Chapter Text
His Golden Radiance, the Elder of the Twin Suns, the most Glorious Crown Prince of Carcosa had run away from home.
Being away from Carcosa was exhilarating. Everything was so new! There were no carved-onyx buildings, gleaming golden spires or shining glass windows or anything like home here. The Oukranos wove lazily through the town, a gleaming silvery ribbon so completely unlike the dark and familiar waters of Lake Hali. He wondered what it would be like to swim in it, whether it would embrace him the way the dark waters did.
Naturally, he purchased a house right on the banks of the river. He wanted to be close to the water, after all. It was modest, practically a little bungalow, only two floors and nine bedrooms and only one kitchen. The Crown Prince supposed that was fine, as he didn’t feel like having servants, and did he really need them anyway if the fruit trees that shaded his back porch were right there? He could sup when he wanted. Maybe he would try cooking. Cooking! Him!
Father said those sorts of things were for peasants.
If Father could see him now…
Well, it was best not to invite those thoughts. Father shouldn’t be able to find him that easily, and he was going to be subtle. He wouldn’t be found, no way, no how.
It was a lovely day, truly. The warm spring air beckoned him outside and the Crown Prince floated to the ground, letting his tentacles explore the edges of the stepping stones that led out to the main road.
And there, just on the wind, from the other side of the river—
Music?
Oh! He hadn’t known that this little town had music!
The Crown Prince skimmed across the surface of the river, enchanted, following the plink of strings, weaving through buildings that crowded together like eager supplicants and finally, at last, saw him.
#
Arthur was used to people watching him as he played; it was a normal part of his everyday life. In the mornings and early afternoons he would busk, a tin vase attached by a cord to his arm as he played the zither and sang. In the evenings he truly shone, playing piano and taking requests in the local tavern. His vase did not need to be tied to him there because no one dared steal from the man making their evening so lively. On the street, though, he had to weigh the likelihood of any wandering stranger deciding to make prey of the blind man on the corner.
This watcher he had a good feeling about. They sat, and said nothing, and that didn’t bother him at all. Arthur smiled, fingers plucking at the strings to make a tinkling waterfall of a melody as he sang. “Blue moon,” he crooned, “you knew just what I was there for; you heard me saying a prayer for someone I really could care for.”
His silent audience shifted with the sound of fabric rustling and skin sliding over skin, and Arthur turned his face towards the sound. “And then there suddenly appeared before me the only one my arms will hold, I heard somebody whisper, ‘Please adore me,’ and when I looked, the moon had turned to gold—”
That appeared to be enough for his watcher, who rose. Arthur smiled up at them as he plucked at the zither, and something heavy clinked into his vase.
It didn’t sound like a copper penny, or even one of the silver crowns that he got on occasion.
His watcher left quickly, and Arthur’s stomach twisted.
He waited a minute or two for his watcher to fully leave, finishing his song, packing up his zither. Whatever they had dropped into his vase, he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing him scramble for what he thought might be a boon and instead come out empty handed.
He took a breath. Steeled himself. Carefully poured his vase out onto the mat before him.
Arthur hadn’t gotten a lot today. Already his hands ghosted over the very familiar shape of copper pennies, a little more than a half dozen of them. Then there was a silver piece, which was a relief, because Faroe needed new shoes. And then—
Well, it was a coin, but he didn’t recognize it. His brow furrowed and he turned it in his hand, feeling the faces, trying to make sense of it. It was heavy for its size, no wonder it clanged in his vase like that.
Arthur abruptly got the sense that maybe he shouldn’t be fondling it out in the open.
He tucked it away in the coin pouch he kept inside his shirt, grabbed his cane, and headed to the market square.
Sthee’ara was there, as she always was, bartering and cajoling and talking up a storm; Arthur was pretty sure he could navigate half the city just by listening to the ways her voice echoed through the streets. Someone tried to argue that the quality of her vegetables demanded a lower price, and Sthee’ara argued that he could fuck right off to the next stall if he truly thought so before Arthur caught her eye.
“The music man!” She squawked, joyful and boisterous. “Come to trade your voice for some lunch, music man?”
Arthur smiled, and laughed, and felt much safer with her numerous eyes on him as he slid behind the stall. “If you’ve got something in my price range.”
She’d feed him anyway. No grocer worth their salt would have that much produce on the ‘cusp of going bad’ that they’d thrust onto a poor father to feed his child. Not to mention how long said produce always seemed to last, and nevermind that Arthur had felt half-rotted vegetables before and knew handily she was lying, but he was blind, so what did he know?
She cackled. “Always, music man!”
“I also had a favor to ask,” he said as she bagged up far too many fruits and vegetables for the four pennies he could afford to offer today. “I got this today. I’ve never felt a coin like this before, would you take a look?”
“Of course,” she said, and held out her scaled hand to accept his mystery coin—and then went very, very uncharacteristically silent.
Arthur had dared to hope, and now he was regretting it. “What… what is it?”
“That’s a gold crown,” she said.
Arthur gaped at her. “What?”
“That,” she said, slowly, pressing the coin back into Arthur’s palm, “is a bloody gold crown.”
“That can’t be right,” Arthur stammered.
“Sure as I’ve got five tentacles,” Sthee’ara said. “Feel the face—that’s the sigil of the city, there. And the backside, feel the sunburst?”
“No,” Arthur said, not meaning the coin’s appearance at all.
“You’ve got an admirer,” she said.
“No,” Arthur insisted. “This… This has to be a mistake.”
“Call it what you like,” Sthee’ara said, “but that’s at least two months rent for you right there. Take the boon, Lester.”
Arthur stared in her general direction. “...If they come back tomorrow,” he said, as if testing the words, “I’m giving it back.”
“I’ll take it if you don’t want it,” Sthee’ara said, and she was only half joking.
“I am sure it was an honest mistake. Maybe they’ll even give me a few extra silver for returning it,” Arthur said, low and stubborn as he set his jaw.
“Alright, alright . If,” Sthee’ara said firmly, “you promise me, right now, that if it’s not claimed in two days you’ll use it to pay your rent so you can give yourself a damned break.”
Arthur wrinkled his nose at her. “Don’t tell me what to do with my money.”
“Oh, it’s your money now?” Sthee’ara cackled. “Taking that promise to heart, I see!”
His face went long. “Well. Thank you for telling me.”
“Going to see your girl before your evening at the tavern?”
Arthur’s expression transformed at once; soft, smiling, wistful and fond. “Yes. I want to tell her we’re going to the cobbler tomorrow morning.”
“She needs ‘em. Growing fast,” Sthee’ara said, warm. “You’d best get, then. You’ve got maybe two hours before the red sun kisses the highest tower.”
Arthur smiled, and thanked her, and slung his wrapped groceries over his shoulder, and tapped his way home.
#
The Crown Prince flew all the way home, flew through his bedroom window, and collapsed in a heap of tentacles and rich fabrics in the pillow-strewn mess he called a bed.
He rolled, rocking back and forth in his glee, pressing his hands to his face while he tried not to lose his composure any more than he already had.
That human sang right at him.
The Crown Prince was no stranger to the attentions of musicians; he had been the subject of many a ballad, the target of many performers vying for his attention. But this! This human, fascinating even with the simplicity of his form (no tentacles, only two eyes) had turned right to him and sang and—
He writhed, clutching at one of the pillows as he kicked and twisted in his excitement.
It was probably not personal. Logically, he knew that. The human hadn't looked at him, exactly; his eyes had stayed unfocused, like he couldn't see (odd), and—
Wait. If he couldn't see, how did he know the Crown Prince was there?
This was a puzzle, and the Crown Prince paused in his reverie, sitting up. Humans ears were good enough to track sounds, he was sure; even while playing, though? He'd tried to be quiet.
Another thought hit him, with the force of an arrow launched from a longbow: if the musician was blind, he had no idea who he was.
Oh. Oh. That was an intoxicating thought, free at last of the shackles of Father's legacy by one busking human on the side of the road. The human had no way of knowing that he was singing to the Crown Prince of Carcosa, and that meant—
Logically, the human was not professing love for him. He knew this.
But the thought made him shudder and his tentacles tied themselves in giddy knots, and his mandibles clicked against each other, and he felt like his hearts may burst from his hide and shower the room in ichor.
Well, that settled it. He had to go back.
Had he given enough? Was one measly coin enough to show his appreciation? He hadn't even asked the musician's name.
Tomorrow he will find his musician again.
The Crown Prince stuffed his face in the nearest pillow, and laughed, and waited impatiently for sunset so he could get ready for the dawn.
#
Sometimes, Arthur missed Bella.
He supposed he should miss her. She was his wife, after all, even if they’d come to mutual agreement that their marriage was a just piece of paper that enabled them to raise Faroe without additional fuss, which protected Bella from the world and her father, which protected Arthur from scrutiny about why he spent so much time at jazz bars and speakeasies where men often left with other men.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t like her. He did! They’d even still slept together, on occasion—certainly not as often as they had before Faroe came into the picture, but every now and then the two of them bitching over work or laughing over a shared story had turned warm, heated, and ended up with Arthur sharing the master bed with his wife as opposed to sleeping in their “guest” room that doubled as Arthur’s office for composing.
It was strange, sure, but it worked for them, and Faroe had been loved. There wasn’t anything they wouldn’t have done for her.
That was what had driven him to the Dreamlands, after all.
His absence of sight hadn’t robbed his memory of how Bella looked on that day, when she had run by the apartment hours before she was usually home. She was pale, her usually-neat curls wild and falling away from their pins, and Arthur had completely forgotten to grab his coat as he ran out the door and hailed the first cab he could. The nurse who ran the daycare they’d started bringing Faroe to wasn’t picking up the phone, Bella told him. Ms. Kenning always picked up, and she had a bad feeling about it.
Arthur trusted Bella’s bad feelings. They hadn’t steered them wrong yet.
They saw the police lights flashing from down the street.
Ms. Kenning lay on a stretcher, a black tarp draped over her. A young woman with stringy hair sat in the back of a patrol car as police walked in and out of the building, and she looked up at them with a faint, blank smile.
Bella zeroed in on her immediately. “What did you do?” she whispered.
“Saved them from what is coming,” the girl whispered. “They are safe in the Mother’s embrace now. The Devourer shall not have them.”
Arthur remembered racing inside, pushing past police officers, crying out his daughter’s name.
He remembered finding her little body, lined up next to the three other children that Ms. Kenning cared for during the day.
Arthur screamed as he held his little girl, her face so pale with lips so blue, hair still wet from being held under the bathwater. He screamed as Bella fell to her knees beside him, her face a marble death mask. He screamed when the police tried to take his girl away from him, his baby, his reason for living, his Faroe.
The rest he usually remembered in pieces. The funeral. The way the girl was found dead in the police station. Arthur and Bella vowing justice, vengeance, whatever they could—Bella’s cousin, Petra, who had always known about things outside of the realm of normal, telling them of the Devourer.
The two of them joined Petra, side-by-side, and made sure that no more little girls had to be ‘protected’.
And Bella found purpose in putting down the cultists that would have destroyed so much more than the lives of four young families.
And Arthur found out about the Dreamlands.
He and Bella discussed it. The insane girl said Faroe was in the embrace of the Mother, some sort of colossal eldritch monstrosity, but that wasn’t here. That was somewhere else, and they could go there.
Petra thought they were insane to think so.
Bella could only think of hunting down the rest of the cult responsible for this.
Arthur could only think of his little girl, all alone, somewhere in the grasp of a monster.
They’d agreed, in the end. Arthur remembered Bella’s face, resolute, as she held his hand for the last time. “Find our girl,” she said softly.
“Make them pay,” Arthur agreed.
She smiled, then, a weary and exhausted and pained and grateful smile, and pulled Arthur into a crushing hug.
It took him two years to find the Woods. The Mother. He never should have found her, but Arthur had always been clever, and he’d always been stubborn, and more than anything he loved his daughter.
So when he found himself on his hands and knees, staring at the leaf litter and fallen twigs of a forest too old and strange to have ever existed on Earth, suffocated by the presence of something huge and alien and motherly, he did not break.
OH, FOOLISH HUMAN, a voice that filled every space between his cells said, YOU HAVE COME A LONG WAY. WHAT MADNESS DROVE YOU TO DIE AT MY FEET?
“She said you had her,” Arthur whispered. “My baby girl.”
SHE WAS GIVEN TO ME, the voice said, and Arthur could hear something huge moving through the forest around him, or maybe it was the forest picking up its huge tree-trunks and moving. He didn’t know and the thought alone made his skull want to crack open.
“My child was stolen from me!” Arthur cried, fists clenched, shaking. “My Faroe! You’re a mother, imagine how it would feel, and give me back my fucking daughter!”
The voice paused. CHEEKY, it said at last, and laughed like a shattering star. I LIKE YOU. YOU FIND ME IN A MERCIFUL MOOD, ARTHUR LESTER. NOW, AS I HOLD YOUR LIFE IN MY JAWS: WHAT DO YOU DESIRE?
The creature’s presence crushed down on Arthur and he cried out, curling into a ball of pain; he felt like someone had put his skull in a vise, like he was being suffocated by the weight of the entire world. “I just want to see my baby girl, one last time,” he wept.
AS YOU WISH.
As suddenly as it began the pressure abated and Arthur gasped, trembling like a newborn fawn; something pushed out of the ground before him. It looked like some kind of plant, though it was growing quickly, far too quickly, and Arthur scrambled backward as the dirt beneath his feet shifted and quaked and threatened to drag him down with it.
The eldritch plant groaned and snapped with force, its stalk soon growing too thick for Arthur to wrap his arms around if he tried; the bud at the end twisted, and drooped, and hung low to the ground. And when it bloomed—
“Daddy?” Faroe said, blinking at him sleepily from the center of the flower.
Arthur’s eyes filled with tears. “Faroe,” he wept, and hugged her tight, shutting his eyes and putting his nose against her honeydew-slick hair.
And he never saw anything else ever again.
#
Arthur’s resolve was set when he woke up, arm curled around his daughter as if protecting her from the cool spring morning. He shifted and she snuggled closer, her rowdy curls tickling the underside of his chin as he stretched out his legs beneath their thin, oft-patched blanket.
“Wake up, Faroe,” he yawned, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head as he rose into a sit.
She let out a little yawn of her own and kicked her feet. “No.”
“Yes,” Arthur teased, shuffling out of bed. The stone floor was cold under his feet and he shivered, pulling on a robe, feeling by instinct for where her socks should be—there, a tiny pair he’d set out to warm in the meager sun. “The cobbler will run out of shoes if we don’t hurry. And last night I played for a celebration at the inn, so we can get meat pies for breakfast.”
“Meat pies?” His girl sat up in bed, yawning, and Arthur warmed up her socks in his hands before passing them over. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Thank you! Thank you, daddy!” Her feet padded against the floor as she ran to him, arms up and out, and Arthur gave his little girl a tight hug, and he tied Faroe’s too-small shoes by feel, and together they walked hand-in-hand down to the cobbler.
#
His watcher was back. Arthur wasn’t sure how to feel about that, exactly, but his girl was taken care of (he’d made nearly eighteen silver last night, because a drunken wedding party had heard him as they walked by and paid for themselves and the entire bar to get drunker, and that meant excellent tips), and more than anything Arthur had his pride to fall back on.
He waited until he finished a refrain on his song to address them. “Good morning,” he called in the direction of that shifting-fabric sound.
The sound shuffled back, a bit startled. “Good morning,” they called back in a lovely bass voice, clearly surprised.
“You were here yesterday, weren’t you?” Arthur set his fingers on the strings of his zither, comforting, grounding himself against its familiar tension.
His watcher let out a soft noise of surprise.
Arthur chuckled, just a bit. “I’m more perceptive than people think,” he said, almost gently teasing. “But it’s good you’ve come back. You made a mistake.” He pulled the gold crown out of his pouch, holding it out blindly. “I don’t think you meant to give me this.”
His watcher was silent for a long moment. “Your playing is excellent,” he (Arthur was fairly certain) said.
“Thank you,” Arthur said, the color rising unbidden in his cheeks. “But… I don’t know that I can accept this.”
“It is what I had,” his watcher said coolly. “Is there another way I can show my appreciation for your art?”
What the fuck did that mean? Arthur’s eyebrows shot up. “I, ah,” he said, ears burning. “...No. I suppose there isn’t.”
“Do the people of this city not appreciate your art?” His watcher said, a growl bubbling beneath his voice, and oh was that a sound.
Arthur wasn’t sure how he felt about that sound, exactly. Not yet. “They do,” he stammered. “But you know this isn’t… necessary, right?”
“It is,” his watcher said—and cool fingers, tipped with claws, cupped underneath Arthur’s own. Another set pressed two more coins into his hand, and his fingers were gently guided to curl around them. “I understand my error. Allow me to fix this.”
Words were failing him. Arthur gaped at his watcher. “Um,” he said, intelligently. “Thank you.” He swallowed. “I’m Arthur.”
His watcher made a small noise. Okay, he wasn’t big on names. That was fine. Arthur tucked the three gold crowns (three!) into his coin pouch, painfully aware that next to his heart sat a little more than he likely made in a year, and took a breath. “Well. Do you have a request?”
His watcher was quiet again. “I liked the one from yesterday,” he said, bass voice thoughtful.
“Blue Moon. I can do that one,” Arthur said, smiling, and began to play.
#
The Crown Prince had never felt like this in his life.
Arthur. Arthur. What a name that was. Arthur, a sound he had never heard before, and yet it was so lovely in and of itself; the Crown Prince wanted to scratch the name into his bones, if only he knew how to spell it. Arthur. Oh, how lovely.
He had been so afraid he had committed a faux pas, but instead his musician didn’t think he deserved to be paid. Insane! Even the musicians who played for the enjoyment of the Court were paid, and they were the ones who should feel grateful to be there. Oh, Arthur, so humble! The Crown Prince wanted to bite him, but in the same way he would bite his brother when he was being foolish.
He missed his brother. He hadn’t realized he would, at least not as badly as he currently did, but he’d found himself pacing his regrettably empty house in the middle of the night and was consumed with the desire to talk to him. His brother would understand this temporary insanity that he was going through, surely. If his brother were here he would help him talk it out, would help him find words to impress his musician (his Arthur), would tease him for his childishness and race him to the riverside to swim. He hadn’t even realized he had chosen one of the rooms for him, had selected it because a tree branch sat just near enough the window that the Crown Prince could slink out and sit on it, and he knew his brother would like that, so he chose the one with the better view.
But his brother was in Carcosa. His brother was still with Father.
He wondered if Father was angry with his brother about his absence.
He hoped not. He hadn’t even told his brother he was leaving, after all, because he knew his brother would talk him out of it.
He’d make it up to him, when he returned. Because he would, eventually, maybe in a few decades or so when he had seen what the Dreamlands had to offer and he had drank deeply of it. He knew his brother would understand, because his brother had chafed under the weight of Father’s expectations just as much as he. It was difficult, but his brother had always been better at politics despite being the Second, the Lesser, the Younger, whatever the courtiers wanted to call it.
Maybe he would write a letter. Maybe he would write a lot of letters, and when he was prepared to move on, send them all at once.
He immediately knew what he would write about.
“Blue Moon,” his Arthur had sung to him, “Now I’m no longer alone.”
That one was, indeed, just for him.
#
“You know,” Arthur said as the final jazzy notes of a zither arrangement of Hoagy Carmichael faded into the air, “You’ve never told me your name.”
“My name?” His watcher said, rumbling, almost like a laugh.
“Yes,” Arthur said. “It feels… Disrespectful, to just refer to you as ‘him’ when I talk about your visits.”
Which there were a lot of. Every time Arthur laid out his mat, soon after his Watcher would arrive, sitting in comfortable silence as Arthur performed. It had been a week and a half and he hadn’t missed a single day thus far, and that meant the gold kept coming. Arthur supposed that wherever his wealthy listener came from, they didn’t have much music.
“My name,” his watcher rumbled.
“Well, I can’t just keep calling you ‘John Doe’,” Arthur laughed.
His watcher made a thoughtful noise. “That is it.”
“Hm?”
“That is my name.”
Arthur blinked sightlessly at him. “John Doe?”
“Yes.” His watcher sounded deeply pleased.
Arthur felt compelled to argue. John Doe was a name given to unidentified people on Earth, not—whatever this was. Sthee’ara would laugh herself hoarse when he told her.
“Well, Mister Doe,” Arthur said, deciding to well and truly leave it alone. “It’s nice to meet you. Truly.”
“And I you, Arthur.” John rumbled pleasantly.
“I’ve been—” Arthur’s words died as a cough rocked through his body, his shoulders shaking. “Sorry. There’s something going around the market right now, and I think I caught it.”
John’s voice was low and serious. “Do you need a healer?”
“What? No, no. It’s just a cough,” Arthur said, shaking his head. “I’ll be more than alright, I can assure you.”
John let out another rumble. “Perhaps you should take an early leave today. Rest your voice.”
He could. The slowly-filling box of gold that Arthur kept tucked in his bedside table meant that even if Arthur didn’t go to the inn to perform tonight, Faroe would be fed, her new clothes would be warm, and they would keep a roof over their head.
Apparently John sensed his hesitation. “This should cover what you would make today,” he said, and several heavy clinks dropped into Arthur’s vase. “Enjoy your evening, Arthur.”
Arthur stared up at him, blindly. “Thank you,” he said, voice soft.
John didn’t leave until Arthur had packed up, and though part of him balked against being ordered around by this man… He thought about spending the evening playing with his daughter, teaching her the zither and telling her stories, and decided that maybe it was worth it anyway.
#
John.
His marvelous Arthur had gifted him a human name.
This worked beautifully. If Father was trying to find him, he would not know to look for a John Doe, he would be looking for the Crown Prince. And how brilliant it was, this gift that no one but Father had given him thus far!
“John,” he said, curled up in his bed, squirming and eager (and wishing for another body to coil against).
He had hated to cut their meeting short, but he’d noticed Arthur sounded a bit flat today. He hadn’t complained (because frankly Arthur could have croaked like a toad and John would have listened). That cough had sounded nasty.
Well, Arthur had assured him it was fine. He would ask him about it tomorrow, after all.
John soothed himself with that thought: tomorrow.