#ryan needing to feel in control. onyx needing to feel useful and good. cardan needing to be the center of attention

[rainbowsandwhumperflies]

The Winged Servant - 8

Content warnings: life threatening situations, sword fighting (written by someone who knows nothing about it), minor character death (not super graphic but does have some description), royal whump, whumpee is sooo desperate for validation, let me know if I forgot anything!

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Get it together.

Stay on your feet, and stay behind me.

Get through tonight.

Stay on your feet.

Get through tonight.

I was not a soldier. The princes weren’t either, but they’d spent their recent years becoming agile in a way that I’d spent the recent years getting trained out of. I wasn’t supposed to flinch away from things, wasn’t supposed to react to things. My job was doing what I was told, and thinking it through later.

“If someone aims a weapon at you,” Prince Ryan was saying, “then you do your best not to let that weapon touch you. Should be simple enough. Can you do that?”

I nodded slowly. “Um- Your Highness. I can- yes, but, uh, you have trained me not to react to weapons.”

He frowned. “I am giving you a direct order to ignore that training for the given moment.”

“Yes, Your Highness. Just-” Just, it wasn’t exactly my first instinct to get away anymore. “I just don’t think I will be very good at it. My apologies, Your Highness, I don’t mean-”

“For fuck’s sake, Onyx,” the prince snapped, and I shut my mouth. “Yeah, I know about your training. Just follow me and try not to get hurt. Can't you manage that?”

I nodded again. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“Good.” We'd split up from everyone else, wandering up two staircases and through a dark hallway. Prince Ryan seemed to know where we were. “What we're doing here tonight is overthrowing an idiot who thinks he has more right to the crown than us. It shouldn't take long, because again, he's an idiot. The country is weak, now, under his rule. But he's going to try to kill us anyway, and all you've gotta do is avoid the people trying to kill us.”

“... Yes, Your Highness.” The country shouldn't be under someone else's rule. It should be under the Queen's rule. That's what it had been under, forever, since as long as I could remember, right? Sixteen generations back. Her Majesty, of course, and her father before her. And his mother, and her uncle.

Prince Ryan stopped abruptly, and I didn’t notice quite fast enough to keep myself from running into his back. He spared a glance at me, rolling his eyes before poking his head around the corner. “God, Onyx, stop thinking so much. We have more important things to be doing.”

“Yes, Your-”

The sound of footsteps echoed in the hallway ahead of us, and we both fell silent. “Stay here,” the prince breathed, “until I explicitly tell you to move. Don’t talk, don’t move, don’t breathe too loudly. Do you understand?”

I nodded, too frozen to think of a proper response, and he turned around just in time to see two guards turn the corner.

The prince had the obvious advantage—the guards hadn’t expected anyone to be here. He didn’t waste any time, shoving his sword through the throat of one guard and knocking the other flat on his back.

The guard coughed and started to raise his shield, but hesitated for a moment. “Ryan?”

Prince Ryan blinked, but quickly recovered his composure. “If I stab you, you will not die quickly. Stabbing doesn’t have a high mortality rate, but the blood loss will get you eventually. Unfortunately, the time in between the stab and the death won’t exactly be fun for you. Stay quiet, and maybe we won’t have to do that.”

“But- but I-”

The prince slit the throat of the guard.

As was… his right. Of course. As a member of the royal family, his right was to do whatever the fuck he wanted, just- this was the third person tonight that I had watched die. And that was fine because I could be a good servant, I could, I could let this happen.

Get through tonight, Prince Ryan had told me. We’ve gotta get through tonight.

I could do that, couldn’t I? I was a good servant, he’d told me that so many times, I could be a good servant and shut up and stop thinking and do what I was told.

“May I assist you with anything, Your Highness?” I didn't say please, because I wasn't supposed to beg, wasn't supposed to want anything enough to beg for it, but I would've liked- I would have been happy to help. Good servants didn't have likes, but I would’ve been happy to help. Happy to serve the royal family. Happy to be given a task so that I could focus on that instead of the bodies on the floor.

Prince Ryan pulled at the edge of the guard’s shirt, using the fabric to clean the blood off of his sword. He ignored the blood pooling on the floor, soaking into his pants. I let my mind wander for a moment, considering whether or not I’d be able to get rid of the stain.

Probably not. There was- god, there was so much blood. The prince’s hands shook slightly as his sword was resheathed. Barely a few hours ago, those hands stroked my hair while Prince Ryan told me what a good boy I was.

Good servants didn’t have likes and didn’t have wants, but selfishly, I hoped that he would give me an order, a use.

“Just… hold on for a minute,” he said eventually. “Let me think. Lucas shouldn’t- um, the guards shouldn’t have been here. Cardan’s neutralizing the guards. Or… he’s supposed to be.” He let out a long sigh. “Except he probably isn’t, because it would kill him to listen to anything I say. Okay. Okay. I can still fix this.”

He rose to his feet. “Alright. Same plan, I’ll just have to take care of the guards myself. Fine. Fine. You know what? Keiran’s the type to let his castle get understaffed on a Monday night. I bet we won’t even run into any more guards on the way. This will be fine.”

I winced as more footsteps sounded in the hall.

Prince Ryan’s sword flew toward the noise, coming to a stop at the throat of Prince Cardan.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Prince Ryan said, not moving the sword away.

“Oh, like I’d let you have all the glory of killing Kieran. Come on, let me through.”

“I’m taking him captive. I’m not killing him, and neither are you.”

“Mom said you could if you had to. I’ll make something up. Besides, we’ll kill him by the end of the week anyway.”

Prince Ryan was starting to look bored. “You are supposed to be neutralizing the guards. Please do that.”

“It’s actually a very boring job, just waiting for guards to show up. And honestly, it’s easy enough that Onyx could do it.” Prince Cardan leaned slowly away from his brother’s sword as he talked, but it followed closely, pressing further into his neck at the mention of my name.

“Are you sure that this is the hill you want to die on?”

Prince Cardan smiled confidently, even as a bead of his blood ran down his neck. “You make it sound like you’ll be killing me yourself.”

“Don’t tempt me. Can I interest you in doing your job for once instead, so that I can go back to doing mine?”

“You’re no fun.” Prince Cardan pulled his own sword out, knocking away his brother’s. “I’m the better fighter anyway.” 

“What, because you can hit harder? That doesn’t make you better.”

“It does in a situation where all I have to do is hit hard.” 

He swung at Prince Ryan, who dodged effortlessly. “We both know who’s going to win this, Cardan. You’re rash, impulsive, and careless. On top of all that, you’re predictable. You’re much more interested in hurting others than you are protecting yourself, which means that each time you try to attack-” He sidestepped a thrust and whacked Prince Cardan’s torso with the flat side of his sword. “You leave yourself completely open. That slip-up could have meant your death. I don’t have time for play-fighting.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” Prince Cardan waited until his brother had turned around to lunge toward him, letting his sword dig a gash into Prince Ryan’s arm.

“What the fuck, Cardan? All I ever ask from you is listen to what you’re told, and you stab me for it?” Prince Ryan’s voice raised, and I flinched as the other prince matched his volume.

“Yeah, well, I won! So let me go kill Kieran.”

“You won? Really? You are so fucking petty. We weren’t fighting for who gets to kill Kieran! I was proving a point. And even if we were fighting, I won! You played dirty because you’re a sore loser!”

“I wouldn’t have done that if you’d just let me kill Kieran! We’re going to kill him anyway. I don’t understand why you’re being such a whiny bitch about doing it at exactly the right time and by the right person’s hand!”

“Oh, this is my fault now? If you’d just neutralized guards like you were supposed to- like you agreed to, then the plan would be going along just fine. If you’d neutralized the guards like you were supposed to, they wouldn’t have had to die!”

There were more footsteps. Not loud, not close, but loud enough. Close enough. And both of the princes had dropped their swords in favor of arguing with each other.

“Your, um, Your Highnesses-”

“Stay out of this, you stupid bird,” Prince Cardan growled at me, and I nodded quickly.

“My apologies, Your Highness.” I pressed my back up against the wall as the footsteps got louder.

~

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