Caffeine and Magix

(BTW, I do do prompts! I’ve gotten a lot of them so it may take me a couple of days :) Thanks for sending this one in anon!)

“I never wanted to become a legend,” Megan says gloomily, staring at the sheathed sword on her knees.

Across the campfire, the mountain troll snorts. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re a horror story, not a legend.”

Megan isn’t sure she wants to be hearing that from a mountain troll, particularly not one who had been trying to sneak up and eat her only twenty minutes before. She doesn’t answer, staring at the way the firelight flickers over the metal scabbard, sending long, deep shadows into the engravings along it.

“If you’re going to kill me,” the mountain troll says, “hurry up and do it. Sun’s coming up and I’d rather go by that sword than a bit of sunlight.” The troll looks anxiously to the horizon, hands twisting in the ropes binding it to the pine tree behind it.

Megan, feeling dangerous, picks her sword up with both hands, one on the scabbard, one on the hilt. The troll’s beady eyes fix on it, the breath seeming to still in their lungs. Slowly, Megan drew her sword just one inch. Then two.

“The Sword of a Thousand Souls,” the mountain troll breathes. The troll stares for another beat and then laughs without humor. “They said you could feel the pressure of your kills from across a field.” It swallows. “They were right.”

So even this one can’t tell a blunt sword from a live one.

Megan sheathes her sword with force, the metal singing a protest, and stands. She doesn’t know what she expected. To be caught? To be freed of this reputation? To be understood?

Pathetic.

She can’t look down at the troll, the troll being taller than her even while sitting, but she tries. “You’re a disappointment,” she says coldly. “Maybe the sun will think differently.” She turns sharply on her heel and clicks her fingers. With a hiss, the fire goes out.

“Wait,” the troll says with alarm. “Wait! You can’t leave me here! Behead me, stab me, take my heart, anything. I don’t want to burn!”

Megan scoops up her bag, purses her lips, and keeps walking.

——————————————–

Megan was there the day her father engraved the words she lives by into the sheath.

“You’ll see them every time you think to draw,” he’d said. There had been a feverish light in his eyes as he worked, never flinching as spark and ember landed on his skin. “Then maybe you’ll think before you–you—”

Megan had flinched, had wrapped her arms around herself, had tried to make herself small in the face of her father’s anger. “I–I was just trying to do the right thing,” she’d said. “I didn’t mean to hurt him so badly.”

The metal had clanged with his anger. “You never do,” her father had said, not in forgiveness but in contempt. “Here.”

He’d thrust the burning metal into her hands, face not changing when she’d cried out. She had read the inscription through tears. 

She hasn’t stopped crying since. She’s just learned to hide it better.

——————————————-

Every year after that, her father tells her the same thing.

Never hurt another.

Never pick up another sword. If you have to draw a sword, that one will serve you. It will fail you. You will die.

You deserve to die.

It’s your fault they killed your mother.

———————————————-

Prince Kellen passes her on the road two summers after her father died. She’s a legend (horror story) and he doesn’t recognize her. Why should he? She grown from the girl she was, her gaze is harder, her shoulders stronger.

She recognizes him right away, despite the lack of royal guard around him. As it is, she takes him in as he gallops by with wide eyes.

He’s, for the most part, the same. Curly, outrageously curly hair that puffs around his face, emphasizes the width of his nose, the fullness of his lips. He’s beautiful and she would have recognized him even without the huge, silver scar that cuts up from underneath his collar and curls over his chin.

“Excuse me!” he shouts as he thunders past, his lone companion shouting for him to slow down.

She blinks, the sword at her hip a stinging presence, and watches him go. She feels the ghost of the past lapping at her sword hand and swallows. She forces her feet to continue back down the road to the village she’s staying.

—————————————–

Megan had once been Lady Megan of Kallay, daughter of Duke Kallay. She’d played with other noble children with joy, picking up dolls and stick weapons together, transitioning from one group to another easily.

One of the little lords had held a party, a birthday party. There had been a magician. He’d said a secret, magic word to the oldest of them (the biggest of them) and laughed when the oldest took the sword from the nearest guard and ran him through.

The oldest, the birthday boy, had then turned on the little ladies and tiny nobles with dead, rotten eyes.

“Play with your guests,” the magician had said, a smile splittng his face to reveal rotted teeth. “It’s only polite.”

And the older boy, the bigger boy, the stronger boy did.

——————————————————

The King and Queen, after, never admitted to the presence of the Magician or the effect he had on the little prince. Instead, they took a look at the grievous wound and then looked for the one who had been holding the weapon.

Megan.

Kallay didn’t exist by morning.

——————————————————–

Megan enters the villain a scarce ten minutes later and raises an eyebrow. It’s busier than expected, this being the trading season. She wonders what’s happened to keep everyone at home.

It’s none of her business, though. She goes to the nearest Inn.

“Oh dear, did you just come from the woods?” the innkeeper asks. She bustles around the bar, looking Megan over. “I’m surprised they gave you no trouble! We’ve got a nest of harpies this year and the damned headman’s only just gone to report it. How long are you staying for?”

Megan whirls around and sprints out the door.

——————————–

One thing she never told her father was that she was different after that party. She didn’t have time between the terror and flight. 

And the grief.

They’d run her mother through when they raided her home. They said she tried to fight back. Megan likes to think so, likes to remember her mother as a fighter, likes to think her mother doesn’t blame her like her father does. Did.

Under the flight and terror and grief, Megan never told her father about how she’s the one who killed the Magician. He didn’t bleed out or disappear. He died under her sword, under her hand, and his magic raced up the cold metal, up her arm, and shot her through her heart.

There are more ways to make a magician than the books say.

——————————————

Megan lengthens her stride with magic, covering the distance that had taken her ten minutes in two. She can feel the power humming through her body, addictive and maddening, but she has no choice. 

She enhances her senses and her head snaps to the left. There. She takes off through the trees.

The battle’s already begun when she arrives, the Prince sweaty and bloody but still alive. His attendant, the youth with auburn hair, is lying on the ground behind him, unconscious.

The harpies flood the air in front of him, screeching and brandishing their sharp claws. One of them swoops for Prince Kellen’s face and he ducks too slow. The creature’s claws rip a line on his head from which blood pours immediately.

Another scar, Megan thinks and steps forwards.

Prince Kellen notices her first. “Get back! Go! They’ll–”

“I am the wielder of the Sword of a Thousand Souls,” she announces to the flock. She grins hard, teeth bared. “If you think you will survive this, you are wrong.”

The harpies screech and a large portion of their flock breaks off to dive at her, claws extended. Her hand tightens around the hilt of her sword and she thinks sorry, dad.

She opens her mouth, pulls the magic deep from within, and breathes lightning.

The blast takes out half the flock easily, their scorched bodies falling to the forest floor, smoking slightly. The other half of them take one look at their fallen comrades and squeal, taking wing and shooting away.

“That was…fast,” Prince Kellen says in the resulting silence. He’s still poised defensively in front of the attendant, sword held in front of him. As she watches, he lowers it, not sheathing it, and frees on hand to gingerly touch his head. “Ow.”

Behind him, the attendant groans as he begins to come too.

“Thank you,” Prince Kellen says, turning to her. He grimaces at the blood on his hand and wipes it on his royal finery. “I thought we were done for.”

“You’re…welcome,” she says, voice rusty with disuse. She clears her throat. “The rest of the flock will be back. You should go.”

Prince Kellen squints at her. “You seem very familiar. Do I know you?”

“I’m the wielder of the Sword of a Thousand Souls,” she says, heart beating quickly in her chest. You’ve changed, he doesn’t recognize you. “Everyone knows me.” Her eyes flick to the scar curling over his chin and her grip on her sword tightens further.

“I’ve heard of that,” Prince Kellen says, not in the least bit fazed. He frowns. “There’s something else…” His eyes widen and his mouth drops open. “Could it be Megan? Megan of Kallay?”

How in the hells did he recognize me?

Megan takes an unconscious step back, hand falling from the hilt of her sword.

“They told me you were dead,” Prince Kellen breathes. He takes a step forwards. “Megan, I–” his face clouds “–your parents. They– I’m sorry. I didn’t know, not for a long time. I’m sorry.”

An age old hurt curls in her belly and she forces it down. It’s not his fault, not really.

“It’s in the past,” she says. “They had to act.”

Prince Kellen’s hands curl into fists. “Not like that. You–you saved us. Me.” He takes another step forward.

Her eyes flick to his scar and she takes a step back. “No, I tried to kill you.” Your fault your mother is dead. “The rest that followed is on me.”

“No,” Prince Kellen says. “My parents were wrong–”

“It’s in the past,” Megan bites out. She points to him. “Don’t follow me.”

“Don’t foll–Megan!” Prince Kellen rushes after her, right on her heels. “Wait! Please!”

Megan mutters under her breath and her magic whisks her away. She’s not the same person she used to be and neither is he. She’s not willing to dance with the past, not anymore. She’s spent years agonizing over that party, that fight, those consequences. She’s done with it. For her own piece of mind, she’s done with it.

She focuses on not thinking at all.