[Can’t Opt Out]

All things considered, Zavriel had been having a relatively acceptable day until now—actually, he’d been having a moderately acceptable week. This was neither common nor uncommon; rather, his life had been in a constant state of flux for a few years, and life could change so fast that he had learned to just roll with it.

Let the aether bring what it may, he would accept it and smile or frown, laugh or sit in silent sadness, and then, he would just keep going—keep moving through life. What else could he do?

This week, however, had been acceptable. It hadn’t been too cold, nor had it been too hot, despite how close he currently was to the Cyrenix Desert. It hadn’t rained, nor had there been any windstorms. A nice old man had given him some food, while a child had tried sharing the last bite of their candy with him—of course, he had said no, but the sentiment and kindness of that child meant a lot.

Now, for a normal person, these things wouldn’t matter so much—and really, even three years ago, these things wouldn’t have mattered to him. Three years ago, he would have been safe within his suite in the majenstra’s wing of the palace. Zavriel had never been a normal person, was the thing. He was a majenstra, and that meant he belonged to the current Majen and to the royal family, lingering ominous above whoever held the current position of Majen—this very second, they were a highly unpleasant man whom Zavriel would be quite happy to never see again.

Also at this very second, Zavriel wasn’t even a normal majenstra because he may have run off from his duties.

Look! There were extenuating circumstances! Most importantly, the current Majen was a deranged lunatic, and you know what!? Zavriel had not consented to this life! He hadn’t chosen to be born a majenstra, and honestly, running off and living as a vagabond had been the best decision he had ever made!

Did it suck that he had to always be moving through the nation, erasing all evidence of him having been there because the Majen still had people looking for him, even several years on? Yes, but it was better than the terrible life he had been set to live. The pelting rain, the sweltering sun, the sandstorms, the always lingering threat of starvation—all of it was better than the miserable life that had loomed before him, especially under that terrible Majen.

Maybe, he had thought at times, when the Majen died or resigned, Zavriel would go back—see who had taken over and then decide whether to remain or run off once more. As the Majen was still alive and kicking and showing no signs—at least not from the gossip Zavriel pulled from the minds of the Cayenta he happened across—of slowing down, he didn’t much think this likely to happen any time soon.

So, he kept moving, erasing each little piece of evidence as he went and avoiding those few souls who were impervious to his abilities. Thankfully, there weren’t many such people, and virtually all of them either never left the palace or only ever left to attend Cayenta parties or visit whatever land they held titles for.

Imagine Zavriel’s surprise, then, when the little crown prince literally walked right into him!

Now, Zavriel knew Prince Meridian was far older than his own fifty-seven. Even before the boy walked into him, however, Zavriel had seen him from afar, when he had still resided in the palace. The prince had all the energy of a child—all the innocence of one as well. While Zavriel had never witnessed such a thing, nor even heard whispers of such a thing occurring, if he had happened across the prince throwing a tantrum over the smallest of things, Zavriel wouldn’t have thought him some spoiled royal; instead, he would have thought it perfectly reasonable for someone so innocent and inexperienced with the world to not know how to handle disappointment or the big emotions that came with life not meeting his expectations.

Having now met the boy who was really a man, Zavriel still couldn’t stop himself from thinking of Prince Meridian as far younger than himself. The man was innocence, glowing and spreading to the world around him. His prince was also highly energetic and had chased him down and tackled him!

Who knew the little prince could run like that!?

Currently, Prince Meridian had him tied up—and who would have thought the boy had any training with summoning items directly from the aether!? Where had he learned that!? Seriously! The fact that the Majen was so insistent that they couldn’t correct even factual inaccuracies in what the royal family believed had been part of the reason Zavriel had left. That refusal to correct beliefs made it nearly impossible to teach the royal family anything; as a result, Prince Meridian shouldn’t have known how to use his core for such things, except, apparently he did! There were other reasons he had left as well, of course, but the fact that the Majen had refused to even acknowledge that there was precedent for gently correcting or educating their nation’s royalty—with their consent, of course—had been a tipping point for him.

It didn’t take a genius to see that the Majen was actively seeking to keep Prince Meridian naive and innocent and uninformed about the world, and that was bad—of course it was bad, but the fact that Prince Meridian was one of the few people who could resist the powers of a majenstra? Their abilities slipping off him in a way they didn’t his father or his sister?

Zavriel wasn’t an idiot, and he had known both that the Majen wasn’t a good person and that him realizing that fact put his own life in danger. If he had it his way, he would have left the entire nation in order to get away from whatever conspiracy was brewing with the palace—was possibly already set in motion because who knew if the Majen or the majenstra loyal to him were already manipulating the king. Unfortunately, leaving Crishar was nearly impossible for the simple fact that while he was in danger from the Majen while within its border, he would be in so much more danger if he left.

Hence, the fact that his prince was asking him to not just leave Crishar but also go to a city that apparently had not just one, but two criminals who collected people like him was concerning to say the least!

“What if I guarantee that you will be safe?” the prince asked, as though he, who knew virtually no one outside of the palace, could offer such a thing. “Well,” he began to amend, and here it came: the excuses, “assuming you make it out of Falmíer. I can arrange protection and safety for you once you are out of Lüshan. There isn’t much I can do for you while you are within it, other than assure you my friend will keep you safe, if you can find her.”

“Since when do you have friends?” Zavriel found himself asking. Would it have been something rude to ask anyone, let alone a member of the royal family, whom he definitely was supposed to just agree with on everything? Yes. If Prince Meridian claimed the two of them were now best friends, he was to agree with this and spend the rest of his existence being the best friend the prince could ever hope for—assuming the boy didn’t eventually tell him to go away, anyways.

“I became friends with Lan’za Yu, of Seer’ik’tine, and the Prince Ju of Norvel when they visited a few years ago,” the prince said, and even through the slipperiness of the boy’s mind, Zavriel could feel the not quite truth of his words. It was only a not quite truth, however, and while he was young and still inexperienced with understanding the intricacies of what made a memory true or false, if he had to guess, Zavriel would say Prince Meridian was oversimplifying the issue.

Most likely, they hadn’t become friends when the two future leaders visited, but that visit had been the catalyst. Was this an important distinction? For someone else, no—it would simply be a simplification of a story when, as the prince had explained, he was on a time crunch. For the prince, however…

“How do you even contact them? Neither have been back since then—and actually! How do you even know about what’s happening in Lüshan?”

Prince Meridian’s reddish-brown cheeks, so light compared to the more common deep golden-browns of most of their nation’s population, darkened. He shifted his weight from side to side and said nothing.

See, this was the problem with not educating the royal family on anything: it was easy to see the prince knew he had done something that would be frowned upon—possibly something that was against the wishes of his father, the only person who could really do anything to punish him for an indiscretion. Considering the boy was already far outside the palace, without a bodyguard to be seen—not that he apparently needed one, considering how easily the boy had been able to take him down—it was odd for him to be evasive about this.

There was no need to lie; if Zavriel chose to spew all his wrongdoings to his father or the Majen, would it really matter if he knew one more thing? Also, the boy would need to be able to lie and obfuscate the truth better than this, if he were going to run the nation one day. If Zavriel had enough time to think about it, he could likely come up with more reasons why not educating the heir to the throne on anything was fucking him and their nation as a whole over.

Oh! There was also the fact that Zavriel himself was on the run from the Majen—something Prince Meridian had admitted he knew, after tying him up, having been shown pictures of Zavriel so he could avoid him—so why even lie to him!? What reason would he have to betray the boy!?

“You have a xphern, I assume?” Zavriel guessed, clocking the way the prince shifted—the way his hand moved to protect the xphern most likely tucked into the bag, slung over his shoulder, the way he rotated his body as though to put more distance between Zavriel and the xphern and fuck if that wasn’t heartbreaking.

This boy who was really a man was so alone—so without friends or confidants—that he would rather be physically harmed than risk his only way of contacting friends—friends he may never see again—being destroyed.

Friends, who he was asking Zavriel to help him help, and fuck. He had always been something of a bleeding heart, especially over this boy, whom he had given up a life of luxury in his attempts to help because someone needed to know that the Majen had bad intentions and be able to come back, whenever those plans were set into motion against the prince—against an innocent boy he had thought about constantly, over the years since he had left the palace. Even if Prince Meridian might not have believed him, if he had told him the Majen had bad intentions towards him, Zavriel had sometimes wondered if he should have warned his prince—should have given him that little bit of a heads-up that something was simmering within the palace.

Ironically, now seeing how terrible his prince was at hiding his thoughts… No, Zavriel had probably been right not to tell him anything. The boy would have done something to reveal what he knew to the Majen sooner, rather than later, and gotten himself killed.

“How would you guarantee my safety?” he asked, finally erasing the ropes the prince had tied him up with from existence—his shoulders were starting to become sore, and despite the force that the boy had used in detaining him, Zavriel was almost positive that if he refused to help, Prince Meridian would let him go. Really, the prince was unlikely to even let the Majen know he had accidentally found him wandering the eastern border—not that Zavriel would have stayed there long, if he did refuse to help.

Unfortunately, bleeding heart and all, he couldn’t refuse. Besides, as Prince Meridian told him about how he knew several people, scattered throughout their continent, who would be able to offer him protection…

Well, Zavriel had always wanted to see the world, and while he would definitely be less safe outside of Crishar…

“You know I don’t know if what the old folk doctor said will actually be possible, right?” he asked, despite the fact that he was almost positive it would work—although, he was also sure that if it did, he was the only majenstra capable of performing the feat his prince asked of him, and wasn’t that an odd twist of fate?—as Prince Meridian began to laden him down with various supplies.

It wasn’t a lot—unsurprising, as it weren’t as though the prince asking for various things from the palace staff wouldn’t have gotten back to the Majen within minutes—but at least he had been able to grab a significant amount of international currency from the treasury. Fortunately, the treasury was full enough that no one seemed to care that Prince Meridian had made a habit of taking money out to distribute to random staff who pleased him.

For a moment, Zavriel had thought that perhaps the boy wasn’t completely clueless, as he openly admitted to doing this is a mixture of truly wanting to give his staff bonuses, as well as a desire to set up a pattern of taking money for times like these. A few questions later, however, and Prince Meridian had revealed that it was actually the friend he wanted Zavriel to help who had suggested he set up several undercover operations as insurance against future issues. Not knowing what to do with this information—was this friend someone with his prince’s best interests at heart, or was she manipulating Prince Meridian?—Zavriel let the matter drop.

“You’ll try, though?” Prince Meridian asked, big eyes gazing up at him.

A shudder vibrated through Zavriel as memories of loneliness and a desperation to help his friends reached through him. The worst thing, he thought, was Prince Meridian seemed to have no idea what he was doing—no idea that he wasn’t susceptible to the majenstra’s abilities and yet could make them feel so much more and how could he not know these things? Had his mother never told him of the ability several of her remaining members had? Had he never noticed how majenstra never dared touch him with their abilities? Then again, their abilities weren’t something that could be noticed by the person themself, so perhaps, that was a stupid thing to wonder.

The wondering about his mother’s silence, however…

“I’ll try,” Zavriel assured him, wondering if he should tell his prince now about the reality of his abilities and the nefarious intentions of the Majen, but no. That would need to be a longer conversation—a longer, and far more complicated conversation.

“I guess that’s assuming you’ll get there in time to help,” the prince mumbled, frowning down at the sand beneath their feet, his foot scuffing through it. “You don’t even have a xphern, do you? So, you can’t even contact my friend to find out where she is, once you’re closer, and…”

The boy’s hand fell once more to his bag—to the xphern, perhaps his most precious possession, tucked within it, and even if what he said had been true, there was no way Zavriel could take that from him.

“I’ll pick one up along the way, just tell me your friend’s contact details,” he told the boy, letting the words Prince Meridian spoke—the xphern exchange numbers that he rattled off from his own memory because they were precious enough that of course the boy had committed them to memory, when his xphern could be confiscated at any time—slot into his memory in turn. “And don’t worry about my not getting there in time. It’s more like, if I don’t manage to find them in time.”

A smile split over Zavriel’s face as the prince frowned, his mouth opening to ask what he meant—Lüshan was hours away, after all, and that was assuming he ran into no trouble along the way. This, of course, would have been the case if Zavriel were a normal person, but Zavriel had ceased being a normal person the moment his pregnant mother was chosen to become the carrier of a majenstra. Within the crastar aether scar, she had stood, cradling her stomach as the genetics of a majenstra wound their way through his genome, and whatever destiny he had once possessed as a normal human had been erased from the world. Now, after three years running from the Majen and accidentally stumbling into a power no one had seen in millennia, trained under the cruelties the world had laid upon him, Zavriel was no longer even a normal majenstra.

“Desperation,” an ancient queen had once said, “is the driver of inspiration and power. It is the darkness that leads towards the light—the inspiration to stretch our abilities and find they have no cap, to top, to point at which they falter.”

The desperation helped; so did all the knowledge he had accidentally stuffed into his mind during his escape from the palace. Three years of running and never once had the Majen come anywhere close to finding him, despite the funding and effort they put into doing so—after all, he held facts within his mind that could bring their conspiracy tumbling down, so of course, they wanted to catch him, kill him, cut out his tongue.

They never would—Zavriel was no longer the sort of person who could be caught by another majenstra. Ironic that that fact—that these mythic abilities he had acquired through pure accident—made him so much more valuable than the Majen realized.

“Good luck getting back to the palace. Do try to not get caught, my prince,” Zavriel said, before he reached his abilities into the aether itself and made it forget he wasn’t where he wanted to be.