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Sharrkan hates these days, when he’s forced to leave the confines of his room (his palace his walls his safety) to see Heliohapt’s capital. He’s royalty, his caretakers say, he’s got an image to uphold, the advisers tut, what’s the point of a giving status to a son who can’t use magic and won’t leave his room, his bastard siblings sneer. So he goes out, surrounded by guards in white tunics and heavy gold pectoral jewelry, his chin tucked in as he fights the urge to wrap his arms around his middle protectively.
People are just so uncomfortable to be around, he thinks as his eyes dart nervously around the marketplace, with their loud noises and their smells and their troubling social conventions and he just wants to be home, with his snakes that are so pretty and quiet and clean and not human. But even though he’s shaking under his long schenti, he keeps walking because to stop and collapse and curl up like he wants to would just make the stares worse and he really can’t handle worse.
And yet, Sharrkan does stop. Stops because they’ve passed the slave auctions and while generally he has no interest in such goings-on, today, inexplicably, he does.
The boy on the auction block could be about his age, maybe a bit younger or older, it’s hard to read the boy’s foreign features. ‘Fanalis,’ Sharrkan thinks, because he knows enough about the outside world to be able to identify that, at least. But more pressing than the odd pale skin and the shocking red hair is the muzzle fitted to the boy’s face. A muzzle, the sort of thing put on dogs and wild beasts prone to violence, not heavily-chained adolescent boys with lifeless eyes.
“That one,” Sharrkan says, lifting his staff to point directly at the boy, his quiet voice almost lost amidst the crowd’s shouting of numbers and jeers. Almost, but not quite.
No one questions him. No one asks, “Why the sudden interest in slaves?” or “Why that one?” They just exercise the privilege inherent in his position (no matter how they might resent his having it) and buy the slave before another bid can be cast.
Standing before the Fanalis, who even while slumping is a fair few inches taller than him, Sharrkan can’t help but stare. A Fanalis’ eyes aren’t that much different, Sharrkan figures. It’s the color more than anything that’s unique, pretty with an inclination toward threatening. Sharrkan doesn’t like people, but he likes that color.
“What’s your name?” Sharrkan asks.
Around them, his attendants finalize the deal with the slave merchant and money changes hand, but even so the merchant takes the time to look at Sharrkan and say, “This one’s an imbecile, probably one too many knocks to the head in the coliseum. He doesn’t talk.”
It’s the way the muscles of the Fanalis’ jaw twitch just barely that makes him think the slave trader is wrong. But Sharrkan decides not to push it, preferring instead to make room beside himself in his little circle of guards for his new companion. Quietly, so that his entourage can’t hear, he leans over to the Fanalis and whispers, “I wouldn’t talk for someone like that either.”
The walk back home is infinitely easier to bear, less anxiety-inducing, and even arguing with his handlers to let him deal with his new Fanalis is easier than it usually is. He gets his way, possibly because his assorted nannies and guards are just so taken-aback that he’s talking and insisting and wanting to bring a human being into his room, which is generally reserved for himself and his snakes only.
“Please young master, just don’t remove his restraints,” one of his handlers says as he affixes the chains on the Fanalis’ arms to Sharrkan’s desk—solid, heavy wood that they’re all vaguely aware could be broken with a single flick of the Fanalis boy’s wrist. All the same, Sharrkan is left alone with the Fanalis, as per his wishes.
“So what’s your name?” Sharrkan tries again, hoping that maybe the Fanalis might speak so long as it’s just the two of them.
The blank stare he gets in return tells him this was optimistic. This was a bad idea, Sharrkan begins to think. He can hardly handle regular people, why did he think he could deal with a mute Fanalis slave who, if Sharrkan understood the merchant’s earlier implication, used to be a gladiator? The slave quirks an eyebrow, as if to ask him the same question, before looking away dismissively. There’s a certain causal gracelessness in the way the Fanalis slumps back against the desk, his expression sullen behind the muzzle.
‘Ah,’ Sharrkan thinks, ‘That could be worth a shot.’
It takes effort to fight back the nerves that curl in his stomach, threatening to climb up his throat and leave him mute and useless. But he does, taking one hesitant step after another until he’s within arm’s reach of the other boy, who could likely snap his spine with the same ease normal men snap dry twigs. Nervous, his eyes slide over to where he keeps his snakes, and it’s with a sense of black humor that Sharrkan thinks, ‘If this goes badly, I can always follow the time-honored tradition of poisoning myself.’
But the Fanalis boy doesn’t move as Sharrkan’s hands go to work, fiddling with chains and keys and locks, until the only restraint left on the redhead is the muzzle over his mouth. Sharrkan’s hands shake visibly as he lifts them up to the other’s face, gently loosening the straps from around the Fanalis’ ears, easing the muzzle away from the other boy’s mouth. Angry red imprints are left behind on the bridge of the boy’s nose and the line of his jaw where leather bit into flesh, but otherwise the boy looks as free as anyone could be, divested of everything that might hold him back.
And yet, he's still not free. Not really. Not in a way that Sharrkan’s sure he can help.
“What’s your name?”
Silence.
Well, it’s not like Sharrkan didn’t expect that. He could pull away all the chains he wanted, but what does something like that mean after you’ve bought a person in broad daylight?
Just the thought leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and it’s with a strange bolt of boldness that Sharrkan leans forward, on the tips of his toes so that he can whisper into the other’s ear:
“You should run away, if you want. The garden’s just under my balcony. Stay in the trees and you can escape; no one looks up.”
A stillness passes between them as the Fanalis decides whether or not to trust this invitation, and is broken when he moves, taking uncertain but increasingly quick steps toward the balcony. Sharrkan closes his eyes when the other passes him, filled with the strangest mixture of loss and calmness. How stupid of him, to feel comfortable for the first time in so long, around a boy he doesn’t know and who is going to walk right out of his life without having ever said a word—
“Masrur.”
So quickly it hurts, Sharrkan turns to face the balcony. The Fanalis stares at him from his perch on the railing, his gaze intent and expectant.
“Masrur?” Sharrkan repeats slowly, suspecting but wanting to be sure of what the word means. “You mean, your name is—“
The boy, Masrur, cuts him off with a sharp nod. Then, as though he’d accomplished some mission of his well enough, the boy shrugs, gives a curt wave, and prepares to drop himself off the balcony. But a thought occurs to Sharrkan just then and he shouts out, “Wait!”
Stunned, perhaps, by the sudden volume of Sharrkan’s voice, Masrur does as instructed and waits patiently as Sharrkan grabs a too-long stretch of cloth, rolls it into a messy bundle, and ties it around the other boy’s torso.
“You stand out,” Sharrkan explains, a bit of his usual shyness creeping back into him at last. Only, it doesn’t really feel like the usual anxiety, it’s more fluttery than that. Pleasant, almost, in a weird queasy way. “Use it to cover your hair and face.”
They lock gazes for a long moment then, their faces oddly close, close enough that Sharrkan feels the little huff Masrur lets out as a warm pressure against his cheek. Then, the other is distant again, giving Sharrkan another short nod before dropping down into the trees below and disappearing from sight.
Eventually, when he stops seeing little flashes of red throughout the garden, Sharrkan retreats back into his room. A strange bittersweet lull overtakes him, leaves him sprawled out over his bed and staring at the ceiling a little dreamily. It’s lonely, suddenly, being by himself, and he wishes that Masrur had stayed for just a little while longer.
Only, even though he’s filled with a weird sort of happy-sad-numb, Sharrkan also feels like this way of meeting and parting was right. And after all, didn’t he get everything he wanted?
Didn’t he get a little more than he bargained for, too?