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mofmans · 6 years ago

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Childhood Amnesia

Reverse AU - Magi!Hakuryuu and King Vessel!Judar

(Judar is 8 and Hakuryuu is 6)

Judar’s not sure if this is magic or just the mood, but the air right outside of Hakuryuu’s room is cooler than the rest of the palace. Actually, cool would be an understatement, because he could feel, step by step, the heat drain out of his body, pulling goosebumps up from his arms. It’s spring and yet when he can see his breath when he stands right in front of the door. Sliding open the door feels like pulling a slab of ice away but his suspicions of magic were verified by the layer of frost that covered every solid surface of the room except for the young prince and magi himself. Judar’s exhale drags out into the room. It’s one of those days. Hakuryuu must have gone through one of those sessions with the organization. Whatever magic spills from the magi differs each time, but the silence is always the same. It has an odd, familiar quality to it, which is sad to admit because Judar can’t even count the number of times this has happened now.

But enough of that moping. Judar jumps onto the bed with his dirty boots on, making sure that he leaves shoeprints on the fancy royal sheets. That’ll give Hakuryuu something to get angry about later, that always helps him jump back to his usual self. He crosses his arms and scoots closer to Hakuryuu, who’s hugging his knees on the corner of the bed. The boy isn’t budging at all and Judar pokes his shoulder just to make sure that he didn’t accidentally freeze to death.

“Hey.” Judar ruffles the boy’s hair, pulling some of the locks away from his bun, “Did you have to meet with the organization again?”

A long sniffle and no response. This is also familiar, so much so that it almost feels like it’s scripted at this point, with the only difference being that ice is used as the props of the stage rather than water or a completely crumbled room. Judar could count to ten in his head and… as expected, Hakuryuu leans on his side, just like clockwork.

Judar sighs and tries to recall Hakuei’s advice. He wants to tell her off though, because fuck, if she knows better then she should be the nice older sister that comes over to console the crybaby instead. She briefly mentioned once about her relationship with Hakuryuu becoming more strained but… whatever, it’s not his job to care about whatever family drama is going on. What matters right now is that if he doesn’t try to do something, Hakuryuu will just stay like this for the rest of the day, and this entire side of the palace might get encased in ice.

He looks over at the prince, who’s still facing down, “...You have a name, right?”

“...Hakuryuu.”

“You remember that much, nice.”

Hakuryuu huffs in response. It’s like he’s reverted back to how quiet he was when they first met, when Judar spent the whole night in his room without barely a word on Hakuryuu’s end as the servants got him “proper Kou clothes” instead of those “savage garbs.”

Just like before though, Judar doesn’t have much choice but to keep trying. “...Remember how you took me in?”

A nod.

Judar groans. “Uh. Tell me about it then. I’m fuzzy on the details.” He scratches the back of his head and tries to not look like he’s shivering too much.

“You already know.”

Of course he already knows. He remembers every second of it, every jolt of pain as his burned fists tried to pound against the barrier, the overwhelming scent of charred flesh that told him again and again that it won’t be long before he joined the ashes. How could he not forget the stone glare that responded to his wrath, blocking everything yet held just the smallest glimmer of light from the flames behind them, something that hinted at a living soul behind the murder machine, something buried under ancient magic when the flesh wasn’t even a decade old.

“Uh. No I don’t.” Judar lies, like a liar.

Hakuryuu sniffles again and sighs, “...Even if you’re too stupid to remember, you can just look at your hands.”

“Says the one who’s got burn scars on his face and all over his body.”

“Are you just here to bother me and make me feel worse?”

“Well, yeah. Better than you staring off into space for the entire day.”

Judar doesn’t need to see Hakuryuu’s face to know he’s pouting. The magi’s eyes are probably all red and puffy too, which had the curious effect of making the scar on the left side of his face look all funky. Hakuryuu’s most likely aware of that too, that’s probably why he’ll keep his face down until the swelling goes down or his neck breaks.

“Come on,” Judar pokes Hakuryuu on the cheek, “tell me, tell me!”

The smaller boy huffs, barely audible. As if he didn’t notice that Judar makes him do this every single time. Is the boy that obsessed with making sure he remembers how they met?

“Fine.” His fists clench at his robes. “Don’t interrupt me though.”

Fire. Absent of trees or any standing buildings. Almost completely absent of standing human beings either, at least no humans that are supposed to be living in these plains. The fires that ate at the grass and the crawling mounds of flesh were the tallest, most noticeable figures in the rubble that Hakuryuu gazed upon. Breaking through the band of warriors was easy enough, and Hakuryuu might say that watching their spines snap as he commanded a wave of force to throw them into the mountains was even fun. None of those warriors were in sight anymore, though. Only the licks of a gluttonous fire.

He should be proud of this. All of the magicians have been praising him for how much his strength magic has improved over the past month, and now he’s allowed to use it outside of the borders of the empire for the first time. He should be proud to show how much he can do now, proud to show that he’s not just a baby, that he can do something. But his eyes feel like they’re burning hot while staring at the fire. Why does he feel so close to crying already? He’s doing a good job, there’s no reason for anyone to get upset at him?

“What’s wrong?” He felt his mother’s gentle hand pat him on the head, softly stroking his hair in a nurturing gesture, yet it took everything in him to not scream, “Oh I see… My poor little Hakuryuu… Are you still afraid of the fire? I thought you said you were a big boy now. We might need to do another session to make sure you grow up strong, then.”

He shivered at those words and he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why his legs started to move on their own either, running off to the side of the burning village, as if there might be an area with a little less smoke, a little friendlier fire, a little more rubble and guts to make up for the heat that’s pressing everywhere. He looked back once and immediately regretted seeing the twisted smile on Gyokuen’s face.

At least by running he can get away from that for a little while, he won’t ahve to fear if the next pay on the head will start that lurching feeling in his gut, make his head spin and throat choke up, like there’s smoke inside his lungs again.

...Again? But this is his first encounter with such a large fire. That’s why it’s so terrifying, because it’s new, not because it’s familiar.

His legs aren’t listening to the thoughts in his head. Even when he finally does stop moving, the fires are still in front of him, the only difference being that he’s completely alone now. Alone, against the flames. Flames that could consume him at any moment, burn him alive into a crisp.

“You!”

Hakuryuu heard the thunk of a small fist hitting the borg. He turned around. Hitting and hitting again, thuds too soft for a grown man but too loud for a burning crisp of a body. There’s a face of a boy, still alive, still unscarred unlike his own face, right in front of him.

“You! You did this, didn’t you?” The boy’s gotten the borg all dirty, smeared red and nasty. There was a moist quality to the thudding noises, “Get out of that stupid shell so I can kill you! I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you-”

Hakuryuu stopped listening to whatever racket this boy, relatively unscathed from the ever-present fire, was making. That didn’t matter. He could just squash the bug easily, the force necessarily to kill him wouldn’t even manifest in a black wave like most of his strength magic.

But he doesn’t do it.

The boy was relentless, each thud sounding sloppier and sloppier, blood and flesh colliding against the wall of magic. Hakuryuu saw it now, the boy’s hands were burned, barely any skin left intact, yet it didn’t seem to matter to him if blood smeared and splashed against the immovable borg. Every once in a while he would even kick, and it was clear that the fire didn’t melt only his hands, but burned at the feet and legs too. Something in Hakuryuu’s gut tells him it’ll leave scars that run just as deep as his.

“Young prince!” Who interrupted this. Hakuryuu doesn’t even look when he whispered a spell under his breath, causing the soldier to be crushed into the ground, bones snapping like a twig. And yet strangely enough, the boy doesn’t even stop from that? What a wild one. Hakuryuu felt the corners of his lip twitch up.

“Huh? What are you smiling at, you fr-HEY STOP LET GO OF ME-”

Gyokuen finally made it to wherever they were and smiled at the sight of Hakuryuu holding the wild boy with a giant black arm made of pure force that almost looked like an extension of the borg. Even now the boy’s trying to bite at the fingers as if the magic arm could feel pain.

“There you were Hakuryuu... did you want to bring that back as a pet?”

Judar yawns, “Your storytelling sucks. You have zero emotion in your voice, I could’ve fallen asleep from that if it wasn’t so fucking cold.” He rubs his hands up and down his sleeve to make some heat, “Maybe if you actually talked more around the palace, then you’d learn to show emotion in some way other than crying and crushing people’s guts.” Hakuryuu punches him on the arm and Judar yelps with an obviously comical tone.

“Then stop asking me to tell it again. And stop the “You have a name, right?” thing too.”

“You suck at imitations. But you remember how I asked you that the first night I was brought here, and you just wrote your name in that fancy calligraphy style? You were so ticked off when I couldn’t understand what the fuck that meant! Classic.”

“...Why do you keep doing this.”

Judar blinks, then smiled, “Uh, to fuck with you obviously. I like you better when you’re all pissed off and ready to fight instead of weepy and nonreactive.” It takes a moment but Hakuryuu finally looks up, eyes just as puffy as Judar expected them to be, dried tear trails and all. His whole face is red, with the scar an even darker shade, from all the blood that rushed down while he kept his head down like an ostrich.

“Stop lying just to sound like you don’t care. Tell me the truth, Judar.”

Judar sighs and shrugs, “Well, how can I go against my magi when he demands and answer from me like that?” He idly scratches the back of his head with his free arm, the one that wasn’t punched by Hakuryuu just a moment ago, “...I just wanna make sure you don’t forget, simple as that.”

Hakuryuu stares at him and it’s… unsettling. Not because he’s angry or weirded out, but because there was no emotion to it whatsoever besides- “...I’m lost. Why would I ever forget something as important as that?”

Judar bites the inside of his cheek and brings his hand down to grip at the sheets instead, twisting them around his fist. If it was anyone else, he’d yell. If it was any other kind of situation, he’d yell. “I mean. Most people wouldn’t. But you say your head gets all fuzzy after those sessions with the organization.” Hakuryuu opens his mouth as if to say something, but ends up biting his tongue instead and looks out the window.

“...Yeah, of course.” Does he actually remember or is he just pretending to understand what’s going on? Judar stares at him, trying to find something that could let him decode what is going on in Hakuryuu’s head but he’s getting nothing. Even if Hakuryuu couldn’t remember, what could a non-magician like him do? He pats the younger boy’s head, careful not to mess with the hair this time. What Judar would do to be able to cast some spell that guaranteed to keep those memories intact in that small head.

Judar stands up, “...I’m leaving. I’m gonna fucking freeze to death here.” He jumps out of the bed and has to grip onto the bed frame to not slip from the ice covered floor.

“Careful there-” Hakuryuu’s eyes widen, “Wait… You got on my bed with your muddy boots again?” But Judar’s already taking off at this point, “Judar, come back here you- EUGH!”

(10 years later)

“You’re gonna walk into a wall if you keep doing that.” Judar sighs. Hakuryuu could’ve easily just taken some time after the meeting to jot down whatever notes he needs to write but no. He has to be a difficult bastard that’s racing down every thought on a small magic scroll as they’re walking from one place to another.

“I have a borg, you know.”

“Sure, whatever. You still look stupid as hell when you do that.”

Hakuryuu looks right into Judar’s eyes with a glare. Not a death glare, more like a medium glare, one that’s slightly ticked but won’t get anyone killed yet. “And you looked stupid as hell while I had to carry you through that dungeon. If I wasn’t guiding you, Caacrinolaas would most certainly have killed you instead of giving you the vessel.”

“Ouch, you always aim straight for the heart!” Judar puts his hand to his chest, “How does that differ from all the times you helped you sister and your step-siblings through the dungeons?”

“They actually got through it by themselves. I only needed to watch.”

“Fuck off.” Judar kicks at him but it’s deflected by the borg as usual.

There’s a hint of a smile on Hakuryuu’s face, which is more than anyone else can do so Judar’s pretty damn proud of that. “Anyway. If you’re so concerned about me bumping against things, then why don’t you-” He presses the scroll against Judar’s chest, “-scribe things for me.”

“...Me? What do you think I am, some sort of advisor servant?” Judar swats the scroll away.

“No, but you are my retainer. And now my vessel too.” Hakuryuu slides the scroll into his pocket instead of finishing whatever thought he was on.

“So is the rest of your family.”

“They’re king vessels, but they’re absolutely not my retainers.”

They stop in front of a room where Hakuryuu is supposed to get tutoring. Judar leans against his spear and huffs, “Do I have to do the same shit I used to do when you were tiny, make you recite whatever you remember again and again until you get pissed off and destroy the wall?”

The pause and the lopsided downward curl on Hakuryuu’s lips makes Judar realize the slip he made but he doesn’t get to say anything before the magi takes the spear, almost making Judar lose balance, “...Whatever you mean by that, I don’t need it. Also, you’re going to Sindria without Caacrinolaas.”

“....Wait. What?” Judar doesn’t even get a chance to fix the slip he’s made because of the sudden topic change.

“You will get your next vessel with just your own skills. If you die, then that just means you didn’t deserve this first vessel anyway.”

Wow. He really doesn’t care if Judar dies in the process, does he. But that doesn’t seem surprising at all when he looks at the magi’s remorseless expression. He’s also probably pissed off that he doesn’t have any recollection of what Judar talked about. Frankly, if he presses any further, he might just lose an arm or a leg.

“Well you don’t have to worry about that cause I’ll come back with not one but two metal vessels, without needing any of your dumb magic!” Judar crosses his arms such that his scarred hands are hidden under his biceps and Hakuryuu… chuckles? That’s something new.

“Fine. I’ll grind your bones into dust if you disappoint me at all.” He says with a small but defiant smile.

Judar smiles back. Even if Hakuryuu’s a forgetful shit, at least he knows how to stay interesting in the weird way he is. “Yeah, you better be ready to kiss my ass when I come back with two new shiny vessels. I’ll be so strong I’ll leave Kouen shaking in his boots.”

“Yeah. Sure you will.”

#magi #juhaku #judaryuu #ren hakuryuu #judar #fritzi attempts to write

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