, he advanced forward in a few brief strides. He stood at the edge of the roof and spread his arms wide to show that he was addressing everyone below him. "Well," he called down, moving his hands to begin a low applause. "That was an astounding piece of work there, my boy."
Chrnos glanced at the king, his head tilting slightly.
Gakudon ignored the inquiring gaze, however, and continued to address the people that were gathered to bear witness to the spectacle. "What a powerful segment from our beloved Clown's new composition - an accompaniment piece called Blurring the Lines of Reality. It was awe-inspiring, wasn't it, everyone?"
A slow round of applause began from the men and women below and slowly rose in volume until everyone was applauding the supposed act. Then, in the midst of the clapping, a lone voice called out from the group of people, "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! The rescue should end with a kiss!"
The rest of the crowd quickly took to this idea and began to accompany the chant with answering echoes of their own, each calling for a romantic exchange between the Lord Knight and the Clown in his arms.
"We.." Xabel began, feeling his face flush as he released the other man quickly and both of them took a step away from one another. "That isn't..in the script..."
"That's how it's done," Gakudon supplied for the people of Prontera, smiling encouragingly at them. He moved his arms to clasp his hands behind his back as he inspected the two. "The brave hero rescues the damsel in distress from the evil that has her in its grasp, and then in the end, they share a kiss and live happily ever after."
Chrnos glanced nervously up at his friend, unsure of whether he should comply with the wishes of their audience or try to convince them out of it; he really didn't want to destroy the friendship and camaraderie they had by following the lead of romance-hyped townspeople, but at the same time...
The decision was taken out of his hands when Xabel leaned forward, grasping his cheek in one hand gently, and pressed their lips together quickly in a kiss that, upon contact, became soft and lingering. Their eyes began to flutter shut.
Xabel's free arm lifted and his hand found its way up to the Clown's hip, cupping the curve of it as he poured his emotions and the desire he had felt for the blonde for so long into the exchange. If Chrnos chose to pull away and never speak to him again after this it would hurt, yes, but he would be able to die happy knowing that if only for a moment his feelings had been made obvious to the slighter man.
Rather than pull away or hesitate, however, Chrnos slowly poured himself into the kiss in response. He felt his breath catch and his back arch just slightly until their chests touched, trying to move as close to his friend and secret love as he was able to while still remaining publicly decent. His hands found their way to the taller man's chest plate and slid smoothly up it to his neck, then behind his head to tangle his fingers gently through his silky hair.
The crowd went wild at this, with calls varying from "Aww" to wolf whistles echoing around them. Even King Gakudon smiled at them, but unlike the others, he kindly averted his eyes from the display of affection between his two friends.
To the rest of the world, perhaps it was all just part of the supposed act he had just passed off the Clown's fit as. They didn't know either of the men well enough to know what had really happened, or what was happening now. They didn't know how privileged they were to bear witness to the beginning of the furthering of an already solid friendship into a blossoming romance. He respected the privacy of the two as much as he respected them, individually; he wouldn't violate that respect by intruding upon their first confession.
When Xabel pulled away, his cheeks were as flushed as Chrnos's and he smiled down breathlessly at the other man. They had offered their heart up and were both delighted that, rather than being rejected or scorned, it had been accepted and exchanged for the other's.
Where the future would take them was still a bit difficult to say, but they knew that they could handle it. With Xabel watching over Chrnos and ensuring he was safe during his visions, Chrnos there to always the ever-present figure to ground the Lord Knight and keep him on the right track, and Prontera's sovereign ruler nearby to keep a watchful, compassionate eye on their well-being, they could face it together head-on and overcome whatever obstacles may lie ahead of them.
And that was all anyone could ever really dream of.
End