Chapter Text
Nathaniel woke up, and his room was empty. Not entirely empty, Kevin and Riko’s belongings remained in their place. There were still photos over their beds, medals and trophies glittering in the dizzying artificial light, but Nathaniel’s side seemed to have become abandoned. His shelves had been cleared out, almost as if elves had snuck into the room in the middle of the night and hidden everything away.
His first thought was panic. He’d been at the nest for what felt like a year, but according to his tutor, it had only been three weeks. They couldn’t be kicking him out that fast, could they? Nathaniel was well aware of the consequences for failure, too, and he knew exactly what was going on behind the scenes. His father had murdered someone on the day he’d tried out, after all. Was he going to be killed?
Nathaniel’s body told him to get up and run, but his brain said that that was a stupid idea. He wouldn’t even make it to the staircase.
Kevin groaned from the bed across the room and sat up, rubbing his face. The little two on his cheek was smeared slightly and his dark hair was sticking up in a million different directions. He blinked uncomprehendingly at Nathaniel for a moment, and then scowled.
‘Where’s all your stuff?’ He asked.
‘Shut up,’ Riko complained, rising from his own sleep. He looked far more put together than Kevin, because he was much less of a chaotic sleeper. Riko slept like he was dead. Sometimes Nathaniel wished he was.
‘I don’t know,’ Nathaniel whispered. ‘What do you-‘
‘What part of shut up don’t you get?’ Riko interrupted, throwing a pillow across the room at Nathaniel. ‘Quit complaining.’ Nathaniel shared a look with Kevin, but settled back down into his bed. They were meant to be getting up anyway, but life was always easier when they let Riko’s feet be the first to touch the floor.
Kevin and Nathaniel lay silent until Riko finally sighed and got out of bed, making his way into their shared bathroom.
‘When did you get rid of it all?’ Kevin asked once the door was closed. ‘Are you leaving?’ Nathaniel shrugged.
‘It wasn’t me. I didn’t even hear anyone come in,’ he answered. Kevin scrunched up his face at his teammate.
‘Creepy.’
Riko barely spared a glance at Nathaniel’s empty shelves when he was finished with the bathroom. He sat on the foot of Kevin’s bed and pulled out a black sharpie. Kevin carefully redrew the bold number one on Riko’s face before leaving the room himself. Riko didn’t speak to Nathaniel much. Unless it had to do with Exy, Riko mainly ignored his third, preferring to whisper whatever demonic thoughts he was having to Kevin instead. There was an order for everything, and Riko didn’t seem to see much reason for him to waste his time with someone below him.
Nathaniel wondered if Riko knew something about why his room was empty. It terrified Nathaniel that someone had been in their room and it hadn’t woken him up. Especially since they had seemed to rob them.
Riko didn’t speak a word to him as they headed out for the training in the morning. Nathaniel felt tiny amongst the ravens, a ten-year-old in a group of adults. The large presence that was Riko did nothing but make him feel even smaller. “King” had started off as a joke. The captain hated Riko being called captain, too. Riko hadn’t yet earned the title yet. Someone had jokingly suggested King, and the rest was history.
When they arrived, there was another boy on the court. He was tall and lanky; Nathaniel guessed the boy was a couple of years older than himself, maybe the same age as Riko and Kevin. He was already wearing a Ravens uniform, the number four in blood red across his front. The master stood next to him, cane tapping an irregular pattern on the floor as he watched the three boys approach. They got to their knees in front of their master without prompting.
‘Nathaniel,’ The Master said, ‘This is Jean Moreau. He is your partner. You will share his room from now on. You may not be separate.’ Nathaniel raised his head, but The Master pushed it back down with the butt of his cane, forcing his head almost between his knees.
‘He speaks no English,’ The Master continued. ‘I expect you to make him learn. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Master,’ the three boys parroted. The master banged his cane off the smooth court floor once more and wandered away. The three waited until his footsteps had receded out of the court before climbing to their feet.
Jean was even taller up close. He easily had a foot on Riko and Neil, and he was even taller than Kevin. His skin was pale and smooth, the sharp lines of his cheekbones enviously absent of drawn on numbers. Nathaniel blinked up at his steely grey eyes in wonder. Nathaniel had been terrified when he got to the nest; shaky, crying- in fact, his first night was hell on earth. Jean didn’t look scared as he assessed the three boys and clenched his jaw. He seemed at ease, powerful and sure. A glance at Riko told Nathaniel that their king was trying to figure out how long it would take to break that spirit. Nathaniel hoped he couldn’t manage it, that the fire in Jean’s eyes stayed there forever so it could keep Nathaniel warm amongst the ice on the nest.
Nathaniel patted his chest and said his name. Jean regarded him almost with distaste, but then nodded. The corner of his mouth twitched just once and Nathaniel couldn’t place where the sudden warmth in his chest had come from.
It must have been the fire.