Bramblepoint Ask myself what I want more

agilulf’s been through enough change that he ought to take to it like a fish does to water. each passing season, it goes no easier for him. knows it, is intimate with it, yet the nagging unfamiliarity ribs him quiet.
it’s perhaps why he ebbs and flows between íkaros’ presence—anchoring—now that they’ve reached the teekons. the boy needed room much as the guard did. donned with mask and cape, íkaros liked to play on a stage of one, in the role of average, ordinary john doe. the audience he captivates sways to his acting, while others see beyond it. agilulf says he’s an open book with the way íkaros takes the world onto his shoulders and crumbles with each passing step.
little prince, you’ll never be able to run far.
he could play on his stage for long as he wanted. agilulf’d stand guard, would let him prance and act like he weren’t royalty and attempt to blend with others until íkaros reached his turning point; roaming lost like a boy without the guiding hand of a doting mother. agi’s there for those times he needed a nudge or a shoulder to fall back on.
and he need not admit that he needs his prince just as much.
but that isn’t to say he gets why they’re out here. the greenery thick after the height of spring. weather biting with heat, and he knows íkaros is out there somewhere—collapsed in a heap for the mountain boy’s been spoiled by the chill of near-constant winters.
agi leans to his feet, shaking fur loose after lounging casual underneath a tree—enjoying the shade in the peak of day while íkaros took to mindless wandering (be it physical or mental). now that the weather were cooling, it were time for an intermission, and agi preps to close the curtains and find his beloved actor.

“There was a stranger–” An attempt to justify his disappearance was thrown into the air as he wiggled his way underneath the brush, though he knew better than anyone that Agi would see through such an excuse. 

“He was quite the chatterbox… Offered me a fish. A fish, Agi. Just my luck that a stranger would offer me a meal of the one thing I hate.” A  breathless chuckle was placed beneath. If one were to look for it, that is.  And he knew the man before him would catch it with practiced ease despite the youngers penchant for mask-wearing.

A starless night. A winding river; Thats where Agilulf had found him all those years ago.  Playing with duckweed and scum adorning his fur; the remnants of a sodden-cracked cattail swimming amongst the mix. Of course he had been chastised with a tone unbefitting of a guard, though the boy did not mind. Not when it was out of love; stolen away from the scene with  haste only to be caught upon sneaking into his chamber. 

If you are to play with fish, you might as well be one.—  A harsh lesson was taught that night. His small stomach packed uncomfortably with the grotesque meal to the point of vomiting- courtesy of his mother’s wish. Fish, after all, were gluttonous and served only to plump up and feed the hungry.  Agilulf was there, of course. To pick up the broken pieces of that cracked mask left by those who employed him. His Prince’s eyes dried, his forehead kissed. Alabaster servant turned master only for those fleeting minutes before it was time to play The Fool once more.

a white shadow brow perks—directed towards the excuse that tumbles from his prince’s lips as he tugs that curtain closed with íkaros’s end scene entrance into his sphere.
a stranger, he echoes. wherein the guard knew his charge, the same could be said for íkaros. the amusement that lingered in the deep rumble of his voice obvious to his trained ear.
“a fish, agi.” fronted by the aforementioned memory of a boy bloated, miserable and spewing his guts across the cavern floor, agilulf’s deadpan twists, lips pinch, and one ear dare even turn.
did you eat it? the titan shifts into íkaros’s personal space. his dull pink nose invades cheek ruff with deep inhales.