The Runaway Paladin and the Half Fae Duke

With dinner heartily eaten, Sien was now laid out on the couch while using Ritt’s lap as a pillow, having used the ‘favor’ he allowed Ritt to do earlier in the Duke’s room as an excuse. Ritt looked slightly puzzled and uncomfortable with the action he’d never performed before, but the fact that he did nothing to resist it tickled Sien somewhere in his chest. He’d already long-since grabbed one of Ritt’s hands and placed it on top of his head, telling Ritt to pet him, and the obedient Ritt had slowly agreed, petting Sien’s hair dutifully with metered precision and timing, as if doing something extremely important. Sien relaxed just like that for a while, enjoying how Ritt never seemed to adjust to the situation even after 10 minutes had passed, but eventually he opened his mouth and asked the question that had been bothering him.

 

“Hey, what exactly did you do back there?”

 

“Hmm…? Ah, I saved that servant.”

 

“Well yeah, but like how though? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of magic.”

 

What Ritt had done was very different from any kind of healing that the priests that Sien had seen ever did. And the fact that Ritt had drawn his own blood, the tainted blood that Sien had clearly seen in the vials before and had been told was incredibly toxic… It made no sense.

 

Ritt shifted uncomfortably for a second, but then quickly stopped when he remembered that Sien’s head was still on his lap, and looked away with an unconfident frown instead. He wanted to trust Sien, and he knew that Sien was at least already aware that something was wrong with his blood. Still, it felt somehow embarrassing to talk about such things, as if he were admitting to just how monstrous his body had become. But, in the end, he couldn’t hold out against Sien’s curious stare, and so he stammered out a fraction of an explanation.

 

“Mmm… My blood is special. They… Um, there’s been healing chemicals and special magic put into it. It’s like a catalyst. I can use it to heal… Not just myself, but others, too.”

 

Talking about it made Ritt remember some of the various alterations that the mages had done to him. The spells they'd engraved onto his heart and the augments they'd performed on it had been what gave his blood its special qualities. His heart was now a small factory of enhancing drugs, superior potions, and magic, that pumped the special concoction it made through his body. Truthfully, many of his organs had been fiddled with and recrafted in this way, supplying him with all kinds of superhuman changes. Even his skull and spine hadn't escaped, being carved with a litany of ancient regeneration runes all filled with the dust of maximum grade magic stones, which was one of the major powerhouses behind the rapid self-healing that he automatically performed.

 

Yes, even if he wasn't a finished product, this body of his was barely human now. Perhaps only the outer shell of it could be considered anything close to 'normal' anymore. Some of his skeleton had managed to remain untouched for now, but had he not left when he had, then that would have eventually been carved into, too.

 

Sien watched as Ritt’s eyes shifted miserably around the room, and he could even feel Ritt dangerously fisting some of the fabric of the couch nearby. He enjoyed seeing Ritt being uncomfortable, but he didn’t really want to distress him in this way, so instead of asking more questions, he grabbed the hand that Ritt had bit earlier, looking it over quickly and seeing that he could no longer find even a single mark on it, and placed it back on top of his head.

 

“Wow, that’s really special like you said. Everyone was super surprised how instantly you healed that guy.”

 

In fact, even the 72 year old Duke, who’d traveled all over for diplomatic missions and had seen all the surrounding countries, had been surprised, meaning that this was by no means something that he’d seen before. Sien was beginning to get worried that the Duke might meddle even more with Ritt in the future because of this.

 

“Ah… Well, I was in a hurry. I didn’t consider the consequences. I’m sorry.”

 

Ritt drooped, looking a bit like a sad, scolded puppy in Sien’s eyes. Sien reached out, tugging on Ritt’s long hair a little to force his head to come down more, and then softly pet it a few times, as if to console him.

 

“I’m not getting mad at you... Although I guess I am a little worried.”

 

From what Ritt had said a moment ago, Sien’s cute monster wasn’t something natural, but had been made. And if it was something so secretive that not even his uncle had heard about it before, then it was doubtful that whoever created him would be happy their special little creation was roaming about freely like this. The idea that there might be more people out there who wanted to take Ritt away from him made Sien’s eyes narrow. It all made him feel very uncomfortable.

 

Sien gave just one more gentle tug to Ritt’s hair, and then let his fingers lace and slide through it, thoroughly feeling its texture.

 

“Hey, do you think anyone’s coming after you? I’m sure you must be missed, somewhere.”

 

Even if it wasn’t whoever had made Ritt into a monster, surely he must have had some friends or family that would care about him. Even Sien, who many people in the empire had called a monster, had had a mother who cared for him, and an uncle who’d vigilantly kept track of him. Ritt seemed like a likable and kind enough person, and Sien was sure that there must have been someone else out there who’d noticed it just like he had.

 

Ritt tilted his head, tickled a bit by Sien’s ministrations with his hair.

 

“Mmm, no, I don’t think so. I suppose there’s a chance that they’d be able to track me, but there’s very little possibility that they’d be able to come here, to the empire. And…”

 

A small, bashful smile broke across Ritt’s usually stoic face, making Sien pause as he watched it.

 

“...I’m sure, even if they did manage to come here, that you would take care of them, right?”

 

Sien stared, bewitched by the scene in front of him, and almost forgot to blink. However, when Ritt’s eyes began to dart around in worry that Sien hadn’t replied back, Sien quickly came to his senses and looked away, embarrassed, biting his lip a little as his face began to turn red.

 

“...Yes. I’ll definitely take care of it.”

 

It was clear to Sien now that he would probably do anything if Ritt asked him like this.

 

~~~

 

The next morning, the Duke had shown up for breakfast again, earning a few glares from Sien. Ritt, too, gave the man plenty of distrustful and uncomfortable looks, making Sien’s mood even more hairy. And so, in a reverse of the past two days, even though Ritt ate slowly because he was wary, Sien didn’t eat at all, instead spending all of his time crossing his arms and giving the Duke menacing glares. Eventually the Duke sighed, seeing that his plans were not going to work out with both of their walls being raised so high, and in the end he simply gave up for now, and left without a word.

 

Once the Duke was gone, Ritt finally let himself relax a small bit, but seeing that Sien still looked upset and still hadn’t eaten a single thing, he remembered the times that their situations were reversed, and opted to try to feed Sien something. He picked up a large grape that he’d noticed Sien often eating, and brought it over to Sien’s mouth, carefully hovering it in front of his lips.

 

“Sien… Please eat something?”

 

Sien glanced over to look at Ritt’s sweet and worried face, and his crossed arms immediately loosened a little, losing their strength. He looked between Ritt and the grape a few times more, not sure what he was feeling, and eventually obediently ate it, letting himself fall onto Ritt’s side and resting his head on the larger man’s shoulder as he chewed.

 

“Geez… I really can’t stand uncle most of the time.”

 

“Yes, I can understand why...”

 

Ritt didn’t want to speak too rudely about Sien’s family, so he did his best to only say that much.

 

“I just hate how opportunistic he can be! He wasn’t like that when mom was still around.”

 

It wasn’t like Sien didn’t sometimes mention his mother, but even Ritt, who wasn’t terribly good with social things, could tell that it might be a touchy subject. After all, it was clear from context clues that his mother wasn’t around anymore, for whatever reason. Still, now that he knew a bit better what his standing was, Ritt grew a bit more bold about asking the things that were on his mind.

 

“...What was he like when she was here?”

 

“Ummm, I guess he was a lot kinder? If he started going off on some kind of tirade about how I have Fae blood or whatever, mom would stop him really quick, so for the most part, he just quietly watched over me. He still had a bit of a challenging attitude and would pick fights sometimes, but he would also teach me all kinds of things, like he was trying to make up for my lack of a dad, or my ‘Fae sensibilities’, as he’d call them. …Honestly, it wasn’t a bad time.”

 

Seeing Sien’s relaxed smile as he reminisced from the spot on his lap made Ritt unable to look away. There was just something so enchanting about the scene, something he couldn’t quite place his finger on. And for some reason, it made Ritt wonder if he, too, could one day look like that while he thought about the past.

 

Deciding that the odd feeling that washed over him was just envy, Ritt forced himself to look away.