Chapter Text
When Apollo and Trucy break away from the main group at the fork in the valley path, they are the only ones riding deeper into the valley.
The path ahead is still basked in the gloom of early dawn, the red light of the sun just shy of the jagged faces that bracket their lone horse as its hooves beat against the gravel-strewn path. The air is still chilled from the night, and the biting cold nipping at his nose and cheeks helps Apollo blink the sleep and sand from his eyes as he guides his mount forward.
Trucy, not quite used to waking up before the sun, pulls her heavy cloak over herself, but even half-awake, she can barely make out the sound of the other knights and envoys mumbling about her and Apollo before it quickly fades away.
It’s not a smooth path by any means. What was initially a spirited canter slowed down to a sluggish trot as the path bent and twisted before them, all manner of rock and fallen tree littering the way ahead. Eventually, it got to the point where riding on horseback became impractical, and Apollo and Trucy trudged onwards by foot, leading their horse by the reins.
When Apollo checks his map again, he estimates he’s about halfway towards the hamlet, and sighs. The sun has properly risen in the sky now, shadows stretching and tilting as it steadily approaches midday. Trucy keeps the energy high and the mood light, filling the dead-silent air of the valley with humming, stories, and random nothings—anything to keep the arduous journey ahead of them as far away from both of their minds as possible.
“I’m surprised at how well he’s taking to the role, honestly,” Trucy offhandedly comments as they trek through a sparse thicket of trees.
“Hmm?” Apollo inquires with a nod of his head, having somewhat spaced out in-between this story and the one from however long ago about the time Trucy made her father’s crown vanish into thin air.
“You know, Prince Regent Kristoph,” she fills in with a matter–of–factly tone. “It’s only been…a year since the royal funeral? It’s just pretty impressive how quickly he was able to take the reins on the kingdom, you know? I don’t think I would be able to do that if I were in his shoes.”
“Miss Trucy, you are fourteen, after all.”
“I know, but…you get it, right?”
Apollo does, somehow. Trucy was right—when he had been standing in the crowd, watching as the Prince Regent addressed the crowd with his cool, measured tone, Apollo never got the slightest hint of nerves or anxiety from his inflection. Truly, Kristoph carried himself in a way that declared confidence and self-assuredness, a way a man probably twice his senior would flounder under.
Faintly, Apollo wonders what on earth the Prince Regent of Gawain did to achieve that level of conviction in himself, and whether it was something that he could pick up for himself someday.
Pushing that line of thinking aside for the time being, Apollo recalls the funeral—or rather, the week from last year that both Kings of Angelos and Trucy set off to pay respects and condolences. He doesn’t remember much (which tracks, considering he wasn’t even at the funeral), but according to the princess's retelling of events, the ceremony had gone swimmingly smooth, the young Prince Kristoph projecting a beacon of strength and assuredness to the mourning gentry of Gawain.
“If anything, I’m surprised he hasn’t been crowned king yet, given how adept he is at taking on the challenge,” Apollo comments, gazing idly at the spindly branches of the trees covering them, their pale white casting striped shadows against his swinging arms. “You’d think being a king, you’d be able to do a lot more than as Prince Regent.”
“Maybe there’s not much difference in the title for Gawain?” Trucy suggests. Apollo shrugs in response. Certainly seemed that way, given how quickly the Prince Regent’s men were quick to comply with his orders.
“Hmm…maybe Prince Kristoph wants his brother to be there alongside him as he gets coronated? I mean, if I had a brother of my own, I would want him to be there for me at such a life-changing moment,” Trucy offers up another possibility for Apollo to mull over as the pair pass by the sub-bleached thicket.
“That would be the proper thing to do, I’d assume,” he says after a moment, scratching his chin in thought.
Trucy slams her fist against her open palm like a gavel, eyes lighting up. “That’s it! Prince Kristoph is totally the type to be proper, that’s why he’s making such an effort to find Prince Klavier!”
“Right…” Apollo says rather reluctantly, recalling the rather…lacking efforts and enthusiasm of Gawain’s own scouts. Why did they cast out such a wide net for outsider help, anyway–
“Apollo! Watch out for that rock!”
“-Wh?!”
Apollo proceeds to then jam his foot against a rather large boulder, and it takes him a whole valley’s worth of effort to not let loose a litany of crude obscenities in the presence of polite company.
And then, as Apollo recovers from his momentary embarrassment and trudges forward, red-faced and grumbling as Trucy tries not to snort, thoughts about Gawain and Prince Kristoph petered out into the deadened air of the valley.
Apollo can feel a palpable shift in the winds as they finally reach the settlement of cottages, a large, crumbling fortress nestled snugly against the surrounding cliff faces. It’s nothing concrete, sure, but it clings onto Apollo’s skin prickly and ever-present as trees and foliage give way to a smattering of settlements in their view.
He squints as the sun bares down onto the ground and the path ahead of him, bleached and dusty from disuse. The valley is silent, dead silent, as his gaze darts from empty cottage to empty cottage.
"I'm guessing nobody's home," Trucy quips, knocking on a hole-ridden, creaky door for effect.
"Yeah, for a long time, it would seem," Apollo says in turn, the air thick with dust and trepidation as he steps forward into the foreboding quiet.
They finally find the marketplace—well, what remained of the marketplace—as Apollo ties his horse to a standing pole for a short rest. It would make little sense to bring a horse inside a castle, after all.
As Trucy and Apollo take a few short moments of rest, his eyes fall onto…other remnants and debris lying around the dead village.
Firewood, burnt out and ash-white, cinders spilt onto the ground by barely-visible footprints. A lone shortsword, forgotten and chipped on the sidewalk, its steel burnished a blackened gray. A battered glove, left abandoned on an overturned market stall—all signs that there had been people here before him and the princess, and that whoever those people were, they didn't leave in the best of conditions.
More and more of these remnants littered the path as they approached the crumbling tower, which did very little to calm Apollo's steadily fraying nerves, a fact not helped by the rickety, battered drawbridge that bridged over the gaping maw of a dried-up moat.
The wood groans and splinters under Apollo's boot as he takes a gingerly step forward, and he might as well turn tail and bolt towards Angelos right at this moment, because not only did he have to contend with the fact that there was almost certainly a dangerous beast waiting for him and Trucy, but now he had to walk over a half-gone, splintering plank of wood to get to that dangerous beast in the first place-
"Apollo! Do you hear that?"
Trucy's voice cuts through his inner ramblings, and Apollo immediately snaps to attention, putting an ear out to the empty, whistling wind.
"...I don't hear anything," Apollo says, and he cringes at how his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth in his nerves.
Trucy is adamant, though, and she gives the fledgling knight a good shove forward, nearly frog - marching him as his feet stumble forward.
"What are you doing?!"
"You've got to get closer, I think it's coming from the tower up there!"
"W-wait, Miss Trucy, don't push me on the bridge, we're going to fall—!"
"-Just keep going, I swear there's a voice!"
Despite Apollo's clumsy, fearful steps forward, as tempted as he is to look down into the gaping maw of the moat and die of fear right then and there, he keeps his eyes trained to the skies, straining to hear whatever it is Trucy was talking about over his own complaining and the hammering of his heart.
And then…he hears a voice. Singing.
It's faint—no doubt due to the hollow wind that whistles through and around the area, but Apollo just barely catches the lilting sound of a voice drifting in the wind, light and airy like a bird as it flits in the breeze.
He moves forward, and it gets louder, more clear—it's the voice of a young man, but the words are just out of reach. Another step forward—the voice isn't actually singing words at all, just curling over melodies and songs, lonely in its solo performance.
There's something in its warble, how it strains at the end of a melody and as it tirelessly picks up another, that lets Apollo know that whoever it belongs to (and if he was correct in his deductions, he knows who exactly it belongs to), that person has been singing for a while, with no reply or reciprocation.
Well, that's what Apollo is here for, he supposes, as he stands on the other side of the drawbridge—wait, when did that happen?
"You did it!" Trucy beams, clapping her hands excitedly as she dashes forward to face Apollo.
"I guess there was a voice after all, haha…" Apollo says weakly. "Wait…this isn't one of your spells working, right?"
Trucy regards Apollo with a shocked expression, covering her mouth with her hands. "Absolutely not! I swear! Well…to be honest, I was bluffing at first about the whole 'voice' thing, but I guess it worked out in the end!"
Apollo tries not to groan too loud as they trudge forward into the castle, the singing voice slowly fading into the background as they plunged deeper into its aging, forgotten interior.
If forgotten pieces of armor and equipment scattered the hamlet in front of the castle, the place itself was absolutely littered with them, a noisy clatter ringing out through the deadened halls as Apollo kicked aside an iron helmet.
Though it was still relatively silent, a new sound was now becoming increasingly more apparent as they pushed deeper—a steady, rhythmic rumble, shaking loose pebbles on the ground every few seconds or so.
Along with the new sound came new sights, and these were signs of a fight—deep gouges in the cobblestone floor, streaks of three, four carving wounds into the hardened stone. Soot painting the walls a dusty gray. What little tapestries that remained hanging were all some combination of tattered, burnt, and torn to ribbons.
"I have a good feeling the Prince is up in the tallest tower," Apollo whispers to Trucy, as if speaking too loudly would awaken whatever it was that left these gruesome marks on the walls and the ground. "We'll need to be quick about it."
"About that, Apollo…" Trucy says, her voice suddenly pinching tight as she pointed around the corner with wide, incredulous eyes.
The hallway opened up to a main atrium, a wrought-iron chandelier hanging down from the ceiling. Several thick chains hung from the fixture, clinking against one another dully as they led down, down to the ground.
And on the ground, right in the middle of the way to the tower, was a slumbering, growling, dragon.
This is… not fine! Not fine at all!
Apollo almost has to bite his own tongue to keep himself from shrieking then and there, a lead ball plunging ice-cold into the pit of his stomach, rooting him in place. The princess doesn't seem to fare much better, her grip on Apollo's cape tight like a vice as she stares at the slumbering beast, barely breathing.
"Oh my god, they were right," Trucy whispers under her breath, voice high in her throat.
"Okay, right, this is…fine. We just have to step…very…quietly…"
CRASH!
Apollo looks down with eyes aghast to find he has kicked aside a forgotten boot, the dented steel clattering noisily as it skitters to a halt.
The dragon stirs, a golden, furious eye trained right on Apollo and Trucy.
Apollo manages to duck and dash just in time as it roars to life, letting out an earth-shuddering wail as it scrabbles against the ground. The chains attached to a collar around its neck shake and clang noisily against one another and the iron chandelier, as Trucy and Apollo weave and duck away from the furious gaze of the dragon.
"Apollo, now's your chance!" Trucy shouts, voice barely audible over the sound of the chaos unfolding around them.
"Hate to break it to you princess, but dragon slaying isn't a skill included in my training regimen!" Apollo exclaims, ducking out of the way of a swinging tail that swung through the air like a comet.
"Well, what are you going to do now?!"
"I don't know!"
They spend a few harrowing moments ducking and dodging out of the way of the dragon's stampede, running back and forth around the castle's crumbling chambers. In their haste, Apollo catches Trucy…doing something in his peripheral, muttering to herself quietly as she traces haphazard symbols on several spots on the walls with her fingers.
Suddenly, she brakes to a halt, dashing into a half-obscured alcove behind a torn tapestry, yanking Apollo in alongside her by the collar.
"Miss Trucy, what are you doing now?!" Apollo asks, eyeing the hallway in front of them, gaze darting back and forth for any sign of the ferocious creature.
"Listen!" Trucy beckons, pulling Apollo close. "I can hide myself from the dragon, I can use my magic as a distraction. While I do that, you run as fast as you can, get Prince Klavier, and we get out as fast as possible! Understand?"
"And leave you alone?!" Apollo counters desperately, voice cracking from the sheer insanity of their current scenario. "Your fathers are absolutely going to kill me!"
"I'll be fine! Don't worry," Trucy reassures, her voice suddenly gaining an edge of confidence he had only heard as she amazed the citizens of Angelos with her spells and charm. "I can run much faster than you, anyway!"
"Now go!" Trucy exclaims, shoving Apollo out of the alcove and into the open. Before he could say anything, he hears Trucy's voice…not from the alcove—it comes from somewhere down the hall, and the dragon's muffled roar shakes and rumbles through the debris on the ground.
Apollo wastes no time high-tailing it back to the main atrium, where the chains attached to the dragon seemingly lead off into another winding hallway. He faintly registers footsteps, amplified unusually loud, followed by the gruesome sound of claws scraping into stone echoing out into the air.
He spends little time taking in the view however, instead running head-on into the proceeding wing, round the corner, and up a winding, spiral staircase, feet leaping up each step two at a time at a madman's pace.
Klavier has been stuck inside this desolate tower for far too long.
It isn't as if he were there on his own accord, either (if that were the case, then really, the only person he could blame for such a predicament is himself). One moment, he was strolling through Gawain, mingling with the familiar faces and smiles of the townspeople. The next, he was nursing an incredible migraine in a room he did not recognize, and a dragon he definitely did not take a liking to.
Eventually, the sheer bafflement of his sudden and new predicament wore off, and soon with it the ironic novelty, leaving boredom and tedium in its stead.
He can’t say he’s been living a poor life, per se—a cursory look around what premises he could reach revealed plentiful stores of food and drink, well enough to sustain himself. The bed in his little room is comfortable, with the linen curtains of its canopy billowing whenever he keeps the window open (which is often). He and the dragon have even made some semblance of a peace treaty , or so he would claim (that treaty being that Klavier would keep well out of its way, and it, in turn, would not burn him to a crisp). Overall, not a bad life to live for someone trapped in a tower guarded by a monstrous beast.
Obviously, such a life has its downsides. With his only companion firmly intent on incinerating him, to say he was lacking in conversation partners would be an egregious understatement. Talking to the ceiling gets boring after a while, and then sad shortly thereafter, so Klavier releases the creeping isolation he feels out the window, over the walls of the castle, and to the world he can no longer reach. He misses his kingdom, his family, and his friends, and Klavier prays that although the songs he sings barely have any lyrics to them at this point, the message reaches them regardless.
Some days, there would be a bump in the flat circle that was his daily life. Whether it be the echoing sound of people clamoring in the deserted hamlet below, the creaking of wood as feet traverse over the dried moat, the clatter of metal against stone brick, every time, Klavier would sit a bit straighter in his chair, eyes training the heavy wooden door of his room, waiting and hoping for the footfalls to become louder, and louder, until they’d eventually come knocking against the door, or swinging it wide open.
Every time, he tries to imagine what or who his savior would be. Would it be a search party, a motley crew of knights bursting through his door, declaring his freedom with lionhearted gusto? Would it be people he knew, eyes lighting up in recognition and familiarity as their search for their missing prince had finally come to an end? Would it be a lone hero, bravely facing down the fiery maw of the dragon rampaging below, racing up the stairs to find the lost prince and sweep him off his feet to ride off into the golden sunset?
However, every time, the dragon’s roars would overpower what little sounds he made out, growing louder and louder until it—alongside any footfalls, voices, or other such sounds—ceased completely, sending Klavier back into uneasy, tepid silence.
It’s a cycle that Klavier has, rather unfortunately, gotten accustomed to, so much so that he doesn’t immediately stir from his position on his bed when the roaring starts up again. He sits up slightly, somewhat irked by the loud disturbance—whatever poor creature stumbled into these walls must really be riling up the beast—and settles back into a position lying down, stubbornly waiting for the sounds to tune out.
Except, it doesn’t.
Eventually, Klavier picks up another sound—footfalls, hammering against the ground at a mad pace, barely audible over the dragon’s rampage. His heart starts—was this really happening? The steps grew louder, closer, and more vivid as they reverberated through the narrow spiral staircase, the sound of heavy, labored breathing now accompanying it, and Klavier all but scrambles into a presentable state, hastily tucking away the mess of paraphernalia strewn about his room into darker corners and empty drawers. He just barely makes it back into his bed when he hears the door rattle, shudder, and burst open.
Klavier doesn’t dare sneak a glance at his incoming rescuer, instead willing his heart to still as he lies in wait. It must make for a striking visual, he thinks—a prince delicately strewn upon a canopy bed, its white linen curtains billowing ethereally in the breeze, almost alien from the (still ongoing, strange) rampage at ground level. It brings to mind the fairy tales he would fall asleep to, words of dashing heroes and damsels in distress echoing in his head as the footfalls drew closer and closer.
Klavier wonders what his rescuer looks like, hearing the sound of breathing loom over his head, feeling a puff of air sweep over his closed eyelids, causing them to flutter ever so slightly. Were they gruff and towering, their face marred by hard battles won and foes vanquished? Were they spry and crafty, eyes sharp, and instincts even sharper? Were they more of the romantic type, taking in the view of the sleeping prince, his finery and silks strewn around his countenance like a wreath, their breath coming closer and closer to Klavier’s own—
“Hey you! Wake up!”
Klavier’s eyes fly open, his mouth letting out a rather undignified squawk as his hero shakes him by the shoulders to and fro.
Okay, good. The prince isn’t dead, or out cold like he’d initially thought when he saw him lying down on the bed.
Apollo breathes a small sigh of relief as the prince regains his bearings, oggling at Apollo in such a way that he feels a burn flash across his face, either from indignation or nerves, he didn’t know.
“Are…are you Prince Klavier?” he asks the man currently sitting up on the bed, his eyes constantly darting toward the ajar door behind him, and the staircase leading from it. This had betternot take long, Trucy was waiting for him.
Then, as if by clockwork, the Prince’s expression morphs into one of…dignified gratitude? Apollo can’t quite make it out. Prince Klavier bows his head deeply, eyes betraying the genuine, utter relief he hides under a graceful smile.
“Indeed I am, Herr Knight. I shall be forever indebted to your act of chivalry and heroi—”
“Alright! Awesome! Please, follow me now!”
Apollo cuts Klavier short, practically pulling the prince to his feet by the hand and frog-marching him towards the staircase.
“B-but, what of singing praises to your bravery?” Klavier supplies in a voice that could only be described as utterly confused.
“Not now, we’ve got a dragon to run away from!”
As if on cue, a thundering roar echoes through the narrow stairwell, causing both knight and prince to freeze in place for a moment.
“You’re telling me you didn’t vanquish the beast before coming up here?” Klavier asks when the noise dies down, his voice edging on incredulous as he stares at Apollo.
“The ‘vanquishing’ is a work in progress,” Apollo snaps hurriedly, grabbing a rather conveniently placed rucksack hanging near the doorway and hoping it had whatever the prince deemed was necessary for himself. “Now, we really should be going now!”
Grabbing the prince’s wrist, they all but leap down the staircase, feet hitting the ground running as they dash through the destroyed hallways and debris strewn about. Apollo leads the way, silently grateful that the prince could keep pace—he didn’t even want to imagine trying to carry the taller man out with a dragon on their tail.
“Polly!”
Joining in step, Trucy practically melts out of a shadow on the wall, her cape billowing behind her as the sound of claws against stone ripped through the air, following the trio as they race through winding corridors and halls.
“Miss Trucy!” Apollo exclaims, a thousand-pound weight lifting off of his chest at the sight of the princess unharmed. “We’ve got our prince!”
“Oh hello!” Trucy exclaims brightly, turning towards the prince running haplessly behind Apollo. “I’m Trucy! That’s Apollo, we’re here to rescue you!”
“Oh! Hello, Fräulein!”
“Less talking, more running!”
Apollo stifles a shout as they round a corner and find the dragon fiercely blocking the entrance, its fiery eyes staring pits into Apollo’s skull as they freeze in place, neither party moving a muscle. Apollo’s mind races at a maddened sprint, trying desperately to spot some loophole through which they could escape their predicament alive. His hand itches for his sword—maybe, if he buys enough time by taking it on, Trucy can take the prince and get out of this wretched tower—
“Come on!”
With a yelp, Apollo feels himself being dragged to a running pace by the young princess, her gaze set firmly on the now-provoked dragon advancing towards them, He barrels forward, hearing Prince Klavier’s rising shout, tumbling towards the dragon running closer, closer and closer.
And then, Trucy ducks, yanking the two men behind her to stoop low as the dragon sails over their heads, completely ignoring them.
Apollo chances a look behind his shoulder and catches the sight of shimmering mirages of figures as they disappear around the corner, the dragon none the wiser as it pursues the magical illusion. He wastes no time in turning back around, hooking his arms around the two royals as he runs across the rickety bridge, barely paying heed to the way it shuddered and swung over the hammering of his own heart and the drag of two people trailing behind and beside him.
He runs, and runs, feeling the shudder of the ground as the dragon rages on behind them, until his peripheral is filled with the sight of empty houses, and the air around them becomes still once more. Only then does Apollo slow his pace, the full force of exertion hitting him all at once, so suddenly, he’s shocked he’s still standing by the time he finishes catching his breath.
He looks at his companions. Princess Trucy sits on an upturned log, breathing heavily, but otherwise unharmed. Prince Klavier’s face gleams with sweat as he leans against an empty house, chest heaving up and down. Apollo faintly recalls the prince wearing a large cape at some point, but it must have been ripped or torn off during their escape. The remnants of it cling helplessly to the clasps still attached around his shoulders, revealing a billowy white shirt and vest dyed a deep mauve inside. Besides the loss of a cape, however, he was for the most part, thankfully, fine.
“Everyone alright?” He calls out to the two of them. Klavier gives him a tentative, weary nod. Trucy bolts straight up from the log, a bright smile on her face.
“That was awesome! The rescue went off without a—”
Trucy crumples to the ground, nearly faceplanting into the dry earth.
“Miss Trucy!”
“Fräulein?!”