Chapter Text
Once upon a time, the Lord Arbiter walked the Heavens and the Earth.
Where he went, peace flourished and prosperity followed, and humanity ushered in one tranquil era after the next under his guidance. When disaster struck, he quelled it with a sweep of his hand; when conflicts arose, he soothed it with sound advice and swift action.
He never once asked for anything in return. Still, mankind only found it fair to offer him their utmost respect and devotion, and they hailed him as their God.
But one day, the Lord Arbiter vanished.
As if the panic sowed with his sudden disappearance had not been enough, other calamities soon followed. People called it the “Lament”, the “Tacet Discords”, the “Waveworn Phenomena”—but no matter their names or how much they were studied, the monstrosities could never be understood nor vanquished for good, and they mercilessly destroyed everything the Lord Arbiter had once given.
Within days, the world was thrown into disarray. With no God to guide or protect them, nations crumbled under the weight of their own chaos.
At the same time, certain individuals across the world awakened to strange marks on their bodies that bestowed special powers upon them, and in some countries, they were hailed as saviors that would lead their people away from the brink of ruin.
In other places, however, they were scorned as cursed, and they were persecuted and killed, all while the nation’s leaders scrambled to keep the godless masses in line.
One such case of the latter was found deep within the castle of the New Federation. There, the young Prince saw flames dancing in the palm of his hand for the first time. For many years, he would keep it as his own little secret.
But he could not keep it a secret forever—after all, that was the first spark of the flames of rebellion to come…
When the scales start appearing on his hand, Mortefi decides he’s had enough.
Escaping from the castle is no easy feat. Even though he and his retainers know the place inside-out—Aalto sneaks them through the back doors, and Calcharo stares down the weaker-willed guards into letting them pass—the paintings on the timeworn halls still seem to follow them with their empty gaze.
Despite all their caution, they do not go unnoticed.
“Oh, my,” Mortefi smiles drily when they emerge from the trapdoor. “Such a warm welcome from all these guards—and Her Royal Majesty in person, no less. What’s the occasion?”
He’s met with a cold glare. “Silly boy,” the Queen mutters. “All this power at your fingertips, and you choose to throw it away. What do you stand to gain by doing this? Turn back now, and I will forgive this foolish transgression just once.”
The nearest guard steps closer to Mortefi, cool steel pressing against his neck.
A fatal mistake.
The ensuing burst of flames doesn't even give the poor guard the chance to scream. “You’re right,” Mortefi laughs, shaking his hand free of cinders. “This power I have—it’s mine. I’m not giving this blasted country even a speck of it. I’ve had enough of you trying to squeeze it out of me, and I’m sure you’ve had enough of your stubborn, uncooperative captive and his neverending tantrums. So let me go, mother, and we’ll never have to see each other again.”
The Queen shifts her disinterested gaze from the pile of ashes to glower at her son. “We have eyes in more places you can possibly fathom. It is laughable that you think you can ever escape our watch.”
“I’ll take my chances.” Flames snake forebodingly between the scales on his right hand, and the remaining guards take a step back; his retainers take a step closer to him instead, drawing their own weapons. “Now, who wants to go next?”
“…I see you’ve made your choice.” The Queen throws him a belittling glare—with any luck, it’s the last Mortefi will ever see of her—and turns her back to him.
“Stop the Prince,” she tells the guards. “Even if it costs you your life. Or his, for that matter.”
“Try me,” Mortefi chuckles darkly. “Like I care if you die. I have no plans to do so myself.”
Even the most well-trained guards don’t stand a chance: Aalto’s mist fans Mortefi’s flames in an infernal typhoon, and where it doesn’t reach, Calcharo’s lightning strikes with deadly precision. But the guards were never the primary concern—tiny drones swarm in like flies, their sleek metallic shells in stark dissonance with the peeling paint of the castle walls. The murmur of their engines is never more than a pace behind, no matter how many of them the trio cut down, alerting every living soul in the castle to halt the Prince’s escape.
“I don’t think this is working, Highness,” Aalto calls out, leaping over a limp body at the same time he ducks under the swing of a blade. “You should probably leave us behind and go.”
Mortefi nods wordlessly, lips pressed into a thin line. It was the worst-case scenario, but they all also knew that things would most likely turn out like this. They’d planned every step of the way ahead, many nights ago. But when it really comes down to the real deal…
“I…” Ever so slightly, Mortefi falters. “Where could I go?”
Calcharo sharply pulls his blade out from a guard’s chest. He turns around, a bloodied hand grabbing Mortefi’s shoulder.
“Head south,” he instructs briskly. “As far and as fast as you can. Let the drones follow you; you know how to turn them to your advantage. Use them to tell you if danger’s approaching. But when you reach the cliffs of the highlands—destroy them. There, you are safe.”
The Prince nods, clinging onto every word. Calcharo spoke little and never breathed a word about his origins or his past, but he knew about the world beyond their country better than anyone else.
“Will I—” Mortefi’s throat constricts. “We will see each other again.”
Aalto flashes him a bright smile. “Of course we will! Pinky promise. Well, um, if my hands were free enough, that is. A lil’ busy here.”
“Now’s not the time to be sentimental,” Calcharo rolls his eyes, but they’re hypocritically fond. “Go.”
And so Mortefi runs, burning everything in his way and everything he leaves behind. The vast majority of the castle know nothing of the Prince’s power, and the more unfortunate ones perish from their first taste of it. Even Mortefi himself has never used his flames like this—free from the restraints on his wrists and ankles, burning bright on the scales sprawled across chest and fingertips, a far cry from the first tiny spark in his palm—and in some moments, he casts his gaze to the hellscape he’s created and wonders if he even trusts himself with this power.
But he never once looks back.
When he finally shakes the guards off, he grabs one of the nearest drones. With a few pushes of the correct buttons and some short commands, he gets it to send the other drones back—a little something he had picked up during his self-study of Tacetite technology—and keeps a single drone with him. It would tell the castle where he is, but it would also warn him of impending pursuers, whom he finds himself more than happy to finish off as target practice.
By the time Mortefi reaches the highlands, he is alone. Though he is free from the castle guards, there are only jagged cliffs and dried blades of grass as far as his eyes can see, sparsely dotted with roaming Tacet Discords. That is to say: he hasn’t the faintest idea where he is.
No matter. He may have asked his retainers where he could go, but no one, not even the Prince himself, knew what lay beyond their borders—only the King and Queen did, and perhaps Calcharo, but the white-haired man wisely refused to speak a word of it.
But all that hardly mattered as long as Mortefi was out of that damned country.
He digs the chip out of the last drone and crushes it under his heel. For good measure, he also sets it on fire.
Then he acutely feels just how weak he is in the knees and crumples to the ground. He’s tired, he realizes belatedly as his head hits the dirt, and raises a hand to shield his eyes from the blazing sun. The action is far more excruciating than it should be. He’s not even sure whether it’s his arm or his vision that’s shaking so badly.
The crimson scales that had only been on the back of his palm this morning now consumed his half his forearm—most likely a result of overexerting his powers just now. He distantly wonders if they’d also grown to cover more of his chest, but for the first time in his life, Mortefi finds that he doesn’t mind them at all.
Or maybe it’s just his blood crusting on his skin. He doesn’t know anymore. His head is pounding, his throat is parched, his legs are numb and he’s pretty sure he’s covered all over in burns of his own doing.
But he’s free, and nothing has ever felt so damn exhilarating.
Mortefi probably shouldn’t be lying down where he could die from a variety of reasons the next second. But he’s free—free from all the unbearable pain, free from the constant loneliness, free from the mind-numbing insanity—and he can’t stop himself from laughing to the skies above like a madman, even as his voice cracks and his vision starts to fade out.
Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t react when a flash of teal floats into his sight.
“Are you alright?”
With effort, Mortefi blinks. He can’t focus on anything beyond that foreign yet soothing voice.
“What happened to you?” The stranger kneels down. Mortefi can vaguely make out that he has golden eyes, the warmth within their depths akin to sunlight. “Can you sit?”
He can’t even shake his head. “Where am I?” he tries to ask, and regrets it instantly—his throat feels awful.
“You’re in Desorock Highland. These are the borders of Jinzhou.” There’s a soft pop , and something cool at his lips. “It’s water. You should drink.”
Most of the words fly past his head, but he gratefully complies. He figures that if this seemingly kindhearted stranger wanted him dead, he would simply have left the Prince to the mercy of the Tacet Discords, or to eventually perish of dehydration.
The stranger hums approvingly. Left with no energy to resist or even move a finger, Mortefi lets himself get lifted off the ground and carried onto the stranger’s back.
“You look exhausted. Rest,” his mysterious savior suggests gently. “I promise you are safe.”
There, you are safe. Calcharo had told him the same thing. But Mortefi is nowhere near naïve enough to believe he’s truly safe—safe enough to not worry about dropping dead the next second, perhaps, but nothing more. No one would save a half-dead foreigner without expecting something in return, and if they discovered Mortefi’s true identity, he’d be lucky to escape alive.
But he can worry about that later. If something gets in his way, he will simply have to force it aside, just like he’s always done. He can fend for himself, provided he still breathes tomorrow.
Still, against all common sense, he finds himself longing for safety—a place to truly call home.
Mortefi feels his consciousness slipping away to the stranger’s slow and steady gait. Perhaps, just for today, he can delude himself into believing that no harm will befall him.