"No. They will not fit me, and I have my own clothing." He dusted his hands off, carefully setting the supplies away again. He took a few seconds to admire his handiwork before he plopped down in front of the fire, enjoying the feeling of warmth on his skin. He missed his home already, warm and soft and lush. Here the cold spiked through your skin. "But… thank you. Perhaps I will take the bracers."
“Alright,” Levi answered as he carefully unlaced the bracers, and set them aside on a small table.
Mordecai followed Levi behind the screen, taking advantage of the small amount of privacy they had to kiss him. It lasted only a matter of a few moments, Levi having to gently pull away to finish dressing. He stayed quite close to him, though, and murmured quiet conversation about all they had to catch up on.
Levi set the discarded shirt and pants folded on the floor, and quickly replaced them with his own clothing. Despite the musty smell and chill, the navy gray undershirt and pants were a thousand times more comfortable to Levi than the lighter fabric of the Usigens.
Fiori didn't take them, affording Levi as much privacy as he could. It was clear he had missed this place, with his love and his family and all the little familiar things that made a place feel like home. He'd have to leave and give Levi more privacy somehow, let him have the time he deserved to be alone with Mordecai.
"Thank you, I'll be back to retrieve them shortly. Would you mind terribly if I took a walk?"
Levi emerged from behind the screen, tying the front of his shirt closed while he walked. “No, I don’t mind at all. Just keep an eye out for Johan. He doesn’t seem to particularly like you,” he chuckled in reply. He knew Fiori could defend himself perfectly well, but Johan might have the upper hand in his own palace.
Mordecai stayed close to Levi, putting his hands in his pockets as he leaned against the wall.
Fi laughed halfheartedly and nodded. "I will be on the lookout," he promised, a small smile on his face as he pushed himself to his feet. He had no doubt that Johan wouldn't be able to best him no matter the circumstances. He'd beat him before. He could do it again. "Meet me at Johan's rooms when you're ready to… deal with him?"
“I’ll meet you there,” Levi agreed with a nod of his head. “If you get there before I do, you can start planning what you’ll need to make any changes in that room.” He went stride over towards one of the armchairs and sank down into the cushion. “And if nothing else changed since I’ve been gone, there should be some servants around the halls too. You can ask them any questions.”
Fi nodded. "Thank you, I will. Though… I am not sure it would be wise to talk to the servants. I am… not someone many here would consider helping." He gestured vaguely at himself as if it were an explanation. "I doubt they would consider doing much more than reporting me to a guard."
“Well, then I suppose you have a few more people to avoid?” Levi followed Mordecai with his gaze as he came to sit down beside him. “I’ll brief everyone on the new situation as soon as I can. And as soon as Johan in out of the way.”
“Enjoy your walk,” Mordecai added. His curt tone certainly didn’t reflect the kindness of his words. Just as Levi had described, Mordecai didn’t seem very friendly towards people he didn’t know well. Not cruel like Johan, just standoffish.
Fi laughed. "Leviticus, all I have is people to avoid." He grimaced at Mordecai's tone as he walked through the door, but he supposed the standoffishness was to be expected. He wouldn't take too kindly to things if his beloved showed up with some angry foreigner he seemed all buddy buddy with. "And… I will do my best, Mordecai. Though I doubt I will suceed, I thank you for your well wishes." He was out the door before he could hear a response.
Mordecai opened his mouth to answer, but closed it when Fiori disappeared. He turned his head back to Levi again, “I don’t know if I like him,” he confessed. A smile gradually grew on his face the longer he gazed on his beloved’s face.
“You’ll get used to him,” Levi wrapped his arm around Mordecai’s shoulders. “I did.”
A very flustered guard, who Fiori might recognize as the defensive one from the entrance gates to the palace, turned the corner into the hallway. He eyed Fiori warily, but seemed more interested in hurrying towards Levi’s quarters.
Fi didn't even bother to eye him back, he just turned the corner and escaped down the first hallway he could find. He didn't like this. He didn't like this and he knew complaining never made anything better because words didn't matter only actions did and he remembered that lesson, he remembered everything his father had ever taught him about being a good person and a good man and a good soldier, only he couldn't do anything here because he was trapped. Trapped like a lion in the zoo, with everyone looking at him like he was some kind of beast.
It hurt like a physical pain. He'd known he would be a stranger here but he hadn't realized how keenly he would feel his difference, how blisteringly stingingly obvious it would be that nobody wanted him except Levi who had so many better things to do. He missed his life. He missed home and Tharis and Cadmus and everything else left dead and gone behind him, but most of all he just missed his mother.
He'd only had one portrait of her and he'd hung it proudly in his room, so he could look at her face and pretend, just for a few seconds, that she was still there to keep him safe. And now that painting was gone, his last few memories of her gone with it. She'd died when he was twelve. He could barely remember her face anymore. Here, in the one place he needed comfort most, the one person that had always been there, whose presence he had always felt, was gone.
“Prince Leviticus,” the guard braved his halt with the frame of Levi’s door. He sucked in a few breaths before speaking. “You’re needed in the baths—“
“Why?” Levi, who had just leaned back on his mattress beside Mordecai, sat up again. He’d just gotten home, and every muscle in his body ached. Even his hair was unkempt, oily and yet to be tended to. What was the rush now?
The guard caught his breath. “A group of guards. Some nobles. Ganged up on your brother in the royal baths. They’re…they’re demanding his retribution for treason.”
“Treason?” Levi pushed his eyebrows together. He hadn’t spoken a word of what Johan had done to anyone. He’d only just started telling Mordecai his side of the story. “Who told them about anything?”
The guard wordlessly shrugged as Levi stood up from his bed, and pushed past him into the hallway. He silently decided that if he saw Fiori on the way to the baths he would ask for assistance. If he didn’t, well, he didn’t want to bother his friend when they already had an agreement to meet in Johan’s room.
Fiori stumbled blindly through the halls. Thank the gods nobody saw him like this barely connected to the world with pressure building behind his eyes, in the back of his throat. He hadn't cried since his mother, had kept himself tear-free through war and scars and death, the one death that still gutted him whenever he thought of it, but here, in some abandoned hallway near an uncarved set of double doors, he was so close he could practically taste the salt on his tongue. He pressed his forehead against the cold cold stone and willed himself back into calm.
He was too caught up in his head to notice it, but there was sound coming from the room behind him. Thrashing, yelling, the muffled thumps of thrown punches and the muffled splashes of bathwater being tossed around.
Levi’s walk soon turned into a jog through the castle, through the hallways and eventually to the doors he knew were closest. He wanted Johan to pay his retribution, even more than the guards did. But he didn’t want Johan to die. If not an unjust punishment, it was an all too easy way out. Perhaps conveniently the closest doors the the baths were the doors Fiori sat near. He slowed down only slightly at the sight of his friend, and brief thought of concern flashed through his mind. There was no time for that now; he ask later. “I-I might need your help, Fi,” he breathed. A part of him felt bad for asking, but Levi knew he couldn’t take on a gang of skilled guards—and his brother— alone. He chose one of the doors and pushed it open.
Fi winced when he heard Levi's voice at the edge of his consciousness, scraping against the rising desperation. Maybe he was just an animal, always on the edge of an outbreak. Maybe he was dangerous. "Yes. Yes, I…" Sound started filtering in, his heartbeat first, then breathing and then the muffled noises from beyond the doors. "My sword, Leviticus." He reached over for it and if his hands shook he ignored it and focused on breathing instead, on keeping the tears pushed back. It wouldn't do to make Levi see him break down. And he was good at this. Hadn't he been itching for a fight all day? "Who do I swing at?"
Levi shifted to hand Fiori his sword, silently thanking himself for bringing it. “The guards, and whoever else is battering Johan—just don’t, critically hurt them, just enough to get Johan away from them and detain him,” he stammered. His mind was reeling already, wondering how he was going to explain this to everyone else, what he was going to do with Johan. He dragged a hand through his hair and advanced towards the brawl, and it seemed Johan had little chance against multiple men. Not when he was nearly naked and without any weapons or warming. No matter how skilled he was. “Everyone get away! Break it up!” Levi raised his voice, but he doubted he could be heard above the fighting anyway.
Fi nodded and then he was rushing forward into the fray. There were about ten guards. Two of them seemed to be holding Johan under the water while he struggled. Three of them had noticed Fiori. One had drawn his sword.
That one was quickly dealt with. Levi didn't want killing but he hadn't said anything about no injuries so in a split second he spun the sword in his hand and slammed the pommel into the man's head, readjusting his grip in time to block as the other two swung at him. From there it was messy. It was hard not to kill with a sword, but he managed to refrain because he had to be good at this. He had nothing else and his mind was finally blank and he felt at ease for the first time since he'd stepped foot past his country's borders.
By the time he'd dispatched the fifth one, Johan started to slow down, unable to hold his breath any longer.
Levi witnessed the scene wide eyed and silent, attempting to regain his composure and rational mind. Noticing Johan slowing down, Levi shook his head free of distracting thoughts. He didn’t want his brother to die—especially not like this. He crouched down low in an attempt not to be caught in the crossfire of swords and any other punches that might’ve been being thrown. He reached for Johan’s arm to yank him out of the water, struggling against any other soldiers that might still be holding onto him.
Johan gasped upon his head emerging from the surface of the water. He dug both sets of fingers into Levi’s arm in a pure, primal instinct to survive. “Save—help m-!” He croaked.
Fi winced at the rawness of Johan's words but there was no time to dwell on what was happening outside his narrow focus of fists and steel. One guard headed for Johan and Fi smacked him down with the flat edge of his sword. One swung at Levi and Fi stabbed him through the hand. One threw down his weapons and ran. The other two seemed to snape out of their violent daze and scanned the room, sheathing their swords when they realized who exactly had fished Johan out of the baths.
"My lord," one murmured. He'd been holding Johan under earlier. There were little nail marks on his wrists where Johan had dug in in an attempt to pull himself up. "My lord, why do you deny yourself justice?"
Levi dragged the rest of Johan completely out of the water and onto the tiles floor. He looked wearily up to the remaining soldiers, while Johan lay collapsed beside him and descended into a coughing fit. His eyes darted from the soldier’s wrists and back up to his face. “I want justice, but not like this.” he vaguely gestured to the sodden, trembling form beside him. “Didn’t you stop to think I had some sort of plan?” He pushed himself up to stand and brush himself off. As much as he could; it didn’t change the fact that the front of his shirt and pants were dripping wet.
Johan parted his lips to let out a wavering groan. He placed his palms flat on the floor, tried to push himself up, but ultimately failed the first attempt.
"I… I had assumed this was a grave enough crome for execution?" His voice wavered near the end, tilting the firm explanation up into a question. "He not only exiled you to be a slave in a land of savages, he murdered someone to cover it up. We were only trying to do what was right before he managed to talk his way out of trouble." He sheathed his sword and approached, palms up. It exposed the ragged crescent cuts on his wrists, raw and starting to bleed. "Please, your highness, let's be done with this whole mess. Just hand him over to me and I'll finish what was started. Nobody has to know, you can say you didn't manage to catch the disturbance in time."
Levi’s nose started to wrinkle. Johan did deserve death, but nothing about this distortion seemed right. He wondered how this guard even knew about how he was sent to be a slave. “No.” He finally answered, as firm as he could make his tone. “I have his accomplices executed. He deserves worse than death. And what better punishment is there to become nothing? Not a prince or even a common citizen. His hair will be cut tonight, and he’ll become a slave.”
Johan’s eyes flickered open wider at that. To the Nord Widonians, hair was their symbol of status, of respect, to be washed and carefully conditioned, to be ornamented with jewels and gold rings. If his hair was cut…he would look no different from a peasant. Worse than a peasant if his brother truly wanted to make him a slave. “N-no…” He pushed himself up enough to sit.
The guard sputtered for a few seconds and Fi took the chance to step forward, putting himself between Levi and the guard. "You heard him, now go." For a second it looked like he would put up a fight, but then he glanced back at Leviticus, saw the steel in his eyes, and turned on heel. No guards were left in the bathroom. Fiori leaned over to resheath his sword at Levi's hip.
"So we deal with him tonight?" He nodded towards Johan.
Levi watched the guard leave, and when he was gone turned his attention back to Fiori. “Yes. I didn’t mean for this to happen so quickly, but I don’t think I have a choice.” His gaze fell to Johan, whose shoulders were hunched. It seemed nearly every ounce of energy had been drained from his muscles. “He’ll need cleaned up before anything else,” Levi added.
Fi sighed, reaching down to drag Johan to his feet. "I see." He had hoped he'd get a few days to acclimate before he had to deal with this slave business, but it seemed like that wasn't going to be happening any time soon. He draped one of Johan's arms across his shoulders, hooked a hand beneath his legs, and then swung him up so he wouldn't slow them down while they walked. "I can clean him up. It will be good to get to know him better, before he is… mine." He clearly found the wording distasteful, but there wasn't a better way to put it.