something among the weeds

maxfield and cesare

Maxfield is not a princess. He does not want to be a princess.

Yet he longs for home.

--

The Yaricun Mountains, as it turns out, are not that bad in the winter. Maxfield is willing to bet they are not that bad in the spring, either, but he doesn't plan to stick around for that long. As it is, right now, his arse is stuck to the frozen cold ground and the fire is waning, barely succeeding in thawing his fingertips. His two companions sit across from him, shoulder to shoulder, brothers since the first year of academy.

Behind him, his mare, Shryyrika, shifts and presses her warm shoulder against his back. They do not mean to exclude him, but they do. Maxfield had not been allowed to join the academy, but he was given a private tutor that had him advance through the same training. He is finally a knight now, but he does not have the bonds with the men he fights alongside. Aonghas, his tutor, says he will. In time.

He does not wish for time.

Aeren does not say anything, but he shifts and lays down on his mat. Maxfield watches as Lexin pulls out extra cloaks and drapes them over his friend. Lexin settles beside him, eyes staring out into the forest surrounding them. Maxfield does not ask, he does not bother to ask, for Lexin talks to him even less than Aeren, and he settles himself against his mare and closes his eyes, curling his own cloak tightly around himself against the cold.

Maxfield is the first to wake, the long fingers of grey sunlight raking across his lips and eyes and he sits up, nudging Shryyrika to her feet. He kicks some frozen dirt onto the smoking remains of the pitiful fire. The dirt is rather frozen, harder to kick than originally anticipated and Maxfield digs his boot in a little harder.

Lexin wakes then, sees Maxfield's foot posed to strike at the ground and he smiles. Maxfield stops, balances himself and returns Lexin's amused gaze with a startled one.

"Did the ground faeries spite you?"

"Okay," Maxfield says, turning away. He reaches into Shryyrika's saddlebag and pulls out a slice of bread. He stuffs it into his mouth and starts saddling her up, back to his companions.

Ground fae never mess with humans, too small and too dirty to ever cause much harm. The joke is insipid, it shouldn't bother Maxfield to the extent it does. Behind him, Lexin rustles around and the sounds of Aeren waking are quiet and serene. It soothes Maxfield's temper, and when he turns back to them, on Shryyrika's back, his voice is softer, his face is once again blank and neutral.

"Let's go."

And they do, back on the strange mountain trail up to the house where the wizard (part-time goatherd) is rumoured to live. Shryyrika's muscles tense underneath Maxfield's thighs, so he pulls up short, throwing up a hand to warn his men. Shryyrika's ears flick nervously, and Maxfield's pulse accelerates in his neck.

The surrounding wood is silent, a far cry from the rustling and bird calls from a moment before, and Maxfield feels the change in his men when they pick up on this as well. He hadn't wanted to come on this mission, rather taken with the idea of merely starting with guard rounds at the palace, but his father had looked at him with those slate-grey eyes and said, rather finally, "No prince guards his own palace."

It didn't seem to matter to the rest of the courtiers, who had agreed with his father, that Maxfield was not the first in line, so he wouldn't even be doing something that weird. He could guard his brother, couldn't he? The answer was, as it happens, no.

Standing there, stalk still, Maxfield fresh to the world of a knight, in the middle of a Magic flooded forest, he feels woefully underprepared. Technically, he's lightyears ahead of the men his own age in skill, but always, always lacking in experience. When a man with a pair of goat legs steps out in front of Shryyrika, Maxfield is... lost.