A long time ago, when he was truly as young as he looked, the boy had watched his parents love each other. He saw it in their gestures - his father's hand on his mother's arm, the way her eyes followed him as he moved in a room. He heard it in their words - the pride in his voice as he spoke her name, her placid deference to him as her lord. When they were in the presence of others, he felt it in their power, the blending of their magic as they stood before their court and commanded armies, decided the fates of nations, and spoke laws into existence. Even at his banishment - the one time his mother had faltered, and he'd felt their aura tremble - she was still one with him, united in their choice of each other over their own son.
What a paradox is love, he'd reflected as he'd been cast out, to be so strong between two people that it left no room for others, not even the ones born of it.
I don't know if I care much for love, if it is this; it strikes me as being no different from loneliness.
When he came back to the town, he found the war horse waiting for him.
"I have returned," he announced, his speech as much like that of the world to which he'd allied himself as of the court where he'd been raised. "I see no one's decked you out in roses and garlands while I was away. I hope you're up to more battles and daring rescues because it appears this princess has a death wish."
Whereupon he launched himself into his old ways, once more living off the land and bestowing a pestilence of pranks and provocation on its unlucky residents, and the war horse was his faithful companion in all. But something had changed while he'd hung between life and death, when he'd suddenly inherited the crown that used to be his father's, and just as suddenly surrendered it: he'd gone home, and found that it wasn't anymore, that he had two families now, two places to lay his head and call his own, and that his heart had grown to hold them both.
As had he.
For just as he was no longer a prince, he was also no longer a child.
The others had seen it before he realized how his body was changing. They wondered at its meaning: the boy who'd sworn to never age suddenly had, and unaware. When they told him, he exploded in rage and denial: his father - the reason for his vow to hold on to his youth - was in his past and worlds away; there was nothing to prove, no one left to defy, no need to embrace manhood, not now, not ever.
However, the old lady thought she knew: the princess was mortal, not immune to time as he was and, perhaps, he did not want her to be one more person who left him behind. In her wisdom, she kept this to herself - he would never accept the truth anyway, not when he was so angry, so afraid. When the time was right, she decided, he would see, and believe.
And it was indeed Time that opened his eyes. Drawn by magic into the future, the princess witnessed their world at war. Friends had become enemies, families had become armies, life had given way to death. Many things - things no one could have foreseen - had changed.
They had been married in that future, the princess carelessly revealed to the boy upon her return.
Something broke inside him at her words - the safe place where he was lord of his own destiny, untouched by his father's ambition. From the time he'd understood that he was fortune's stooge, he'd vowed never to wed, had believed matrimony a curse and the cause of his punishment that had cost him family and home. Fear possessed him in that moment, and he recoiled, counting as naught the months spent building their tender friendship, of learning to trust each other, of the possibility of something more. She had cast dark magic upon him - he convinced himself of it - she was a bitter foe now, and he would have vengeance.
I am betrayed, he cried to the unicorn, his heart twisted in shame. And once again a princess is the cause. You alone - my one true ally - are trustworthy; if only you were real, we would march together into the fray and redeem our honor. Instead, you must be my muse: I will make an army of the pegasi - they are war horses like you - and deliver such retribution on the princess as the world has never seen. She will rue the day she first laid eyes on me.
So he made his heart as iron, and caused her to suffer. If he could hate her enough to hurt her, he reasoned, he could not also love her, and would certainly never wed her. In this belief, he found solace.
Until he almost killed her. It was an accident, a misdirected nudge in a display of disdain that had sent her plummeting to the ground. He'd watched, tortured by the knowledge that he was the cause and by the realization that if she perished, he would not forgive himself, could not live without her.
Once again, he was vanquished, his own conscience the traitor. He declared a ceasefire; what was the point, after all, of a battle that promised no glory because there were could be no victors? He saw at last what everyone had long known: that she was important, that he might even love her, inasmuch as he could understand love. Blindsided because it was unlike anything he'd seen, or heard, or felt, it filled him with terror, made him do unspeakable things. But he could not fight it, found to his surprise that he did not want to, and - most terrifying of all - was driven to discover if she felt the same.
So he rekindled their friendship, teasing her and inventing such terms of endearment as vexed her heart, all to test her affection for him and remind her that he could not so easily be forgotten. And she responded in kind, blushing at his counterfeit courtship while spurning him with vituperations of her own, growing used to him even as she counseled herself: I am not of age; I have years hence to tread this path.
It is of no consequence, he agreed, I have all the time in the world to be with her; I can wait.
Then came The War. The real war, not the kind he'd so easily meted out against those around him as a shield for his own shortcomings, the grandiose gestures in his defense of a fragile heart.
It was also unlike the wars he'd fought - and oftentimes aroused - when he was still a prince of Faerie, where petty monarchs pitted court against court in bloody battles over sullied reputations and the accidental transgression of obscure laws. This was a war pre-meditated, incited by those who thought nothing of betraying blood and brother to rule the world. It was a war between men and monsters, who called on dark sorcery and spoke grandly of liberty and justice, even while they enslaved the innocent to serve their own ends.
Had he still been newly broken, he would've watched with indifference this fight for the town that stood between them and their unholy ambition, but he was no longer the same boy who'd passed through its walls to seek sanctuary from a stolen past. He was now both hero and villain, and when they brought down the barrier and took the lives of the people who had become more to him than strangers to dupe for food, the boy took his wooden sword, roused his minions, and unleashed terror on the enemy. His was a fight for his town, his new family, his world.
Alongside him fought the princess, reeling from a prophecy that laid the fate of the world upon her shoulders. Desperate, she gave in to the fear in her heart, bemoaning that she was but a child, did not know how to lead an army, could not possibly win a war. The boy watched her, knowing what it was like to bear the weight of expectations, and for a moment, he thought he would comfort her. Then he hardened his resolve; she needed to be strong - he would make sure of it.
"Get up," he told her. "You are more than this. I have not thrown in my lot with yet another princess who waits to be rescued. You stormed into my life and redeemed us - your sister, your parents, your grandmother, and me. Where is that savior now? Find her, then go forth and save the world."
So she tried.
But it was a doomed battle, for although Fate ordained that she would lead it, it did not promise her return from it, and the princess was dealt a mortal wound. She would surely die, the old witch said, just as the wise old sage in the boy's imagination had long ago pronounced devastation on the realm under the reign of the Demon Lord. But this was no game between children, and his princess no gambit in their bid for freedom and victory. And while war was familiar and exhilarating to him, this one filled him with dread; the thought of losing the princess shattered him as much as the knowledge that to save her, he'd have to defy Fate itself.
And no one had ever challenged Fate and won.
You should've been here, the boy thought regretfully of his war horse as he watched her stumble, so you might bear the princess in her pain and weakness. Sometimes generals choose not to lead the charge to take down the enemy; sometimes we are given the privilege of carrying something precious - if not to safety, at least to an honorable death.
So he, with his magic, took the form of a war horse - a living stallion tall and strong, and bore her himself into the fray. For once, there was no speech upon his tongue - he was all too aware of the farewell between them, and he could not bring himself to speak the words.
When they arrived at the heart of the battle, the princess dismounted and strode out to meet the enemy. The boy felt his insides torn out of him, knowing he could not protect her, that this was not his move but hers - her right and duty to fulfill the prophecies spoken over her while he and the rest of the world had jeered.
He watched her - a small figure alone, defenseless against a mad army.
He watched her choose love over hate.
He watched her overcome evil and win the war -
the princess, not the hero, saving the world.
And he didn't know if he had ever loved her as much as in that moment.
In the ashes of the aftermath, the boy returned to the unicorn. The town was laid waste, and he was no longer a prisoner within its barrier. His life lay before him, an open door to a future in which he could do anything, go anywhere, be anyone - even King.
Someday, he thought, he would return for his throne. He'd forgiven his father, for he understood now that the weight of the world was a terrible burden to bear, and sometimes drove even the best to despair and dark places. He resolved that he would not be like his father - so afraid of losing the love of his people that he'd sacrificed his son to keep his kingdom. No, he would earn the favor of his people with kindness and justice, and his court would be merry all the days of his life. And when the time came to take a queen, he would ask the princess. She would surely say yes - for had he not already been courting her all this while, and she not once truly turned him away?
He marveled then, at the whim of destiny: when it was no longer forced upon him, this curse - the hand of a princess - became the one thing he'd wanted more than any other.
But they were young yet, and he wished to see the world he'd so long been denied while she stayed in hers. Their stories, after all, had scarcely begun, and even their happy ever afters were but the first step on a long journey that would take them on many adventures before their paths met again. Until then, she no longer needed him to rescue her; she was more than his equal - she had fought her own battles, and those of her people, and emerged victorious. His town - and hers, should she choose to rebuild it - was safe in her hands.
He stood now with her at the place where the barrier had once stretched between them, and told her he was leaving.
"I will come back," he vowed, "when I have shed the last traces of childhood and found my place in the world as a man and a King. If, by then, you will have me, we shall be wed."
"Don't you care that I might find other loves while you're gone?" asked she.
His laugh was the full sound of contentment.
"If we are meant to be," he smiled knowingly, "no other loves will matter, and Fate will be our witness."
Then he kissed her, sweet and yearning, a far cry from the one he'd stolen at the cost of his pride. She held him fiercely and called him cruel beauty and many other things even as her lips trembled against his.
When they drew apart, he remembered where he was, remembered that when he'd first stood there, years ago, he'd thought it was all he'd ever know, for all eternity. He remembered that he'd been a stranger and an outcast, fighting to stay alive, fighting despair, fighting an aloneness so profound that it would've taken him even before the snowfall of that first year. And he remembered his war horse, who'd fought those battles by his side and made his darkness a little less hard to bear.
But now his battles were finished, his sojourn ended. He had no need for a war horse now; he was a King; a pilgrim on a quest, the world his mecca, the princess his home.
But what of their oath?
One remaining fare thee well.
For the last time, he sought out Kraven, and found him lying on his side amidst the armor and swords and the other accoutrements of a soldier. Once more, he touched the unicorn's mighty horn and let his magic change his faithful companion back into a little nursery plaything. He smiled when he saw it, although his heart hurt.
"The sage who gave you to me was not that wise after all," he remarked. "You didn't help me to rescue the princess; she saved us instead. Well, I'm off to see the world. Sorry I can't take you this time; this is my adventure now, and there is no place in it for a war horse used to the thrill of combat. Your place is by the side of a warrior who needs you as much as I once did - someone to belong to you, someone to save. I know of one - he already has a family, but what is a boy without battles to dream of, and glory to claim? And what is a war horse without a boy to call his own?"
He left his room and found the little boy, playing on the floor with toy soldiers.
"Hey, Basil." He knelt before the princess's brother. "Look what I have. I'm taking a break from wars and this guy needs a new general. Take care of him for me, will you? And don't be fooled by his appearance- he's not a toy. His name is Kraven, and he is a war horse."
~Finis~
A/N: Hurrah! Finished. I thought it would never happen. Let me respond to some of the comments here, whose authors I couldn't PM back:
Anon: Er. . . I might have used the word "love" in this chapter! (shields self from tomatoes) I think I know what you mean about "going back from the kiss to Oberon's death". And I agree - it's weird. And yes, the kiss threw things off (in the original books), and the Hudson River incident cemented the best parts of their friendship. If only P+S was a linear thing, it would make writing them so much more straightforward (albeit boring). But it's not, is it? It's roundabout, and part game, part dance, part journey, part stumbling in the dark. Thank you for your thoughtful comment!
LALALALALALALALA: Hopefully this wasn't as long a wait as the other chapter. But yes, this is the end :(
Catlover360: Thank you so much!
Flirtwithmeudie: No worries about baby brothers ;) Yes, it was fun to write from P's perspective because you're right - many fics are from S's POV. I guess it's because the books are written from her POV, in a way.
Megslee: You're so funny. We shall talk soon! I haven't forgotten!
And now, I must leave you to go edit my new story, and then I can share it with you! It will be the antithesis of this one - vast amounts of dialogue, hopefully funny - I've just been DYING to do funny after so many angsty stories - and longer. But not as long as Brink. Thank heavens.
~QaS