Lancer de le Pique, the Mean lil' Master, the Ace of Spades, doubled back into the bushes, eyes almost as round as his body, as his dirt bike decided to have a mind of its own.
It sputtered, clashed, groaned...and all under the care of a prince's twelve-year-old hands. He didn't understand. He'd greased it well, planned it since the beginning of the month. He'd cleaned it, not stopping from pouring buckets of soapy water on it until some of the paint accidentally came off. He'd worked so hard on it, had checked to the minutest detail on every part. On every gear. The robes he'd worn since he was ten were covered in sweat and grease, enough sweat to make his father laugh at him for being "such a little fatass", and enough grease to make his father laugh at him for "being so damn careless".
Speaking of… His hands fumbled as usual as he turned off the Led Zeppelin music, whispering about "rings of smoke through the trees and the voices of those who stand looking"...
An odd chill, older and odder than most of Lancer's nights, spread through his veins. It was as if someone were to scare him by calling him "Lawn Sair" (not "lawn chair"), the pronunciation to his French name, his original name, his own darn name his own darn dad had given to him. Just for the sake of the music playing, he looked back in the woods. Something seemed to be breathing there, something odd, a conglomeration of eyes and hands and teeth. Lancer raised his hand, his spade attacks replying in an instant, points ready and waiting the way Rouxls had taught him since he was a little boy. Sweat poured down his veins, every inch of the woods stock- still…
A deer, majestic and hushed as it was, tiptoed out of the bushes.
Lancer sighed, the sweat still pouring. Heh, people were always saying he was too on edge. But the strange thing was that unlike most quirks they commented about him, they didn't use the slang equivalent and instead preferred to say "hypervigilant". Whatever the heck that is.
He looked around. The sky was... well… dark. There wasn't any sunlight to contradict that. But it was more than that whenever it was night. He didn't know whether or not it was because he was often pulled by the strings of tiredness, but the sky seemed to become a vortex, seeping him in, taking him to a place far, far, far away from here… The palace was a giant, a vanguard, each of the corners bearing devil's horn-peaks. Pictures of saints of all sorts were hung outside, supposedly to remind Lancer to behave better than them so he wouldn't go under their same fates. There was Sebastian, whose arrows sent Lancer into flinching at least once before passing it. There were Perpetua and Felicity, skin nearly as dark as the sky, looking up to the vast, cradling cavern that was the night. To the right, cast off to the side, was Stephen, holding his stones, looking not at the sky, but on the spades, all of the spades, each and every pattern that happened to be on Lancer's body. He looked to the castle, and its gate, its entryway was a mouth, a cave, cavernous and wide, chewing and spitting out anyone who stepped into the castle without hesitation.
But it didn't mean to. It was just a gate.
He heard a voice. Ripping, tearing open the sky and the calm dark of Lancer's fright. Almost a horn, a half-choked horn. And then footsteps started towards the ward. Lancer's entire body seized as if he were epileptic, the lump exploding in his throat, swelling as he dove into the poor elephant topiary the King, the darned King, had ordered for his ward.
At first, he didn't peer his eyes out, going instead to his defensive position. His unfortunate dirt bike was left out in the open, but what did that matter? If his father was coming, none of that mattered. The footsteps started to draw closer and closer, pressing harder and harder on Lancer's ringing ears, and Lancer's arms flew to his head, crisscrossing over like the instrument of St. Peter's demise. Not again not again not again not again not again please not again WHAT DID I DO not again not again not again…
The footsteps abated. Lancer came out of his position, uncoiling vertebra after vertebra, displacing leaf after leaf after leaf, gentle, gentle, gentle... he emerged popping out of the bush, with the elephant's trunk hanging just above his head. He chuckled when the time was right, and took a breath. Sometimes he needed to do this, inhaling and exhaling, not worrying about anything else in the world. Not his dad, not his dirt bike, not what Robert Plant had to say about smoke in trees. Not about what his regal duties would require of him soon, soon, very soon, not about what his social skills demanded. Not about the blue light flashing in his right eye-
He flashed his own eye towards the light, challenging it for a moment. He turned his eye to the sky's display, his heart seeming to apply its brakes as it saw the procession of… bones? Elaborate structures of bones, each of them flashing out their lights? Why bones? Why here, why now? Maybe it was one of the castle workers, come to snatch him out of the bush. Maybe it was one of the more lower- class children, come to throw some sort of food or poster at him again while he tried to chase them down, tried to apologize for something he didn't know how to control. But the light wasn't as painful, wasn't as piercing… but the burning, the burning forced him to grab onto his eye. This hurt more than the night by the empty oven when Rouxls Kaard was nowhere to be found. His eyes darted the other way, squeezing so tightly that the edges of his eyes crinkled, the ringing in his ears widened, the red, orange, yellow piercing his eyes even when he put both his hands over it…
The light plunged down towards the earth, and all of the prophecies, everything biblical that his father had ever told him, came into the castle. Perhaps it was some warfare from the Lightners. Lancer didn't know. He didn't know. He didn't know.
I don't know what's going on what am I supposed to do oh jeez oh jeez oh jeez it looks like it's going to hit the ground, it's going to hit, my ears can't do this, they can't-