I do not own Pair of Kings or any of it's characters
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"Goooooood Morning your majesties!", boomed Mason as he walked into the boys room a little earlier than their young brains were ready for.
"Uggghhhhh.", groaned Boomer who turned over putting a pillow over his ear.
"5 more minutes or I'll order you to hunt waka waka's.", threatened a sleepy Brady
only half serious.
"Oh come on my kings it's that time of the month where we get to catalog remains and artifacts found by our archaeologists and scouts.", Mason relayed cheerfully.
Boomer sat up holding the pillow. "That ITALICSis always more fun than how you describe it. But if there's another t-rex bone I call it. I need a new accent piece above my bed.".
"Alright I'll meet you down stairs, and King Brady don't forget the royal stamp. You did take good care of it like Mikayla specifically begged right?", asked Mason.
Brady squeezed his pillow and winced un-encouragingly toward Mason who didn't know whether to sigh or scold.
"What did I specifically beg?", asked Mikayla walking in.
"Ask him.", said Mason dissapointedly gesturing toward Brady.
"Hey is it my fault the royal stamp makes a perfect digging tool and that it happened to be in my pocket when I was looking for a rock big enough to launch Boomer off the seesaw we made?", Brady relayed somewhat innocently.
Mason and Mikayla looked at each other and back at the boys annoyed.
"Hey don't worry I was wrapped in bubble wrap. Head to toe. That being said it is not easy wrapping bubble wrap around this beautiful head and I can't remember anything that happened that week.", said Boomer.
"King Brady how could you lose the royal stamp? How else will we catalog the artifacts and officiate them?", questioned an upset Mikayla.
Brady threw his hands up. "I'm sorry I was desperate. How would you have gotten the sand off that huge rock? It was in that cave on the edge of the rock wall in the jungle and that place was creepy I had to get out of there as soon as possible.".
She rolled her eyes as Mason shook his head.
"Your majesty, find it.", Mason warned simply as he and Mikayla left.
"Sorry bro, I'd help but I don't want to. With that and being hungry, well have a nice time in the dirty creepy cave.", said Boomer.
"Thanks a lot.", Brady half laughed as he threw his pillow at his brother.
Half an hour later Brady swiped a palm branch gently to create his own path through the jungle. Disturbing the perfect shadow it cast onto the milky sand felt wrong.
The sudden beautiful isolation he felt was absolutely intoxicating. His fingers lingered on what brushed passed them. The waves hitting the shore felt like God turned his chest muscles into a cello in which his majesty plucked the strings heartily.
Brady drank it all in through his breath that entered his nose in warm euphoria.
Finally the cave forced itself into his vision as he reluctantly broke himself from the moment that was so painfully rare to be found.
The cave was lit by soft sunlight that waded on one wall and bounced dimly off the rest. It's walls were light brown and made up of simple rock. It's floor was a mini version of sand dunes with random mounds of sand hiding seaglass, forgotten treasures and other possible mysteries left behind.
Onto his knees Brady went as he used his hands to disturb the sleeping sand.
He dug everywhere. He found things here and there, but no stamp. That being said he was only halfway through the cave and he still couldn't remember where he'd left the thing if it was even in there. He groaned at that thought.
While digging in one area more shadowed something sharp and unseen stuck up to cut his palm as he hissed and pulled back. Beads of blood dripped, unabsorbed by the sand. Brady looked at the gash with a wince before ripping some of his shirt and holding it tight within the injured hand.
Now seemed like a good time for a moment of rest and to give his aching knees a break as he sat up against the caves wall.
He sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His hand lifted the last 'treasure' he'd uncovered. He looked at it curiously, studying it to find it's use. It was brown and without a structured shape. That was when he realized it was rotten fruit or something that looked like fruit as he chucked it and said "yech!" aloud to no one. It was still juicy so the proclamation was well needed.
The temporary distraction made him forget his injury and he found the blood had dripped down his arm. He cringed and quickly re-tightened his grip on the ripped cloth. Unbeknownst to him, remnants of the rotten juice had accidentally seeped little drops of itself into the fabric and it stung the wound.
A sigh left his lips as he pushed himself out of the rested position and continued to look and dig.
Sand...rock...hours?...minutes?...sand...
How long, he kept reminding himself to wonder. How long had he been in this cave? He shook his dusty head to clear his dusty thoughts.
Somewhere along the line his mind became unclear. As out of it as he very suddenly felt, he turned to look at the caves entrance very surprised to find midday sun rather than midnight darkness.
So confused in a terrifying unsettling way. His head turned back around with his mouth hanging open and his eyelids drooping in what was possibly exhaustion or delirium.
As he stared at the cave floor, his hands standing in the sand on either side of his view, it didn't spin or swirl. He didn't feel sick, he didn't feel unstable. But his mind was interrupted at some point and he couldn't understand why or when.
Then suddenly a surge of painful adrenaline coursed through his synapses, and he could feel it. An antagonizing agonizing misery yanked his chest. A depression suddenly flooded his head so massively that he genuinely waited for it to wash across his vision.
He gasped in shock as tears welled in his brown eyes filled with terror. He gripped his chest shakily.
"Brady?", said a voice.
He was alert before but now fear clouded his movements as tears clouded his eyes.
A second wave came, though not washing away the first one only meeting it in his psyche. This one was pure anxiety coated in paranoia.
His name was said again and he found the eyes that said it, and for some reason though he knew better, they frightened him.
He moved away to safety, cradling his arm around his torso to protect himself as he used his bleeding hand to hold and pull his hair.
Brady was at one end of the cave, Mikayla, Mason, Boomer, and Lanny stood near the entrance at the other end.
The light was warmer and softer now, how that had happened confused him too much.
The four of them looked at each other with bewildered fear trumping shock.
15 minutes before they had been waiting on Brady who was hours late to the cataloguing. They went to look figuring he'd put off searching for the stamp till the last minute. Now they were ripped with confusion and a painful amount of fear.
"Dad what's happening to him?", asked Mikayla in an exhale.
Boomer swallowed hard having no words to convey his lack of understanding.
"Babygirl I don't know.", Mason responded quietly.
Brady saw the four threats in front of him bleed into his surroundings and even into his own skin. Now the paranoia came from every direction like it was in the air. He breathed heavily exhaling in whispered sobs.
"I-I can't...I just need...", he began with panic.
Then fear fell from his eyes and from his mental. What replaced it brought his hands around himself.
Tears streamed heavily down his anxious still face.
"I can't do it. I'm nothing like my father. I'm nothing like you Mason. I'm so useless.", he started uneasily. "Sometimes I just...I don't like my thoughts. I don't always like my thoughts.", he said with no tremble in his voice though distress in his aura and creased brows.
"Why can't it all just stop for one day? Please...", he began, now the tears took over his voice. "Please just one day.", he cried gently with broken sobs following his broken words.
The four of them watched in absolute horror. Emotion choked them almost paralyzingly. But for Lanny, though perhaps he too was stabbed with empathatic alarm.
Boomer stepped forward innocently though it was a bigger mistake than they could have forseen.
The emotions that they heard and saw one second before were immediately erased, the tears quickly forgotten like a phantom.
Anger filled his usually soft pupils. Maybe it wasn't anger, maybe it was frustration.
He looked up at his lack of control and laughed, though not sinisterly but in hilarious defeat. He yelled vehemently with his fists clenched as it turned into a moan that asked for mercy.
His hands pulled at his hair and he half laughed half cried. They watched him slowly pace as he muttered passionately to himself. They saw the unbordered blood from his hand dripping over everything he touched. Himself, the walls, the innocent sand.
Finally as he sobbed and gasped at the same time, choking on his despair, his knees hit the floor. "I'll find it I'll find it I'm sorry.", he sputtered as he dug.
Mason stepped toward him kneeling beside him. He grasped his shoulders from behind though the action went unnoticed by Brady.
Brady slowly stopped digging as his arms gently collapsed beneath him and he cried into the sand. He held his torso as his body and mind took total control over him.
"Leave me alone please. Please go away I just want to be alone.", he begged.
Sweat slipped slowly off his brow, glistening against his tan skin.
His eyes drooped but they didn't close.
Mason put his arms under the young king. He lifted him like a child and there was no resistance.
It was silent as they walked out of the cave but for Brady's sounds of tragic unrest.
A hot breeze melted over exposed skin. The palms swayed slowly, moved by the melody of the waves. Luke warm sun embraced them in misplaced tranquility.
Brady's fingers gripped Mason's shirt like a wounded animal wondering if the hands that held it carried it into condemnation or to a release from it's pain.
Half open eyes watched pass the blush sky that should have given him remedy, but it only churned his stomach in angst. He ran his hands through his hair peircing his eyebrows together out of insanity within his instability.
They walked all the way to the boys' bedroom where Mason set Brady down in his bed. The slits between the slats of the closed shades layed lines of sunlight across the room with no additional light to join it. None was wanted, the least amount of stimulation for him felt like the best way to go.
"Guards bring the royal shaman as quick as you can.", ordered Boomer with a hand to his forehead.
He didn't know why he did it, but Lanny found himself running a towel under hot water. Wiping away the blood on Brady's skin alleviated the slightest bit of horror within the situation. And as he did it it didn't feel as deceptive as other acts of kindness he'd shown towards the kings. Confliction attacked him as he realized there was no deception within the act at all. Lanny inched the dirty blood stained shirt up with caution. No fight came from Brady as he helped take it off. His head rested back on the pillows as his hand rested on his soft tan torso, molded nicely by island walks and sunbaked exploration on good days. The kings eyes were poisened with a swirl of something very unstable. Somehow Lanny knew it. He knew it as deranged hopelessness.
Brady's eyes stayed open and though worn and not very wide, they weren't hazy. He was aware at least in some sense. How he saw the world at that time was perhaps clear physically, though mentally it was the complete opposite.
Mason gestured toward the hall where they all went.
"Any idea what this is daddy?", Mikayla asked in a sigh with a hand on her chest.
Mason shook his head unsure. "There is one thing this reminds me of but it doesn't make much sense.".
"What is it Mason?", asked Boomer seriously.
Mason shrugged. "Well there's this fruit called Hua Pupule. It grew in the northern part of the jungle and we started innocently harvesting it years ago. A few of our harvesters tried the fruit before it was ripe and they basically went insane. No one else was allowed near groves after that and no one's been since.".
"You think somehow he got a hold of the fruit and just ate it without knowing?", asked Mikayla.
"I don't know how he would've it's across the island and there are warning signs all around the groves.", answered Mason grabbing his daughters hand as he continued to think. She grasped it tight.
"What about the cut on his hand?", pondered Boomer.
"You think it's related?", retorted Mikayla.
"Maybe.", said Boomer unsure. "We should look at it. Hopefully he falls asleep, I can't stand this.".
They agreed and peeked back into the sedated room.
Brady stared at the thin view between the shades. He blinked slowly and swallowed as he'd close his eyes then open them again. He seemed absolutely exhausted, but he wouldn't sleep. Streaks of slow tears falling down his sunned cheeks cut through the dust that would hide like vapor between sand to sneakily take clean skin victim.
Mikayla led the group cautiously as she crawled onto the bed carefully.
She took his good hand in tender beauty. The other she lifted and examined. Lanny had cleaned it well and wrapped it in white bandage.
She pulled it only to look at the gash. It bled gently and naively.
"Nothing strange about it.", she said in a low voice. Her fingertips lingered on his surface. They traced the lines that creased his skin. "Not that I can see anyway.".
Brady's eyes flickered toward them for a moment, unhinged and grief stricken.
"It's gonna be okay buddy. I promise.", cracked Boomers voice.
Mason sat at the end of the bed throwing a hand on Brady's shin.
Mikayla layed her head on his shoulder putting her free hand under her cheek.
"What happened to the harvesters? The ones who went insane?", asked Boomer.
Mason looked up from the floor that held his thoughts and gaze. "A few were too dangerous and there was no helping them. In their suffering the boys' father did what he had too and put them out of their misery. One or two others couldn't handle it and they...well they didn't live either. The rest were healed so to speak under sort of a mystery. A rare rain came, and they were caught in it when they were being moved somewhere away from the other islanders. Suddenly they were hit with lucidity. No one really knew why.".
Thoughts transpired without relation for a while. After a few minutes Mikayla spoke. "Even if he has what they did somehow, rain isn't going to visit during this season.".
"Not a chance.", agreed Mason.
"I wonder if it has to be rain water.", wondered Boomer.
Mason and Mikayla looked at Boomer then to each other.
"Daddy, let's try.", said Mikayla knowing what they were all thinking.
Mason nodded.
Mikayla moved away after kissing him sympathetically on the cheek. Mason and Boomer each took an arm of the psycotically exhausted Brady who they were only half sure wouldn't turn erratic. His tired body couldn't if it wanted to.
Back in the muted light he winced slightly. They watched his every movement in anticipation. Of what they didn't know.
Their destination wasn't far. It was in their sights.
The waves pointed towards them. The shore pulled them closer, the oceans current whispering an eerie breeze into their ears.
Then they met the water.
It was warm, not a shock to the body. Further in they trudged, even Lanny continued with them.
Then they stopped thinking it was deep enough.
The sun now layed down to rest on the horizon. It turned the water pink and orange trying to force peace into worried minds.
For good measure Bradys head went under the surface that swayed.
His eyes stayed open as he watched the light cut into the ocean. He squinted but then relaxed as he watched while it moved in slower time. Thin ribbons of crimson escaped from his injured hand going up for air. He didn't share their desire.
Hands grabbed him up and lifted him from his haven.
As he broke the glittering surface clarity flooded him like a broken dam. He gasped with widened eyes, choking on water droplets that fell from his hair and face.
"Brady?", asked Mikayla in surprise of the change.
Brady hung his head wiping the water from his face.
"Brady.", repeated Boomer.
"I'm okay.", he said simply indicating it had worked.
Then he ran his hands through his hair now with genuine angst that he chose. He started walking to the shore as the others stood still for a moment. He didn't turn to look at them, he just walked up the beach and out of their sight into the palms.
The four left behind looked at each other wondering what to do and if there was something to be done.
The royal shaman stood near the shore just having arrived looking curious and confused. Mason looked at him and shook his head, signaling him that he wasn't needed. Him and the guard with him both left.
The group left the ocean in unease.
As the sun set there was no return of the king.
It was a restless night for them, though for him it was different.
He layed on a large yellowy rock in the middle of a palm tree grove. It was warm from the suns gentle, almost never ending touch, and as he looked up he saw billions of stars.
He breathed in night island air as he drank in the isolation he was completely desperate for.
Gravity pulled heavier on his eyelids than he believed possible and he gladly let it take hold of his sore thoughts.
Not only was that sleep more needed than any sleep ever, but it was deep and tranquil. The comfortable heat of tropical moonlight, the orchestra of waves bleeding onto the shore, and the utter exhaustion trumping the trauma he'd endured all gave him peace of mind. At least for now.
When morning came it was bright but not blasting as the palm branches shaded him.
He gripped the serenity of the night as he felt his stability slipping with the memories of the day flooding back.
The morning couldn't have come more anxiously for those with Brady on their minds.
Mason already the earliest riser was the first to get up.
As he stood in the throne room looking out, he wondered where his king was with furrowed brows.
Mikayla quietly walked in, not comforted by her father's look of worry that matched her own.
She said nothing as she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his left arm, putting her head against his shoulder.
He kissed her on the forehead but didn't move his gaze.
"I think you should be the one to go find him daddy. Even if he doesn't want to be found. He trusts you so much.", said Mikayla.
Mason nodded. He knew she was right. When the kings took the throne what he didn't realize was that the kingdom was adopting two orphans. And him being the nearest adult, around all the time protecting them and giving them advice, well what else is a father?
Into the jungle he went in search of Brady.
It didn't take too long as he saw a contrast of black clothes between white tree trunks.
Brady sat up resting his head on his knees. His eyes were closed and somehow you could tell he was listening to the island.
Masons approach made his eyes open in soft surprise. Mason looked at him with a look of obvious empathy and personal torture seeing someone he cared for hurt so bad.
He sat down next to him silently and waited for Brady to talk.
"Do you know what it's like losing your sanity? I feel like my mind will never be the same.", relayed Brady trading pride for vulnerability.
His eyes reddened filling with an ocean he bit back.
Mason pulled Brady in by his shirt as he wrapped his arms around him promising safety. Brady held tight feeling himself lose control once again, this time within clarity.
"You'll be okay. I'm not going anywhere.", swore Mason.