— you'll love me at once, the way you did once
summary: desperate for a taste of freedom, the fae prince sneaks away from the castle to watch over the curious human child that has moved into the valley with his family, watched over by a resentful nanny. pairing: malleus draconia & riddle rosehearts word count: 1,223 words author's note: this was inspired by a recent movie night i had with my partner and some friends. please enjoy.
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A child's laughter fills the field— giggles like the soft, clear chime of a bell as they dance along on the noontide's cool breeze.
Malleus listens to the sound with eyes closed, hidden among the branches of a tree as he takes this brief moment of repose with both hands and clings onto it. If only his life could be so simple as this; listening to the sound of laughter, breathing in the summer air, and lounging high up in the trees. Oh, what a freeing dream this is, what a gentle dream…
"Stupid boy," the voice of a young woman mutters, her words popping the bubble of Malleus' daydreams like a needle. "Must he make such a ruckus? What a nuisance of a child…"
Sluggishly, Malleus' eyes blink open. He squints up at the bright, dappled sunlight streaming in from between the leaves, then turns his attention down to the ground below. There, he finds that young, sharp-tongued woman sitting among the flowers, a stormy expression on her face as she glares down at the bundle of fabric in her lap. With sharp, tense motions, she guides a needle in and out of the fabric, muttering to herself as she does.
"Fussy, needy thing…" She jabs the needle through the fabric with her teeth grit. "Wretched, human child. Just about as bad as that mother of his, he is…"
Further along into the clearing, a little boy with a head of bright, strawberry red hair giggles to himself as he runs among the flowers. With little hands outstretched, his fingers brush along every petal as he runs past, sending the flowers dancing and swaying in his wake. How carefree, he seems to be, how happy…
Quietly, so as not to be noticed, Malleus sighs.
"Humans in the valley… Oh, what would our princess think, may her soul rest in peace..."
Malleus turns slowly back to the young woman, his gentle expression abandoned in favor of a downright chilling glare. The air around him even grows cold, then somehow colder still. The branches of the tree upon which he rests quiver ever so slightly, leaves trembling as if disturbed by a harsh and ill wind.
Indeed, what would the princess have thought about this, were she to still draw breath? Would she smile, watching her subjects mistreat the innocent? Would she have rejoiced? Would she have rewarded them for their cruelty?
Oh, how Malleus wishes he knew.
Smoke billows out from his nostrils as he exhales. The smell of magic lingers heavily in the air around him as his anger condenses down into a single, sharp point. It only takes but a single gesture of his hand for the needle to direct itself straight into the young woman's palm when next she shoves it through the fabric, then one more gesture for the thread to snap as she hisses curses under her breath.
She yells, careless of the wildlife she is surely disturbing, as she tosses the fabric down onto the ground. Beyond her, the little boy looks back, eyes wide as he watches her tantrum. There's a quiet sort of look on his face— thoughtful, his small mouth pursed into a soft frown as she makes a scene, no better than a child herself. For a moment, Malleus wonders if the little thing might try to approach her— might comfort her, though the young woman has certainly never comforted him in the time that Malleus has watched over him.
No, there has not been one single moment of kindness from this young woman since that fateful day Malleus found the boy crying all on his own, his little stomach empty and his cheek bruised.
Instead of approaching, however, the boy quietly takes one, two, then three large steps back. He makes himself small, his shoulders hunching inwards as he turns away from the young woman and instead finds his attention swiftly caught by something else. Malleus follows the trajectory of his gaze and finds there a rabbit; plump and bright white like a bundle of freshly fallen snow given life. It stares, its ruby red eyes wide, at the boy, and the boy stares back with an expression not too dissimilar.
Then, before either the boy or Malleus have the chance to so much as blink, it scrambles off.
The boy gasps, stumbling to follow it as it hurriedly hops along. Curious, Malleus watches, feeling as the blood in his veins freezes and his body goes still as he realizes where the rabbit is darting off to.
The woods; dark, looming, and certainly no place for a child— much less a child of man…
"Pitiful little beast," he murmurs, his eyes slipping closed as his heart clenches. "You certainly would survive no more than a heartbeat lost in there…"
Oh, what would that princess do? What would that princess, who died fighting for her people against the humans, do…
If only Malleus knew.
All that he knows is what he would do, what he wishes to do, which is—
"Ah, none of that, now, if you would please…"
With a soft gesture of his hand, the rabbit scurries instead for an old burrow in the field. The boy stops in his tracks, mere feet away from the looming woods, as he crouches down to try peering into the burrow. Cowed by the touch of its prince's magic, the rabbit does not dare move, and the boy eventually gives up on trying to coax it out.
Instead, he begins to wander, carefully picking out a bundle of flowers before returning to the burrow. There, he lays that bundle of flowers at the mouth of the burrow, leaning in to whisper something that the breeze does not carry, no matter how much Malleus wishes it might.
"Soft-hearted little thing," Malleus says as he observes. "You are truly one of a kind, aren't you?"
Like the sounding of an alarm, the young woman suddenly begins to call for the boy, having seemingly grown tired of her sulking. Startled, the boy scrambles over to her, leaving behind his bundle of flowers and the cowering rabbit in its burrow. Once in reach, the young woman immediately grabs him by the hand, holding him with a white-knuckled grip as she begins to drag him along.
"Enough nonsense!" she says as they march off, down the worn old path they'd taken to reach this field earlier on in the day. "It's about time that you ought to head home, before your mother returns and throws herself a fit!"
"Yes, miss," the boy says, his soft, gloomy little voice so very sweet. "Of course, miss."
Malleus watches them as they go, frowning. It's hardly past noon, and he's barely been able to see the boy for the past several days, yet already he's being taken away to be locked up in that wretched home of his.
Oh, if only Malleus could take him away. If only Malleus could take them both away, to some place where they could be free, and together enjoy that precious peace that Malleus felt, listening to the boy laugh and play. If only he could care for the boy as no one else has cared to— surely, he would do a better job at it than anyone even could.
If only, if only, if only…
Oh, if only they could live out such a dream…