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theroyalsavage · 7 years

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silver and gold

Summary: The summer of Crown Prince Will Solace’s tenth birthday, he stumbles upon a boy on the beach who turns out to be a little more than he first appears.

The summer of Will’s tenth birthday, he gets lost on the beach.

The water is the color of sunlight, the sand burning hot under his bare feet by the time he realizes he’s lost track of the knobby, stone-gray turrets of the castle behind him. He can already feel the itchy heat on his neck that means a sunburn, his mind helpfully supplying the exact lecture he’s sure to receive from his father when he finds his way back.

William, I understand the impulse to wander, but you have to understand that, as heir to the throne, you have a responsibility to take care of yourself.

For me.

For our people.

For our kingdom.

Your body is theirs. Your blood is theirs.

No part of you is yours.

Will stubs the peoples’ toe on a rock and swears. (Leo Valdez, the blacksmith’s son, taught him how to last week.)

Logically, Will knows there’s no point putting off the inevitable. But this is the first time in years he’s been away from the capitol city, from the marble halls of the imperial palace, from the stares and the whispers and the bows. Out here, close to the border with Ares’ people, no one cares that Will’s father is king. There’s nothing here except wind and sky, moors the brightest shade Will has ever seen.

And the ocean.

The water’s clear and calm today. Infinite. Mirrored. It seems to take on the color of the landscape, the color of the sky, refracting a hundred thousand shades of blue-yellow-green. When Will steps into the waves to ease the sting the hot sand has left on the bottoms of his feet, he can see fish casing their tails in circles around his ankles, carried along by the tide.

“Lucky fish,” Will says, some of the annoyance seeping out of him as the water washes, warm and steady, over his toes. “You don’t have kings.”

“That seems a bit presumptuous,” a voice says, flat, and Will screams and falls into the water.

There is a moment of profound, pulse-racing, limb-flailing terror as the world inverts and Will slips on the sand and the waves smooth around his head like they’re playing with his hair. And then the moment passes, and he’s just a boy, sitting on his butt, soaking wet and feeling like a fool.

The voice laughs, soft and low. Will spits brine out of his mouth and turns his head, huffily, to face a bare-chested boy with hair like an oil spill and skin the color of teak, perched on a rock a couple feet out to sea.

Will scowls at him and tries to yank his clothing back into position. “You scared me.”

The boy grins, a smile that tugs at his eyes and reveals a dimple sitting crooked on the left side of his mouth. His eyes curve into half-moons, dark dark dark, the warmest brown Will’s ever seen. “You must scare easily, then,” he says, and he has a strange sort of accent. Lilting, lifting. It does funny things to his vowels and to Will’s heart.

“I do not,” Will says, getting to his feet with a huff and beating beach sand out of his clothing (his tunic with the velvet trim, oh, his dad is going to kill him).

“You must.” The boy’s eyebrows raise. “That’s dangerous. People ought not to scare easily this close to the border.”

“You snuck up on me,” Will says, wrinkling his nose. “Make noise when you’re walking up behind someone. It’s common courtesy.”

“Walking,” the boy repeats, and then he laughs again, and Will is beginning to feel slightly strange. Like something here is off, has been for awhile, and Will’s just now beginning to notice it. He studies the boy, who’s reclining with his legs out behind him, his chin propped up on his hands, elbows resting on the rock in front of him.

“What you said,” Will begins, already feeling foolish, “about the fish...”

“And us having a king, yes,” the boy says. “You said we don’t. But we do. I’ve met him. He’s a jerk.”

“We,” Will echoes.

The boy blinks. And then he shifts, swings his legs around to the front - only, there are no legs, only an enormous, glittering silver tail, with fins just as inky black as the boy’s hair.

“We,” the boy repeats, slowly, like he’s worried Will might be a bit of an idiot. “Yes.”

“Of course,” Will says. There is a pause, during which they both stare at each other, Will at the boy’s tail and the boy at Will’s face, looking maybe a little smug. And then Will gives an abrupt, whooping laugh and jumps into the air, water bursting around his feet with an enormous splash when he lands.

“That’s amazing,” he enthuses, already halfway across the distance between the merboy and him. “This is so cool, oh my God, I’ve heard stories about magic - Piper can charmspeak, and Leo swears he saw a dragon once - but I’ve never actually met-”

The boy looks a little put off, shrinking back a bit when Will reaches the rock and holds a hand out to touch. Will freezes, hand inches away from the boy’s tail, until the tension leaves the boy’s shoulders and he nods for Will to continue. His scales are hard, smooth like glass. They almost feel like steel.

“Stories,” the boy says, looking a bit mulish, “don’t really do us justice.”

“No,” Will agrees, emphatically. “They don’t.”

And there must be something in the way he’s looking, something in the way the merboy’s eyes have grabbed him and won’t let go, because the already warm color in the merboy’s cheeks flushes darker.

“I’m Will,” Will says, sticking a hand out for the boy to shake, which he does, tentatively. “My family’s vacationing up the hill. Do you live here?”

“Near here,” the boy confirms, hand warm and dry against Will’s palm. “My name’s Nico.”

“Nico,” Will marvels, and Nico smiles at him, hesitant, and it feels like drowning.

Nico scoots over to make room for him on the rock and they spend the afternoon like that, exchanging jabs, talking about the ocean, racing each other to see who can swim out the farthest. For once in his life, Will is not a prince. His blood is not diamond-dust, his bones are not gold. He belongs to no one but himself.

“I’ll come back,” Will says, when he leaves at sundown, and Nico nods. Their hands bump, once, before Will jumps off the rock. By the time he reaches the beach and turns around, Nico is gone.

When Will passes through the castle gates that night, his father chews him out for his peeling cheeks, for worrying the guards, for missing his lessons. They ride out first thing in the morning, bound towards the capitol. Will leaves a daisy on the beach and hopes Nico sees it.

What Will does not notice is the stiffness in his father’s shoulders as they set off at dawn. What he does not notice is the wariness in his eyes as they ride away from the border with Ares. What he does not notice is the way Jason Grace, his personal guard, does not release his grip on his sword until they’re well away from the shore.

What he does not notice is the smell of war.

There is no magic in what happens next. Slowly, slowly. Little by little. Will watches, at the place of honor at his father’s side, as the diplomatic meetings go from pleasant to civil to violent. He watches his father’s easy smile turn tight. He watches the city shut down before twilight, watches the humor fade in Jason Grace’s face, watches the patrols return from the border, one by one, like raindrops before a storm.

Nico becomes a dream. A distant memory of a warm hand against his, of the sun turning a silver tail to fire, of the curve of lips, of the sound of laughter. Will hears him, sometimes, when he thinks he is not listening.

Dream, dream, dream. Reality sounds like this:

Your Highness. The western border has been breached.

Your Highness. Ares’ forces are on the move.

Your Highness. They’ve taken two towns in the hillsides and are headed for the moors.

Your Highness. A scout was returned to us dead this morning. Tied to his horse. Ares’ colors wrapped around his head.

Your Highness.

It is time.

The summer of Will’s eighteenth birthday, he rides to war.

The sky bleeds gray. On the western border, the battle rages on long into the dawn. Will can see the fires burning from where he stands at the castle gates. Orange-yellow-scarlet, dotted like stars along the hills.

There’s blood on his hands, in his mouth. It tastes like copper and saltwater. He wrings his hands together, trying to smudge the rust off his skin.

It burns. Hot, like fire. Sharp and silent and omnipresent.

“Your Highness.”

Will turns, slowly, and inclines his head as Jason and Rachel Dare, the head of his father’s guard, fall in beside him. The grounds of the castle are almost silent, the only noise the crash of the waves on the shore below them. Steady, steady. Like breathing.

“You fought well today,” Rachel says, and Will wants to scream, wants to tear himself out of his own skin.

“Thank you,” Will says. “I was terrified.”

Jason claps a hand on Will’s shoulder. “We all were.”

“Your father’ll be proud,” Rachel says, kindly, and Will forces himself to look her in the eyes. Steady. Like he doesn’t want to cry. “You made the whole kingdom proud today, Highness.”

“Yes,” Will says. He does not say that killing felt like tearing little pieces of himself away and scattering himself to the wind. He does not say that the blood on his hands feels like fire. He does not say that if this is what war tastes like - gore and metal and embers and coal - he’s not sure he wants to win.

“I’m going to wash up,” he says, and he makes his way to the sea.

There’s a fog over the ocean, gray-blue-colorless. Below, the waters are choppy, stormy blue and frothing. The beach is abandoned, empty. Will peels his shoes off and begins disarming, removing burnished, golden armor piece by piece. When that’s done, he walks to the water’s edge, the sand icy smooth against his feet, and crouches to stick his hands in the waves.

Around his hands, the water clouds red, the blisters on his thumb and palm from holding a sword and burying the dead screaming in agony as salt runs into the wound. The water is cold, cold, cold.

He gives a long, slow, shuddering sob.

The current turns warm, like a breath.

Will falls backwards when the man lifts himself out of the water. The sky is gray and storm-heavy, clouds on the horizon like a promise, but he still shines like summertime, silver tail flashing like fire. There’s black painted around his eyes and smudged in swirls around his wrists, his shoulders, his chest, his throat. There’s suspicion in his eyes, a spear in his hand. Hair - black, like an oil spill - tumbles over his face and into his eyes.

“Human,” he says, and his voice lifts with an accent that’s familiar in a way that sets Will’s chest on fire. “Take your bloodshed elsewhere. My people will not be involved in your war.”

“I,” Will says. His hands ache, a terrible, undeniable sort of thing. He’s still crying, silent and steady.

And then the man looks at him, really looks, and he says, “I know you.”

Will nods, a little helplessly, and sniffs. “Nico,” he says.

Nico lowers the spear.

“Will.”

Will’s cradling his beat-up hands to his chest, his hair a mess from his helmet, his face smudged with sweat and ash. It’s far from the ideal way to greet a boy you’ve been thinking of since you were ten.

“You’re in the war?” Nico says, his voice high with surprise.

Will winces. “Yes.” I am the war, sits on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t seem to make himself say it.

“It’s poisonous,” Nico says, his voice heavy with disapproval. “It’s tainting the sea, the air, the earth. All the blood. My people are preparing to fight.”

“It won’t come to that,” Will blurts, panic bursting in his chest at the prospect of Nico having to fight. Nico, bleeding. Nico, burning. Nico, six feet deep in the topsoil. “Believe me. Ares is testing us. We push back, they’ll realize we’re no easy conquest and go back to jabbing at Athena to the south.”

“Hmm,” Nico says. His eyes are just as brown as Will remembers - the dark liner on the lids make them appear brighter, flecked with gold and bronze. “Admittedly, I don’t know much about human politics. All I know is nature. Death and birth and death again. This war has created an imbalance.”

“An imbalance?” Will echoes.

Nico frowns, trailing his hand along the top of the water. The waves seem to follow his hand, skipping and swirling like a magnetic attraction. “You are bargaining with something much greater than yourselves.”

“What’s that?” Will asks.

“Fate.”

Will’s chest goes cold. Nico studies him for a long moment before saying, “Stay here.” He lowers himself into the waves, leaving Will sitting on the sand. A minute passes, or two, or three, and when he comes back, he’s holding bandages and a balm that smells sharp, like mint and moonlight. He takes Will’s hands and cleans his wounds gently, winding the bandages around them until there’s no skin left visible.

No blood.

“If you need respite, come to this place,” Nico says. “I’ll help you.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t get involved in our war.”

“No,” Nico agrees, eyes bright in the half-light. “But I said nothing about getting involved with you.”

Despite the assurances of his father’s advisors, the war does not stay confined to the border. It creeps inward, inward. Closer and closer to the western shores.

The king stations troops at the castle. Soon, the beach is trampled down by boots and steel, tents pitched on the sand to offer some respite from sleeping on hard ground. Will is everywhere, back and forth from the capitol to the front lines to the troops and back again. He’s on the shore enough to see that the ocean seems agitated, all high waves and roaring currents and violent winds.

It is weeks before he can make his way far enough away from camp that it feels safe to kneel by the water and call Nico’s name, in the time just before night falls. There is a moment of silence before Nico’s head rises from the water. He rests his chin on his hand, tilting his head to look at Will. There’s a funny pounding in Will’s chest, heavy in his throat. He wants to press his hands against the flat planes of Nico’s stomach, curl his fingers in his hair, taste the ocean on his lips.

Nico says, “Hello, soldier. Your human politics are becoming a little overly relevant to my own life, I believe.”

Will gives a small snort of a laugh. It’s the first time he’s smiled in what feels like years.

“Forgive me,” Will says. “They seem to find the beach as agreeable as I do.”

“Mmm.” Nico’s voice drops slightly, his eyelashes jet-black against his cheekbones. “I hear the coast is lovely this time of year.”

Will hesitates, then chokes out, “Say it. Whatever you’re holding back. Say it.”

Nico looks at him, slow and serious, for a long moment. Then, “Your human king is hated among my people, you know. His name is scorned. They say he is called after the sun. Apollo. Is this correct?”

Will’s stomach drops, his gut twisting painfully. “Yes. That’s correct.”

“He has carried death to our doorstep,” Nico says. He’s watching Will like he sees him - like he knows. “The merfolk hate war.”

“And what do they think of soldiers?” Will manages, his voice a little high, a little weak.

The line of Nico’s mouth softens. “I believe,” he says, “opinion varies.”

Will says, “Tell me a story.”

Nico squints at him for a second before his mouth curves into a smile. His story is about a girl who falls in love with the sea, who leaves her home and her family to cross the horizon because the tide beat in her veins instead of blood. Will’s eyes fall shut as he speaks, and the last thing he’s aware of is a hand cupping his cheek, thumb tracing a smile below his eye.

Will wakes to sand in his mouth and heat against his chest, something smooth and strange pressed up against his legs. He opens his eyes, fighting against the bright, mid-morning light, to find Nico already awake and staring at him, his tail twined between Will’s legs.

Will flushes and goes to pull back. Nico’s hand lifts and finds his jaw.

“You go to fight,” he says.

Will nods.

Nico says, “Come back.” And when he does, battle-weary and battered but otherwise safe, Nico half-tackles him into the sand and presses his mouth over Will’s, soft and determined and warm, and it sets Will in fire in a different way.

They call him Fire-wielder, Light-lord. It is because his armor shines golden-bright on the battlefield. It is because he is fast, and talented, and merciful to a fault. It is because of the blood that streaks his hands like burn scars, no matter how often he tries to wash.

The son of the king.

He kills for his people.

For his kingdom.

His hands are not his. They are ours.

Will rides to the beach to collect reinforcements, straight-backed and proud on his horse. His men get to their feet immediately at the sound of the trumpet, taking a knee as Will lifts his helmet to show the golden circlet resting on his head.

“If we die,” he says, “we die with honor.”

In the waves, Nico watches as the men chant, “Yes, Sire!” and move out.

Will stumbles to the water’s edge, trying to ignore the deep, stabbing pain emitting from a shallow sword wound in his side. His armor and sword are gone, left to be cleaned and polished up at the castle. It makes him feel naked, and the dependency makes him sick.

He sits there for a long time, watching the moonlight reflect off the water. It isn’t until he passes a hand into the waves and whispers, “Nico,” that he feels the presence at his side.

Nico lifts himself up onto his elbows, his face cast in shadow, his body long and lean and warm warm warm. “If there’s something you’d like to tell me,” he says, “now would be the time.”

And then he reaches up and touches the circlet on Will’s curls, forgotten in the dash to be disarmed and then the rush to the beach.

“Oh,” Will whispers.

Nico says, “Your Highness.”

There’s something hard in his face, a closed-off sort of anger that hits Will like a punch to the face.

“I’m sorry,” Will says.

“I’m not angry that you are who you are,” Nico answers. “What’s done can’t be undone. I’m angry that you never told me. Never saw fit to mention it once.”

“I wanted one thing to be mine,” Will mumbles. “Not the kingdom’s. Not my father’s. Just mine.”

“I’m not yours, though,” Nico points out. “I’m mine.”

“I know,” Will whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Nico says. “It’s okay.”

The next morning, for the first time, the fighting makes its way to the beach.

Will wakes to the song of steel, to men’s shouts and horses’ brays, to Jason’s hand on his shoulder and his urgent call to arms. Will’s heart catches in his throat and he sprints down to the waves in time to see the army of merpeople emerge from the waves, a clear challenge to any human who would dare to step into the water.

Ares’ men do not falter. Some aim for Apollo’s soldiers and some head for the merpeople, brandishing their sharpened swords and screaming for blood. Will’s panicking, fighting half-blind, searching the waves for Nico as the sea begins to run red.

He sees him, finally. Across the bay. Blocking the swing of a sword with the hilt of his spear. He’s outnumbered, two other Ares soldiers approaching, and so Will does what he has to do.

The Ares soldier’s sword swings down in a gleaming arc.

Will feels the impact as it cuts into him. And then he feels nothing.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Will wakes up slowly, slowly, bit by bit. His body aches all over, limbs stiff and resistant to his movements, lungs heavy and strange. When he opens his eyes, they take a long moment to adjust - the light here is odd, green-tinted and wobbling.

“You’re awake,” Nico’s voice says.

Will sits up fast, and his whole body revolts, bursting into itchy, burning pain. He doubles over, coughing and clutching at his stomach, and Nico’s hands find his shoulders, his face. Soothing, steadying.

When he’s calmed down enough to speak, he chokes, “The battle.”

Nico’s fingers trail along his collarbone. It’s incredibly distracting.

“Over. Between my people and yours, the invaders were driven off. The war is over, for now.”

Will nods, processes that. “Are we both dead, Nico?”

Nico smiles, and it’s bright enough to stop the stars, bright enough to break Will’s heart.

“No. You saved my life.”

“Ah. So I’m the only one that’s dead.”

Nico snorts.

“No. You sacrificed yourself for me. The king of our people is my uncle, for lack of a better term - our relations are not the same as you and yours. He repaid kindness with kindness and was able to save you, as a favor to me. You are not unaltered, though.” Nico’s smile fades and becomes something closer to a grimace. “See for yourself.”

And Will does. He looks down and sees a sun-gold tail in place of his legs.

“Holy shit,” he says. And then he bursts out laughing.

It hurts his stomach a lot, almost enough to kill the sheer buzz that comes from almost dying and then being miraculously transformed into a fish-man. Not quite enough, though, so he keeps giggling, Nico staring at him incredulously, looking like he’s about ready to call for help.

“Will?” Nico says, urgently. “Will, are you okay?”

Will grins, reaching forward to cup Nico’s face in his hands.

“Never better,” he says, and then he leans forward to kiss Nico, hard, on the mouth, Will’s lips parted against Nico’s, and God, God.

It feels like silver.

#solangelo #nico di angelo #will solace #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #heroes of olympus #my writing #anon asked for angst and a mermaid au!!#i am nothing if not willing to deliver!!#sorry this is shit i haven't written in months!!#bye!!

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