Prince Charming

Note: Updating only once a week feels so slow for me…and I’m tempted to update faster, but then I fear I’ll lag and soon won’t have anything to update with. Right now, as summer draws near, I’m busy, busy, busy…but as soon as summer actually arrives…I’ll have all the free time in the world! Save for extra hours at work and yada yada…but whatever. I’ll have more time then while in school. xD ^^;

Anyway, so yeah…only four more weeks! Three? Something like that…it’s getting closer! Hope this chapter kinda clears you people up on the questions you had about Teige’s ‘odd’ behavior in the last one……onto the chap!

Chapter Three

Drake. Teige had the instant urge to test the name on his lips, speak it to feel how it sounded on his tongue, but he resisted, deciding that in this situation, silence would likely fit him best. In his chamber, after catching the name from one of Cyprien’s less controlled bouts of anger in which ‘Davinoff’ became a heavily used curse to shun the warrior’s name, he had spoken that title to himself many times over. Over the course of time, as, unlike many others, Davinoff hadn’t fall, actually successfully eluded the vampire’s many snares, he had played out numerous scenarios in his mind, a thousand different valiant rescues in which he and the ‘white knight’ rode off into the sunset. Unfortunately, of all these fanciful conjured-up pictures produced by a wistful imagination to keep his sanity, none of them included either rain, or cold, or mud, and his current situation dampened the possibility of a happily-ever-after.

Standing before a man three times his size in the dead of night, frigid cold and soaked to the bone, Teige had a hard time seeing any ‘happy’ in his ever after, but decided to try and worry about surviving the night before thinking about his distant future. Obviously, the man had assumed he was female, and though something told him not to let that false notion carry on for longer than it had to, he couldn’t get up the nerve to correct it. Besides, what harm could come of simply waiting till morning?

“Get on.” The command came out solid with enough force to make it clearly audible regardless of the storm, but it took Teige a moment to comprehend that the man had spoken to him, and not someone else. The fact that there was no one else around alive within a number of miles made no difference to his scattered mind. After a moment, as that fact did sink in, he lifted his face with a snap, voice shaky from both cold and embarrassment.

“W-what?”

Impatient, the larger male rolled his eyes with something that sounded discerningly similar to a growl. Unwilling to waste another moment’s breath on babble, Drake went straight to the point, gripping the petite waist before him and lifting the smaller man with apparently no difficulty. He ignored the other’s screech as he did so.

Instantly upon landing, sidesaddle because of the dress, Teige’s grip clutched to the mane before him for dear life, eyes tightly shut and face buried against the horse’s neck. His rapid flow of terror-stricken words all jumbled into one, completely inaudible due to a number of reasons including: increasingly loud thunder crashes, his voice being barely above a panicked whisper in the first place, and his mouth being surrounded and effectively muffled by horse-hair. He didn’t know Davinoff had mounted until a solid grip circled across his stomach, and he let out his second undignified yelp of the night as a single tug from the other snapped his body up to where he sat straight, back flat against the other’s armor-plated chest.

“Sit up.” The gruff voice, spoken in his ear so as not to have the words lost to the raging wind, sent a shaft of heat directly through his chilled body, leaving a bright red mark on his cheeks and making the smaller man swallow nervously. Seconds later, the horse pulled into a gallop, turning away from the dreary dark tower and heading straight for the looming forest ahead in the opposite direction. As the horse’s hooves beat at the muddy ground beneath them, Drake’s arms stayed on either side of him, gripping the reins, but keeping him in place as effectively as two steel bars could have ever hoped to.

Approaching the dense foliage, Teige tried to think positively, to ignore his nasty premonitions, the surrounding weather, and, most of all, thoughts of Cyprien. After so many nights filled with hopes and prayers for a rescue like this, he had never expected to feel such…loss…when the event actually occurred. Alone, he had always told himself that he hated the overpowering immortal, wished him dead even, and would do anything to make that wish come true, but somewhere, deeply hidden in his heart, he knew that Cyprien had, in fact, spoken true. No matter how he’d fought it, in the end, Teige had grown attached to his captor.

Once under the cover of trees, the rain lessened substantially, diminishing to a misty drizzle; nonetheless, Teige’s grip remained as knuckle-white as ever, his body rigid and tense as that of one facing a phobia. Even when the horse’s pace slowed to a steady trot, he kept stiff and inflexible as the trees surrounding them, his eyes and wiry muscles on alert, obviously not at ease.

“We stop here for the night.” It took all his will not to jump in the saddle at the sudden voice, deep and once again close to his ear, though further away this time due to the lesser amount of noise surrounding them. “The town is too far, too dangerous. Dismount.”

Fluidly, the larger man dismounted behind him, landing on the ground without a single insecurity and tying off the reigns in the almost the same instant; the same couldn’t be said for Teige, his features even paler than usual with the look of someone who’d seen a ghost. After a moment, the warrior took this into account and frowned slightly, moving to the back of the horse to see which, if any, of the rolled up supplies had gotten wet beneath the sleek, waterproof skin covering them. As he checked, he spoke to the petrified rider still atop his steed.

“Can’t you dismount?”

Keeping his eyes glued forward, not daring to turn for fear of loosing his balance, Teige’s voice came out barely above a squeak. “I’ve never…ridden…a horse before. This…beast…is huge.”

The redhead frowned, hefting a large pack of the waterproof skins onto his shoulder, then laying them out on the driest patch of grass nearby. “Forgive me, milady…but you’ve never ridden a horse?”

Again, Teige’s cheeks heated, this time at the title given, and he stuttered slightly in an unprepared response, trying to figure out how to remedy the misconception with the least confrontation. “M’notalady.” The jumble of words came out in a rush beneath his breath, not much above a stammered whisper.

“What?”

“I…said…” Teige swallowed, then shook his head in rapid succession, gripping the horse’s mane and shutting his eyes tightly. “N-never mind…”

Frowning again, the dismounted man laid out the final pack and folded his arms across his chest with a dissatisfied look to the still seated figure on his horse. “Do you need me to lift you aga-“

“N-no! I can--…eeek!” Teige slid in a rushed scramble, trying both to pull away from the larger man’s offered hand and keep his balance at the same time. With the extra burden of his many layers of drenched clothing in addition to his perpetual fear of heights and horses, the attempt didn’t end well, and he lost his stability in under a second, falling with a very ungraceful plop and roll to the ground. Cheeks burning in shame at his position, he scrambled backwards, struggling to gather his skirts and stand, hiding his face rather effectively behind a large mass of soaked obsidian locks. “S-sorry…ugh…I need a bath…”

“What you need is a change of clothes.” Instantly, the navy gaze widened several sizes, but Davinoff only scoffed, shaking his head and rummaging through a different pack he’d placed beside a tree. “Move into the woods…I’m a man of my word. I won’t do you dishonor. Here.” He tossed over a bundle of cloth, which Teige caught clumsily, and nodded his head to the right. “I saw a stream in that direction if you wish to clean. The rain is dying down but don’t travel far or stay long…” He glanced out into the forest in the opposite direction of the other, eyeing both the path they’d just left and the treetops above before adding quietly. “The night brings out numerous creatures I’d rather not have to save you from…”

For a moment, Teige almost pointed out that, as a man, he could save himself ‘quite well enough on his own’ now that he had made it free of Cyprien, but the solid facts that he, \'a\' had had neither practice nor weapons for years, \'b\' still wore a dress, and \'c\' felt about as valiant and self-sufficient as a dying toad, convinced him to keep his mouth shut. Clutching the dry outfit slightly closer to his chest for whatever comfort it gave him, he turned away from his ‘savior’ and headed in the direction given to search for a spring.

It didn’t take him long to find the babbling brook, but because of the rain, the once clear water looked nearly indistinguishable from the muddy bank beside it. Not to mention, the water had picked up a swift pace, and he hadn’t swam in so long, he didn’t quite trust himself to get in. Feeling the mixture of caked and still-wet mud in his hair and all over his body as he undressed, he had to think twice about the river, but in the end comforted himself by arguing that it looked cold and unfriendly anyway. Still, even when out of the ten layers of cloth and many, many extra pounds that came with it, he felt dirty and unsatisfied.

Briefly tempted to lug his dress to the river and toss it in, he frowned, then gathered it together as best he could and moved back to the camp before the idea became too tempting. Surely all the cloth would sell for something? And he needed money… The fact that he had absolutely no means off which to feed, dress, or arm himself in any way sent a new stem of misery to his gut, and he plopped the soaked cloth next to a tree beside some other rolled up luggage.

By now, the water from the dress had completely soaked the front side of his new wear, but he couldn’t have cared less. For the time being, he crossed his arms over the front of his extremely oversized tunic (the cloth nearly fell off of him, apparently belonging to Davinoff himself), and kept his front away from the other as much as possible as he settled in to lie out on the spread provided.

He realized, of course, that it was only a matter of time before the other man discovered his gender, the fact that he lacked several key traits commonly found in females, the most obvious being a protruding chest, a hard thing to hide without the proper materials if one spent any decent amount of time with another, but he sensed that the subject would bring about heavy confrontation, something he didn’t desire in the least for the time being. Instead, he brought his knees up almost to his chest in a defensive curl and shut his eyes, willing the night to end and sleep to take over as quickly as possible.

~

“Cyprien…” Slender fingers gripped briefly tighter to the bedroll beneath before loosening instantly as two pure azure eyes snapped open to the foggy grey haze of pre-dawn. For a moment, Teige’s heart slammed, panic struggling to get a hold on his senses, but after a few purposefully deep breaths, memories came back, and his pulse returned to normal.

Shivering, he sat up, rubbing his arms and frowning at the damp excuse for a bed below him. Considering the rain from last night, he supposed he should have been grateful for not having woken up soaked to the bone, but somehow, he couldn’t find the optimism to do so. He felt miserable and, rather selfishly, wanted the world to know about it. At the moment however, he had other things to deal with.

As his eyes traveled over their shady excuse for a campsite, his frown only deepened. A sleeping horse, two damp bedrolls, and several unidentifiable packs which he had no clue to the contents of. His gaze lingered on the sleeping man, likely not ten feet from him, and eventually fell on the dagger hilt just visible beneath the thin bedspread, another still attached to his belt. After careful consideration, he concluded that any attempt at retrieving either of the two would be foolish, so he turned his attentions instead to the various other bags, trying to decide which would most likely hold a suitable substitute weapon.

Before he got far, he spotted the man’s sword, still sheathed and attached to the horse’s saddle. His heart leapt with triumph, and he stood, stealing across the sodden ground as silently as possible, so as not to wake either horse or hunter, and taking the weapon carefully from it’s resting place. The horse stirred, but thankfully did not wake (that, or was not bothered enough to make a sound).

With the weapon in hand, he headed back in the direction of the riverbank. Arriving to find the current substantially ebbed, he praised his luck and moved to find the stillest patch of water, a slightly sectioned-off pool almost completely still in the morning calm. There, he eyed his reflection critically for the first time in years.

He knew he was seventeen when Cyprien had originally taken him; he remembered because the vampire had asked. Foolishly flattered by someone who had apparently cared, it had taken little effort on the immortal’s part to gain his trust wholeheartedly, wooing him with little more than a few moments of time alone, or a quick lesson in matters of weapons that none of the townsmen had bothered to teach such a frail boy. He hadn’t really lost much at the time, having no real family to speak of and little who considered him more than a pest, but now, as he looked over his likeness in the clear pool, he felt a deep pang of loss.

Without the dress, and with his more feminine features marred by left over grime, he no longer looked upon the face of a seventeen year old boy, nor a young woman, but a man, at least twenty years old, and stained with sadness for the loss of so many years to a blank existence. Could that much time really have passed? Three years? Four? He swallowed, fighting back a painful lump in his throat even as anger boiled up along with self-pity.

His grip tightened around the sword in his hand, reminding him of it for the first time since he’d arrived, and his resolve solidified. Glancing to his reflection one last time with a look of scorn, he bent his head and watched as the matted obsidian locks, caked with mud, fell forward in front of him. Almost angrily, he began the process of removing them.

It took some time, even with his determination, considering he’d never really handled a proper sword before, and Davinoff’s was likely larger than most, but he worked steadily. By the time he finished, his arm ached, and he deeply wished he’d tried to snatch one of the daggers, but that option was far behind him. Dropping the sword to his side and shaking his suddenly very light head, he looked up to find the sun rising, basking the stream in an orangish-yellow light and weaving strands of gold through the trees. Just as he gripped the weapon again and prepared to stand, he heard the crack of footsteps behind him and jumped up, spinning to face none other than Davinoff himself.


Note: Hope this chap was less confusing to some of you guys… ^^; Please keep reviewing! I should have the next bit up at least by next Friday…possibly earlier…depending on how much I get written this weekend.

Review Replies

Dee: I really like this story alot. Teige is just such a touching character and you can just feel his sadness. The way you describe him is also wonderful he sounds so delicate like a porcelain doll. What I didn\'t get is that is he hates Cyprien so much why did he cry so much when Davinoff killed him. And I am extremly curious to find out what will happen when Davinoff finally realized that Teige truly is a boy.

^^ Thanks. I had a slender but not-quite-so-delicate femi-male in my last story…and I wanted at least a bit of a more traditional one in this. I hope not to make him too whiny to the point of annoyance…but fragile is good. ^^

Lots of people had the question about the crying…and I tried to explain it more from his point of view in this chap. Yes, he hated Cyprien in his own way…but the vampire had also cared for him when no one else had, and never hurt him once. Though he denied it strongly, when seeing the man dead…it came as a bit of a shock.

xD A lot of people seem to want to see that happen…and it probably seems like I’m holding off that dramatic moment far to long…but obviously you can expect that revelation next chapter. Thanks for reviewing! ^^

Falcon Bertille: Hurray! A new chapter! And as beautifully written as always. I particularly liked this description of Cyprien: \"...his crimson eyes gleaming in the night and silver hair falling about in visible wisps the color of moonbeams about his shoulders.\" Gorgeous! Poor Drake. I liked him right away. Guess I have such a soft spot in my heart for big, tough guys who can\'t come to terms with the fact that they are so very, very, gay. It provides a perfect opportunity for tons of delicious angst -- and I know you never disappoint when it comes to delivering that! I look forward to his rude awakening. And I hope he doesn\'t take his frustration out on Teige. Well...not too much, at least. *Wink*

And what\'s this about being forced to wait an entire week for the next update? *Places hands on hips and pouts*

Love,
Falcon

xD I laughed out loud when you described Drake that way…but in actuality, come to think of it…I tend to like writing about men like that. The barrel-chested heart-of-steel he-men who turn out fruity. xD They’re just so much fun to mess with though…*smirk* ANYway…yes…rude awakening. Always fun. xD Next chap. *nod nod* And I’m not sure…but I seem to have a feeling that he’s going to end up taking a LOT of frustration out on Teige…maybe not immediately…but sometime……anyway.

Look! I put up today just for you…Thursday…aren’t you proud? xDD It made me all bubbly with happiness when you said that…so I wanted to try and update today. ^^ Even if you don’t see it till tomorrow…but yeah. Feel special. *kidding* Thank you as always for such a lovely review! I’m looking forward eagerly to the next addition to your story. ^^

MakaiKitty: Okay, now I\'m officially confussed. Teige seemed to dislike Cyprien in the previous chapter, and he seemed to want Davinoff to rescue him. Now he seems to feel just the oposite? Then again, maybe he\'s just gone all \"Stockholm Syndrome\" on us. And is Cyprien really dead? I kind of liked the vampire, although that may have just been my preferance for vamps. Who knows. Anyway, I\'m really curious where this is going, and I look forward to the next update. Do you have the ending written yet, or can I still beg for a happy ending of some sort this time?

So many people got confused with that, and I had a feeling they would…but I didn’t realize quite how badly. ^^; I almost merged these this chapter onto the last one, just to minimize confusion…but then I’d have less back up, and the chap would be long and yada yada…but anyway. Yeah. Teige was definitely shocked. In his ‘fantasies’ if that’s what you want to call them…of course he imagined being rescued and finally escaping the vampire’s clutches…but after so many let-downs, he never really EXPECTED to have it happen…and in a way, though he told himself he hated him and even WANTED him dead…he’d grown closer to Cyprien then he wanted to admit. I mean come on, he spent quite a length of time with him (not as long as he thinks, but still quite a bit…), and Cyprien never treated him ‘badly’…just kept him caged.

As for the ending…fear not! For, in my opinion, any story that begins with ‘Once upon a time…’ must surely end with ‘…and they lived happily ever after’. So, by my own decree (though I have not actually planned out the real ending in detail), the last three words WILL BE…’happily ever after’. *nod nod* So yes, in a way I have and in a way I haven’t. It will have a happy ending…though that doesn’t mean of course that the entire things gonna be all bubbly…(couldn’t have that, now could we?), but yeah. Don’t have to worry about another misery fest. ^^; v_v

DrkDreamer: Wonderful story so far - just finished Chapter 1. I know how it is to beg for reviews. Hope you get many more - you deserve them!

Thank you so much! I’m glad you like it and think that I deserve the reviews…it’s always wonderful to have positive incentive. Thanks for reviewing!

Jukebox: Um, ok..so he\'s upset that the vampire was killed? (assuming of course the vampire was killed, which unless that\'s a silver sword or something may not be the case). I was thinking he wanted Cyprien to be defeated and himself rescued. *is confused*

Smart cookie. *ahem* Anyway…yes. You’re definitely not the first person with this question…of course he wanted to be rescued. But wishing for something in the safety of a warm tower and the bed of a beautiful but highly over-protective vampire is different from realizing that you’re about to be taken away on horseback into a cold rainstorm from your dead lover to put your life in the hands of a man you’ve never seen before… xP Sorry if that sounded harsh. xD I completely understand why you were confused…and I almost merged this chapter into the last to minimize confusing…but in the end decided against it. I hope this chapter answers any questions you had and isn’t so confusing. ^^ Thank you so much for reviewing though! I’ll try, in the future, to keep things more clear. ^^;