#and now i'm attached to the idea of callum bonding with kpp'ar so watch this turn into a oneshot

[raayllum]

Kpp’Ar doesn’t know what to make of the boy, at first. He’s heard of him of course — even this far near the Del Barian border of Katolis, gossip travels fast. In the four months since the war ended scarcely anyone has spoken of anything other than how — the boy king, his mage brother, the strangely absent Moonshadow elf turned ally. Kpp’Ar leaves wooden cabin once every two weeks to go to the marketplaces, and it’s enough to know that his former student’s reign was disastrously short-lived and violent. 

But no matter. He washed his hands of Viren’s crimes best he could years ago.

Or so he thought, before the loud knocking at his door.

He never got visitors even when living near inner Katolis in his great big manor, so the fact that someone has trekked all the way up the snowy side of the mountain to the cabin, miles away from anyone else... He opens his door with his cane gripped like a club in one hand, knowing his body isn’t what it used to be, frail from age and dark magic use (however disavowed). 

He doesn’t expect a young man, still a bit baby faced at no older than seventeen at most, surely, brown hair permanently stuck to one side of his head to be on the other side.

“No visitors,” he grouses and goes to shut the door.

The young man catches it with his boot and then his arm, a flash of his red scarf revealing a Katolian seal. “I’m not here to sell you anything,” he says quickly, “or anything like that. I’m here to ask—”

“I don’t do dark magic anymore, there’ll be no miracles here—”

“I don’t need your magic. I have my own. I just need information—about Viren.”

Kpp’Ar pauses. No one here knows who his former pupil is, and this boy is far from old enough to know first hand, so—Kpp’Ar stops trying to close the door. “Who are you?”

“I’m Prince Callum of Katolis,” the boy says. “High mage of my brother’s court.” He forces the opening wider and barrels in before Kpp’Ar can stop him, getting snow and wet boot-prints all over his wooden floor. The old mage can feel a headache coming on. “I’ve been doing research and Soren said you might—”

Soren. Kpp’Ar’s heart thuds dully in his chest. Good to know what Viren had done had been worth something. “What is it that you want to know, boy?”

“Dark magic,” he says. “Is there a spell that can bring someone back from the dead?”

Kpp’Ar recoils, eyes flashing. “That sort of knowledge is not—”

“I don’t want it,” the prince repeats, insisting. “The dead—should stay dead. I just need to know if it exists.”

“And why not ask Claudia?” Kpp’Ar demands. “Last I saw her, she had some of my tomes hidden under her floorboards.”

Callum’s expression hardens with familiarity and fatigue. “Claudia’s gone. She—she turned traitor too. And Viren is dead. I know magic, but I don’t know dark magic—and I don’t want to. I-I need to make sure she couldn’t bring him back.” 

Kpp’Ar had never been the best with people even before he’d become an outright recluse, but he looks at the way the prince carries himself—poised amid the uncertainty, tall under the weight on young shoulders—and well, if the rumours are to be believed, the boy’s connected to a primal source. Kpp’Ar had read stories, long thought to be nothing but myths...

He clears his throat and gestures. His kettle can take a little more water. “Would you like some tea?”

Callum blinks, then grins. “That would be great. Thank you.”

Thank you. Viren had said the same, bright-eyed on his doorstep when Kpp’Ar had finally relented to teach him, day after day of the teen showing up undeterred on his doorstep. 

So Kpp’Ar turns away and says the same as he did then. “Don’t thank me yet.” 

He’s never been a man to make promises, either. And no matter what answer the boy seeks, Kpp’Ar is sure the answer he’s given won’t be the one he wants. 

#kpp'ar #callum #tdp callum #brotp #my fic #fic #ficlet #headcanons #timeskip shenanigans #tdp #the dragon prince #it was just red #anyway their actual talk will be a follow up drabble bc this got longer than expected #and now i'm attached to the idea of callum bonding with kpp'ar so watch this turn into a oneshot #post season three #arc 1