Title: Desire For Home
Characters: Spectre (not by that name at first), OCS
Chapters: 1-1||Words: 2,689
Genre: Drama||Rated: PG
Prompt: Febuwhump day #2, Failed Rescue Attempt
Notes: This is set in an AU. "Itsuki" means "tree".
Summary: Prince Itsuki's been rescued from the dryads. Only he's not very happy about that, he hates the city, and he wants to go home!


Every day was the same. They said his name was Itsuki. He refused to believe it - it wasn't the name that his real family had called him. His real name was wonderful - the sound of wind through the trees, the sound of water splashing over rocks. He'd never been able to say it properly, and it couldn't be said at all in this language they tried to insist was his. He could speak it, he'd noticed, but he didn't like it. It was so thick and so hard on his tongue, and he didn't speak it more than he had to.

He stared out of the windows, at least as often as he could. But that wasn't allowed often. Those who claimed they were his parents - they weren't, his mother was the great Mother Tree - they didn't like him longing for his true home.

"You're not a dryad, Itsuki," the woman told him pleadingly. "You're a human. You're our son. You have to learn to be human. You're going to be king one day."

"I don't care." He bit the words out coldly. He cared nothing at all for humans. What had they ever done for him? Even if he'd been born to these folk, he didn't see them as his parents. They were people who had paid other people to take him away from all of his sisters - from Nivalis and Thesipha, Aconis and Galya, and all of the rest. They'd taken him from the Great Mother Tree, and he knew that she would never forgive for that. Trees didn't forgive nor did they forget. Nor would he.

The two of them exchanged looks. He ignored them - he stared out the window, wondering if he could speak to the trees in the garden he could see. Would the tree understand him?

He ignored them as they tried to call him back. Their words were meaningless, less than the wind. After all the time he'd spent here, he knew his way even when he didn't want to. So it didn't take him long to find the garden. It wasn't as good as the forest. It was so - human. Twenty or so trees marching in straight, ordered lines, neatly clipped grass, flowers planted in certain areas and not in others. There was a tiny trickle of water on the far side - it was pretending to be a stream, but he wasn't fooled. He knew what a real stream should look like. Much wider, much wilder.

He rested one hand on the nearest trunk and strained to remember the language of the trees. It wasn't easy. It never had been. Dryads could speak in human tongues and they had a language they used among themselves that he could learn. Trees could understand it, he'd learned.

Help, he whispered. I don't belong here. I'm the son of the Great Mother Three - Gaura of the Ashmark forest. They're the only family I remember.

The longer he stood there, the more he could feel the slow, sleepy awareness of the trees stirring. They'd all been asleep before, he'd noticed. Maybe it came from being here in the city instead of where they belonged. Wind gusted through the tree branches, rattling the leaves against one another. Words shaped themselves into his head.

You are - one of us? The voice was that of a dryad. The prince saw something stirring in the wood o the tree, then a slim figure stepped from the wood itself. "Yes," she murmured, staring into his eyes. "You are. The mark of it is upon you. Not by blood - but by choice. Your choice and ours."

Sharp tears stung at his eyes. It had been so long since he'd heard the language addressed to him. Every word he heard here spoken by humans was more like an insult than anything else. The dryad brushed his tears away.

"You were born human but you chose to have the heart of the wild. That makes you one of us. What do you desire, my kindred? I will do what I can for you."

He shivered, leaning into the touch and feeling the bark under her fingertips. so like when Aconis had done the same thing for him not so long ago. But if he wanted to feel that again, then he had to speak further.

"I want to go home. This isn't where I belong. Can you - can you tell Gaura and the others that I'm here and I want to come home?"

Again her fingers pressed against his skin. "I can. It won't be easy. Travel away from my tree will take some time. But I will do what I can, my brother."

He breathed in; the word she said wasn't one that would have been brother in the tongue of this land, but that was what it meant - those born of the same seed, the same tree, those connected by root and leaf, sap and vine, wind and water. No one had ever called him that before - at least not since he'd been dragged back here. His sisters had called him that all the time. And now she did -

"What's your name?" The young prince wanted to know. "Who can I thank?" He had so seldom thought about thanking humans. What had they ever done for him?

"I am Asea." The dryad rested her hand on the tree she'd emerged from. "This is my tree." She raised her head to look at the other. "Sisters? We have kindred here. A brother from Mother Gaura!"

There were no answers. Asea frowned, reaching out to touch other trees, wandering among them, going in and out of the bark as light slipped in between shadows. Then she once more stood before the young prince, flicking her pile of ash-blond hair back, her gray-green eyes confused and sad.

"They - sleep. As I did, but I did not sleep so deep. I do not think I can awaken them."

He tightened his hands into fists. "I'll do it. You're going to do this for me - tell my family that I want to go home - and I'll wake them up for you. Then when I go back there, you can come with me!" He could see it already, Asea's tree growing large and tall, just like his sisters were. He wished it were true already.

Asea's lips curved. "I will trust you to that then, my brother. If I am to take your message, then I must travel as swiftly as I can." She rested her hand against his cheek briefly before fading out of sight. The prince sighed, leaning his head against the nearest trunk. This wasn't home - could never be home - but it was as close as he could be for now.

Days passed. He couldn't stay in the garden as much as he wanted. Servants came out to take him back inside, have him washed and put into scratchy bed-wear, food he didn't want set in front of him, and people he cared nothing for babbling at him. The king and queen here might have given birth to him but they would never be his family. And he wasn't going to tell them he was going home. They didn't need to know - they'd just try even harder to convince him to stay here, and that wasn't going to happen.

Every day he went to the garden and talked to the trees as he walked among them. He told them stories about his life with the dryads of the Ashmark Forest. He only vaguely remembered how he'd gotten there - what he'd heard from here was that he'd been kidnapped as a tiny baby and taken away. Somehow, those who had taken him had ended up in Ashmark, where they'd fallen to the bows of the dryads.

"Galya picked me up and carried me to Gaura, who said I was one of them from now on." He let out a tiny laugh. It was probably the first time he'd ever laughed here. It echoed ever so faintly and he listened for a few seconds before he started talking again. "At least that's what Galya told me."

He missed her. The last morning he'd been in Ashmark, he and Galya wandered the pathways together, and she'd pointed out mushrooms that were safe for him to eat. He recalled that so very vividly.

"What about these?" He'd asked, pattering ahead to point at some pale white mushrooms sprouting from the remains of a fallen tree. "Are these good to eat?"

Galya shook her head as she came closer. "Don't eat those. It wouldn't taste bad but they could hurt you. You want these instead," she gestured to a small cluster of mushrooms, pulling off some before offering it to him. "These are maitake mushrooms. They're very good for you."

He'd savored them. If he'd known they would be the last food he'd eat in his home for some time, then he would have done so even more.

For now, however, he focused on trying to wake up the other dryads, as he waited for Asea to return. She had to return; she couldn't stay away from her tree for longer than the turning of a moon. Resting in other trees would help, but the tree and the dryad needed one another. She'd have to come back sooner or later.

He spent all the time that he could in the garden, and didn't bother speaking to the king and queen more than a curt greeting or farewell. He wasn't afraid to let them know that they'd enraged him by taking him from his true home. The child that he had been was gone and they refused to admit it. IF they didn't care about him as he was - and he knew they didn't, when they'd not listen to a word he said about who he was now - then he didn't care about them, now or ever.

The moon waxed and waned - and Asea's tree began to weaken, leaves dropping, branches drooping. He tried his best to tend to it, but the heart and soul had gone out of it, the connection to the dryad fading away.

Something's happened to her. He had no idea of what it might be, and didn't want to think about it a lot. He stopped even bothering to sleep in the stuffy room they insisted on him resting in and slept night after night curled up in the garden. The mild chill didn't bother him, but he didn't protest the mornings when he woke to find a blanket had been tucked around him. At least they didn't try to drag him back inside.

But he also refused to stop worrying about Asea. Until the day when the king approached him while he sat in the garden, a stern look in his eyes.

"Itsuki. I have something to show you."

The prince wanted to insist that Itsuki wasn't his name. But before he could, the king's firm muscled hands clamped onto his shoulders and pushed him along. Clearly 'no' wasn't being taken for an answer.

I'll get this over with, he decided, and hurried along until they came to a broad patio that overlooked a vast courtyard. The first thing he really noticed were all the armed soldiers, interspersed with mages in elegant gray robes, circling the area - and those who were in the area. His eyes widened and he tried to dart forward, only for the king to hold him back once again.

"That's my sister! Galya!" It was all of them! They were here! But - but -

They were in chains. Several of them looked as if they'd wept or worked themselves to exhaustion. Galya raised her head to stare at him, and he was struck to the heart by the grief in her eyes. What was going on?

The king spoke. "Ashmark Forest is now the legal property of the Crown. As it was infested by wretched spirits who have been proven to slay intruders without warning and who refuse to obey the laws of the land, it has been decreed that Ashmark Forest will be cut down, the lumber and all commodities within the forest sold for the benefit of the Crown and those who serve it. Once Ashmark Forest has been leveled, a city will be built there, to stand strong on our borders."

Faster and faster the young prince shook his head, hating every word that he heard coming out of the king's mouth. This couldn't be happening! A thousand words raced to his throat but nothing that made any sense came out.

"To begin with, these wretched creatures that unlawfully held onto Prince Itsuki for five years, when all were informed that he was to be returned to us, are to be executed by royal decree," the king continued. He nodded towards a brawny warrior. "See to it, General."

The feral smirk the warrior gave said more than any words would have, as he hefted a giant axe and stalked towards the captive dryads. The king turned his cool expression towards the young prince.

"They were coming here to kidnap you again. I won't allow that. You have been rescued from them once, my son, and I will not allow you to be taken from me or your mother, Itsuki."

Screams rose up from the courtyard; he knew if the dryads were slain here, they could revive in their trees, after some time. If their trees were left alone. But he'd heard what had been said, and he knew that they would not return. He struggled against the king's grip, pounding his fine clothes with small fists.

"Leave my sisters alone! I wanted them to come for me! They're my real family! They're where I belong!" He jerked his head around,s spied the warrior moving among the chained dryads, his axe stained green and gold, a wicked gleam of delight in his eyes, a dreadful swathe of still forms left in his wake. Tears streaked down his cheeks and he pounded harder. The king's hardened hands closed on his wrists and pulled them back.

"You are my son, Itsuki. I didn't want to have to do this but it's for your own good." The king raised his head and spoke to someone that the little one couldn't see. "Take Itsuki to his new room and see to it that he stays there until he's gotten himself under control." That is not my name. This is not my home. These people are murderers. The ones who aren't don't do anything to stop the ones that are. Each word crystallized into his heart, cold and hard and unyielding. He barely noticed as he was escorted by two armed guards up to a different room from where he'd usually been taken. It was just as rich as the other one - not that he cared - but he noticed one thing quickly.

He moved over to the window and stared out. Here he could see the city that he remembered being brought through when he'd been dragged here the first time. Before he'd had at least a small glimpse of the gardens. Now he didn't even have that.

He was young but he could tell what they meant by this - that he was to forget the forest, forget Ashmark and his mother and his sisters. He was to belong to the city.

No. No matter what, he'd make sure that never happened. He'd make sure that this place burned. His fingers clenched, nails digging into his palms. He wouldn't just burn this place. But whatever monstrosity they tried to build on top of Ashmark would also burn.

All he needed was the time to make it happen. Maybe it would take longer than he wanted. But it would happen.

His name was not Itsuki. Dryads – his sisters – were the spirits of thee forest. He made up his mind.

I'm not Itsuki. I'm Spectre.


The End

Notes: I will come back to this world one day. Spectre is making plans. Very destructive plans. Also, he has to meet Revolver and Earth.