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Nick drifts in and out. Present one moment, fleeting in the next. He tries to stay in the fleeting - it hurts less then - but it's difficult. Even after months and months of practice.
Every bump in the road yanks the seatbelt against what must be broken ribs, and he gasps. There's no "getting used to" injury, he decides, but grits his teeth against it anyway.
His father sits in the driver's seat in front of him, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. In a far corner of Nick's mind he childishly hopes that he does it out of worry, out of impatience to get his own son healed back up.
But there is no injury in the world that could make his father worry, as long as it is not lethal.
And there is no healing in the world that can patch this son up.
"You did good today, Nicholas," his father says over his shoulder, but Nick feels like the praise is directed at someone else, somehow. As if Martin was complimenting his feet for moving the rest of his body out of harm's way. "You are getting faster and more strategic in your combat."
Nick doesn't answer. Another bump in the road sends a jolt of pain up his side, and he wishes Martin would be more strategic with his driving.
"I think you're ready to dial up the difficulty," he continues, ignoring the lack of response from his son. "I'll see to it that we get two Lieges in next time, to practice more complicated manoeuvres."
"…Next time?"
Martin twists in his seat as he breaks for a red light. He glances back at his son with raised, bushy eyebrows, as if confused by Nick's surprise.
"Nicholas, you are the Scion of Arthur Pendragon. In just a few years' time you'll inherit powers beyond what you can imagine. Strength and wisdom to lead your Table through the greatest war in history," he says, and his voice takes on an almost dreamy sort of sound. Wishful. Aspiring. "You'll need to be as prepared as you can possibly be."
Nick winces as he is pushed back against his seat when the light changes to green. A sickening dread washes over him at the thought of the future his father paints him.
War.
"…What if I don't want to?"
Martin's eyes seem to spark when they meet Nick's in the rear-view mirror. It's only for a moment, blink-and-you'll-miss-it, but the air inside the vehicle turns sour.
"You do, son," Martin says. "You do."
"How would you know?" Nick asks, suddenly feeling courageous. Bold. Anger and grief for a life he'll never have boils within him, and his vision blurs. He blames his bruises. "I never asked for this!"
"And yet you are blessed with it, Nicholas."
"This is no blessing, it's a curse!"
His statement hangs heavy around them. Rattles around in Nick's head like a pebble. Weighs heavy in his chest. Martin's face is unreadable in the mirror, much because Nick's eyes spill over with tears that run down his cheeks in humiliating rivulets. He furiously wipes them away.
Another father might have stopped the car, put his arms around his son, comforted him out of this pain.
Martin flicks the turn signal.
Every sound seems to echo in the vehicle, despite the doors and the ceiling and the floor feeling like they're all closing in on Nick with every 'tick'-'tick'-'tick'. As if the clock counting down to his final breath was made audible at Martin's command. A convincing threat that there is only one way his story ends, whether he wants it or not.
"You will be given opportunities I never even came close to, son. Be given chances that so many of our ancestors sacrificed their lives for, prayed for," he says calmly, and turns off the main road. "You will have the power to change the world." Martin glances up to meet Nick's reddened eyes in the mirror, but makes no effort to make his smile reassuring, or sympathetic. "You will become the beacon of what being a 'Davis' truly means."
A chill runs through Nick's beaten bones and aching muscles. He swallows the refusal bubbling in his throat, and instead shrinks in his seat until he feels more transparent than real.
"How can you know?"
Martin meets his gaze again in the mirror, and it turns the words that would have been so soft falling from any other's lips, hard and cold;
"I will make sure of it."
Nick is carried in his father's arms through the door of the house - his own legs refused to carry him. He winces with every sway, every step, and clutches his side, gasping for breath.
His mother rushes out into the hall, scolding Martin even before he fully steps across the threshold. The pain zipping through Nick distracts him from whatever she is saying, but his heart aches anyway when her voice cracks.
"He'll be fine, Anna," Martin's chest rumbles against Nick's skin. "It's necessary for his growth."
"Necessary?!" Anna cries, and a soft, warm, shaking hand tries desperately to smooth out the wrinkles on her son's forehead. "How can you call this 'necessary'?!"
"Quiet down. Nicholas is strong, he can handle it."
Nick is carefully placed down on the living room sofa, and Anna kneels beside him. The comforting scent of mom encases him in enough safety to fake a smile for her - a futile attempt to make her worry less. She combs her fingers through his hair, and despite the ache, it is welcome.
"Oh, baby…" She soothes, but it sounds as broken as he feels, and a sob escapes the carefully constructed mask of "strong" his father branded him with.
Strong. Yet another title he was dealt, and yet undeserving of.
"The Scion of Gawain is on his way," Martin announces from somewhere in the background, and Anna scowls at him.
"He better be."
In the doorway, across the room, a pair of golden eyes regards the scene with part confusion, part guilt. Selwyn's stare tunes out the all-too-familiar argument between Nick's parents, and he stares back.
Selwyn's jaw twitches, as if he wants to intervene, interject. Call something to attention that isn't already. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, and Nick can't tell if the anger is directed at himself or at the circumstances they've found themselves in.
Selwyn, his Kingsmage, his guard, once again unable to protect his King-to-be.
What must that feel like?
How must it feel to be assigned a protégé, only to be locked away when the threat arises, and watch them return broken and bruised like he is?
Selwyn fought back at first, of course. Claimed an almost desperate need to be present for the practices, expressed desire to "see his charge fight", to "learn his patterns", but Martin said no. Nick had also tried to reason that Sel should come with, to practice the protecting part of the job he had been assigned from the moment he stepped through their door, but to no avail.
There is only so much influence the heir-to-be can have on an 1500-year old brotherhood at twelve years of age.
When Nick hears the healer's voice call through the entryway, he looks away. He locks his gaze to the ceiling, tries to focus on the relief that is soon to come.
The Merlin boy stands watch by the door until the pain fades, and exhaustion envelops him in darkness.
Hours later, Nick wakes with a start. He finds himself on his bed, dressed in soft clothes on a soft duvet under a soft blanket. He looks around and finds the usual glass of water by his bedside together with a sandwich, but he isn't hungry this time, either.
He throws the blanket off to the side, and all but jumps off the bed, leaps to the dresser and starts pulling out clothes. Shirts, trousers… socks?
What does one pack when you run away?
A knock on his bedroom door startles him, but Selwyn's voice comes right after, as it always does.
"Nick, let me in."
There is no "running away quietly" with a Merlin in the house. Knowing his Kingsmage, though, the boy probably paced outside his door like a guard dog making up for lost time, simply awaiting a sign of Nick being awake.
He pauses his packing, sighs.
"Okay."
Selwyn cracks the door open and slips through soundlessly, closes it gently behind himself. Starts asking a question, then stiffens. Pivots.
"What are you doing?"
Nick considers a lie, for only a moment, before he turns back to the dresser. Pulls out another pair of underwear.
"Leaving."
He doesn't need to look Selwyn in the eye to see how his curiosity shifts into alarm. For someone with aether-control as finely tuned as Sel, every mood swing is as solid as a physical one.
The air feels as if it's sucked out of the room as the element gathers at the Merlin's fingers in wisps of silver mist. It dances around his rings - one on each ring finger, both still a little too big for him - in mesmerizing waves. Nick has never been able to tell if it's a conscious action, or if aether simply bends around Sel as if he were made of it himself - his own kind of armour against uncomfortable things.
"What?"
"You heard me," Nick says, like it's final. "I don't want to be the Scion of Arthur anymore. Someone else can take the position instead of me."
Nick doesn't hear as much as he feels Sel cross the room. The gust of wind sweeps past Nick and through him, Sel's voice carried by it with force. "What are you saying?"
Nick turns to him then, anger and hurt giving his voice the confidence he lacks. "I'm saying that I am done, Selwyn. I'm done."
A moment passes between them. A staring contest ensues. Selwyn is the first to break it, as he always is, even though he'd never admit to it. He shakes his head with a laugh, but it is completely void of humour. "You can't just-, you can't just leave."
"Why not?"
Selwyn wets his lips, his gaze flickering all over the room. "Nick, you are bound to your bloodline. You were born to-"
"As far as my own father is concerned, I'll die in training before I die in battle. So I'll make my first decision as Crown Scion now, while I still can." Nick takes a breath, and tries to ignore how ragged it sounds. How uncertain he sounds even though he knows he has never spoken so true, "I don't want it."
Selwyn's fists clench and unclench at his sides again, but aether is a fleeting thing, flowing through his fingers rather than something solid to hold. His canines bite deep into his bottom lip, and Nick realizes with a jolt what this looks like to Selwyn.
Abandoned. Left behind. Again.
"Wait, Sel, I'm sorry. This isn't-" Nick starts, but a hollow, wide pain bursts in his chest anyway, like a dam broken. He was ready for it though, and braces himself against the echo of their bond. The flurry of pain and anger and fear ricochets between them until he can't tell what is his and what is not anymore. It is somehow worse than all the bruises Nick has been dealt up until now. As if he is beaten blue from the inside this time, rather than a threat he could parry.
Selwyn meets his gaze, an electric current of flame and thunder.
"Even if you leave, you do realize I will stay bound to you, correct? You might leave the stage, but you cannot leave the theatre," Selwyn says, quietly, and it sounds to Nick like a threat and a plea both. A desperate wish for him to change his mind. "Or else, yours is not the only life you will be putting in danger, Nicholas."
'Nicholas'. No longer 'Nick'.
In Selwyn's voice he hears the voice of his father. The words so similar to the ones he's heard too many times to count already. A script Selwyn too has heard enough times to replicate like a walking echo.
He can't stay. He can't. But Selwyn isn't wrong.
And worse, he knows just as well how the Kingsmage Oath leashes Selwyn to him by the very fabric of his being, soul to soul, no matter how badly they both wish it wasn't so. ' 'Til death do us part, violently and painfully.'
Nick swallows the lump in his throat.
"You can carry out your Oath to the rest of the Chapter, Selwyn. You will be fine-"
"Did you know that I have felt your fear every time you left for these 'practices'?" He cuts off, and takes a step closer. Sel points a finger to his own sternum, where Selwyn's pain resonates within Nick too, like a mirror. Two parts of a whole. "And I will continue to do so, for the rest of my life, Nicholas. Every time you are hunted down for sport - which you will be - you will curse me with the knowledge that I could have protected you, had you taken me with."
Nick swallows. He knew this, of course. But had he considered it, truly? Being hunted? Isels and uchels and goruchels all watching him through the windows, following him home from school, catching his scent and tracking him down? Screeching in delight when realizing that the leader of the enemy's side walks around unguarded by his fellows? Living in a delusion, a disregard for his birth right would put the rest of the Legendborn bloodlines in jeopardy, would he be awakened as Arthur's true Scion. "Kill the head - kill the body", put into the hands of fate and chance.
Freedom, at an expensive price.
Nick suppresses a shudder at the thought, and forces his heartbeat to keep its normal pace.
"I'm leaving the Order, Sel, not the state." He huffs, to distract from how his hands grip the fabrics of his clothes tighter. "God knows my father wouldn't let me out of his sight." He glances back as Sel, but lets the "neither would you" go unsaid.
Sel picks it up anyway.
Because, of course he does.
"You think this is- this is some club you can just dip out of because you grew bored of it? Because you got bruised?!" Sel was yelling now. "My own mother died in line of duty. To make the world safer for the Onceborn. Camlann is coming, maybe within our generation even, and we have a chance to stop it from ever happening again. Fight the good fight once and for all. Don't you want that? Is that not what you want?!"
Nick drops the shirt he was holding to face his Kingsmage fully. Panic and dread ripples underneath his skin at the mere thought of fighting in a war. Camlann, of all things. A war against demons and shadows of nightmares and terror, made real. Had Nick grown up as a "normal" child, in a "normal" family, perhaps he would have been simply scared of the dark, not terrified of what hides within it. Terrified of what it can cause if he doesn't become the monster first, beat it before it beats him.
"Do you realize how many people would die in such a war? In Camlann?" Nick retorts. "If I don't lead us in, they'll have no one to fight! No one will get hurt!"
"You think the Shadowborn will stop simply because our side stands without a King?!"
"Maybe you will!"
Both of them fall silent. It's only then that Nick sees how his words land in Selwyn's mind. Shadowborn. He hadn't meant it to resonate with Selwyn's argument for the enemy's side. He almost hadn't heard him speak, even, as caught up in his own emotions as he had been. Nick had already had dreams at night. Awful, gruesome dreams of watching Sel be struck down time and time again, only to rise back up like a creature undead. Throwing himself in front of Nick like a shield over and over. Ripped open only to magically mend as if the wounds were never there at all.
Invincible. But to a point, surely?
Selwyn's mother had died in battle. Would Nick be able to stand by to see the same thing happen to her son?
If Nick never led the war, he wouldn't need a shield. But Selwyn doesn't hear that. His Merlin ears only hears what he already believes to be true.
Shadowborn.
Inhuman.
At service.
"Sel, I didn't-"
"Don't worry. I heard you, my liege."
Something cuts deep into Nick's heart then, like a dagger carving out the last "good" he believed himself to carry. He watches as Selwyn shuts himself out, mentally detaches from Nick, knowing fully well he could never do such a thing enough to matter.
"Sel, listen, we can't stay here. You know how this ends if we do. I promise, I-"
"If an Oath means nothing to you, Crown Scion," Sel spits, and takes a step backwards, towards the door, "Why would I ever believe your promise?"
Nick takes a step forward to meet him, but Merlins are fast, and Sel moves back to the door, handle in hand before Nick can even think of finding the right words to say.
"For your sake, I hope the grass is greener," Sel mutters, and Nick just barely catches the sight of Sel wiping his sleeve across his cheek before the door slams shut.
The silver mists of aether left behind by Sel slowly dissolves, and deep within himself, Nick wishes he could do the same.