Chapter Text
Prince Sebastian reveled in his time alone.
He was a moody and bitter royal, the less-favored of the heirs to the throne despite being the firstborn son. When the king-consort built the prince an estate to the west, it was with this mutual understanding. Sebastian was as disinterested with the affairs of running a kingdom as the kingdom was with him.
Alas, he still had to return to the castle proper for special occasions, and this day saw him a few hours into the journey back east with his armed caravan. He often insisted on riding in the carriage alone but was rarely granted the luxury. Today there was one paladin guard with him, Samson, whose particular presence didn’t bother him enough to refuse. Outside there was the carriage driver, a crossbowman, and 4 additional cavalry guards split in front of and behind the carriage.
It all seemed excessive to Sebastian, considering they carried no real riches and had never once been bothered by thieves.
“It’s too hot,” Sebastian mumbled as he flicked down the carriage screen to reveal the passing wilderness outside.
It barely helped. There was hardly any wind.
“Sun will do you some good,” Samson replied distractedly.
He was doing something with a few blades of grass he’d plucked before entering the carriage. He always needed something to do with his hands, otherwise the rattling of his armor as he tapped his leg would drive everyone senseless.
“Hate the sun,” Sebastian grumbled.
The corner of Samson’s mouth curled into a smile. “I know.”
Samson actually quite reminded Sebastian of the sun, though he didn’t hate him. His tan skin bore sprinkled evidence of the sun’s love for him in freckles across his nose. His wheaten hair liked to fall into his face, something he always assured the captain he would fix, though it never stayed fixed long. Most of all though it was his ceaseless joy. It was annoying at first.
“Aren’t you hot under all that armor?” Sebastian asked.
Samson looked up then and gave him a playful look. “Is that an invitation to get comfortable?”
Sebastian choked on a laugh. He hadn’t expected that, but maybe he should have. Samson had started to become more relaxed around him. Moments like these were fleeting and thrilling in a way Sebastian couldn’t quite name.
“What if it was? Would you really—”
The carriage pitched and Sebastian was thrown into the sidewall. Before he could wonder what had happened they descended into chaos.
“It’s an ambush!” one of the cavalry guards shouted from outside.
There was shouting, clanging of weapons, thudding of presumed bodies, screaming of horses.
“No!” Amidst it all, a woman’s scream split the rest “We weren’t supposed to kill anyone!”
Killing?? It was all Sebastian could do to keep up, but then Samson’s hands were on him, pushing his back to the bench to move him away from the open screen—
When a projectile came through it.
Something like panic surged through him at the sight. Not for his own safety, but because Samson would die for his proximity to him and this seemed the most unfair thing the universe could do.
No, it wasn’t panic. It was rage.
Sebastian’s eye fell to the thing that was thrown in, now tumbling around the carriage floor. It was a sphere spewing smoke.
One inhale and Sebastian felt dulled. Samson’s hands were still on him, pulling him, opening the carriage door but death was out there. But they would die in here too!
Death was everywhere around them.
“NO!” Sebastian shouted.
Suddenly it was like everything was underwater.
The smoke drifted so much slower. The sound outside was warped and distant.
But Samson seemed unaffected by it, looking at him confused, if woozy from the smoke. “What did you…?”
“I-I don’t know,” Sebastian looked at his hands. He understood intrinsically somehow that he’d altered the speed of time in the surrounding area. But how? He had no idea.
Samson set his jaw and pushed open the carriage door and coughed, then cursed at whatever he saw outside. “Run for the trees as soon as you hit the ground!” he called behind him, then jumped down and drew his shield.
Sebastian practically fell after him, his legs shaking from the effects of the smoke. The sunlight burned. Samson’s arm came around him and dragged him forward.
Fighting was still happening within the slowness. Everyone seemed affected but them, even the horses reared as if moving through syrup. Every sound was dragged out.
There was bloodspray on the carriage. Sebastian didn’t look for its origin, instead making for the trees like Samson said. The guard brought up the rear with his shield pointed behind them.
They were almost there when it sounded like their attackers were beginning to notice them. A crossbow thunked the slowed air, the bolt crawling towards them.
“Over here if you want to live!” a woman’s voice called from deeper in the forest, apparently outside of the influence of Sebastian’s… spell? The slowness, in any case.
It was easier to focus now as the smoke cleared out of Sebastian’s system. The beckoning voice was the same woman he’d heard before.
“Stay behind me,” Samson ordered and moved towards the sound.
Sebastian nodded and stuck close.
They came upon a violet-haired woman in patched leather armor crouched in front of… a lynx? “Hi, I’ll be your savior today, name’s Abigail.”
“Why should we trust you?” Samson asked in a surprisingly frigid tone.
“You’re welcome to take your chances but I’m getting out of here, and I imagine you want the same.”
The sounds from the road were beginning to speed up again.
Abigail uncorked a bottle and forced the lynx’s mouth open. “I think it’s time we gotta use this, David, open up.” She poured the potion into the lynx’s mouth.
He grimaced and smacked his mouth open and closed as Abigail backed away.
It wasn’t clear why, until Sebastian noticed that David was growing. From the size of a lynx, to a tiger, to a horse. The growth didn’t seem to be stopping but Abigail grabbed onto his shoulder and boosted herself up gracefully. “Come on, we’re out of time.”
Sebastian shared a bewildered look with Samson, who took a moment to consider, then knelt to give the prince a step up.
Sebastian still hesitated. What if he got up there and this woman took off with just him? But their assailants were bearing down on them.
He still wasn’t sure as he stepped on Samson’s shoulder and up onto the now-colossal lynx. Abigail helped him right himself on the unwieldy mount.
They were up so high.
Sebastian could see movement in the forest— shadows of people running.
He should’ve made Samson come up first. The sinking feeling that accompanied the thought was punctuated by a crossbow bolt zooming past.
Abigail whistled and David moved.
For a moment Sebastian feared he was being proven right, until the beast thudded down to the forest floor to make it easier for Samson to climb up.
Sebastian leaned to help him up as Abigail began shooting arrows back at their pursuers. “Fuck you! Bastards.”
Well, she was certainly earning points in her favor.
Samson hefted himself up behind Sebastian.
“Let’s go, bud!” Abigail called out.
David stood again and jostled them all into each other. Samson grabbed on to Sebastian automatically, and Sebastian clutched his arms in turn as they all lurched forward.
The beast began to run. His massive footfalls shook the earth as he bounded through the forest away from danger.
They traveled deeper into the forest for some time. Sebastian had no idea what direction they were going in— much less where they were headed— and hoped Samson at least did.
He’d stopped holding on to him at some point (perhaps realizing it was improper) but they didn’t speak of it. No one said anything, until they approached a river and Abigail whistled for David to lower himself again.
“Alright gents this is where you get off,” she grunted as she turned and hopped off of the beast herself. She walked around to David’s face and opened her arms to hug his huge snout. “Who’s a good boy! He’s such a good boy!”
Sebastian slid off, followed by Samson.
Sebastian turned to look at him but he was already passing him, rounding the giant lynx to speak to Abigail.
“What do you mean? You’re leaving us here?”
“Well you’re away from danger aren’t you?”
“Yes…” Samson looked around, the look on his face suggesting he was trying to hide his stress.
Abigail spoke to David again. “Okay, go fish!” she said enthusiastically.
The lynx jumped up, throwing off Sebastian’s balance with the tremor it caused.
He crossed into the wide river like it was nothing. The water barely came up to his knees. He leapt around in it, his bobbed tail wagging as he presumably hunted for fish.
“He gets real grumpy with me if there isn’t something in it for him when we do stuff like this,” Abigail explained and found a boulder to settle on, crossing her legs and taking off her pack. “Nearest village isn’t far north, you can make it by nightfall.”
“So you helped us just enough to get the dead off your conscious, huh?” Sebastian asked.
Abigail froze and didn’t look up from her pack. “I helped more than enough, actually,” she replied coldly. “The potion I used on David wasn’t the kind of thing I will come across again. I was saving it. And I didn’t kill anyone!” She stood, irritated.
“No, but you helped.” Sebastian stared her down with his shoulders squared.
If there was an end goal to his arguing, Sebastian didn’t know it. Needling people came naturally, and in the case of a potential kidnapper / thief she didn’t deserve any particular mercy.
“Alright,” Samson raised a placating hand to the prince, then turned his attention to Abigail. “We could replace it and more if you help get us back. The queen is expecting her son to arrive tomorrow, there will be chaos when he doesn’t. If you were to help us, I’m sure you’d be rewarded handsomely.”
“And reward a thief!” Sebastian scoffed.
Abigail waved her hand towards Sebastian as if to say he had a point.
Samson rounded on Sebastian with his hands pressed together in supplication. “Your highness, please,” he hissed under his breath.
With that, Sebastian understood. Samson had no other way to get them out of this. This kidnapper-thief was their only hope.
He clenched his jaw and let a sharp huff out of his nose. “If you assist us, we will forget that you were a part of the operation.”
Abigail squinted at him in thought. The ground continued to vibrate every so often with the gleeful pounces of an over-sized lynx in the distance.
“I will do it, if my previous crimes are also forgiven.”
Samson threw his hands up in exasperation. “Of course you have a record.”
“Of course I do mister paladin! I’m a thief!”
“Can’t be a very good one if you have a record,” Sebastian muttered under his breath.
“The rumors about you are actually underselling how much of an ass you are, that’s crazy.”
Samson laughed, something torn between amusement, disbelief, and being driven mad. He combed his hands through his hair and drew in a deep inhale. “Alright, here’s what we’ll do.”
Sebastian and Abigail both turned to him with their arms crossed over their chests.
“We will forget that you were a part of the ambush. Your record may or may not be expunged by the queen, that isn’t something we can promise now. But you have to make sure we get back safely. It benefits us all to stick together, since I imagine that group will be after you too.”
“Sure, but I can fend for myself,” Abigail retorted.
“Can you? Your colossus potion is gone, plus anything else you’re out for with that deal you made. I’m assuming you’re already in a bad spot if you’d resort to working with people you don’t trust.”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow at Samson. That was an impressive pull. Abigail seemed deflated by it.
“Fine,” she muttered in resignation. “But I’m going to need to disguise the prince if we’re going to travel together. I’m guessing you don’t have any other clothes.”
“Nothing but what’s on our backs. Everything is with the carriage,” Samson explained.
“It’ll have been picked clean by now. Plus they might be watching it in case you return. How attached are you to your armor?”
Samson sighed. “Pretty attached, but I imagine I don’t have much of a choice.”
“What about my crown?” Sebastian interjected. Samson made a small noise of protest but choked it down.
Abigail analyzed the silver circlet on Sebastian’s head and considered his proposal. “Too hot. No guarantee I’ll be able to get rid of it and it’ll put a target on my back. A guard’s armor, not so much.”
Samson started to unbuckle his chest piece when Abigail stopped him.
“Hold on, let’s get somewhere covered and set up camp, then I’ll head out and get it traded for supplies. Sound good?”
The men shared a glance and nodded.
They settled on a semi-hidden spot between the river and a high ridge that left their backs covered.
Samson was in his underclothes.
It was nothing indecent, but it was odd to see him like that nonetheless. He seemed so… vulnerable. And young. Like this, it was more obvious that they were the same age.
They saw Abigail and David off and then a horrible uneasiness set in.
It was like Abigail’s presence was the thing still keeping Sebastian focused and in survival mode and he just wanted to crumble now. It was miserable out here. All his things were gone. Samson’s armor! Samson.
They could have died.
Samson turned and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Sebastian found himself rushing to hug him. He’d never hugged him. Never hugged anyone with any regularity. But it felt like the most important thing right then to confirm his body was here and real and alive and Sebastian just felt so overwhelmed.
He squeezed him harder, his face in Samson’s soft undershirt. It smelled so much like him.
Samson hesitated with his arms hovering, no doubt because of the impropriety of it all. When Sebastian didn’t let go though, he relaxed, returning the embrace.
“We almost died,” Sebastian said into his shirt, his fingers digging deeper into the fabric before pulling back just enough to look up.
Samson wore an unusually somber expression, his green eyes glassy. “I would’ve protected you if you hadn't— well… what happened, exactly?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never felt like that before. It’s like the moment I realized you could die, I got so angry it turned into something physical, burning under my skin till it shot out. I don’t know how else to describe it. I couldn’t…” Sebastian looked into his eyes pleading for him to understand what he himself couldn’t. Then his gaze lowered to his freckles, his lips. “I couldn't lose you,” he finished quietly.
Samson didn’t say he understood. He didn’t explain the unexplainable.
Instead, he took Sebastian’s face in his hands— and kissed him.