.
.
Everybody dies. But nothing has been quite the same after King Harrow's assassination.
Katolis changed so quickly, from thriving and golden and rich with prospects to shuddering with the fear of an invasion, and then right back to a sense of unity from within. Soren has personally witnessed the fall of Dark Magic and its users. He has witnessed his once enemies working alongside the humans in Katolis's armies, and alongside the Dragon Queen who never raised a claw against them.
Unity against a common enemy.
(But still, he doubts that the citizens of Katolis would be so welcoming to the elves — not even if the Moonshadow elves themselves arrived to save their kingdom from some form of horrific destruction.)
Soren knows he has now reached his peak, both in his noble status and physically. He becomes the head of the Crownguard, overseeing and preparing the other knights for their duties. It's far easier to focus on this aspect of his life, rather than the falsities of love from potential suitors who boldly approach him.
He has little to no interest in it.
Not women. Not any marriage declarations. Not any longing for children either.
Being so restless about his personal affairs causes Soren to uncover an odd and hidden chamber in the dungeons, reeking with the scent of rot and musty, ancient tomes. He and his men uncover an array of mystical artifacts and rune-covered manuscripts. There's only one person whom Soren trusts with a detailed and secretive examination of these items. He sends out a raven's letter.
Callum, as far as he's aware, has been studying and training himself in the Sources of All-Magic and carrying out a myriad of diplomatic missions in Xadia. It's another two years before Soren receives a letter agreeing to return, and a sudden, frantic announcement at the front gates.
"A man claiming to be the prince has rode past the guards!" One of Soren's men gasps out, heaving and clutching to the grey, stone door-frame to Soren's quarters as he bursts in.
"… Of course he has," Soren mutters.
He gruffly orders aside the rest of the castle-guards huddling in pairs, or raising their weapons at the approaching dark spot on the horizon. Soren marches down the outer, sun-bleached steps as the tall and hooded rider slows their gallop right into the courtyard, leaping off their horse expertly and raising their arms. Their woolen, dark cloak billows around them with a flourish.
"You sent for me. Here I am."
Callum lowers his hood, grinning from ear-to-ear.
There's lines of reddish-pink scarring over the edge of his left cheek and throat like an animal's clawmarks. His brown hair has become visibly thicker and longer, blowing against Callum's darkly stubbled jaw.
He wants to comment sarcastically about dramatics, as if they were mere children again, but Soren's mouth goes dry as timber. His heart rabbits fiercely inside his rib-cage.
"My prince…" Soren murmurs, dropping his eyes and sweeping into a low, humbling bow.
For once, he feels the need for it.
On the other hand, Callum's features tighten, a noticeably embarrassed laugh leaving him. "There's no need for that, Soren," he declares, patting his mare as she whinnies nervously. More guards peek out from the windows, breaking ranks to yell and cheer the prince's name.
Soren rises upon command, his silvered armor gleaming, meeting their eyes.
"You're a better horse-rider than last I saw you," he remarks, the corner of Soren's mouth uplifting. It's the closest thing to amusement Soren has felt in a long time. "Practically went flying off the saddle the first time I taught you to hold reins. I thought at least you could manage that instead of swordfighting."
"It's been what? Five years since the coronation?" Callum says thoughtfully, squinting his eyes. Green like the deep, mystical woods. "Might have been a little strange if I hadn't improved."
Soren gazes over him, feeling his heart and stomach clench up up a beat. In a nice way, he thinks.
"Well, you look incredible…" Realizing what he just said, Soren corrects himself, deadpanning, "Good. I meant good. You look alright. Too skinny."
Most certainly untrue — Callum has never looked more a man grown to befit his right, healthy and rosy from the sun's burn, and with those arm-muscles bulging against his tatters.
He clears his throat, warm in the neck and ears, ignoring Callum's look of polite bemusement.
"King Ezran is most eager to see you."
At the mention of his younger brother, Callum visibly relaxes. "I'm sure he is," he mumbles, sternly nodding to Soren. "But… first I would like to take a look at what you spoke of."
Focus. That is what they all need.
Soren turns around and yells back at the guards still admiring Callum from above, instructing them to return to their posts and notify their own men of Prince Callum's arrival. He summons two or three of his Crownguard to follow, as Soren leads everyone to the dungeons.
It's too dark and cold, the further they go.
Callum adjusts his eyes in the torchlight, his expression fading into horror.
"I had nearly forgotten this place…" he announces grimly, taking in the sight of Viren's underground chamber. Many of the bookstacks are full of cobwebs and damp with glittering, yellowish-white mildew.
Callum's fingertips sweep over a black and seemingly decaying lump on the tabletop.
Within a split second, his knees give out. Callum's body arches, nearly folding sideways. Soren catches him, abandoning his sword. "Callum!" he shouts, watching those beautifully green eyes roll around frantically in their sockets. Another long moment passes before Callum snaps out of it, noisily sucking in oxygen.
"Mm'fine," he says hoarsely, reaching out and touching Soren's arm encircling him, gripping down. He half-cradles Callum to his front, helping him sit up on the dungeon's ground. "You need to burn all of this," Callum whispers, glancing around at the darkness. Soren has not seen him so troubled and weak before. "Eradicating any trace of Dark Magic left to humans is what the living mages swore to do. It's the only way to bring balance back."
Once he steadies Callum back onto his feet, Soren listens to him cataloging what they can touch and cannot touch. Most are safe to burn immediately once they are prepared.
"This looks important," Soren points out, gesturing to a huge, black-leather case nearby.
Callum removes it from the shelving, placing it down and examining the unusual carvings. "These aren't runes," he speaks up, Callum's brow furrowing. "It may need dark magic to open—"
Without saying a word, Soren brandishes one of the iron fire-pokers, lifting it high and repeatedly, violently hitting the case, grunting. On the next strike, one of its sides pops open, rattling its contents. "That also works… I guess," Callum mutters, blinking.
He puts a hand into the opening, revealing a dried-out, tender parchment. Soren throws away the fire-poker, thinning his lips together when Callum unrolls the scroll on another tabletop.
"Gods…"
"What?" Soren asks, watching in mild confusion as Callum gapes slowly down on the parchment. It looks like nothing to him. Just a bunch of squiggly, inked lines and patterns.
"This… this is a star-map to an old, ruined temple beyond Xadia's regions," Callum says excitedly. His smile goes so brilliantly bright and wide that Soren feels warm all over. "It tells us where to find one of the Primal Stones that has been lost for centuries… Soren…"
Perhaps his joy is infectiously so, as Soren finds himself smiling back at him, leaning in and clutching onto Callum's shoulder with his silvered gauntlet.
Perhaps so.
.
.
Soren remains with the Crownguard's soldiers, destroying all of the magical items and tomes and plants with his own hands, as Callum vanishes into the throne room to see his brother.
He's covered in soot and flecks of ash when the deed is done, exiting the dungeons and into the frontmost of the courtyards. Soren rubs under his nose irritably, glimpsing Callum's purple tunic in the distance. The prince, despite appearing shabby and unkempt, is getting flocked eagerly by servants — mostly young, beaming chambermaids with high breasts and flattering, girlish waists.
"… … Excuse us," Soren says, interrupting, keeping his tone flat. He misses Callum's relieved sigh. The chambermaids pout and feign their disapproval, giggling into their hands, racing away.
Sunlight dims, casting their environment into pinks and golds.
"I do believe Katolis is gladdened to see their prince come home," Soren tells him just as flatly, looking ahead with his chin tilted up. His mouth feels too-swollen and dry again.
A low, snorting sound.
"And are you, Soren?" Callum replies, not bothering to disguise a semi-scathing expression as Soren's eyes go large, finally landing on him. "Did you not refer to me as the step-prince while we were growing up together, or has that changed as well?"
Soren's heart begins to speed up once more. "I should not have done that," he says regretfully, frowning. "It was a cruel jest at the time, but it was cruel all of the same."
To his astonishment, Callum's expression softens up.
He snorts again but lightly, folding his arms. "You've been forgiven long ago…" Callum murmurs, looking ahead to the same, pinkish-gold horizon as Soren stares devoutly at him.
"If there's anything you need—"
"There is," Callum interrupts, abruptly facing the other man. The beginnings of a sly, little grin curls up Callum's mouth, exposing his teeth. "I'm in need of a man who knows his way around for leisure before I'm formally announced this evening. Someone perhaps insufferably loyal to the crown and a bit of a jerk, truth be told, but with a heart of gold—"
Soren nudges him with his elbow, cutting him off, mocking an annoyed groan. "With all due respect, I would knock your royal bottom to the dirt if not for the matter of treason—"
Laughter stretches between them, dragging to the surface, and oh gods, Soren has missed this.
Missed him.
.
.
He expects King Ezran requests for Callum to be at the dining hall for supper.
And instead, Soren finds himself lurking out of the stables with a knapsack of jelly tarts, with Callum atop his mare, swinging himself up and riding off towards the hillside for privacy.
Dressed up as peasants, no one will question why two men wander aimlessly towards the river and a patch of dense forest under the moonlight. Callum nibbles on a tart, enraptured within his own tales about where he has gone, how wondrous all of Xadia is and how magic is vibrant and binds itself to every living creature.
There's nothing evil about it or dark.
"I want you to have this."
Callum's hand presents out. Soren narrows his eyes, scratching under his armpit and bending over to gaze at the amulet. Its round, glow-white shape hangs down from the braided copper.
"It's moon-forged from Xadia a long time ago. Before the Dragon Prince was born. The elves made it for protection," Callum explains, his face curiously reddening. "Not that… you can't protect yourself. It… well, it's supposed to show you your way in darkness. Down the darkest paths you may take."
Soren hesitates, then motions for it. He feels how light the amulet truly is to his palm.
"I told Claudia that magic was creepy and gross, before the war ended," Soren murmurs, feeling his lips tingle with the awareness of mentioning his sister. He hasn't bothered to acknowledge her in years. Too much sorrow. She made him feel helpless and angry when Claudia turned on him and his friends. Nightmares would accost him, of her ethereal, luminous purple eyes melding into pitch-black. "I always thought magic was something my father and Claudia used to become powerful. Stronger. Instead magic was corrupting them."
His bright blue eyes scrunch up. Soren turns his head to a pinch-faced Callum, his voice trembling, "I remember that my father ordered me to kill you. That he tried to…"
It will never leave Soren's memory of when his father stole Callum's voice, how Callum gasped and struggled to exhale, wilting towards the floor, and how Soren tried to step forward out of concern without thinking. To protect Callum, as a member of the Crownguard would. He roughly collided into Lord Viron's arm blocking him. Soren had been young and foolish and too afraid of his family to do the right thing when it mattered.
Until there was no choice.
Soren's family is gone — his father slayed in open ground by the Dragon Queen, condemned for his madness and his past actions, and his sister consumed entirely by Dark Magic and avoiding capture, hiding. Soren doesn't want vengeance. He only wants peace for Katolis and for himself. Even if it's a fantastical, gut-wrenching lie to comfort him at night.
"I know," Callum whispers, seated beside him in the grass, their hips pressing. "I know."
He's a sworn royal knight and knights don't cry, Soren scolds himself, pushing his wrist over one of his eyelids and rubbing furiously. It doesn't help that the other man cups a hand over Soren's nape, gently massaging over the tendons, helping to ease him.
How can Callum do that? Allow him to feel worse and better at the exact same time?
"Magic is blameless." He hears Callum say this. Soren peers up, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy. "It's the person wielding it who decides what comes of it," Callum adds. His brown hair flutters against his temples and forehead, and Soren's fingers itch to touch him. "Dark Magic is like an infection. It spreads and strips away who you are, regardless of any good intent."
"When did you get like this, Callum?" Soren mumbles. It's when Callum's mouth opens, plush and pink and temptingly kissable, that he dares to lean in, grazing noses. "… Wise."
Silence follows until Callum huffs playfully, opening his mouth further.
Waiting.
Trusting in him.
And he'll never betray it, placing a deliriously heated kiss over Callum's upper lip.
Never.
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The Dragon Prince isn't mine. Not gonna lie,,, I was going to do the VLD prompt for my giftee instead but then got curious about TDP,,,,,,, then watched the entire show in one day and then started writing ahaahahah. I REALLY LOVE IT. I MAY BE OBSESSED NOW. I really love all of the characters and got an inkling for something to do with Callum/Soren so here we are. I'm so weak for like knight/prince stuff too and then you add magic, and I'm gone. I'm on cloud nine. Okay so I hope you guys really enjoy reading this and any thoughts/comments would be so so so so appreciated! Thank you!