Morning came and, as usual, Tommy was in no hurry to move from the luxury of his bed. Memories of the previous night came back to him and a wide grin spread across his lips. Lazily, he reached to his side and felt around for the boy that should have been there. Finding only more blankets under his fingertips, a single eye snapped open and scanned the room. Sure enough, Dake had slipped out under the cover of night and disappeared. What a fool.
With an aggravated groan, the brunette sat up and stretched. The foreign boy had been a good lay, but there was something else about him that urged Tommy to keep him around for a bit longer. Perhaps the naively innocent way he talked about things brought a certain amusement that most of the citizens couldn't. Most of his servants and citizens either cowered in some sort of strange fear (not that he was cruel, just rather... strict) or tried to get in his pants. The latter wouldn't have been a difficult feat except Tommy rather his bedmates be the kind he picked, not the kind that picked him.
All of his thoughts brought him full circle back to Dake. He wondered where the blue-haired boy ran off to and slowly rolled out of bed. Making his way to the main door, he paused just as his fingertips grazed the doorknob. Tilting his head for a moment, he glanced over his shoulder to the bathroom door, through which he was sure he heard running water.
Crossing the room, Tommy peeked inside, red eyes scanning the dark bathroom. Finally, his sights laid upon a form hovering over the large bathtub, steam rising from the porcelain structure. He studied the blue-eyed boy curiously before smirking to himself. He snuck up behind the smaller form and carefully traced his fingers down the hunched spine.
Dake froze in place at the light touch. He hadn't even heard Tommy enter the room, let alone come right up behind him. Flushing slightly, he turned to face the lord, his eyes cast to his own body. He was stripped naked and had been thoroughly cleansing himself of the evidence from the night before. He had nearly been finished and planned to sneak back into bed before his master awoke, but those plans had been shot down. He never figured Tommy for an early bird.
"What's wrong?" the brunette purred into his slave's ear, nipping at the lobe lightly. "Trying to get rid of what happened?"
Dake's eyes closed lightly as he shook his head. "It was...messy," he murmured, turning red, much to Tommy's amusement.
"You're done now?" A nod and the taller one wrapped an arm around the unclothed boy's waist. "Then I'll have breakfast started." Not that Tommy really minded, but the foreigner looked like a stick. Besides, the lord found that if he fed and treated his captives well enough, they were less likely to run off.
At the prospect of a meal, Dake eagerly nodded and followed his ruler from the room, stomach growling in anticipation.
"Then everything is set?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. We'll advance tomorrow afternoon and attack at sundown."
"Yes, sir."
A door clicked shut and a tall, mysterious figure leaned against a windowsill. A faint grin, malicious and deadly, covered a tanned face. Bright orange hair fell down the man's back in soft waves and pointed, black fingernails drummed lightly against the cold glass. Pitch black eyes peered off into the distance where Tommy's palace sat in all its glory. The longer he watched, the wider the man's grin grew. Soon, very soon, he would have it all.
"That's not how that goes!" Tommy quickly yanked a bowl from the microwave, scowling at the smaller boy. "You don't microwave eggs."
Dake blinked, a rather blank expression covering his features. "Oh..." He shrunk back slightly, realizing that he'd made an error. "Sorry."
Finding it nearly impossible to stay angry at the youth, Tommy shook his head and carried the bowl of beaten egg yolks and milk to the stove. "It's fine."
"So I thought you had a chef or something?" Dake fiddled with a few cooking instruments on the counter, glancing around. Flour lay in splotches here and there and measuring cups and spoons were strewn everywhere around the place. A broken egg shell and a small puddle of milk forbid the pair from walking around freely without caution. In general, they'd made a disaster out of a simple breakfast.
"I do," Tommy hissed, pouring the mixture into a heated pan. "She seems to have taken the day off."
"Oh, well that's nice of you to give her the day off." Dake smiled brightly; maybe Tommy wasn't so bad.
"I didn't." Then again, maybe he was.
"You think she ran away?" The foreign boy found a relatively clean and empty counter space and hopped up to use it as a seat while the brunette cooked.
"Eila wouldn't just run off," the lord assured. "She's perpetually peppy, even when she's pissed off." He paused in his stirring of the eggs to give a thoughtful look. "Actually, it's kind of creepy." He nodded and returned to the task at hand. "I still suspect her of being a witch."
Clear, blue eyes blinked in surprise. "A witch? Those don't really exist...do they?"
"Witch, sorceress. Whatever you want to call it." Tommy shrugged. "She's evil, that's all I know."
"Sounds scary," Dake said, swinging his legs gently back and forth.
"Terrifying," the brunette agreed, glancing over his shoulder. "And don't sit on the counters. Food goes there, we don't need your ass scum on it."
"Ass scum?" Dake repeated, a bit horrified. "But I just got clean." He motioned to himself as emphasis, his clothes freshly provided by his owner despite some protest. Eventually, though, the bluenette retired his old clothing and accepted the new ones.
"Ass scum doesn't wash off," Tommy informed him, sounding very much like he knew what he was talking about.
Sighing, Dake slid off the counter and opted instead to lean against it, arms crossed over his chest. A few moments of silence passed, the only sound in the large kitchen was the scrape of Tommy's spatula against the frying pan. Finally, Dake mustered up the courage to ask a question that had been on his mind since he first learned that the young man in front of him was the leader of his country.
"Tommy?"
"Hm?"
"What happened to your parents?"
The question caught the lord completely off guard and he froze in his actions for a moment. Hesitating, something Dake had never seen him do before (not that he'd known him that long to really see him do much of anything), Tommy eventually shook his head. "It's a long story."
A bit defiantly, Dake pressed the matter. "I have time."
Making a slightly disgruntle sound in the back of his throat, Tommy headed out of the kitchen, motioning for Dake to follow. He led the younger one through the palace's foyer to the outside world.
It had been several days since Dake had been outside, other than his short trip from the prison to the massive building, and the burning rays of the morning sun blinded him momentarily. He raised an arm to block out the glare and looked around the palace's front lawn. Paved walkways wove through gardens of green grass and flowering plants. For as dark as the lord seemed, outside his doors was bountiful and bright; Dake guessed that he left the landscaping to someone else.
Tommy waited for the other to adjust to the lush scenery before extending an arm and pointing to the distance. Beyond the gardens and glory of the palace was a security wall and a gated entrance. "There."
Through the bars of the gate, blue eyes peered over the horizon. Rolling hills slowly died out into flat, dark land and what appeared to be a castle loomed in the distance. It looked forbidding and as if a constant shadow kept watch over the land. Dake frowned slightly at the disturbing image so close to all this beauty, and looked to the taller one questioningly.
"Many years ago, before my father ruled, this land had a different king, much crueler and more sadistic than myself. He punished his people for no reason and kept all the wealth that this land offered to himself, leaving his citizens with few resources to survive on." Tommy lowered his arm and closed his eyes to the morning breeze before opening them again to look at Dake. "There was a resistance started to overthrow the king, who had made a decree full of arrogance and foolishness: 'Anyone who can slay me may have my throne'. Of course, many tried for the power and wealth, but the king was a very skilled warrior and he was not defeated easily.
"It happened, though, as it was sure to. A smart man, careful and precise. He didn't use a poison's trickery like many or attempt a head-on assault through guards and loyal followers of the king. He snuck into the king's bedroom and assassinated him in the dead of night. That next morning, true to the rule, he was crowned as this land's new king."
Slowly absorbing the history, Dake finally nodded. "Your father."
"Yes." Tommy sighed softly and looked back across his land. "He turned things around for everyone. The land recovered from the abuse and the people were more unified than they had been in centuries. He did great things and was adored by many. Not everyone, though. The previous king had a son, who hated my father. He had been brought up to believe that those with power reserved the right to use it as they saw fit and viewed my father as weak because he shared his glory and wealth with the commoners."
"The king's son killed your father," Dake concluded darkly, a deep frown creasing his features.
"It wasn't secretive, that wasn't their way. They wanted everyone to know who had done it. He waged a war on my father's kingdom with all of the supporters of the old king. Though my father's army was strong it was no match for the brutality they were faced with. There are downfalls to being kind and that man took advantage of every one of them. He eventually made it to the throne room, where my father had been convinced to hide. The people loved him too much to risk his life in battle." Tommy paused to give a short, dry laugh. "Didn't make much of a difference in the end, though. Bastard killed him, anyway."
Dake waited a moment before asking his next question. "If the king's assassinator becomes his successor, why are you here and not him?" It was obvious by the way his lord was glaring vengefully at the darkened castle so far away that his father's killer still remained behind its walls, alive and well.
"One of the first things my father did when he became king was to erase many of the old laws. Succession by murder, he said, was one of the most foolish rules he had ever heard of. Even if it was how he ascended to the throne, he frowned upon it, saying that violence shouldn't be rewarded with riches. He implemented a more traditional method of rulers and placed me, his eldest and only child, as next in line."
"Why did you let him live?" Dake wondered. Tommy didn't seem the timid, peace-loving kind.
"These people have seen enough death at the hands of their king. I don't want to be seen as weak, but I don't want to be hated, either." The brunette shrugged a shoulder. "What's past is past and besides, Cain doesn't come around here. Whether he's afraid or simply despises outside contact, I don't know, but it keeps him away."
The somber setting laid in place by Tommy's dark story was shattered with a loud shout from somewhere inside the palace. Specifically, the lord's name being screeched out by a female. Startled, Dake spun around the palace doors, eyes wide. "Wh-what was that?"
"Oh, good," Tommy said, sarcastically, "Eila's back." After a moment, his eyes widened as well. "Oh shit, the eggs!"
GOOD ONE. =B I had to include Cain and Eila. They're part of the story, too! Also, I know the history is kind of overdone, but I wanted to write something that didn't have loads of imagination put into it. Besides, people seem to like overdone. The next chapter will be the best ever. Sex, plot, heated moments, Eila, and fighting. Everyone shall be pleased...unless they don't read it. Then they'll die incomplete and never know why. Read on~
