Chapter Six

A quick update? What is this, the end of the world?

Author's Note at the end.

9-3-17

Author's Note

Since I can't publish non-story chapters (thank you for notifying me of that, kind Guest), I've attached Knight Unexpected's final Author's Note to its final chapter.

Hi. I'm back with some lukewarm news. Don't get too excited, but don't get too depressed, either. Scroll down to the very end for an Author's Note.

Also, if you're worried about the fate of the story: read until the end. It gets better, I promise.

TL;DR: There are no goodbyes, only see you laters.

The crown prince's thinness. His paleness. His incomparable waste of food. That slow, knife-cut smile, like he was sharing a secret only he could understand.

Toris buried his head in his hands.

It all made sense.

He was a failure.

He could have done something about it if he had known earlier. If he had paid attention earlier. If he forced himself out of his anxiety and stopped caring earlier. Because wasn't it his empathy that broke him down? Wasn't it his sympathy that fed the crown prince with piece after piece of birch bark? Wasn't it his emotions that dug him into this mess? If he separated the personal from the professional everything would be fine – he wouldn't be tired, the crown prince wouldn't be starving, they wouldn't be running out of food. They would be going as usual, running on a well-thought script written on worn yellow pages. It was Toris's fault. Everything was his fault. It was a stupid, stupid decision, one of the worst he had made in a long time. One he had no freedom to make. People were depending on him – too many to name – and the whole thing just ached, like a broken wound.

He should have known better.

But his mind was muddled, confused, stuck in the mud with nothing to grab onto. As much as he tried to will it away, to curse it and shove it into some faraway corner of his mind, Toris could not help but think about the crown prince. He could not help but think about his condition, his twitchy fingers and growling stomach. And when he thought about the crown prince he thought of the royal family – the king with his feline eyes, the queen with her angular nose. He thought of the crown prince's bedroom, with its wide bed and red velvet curtains, dark as blood in the night. He thought of the crown prince's nail polish, and his soiled nightclothes, and…

His shoulders, holding themselves with a pride so bright it hurt.

For once, Toris wasn't just thinking about the mission. He wasn't just thinking about Ivan Zimavich. Or the money. Or both of his brothers. For once, he wasn't even thinking about himself.

For once, he was thinking about the person.

Toris was still in shock the morning after the discovery.

The night before felt like a fever dream, like something fell slightly out of place in his memory. He didn't believe it could have happened – and part of him refused to believe it, too, because to be fooled by the crown prince meant that he was wrong, and to be wrong was to be dead in Ivan Zimavich's household. That morning was crowned with dew, little buds of water sprinkled on every blade of grass and spider's web. The sky was gray, covered by the thick fabrics of cumulus clouds. It was a good day for travelling. The bad weather meant less people would be around, and less people meant less exposure… part of him should have been rejoicing, and that part of him was. There was only one thing wrong – a small ache in his chest, one that threw everything off. It wasn't as much physical as it was mental. His mind kept on going back to the ache, and as it went back to the ache he kept on wondering what caused it in the first place.

But he didn't have time to dwell on aches in his chest, much less their cause and meaning. In fact, he didn't think he wanted to know. People would be awake soon. They would be tending to their farms and to themselves, and then they would go wherever people went in the morning – which would put them in direct contact with the crown prince if Toris was particularly unlucky. He allowed himself a moment to dwell on this, letting a suitable amount of fear into his veins to get the blood pumping, before pushing off the ground and folding his burlap sack blanket in two. Toris moved from bag to bag, checking and rechecking their ties then slinging them onto himself. He half-heartedly swiped a soft cloth over his sword, and frowned when it came away covered in dirt. He hated to leave his sword so dirty – something about it was so instinctually wrong, and if he accidentally stabbed himself he risked infection – but it would have to be done later, when he had more time, because all he could focus on at that moment (all he wanted to focus on at that moment) was the long stretch of field ahead and the gradual lightening of the clouds.

"Bags, bags…" he murmured. He picked them up in order of miscellaneous supplies, water, and food, a system that took months to perfect. He planned out where each bag would go – practically memorized it, in fact – that he no longer had to look at each bag, just grabbed and went. He was surveying his surroundings once more (after all, it never hurt to be cautious) when he heard a soft crunch from the food bag. He blinked and coaxed it open. Birch bark. He would have ignored the growling of his stomach and just ate on the walk, but something about the morning made Toris carefully pick two strips and place them on the tip of his tongue. Mm. The minty flavor brightened his tongue. (He remembered what Katyusha said about mint, that it usually quelled anxiety and stomach problems, and put another two strips into his mouth.) He chewed slowly as he went about dirtying the campsite, rustling grass and making it believably natural. A turned stone here was flipped over, and an imprint on a patch of dirt was stomped out. A bug was placed over there. Strands of hair – both the crown prince's and his own – were picked up and stuffed into one of the miscellaneous sacks for later discarding. Toris spit out only what he had to of the birch bark, and when he did he scattered the remaining strings so thin that they were virtually undistinguishable from the landscape. The rest of the remains he forced himself to swallow down.

After a few minutes of work, Toris surveyed the campsite with bags tied around his waist. The cover up was decent – in fact, he was almost proud of himself – but there were areas his eyes were drawn to again and again. There were the places where he scattered the birch bark, and the indent in the grass where he wrestled the crown prince, and the pieces of grass he dug up while walking around… even after fluffing the grass and flattening the birch bark lines, the area still stuck out like a sore thumb to him. Still, he would have to get moving. He had already taken too much time cleaning the campsite, and time wouldn't wait for him a second longer. Besides, he needed to make progress. If he covered enough ground that day, he estimated that they would reach the river in… a week or so. Decent progress, but it couldn't come soon enough. He was standing in front of the crown prince, just about to pick him up, when…

His left hand. It fisted around something and was very much occupied.

The birch bark.

He didn't realize he was carrying it. Somehow, it must have slipped through his mind. A frown tugged at the corner of his lips. He didn't know how he could have been so careless. To have him forget to put away one of the bags of birch bark… annoyance led way to frustration, and frustration gave way to exasperation. He tucked the birch bark under his arm and proceeded to loosen one of the bigger food sacks. It was unlikely to fall out of that sack. He'd adjust it later, when he'd be forced to rest at noon.

A movement caught his attention. It came from his peripheral vision, abrupt and jolted, bringing Toris to a familiar baBUMP-baBUMP before calming itself down. The crown prince was sitting up, posture impeccable except for a slump in his back. He was awake – Toris could tell by the twitching of his hands, and the slight bouncing of his legs – and, if Toris was not mistaken, he was staring right at him.

Even while blindfolded the crown prince's stare felt like it was burning through more than fabric. Toris tore his eyes away from the crown prince and instead focused on the damp birch bark sack, which currently rested on the top of the main food sack, limp and hunched over. If the crown prince was hungry, well, Toris wasn't sure how he'd manage to feed him without being upset. Resentment poked at his heart. The crown prince, after all, wasted a large chunk of his food supply. Toris was supposed to be angry – and he was, deep down. What kind of person wasted food like that? What kind of person smiled after wasting food like that? The same part of him wanted nothing to do with the crown prince. If the crown prince had eaten through a few more bags, he would have sabotaged the entire mission. He would have put Toris's life in danger… and for what?

Toris toyed with the strings of the bigger food sack. If the crown prince was truly hungry, well, that would be a shame. After the events of the day before, Toris wouldn't even consider giving the crown prince more than his fair share – something he should have been doing from the beginning. He shouldn't have to go through hoops and ladders to feed the crown prince. He never treated any of the others like that. The crown prince would be lucky if he even got food today. After all, didn't he deserve punishment for what he'd done?

Yet…

Toris looked back at the prince. His head was bowed, and hair fell in front of his eyes. Although he didn't seem hungry, he could have been hiding it… and Toris remembered that kind of hunger, the ache that went through both stomach and bone. The crown prince coughed. Toris drew his eyes away, slower this time.

No.

No, he did not want to talk to the crown prince. He used his free hand to jab the smaller sack into place amongst the others. Even though they had barely spoken, had not even had a full conversation, there was a part of Toris that felt betrayed – not only by the crown prince, but also himself. That part of him didn't even want to consider offering food. What kind of person was he, forgetting the rules and acting like a parent? What kind of person did that when the world was riding on his shoulders? Maybe Natalya was right. Maybe he should be more selfish.

Then again…

The crown prince had his reasons. And it wasn't as if Toris could let him starved. If he starved, they all starved. If he died… they all died.

Toris paused. He rubbed the strings between his fingers. He remembered the hunger.

One moment later he crouched in front of the crown prince, four strips of birch bark in hand.

He waited for acknowledgement. Something, anything. A bitter "what" would have worked just fine. Even a curse would have suited. It didn't matter, as long as something came out. Of course, that was being optimistic. He got nothing from the crown prince, not even an upwards glance. Disappointment bubbled in his heart, but he quickly and quietly plugged it away. That was to be expected, anyways. Even if the crown prince did curse, it wouldn't have stopped Toris from what he was about to do. It was being done hesitantly, with more than a fair share of wariness, but it was still being done.

"Ah… There's food. If you want some." The words felt like pebbles in his mouth, hard to hold and hard to let drop. He did not like the way they clacked against each other, too stiff for their true clay meaning.

The crown prince lifted his head up, just a fraction. He sniffed. Toris saw lines forming on his forehead, eyebrows knitting together under his blindfold. His head bobbed, and for a moment, Toris thought that he was accepting the birch bark. Then he said something, low and clear and tipped with ice.

"I'd rather starve."

He raised his head, high and full, and looked at Toris.

The crown prince bowed his head after that, and did not speak a single word. He didn't acknowledge the birch bark, nor did he acknowledge Toris. At least, not directly. For there was something Toris knew he had heard for certain, something he would swear by in court even if a knife was held to his throat: the sound of a stomach growling, faint and easy to be drowned out underneath the whistle of the wind.

Toris nodded, faintly. He tried, at least, and he'd try again later, when noon came and they were both thoroughly exhausted. He took a step back and forced his dry throat to find water, birch bark, a voice, something it could cling onto. If he looked and looked he could see the long way ahead – the grass, dull brown in the morning light. The clouds, dark and low. The sky, gray as ash and twice as suffocating.

The sky that spread further than he could ever see.

Slowly, the crown prince's condition grew worse.

The crown prince refused to eat after the discovery. He never directly refused. Instead, he stopped talking. Not only because he could, but because he couldn't – his mouth dried up like sawdust. The crown prince stopped taking water, too, even if it was cold and fresh and not from one of the stale canteens. He chilled the world with his silence, his bitter indifference, his quiet calamity. In that way, the crown prince of Liathea froze over. And his ice began to shatter.

There were times when the crown prince's stomach hurt so much that whimpers slipped through his lips. He would never admit to it, and Toris would never acknowledge it. If the crown prince was asked about why he was whimpering, Toris suspected that he would deflect the question by saying that Toris's presence made him want to vomit, or that the bumpiness of the road irritated his stomach. Toris would accept the answer, of course. He'd ignore the shuffling in the night, and the sweating in the morning, and the gulping whenever Toris chewed a piece of birch bark too loud at breakfast. Toris would ignore it, and the crown prince's silence would be answer enough. They wouldn't need to say anything else. Deep down, they both knew the answer. For the crown prince shivered and shivered like no tomorrow, and when he thought Toris was unaware, he would silently clasp his hands together and dig them into Toris's skin like it was hole he needed to tunnel, a mountain he needed to climb. Something he needed to get away from.

He shivered more than ever before. Even when it was the middle of the day, even when Toris could feel their skin pressing together, even when he was asleep with two blankets over his body. It was a quiet catastrophe, a simultaneous break and unbreak. Like he was trying to keep himself together, or break himself apart. And, unknowingly, Toris shivered with him. Toris would walk and walk and walk, taking step and step after step, only to stop and find himself shaking head to toe. Not because of the crown prince, but because of what he created. What they both created.

Because Toris was just as responsible for the crown prince's hunger strike as the crown prince was. He was the one who went through with the kidnapping, after all. And though he told himself that it wasn't his fault – though he rationalized and argued and sat down to think – he could not help but take most of the blame. If he hadn't gone through with it, the crown prince would be sitting in the castle, enjoying a fine dinner, with chicken and quail and all sorts of meat Toris could only dream of. If he hadn't gone through with it, the crown prince would be sleeping in his goose-feather bed with his silk dressing gown. If he hadn't gone through with it, the crown prince would be riding his horse and practicing fencing. If he hadn't gone through with it…

If he hadn't gone through with it, the crown prince would have been surrounded by family. He would have been surrounded by his mother the queen, with her angular nose, and his father the king, with his inquisitive cat eyes. He would have been surrounded by friends. People who knew him. People who cared about him. People who loved him.

Family.

The one thing Toris and the crown prince had in common. A heart, a core, a center to keep them balanced.

Family.

He wondered what the crown prince's family was like.

Gilbert and him mapped out the royal family's schedule to a T. Toris knew that they woke up at 5 am sharp. He knew that the queen went down for her daily coffee at 5:30, followed by the king at 6 and the crown prince sometime after 7. He knew that breakfast started at 7, and that lunch started at 2, and that in between those times the king was most likely to be found in his private study, the queen in her public parlor, and the crown prince in his bedroom balcony. At 7 they would eat dinner, and after they would retreat and go to bed at 8:30. Their schedule was strict and never changing, and through all of that, the royal family only tended to come together for meals. They left each other alone for the most part, and did not talk much. Their conversation was sparse and fleeting.

Toris wondered what the royal family talked about when they did talk. Did they talk about their lives? Lovers? Futures? If he knew what they talked about, he'd know the crown prince better. And if he knew the crown prince better, maybe he'd know what to do with him. He'd know how to relax a tense situation and when to push him, and when to avoid kicks to the groin. On the physical level maybe he'd know what salves to give, and what poultices to put on, and how to get the crown prince to eat – because the crown prince could hardly hold his head up and collapsed when he walked and let hot, angry tears escape the confines of his drooping eyelids, something that made Toris look away and wish that his eyebrows were drooping. The crown prince would still kick and scratch, but the kicks rarely made contact with Toris's knees. And his scratches felt more like the slow, numbing march of messenger flies on the body of a corpse. If he could get the crown prince to eat… maybe he'd feel better about himself. Maybe they'd both feel better about themselves.

Toris could try to make poultices. He could put them on the crown prince's back and pack them on with a white bandage. He didn't spend years training for nothing. But he would always, always, be inferior to the king and queen. Because nothing – nothing – would be more helpful than the knowledge of the familiar. The home. The family.

It was something Toris wished he could have.

Toris knew a woman once.

She was tall and lanky, almost all muscle and lean meat after years of farming in the plains. She had a proud, sloping nose. A berry-bush spattering of freckles across her cheeks. Long brown hair ending at her waist, coarse and wavy, that she covered with a white bandana and braided into a single, thick rope, swinging at her left shoulder. Her hands were hard. And her expression was serious. She rarely laughed. But when she did smile – when she did laugh – her mouth blossomed like ten thousand wildflowers in summer. Her expression, normally so serious, lit the hard lines of her face in glee. Her eyes melted, warmer than any prairie honey. When her eyes melted, Toris was reminded of home.

Her friends knew her as Aušra. Her colleagues knew her as Laurinaitis. Toris knew her as mother.

Yes, Toris had a mother once. He had a mother of beauty, a mother of all love in the world. She'd take him and Eduard and Raivis out berry picking, vegetable hunting, mushroom digging. When Toris was with her he'd forget about the dirt under his fingers and focus on the dirt underneath his toes, so soft and sweet, a reminder that the earth could be good and holy. When he was with her he'd forgot about the then and focus on the now. He'd swirl it around his tongue like caramel, and so would Eduard and so would Raivis. When they were with her, they could forget about their lives and pretend that they were living. When they were with her, they were living.

And then she got sick.

She was a strong woman, his mother. Aušra Laurinaitis bowed to no man, and certainly not a sickness. She said that she could take on anything. She said that she could take on the biggest grizzly bear and win, then flay its skin and eat its meat for breakfast. Once, she said that she fought the strongest man in the world and sent him crying to the other side of the continent with an imprint of her foot on his ass. Toris believed her. They all did.

But he was still a scared child back then. He was a child back then. He felt the pangs of mortality when a flower died, or when the bird above the chimney fell dead from the roof. So his mother taught him a song. Short and simple, with words easy to remember. He can't remember when she taught it to him, or where. Only the slow, easy cadence of it, easily pliable beneath his lips.

May the sun of this land
Scatter all the gloom and dark,
With Truth and Light,
Guiding our steps forever…

She told him, Whenever you are scared, sing this song. Its words are good and true, and it will always lead the way back home.

But mother, Eduard asked, how can a song lead you home? Isn't that what a compass is for?

Their mother winked at Eduard.

You'll find out when you're older.

Raivis sang the song over and over, especially when he was doing chores. His voice would float through the house, sweet and pure. Then Eduard would join in, with his smooth, supple voice, and so would Toris, weaving in his voice through the last few words and making the song whole again.

They sang, and they sang, and they sang. Whenever they needed a reminder of home, they sang.

And so did Toris when he was alone.

He sang that song many times over. Even when he forgot the words, even when he lost the melody, he continued to sing. He continued to sing, and he was reminded of home. He'd sing the fields, in the river, letting his voice flow through the world and through his body. He'd hum in a crowded street. In a wildflower garden. In a cabin in the woods while making bread. In the forest. In a cold, damp place. In a blooming hill full of poppies. In a bed before dawn, a bed with starchy sheets and hard pillows, a bed where the sound of his own heartbeat was too strong to ignore. A bed, although piled with quilts and blankets, that was farther from any home he'd ever known.

He sang, he sang, and he sang. Farther and farther away from all of the places his mother ever knew. He sang.

He sang in a lone country road, far from civilization and free from view, where a blond boy sat still in the dark.

It was late at night when the crown prince collapsed. He fell onto a tuft of timothy grass, where crickets lay and fireflies danced, and if he had fallen one inch to the left he would have cracked his head and died. But he didn't, and Toris saw this as a sign, a blessing in disguise for him. Then again, it could have just as easily been a curse for the crown prince.

The crown prince lay silent upon the ground, balanced on his shoulder, arms splayed out precariously. The only sound he made upon falling was a choked curse that fell underneath his breath and crumpled under the weight of his silence. Tiny tremors ran through his body. Toris, upon turning around and seeing this, did what any rational person would do: kneel by the crown prince's side and swallow down the panic.

His blood ran cold as he forced his brain to run rational overdrive. The crown prince has collapsed. You must help him. Only his brain didn't want to run into rational overdrive. It ran an anxious track around his body, then another, then another. With shaking hands he groped at his side for anything – a bag, a rope, a sword – and found that his clumsy fingers could not grasp without falling. Biting his cheek, Toris forced himself to yank one of the food bags open and fish out a random smaller one inside.

He was good at these things. He was good at handling tricky scenarios. So he didn't understand why there was such a rush of adrenaline running through him. He didn't understand why he felt so watched and vulnerable in the middle of the night when no one was around, and he didn't understand how he got here, and he didn't understand how he allowed things to get this way. But Toris quickly shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind, along with their cold flashes and shaky hand movements. It wasn't about him. Nothing was about him. For the crown prince was breathing shallowly, and on the ground, with his soiled nightclothes and greasy hair, he almost looked like a corpse.

Toris sat down. After sitting, he lifted the crown prince up and turned him over, placing his head on his thigh. He flinched after brushing the crown prince's hair out of his face. Toris's skin – clammy and cold – felt exactly like the crown prince's.

Toris placed the smaller bag of food by his side and untied it. He peered into it and would have sighed at the contents inside under normal circumstances. Birch bark. Familiar, dry, underwhelming. Only then, it was like unwrapping a bag of gold.

Toris took off the crown prince's mouth cloth, folded it in half, and practically flung it to the side. The crown prince's lips were in worse condition than ever. They were chapped and pale, with hints of what Toris mistook for blood in the late night light. He cursed, made a mental note to give the crown prince some water later, and, using his free hand, shook the crown prince's shoulder.

"You're sick," is what Toris said when the crown prince pursed his lips together in acknowledgement. "You need to eat."

The crown prince laughed a beat too late, breathy and dry, perhaps trying to be bitter. Toris could have sworn the corners of his lips turned up in a mocking half smile. "No."

Blood rushed through Toris's veins. "No!" With his free hand he frantically went through the smaller bag, grabbing as much birch bark as he could. "You have to eat. You're going to die!"

"Die…?" The crown prince trailed off. He seemed to roll the words in his mouth before continuing. "Maybe I want to die."

"No, you don't." Toris pressed. At that point, the line between convincing and pleading were hard to distinguish. "You have so many things left to live for. Your country. Your people. They all want you to live. I want you to live."

The crown prince pushed away Toris's hand. He scooted himself up into a sitting position, only to slump into Toris's chest. Toris reached out another hand to support him, to hold him steady, but the crown prince pushed it away, too. "You want me to live." The crown prince sounded incredulous, just like before, and Toris would have been relieved if it wasn't for how the crown prince had to force the syllables out. "Say that again? You want me to live? …Bullshit."

The crown prince's fists started shaking.

"You know why you want me to live? You know why? It's because I'm a thing to you. I'm just some thing for you to sell and buy and make a profit out of. So you think hey, maybe I'll, like, kidnap the crown prince of my kingdom because it'll make me more popular, right? Bullshit!" The crown prince was wheezing at this point, struggling to get the words off of his chest. Toris felt frozen. He watched as the crown prince's chest rose and fell, rose and fell. "Suddenly you're all, 'oh, I want you to live! Oh, you don't deserve to die! Oh, you need to eat!' You know what? I don't want to be kidnapped. I don't want to be here. But you have the nerve to tell me that I have something to live for? That I shouldn't die even if I want to? When you were the one who took me against my will?"

The crown prince spat onto the ground. His voice, so loud and breathless earlier, lowered.

"I don't care about you." And his voice was so hollow, so eerily calm that Toris had no hesitations in believing him. "I want to die. I'd rather die than be in this hell. So take my mouth again. Take my eyes and my ears and my hands and my feet. Take every single part of me and burn it to ashes for all I care. But you won't take away my death."

There was a long pause filled with nothing but the sounds of crickets chirping, heaving breathing, and Toris's own heartbeat.

"You're wrong," Toris said, quietly.

"What?"

"You're wrong," He repeated.

"Wrong about what?" The crown prince asked. Agitation prickled out of his words.

Toris took a deep breath. In. Out. In. Out.

Damn being passive.

"I think you're afraid."

The statement sliced through the muggy night air, and the crown prince stiffened beside him.

"Afraid?"

The crown prince swiveled before him, carrying a half-bared teeth half-quivering snarl on his face, like a lance ready for the burying. "I'm not scared of you," he said, but his tone lacked conviction. And the snarl was slipping.

"Not of me," Toris said, and he paused. He liked how the words slid between his teeth, but he wasn't sure if they were sugar sweet or poison pure. He breathed, decided that they were both, and bit into the pomegranate teeth first. "I think you're afraid of dying. You are a prince. When I… kidnapped you," the word was hard to say, hard to admit to, and he had to push past all of the seeds in his mouth to spit the rind out, "I took your independence, too. You can't do anything without independence. You can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't breathe. You can't walk without it. Am I right?"

Toris swore he saw a fraction of a nod from the crown prince.

He continued. "You move, but you don't feel. You chew, but you don't eat. You survive…"

Toris shut his eyes. He thought of black cellars, screaming merchants, and the sound of a lance ripping through flesh.

"…But you don't live."

When he opened his eyes again, Toris saw the crown prince's mouth pressed tight against itself.

The snarl was gone.

"So you do anything you can do, even if it is harmful. It's still you. You decided to die because it is the only thing you have left." Toris said, and he didn't like the way it fell so heavy, a gavel pounding on wood. Suddenly, the scene left him with chills. He didn't like how his voice sounded, so authoritative, and he didn't like sitting in the middle of the plains, so vulnerable to sight and people and animals. He didn't like wearing plain clothes. He didn't like stripping the crown prince's armor.

He didn't like stripping his own.

The crown prince still hadn't responded, so Toris continued on.

"I think you're making a hasty decision."

The crown prince stirred. He craned his neck up at Toris, and would have made face to face contact with him if he hadn't crumpled. "I think you're being an ass."

Toris's face flushed bright red. "It's not your decision."

"Not my decision—"

"It isn't," Toris insisted, and continued insisting even when the crown prince protested. He turned redder, but instead of putting him down, making him curl into the wall, Toris felt a rush of blood pumping through his veins. "It isn't. To you, there are no other options. There's no choice. When there's no choice, you take the first option you see. It isn't a decision, it's a must. A must that you haven't thought out fully. You're throwing your life away."

"Throwing my life away?" The crown prince's lip curled. "I'm protecting it from disgusting people like you."

"There's no need to rebel this way."

"Death is the only rebellion left."

"No, it isn't!"

"Stop it!" The crown prince yelled, and Toris flinched back both from the volume and the suddenness of it. "You think you can manipulate me into staying alive? You think you can make me believe that you care? You can't! You don't! I refuse to be one of your stupid little pawns in this game!"

"You're not just a pawn!"

The crickets stopped chirping. The world shifted, froze and unfroze, turned red and black and every color in between.

He raised his voice at the crown prince. Him, Toris Laurinaitis.

He just raised his voice at the crown prince.

Toris didn't realize that he was shaking so violently until he looked at his hands. For a moment he couldn't speak, only look and look and look at his hands – with his fingers, long and callused and trembling like sticks.

He was tired. He was so tired.

He was tired of being passive. He was tired of pretending not to care.

Sorry, Natalya. The one time I'm being selfish… and it's for another person.

(She'd slap him when he'd return. Not that he would mind.)

"You are a human being. You need to eat foods you like. You need to sleep on a nice bed. You need a proper death in a proper cemetery surrounded by people you love. Most of all, you need this with independence. No independence means no life. And you won't get independence if you're dead."

Toris swallowed, hard.

"You need to live. You are not just a son or a prince, Feliks Łukasiewicz. Even though I was the one who kidnapped you, even though I took away your independence and everything else, I don't see you as just a pawn. You are a person. Your life is important! You have dreams like the rest of us. You are made of the same flesh and blood and bone. You have thoughts and feelings and emotions, and though you hate me, I… I understand how you feel. I know what it's like to be afraid. I was afraid, once." I am afraid now. "It isn't always like this. And, if it is… there's no point in throwing your life away to something that can be changed. You'll do more alive than dead. And you don't need to throw your life away on me. For some reason, you've been alive for this long. You deserve to survive for longer, and you deserve to thrive, and you deserve to get somewhere far, far away from here. You deserve to live."

He took a deep breath.

"You aren't protecting your life. If anything, you're doing the opposite. So please… reconsider what you are doing."

A weight lifted off of Toris's shoulder. He slumped back, exhausted, and pressed a shuddering hand to his lips.

He was paranoid, of course. Sitting there at the dead of night, with nothing but the moon lighting his way, Toris felt a chill creep up his spine. Immediately, he was barraged with thoughts – he said too much, he shouldn't have said this, he shouldn't have said anything at all – and his heart raced. He had to choke down a ball of some emotion welling up in his throat. But.

He talked back to the crown prince. Told him what he was thinking, nothing held back.

And for some reason, it felt good.

The crown prince was quiet. Toris studied his face in the light. He watched as his lips pressed and pursed, and he watched as the crown prince bit his lower lip. Was that expression… confusion?

His response was short. Short, and blunt… and quiet.

"What's the point in living if you know you'll die at the end?"

Toris thought about that. Gods, he'd thought about it so many times in the past.

He asked himself every day.

"At least you can say you tried."

Another pause, heavier than the last.

"You'll, like, use me."

Toris hesitated.

A part of him wondered why the crown prince's voice was so small.

"Staying alive when someone wants you dead is the greatest act of rebellion."

There was a long, heavy silence. Toris felt the weight of the crown prince pressing against his legs. He felt the grass underneath his feet, and the wind brushing against his ear, singing a midnight lullaby into it. He could almost fall asleep, really, if he wanted.

The crown prince's lips pursed, though not harshly like before. They were pursed like a child's, deep in thought. His nose twitched.

Toris stood up. The crown prince almost fell over.

"You need to get rest." Toris said curtly, though he knew he himself wasn't going to get much rest. He bent down and brushed the grass off of his pants, smacking it loudly, harshly, because really, he didn't know what to do with his hands. Then, after securing the crown prince's mouth cloth (not too tightly) and a moment's consideration, he placed the opened bag of birch bark in the crown prince's lap, right by his hands.

"The birch bark is here. Goodnight."

That night, Toris Laurinaitis covered himself with his burlap sack blanket and gazed up at the stars.

He did not sleep for hours.

That morning, Toris awoke to the sound of buzzing in his ear. He woke up in a panic, thinking that it was a stampede or the swish of a horse's tail or something. Blankets flying, limbs moving, hand flying to his sword –

It was the buzz of a mayfly.

After blinking the sleep from his eyes and taking in the bleariness of early morning, he started in on his morning routine. Fold the blanket. Press it into his bag. Stretch. Turn around and check on the crown prince.

The crown prince was sleeping, as usual, only this time he was sleeping upright. His head was bowed low, hair in front of his eyes. Toris stepped over to him slowly, so as not to disturb his peace. After the conversation of the previous night, he didn't think he wanted to disturb the peace. The thought of having a conversation when the crown prince knew all of his vulnerabilities irked him. No, not irked. It unsettled him.

He scanned the crown prince, searching for any signs of injury or harm when…

Oh.

The birch bark.

Toris peered at the small bag. Was it just him, or was it sagging lower than it usually did? Perhaps it was a trick of the light. The morning spread convincing shadows over the plains, ones that even spooked the bravest of knights. But…

Toris widened his eyes in shock. Around the crown prince, spat out by his left thigh, was a pile of coarse strings. They were light brown and very damp.

He grabbed the birch bark bag and peered into it.

It was completely empty.

Holy shit! After three chapters, they interact again! After three chapters, Toris Laurinaitis and Feliks Łukasiewicz actually interact!

I know. I was shocked, too. Ahaha... and so it begins. The end of Arc I of Knight Unexpected, six+ chapters of filler and exposition (lololol), and the start of the actual story. In hindsight I probably should've gotten all of the exposition done way earlier, but... this fic will be a learning experience, I guess. I'll take it in stride.

I really hope I got Toris's character down. ;_;; Feliks is pretty easy to write. He has a distinct voice and personality. But Toris is harder because of his niceness... which isn't a bad thing, really, because he has a lot of inner conflict about said niceness, but. I'll get to that later. Anyways.

So yeah. Toris and Feliks are going to interact a lot more from here on out. Consider this chapter the first building block of their relationship. And believe me... there's gonna be a lot of relationship. I'm a sucker for slow burn and these two are as slow burn as you can get, so their development is gonna be pretty fun to watch and write. :)

Next comes Chapter Seven, which is one of the first major chapters I ever planned out, so be prepared for that. Hold on tight for that one because. Oh boy. It's gonna be wild. Then comes Chapter Eight, which marks the end of Arc I. I'll probably take a mini-hiatus after Chapter Eight, just to write this one thing I've been thinking of and to solidify some ideas. When I come back from this possible hiatus, though, the ball's gonna be rolling. I'm excited to see where this fic will take me.

That's all I have for this update. Feel free to leave a review or a PM if you'd like - critique and advice is always welcome. My tumblr ask box is open 24/7, so if you want to send something there you can, too.

As always, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter of Knight Unexpected. Peace out!

-NC

tumblr: nonbinarymage

fic tag: fic: knight unexpected

Edit: I FORGOT TO MENTION - the song Toris's mom teaches him is part of the Lithuanian national anthem, Tautiška giesmė.

Also, I'm uploading this fic to archiveofourown! :D Same title, same summary, but my username there is marcorooniandcheese. Check it out there if you'd like!

9-3-17

Hello.

It's been six months since I've last updated this story, and during that time I have both grown and fallen as an author. I've grown in that I've taken a hard look at this story and have recognized its flaws, its imperfections, all of the things that made it beautiful when I first started writing and now make it old and obsolete. I was proud of those things, once. I still am. They were accomplishments that a young NC could only dream of achieving, and for that I am grateful. However, with age comes introspection and maturity, and those things that I was (and still am) proud of now come with their deal of embarrassment and cringe. I've fallen – or perhaps risen, depending on your take on it - in that after taking a look at all of these flaws, I've recognized one very important thing about myself: I no longer want to write Knight Unexpected in the way I originally plotted it.

Let's face it. The writing is clunky at best, monotonous at worst. Toris's internal monologues go on and on and on for so long that they grow repetitive. The characterization is all over the place. Though I tried my best with Feliks and felt that I handled him well at the time, now I feel as if he grows too trusting too fast. Same with Toris. The worldbuilding is shallow, full of plot holes and unanswered inconsistencies. Lastly… it's too slow. Honestly, young NC had no idea how to pace anything. (I still don't know how to pace anything. Now I'm just better at hiding it.) :^/c

Most of all…

The story got boring to write.

Although I hold this story near and dear to my heart, I've come to realize that I only kept writing for the sake of finishing it and not for the sake of telling the story. The original plot is just plain tedious. I thought it would be fun when I first started writing, but after the third or so chapter I began to realize that it was not as fun as I thought it was – and instead it became way more stifling. So stifling, in fact, that I motivated myself to get through the story with the thought of writing a few fleeting, exciting scenes that happen later on. I procrastinated on writing those boring scenes, and because of that I was kept from writing anything for a good number of months. I didn't want to write anything that wasn't Knight Unexpected, but that only hurt me as a writer and a person. Knight Unexpected has been holding me back for so long. Trying to complete it has kept me from starting other projects that I have more inspiration for. At some point, I came to realize that I was treating this story more like a job than the passion project it should be. And I shouldn't treat it that way. Both you and I and the story itself deserve more respect than that.

I want to come back to writing. True writing. I want to come back to the days when I would write stories for fun, not because I felt obligated to finish them. I've been dying to write an aforementioned handful of scenes for two years now. Yes, I had them plotted out since the very beginning. Yes, they would be satisfying to write. But are they worth dragging myself through a repetitive work that I have no more inspiration for? Of course not. I miss the days when writing renewed and invigorated me, and I am eager to return to them wholeheartedly, with my whole effort. And to do that, I need to let go of this work. I need to take a breather and remind myself of why I really started writing and telling stories in the first place.

Maybe those scenes will appear in some other work, or maybe I'll write them out as standalone fics. They will, however, never appear in the original Knight Unexpected.

As of 9-3-17, I am putting Knight Unexpected on hiatus. It's been a good two years, but I'm ready to move on. To everyone who has reviewed, favorited, and followed this story, I'm truly sorry that I never got to finish it, and I truly apologize for it. However, as a person who is both concerned for themselves and the wellbeing of their readers, I must leave this story be for a long while. I would rather indulge myself and my readers in a passion project that I wholeheartedly love rather than attempt to drag myself through a stale, dead end project.

Thank you all so, so much for your lovely reviews. Seeing the review notification in my inbox was honestly one of the highlights of this fic's short career. Don't worry – you can still leave reviews if you wish. I won't delete this fic. It has too much sentimental value for me to take off the Internet. In a few years, maybe I'll look back at this fic and laugh at the clunkiness of my writing. I hope I will. I hope to write for a good, long time after this.

Thank you all so, so much for your support. I love you all. However, I won't say goodbye. Rather, I'll say see you later. Because, you see…

Originally, my desire to finish this fic was what kept me from bringing out this new idea. But I've been dwelling on it for a while. And I've decided to say fuck it.

After a long, good hiatus, I will bring back Knight Unexpected with the same general rivalry idea, but a different plot. It'll be an actual dynamic plot that isn't just Toris monologuing about walking. Shocking, I know. I wish I would have done this sooner, but! It isn't too late now. Believe me, I still want to write about fantasy LietPol – just not in the way I originally intended. Knight Unexpected's original incarnation is better as a purely self-indulgent, self-kept AU. The revision I have in mind will be both a pleasure to write and to read. I can assure you all of that.

So adieu, farewell, see you again soon, my dear readers. It was a pleasure to have all of you come on this two year journey with me, and it will be a pleasure to meet you all again when I've become a better, happier, more self-indulgent writer who loves their craft again. Let's meet under happier skies.

Until we meet again.

Peace out!

-NC

P.S. As always, my tumblr is nonbinarymage. Send me an ask or an IM if you have any burning questions about the fic that I haven't addressed.