"I knew it."
"Rin—"
"I fucking knew it."
Makoto is glancing from one to the other, looking thoroughly confused. "Ah, Gou, sorry, but who…?"
"Gou?" spits the man. "Who the hell is Gou? That's Kou. Princess Kou."
"Not anymore," says Gou—Kou—the Captain, tightly. "I—"
"You know they all still think you're dead?"
"Could you just—"
"Childbirth, my ass. I knew it. I fucking—"
"Wait," says Makoto, "Wait, hang on, what does he mean Princess? Gou, how do you know this guy?"
"He's my brother, okay!" shouts Gou, squeezing her eyes shut.
"…But he's the prince," Makoto stammers.
Haru blinks. "What?"
The captive turns around to snarl at him. Haru's captivated by his canines—Gou's teeth are perfectly normal, after all. He wonders if he's ever bitten himself on accident before. "So you didn't know. Maybe you would've thought twice before atta—"
"…not really."
"What? Who the fuck do you think—"
"Can we talk about exactly how Gou's related to a prince again?" says Makoto, sounding increasingly alarmed.
"I'd do it again," says Haru.
"You—I fucking dare you."
Haru raises a brow. "That's a prince?"
"You little shit—"
"Brother dearest," says Gou, "Before you go making any threats you can't keep, let me remind you you're tied up tighter than a pig on a stake."
"Yeah, thanks to your pet giant over there—"
"Sorry," says Makoto.
"Don't apologize," bark Rin and Haru at the same time. Rin turns and gives him a furious look. Haru shrugs.
"Wait, does that mean, you're actually a princess?" says Makoto for about the twentieth time, sounding nearly hysterical. "That means I should have been calling you 'your Highness' or something this whole time, right?"
"Oh, please," she mutters, although Haru has to say she looks rather pleased. "I'm just Gou."
"Kou," mutters Rin from the dirt. "And what the hell did you guys do with Nitori?"
"You dragged him into this?"
"He wanted to come!"
"…so who's Nitori?"
"Okay," says Gou, "okay, everyone, just—"
()
"I can't believe you're actually a princess," says Makoto.
"I can't believe my sister's a bandit," spits Rin.
Haru doesn't say anything. When Makoto casts him a despairing look, he just shrugs. In the last few weeks, he's learned it's often better not to question things too much.
By things, he means things like the captain, aka Gou, aka Kou, aka Her Royal Highness the Princess Absolute Matsuoka Kou, is undoubtedly and unhappily related to His Royal Highness the Prince Absolute Matsuoka Rin, aka heir to the throne Samezuka, aka Rin, aka that loud-mouthed asshole. Although that last one is mainly Haru's own invention.
The story went something like this. At the behest of the king's advisors, Gou was married off at fifteen to the neighboring tribute-nation of Nehnquel. It was an unhappy marriage, with the prince pining for another girl, and Gou pining for freedom. An arrangement was hatched. At seventeen, Gou escaped, her secret to be kept by the prince of Nehnquel in exchange for Gou's blessings to marry Princess Amashiwa, his childhood sweetheart. The funeral for the erstwhile Prince-Consort of Nehnquel, the gold-inlaid coffin and the requisite funeral tour was expensive, but the prince had been more than willing to pay for it.
"She—the body looked like you," protested Rin, interrupting Gou, and Gou had shrugged. "Doctors," she replied, waving her hand.
"Corpse-wranglers."
She fixes him with a glare. "It worked, didn't it?"
After a moment, Rin breaks and looks away. "I knew it, though," he mutters. "I knew something was up."
"Then why didn't you tell the old man?"
Rin snorts. "As if he'd have cared."
Gou glances away. After a moment, Rin amends, "…I mean, he doesn't care about me, either. So…"
"Whatever; I don't care," Gou says so coldly that it's obvious she's hurt. "It's better like this anyway. Are you going to tell him?"
"Are you going to let me go?"
"Mmmmmm-nope."
"Goddamnit," sighs Rin. After a moment, he adds hopefully, "Did you at least ditch the fish-boy?"
A faint but insistent splashing emerges in the silence.
"Fucking—" Haru's sure the redhead would've made a rude gesture if his hands hadn't been fastened behind his back. "Well, that's it then. We're fucked. The guards'll be after you because of me, and we can't run because of a goddamn fish."
We're? thinks Haru.
"Speak for yourself," says Gou. "I haven't been caught so far, and I don't intend to be just because I'm burdened with an overgrown baby of a prince. Hanewa, Yuujin, watch him, please. Makoto, get the charts. We need to find more water, and quickly—I tried to drive smoothly, but that tank's near empty."
Rin bites his lip, then says in a rush, "There's a little oasis not far from here. Due nearly north."
Gou laughs, scoffing. "Good try, brother, but who's the one who's been cooped up behind castle walls these last years? There's nothing north of here, except maybe a company of guards waiting for us."
"I'm not fucking lying. It's not on the charts yet—the palace cartographers were planning to draft it into the next Geographia."
"And you know this because what, you've suddenly taken an interest in studying local hydrology?"
"I scoped the whole region out beforehand. I was planning to, to lie low there. If I… after…"
Gou frowns at him. "What were you trying to do, anyway?"
"Kill the siren, what do you think? Or did you love our dearest father so much that you'd want him on the throne forever?" He snorts and looks away. "That'd make you the only one in the kingdom. There's no love lost between he and I, Kou. Especially after—after he sent you away. I made, ah, a bit of a fucking fuss. Got thrown behind the royal bars for a week or two, the whole package. Yeah, that was a pleasant stay. Even earned myself some stripes."
Haru sees Gou's eyes flick involuntarily to Rin's back, the pitted whip scars marring his skin like cracked rock. "You idiot. Prince or not, he's king. He could have had you killed."
"Dunno why he hasn't yet." He chuckles a little, and looks at his feet. "Worth it, though. I—" He clears his throat. "'m really glad you're, ah, alive. And everything."
"You idiot," Gou says again. Suddenly, she crouches down and hugs him fiercely. Draws back and holds his face in her hands. "Truth, brother?"
"Truth, I swear on our house," he says quietly. "But do you trust me?"
()
Rin turns around and holds his bound hands out to Gou expectantly.
She frowns at him. "If you think I'm going to…"
He scoffs at her. "Come on, Kou. You know I'm better with a dromad than any of these guys. If your little exploring party runs into trouble at the oasis, they'll wish I was there."
"The only thing you're better than everyone at is being a total ass."
He grins at her, shark-toothed. "Maybe. Doesn't change the other stuff I said."
In the end, it's Makoto, somewhat surprisingly, who intervenes on Rin's behalf. "It'll be easier following him than going off a map that doesn't even have the place marked, anyway. I'll keep an eye on him, promise."
"Yeah," chips in Rin, looking pleased, "listen to your boyfr—"
Gou makes a violent motion and Makoto says quite calmly, "You know, it'd be really helpful if you stopped talking for a while," to which Rin makes what can only be called a sulking face. Although he does shut up.
As for himself, Haru's pretty sure Gou throws him into the landing party for the express purpose of irritating her brother, but it doesn't bother him. He has to admit, there is something immensely gratifying about pissing the guy off. And yeah, there's probably some dire consequence or other of talking shit to a royal personage that involves tortuous pain and limb loss, but somehow Haru can't bring himself to care.
Rin's hands are cut free with a great deal of mistrustful glowering on Gou's part. To his credit, he doesn't immediately try to bolt. Instead, he walks over to the dromad that's been saddled for him and presses his forehead against its, saying something to it in a low voice. Then he reaches over the animal's back and throws most of its harness off.
"What?" he snaps at the staring group as the dromad nickers approvingly. "That shit only slows you down."
"…you're really a prince?" mutters Haru under his breath.
"What'd you say?" he snaps.
"O-kay, well, we'd better get going." Makoto finishes fixing Iwatobi's cage to the horn of his saddle. "Haru, Prince—"
"It's Matsuoka," he snaps, and clicks his tongue at the dromad. "Var. Komm, var." It breaks into a slow trot and Rin takes a running start, grabs a fistful of mane, and vaults onto the animal's back, at once utterly lacking in form and completely graceful. He moves like man when man was still in his raw stages, all half-forged chunks of the primordial fallen star and feral shadow. Haru finds himself holding his breath, watching him.
"Matsuoka," amends Makoto agreeably, and Haru glances sharply away. "Shall we?"
()
The ride is tense with suspicion (their side's) and blatant hostility (Rin's), but within a few hours Haru catches sight of the messy heads of palm trees nodding and swaying, and breathes out, slowly.
There's no one at the (tiny) oasis but a large herd of screw-horned antelopes, tussling for position around the water's edge.
"Great, all clear with fifty sides of deer ass," grumbles Rin. "Report that to your Captain."
Ignoring him—a skill that in Haru's opinion deserves some sort of award—Makoto takes a bit of green string out of his pocket and ties it to one of Iwatobi's claws. He undoes the cage's latch. "Go home, Iwatobi." The hawk shoots out of the cage and is a small brown dot in a matter of seconds—it'll fly straight for Gou, delivering her the all-clear.
"I'm fucking thirsty," announces Rin. Dismounting in a single fluid sweep, he literally reaches over and shoves the nearest antelope aside. "Move, fatass." It bleats helplessly and staggers over a few steps as he does the same thing with the next one in—"Hey, shove the fuck over."
It's utterly unfair that when Haru tries the exact same thing, the animal shoves back, hard, and for the bargain nearly gets him in the eye with a sharp spiral of horn. By the time he and Makoto have wrestled their way to the water's edge, leaving a wake of discontent antelope complaining loudly behind them, Rin's already halfway through washing up, his shirt discarded on a rock near the shoreline.
He has tattoos scrawling up and down his spine like deep indigo snakes, which is and isn't surprising. Haru had thought royals wouldn't go in for that type of thing, but then again, it's a deep-rooted tradition for a lot of tribes, and tribe is truth in Samezuka. Haru's own family had thought the pain-bearing ritual pointlessly cruel, but most of Iwatobi are marked one way or another. Even Makoto has a spoor of thick arrow marks circling his wrist.
Squinting against the light, he catches a glimpse of words written in elaborate capitol script, barely legible to him even with his decade of schooling. There's meignisi, meaning the fire-hearted, over his left collarbone; valharan, blood-spiller; and inked in the dip of his lower back, torrasar, "master of lions," the traditional title of the king.
"Ogling a royal personage is a crime punishable by death," says Rin flippantly. He shakes his hair out of the little tail it's been bound in and dumps water over his head.
"Everything nowadays is a crime punishable by death," replies Makoto.
"Yeah, yeah, don't give me shit about it, puppy-eyes. I'm just a prince."
"That means you'll be king someday."
"…thank you for that enlightening revelation. I had no fucking idea. Anyway, if my old man has anything to say about it—which I think he fucking does, he's king, isn't he—I'll never ascend."
"Why?" asks Haru, pulling his boots off.
"So you do talk." Wading shorewards, Rin plops onto a rock, scattering a bunch of cormorants. "I was beginning to think my sister'd adopted a deaf-mute."
"I can see why he wouldn't want you to," says Makoto. "You haven't got a speck of politics."
"Ah, putting up with lip from commoners. How I've fallen." Rin shakes his head like a dog and water arcs everywhere. "I can't ascend because my father's a bullying, power-mongering tyrant with a mind about as broad as a shriveled worm and slower-moving than river sludge. I'm a stronger fighter, better rider, smarter strategist and overall way less shitty human being than he was at my age, so naturally he's fucking terrified of me. Terrified he'll see the kingdom'll change before he goes belly-up."
"Would you change it, if you were king?"
"I don't want to be king," Rin replies shortly. "Never asked for the crown, never wanted it."
Haru peels his shirt off and tosses it at the shore, half-wishing it'll hit Rin—it doesn't. "Why?"
Rin laughs, sprawled out on the rock. Haru doesn't think he imagines the up-down flick of his eyes as Haru flips water over himself. "This one, he asks the deep questions. Tell us your name, o wise one."
"Nanase."
"Well, Nanase, I guess it's because nothing's fucking honest when you're a king. When you fight, everyone lets you win. You want a fuck, no one can say no. You can't earn jack shit. That kind of life's worth nothing. Even if you started out with the right intentions, living day and night balls-deep in that kind of ass-kissery poisons you, kills your brain, till you're playing with all your power like a kid making mud-pies." A cormorant lands next to Rin's leg, and he shoos it away lazily. "Only an idiot would choose that."
"I think a lot of people would disagree," says Makoto.
"Well, a lot of people are idiots."
"If I were king—"
"No one's asking, puppy-eyes—"
"I think there's a lot of good I'd do. Lower the taxes, reform the discipline codes."
"Oh, a bleeding heart. My sister does know how to choose them."
There's silence for a minute or two. Then Makoto asks quietly, "Is there a reason you're so angry all the time?"
Rin makes an impressive sideways lunge for Makoto that resembles a move a crocodile would make. Haru's feeling nice, so he only lets Makoto get in one punch before he splashes over and pulls Rin off. "Nice one," he says to Makoto, hauling Rin bodily away—his nose is spilling an impressive amount of blood.
"You," splutters Rin, spewing water, and okay, maybe Haru is forcing his head a little too close to the waterline—but he'll survive. "Both of you must have a f-lll-fucking death wish."
"You can be a king and have us executed, or live a freeman and not," says Makoto cheerfully. "Pick one."
"Otherwise that's just hypocrisy," adds Haru. He holds him nearly underwater for a few more moments, and then lets go and ducks the fist that predictably comes hurtling towards his head.
Soon, night laced with stars folds like navy damask over the earth. There's still no sight of Gou and the others. Haru glances at Makoto and says, "I'll take first watch."
"Don't I get a say in this?" complains Rin. He's lying some distance away, facing away from the fire. He still sounds slightly nasal, although the blood stopped flowing a while ago.
"Nope," says Makoto simply. "You'd probably stab us in our sleep."
"Wow. Thanks for the confidence."
"You're welcome; you've done nothing to earn it. And you get to sleep the whole night. Princes really do have it easy." To Haru: "Wake me in a few hours, if they're not here yet?"
He nods. In a matter of minutes, Makoto's out like a light.
For a while, Haru enjoys the quiet, broken only by the ever-present rasp of wind, the soft snuffles of the antelope as they bed down for the night, and the fanlike flicker of the flames. Ah, silence.
Then Rin starts talking again.
"Ugh, God, it's bleeding again."
Maybe if he just ignores him…
"For all that he makes himself out to be some kind of nice person," Rin grumbles, "he punches like hell."
Fuck it. He'll leave the diplomatic silences to Makoto. "He never said he's a nice person," Haru retorts coolly. "Although he is. Besides, you're just one of those people."
"One of what people?"
"You bring out the worst in everyone."
"…see, my sister I'd pardon, but the rest of you lot, I couldn't care less about."
"You can't do that."
"Fucking excuse me?"
Haru has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. It's impossible to take this guy's belligerence seriously when he's got a plug of cloth stuffed up each nostril, like misplaced horns. "Claiming royal immunity and then complaining about how you'd rather be a freeman. Which one do you really want?"
"I don't know, Nanase. Why don't you tell me?"
Haru shrugs. "You can be a king without being your father."
"Who said my father had anything to do with it?"
"Just a guess."
Guess, my ass. Haru can see he's struck something; he senses that the pulse in Rin's corded throat is ticking in anger. He half rolls onto his elbow, hand sneaking towards the hilt of his knife. He doesn't really think Rin will try anything, not with Makoto right there, but—
Suddenly, Rin's eyes shoot to the side; if he were a dog, Haru thinks, his ears would be pricking up. "Sh," he hisses. "Someone's—"
"Yeah," mutters Haru, kicking sand over their fire. He taps Makoto on the shoulder, clamping his hand over his mouth when he awakes and gesturing over his shoulder.
The person calls out. "Hello?" His voice is slightly nasal, with a heavy pinch of northerner accent. Not a soldier, thinks Haru—a trained fighter would never give away his position like that. A merchant, perhaps, or just a traveler?
But the way he's acting… Haru watches him whirl around, eyes wide with fear behind spectacles, as an antelope snorts and trots past him. There's no way this guy is up to anything innocent.
Cautiously, the man approaches the water's edge. Kneeling, he touches it lightly with his index finger. A ripple of blue phosphorence sparks across the surface, spreading rapidly into a thin ring of perhaps two or three meters in diameter. He says something Haru can't hear, and the ring sinks down into the water as if it's solid.
He just has time to see Rin mutter what the hell before the man stands up and the ring floats out of the water, droplets somehow suspended in the air and still spinning lazily with blue glow. It rises a foot or two above the man's head, and explodes outwards. Haru's eyes flinch shut as it lances past them, but all he feels is a cool, sharp wind with the slightest moisture on it, like the sky's breath right before a storm. He opens his eyes as the ring reaches the blank darkness beyond the oasis and vanishes in a puff of water.
The man turns suddenly and looks past the antelope, straight at them.
"You there," he says. A shiver like a claw runs up Haru's spine. He can't have seen them. He didn't even know they were there, a second ago.
The man draws his shortsword unsteadily. "Come ou—"
Rin moves first and fast, exploding from behind the antelope like a wolf. The man loses all his cold dignity as he flinches backwards with a startled yelp, and then the redhead is on top of him and pressing him into the sand.
"Y-your Hi-ggggghhhhh," the man chokes as Haru runs forward and pulls the weapon easily out of the man's hand. Soft palms, ink-stained fingers—a man of letters, then. Rin's deduced as much, seemingly, as he snarls at the man, "What the fuck were you doing, mage?"
"H-hghhh—"
"Matsuoka," calls Makoto. "Hey, Rin. Let up, he can't breathe."
After a second more of glaring, Rin relaxes his hold on the man's throat. He sucks in air and wheezes, coughing violently.
"Who sent you here?"
"Your Highness—"
"Was it the guard? Who's with you?"
"Yes—" The man glances at Makoto and Haru, doubtless confused. "I mean, they're back there. We, they're all looking for you. My Prince."
"How many? How many are with you?"
"Not many, three or four. They didn't believe me, didn't think you could come this far. Are you all right, your—"
"Send them an all-clear." When the man doesn't respond, Rin shakes him, hard. "You must have a signal of some sort."
"Y-y—Th-, the flares—they're in my pocket."
"Which one? And have a mind before you speak, mage. Lying to a prince means death."
"Red, red, I swear!"
Makoto grabs a red-stamped flare from the man's dropped satchel. Hurrying to their fire, he feels about in the sand, and sets an ember to the fuse. A few seconds later, a bright cluster of sparks shoots into the air, sending a shower of scarlet cinders scattering over the oasis as the antelope whinny in alarm.
When no legions of soldiers descend, Rin finally lets go of the man, who flops backwards into the sand, looking faintly traumatized. Haru can sympathize—he doesn't think he'd like Rin's admittedly impressive set of teeth that close to his face either.
"Now," Rin says, "who the hell are you?"