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Keigo had never been fully in control of his fate.
It was a simple fact of life, as clear to him as the sky was blue or the mountain caps were white.
While he couldn’t control it, he could still manipulate it. Whether he did that through a few sugary words to an old lord or by offering a young countess a sultry smile, he grabbed as many of the threads as he could and wove them to his will. He could keep himself alive for a while longer, and if the cost of that was a few hands that lingered on his waist or brushed through his wings, that was fine.
If leading on countless suitors and suitresses was what it took to lay alone in bed a while longer, well, he could blush and offer a weak, shy smile as they were introduced.
He had no idea what his bride price was, but it was enough that the Queen grew impatient with the way he smiled and danced his way around prospective spouses the same way he danced for visiting dignitaries. When he was sold to Doryoku, he could hardly have called himself surprised.
Keigo remembered the King of Doryoku. Vividly.
He was sure the King remembered him as well, if the triumphant little gleam in his eye was any indication. The slightest show of victory on his face at stealing the final part of Keigo’s life, from dragging him so far down in life that the Crown Prince viewed even the implication of being tied to him as an insult.
The final victory over the Takami King.
Keigo wondered if the King’s son would be the same: spiteful and arrogant, willing to do anything to ensure that those who wronged him were grounded to dust beneath his boot, regardless of the level of offense. He wondered if he would survive their marriage through the end of the year. He wondered if his body or mind would be the first to give out.
Ultimately, he hadn’t known what to expect of his marriage to the Crown Prince of Doryoku. The King had paid for the right of Keigo’s hand in marriage and promptly shuffled the harpy off to wed his son. Keigo had knelt by the Prince’s side at the altar; a vial of oil, a sick sort of wedding gift from the envoy who had escorted him to Kenroku, weighed heavy in his pocket as the High Priest stood before them.
(Be sure to give the prince a show. Don’t embarrass the Court.)
Keigo hadn’t been sure what to make of his… husband, he supposed, at first.
The Prince had looked not quite disgusted, but certainly somewhere close once he saw Keigo at the altar. However, his eyes had been trained on his wings rather than his sash, so there was one less thing to worry about.
He’d stayed quiet through the entire frivolous ceremony before being ushered off to the Prince’s chambers. It took him only a few moments to gather his nerves and loosen his robes, a shiver crawling up his spine as the silk fell away, and the weight of the oil vial felt like it was burning him. He felt cold as he reached for the drawstring of his trousers.
A hand grabbed his wrist and stopped him.
That first night, when they did not lay together but instead simply slept in the same bed, Keigo couldn’t quite keep away the intrusive thoughts in the back of his mind. They faced away from each other, but he was acutely aware of his wings pressing against the Prince’s back.
(How easy would it be to let his feathers sharpen and fly away before morning?)
He woke up alone.
While Keigo had come to an agreement with the Prince, while he had sworn himself to him (Touya didn’t understand what it meant, so it was fine.), he still spent much of his time waiting for the other feather to fall.
The Prince was too kind, too considerate, too… Keigo wasn’t quite sure what the Prince was. He had expected that he would secure his place through a child, and perhaps being a warm body, but the Prince touched him no further than was necessary to maintain their ruse. For much of the days leading up to their departure from Kenryoku, Keigo would wait.
He was uncertain how long the kindness would last, how long his body would still be his own.
The Prince treated him far better than any he had ever known, yet Keigo still debated how he would react if he were asked to tend to the Prince’s needs in his role as consort: to make their marriage mitasu or dance an iroppoi. He no longer believed it would be the same cold disgust he would feel when a noble let their hands drift too far, but he wasn’t sure how else to view the situation.
When they were safely tucked away behind the walls of the Kaihin Palace, he would let his mind wander some nights. His wings would be pressed against the Prince’s warm back, and he would twist his hands in the bed sheets as he thought of being closer. His cheeks would heat and he would shake his head to clear away the idea.
The Prince had clearly stated it himself—neither of them wanted to be involved. They would separate as soon as their goals were achieved and they could safely do so.
(The Prince had stated it, but Keigo had never quite agreed.)
Keigo had never killed a man before he met the Prince.
He had never sailed on a ship, nor flown above the waves of the sea.
He’d never stayed in quarters so grand nor had servants bow to him as he passed.
He’d never had a reason to be upset about an argument.
He’d never held someone’s hand.
And somehow, that last point mattered to him more than stolen kisses from sleazy lords or hands dropping from his waist to his hips. The Prince’s hand was warm, and Keigo felt his heart stutter.
It took Keigo far longer than it should have to realize that he felt something deeper than gratitude and loyalty towards the Prince-
Touya.
The Prince was Touya, and he was Keigo, and that… that was something that made him feel fuzzy.
He would walk by Touya’s side, keeping him safe and keeping him company. Keigo would feel his heart grow every time Touya offered him a word of praise, or asked his opinion, or gave in to his preference. Keigo was latching on to the Prince in a way he had never done with another person before.
Keigo could see every time Touya looked at him that his growing warmth towards the other was not reciprocated, not in the same way, at least. He knew Touya would seek to absolve their marriage once he took the throne. Keigo was fine with that. As long as Touya would still smile at him, he could accept that.
Touya was like the sun.
He’d heard a myth, from the Western end of the Continent, of a man named Ikarosu. The point that Keigo had taken away from it was the warning of flying too low, but with each night he spent laying awake by Touya’s side, he wondered if he should have been scared of the sun instead.
He felt like he could understand why Ikarosu would fly so high—the sun was frighteningly warm, and while Keigo’s feathers weren’t made of wax, they could still burn.
Keigo liked to think he was a rational person.
Regardless, each time Touya’s lips pressed to his own in a show of faux attraction, for that split second, he could let himself believe it wasn’t a myth, and that the sun loved him too.
Usagiyama had become something of a dear friend to Keigo, by the time he was back in Kenryoku again. It was pleasant to have someone who understood when he didn’t quite recognize a gesture or didn’t need him to explain what he meant with his odd sayings and phrases. She was a rather talented sparring partner as well.
She was also something of a nuisance.
“You could just tell him,” Usagiyama had said to him, during the time he was still recovering from his heat, body still rebelling against his will and keeping him bedridden. “You sounded…” she trailed off hesitantly, tilting her slightly from side to side as she thought over her next words. “I worry how you’ll react when your union is dissolved.”
“I’ll live,” he said quietly.
“But will you be happy?”
Keigo paused before he answered, peeling his eyes open to look up at Usagiyama hazily. “I’m used to it.”
“That doesn’t mean you deserve it-”
“And I don’t want him to feel obligated to me,” Keigo snapped, cutting her off. He glared at her surprised expression for a moment before he calmed once more. “My apologies,” he said. “I want to stay with him, yes, but I would only want that if he were to wish the same.”
“He cares for you a great deal, I’m rather confident he does feel something for you.”
“But does he know that?”
Usagiyama was silent for a few seconds. “No, I don’t think he does.”
Keigo didn’t want to be a leech upon Touya, yet when he was crumpled on the floor, sobbing into Touya’s chest, he realized he didn’t want Touya to go.
There was still a phantom residual sting of burnt feathers tingling up his spine, but as warm hands combed gently through his trembling wings, Keigo couldn’t quite bring himself to mind. He wrapped his arms around Touya in turn, pressing closer and listening to the steady beat of his heart under his ear.
There was a saying that he’d sometimes heard his father say—if you do not enter a griffin’s cave, then you will not capture it’s cub. He’d always found it silly as a child. Why would anyone want a griffin’s cub? They were needy and always got caught in the hunting traps, drawing their parents out looking for them, which was a whole other mess of problems.
He understood the spirit of it however, in that moment more than anything.
Touya carded his fingers through Keigo’s feathers, and he felt his breathing begin to slow and calm, a hoarse, pleased trill scratching its way out of his throat. He righted himself to tuck his face into the crook of Touya’s neck, simply taking a moment to try and collect himself once more.
Touya smelled like pinewood and rain. Keigo curled his fingers into Touya’s shirt, caught between arching his wings back into Touya’s touch and letting them collapse from exhaustion. When Touya finally nudged him up to a standing position, Keigo slipped his hand into Touya’s and held on tightly.
He couldn’t decide whether it was to keep Touya safe or to keep Touya near.
Keigo’s life had never been steady. He never made a single decision without second guessing himself, without observing the people around him and judging the influence each choice might have. He led each potential spouse on in a carefully calculated ruse, each wink and smile and dance having its own predicted outcome. He carefully considered the consequences each time he allowed another feather to be clipped, judging whether that new cut of his freedom would be the point at which he threw it all away, or whether to hold out a little longer.
Keigo knew in that moment, as he slid his hand into the crook of Touya’s elbow, that he would do anything for the Prince.
If Touya asked for his words, his thoughts, his dreams, his body, or his life, Keigo knew he would give them to him.
A single feather slipped from his wing and floated almost lazily down the hall. Touya followed the movement with his eyes, but didn’t say anything about it. He instead simply began walking back towards the shrine in silence, and Keigo followed along, as he always did.
If Touya asked him to kill, he would do that too.
He would do all of it without a second thought, if only to keep Touya’s eyes on him for a moment longer.
Keigo loved Touya, and that scared him more than anything.
Keigo had seen dead bodies before—it was almost unavoidable in his early life, and the Shokken court wasn’t the most stable or safe environment. He had thought he had become numb to the sight of dull, glassy eyes and limbs resting in positions that couldn’t be comfortable for a live person.
Still, when he looked down on the pale, lifeless body of Todoroki Enji, he hadn’t expected the rush of visceral satisfaction that flowed through him. The raw feeling of power that rushed through him.
That was the man who was responsible for nearly everything that had gone wrong in his life from when he was eight to when he was nineteen.
Keigo hadn’t anticipated the giddy feeling. Nineteen, married, and a kingslayer.
Then there was Touya beside him. Twenty, married, and in shock.
Todoroki Enji, laying on the floor in front of them. Forty-one, married, and dead.
Keigo looked down on the once-king, lying in a pool of crimson—a crown of blood for the man who had killed so many.
Keigo saw his own father, in far less extravagant clothing, in the trousers and thick fur coat suited for survival on the mountain range, pinned to a tree trunk stripped bare of of its branches by a sword through his neck. A warning to bandits passing through. Keigo had never been on good terms with his father, as an unwanted mouth, but he had still never forgotten the insult of the way his father’s body had been strung up for show.
Maybe if Keigo were the same as he was the summer past, he would growl spitefully under his breath to hang Todoroki Enji in the throne room, strung up from the ceiling as a warning to those who would dare move against those Keigo cared about.
Some part in the back of his mind, once long buried, whispered to cut off the man’s wings and make a cloak of the feathers. He reminded himself that Todoroki Enji was born to the ground.
He slipped from Touya’s side, eyes tearing from the limp body to the shine of gold smeared with red. It fit with the small red jewels that encrusted the headpiece in decoration. Keigo was rather well educated—he knew that stones of those colors weren’t mined anywhere in the area contained within where Doryoku’s borders had laid twenty-five years prior.
It was a crown built and drenched in blood.
He crouched and picked the headpiece up from its scarlet cushion, watching in fascination as blood dripped from the gold to the floor below. He absentmindedly ran his thumb over the crimson gems that served as accents.
Even after a decade, stones from the Hapi Mountains were just as beautiful as he remembered.
He stood and faced Touya, whose eyes were still trained downward at the body, wide in continued shock. Keigo took the few steps back towards his husband, leaving drops of red on Touya’s cheeks as he lifted the crown and gently placed it on his head. The soft white locks of hair flattened beneath the weight of the gold, almost immediately beginning to turn crimson as blood soaked in.
Keigo leaned forward to whisper his first oath in Touya’s ear, the first words he would hear as his rule began, the promise Keigo would fight and kill to keep true.
“Long live the King.”
Touya still seemed numb as they returned to their chambers.
Servants and nobles alike would stop and stare, and a brave few would open their mouth to say something. Keigo gave them a dangerous glare, and every mouth would snap shut. He felt on edge as well, he supposed—but he wouldn’t allow dissent so early on.
He wasn’t sure why he felt surprised when Touya offered to dissolve their marriage as soon as morning light came. He knew it was coming. He remembered the promise Touya had made their first night.
He wasn’t surprised by the way his heart twisted, how it burned in almost unbearable pain at the thought of everything ending. He was Touya’s—he would never really be able to find someone to follow as wholeheartedly as he did the Prince. He had sworn himself to the man before him. Touya could take everything he was and Keigo would never utter a word of complaint.
But Keigo wanted something to be his for once.
He belonged to Touya, but he wanted Touya to belong to him as well.
He wanted to be selfish.
So he kissed Touya.
He had to at least try.
Touya’s lips were warm, and they were soft. He tasted like elderberries. It was addictive.
When he pulled away, surely redder than his wings, and Touya kissed him again before he could stutter excuses for his impulsive action, Keigo felt as if his heart had wings.
When the crown clattered to the floor, when Keigo pushed Touya onto their bed, when Keigo straddled his hips, he could hardly describe the light and fuzzy feeling that had enveloped his mind. When Keigo looked down at Touya, with kiss swollen lips, slivers of moonlight reflecting off his pale and sheltered skin, with Keigo’s sash tied around his waist, he could only wonder how lucky he’d gotten.
The oil that had been stashed in the bedside table since their wedding night no longer burned, instead emanating a sweet honey smell.
Maybe everything would come crumbling down. Maybe he’d be killed by some disgruntled advisor before the week was out. Maybe the affection and love being trailed and kissed over every inch of his skin wouldn’t last forever.
But as long as he could have that one night with Touya, he’d be happy.
He would reverently gasp his name, hold his hand, breathe sharply in surprise every time Touya’s lips pressed back against his, as if he were still unable to believe that it was real. Maybe a few tears would drip down his face as Touya whispered praises and affections and ‘I love you’s in his ear.
And when they drifted off to sleep that night, entangled and entranced with each other, kissing lazily and muttering sweet nothings into the soft quiet of their room, Keigo felt happy.
He rested his head on Touya’s chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
The next morning, when they awoke and shared a kiss, the light feeling of Keigo’s heart continued.
Touya was his.
Keigo raised his arms above his head and flared his wings in a stretch as he heard Touya open the curtains. Keigo’s silhouette was cast over the head of the bed as the early morning light streamed in.
Keigo smiled, feeling his sore muscles relax ever so slightly.
The sun really was warm.