Array
(
[text] =>
Ace quickly found that ruling a kingdom was no easy feat, even if he had the help of a formerly renown Shadow and two renown Bounty Hunters of the Nine Rings. In general, Parisora was thrown in the deep end of disasters as the crops died. Famine and locust swarmed the land like a plague, yet Claude had the heart to joke that toads and first born sons were next. Ace glared at him for that whilst Edith laughed, clearly there was a reference here that he was missing. Even from the safety of the palace, Ace could tell the misery in everyone’s faces.
“Messing with the natural course of fate comes with cruel and hefty price,” Claude said as he entered with a tray of freshly brewed tea.
Clay walked in next to him with a judging look on his face. “Opalian’s not doing much better,” the young boy’s voice had a remarkably mature tone to it. “Though it’s probably more of the fact that they blasted all their money on the military and drove the country into poverty and starvation.”
Ace now frequently wondered if he was truly as young as he appeared. “Parisora is starving and my royal advisers want me to throw a party,” he scoffed, scrunching up some “important royal documents” in his hands and tossing it across the room. His office, well technically his father’s but King Raynior was more or less permanently out of commission, was now littered with paper that outlined bad ruling advice. Having four funerals to plan was also not a mood. He was never close enough to his “family” to actually grieve for too long. They allowed their greed for power take control over their choices. The only inconvenience was that none of them had any plans or ideas for their own funeral.
The royal family of Parisora is a complicated one. The Princess Royal Sealin was the second oldest of the four siblings, she and the former Crown Prince Diorlin were born to Raynior’s first wife, who died of complications during a surgery for something that Ace could not recall, not that he was even born then. Though he did remember well that Sealin and Diorlin did not get along, at all, in fact they despised each other. It made perfect sense for Sealin to want a shot at the throne too and since she was the current Queen’s favourite for being a “girl”, she likely thought she stood a good chance to win.
Then, there was the complication of the Second Prince, Remlin, who was the son of Raynior’s second wife. That one died in a car accident. Then came Ace, born to Raynior’s third wife, who died in a terrorist attack when he was barely old enough to speak. A couple of years later, Raynior would marry the last Queen, the one who killed Sealin, though why, Ace suppose he would never know, he thought the Queen liked Sealin very much. He did suspect that perhaps the Queen wanted to become the ruling monarch instead of an adviser and a some what glorified trophy beside the King. Or she could be having an affair with one of Ace’s older brothers, after all, the age gap is not that big.
“Claude, help,” Ace moaned with a childish look on his face.
Claude chuckled and caressed his cheek. “I appreciate your confidence in me, but I really don’t know any more than you do.”
Ace glared at him, slapping away his hands with a sulking expression. “Locust swarms, surely you have a solution.”
“Let it play out?” Claude suggested weakly. He was always bad at political problem solving.
The doors to Ace’s office swung open once more as Edith bursts in laughing. “Prince was never a Strategist, for good reasons too.”
“If you have advice, that would be welcome, sister,” Clay said flatly as he stormed in behind her. He too, seemed to have developed a peculiar dislike towards his older half-sister who had tried to shoot him at their first meeting.
“Shut up kiddo, let the grown ups talk,” Edith muttered. She turned her attention to Claude and pulled up a hologram screen that projected out of her watch. “I think you should see this, Prince.”
Ace flinched, he knew that Edith was talking to Claude but hearing the word “Prince” made him automatically want to react. He never really wrapped his head around the fact that Claude’s actual name is just “Prince”.
Claude scowled as he walked over, he clearly recognised the video footage that showed on Edith’s hologram. “Mr Rain’s supposed end, I’ve seen it plenty of times. Ryuming committed suicide like two weeks later and Madam Ghost waged war on the Water Summoner Tribe for her brother’s death.” Mr Rain was born into the Water Summoner Tribe, not that he was ever accepted by his family, even after he faded, he was never considered a true member of the tribe. Madam Ghost however, always blamed the Water Summoner Tribe for how Mr Rain turned out, and rightfully so.
Edith scoffed at the obvious facts her young half-brother just stated, she zoomed in on one aspect of the video. “Look there, just as Mr Rain disappears from sight, the video glitches.”
“So? Technology glitch all the time,” Claude said matter of factly.
“Because of magic interference,” Edith said. “What if, he didn’t fade. They never found his life stone.”
“Because Ryuming took it,” Claude answered with a low growl, it was clear that he disliked the direction that Edith was going with this conversation. “Ryuming took the life stone with him when he jumped off Zhu Xian Tai and committed suicide the only way immortals of the Holy Tribes could.” He sighed and took a deep breath in and continued: “It’s the only explanation that makes sense because if, and BIG IF, Mr Rain did not fade, he would never have allowed Ryuming to take his own life.”
Edith found it hard to argue, it was true, that was the only logical scenario that made sense and hence the Nine Rings had gone with that narrative, weaving it into the legends.
Ace thought it was a good time to disrupt their argument. “Sorry to break up your incredibly interesting conversation of hell knows what, but both of you are suppose to be helping me.”
Edith looked down at the hologram screens of statistics and communications between Ace and his advisers. “You can always eat them, it’d solve both the plague and your famine problem.”
Ace looked at her in disbelief. “Seriously? Is this a joke to you? Parisora isn’t even dry and desert enough for locusts, it’s like a freak phenomenon, no sane Parisoran would want to eat bugs.”
“No,” Claude stepped in, “she’s got a good point, grasshoppers are a highly nutritious delicacy and a kind reminder that the locusts are the price for your family defying fate.”
“Or you can waste a lot of money on killing them and stopping their eggs from hatching,” Edith suggested the alternative. “Though that would not solve the famine and it’s a little late to start trying to control the locust swarms, the crops are all dead.”
“People will eat the dirt off the ground and the bark off trees if they’re hungry enough,” Claude pointed out. “You should also lead by cutting back the levels of extravagance in the palace.”
“I’ve been eating sandwiches for ten days straight now,” Ace told him. “My biggest expense right now is your alcohol addiction and Edith’s coffee addiction.” For the two half-Vampires, it was more of a necessity than an addiction, though said necessity has yet to extend to Clay who seemed happy with Claude’s supply of tea flavoured blood.
“Alcohol costs way more than coffee,” Edith muttered.
An alarm went off on Ace’s watch, he cussed. “Claude, meeting.”
Claude’s eyebrows perked up. “So I’m your personal guard, assistant and driver now? Seriously, I don’t get paid enough to cover all three jobs.”
“You style my hair better than Val so I fired her,” Ace clicked his tongue as he urged his crush to get a move on. They never really defined their relationship, it was somewhere in between a serious fling and married at first sight. Though Ace had not had time to stop and think about it, he was run off his feet by the workload of a Crown Prince.
“You can rehire her now, I’m not around for long,” Claude said as he followed Ace out the door.
*
The meeting was one of military importance taking place in the Defence Base located just outside the palace. The driving part is actually for palace itself which was massive.
As Claude drove through the beautiful driveway of the palace, Ace sat in the backseat in silence. They had not talked since Claude made that comment.
I’m not around for long.
It echoed through Ace’s mind loudly, almost explosively as he was reminded of their plane trip back, which Ace had so nearly gotten over.
“Pull over Claude, I don’t want to go to the stupid meeting,” Ace ordered with a sulky voice.
Claude frowned, he stopped the car by the side of the drive way and turned around to look at Ace. “You have a duty.”
“And you need to stop pretending that everything IS FINE!” Ace yelled. He folded his arms across his chest and glared out the windows as if that would help. It did not.
Claude sighed and climbed into the back seat. “Perhaps it’s difficult for you to accept it,” he began slowly, reaching for Ace’s hand. “There is nothing that can be done, I’m dying, it’s a sealed fate.”
“But didn’t Edith say you changed my fate? That I was suppose to die?”
“I did, but that’s different.”
“How.”
“I changed your fate, and I bore the repercussions of that,” Claude explained. “Fate in its original form is not sealed. The end of one’s fate is sealed however, when subject in question had been defying fate at every turn. It’s punishment for defying fate.”
“So if I died, would you be able to live then?” Ace had a glimmer of hope in his heart. He understood that death was not the same as fading. Claude was on the verge of fading, which meant being erased from existence altogether.
Claude grabbed his wrist tightly and stared at him. “Never contemplate that again!” He had a warning tone in his voice. Then, he released Ace and took what would appear to be a deep breath in to calm himself. “Ace, my existence IS defying fate,” he explained. “I was born dead yet I look like the living, I talk like the living and I act like the living.”
Ace could feel blood draining from his face, he wasn’t expecting that type of explanation. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Claude shrugged, “I was the only one of mother’s infinite number of children to be born dead, because she had picked me as heir before I was even born.” He reached over and held Ace in his embrace, letting the mortal rest his head on his shoulders. “I really like you Ace.”
“Just like?” Ace prodded at him. “But I love you.” He looked up and stared into Claude’s black abyssal eyes. His heart sank, he assumed that Claude was going to back away, he always did when things got emotionally too deep.
“I love you too,” Claude said. Just as Ace got his hopes up, Claude kept going with, “but I can’t stay for much longer.”
Here it was again.
Ace pushed him away as tears gathered in his eyes, he shoved Claude against the doors of the limo hard. “WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THAT!” He balled his hands into a fist and hit Claude’s chest.
Claude did not react in terms of expressions, instead, he wrapped his thin arms around Ace and held him tightly whilst the Crown Prince had his tantrum.
“WHY CAN’T YOU JUST PRETEND FOR A MOMENT THAT YOU’RE NOT GOING TO PERMANENTLY DISAPPEAR!”
Claude placed a hand on the back of Ace’s neck as he pulled the blonde boy closer to him. He listened quietly through Ace’s sobs as anger faded to despair.
Back in the Shadow Paladins, Claude had always been critiqued for having questionable people skills. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to say, merely that he was stubborn and insisted on saying things that he knew would not end well.
“Ok, then,” Claude eventually gave in. “I will always be there for you, happy?”
“NO!” Ace sobbed, “you’re lying.”
Claude sighed. “And you’re being difficult.”
“So what?”
“So what what?” Claude twirled his fingers at his phone and sent a message to Val, Ace’s personal assistant to tell her to cancel the meeting that Ace was suppose to have with the military leaders. “Let me drive you back to the palace, you ought to have a day off.”
Ace wiped away his tears. “No, I’m fine, I don’t know what got into me.”
Claude gave him a stern look. “No, you’re not fine, and you’re getting a day off.” In his mind, there was a timer slowly ticking away, how fate enjoys its tricks. Just as he finally found someone to love, someone who loved him back, his time was running out. As Shadows say, love comes hand in hand with the natural cruelty of fate.
[text_hash] => 9d9b278f
)