archenland / year 1031

prompt: "acorn"

word count: 2,365

xXx

Cor's eyelids fluttered, muted light filtering in like knives to his corneas, head swimming as the world drifted hazily back into focus around him and pain sparked in his side at the faintest breath, the sting of torn flesh deepening into a suffocating ache from his ribs down to his left thigh.

His fingertips grazed silk sheets, curling only the barest fraction of an inch before giving up on the movement, a shallow breath escaping his lungs at the effort.

For a moment it all rushed back—the blade and the heat and the rush of battle, the wind knocked from his lungs, and the sickening haze afterward. Distantly, he almost thought he heard that chilling note of rare panic in Aravis' sharp, commanding voice, but when he blinked again it vanished, and he found himself gazing up only into the familiar arched ceiling of the quiet, empty royal bedchamber.

The curtains must have been drawn, heavy orange light slanting dimly in and casting wavering patterns over the solid oak beams criss-crossing overhead.

Late afternoon, if he had to guess.

How long had he been out?

Something rustled beside him and he turned his head just enough to glimpse the little figure hunched over and cross-legged before it glanced sharply up at his movement, Ram's tear-stained cheeks and wide brown eyes for a moment evoking a boy much younger than nine.

His curly mop of dark hair fell around an olive face that resembled his mother only in color, Cor's own squarish bone structure and delicate nose reflected back to him like a mirror as the boy dropped whatever he'd been playing with, scattering onto the bed with a light, hollow rattle like wooden beads.

Cor smiled, his weak voice soft and scratchy when at last he mustered the energy to speak. "I've had a guard all this time, have I?"

The boy looked down. "Not the whole time. Mother wouldn't let me in while the healers were here." His brown fingers fiddled with something small and round, and his voice fell off distantly, for a moment laced with faint horror. "People sure do have an awful lot of blood in them, don't they?"

Cor smiled sympathetically and then winced when his breath came in too sharp and sent a twinge like fire through his side, breathing out again slowly, calming the snap of adrenaline that flooded in with the pain. "Where's your mother?"

"She had to meet with the general, and…" Ram screwed up his little face, evidently in an effort to remember the message he'd been meant to pass on. "Someone else. About the battle. Do you want me to fetch her?"

"No," breathed Cor, "she'll come when she can. I'm only sorry I can't help her right now. Or… likely for another few weeks." He turned his head, shifting an arm as if to prop himself up, but Ram's small hand settled on his shoulder, and he glanced back to his son.

"Mother told me to stop you if you tried to move."

Cor breathed a knowing sigh at his wife's foresight, cursing her lovingly in his mind, but Ram's dark eyes never ceased to churn with painful, innocent worry, flicking down to his father's side where the piercing pressure of tightly bound bandages told of damage one didn't need to see to believe.

"You won't ever do it again, will you?" he asked tremulously.

"What's that, son?"

Ram flushed and hung his head. And Cor understood. The boy knew better than to say what he was really thinking. He knew as well as any other boy his age that it was cowardly to run from battle, but the knowledge so easily instilled by nursery rhymes and his uncle's wild heroic tales looked rather different when met face to face.

Cor reached up and took his son's hand, closing it in his own pale fingers that contrasted so starkly with the boy's rich skin. "You know it's my duty as King to defend our people."

Ram's eyes glistened when he looked up again and asked chokingly "Like grandfather?"

Cor's own throat constricted against his will.

It had only been a year since King Lune fell in battle, by then an old man, yet none could talk him down from facing the invading army on his own two feet, still strong, still a leader. His presence itself may have been the rallying cry they needed to tip the scales in their favor, even if his wounds had proven too grievous to treat.

He'd never once complained. It was an honor, he'd said, for a man his age to die in defense of his kingdom.

And the kingship had passed to Cor, as abruptly as a bolt in the dark.

He squeezed Ram's hand, only just managing to steady his voice enough to breathe "Yes, your grandfather was a hero."

"I don't want was," sniffled the boy, tears welling like shining diamonds in his eyes, "I want is. Can't you be a hero here?"

Cor swallowed, reaching up to dry his son's cheek despite the shock of pain it sent through his ribcage cage, driving the breath from his lungs with dizzying numbness. Distantly, he wondered how much blood he really did lose, and in this haze his eyes wandered down to the collection of acorns scattered on the silken sheets around Ram's small fingers.

"What have you got there?" he breathed.

Ram bit his lip, glanced down, and shrugged. "They were in my pocket."

Cor held out his hand, and Ram placed one of his simple treasures into his father's palm, Cor's fingers shifting to turn it over, running his thumb over the smooth curve of the seed.

"Do you know what an acorn is?" he asked after a moment of thoughtful silence.

Ram scoffed, a hint of his usual voice creeping back in despite the thickness in his throat. "I should think so."

Cor hummed with a faint smile. "No, I know you know what it's called. But do you know what it is? What it's meant for?"

Ram met his eyes for a moment and reluctantly shook his head, breathing out and lying gingerly down beside him like a cat making its bed, resting his head on his shoulder, not so unlike the way Aravis sometimes did in her smallest moments.

Cor wrapped his son in the crook of his arm, ignoring the way the movement stabbed through the entirety of his left side, holding the acorn up where they could both see it, so small and unassuming.

"What would happen if we planted it?" he asked softly once he'd regained a steadiness of breath. "Out in the forest?"

"It would grow," said Ram.

"Into what?"

"An oak tree."

"That's right. A brand new sapling that might one day even house a young dryad. And it would grow for years and years until it was just as big and strong as all the other trees, and little boys would play in its leaves every autumn, and birds would nest in its branches. But not all acorns grow into trees, do they?"

Ram shook his head. "Sometimes I pick them up to play."

"And sometimes we cook them," supplied Cor.

"And sometimes the animals eat them," said Ram, "like squirrels. They gather lots for winter."

"Good, that's exactly right. They need acorns to survive the colder months, don't they? If it wasn't for these little seeds, we wouldn't have any squirrels. No cheerful messengers running along through the trees to wish you good morning, no squirrel mothers and fathers to raise little squirrel children."

Ram watched silently as Cor turned the acorn over in his fingers.

"I think the oak tree is proud of all of its children, whether they take on lives of their own, or preserve the lives of others. They can all do good. Just like people. Some grow very very old and wise like the oak. Some give themselves up so that a great many more can live instead. Being a King—being a man—is being willing to do either. Sometimes even to do both. An old oak when it's felled can still burn in fireplaces, or build houses. The stories of a great King can live long after he's gone."

Ram swallowed, murmuring quietly. "Doesn't it scare you, though?"

"Of course it does. I would never want to leave you, or the girls, or your mother. But your grandfather taught me to do right by our people, and the Lion will give purpose to my fate, no matter what that may be. It's not cowardly to be afraid, Ram. It's only cowardly to run away. Do you understand?"

The boy nodded, and another long silence passed as he pressed his cheek into Cor's shoulder. "I hope I'm as brave as you when I'm King."

He smiled faintly to himself.

"Do you think I could be, father?"

Cor breathed out and laid his own cheek against his son's temple. "Wouldn't you do anything to protect your mother and sisters, even if it hurt?"

"Oh, yes," said the boy instantly.

Cor hummed. "That's how you feel toward everyone when you're King."

Ram fell silent for another moment. "I suppose it's not too awfully difficult to be brave, then, when you really get to it."

"That's right," murmured Cor. "You'll be a very brave King indeed, one day. You're already a very brave boy."

The bedroom door opened with a heavy iron click before Ram could answer, and Corin stepped inside, golden hair characteristically disheveled, falling loose and wild around his face as he glanced over the two of them and offered a faint smile, though even from Cor's poor vantage point the man looked pale against the dust and mud still edging his jaw.

"Run along downstairs, lad," he said to Ram with a curt nod. "Get something for supper.

"But I want to stay here," said the boy as he sat up, glancing down to Cor imploringly.

"You can come right back once you've eaten," said Corin. "Your mother sent me to ensure you didn't starve to death, and I do like my head where it is, if you don't mind."

Cor nodded to his son. "Go on. I'm not running away anytime soon, I'll be here when you get back." He smirked, and Ram returned the smile with shy reluctance, crawling down to the foot of the bed and jumping to the floor as he stuffed a handful of acorns into his pocket.

"I love you," said Ram with an abrupt glance over his shoulder before he'd quite made it out the door.

Cor smiled. "I love you, too, son."

Ram vanished away into the hall, and Corin closed the door with another heavy click behind him.

He was pale, a kind of sickly pallor creeping under his skin as he strode across the room to his brother, face etched with concern he couldn't mask. An expression that Cor had only seen once. The day their father had died.

"That bad, huh?"

"Oh, no." Corin shook his head quickly, attempting to re-school his expression in the dim afternoon light. "You'll be fine, you haven't hurt anything vital, it's just the bloodloss, really." He forced a very tiny smirk, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You gave us all quite the scare."

He took a seat on the edge of the bed, the slight movement of the feather-down mattress sending a shock of pain from Cor's knee to his ribs, and this time he couldn't quite suppress the gasp it elicited involuntarily from his lungs, groaning with a tiny cough to release the pressure.

"Sorry," said Corin hurriedly, but Cor shook his head as he breathed out.

"S'okay."

Corin's hand hovered over his shoulder, visibly hesitant even to touch him, as if he might vanish away at any moment.

Cor swallowed, eyes flicking from his brother's grimy throat to his clean white shirt, evidently having changed without yet washing away the dust of the morning's battlefield, palms and fingers wrapped in matching white bandages, stained pink.

Distantly, he remembered those same hands dragging him out of the smoke and the screaming chaos, a dream image seared with very little else but pain.

"How long were you listening?" he murmured at last.

Corin looked up, meeting his brother's eyes with a hint of surprise, and then a flicker of shy admission. He forced a small smile. "Long enough to remember why you were born the eldest."

And for a moment, to Cor's eyes, he was no longer a broad, strong warrior. Only a little brother. A son.

He took Corin's hand and wrapped it in his own, tucking the acorn into his palm in lieu of the words he'd already overheard, and the man looked down and swallowed, grasping Cor's wrist in his other hand and holding it there, as if afraid he would pull away.

They remained like this, hands knotted together in palpable silence, until Corin breathed out.

"I always wanted a brother."

A faint pink flush crept into his cheeks at the unpracticed sincerity in his own tone, glancing up at Cor and smirking very faintly at the brow he raised in question.

"Just so you know Father wasn't the only one waiting for you to come home."

Cor smirked back, squeezing his twin's bandaged hand tighter. "I know. I'm sorry for scaring you."

Corin shrugged, and a real smile twitched at the corners of his lips. "Alright, well, I expect you to try harder not to die next time."

Cor rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure I was trying my best."

"See, that's the problem," said Corin, almost laughing as he freed one hand to wag a finger.

And Cor laughed, too, only a short breath that sent a firebrand through his ribcage, but he almost didn't mind. "Well," he coughed, "maybe I should make you King and see how you fare."

"Oh, no." Corin shook his head, his smile half playful, but something else glittered in his eyes. That subtle yet tremulous kind of reverence with which he had only ever looked at their father, until now. "I don't think you need any help with that."