"Leaving in two days is for the birds." Axel grunted as he kept packing his magical supplies. Roxas frowned, helping as best he could. There were certain things Axel wouldn't let him touch.
"Do you really need all this stuff?" He asked dubiously as he carefully wrapped a jar in cotton and packing paper. Axel straightened, wincing and rubbing his back.
"Probably not. But if I do need it and don't have it, I'll regret it. Replacing any of this in Aerinos would be a nightmare. They do magic differently down there." Axel sighed, picking up a little toy horse from a workstand. "Oh, hey, want to see something interesting? Giddy-up!" Roxas glanced over and blinked as the horse came to life, trotting in a little circle and neighing. "It's for my niece, her birthday is next month."
"It's cute, I'm sure she'll love it." Roxas said with a smile, but couldn't help but feel a bit of sadness. He and Sora hadn't had any toys since they were orphaned… and not much before that either. In fact, the only toy he could really remember was a rag doll his mother had made.
"Woah." Axel said to the horse, and it stopped moving. He picked it up and put it back on the shelf. "Thanks, I love making those kinds of things. Too bad it's just a hobby." Roxas frowned as he thought of something he'd been meaning to ask.
"Axel? Um… what exactly do you do?" Roxas asked. Clearly Axel was rich but not idle, and aethalmages had various specialties. Roxas only knew of a few of them… the healers, the battle mages and the technomancers.
"Me? Oh… it's a little complicated." Axel frowned as he looked at a jar. "I don't even know what this is… um. Well, I'm a technomancer to start. I specialize in new weapons. A lot of guns and air cannons have my work in them." He turned the jar around and an eyeball floated to the surface. "Oh, afrodisia. I won't be needing this." He put it in the pile of rejected supplies before continuing. "I'm also a pyromancer and general combat mage. I really suck at using ice, though. It's a weakness. And I'm also an earth witch." Roxas blinked at that. He knew about earth magic, of course… it was as common as aethalmancy was rare.
"An earth witch? I didn't think aethalmages could be earth witches." That was curious. Axel grinned.
"Common misconception. Actually, almost every aethalmage is also an earth witch." Roxas eyed him curiously and Axel explained. "It all goes back to when we conquered Midora, about, mm, a thousand years ago." Roxas blinked at the thought of history going back that far. "Earth witchery came from there. It's a dominant trait, unlike aethalmagery, and has some serious survival advantages so it tends to spread. Anyway, my ancestors took a lot of powerful earth priestesses as concubines after the conquest and tried to breed the earth magic into the aethalmage bloodlines. It didn't exactly work… because aethalmagery is a recessive trait, the earth magic overwhelmed it and a lot of children without any aethalmagery were born. But that's not exactly unusual when we bring new blood in, so they grew up with the aethalmages and eventually married and had children with us." Axel shrugged. "After a thousand years of mixing, that earth priestess blood is in almost all of us. Most aethalmages just don't know how to use it. I do, since my mother was an earth witch. And father caught me practicing, too, and realized he couldn't sense what I was doing. So he got me the best teacher he could find to enhance my earth magic. A great man, Gilius Tavodan." Axel sounded wistful. "Anyway… yeah. Earth magic is almost undetectable to aethalmagery, so I've been teaching our youngsters how to use it ever since."
"And that's the magic you think Sora and I have." Axel nodded as he packed away a microscope. "What happened to your father? If you don't mind me asking?"
"Not at all… it's been almost ten years." Roxas blinked, wondering how old Axel was. He didn't look much over twenty-five, but he had to be older. "Have you heard of the Defiler Rebellion?" Roxas shook his head and Axel smiled sadly. "How fleeting is fame. Well, it was a really nasty rebellion in our Southern province. It was being funded by outside interests, and they'd managed to suborn a senior intelligence official. Bad information was given to the King and his Council, and they sent a platoon of battle mages and shock troopers into a really bad situation." Axel paused a moment, remembering. "They were set up to fail, but they didn't. It was meant to be a massacre of our troops and civilians, to prove our weakness, but they did it. They killed most of the rebels and got out… although only nine out of the fifty sent made it. And three of the survivors eventually died of their wounds. Father was one of them. I still miss him, sometimes." Axel brooded a moment, then deliberately continued in a more cheerful tone. "And don't let Demyx's foppishness fool you. He was one of those survivors too."
"Wow, really?" Roxas had trouble imagining the dapper healer in a combat zone. "He must be older than he looks then. What should I do with these?" Roxas tentatively touched a porcelain egg. Axel glanced over.
"Oh, leave those. They're a gag gift. Took me a while to figure it out… they're enchanted to radiate magic and trick aethalmages into examining them for hours trying to figure out what they do. But all they do is radiate magic." Roxas blinked, then snickered at the thought. "So what happened to your parents? If you don't mind me asking?" Roxas winced, but… he had asked Axel about his father, so it was a fair question.
"Me and Sora are twins… we don't know who our father is. Our grandma helped raise us, but she died when we were six. Our mother was a carpenter. We all lived on White Street." Axel nodded. That was a lower class neighborhood, but not part of the slums. "Then one day she didn't come home. A man came and told us she was dead, a beam had fallen on her. He took us to an orphanage but they said they were full, they couldn't take anymore. So he just left us there." Roxas shrugged. "We got by from there." He didn't want to go into the living in alleyways, scavenging for food… and being taught about sex. Axel winced.
"Lazy bastard. If I knew who that was, I'd have him fired. Or worse." Axel glanced around the room thoughtfully, then at the half dozen boxes they had filled. "I think that's it. Let's go get some supper, I'm starving." They'd spent almost the entire day packing the magical supplies, and Roxas nodded, his stomach rumbling. But before they left, he hesitated, and slipped a porcelain egg in his pocket.
He wasn't sure why. Axel wouldn't care, and the egg wasn't pretty or valuable. Still… he had a feeling it could be useful.
Sora watched Riku pack his magical supplies, feeling completely useless. The silver haired boy didn't want him to touch anything. In fact, Riku would have preferred to not have him in the room, but Sora didn't know where else to go. The staff of Riku's mansion were kind but distant and there was nothing for him to do.
"Are you sure you don't want any help?" He said tentatively, and Riku looked up with a frown.
"No, for the third time." Sora winced and huddled up a bit. Riku sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, I just don't like other people messing with my things." Riku eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. "Actually, I do have something for you to do. Go ask the cooks to send me some nibbles and a drink, then tell one of the serving staff that I want you to go to the gymnasium." Sora blinked.
"Gym-what?" That was a word he'd never heard before. Riku gave him a look like he was stupid, then explained in an overly patient tone.
"Gymnasium. It's a room with equipment you can use to exercise. You look like a strong wind would blow you over and you've got almost no muscle tone. It's cute, but you need to work out." Sora winced. He knew he was weak at the moment. He didn't need to have his face rubbed in it.
"I was in a coma for months." He muttered, and Riku frowned.
"A coma? What happened?" Sora stayed silent, looking down, and Riku shook his head. "Nevermind. That makes it more important that you work out, to get back your coordination."
"Yes Riku," Sora said dutifully, getting up from his stool.
"Work out until you're tired, but not exhausted. You don't want to push it." Riku cautioned him, and Sora nodded before he left.
He wasn't sure what to think of Riku. The silver haired man seemed to blow hot and cold… one moment paying attention to his needs, almost kind, and the next treating him like an idiot. And Riku didn't want help with anything. Sora had seen rich people before… they usually took servants for granted. Riku's servants weren't allowed in his rooms at all. Riku brought his own clothes out and put them in a hamper, and they delivered the clean ones outside his room. It was… weird. Sora wondered what his rooms looked like. Were they a terrible mess, or did the aethalmage clean everything himself? Somehow, Sora couldn't imagine Riku living in a mess. His magical workroom was so nicely arranged.
Sora hadn't seen Riku's rooms yet, and he wasn't sure he was going to. Riku seemed undecided on if he wanted to have him as a lover… Sora had caught some wanting glances from the silver hair, but Riku made no advances. Sora had considered trying to seduce him, but he wasn't sure how Riku would react. Or if he wanted to. Riku was very handsome but a bit scary.
Sora poked his head into the kitchen cautiously, trying to figure out who to talk to. A maid was chatting with one of the under-chefs, and glanced over with a smile.
"Oh, Sora!" She said happily, walking over, and Sora relaxed a bit. She was an older woman and was one of the few members of the staff that was really friendly. "What do you need?"
"Riku says he would like some nibbles and a drink in the magic room. And he said I need to go to the gymnasium?" He said shyly, and she ran her eyes over his body for a moment before nodding.
"He's right about that. I'll show you the way. Hey, Aaron, the Master would like some sandwiches and tea in the magic room!" The chef nodded, and called a few orders to his subordinates before she skipped out. "Right this way." Sora followed her as she led him to a very large room. He blinked as she ushered him in, glancing around.
The gymnasium seemed like a huge waste of space, at first. It was very large. It was edged by a dark grey path, set into the floor, and he scuffed it with one foot. It felt a bit gritty.
"That's the running path. Now, all this is the equipment you can use." She cheerfully showed him the equipment in the centre of the room, demonstrating how to use it. Sora blinked as he watched. The thought of deliberately exercising like this was foreign to him. He had always walked most of the day, so he'd never needed to. But after a bit of reflection, he could see how an aethalmage would need this. They didn't have to walk anywhere, unless they wanted to. "There, you try it." Sora hesitated, then hopped up on the peddling machine. When she was sure he had the hang of it, the maid smiled and left.
An hour later, Sora was dismayed to find out how weakened he really was. Before his coma, he could have done this for hours. But now he was tired after barely one.
"Riku was right." Sora mumbled to himself as he lifted weights. "I just wish he'd be nicer about it." Riku could be so obnoxious without even trying. Nothing like Axel. For a moment, Sora wished he'd been able to go with the redhead, then shook his head. Roxas liked Axel and he was pretty sure Axel liked Roxas back. It made him wonder… could this be permanent? "Not worth thinking about now." He reminded himself.
They'd have to go to Aerinos and come back before he could seriously think about his and Roxas' future.
"Two aethalmages and companions." The purser of the airship glanced them over, then at the dozen or so boxes piled behind them. "Traveling light, I see." Roxas and Sora exchanged wide-eyed glances. This was traveling light?
"We had to pack quickly." Axel said casually, glancing up at the vast airship. "Is everything ready to go?" The purser nodded as several of the crew started working, bringing the boxes on board carefully. They were familiar with magical supplies.
"We've been ready for hours. As soon as this is all loaded, we'll be underway." Axel took the hint, and started up the rope ladder to the airship. A crew member gripped his arm as he reached the top, helping him aboard. Roxas looked at Sora with concern, but Sora smiled and shook his head. He was sure he could make it.
Soon, they were all aboard the airship. Almost as soon as they were onboard, it began moving, starting forward at a slow, lumbering pace. Axel lead them downstairs, into the bowels of the ship.
"Next stop, Aerinos! I hope you all brought motion sickness medication, this could be a bumpy ride." He said cheerfully and Riku sighed, crossing his arms.
"I suppose we'll have to share cabins." He said, irritated, and Sora wilted slightly. Axel glanced over at him whimsically.
"Stop being such a priss, Riku. Sora isn't going to molest you, I promise." Riku favored Axel with a glare, then left to go to his cabin, muttering something that might have been curse words. Roxas frowned, offended for Sora.
"What is his problem?" He asked aloud, and Axel shrugged, then grinned.
"At this moment? Demyx. He invited Riku to my summer house just to be an annoying bastard. Don't worry about it, he'll get over it." Sora cheered up a little at that. At least Riku wasn't mad at him.
Although it could spill over onto him. He'd just have to see.
Sora winced, glancing around the cabin as Riku got ready for bed. Riku was changing in the bathroom, and he had already changed, but… there was only one bed.
Airships like this had strictly limited accommodations. Their initial impression of slowness had been deceptive… this was actually a very fast ship when it really got going, and it was going now. But it wasn't meant for passengers, and they weren't the only ones going to Aerinos. So even taking a crew quarter was out of the question. He and Riku had to share the bed.
It wasn't helped by the fact that the walls were thin and they were right beside Axel and Roxas cabin. Sora winced again at a muffled cry. It sounded like Roxas was having a great time, and he wistfully wished he could say the same.
Riku stepped out of the bathroom and Sora stared, taken aback. The silver haired boy was wearing white silk pajama pants, and no top. Sora's gaze trailed over the other man's chest, blushing faintly. Riku was… well built. Very well built. Blue eyes met aquamarine, and there was a tension filled pause. Then Riku glanced away, stepping over to the bed and casually pulling back the covers. Sora blinked, then sat down beside him.
"R-Riku?" He said haltingly as the silver haired man curled up under the blankets, facing away from him. "Can I… can I hold you?" There was a pause, and for a moment Sora's heart plummeted. He was sure Riku was going to say no.
"If you want." The reply finally came, almost indifferent but… not quite. Sora hesitated, then cuddled up against Riku's back, putting an arm around his waist. Riku's hand slid over his, and Sora sighed, closing his eyes.
This was… comforting. Very comforting. It had been a long time since he had just held someone.
