Chapter Text
i.
The trees were the first things that changed.
Kenny had thought he could mark the passage of time – his journey – by them: the only glimpse of the outside world he could see through his little carriage window – but the trees had not waited for him to notice.
They had shed their needles miles back and replaced them, somewhere between sleep and waking – with leaves so green and full that his eyes ached at the sight. The warmth came next – and then, too late to be useful, the dawning thought that he’d been free of Thryngar for days.
He had been caged for so long in its tundra, where every tree was the same stock variant of evergreen – with thin, deep olive spines cushioned at the edges by thick, suffocating layers of white snow and the same boring dark trunks.
So, one could not blame him for the appreciation he held for the beauty of the bordering Kingdom’s lush, full foliage that marked his freedom from his homelands.
He had thought that he’d feel some kind of… Unease, travelling so far from all that he’d known, for so long.
Instead, for those scant few days of carriage travel, he’d felt… Free. Or, some semblance of freedom. If only…
No.
Kenny forced his heedless fantasies to a rough, dragging halt. His eyes darted back out the window, reflecting on the trees – a safer line of thinking that would save him much trouble in the long run.
Kenny – Princess Kenna – shifted uncomfortably in his gown. A modest, conservative piece that felt like it was tailored for someone half a head shorter than him. His long legs folded uncomfortably in the small space carved out for him.
It didn’t fit right at the shoulders and choked him around his waist and ribs, while a noticeable amount of loose fabric crimped at the spot on his chest where breasts ordinarily sat. Its seams pinched mockingly at his lower ribs every time he took a breath.
He decided that he’d had enough of the bleak scenery and self-pitying wallowing.
So, he turned to look at the knight riding by his side.
Sir Silver of the Mist looked bored. Her features were a study in detached apathy with her unfocused, drooping eyes and flattened eyebrows. Her hair – styled into a cropped, messy undercut, seemed unruffled by the travel.
She was in full chainmail, and Kenny winced pityingly, thinking about the bindings that she had wrapped around her chest under all that armor. After a full ten-night of travel, monitored at all times by those imperious elven guards, without time to release them or rest, or even bathe herself without scrying eyes – Silver must have been in incredible pain.
She hid it well, however.
The coal-black cowl that she typically wore high on her head was loose and pooling fabric at her shoulders – her stark, white hair on full display. Kenny figured she likely forwent her preferred mode of dress so the elven sentries could see and identify a familiar face.
Having felt eyes on her, she turned to her lady, and offered him a crooked grin. He returned his own small smile, and looked away, eyes dragging over the empty seat in front of him.
Kenny forced his mind to still, the overactive thing still trying to absorb – trying to file everything around him into neat categories.
“My lady?” A boyish voice interrupted his bitter reflection.
Kenny’s eyes fluttered open, and he turned to look at its source.
Sir Silver’s expression, for a moment, turned soft – spying the pain and compunction in his striking cyan eyes. Then, it hardened into an impish smirk, her sharp canines glinting in the light.
“Y’know, you’d have thought these trees would’ve been larger or more menacing, don’t you think? Why, I’d venture that the lance in my pants could out-compete them in size,” she grinned, quipping in flawless Thrynese.
Kenny’s eyes widened a pinch, and he held back what would have been an undignified bark of laughter from behind his knuckles. It came out as a dainty chuckle.
“My Knight, please. Temper yourself. We’re in the presence of distinguished men of the Verdant Grove!”
Sir Silver rolled her eyes, snorting. “They can’t understand me, and you know that. And if they decide to interfere with me conversing with my Princess? Then they’ll have to contend with the lance in my-”
“Sir Silver!” Kenny interrupted quickly, finally letting out a choked burst of laughter. The knight smiled, her eyes softened by a tender affection.
“Is something wrong?” Their head escort, a mature and severe looking elf, hair cut into a silver braid that hung low on his head – asked in heavily accented elvish. Silver’s eyes darted to him, and she responded without missing a beat in a casual elvish drawl.
“Nothing, good sir. I was simply checking on the condition of my Lady.”
After a long beat, the head elf grunted, looking dissatisfied with either her answer, or her crass tone. He flicked the reins on his horse in favour of responding, in turn encouraging the cavalcade to speed up.
It seemed that the elves didn’t want to be around the two boorish humans for any longer than was necessary.
… Good. Kenny didn’t want to be around them, either. He looked out the carriage window once more.
The Verdant Grove. Kingdom of the Living Wood.
It was certainly deserving of its name.
… For the most part, anyway. He wished he’d more deeply enjoyed the healthy, leafy foliage – so full of life – the odd fluffy animal scampering about from branch to branch, the twittering of birds and the steady beat of their wings.
He wished this because – to his great disappointment – in a scant few days, he was left wondering if he was even still on elven lands, or if he’d been sold to some other heretofore unknown, dying kingdom as one final act of spite, cast like a rotten fruit at his feet. His only consolation – the elven guard and his partner who rode alongside them, steel in their gazes.
As the cavalcade marched forward towards the Verdant Grove’s capital, that rich life seemed to fade. Bled out through tired, anemic roots.
Something’s wrong with this forest.
Their elven escorts seemed to deflate, as well. Hooves beat slower, conversations turned sparse and quiet, mournfully so. The trees looked wise with age, trunks thick and sturdy. But the longer they travelled, the fewer leaves dappled their branches, and the canopy they were riding beneath seemed thinner than it should be, for trees that old.
Sunlight shone in great beams through their cracking crowns, staining the wood in bleached patches. Rushing rivers quieted their babbling to but a whisper, as if they were reading the Kingdom’s final rites in a language no one but them could understand.
They pass an aged – even for an elf – forester, with his hands clasped together tightly and eyes scrunched shut, muttering prayers under his breath. So devoted was he in his plea, that he hadn’t even noticed the storm of horses that hid Kenny in their swarm riding past.
Dead, fallen leaves crackled like dry, disintegrating bones beneath the wheels of the carriage. Several dead or dying trees, crowns completely forsaken, with twisted branches that gnarled like desperate hands, reached out – yearning, as if begging for help. For a saviour.
The horses whinnied in disquiet – canaries in a coal mine.
He sighed, and turned inwards.
Ignore the beating of the horse’s hooves. Ignore the worryingly greying foliage. Ignore his closest confidante beside him, shooting him worried glances.
He rehearsed his greetings – the information that King Gevinn’s right hand had drilled into him to provide to the Druid King Kyle.
“I come as the physical manifestation of his majesty, King Gevinn’s, dear hopes to seal the alliance – the warmth – between two kingdoms.”
Then, a small smile and a deferential bow – deep and docile. Harmless.
He’d been practicing it for several fortnights. At this point, he could have recited it in his sleep.
He could not, however – recite it without his hands trembling, and his chest tightening.
ii.
Somewhere between the cavalcade speeding up, and their arrival at the Verdant Grove’s imperial palace – Kenny had fallen into a light doze, lulled by the rhythmic beating of the horses’ hooves and the warm temperature.
Having dismounted from her horse, Silver had politely rapped her armored knuckles against the door he’d been leaning against. He’d awoken with a start, violently torn from some odd dream or other, but, sensing that they were now stationary, had swiftly but carefully lifted his ill-fitting gown and opened the door to take Sir Silver’s proffered hand.
He stepped out with a measured grace, trying to blink the sleep from his eyes, before he realised he was engulfed in the shadow of a large, imposing building.
The Verdant Castle was a shining bastion of elvish architecture – curling and ethereal and open – he spied several serpentine roots hugging tall, towering pillars. Elegant filigree sprawled across large glass windows – which were flush with sprouting greenery, much unlike the depressing, scant scenery he’d witnessed on the ride here.
The contrast smarted of favoritism, and the thought made Kenny a little nauseous.
And then, the head elf called for their attention.
Swiftly, Princess Kenna and Sir Silver were escorted by a veritable fleet of elven soldiers, bracketing them on all sides, to the throne room – where Kenny’s destiny lay.
They treaded through the large, imposing palace doors – with Sir Silver trailing several steps behind her Lady. Soon, the airy sunlight had been swallowed by the castle’s open maw, which unfurled into an ornately decorated vaulted ceiling, supported by looming columns of pearl white.
Those same pillars were progressively more overrun with twisting branches and healthy foliage as they approached the gilded throne room doors – which were positively swamped with those same roots, but thicker.
These roots seemed to rise and fall with breath, as if they were sentient and alive. They curled and twisted meaningfully, forking and curling around sigils and runes that Kenny couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
The head elf raised a commanding hand, pulling the party into an immediate halt.
Then, he muttered something under his breath – ancient elvish, from what Kenny could hear – and the roots on the door started glowing a bright, emerald green.
The branches slithered back, their leaves rustling against the ivory white doors, which creaked open slowly, like they were aching from lack of use.
The sight of the Verdant Grove’s main palace had defied Kenny’s expectations.
Rather than a grand, showy hall – ornamented and embellished with precious gems and gold – castle Verdant Grove’s throne room seemed to be… grown, not built.
Twisting wood, fifty feet to the vaulted ceiling, braided themselves between one another in a slow waltz. Leaves dancing from branchlets rustled with disparate colours – pink, green, amber, white, and even, a teal blue – let through variegated, speckled spots of sun rays to paint the stone floor with spots of colour.
The Kingdom of the Living Wood. Branches thrived and swayed to the beat of their King’s heart, courtesy of the imposing man seated in his throne on a pedestal of curling trunks, at the far end of the room. And beside him, his imposing Sentinel stood tall.
Kenny held back a grimace, as his entrance, along with his knight, was announced by a well-dressed herald.
“Her Royal Highness, Princess Kenna – beloved of King Gevinn, gift to the Verdant Groves – and Sir Silver of the Mist!”
Kenny bows the way he was taught before he could fully take in the King and the knight to his right hand.
He stayed there, in that position of deep capitulation, until he heard King Kyle’s terse, gravelly command to raise his head. Distantly, he registers the clinking of Sir Silver’s armor as she, too, rose, and then, he was finally able to observe the royal sitting before him, to see which of his many nightmares he embodied.
… Twice. Twice had the Verdant Grove shattered his expectations, for King Kyle’s visage was not what he expected.
On his worst days, his mind had filled in the features of the faceless ruler he was to be gifted to over and over again. On some, King Kyle was a crass, leering monarch. Fat with riches, bloated fingers stained with the blood of his people. On others, a cruel, old dictator with glowing crimson eyes – evidence of whatever deal he’d signed with the devil, as the common folk of Thryngar liked to whisper between one another.
Instead, King Kyle was… younger than the rumours would have had him believe. A modest crown of woven branches – delicately twisted around a deeply coloured, marquise cut emerald – sat upon his head.
But, that wasn’t what Kenny had immediately honed in on.
It wasn’t his plume of fiery red curls, nor his tall, lithe frame. It wasn’t his attire – a humble, muted maroon robe with dark green accents.
No, it was King Kyle’s eyes.
Pools of forest green – sharp, but feathering at the edges – inundated by a weary, tired mien. It was a… specific sort of tiredness that Kenny knew well. A tiredness that was as close to him as a bedfellow, but that he couldn’t bring himself to name.
Unmoved by their entrance, the King greeted Lady Kenny and her knight in flawless, courtly Elvish.
Cold. Clipped. Courteous.
Before Kenny sat a solid wall of frosted ice.
The pace of his heart quickened, and sweat beaded down his neck. This was not a man who would appreciate… surprises, like he was.
And while the King greeted Kenny, the knight by his side did not smile – not even as a cursory welcome, like Kyle’s lips had uneasily and forcibly thinned into.
Sir Stanley Marshwalker just stared at Kenny, glare piercing and framed by strong, pinched brows. Like he was already measuring him for a coffin. And when he chanced a glance at Sir Silver, his expression, impossibly, darkened further.
His mind swirled with the consequences should his function as a gift in the Verdant Grove fail. The humiliating ritual that would inevitably lead to his death, whether at the hands of the cruel elf king, when he found out that Kenna was actually Kenny – or through a public execution when he was inevitably returned to Thryngar, as a representation of a failed peace treaty.
Kenny… Kenny was panicking. He felt like his vision was swimming, and at the center of it all, all he could see were the sharp, judgemental eyes of the King and his knight.
But what did he expect?
Princess Kenna could not want. She could not hope. She was to be seen, and not heard.
He wanted to vomit.
The trees that made up the walls of the room breathed when King Kyle did – growing as he took a breath, and shrinking back when he exhaled.
Sir Silver found it creepy.
Draped and hidden beneath her cloak, Silver was fidgeting. Her Lady had tried his best to maintain an otherwise neutral expression, but…
But Silver could see through him – after several long years of being his friend, and then his guard – Kenny might as well have been as transparent as glass.
Princess Kenna’s eyes darted around her surroundings, cataloguing and sorting, as Silver knew he was wont to do when he was distressed. His breaths were shallow and short, face paling and hands clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.
He did not want to be here.
More accurately, he was about to crumple where he stood.
But why wouldn’t he be? He was to be gifted, an object presented to the cruel elven King.
Her new enemy.
And, if she had anything to do with it – she’d be a larger thorn in their side.
She was confident that she would be able to defend him if it came to blows. Silver was assured in her martial prowess – it had been unmatched in Thryngar, and Princess Kenna was the only one in King Gevinn’s hedonistic harem that had survived eight long years without even a nick on his skin from countless assassination and sabotage attempts.
The only reason Silver had remained Kenny’s guard for so long, and not been promoted into the King’s guard?
She tempered herself. Let herself lose the martial tournaments that King Gevinn was so fond of hosting. Let the most sadistic of Thryngar’s citizens laugh at her defeat – battered, bruised, and bloodied with her face in the dirt.
All to stay with Princess Kenna – to stay with Kenny.
She needed him, needed to protect him – like she needed air.
And so, Silver’s fingers clenched and unclenched beneath her cloak as they walked towards Princess Kenna’s uncertain fate. Whatever happened, Silver swore that she would be by Kenny’s side.
She followed suit with her Lady when he had bowed in deference to the elven King, though every muscle in her back protested against the movement as she did so.
And when they rose, she processed that her Lady was staring, focused on the man in the throne.
His new owner. His new misery.
It was understandable, but Silver – her focus was not on the weak king. Instead, she drew her gaze to his guard – who had been drilling a hole into the side of her head with his intense glare.
Sir Marshwalker, Sentinel of the Forest.
His silver armour glinted in the light, reflecting the myriad of colours that the living ceiling cast down upon the group. Beneath his chestplate, she spotted a muted, navy blue undershirt. A sturdy looking helmet with a vibrant red plume hid his dark, raven-black hair and his ears.
And his expression. A fierce, bordering on furious, glare – framed by thick brows, sharp jaw clenched and lips curved into a pressed frown.
Silver smiled back at him. It was not a nice smile.
His hand had been resting on his sword all this while.
Her attention swivelled back to her lady, and she leaned towards him and whispered under her breath in Thrynese, confident that none of the elves were close enough to hear – or would bother to dignify her with a response. They’d ridden with her and endured her crass remarks for upwards of four days, after all.
She kept her glare on Sir Marshwalker all the while.
“If this wood breathes with the King, do you think the whole castle knows when he’s bedding a broad?”
Kenny startled out of his spiralling reverie – and blinked. Then, he stifled a laugh well -- enough for him to look unaffected by Silver’s attempt to bring him back from the brink of internal collapse. His expression remained neutral.
But Sir Marshwalker was not as entertained. He narrowed his eyes, lips curling into a snarl, fingers wrapping around the handle of his heavy longsword.
In fluent Thrynese, he spoke, loudly and tersely in front of the entire court.
“Speak so crudely about our King again, and I’ll have your tongue, Sir Silver.”
Silver’s brows rose in mild surprise, before she tempered her expression into neutrality. She upturned her nose at the man, kicking her features into a cocky glare.
“Yeah? Take it. Perhaps then you could learn from it how to actually please a woman in bed.”
His face flushed an angry red, and he crouched, taking an aggressive stance. His arm flexed – the schink of his sword being drawn slices through the silence of the court. In response, Silver placed her palms on the pommels of her dual Krises.
The moment she did, the elven guards around her, including their former escorts, unsheathed all manner of their weapons.
Spears, longswords, and rapiers all pointed in her direction.
Silver only smiled a sharp, manic grin.
King Kyle watched patiently – unmoving, glacial. The only indication of his presence in the court, a single finger which had started tapping steadily on the arm of his wood-stone throne.
He did not intervene. He simply watched.
And Kenny, who has spent eight years reading powerful men, studied him thoughtfully.
It was a contemplative gaze the King held. Absorbing. Processing – and Kenny revised his initial assessment of the king.
He’d been wrong. King Kyle was not a wall of frosted ice, no. He was the man on the other side, looking back through – somehow seeing, somehow listening.
Studying, the same as him.
Kenny bowed, a deferential, shameful bow, and a hand shot out to her knight’s back, pushing her to lower her head along with him, though Silver made a little noise of protest.
“I sincerely and regretfully apologize for my Knight’s vulgar comment. He knows little of etiquette, having been raised amongst the common folk. I humbly request His Majesty’s forgiveness.”
The guards surrounding Princess Kenna and Sir Silver maintained their stance, awaiting word from their King.
“...”
King Kyle cast a sideward glance to his knight, who met his gaze on instinct. Something meaningful passed between that silent stare, and Sir Marshwalker sighed, unenthusiastically sheathing his blade, standing straight once more.
At that, the soldiers withdrew their weapons, the cacophony of metal gear knocking and gliding against itself promising Princess Kenna and Sir Silver’s safety. For now.
“... You’re forgiven. Ensure that this will not happen again,” came the strong voice of the King, edged with tiredness.
Kenny felt Silver’s weight shift meaningfully beside him when they rose, and watched as his knight caught Sir Marshwalker’s eyes once more. Silver lobbied Sir Marshwalker with a knowing, victorious smirk.
Knowing his knight, Kenny understands wearily that this had meant that Silver had decided that she was very, very much going to enjoy this man’s misery.
He placed a hand very lightly, on her wrist.
Down, boy.
The Princess and Knight of Thryngar had finally met their new King. And, their heads were still attached to their bodies.
Small victories.
iii.
After, Princess Kenna was curtly and swiftly shown to his bedchambers, a room where he would spend most of his time. It was adjoined to King Kyle’s – and the implication of it all made him shudder.
Sir Silver was escorted, separately, towards the Knight’s Barracks.
They were not given time to say goodbye.
Kenny watched the glint of Silver’s chainmail and her charcoal cloak disappear down a corridor, and he tried his best to temper the clench of anxiety in his chest, that feeling of the unknown, the new, the isolation.
And then, he was alone for the first time since he’d first been assigned his childhood friend as his knight.
They’d slept in the same room for as long as they could when they were children, and – barring a short period of separation – had slept in the same room until they were of age, with her sneaking into his chambers in Thryngar to keep him company, to abate his nightmares.
Kenny’s alone now, sitting weakly on the edge of a wooden bed.
He did not cry. He would not cry.
No, he could not cry.
He hadn’t, not in eight years – not since he stopped being the kind of person who could afford to do so.
Please. Don’t you dare cry.
And so, he stood, and he walked to the window. His hands traced the elegant filigree that adorned the glass, and when he tried the handle, it did not budge. Of course.
Looking beyond, he observed a forest – the Deep Forest – one that he was told as a child was the most beautiful thing in the world.
Now, it lay decrepit – leaves fraying at the edges, canopy thinned, and fog rolling thickly and heavily between the gnarled, dark trunks. Anemic.
And, from this angle – he spotted something odd. A small, nondescript stone structure a few paces before, on the path leading to it, which looked like… A cairn, of small stones.
He did not know what it was meant to be used for – all the way out in the middle of nowhere.
But… he filed it away anyway – the only thing he could do to quiet the noise in his head – and turned to look through his closet.
Sleeping gowns, already prepared. All trimmed and tailored for their target audience – princesses.
… He selects an unassuming, tan sleeping frock, and goes to bed, not bothering to lock the door, and trying not to count down the seconds until he could either be reunited with his knight, or be slayed by an enraged King.
Who would do the killing, was of no consequence to him.
iv.
Sir Stanley Marshwalker stood, as still as a statue, by the door of King Kyle’s study as the Cruel Elf King paced within.
Lit by torchflame, he was at once both as warm as the amber light kissing his pale skin, and cool as the cutting shadows that sliced across his face and cast his angular features into stark focus.
He had not spoken since they left the throne room, features pulled taut with what the world would identify as disdain or coldness – but was what Stan knew to actually be a deep, grave stress.
Stan’s lip thinned, and he asked, voice low and hoarse from disuse.
“How bad.”
Kyle sucked in a sharp breath.
“... She’s frightened, but quick. He’s… Mouthy,” he said blandly, “but dangerous.”
Stan leaned back against the wall, and the living wood depresses, as if to cushion his weight. He crossed his arms across his chest, some flavour of displeased. “How could you tell?”
“The trees. They told me that the Princess’ heart raced when she locked eyes with me. She’s cautious. And her knight?” The king’s emerald eyes, twinkling in the twilight, flicked to Stan’s cerulean orbs.
“It slowed down when you drew your sword.”
Stan couldn’t help but push himself off the wall, his own heart thudding in his chest. The memory of Sir Silver’s vicious, feral grin – eyes glinting from beneath the loose strands of white hair that framed his face – had seared itself across the back of his eyelids. On pure instinct, his hand flew to the handle of his blade, even at the ghost of the white haired knight’s face.
His King braced himself against his desk, bent at the waist, looking weary for all the world to see – as if the weight of his responsibilities had manifested physical gravity upon him.
… This could be bad. The man was wild enough, and the Princess intelligent enough, to put a cork in the Verdant Grove’s plans.
Kyle took in his loyal knight’s grim features, and the quiet of the room – interrupted only by the rustling of the trees, rising and falling with his slow breath, like ocean waves rolling onto shore – suddenly felt smaller.
“We will need to be careful.”
“We could send them back,” Sir Marshwalker suggested, glancingly. The king shook his head, auburn curls falling into his eyes.
“No, we cannot. Gevinn could, and would take that as a rejection of the alliance. There would be war within the fortnight.”
His knight grimaced. “Then what?”
“Then…” Kyle stands to his full, towering height, “Then we tighten security. We keep their noses out of our business, and therefore – alive – long enough to send them home. And…” he gazed out to the forests beyond the castle, brows set in a baleful downturn–
“And we do what we have to.”
Stan’s grip on his trusty blade tightened, knuckles a stark white against the dark blue of the hilt.
And he stared. He stared at his King’s reflection in the dark window, transposed against the dark forests beyond.
