Eridan (hearts) Karkat: Eridan is the immortal king of a dead kingdom that was razed to the ground, and Karkat is a wanderer who Eridan attempts to make his subject
The country he was passing through wasn't pretty. Ash still hung in the air, and the burnt out skeletons of what had once been enormous trees still stuck out of the ground at odd angles. He would have avoided this place, this realm of sorrow and hatred, but going around it meant a two-week detour he didn't have time for. He had to make Kanaya's wedding, come hell or whatever Lowaa would throw at him.
It had been said that, under the reign of the last Ampora king, the land had been beautiful. The buildings, before they had been burned so that even their stone husks had collapsed inwards under their own weight, had been sweeping monuments to the glory of man-made architecture. The churches especially, had drawn the faithful and the curious alike, lending the forested hilly country a healthy industry derived from the tourism. In particular, the tradesmen had flourished, and the violet colored blown glass had become a trademark of the kingdom.
No one knew what had happened to make it change. Some suggested a witch's curse; others claimed it was a dark madness. Which one was closer to the truth, no one knew. All he knew was that the King disappeared, and the land had been plunged into chaos. The nobles had divided the country, fought each other for it, and eventually a raging inferno (rumored to have been started by a slighted dragon) had consumed everything and everyone.
A few said the land was still cursed, and Karkat couldn't refute it. Just walking through the kingdom's husk was unnerving, adding the movement he – sometimes – saw from the corners of his eyes was enough to make even him a believer in ghosts. And that was all he expected, aside from a pessimistic wariness against bandits. That's it. He knew there were weird shadows, sounds in the gloom, and creepy as all fuck environments courtesy of a dragon's fire, but he never expected to meet…him.
He'd stumbled upon it once, on a previous passing (he'd not believed the rumors of curses or madness then, he just wanted a shortcut), the rubble and majestic ruins of a castle. He found it again now, and this time curiosity got the better of him. He entered through the archway, a little nervous of its groaning, and trails fingers against walls blackened by soot. Twisted iron armors that had cooled in bizarre and grotesque shapes littered the floors, some having clearly been occupied at the time of the fire's height.
It was creepy, to say the least. And then he found the throne room, a blackened, dusty room with broken window glass littering the stone floors. The ashes of what must've once been a wooden throne, sat in the center of a raised dais next to a newer, wrought iron chair. Which by virtue of Lowaa being completely lifeless, of course freaked him the fuck out.
And then there was the not-quite skeleton that sat, in the shadows, on the chair. "Who dares?" Came a creaking voice, "Who dares?" The not-quite skeleton shifted, and when it stepped into the light, Karkat was surprised. "Who?" And the voice wasn't creaking, and the skeleton was just a man. "You?"
"Who the hell are you?" Karkat said, wondering how in the hell he managed to confuse a man with a skeleton. And the man cocked his head to the side, golden piercings catching the weak light that fell in through the shattered windows.
"Don't you know this place is cursed?" the stranger asked, voice commanding. "What are you doing here?" He demanded, striding forward. He halted himself just before Karkat, and stood so close their noses might touch. Karkat got a whiff of something nasty before the stranger pulled back just a bit, but he figured that he had imagined the smell.
"Shortcut," Karkat managed to say, voice tight with nerves, "My best friend is getting married on the coast." He thought he imagined the stern lines marring the stranger's forehead relaxing, and then the man nodded.
"I will see you to the edge of the forest." He said, with all the finality of a king. They walked together silently, and Karkat studied the stranger. He was tall, with noble features, and he had a peculiar violet streak in his shorn hair. But aside from that, he could have been anyone. And Karkat tried not to notice that whenever his companion stepped into the shadows, his silhouette returned to that of the skeleton.
"You know, I never did catch your name." Karkat grouched, mere leagues from the border and hours away from sundown. They were about to part ways, and besides quick questions and answer sessions, neither of the two had talked much. He sort of liked the silence, though after the first two hours it had become more unnerving than comforting.
"You may call me Eridan." He said, tone of voice indicating he was merely indulging Karkat. They walked in silence for another twenty minutes before Eridan came to a halt. "This is where I leave you. Fare thee well." And he turned on his heel, and moved off into the gloom.
"Wait!" Karkat said, more on impulse than anything. Eridan paused, and looked back at him expectantly. "I'm Karkat." And he smiled weakly at this strange man, who lived in a ruined country inside a decrepit castle, and wondered what he was doing. "I should…I could be coming back this way, in about two weeks. If you like."
The answering warble in Eridan's voice indicated a crippling sort of loneliness. "I will see you then, in a fortnight. In this place, I will be waiting." And he slipped back between the burnt out branches, disappearing from view. Karkat's pulse returned to normal, and he tried to remember why it was racing like he'd just come back from a life or death situation.
After the wedding, he returned through the forest like he'd promised, meeting up with his mysterious Lowaan friend. Most trips he took across the continent managed to take him through those skeleton forests, and Karkat managed to put the skeleton shadows from his mind. He made sure to always return to the forest, at the very least thrice a year, only to spend time with Eridan. He began to feel a little bit more than friendship for the man, and one day after several years of trips back and forth across the desolate kingdom, he went into the forest and never came out.
Some say that if you manage to find old King Ampora's castle, you'll now find two wrought iron chairs flanking the dust of what had been a wooden throne when before there was only one. Others say that the forest is haunted by the bone-walkers, the undead thralls of the curse that brought Lowaa to its knees. Still others say that before the king went mad he found the spell to immortality. Those that believe in that theory say the mighty dragon of Mount Pyrope was angered by the haughty king's hubris, and in retaliation burned his kingdom.
They say he still roams the halls of his castle, still as alive in death as he'd ever been. Variations of that say his true form, the form he should have taken when he was burned alive, only is visible in the shadows. The superstitious say he's lonely, that he takes companions and lovers indiscriminately from the unfortunate who stumble upon his ruined home.
Karkat should have listened to those stories.