A King's Legacy Ch. 34

A King's Legacy

Chapter 34: Fading Lights

Through the darkness of the night, perched high above on a southern cliff, Aster sat gazing at the same view he couldn't tear his eyes away from ever since first laying them on it. Sure, the human king had tried to rest, to be better prepared for what awaited them the following morning, but there was no quelling his thoughts enough for that no matter how greatly he wanted to look away from the sight of that dead city bathed in the moonlight.

The ocean seemed calmer then, the rolling waves glimmered beneath the same moon in the distance, casting an illusion of dancing, choppy light behind the fallen castle that the boy felt he could stay lost in forever. Like a beacon of hope that never quite slept, the single stained glass window that remained joined in the game, the soft glow of the yellow glass mimicking the moon itself. It was breathtaking, it was humbling, it brought a strange sense of peace to him, and yet... it broke what pieces of his heart remained. To say Aster was conflicted would be quite an understatement, so the lost king of Adamare just kept on staring so helplessly at the kingdom stolen away from him instead of resting.

"Can't seem to sleep either?" His wolf asked genuinely. Aster knew Stahl was trying as well, but it just didn't seem that either would be getting any true rest that night. The boy answered his wolf in a quieter tone.

"I'll be lucky to get three hours if I'm being honest. There's just too much to think about, none of which I actually want to. You?" Stahl rolled over to look at his mate better in that moment. Aster wanted to sit alone, so the beast had given him a little space, but in truth, Stahl had just as many hectic thoughts as the boy did. The wolf answered soundly.

"Yeah, about the same I guess... You don't have to do this if you don't want to you know? We can still just go west if you don't think you can make that trip tomorrow. I can only imagine what is running through your head if I know you like I think I do, and I'm honestly not certain I could do it were I in your position... So I just wanted to say, even though I know you better than that, I wouldn't be upset if you decided to leave this place to the dead that rests here." Aster didn't look at Stahl, he just kept on staring out over that beautiful landscape, wondering about what kind of life he could've lived in such a place. The king gave his reply somberly, in a peaceful and soft voice coupled with a twinge of sadness.

"No. I think I should see it. I need to walk those streets, and I need to see what my home was like. This is probably the only closure I'll ever be getting, my wolf, I need to make sure I get what I need out of it..." Aster paused, scoffing to himself as the thought crossed his mind. He spoke it without much hesitation, openly mocking what had drawn him there in the first place. "The boy should learn." Stahl grew silent himself, deciding how he should proceed as the hairs began standing up on his neck at such a chilling recital. The wolf spoke cautiously.

"I see it's something you need to do. Is... is it something you want to do alone? I understand if you need that..." The beast trailed off, but the boy smiled lightly and looked back to his wolf with an expression trapped somewhere between tears and laughter. The young king spoke firmly, expertly masking his cracking voice.

"Not at all. Yeah, I want a little space down there, to make sure I move at a pace where I can handle processing everything, but I already told you, I will always want you nearby. Thank you for being so understanding though, I really do appreciate what you've done for me the last few days, I know no part of it could have been easy for you either, but I did want to say... I am sorry if I was harsh or unfair, and I am lucky that you are here. I couldn't have gone on without you, either back in our beginning or now." The beast could only smile back at his boy, knowing all the soothing words in the world wouldn't truly ease the tension in the air, but Stahl was grateful his human had made the effort anyway.

"I am thankful to be here, for the forests, the mountains, and even the oceans beyond, my king. Now, please try to at least close your eyes for a while, maybe we can actually steal away a little sleep, and it would be nice if at least one of us were well-rested for tomorrow." Aster resisted the urge to take that as a cynical joke, and instead, replied more thoughtfully.

"Alright, but scoot over some, we both sleep better when next to each other, and I could really go for some fluffy wolf fur right about now. It's a little chilly up here with the breeze." Stahl flashed that fanged smile of his, adjusted his position, and patted beside himself, inviting his mate to pilfer all the warmth he may need, the same as the beast always had. Stahl was grateful to fulfill that request, the duty to his king seeming easier than ever in little moments like those.

The pair didn't get much rest that night, as was predicted, but they did find some solace next to each other, and the warmth between them was still just as beautiful as it ever was... Such warmth would be the only thing that may see them through the trial set for the following day. The human king had decided to press on, and the flowing sands of destiny were quickly setting into immovable stone. The path was set, the beast king, the human king, and all of the knights between them were heading to war without ever knowing they should be preparing, and even the gods were watching with bated breath.

===

"I don't like this." The captain was restlessly pacing back and forth in the field that morning, his instincts frantic to make him realize where the threat was. The bull's hide felt like it was crawling, and even his steely nerves were feeling rattled as he waited with his prince. They didn't have the numbers or the means to escape or to even fight if it came down to it. In reality, the bovine was feeling like a mere vulnerable and exposed target. The captain wasn't fond of the sensation, to say the least. The prince watched him pace back and forth a few times more before finally feeling that maybe he should try to ease his apprehension.

"Why don't you have a seat, Captain. Your worrying isn't going to affect the outcome regardless you know?" The bull huffed, turning to stare back toward the prince with his answer.

"I'm well aware, but I already told you, I don't like this. When you drag a Rixator somewhere we don't want to be, you should expect us to make a little noise about it." The prince sighed a little and decided to drop it for the time being. In truth, the lion was starting to worry himself.

Fraxis had been gone for over five hours by that point, the morning shifting into the afternoon in his absence. The crocodile should have already reemerged from that town, and even the prince was beginning to question how loyal the reptile truly was by then. Those thoughts were quickly torn from him as a voice muttered out dazedly behind him.

"Father?" The lion and the bull nearly gave themselves whiplash as the previously unresponsive high mage of Alora showed her first sign of life in WEEKS. Tyfin was quick to press his luck.

"Lady Alice? Can you hear me?" No response came, the cat just kept on sleeping. The lion felt his ray of hope crumble before him, but the prince was adamant to hold on to what he could. She had spoken, albeit in a dream, she had still spoken. That was something, more than what they had received so far anyway. The bull spoke to his prince a moment after.

"If she would just wake up, I don't think I'd have any caution left to shoulder. We could walk right through that town and nobody would ever dare to make a move." The lion nodded along with the bovine absentmindedly, his thoughts moving to worrisome ones once again.

The pair sat in silence for a moment after, both admittedly curious about what the calico cat had said. Lady Alice didn't have any family, none that she remembered anyway. That was something she had once spoken under infallible truth, so to hear her call out for her father was certainly odd. The two thought on that for a while, but their attention would soon be forced elsewhere.

===

Descending the mountain was easy, they weren't fighting gravity anymore, and the loose road seemed to have held together far better on the side leading down to the abandoned town. Aster sat out with his wolf before dawn even came, and the boy found himself looking up at the first set of fallen gates somewhere around noon. Descending the mountain had been easy, but nothing about this new challenge was going to be as easy for the king. As the human took a moment to simply stare before crossing the first threshold of the gates, Stahl nudged up against him lightly and took a hold of his hand while speaking tenderly.

"Alright, whenever you are ready. I'll hang back a little, just as you asked, but please know I'm walking right behind you the entire time. If you need me for anything..." The wolf trailed off, squeezing the boy's hand lightly. Aster raised their intertwined hands to his lips, planted a delicate kiss on his wolf's fingers, and gave it a final squeeze before slowly letting go. The human gazed on for a moment longer, worked up all the courage and heart he could fathom, and took a step forward, passing beneath the broken archway of the battered gate with a solemn pace.

The pair were cutting up the central road, passing right down a long stretch of abandoned buildings on either side of their wider street. Alleys and side-streets intersected with their path at various points, leaving Aster with the sense that there was once quite a maze of busy people in this area. Stall after stall of empty booths were abandoned, the wares once on display either taken as spoils by the beasts and their war, or long since rotted away with the rest of the signs of life once in that place.

Aster was walking slowly, ensuring he was really taking in what was around him. The boy paused and walked over to a larger shop on the strip. It was one of many with a wooden door lying in splinters just beyond the frame. The human king walked forward and stopped rather eerily in the dry-rotted threshold. The boy raised his left hand idly beside himself and passed it over the flaky wood, letting his touch linger there for a while. Aster looked up, and raised his hand above his head, soundly tapping it against the top of the doorframe with a dull thud. It was such a strange thing to him, walking through doors made for someone his size...

The ceilings weren't so high in these buildings, not like the ones built to accommodate beastmen well up to ten feet tall. No, these buildings didn't look so large at all to the boy, he didn't feel so small standing in that doorway, or at least, not in the physical sense he usually did. Aster was learning what the world could be like if it was made with someone like him in mind. Aster was realizing what it was like to fit somewhere, to belong somewhere... and it was breaking his heart piece by piece. The boy took a step into the shop and dared to glance around.

There were shattered remains of ceramics and porcelains scattered along the cobblestones along with twenty years worth of dust. A few smaller pots had somehow survived, but even then, they were mostly skewed about hazardously. Something caught the boy's eye, and Aster soon found himself pacing over slowly to the furthest corner of the room before he stopped and knelt to pick it up.

It was a ceramic doll, the body long since broken and discolored from lying abandoned in the filth. Half of the doll's face was missing, the painted-on blue eye that still remained looking far less lifeless than ever intended at that moment. Stress and age cracks were littering what was left of the delicate toy, the once intricate dress adorned with ribbons was dry-rotted where it had sat and soiled in the dirt. What was left of the regal gown was breaking away in the young king's trembling hand.

Aster was eerily silent as he just gazed absently at the broken toy, wondering what kind of human child had once played with it... wondering if they had clung to the doll in that corner until the very end... Aster finally stepped away, cradling the doll as if it were an actual infant. The young king slowly walked back toward the entrance and stopped just inside the threshold.

Aster bent over, snagged a finger around an overturned chair that was nearly just as ruined, and stood, righting the seat after more than two decades of being toppled over. The boy gently sat the doll down in the creaky chair, brushed a bit of dirt away from its one remaining eye, and finally stepped off, his gaze low as he left both the abandoned shop and the lost toy behind in silence, just as he had found them. The pair continued down the street, moving ever deeper into what was once the heart of Adamare.

===

Jagón was finally starting to get the idea. This was the afterworld, it simply had to be, but the panther was alright with that. That figure that cradled his weary head so tenderly in her lap had kept singing, and singing, and singing to him. She kept singing that beautiful song long after the last of his tears fell, long after he accepted the last of the horrible things he had played his part in during life. As the tears cleared, so did his mind to some degree, but everything was still just barely outside his range of recognition. He still couldn't see her face, and however familiar, he just couldn't place where he knew that voice from. At one point, shortly after the tears had stopped falling from him, she had paused for just a moment and asked a question warmly, her voice smooth and reassuring with a playful hint.

"You should probably go back soon, but you don't have to return yet if you don't want to. You can stay here with me a little while longer if you would like?" The panther general answered hesitantly, feeling like a child begging for five more minutes to play all the while.

"I- I don't know if I should go back... I don't think the world needs beasts like me anymore, and I'm simply so tired of all that ugliness... that ugliness you made me finally face my part in." She affectionately stroked at the fur on his head as she responded in that impossibly warm voice.

"We all have our sins, even the gods, but that is what the song is for. We finally get to understand it all clearly, we get to accept it for what it is, and then we get the chance to be better next time. You get even more than that, you get the chance to return and be who you should in this same life, to take this gifted mindset back with you. The world needs this version of you, Jagón... Just as I do, just as your sons do." The panther drew a heavy breath, let out a long sigh, and closed his eyes slowly. He gave his response in a short, pleading whisper.

"Please... can I merely stay with you a little while longer?" She answered in understanding.

"We can stay here as long as you need to, I waited far longer than this for you to come find me, so I think the world can wait without us a little while more. Would you like me to keep singing for you?" The general hastily shuddered out a desperate plea in answer.

"Please..." She smiled down at the one she had loved from such a distance longingly, took a short breath, and started right back up where she had left off, her melodic song and voice both still as warm and as enlightening as the sun itself. They could stay together for just a while longer... she was working through accepting her own misdeeds as well, and there was no shortage of blame to carry for either resting in the garden of life that day.

If only she had realized her time was running out... If only she knew what her father knew...

===

The only sound in that fallen city was the crunching of Aster's boots. The only scent that remained was one of undisturbed nature. The only movement the wolf ever saw was his sullen mate walking a few paces ahead and a few birds soaring high above, but there was certainly something the wolf could feel in that moment. Something was off.

Every step towards that broken castle felt more and more like Stahl was about to walk right off another cliff, like there was this innate danger that he was supposed to be seeing, hearing, or smelling. The beast's hairs were edging up more and more along the scruff of his neck and the hackles on his shoulders, and a chill ran down his spine as a hollow wind blew a bit of dust down the empty streets. This was like before... This was like one of those feelings that didn't quite make sense to the young wolf, that weren't his own.

Even so, the noble knight suppressed it the best he could. This was far too important to Aster. Stahl wouldn't let his own worries get in the way here... not here. Aster stopped in front of the wall leading to the castle's courtyard a moment later and turned to his knight. The stolen king spoke after a short pause of hesitation.

"What do you think our fathers felt the last they stood here? What do you think went through their minds when the beast forces blew a hole through this wall? Did they celebrate their secured advancement into the castle? Were they relieved their long fight was finally over? It's... strange... I always knew that my birth father and my adoptive one were on opposite sides here, but I never considered what they actually felt in moments like this." Stahl listened closely as Aster opened up a little more in that short break from the silence.

"I have only been in one fight, and it couldn't have been anything close to one on a scale such as this, but it was enough to know how it feels when you're winning, and to know how it feels to be losing in a position like this. Did Jagón Venatus thank the gods when this gate fell? Did Calium Aureus curse them at the same time? Or did they both just want it to be over quickly by then?"

Aster went silent as he gave Stahl a moment to process his words. The king needed somebody to hear what he was feeling, but he wouldn't fault his beast if he couldn't really think of an answer. Aster himself was struggling to find one, after all. Stahl finally let out a sigh, and answered such an impossible question the best he could.

"I don't know what thoughts could've been running through the backs of their minds, but maybe we can ask them. I know my father would tell us his best recollection. When your father wakes up, we can ask him too if you want?" Aster resisted his impulse to immediately respond with "IF he wakes up," but what came out instead wasn't much better.

"At least I may still be able to ask one of my fathers then..." The conversation fell off to silence once more for a while. Aster spoke quietly to the wolf as he stepped through the fragmented remains of the castle gates, the ones leading into the grand and overgrown courtyard retaken by nature.

"Sorry. I don't mean to put you in such uncomfortable positions." Stahl was quick to both dismiss the idea, and to follow his king to the entrance of his castle at long last.

===

Talan had already made steady progress in his pursuit of his prince, but even so, the circumstances of the known and unknown alike were eating away at the young panther in his mission of solidarity. Talan Venatus was always one to put family and duty above all else, but none of the people that fell under either category were making it easy for the beast ran-ragged as of late. In truth, Talan was truly becoming a creature of little faith in others.

His father was capable, but certainly not in his catatonic state. His prince needed him, but the panther felt the same way about the young king as he did his lost younger brother Cortist; they were both too soft to survive on their own without him. They were not made for what this world required of them. Talan knew each case for certain due to two reasons; he had to be a very overprotective big brother for Cortist growing up, and (more notably,) because the prince had confessed as much to his closest guard on more than one occasion. Prince Tyfin Tonitrus hated violence, and Cortist wasn't capable of it, so they both needed the knight because he could tolerate it for a cause, and he could inflict it when required, and Talan knew this as a tried and tested truth.