LAUCAN

"You must stand on your own two feet, Little Prince!" Madame Titania chittered when he slid across the dance floor and tumbled into the bundles of aerial silks, legs upended right out from underneath him. "You're not accepting the fall, such a vital part of our dance." Exhaustion stretched through his limbs when she slid to him, the pearls around her boots flowing with the movement of perfection. You aren't listening to the song deep inside you. Laucan winced when she lifted the back of his head off the cold chill of his imperfection. "You must open your heart to that fall. Then! Only then, you will understand what it means to fly."

Hayvala! He sped on icy glyphs through the corridors, in search of where the Traye Prince spirited her off to. Continuous hostages. His entire kingdom and people buried underneath the snow with Traye sitting upon the throne and dismissing the weight of their antiquity without a blink — sooner would he see them die. Laucan bounced off a corner, skating to the end. Time glyphs stretched off his fingers when he caught the trail of space, but it wilted to its roots when he tried to grab onto it and drag Yuven Traye back into the reality of their homeland. No, where did he take her? He hastened his pace when he burst through another time glyph. Where it spun in faster motions to push him through. Full of horrified haste, he jumped off his skating glyphs and scrambled for the Knights of the Round, where the trail disappeared. His heart pounded when he pushed open the doors. Ready for the cycle to continue, chakrams at the ready, he stopped at the sight of Hayvala, alone, with her fingers hooked into her skirts as she stared down at the runic representation of time and space.

"No, Laucan!" Hayvala slammed her hands into his chest when he sped forwards. "Let them go. I am fine."

Laucan relaxed his stature and glanced at the box of travelling supplies scattered at her heels. Chakrams holstered, the excess of magick in his lungs regulated itself through a cold plume of smoke through his nose. "You intended this all along," he said and stepped off the rune, the connection of their two blood-soaked family lines. He drove his fingers into his brow and shook his head free of the lies. His fear fell into primal ferocity, a blinding rage with fangs bared. He whipped on his heel, then threw the chakram at the back pillar, where it slammed through with his unheard scream. Agitation curled his fingers, and he came closer to the glyph.

"I said let them go, Laucan," Hayvala said and held her arms out. "There's no need for this. This is not who you are. This is against your soul, you know that. Do not damage it further. You will never hear it if you continue."

"I was never hearing it anyway!" He threw his arms up in the air. "You can bet if any of the Lords knew that, Traye would be proven right. Infernal Black Holes, he might as well be." Blood slicked down his fangs when he pierced the corners of his lips. Energy hissed between his teeth, but he swallowed it into his lungs with a huff. "I do not know what they want from me. They hate me because I'm the son of a tyrant." He stepped closer to her and slapped his own chest, longing to tear out his heart. "They hate me because I am weak." His downy feathers rattled against his ears. "They hate me because I can't do anything to prevent what's happening to us. I didn't want to fight, he did!" Laucan pointed at the mural. "All they ever want to do is fight. Right to the last of them. Right down to the moment they killed our father and left his corpse frozen in his own room, leaving me to find his flayed body. I don't know what you're expecting Hayvie, but this isn't going to end." Despair choked his hopeful song, and he nudged the box of supplies with his feet. "Get out of my way."

He threw his magick into the rune. Swirls ran along the circumference, and then it turned over to reveal the clock — the death knell of Naveera. Every toll dragged on in frozen moments, and it opened its jaws wide to the tunnel entrance below, straight out of the palace and into the blizzard. Its cold howl raised his feathers closer to the tips of his ears when he shambled through the tunnel, a puppet in a constant masquerade. At the end of the tunnel, he faced Naveera's very own consuming abyss. Who needs Derelicts... when you have this.

On the edge of his barrier, he frowned out at the wasteland, a utter blanket of snow long covered any of their tracks. It moaned through the snow, and he tugged off his glove with his arm, and reached his hand out. His fingers molded the barrier. Icy nettles stung his fingertips, then his entire hand when he breached the ancient barrier the hearts reflected outwards. Snowflakes swirled across his open palm. Frostbite chewed at his nails, and he pulled his hand back, into the stifled chill. He rubbed his fingers together for warmth before slipping his glove on. Back where he came, he climbed onto his own time glyph and lifted himself into the Knights of the Past. Hayvala stood there, her hands clasped together.

"They're gone, the snow has already covered their tracks and they can't have left naught but a couple minutes ago," he said and nodded at the supplies. "They won't last long out there, Hayvala, you must know that. Fenrer Pyren? I give him... what do they say in the sunlands? A toll? A couple bells out in the Frozen Wastes? Yuven Traye? Just on the basis that he is an Avaerilian, even with his condition he'll still last longer than him, and who do you think he's going to blame? Adara Sazaka was our only chance. I offered them an escape, you offered them comfort, and Traye still fought. All that bringing him here did for me was remind me that this blood feud will only end if we die." He brushed his hands and puffed into them all the same, then sighed through his gloves. "I've got to go back down to the icehearts before I retire for the eve. We have another long wave coming. I need to make sure the barrier holds up against it. Good luck with the rest of the festivities."

"Laucan..." Hayvala whispered behind him, but he left her at the feet of the Knights of the Round, the one place Yokonei Traye and her shared in their songs and their stories, leaving him in Father's relentless, scolding shadow. Mother wilted abed, taken by frost fever. Blood splattered upon the snowy carpet in the king's bedroom, with it soaking his small knees and he fell against the dance. Gemstones cracked off the crown, stained crimson with the teeth of the enemy. Over the bed, the sigil of the Traye's, a constant, fleeting reminder of the feud eating away at them. Hands tucked between his arms, he hunched himself into his furs and trained his gaze forward, ignoring the palace staff when they passed him, brushing off mired snowdust for the next round of the masquerade, the lie in their songs; their pride as Avaerilians. Into the royal wing, he hobbled through the postings of Sentinels, useless against Trayes.

Up the staircase to his room, he peeked through the door, before opening it with his shoulder. Shadows wrapped into the corners. He hesitated on the threshold of red, and sent his time glyphs spinning through the room. Embers floated in stasis, before wilting at the release of magick. Heart pounding, he closed the door with his back and shivered at the cold howl of the ghostly figure who loomed over Father, a twisted blade slicked with his blood, casting into their red eyes when they turned to him with a skeletal, frozen snarl along their frostbitten flesh.

His backside hit the ground, and his shallow plumes left through his nose. Shadow flames curled into the fireplace when he pulled himself upwards, coming closer to his desk. Papers piled on top of it. Requests. Offers. Everyone wanted something from him. Nothing he had satisfied them. Apathy silenced the song.

He scowled then threw over his desk at the spit of fire, a cackle of heat. It crashed and threw all his quills to the side, spreading ink over the unanswered letters. He tore his fingers through his down, nothing more than a useless child to the older puppet masters. Useless, but compliant for their love and approval. On his knees as a king, his fangs slipped over his lips when his lungs expanded, a rattle of fatality leaving as a guttural hiss in his chest and ears, unable to snarl as an adult with true teeth and true power.

"Or are you truly so pathetic, small, and weak that you will watch your kingdom die around you, and you will reign over the ashes?" Yuven grinned, unshackled by the song he desperately wanted to hear. A prisoner — to a king.

If only we could burn in ashes, at least we'd feel warmth. Laucan doubled over with a groan, picking out little pieces of down when they fluttered with his agitated shivering. You're just a child. You're just a useless child who could never learn how to just accept the fall. You could never learn how to fly because you can't hear the song and thus don't have wings. He buried his nose into his furs, unable to remember the finer details of Mother's face, not with Father haunting the shadows with the very Traye's who struck him down. It's so easy to climb the Wyvern Steps. Another to stand at the precipice and just... hear nothing at all, not even the bells of time. Laucan hugged himself and stared at the mess he created.

He launched himself upwards when the door opened.

"Your Wyvern Grace? I've brought you a warm meal from the kitchens and some..." Efram stopped at the threshold with a frown at his desk, a tray carried in his hands. "Chocoberry tea." He wandered over to the small drink table near the balcony door, setting the steaming cup on top of it. Laucan breathed sharp and deep when Efram went to lift the desk.

"Leave it," he ordered through his teeth.

Efram stopped, then bowed without argument, but with a touch of uncertain fear in his face. "Is there anything else you require? I can ready a bath if..."

His tongue slipped through his fangs, and Efram bowed once more, his own downy feathers frazzled on the ends. "I shall check on you later then, Your Wyvern Grace." He left the desk and the strewn out papers behind and left him alone in the massive room. The runelock clicked through his ears, but spatial distortion ripped the boundary apart. Shoulders slacked, he released his jaw from its own crunch with a sigh, and slipped over to the loveseat to slump into it, tucking his feet closer to him and wrapped himself in the fur blankets across the back, burrowing his head into it as he watched the remains of his plucked out feathers whisk into the wind.

Lighter than a longer gray feather in the bridge of his fingers.

He wound his arms around the blankets and listened to the longing chorus outside. Fingers plucked at lutes. Their breath stole away into flutes. People sang and danced along the streets, the rare view of joy when other days proved solemn and twice shy. Days where people avoided other's gazes and slipped into their homes and left stores as quickly as they came in. Streams clinked bells and hung around blue and purple lights, casting Volaris in a mixed illumination. Inside the watchtowers along the massive walls, the braziers flickered azure, guarded by Sentinels. His anchor points for the barrier. Children laughed and played in the small parks within the city quarters, but the dunes came closer, and his people continued to sing.

Sing a deep, mournful song of what they could never be again.