Small Prince (Vincent/Apollo)
A belated birthday gift to @bellafarallones2 based on something we discussed on discord!
Apollo is not cut out to be an uncle. But at least he did not have to become a father.
It happened like this: when he and his brother, Indrid, were twenty-two, they were summoned to the throne room by their father. They were not alone, which was lucky as the look in the king's eyes was the kind that seldom bode well for their wellbeing.
“Would either of you care to explain this?” His father pointed to one of the four other people in the room, a young noblewoman holding a bundle in her arms.
“Oh dear.” Indrid murmured as she turned the bundle to reveal the face peering out of it.
“She claims the father was a Cold.”
“The features are unmistakably that of this house. As were those of the gentleman I met at the midsummer ball nine months ago.” The woman’s voice is not afraid, just tired. Apollo supposes she is beautiful.
Not as much as he supposes his brother holds no interest in women. And he certainly would not take someone he barely knew to bed. For starters, they could easily murder him while there, not to mention the fact that most people become attached after such things and the last thing he needs is dead weight following him about.
He glances at his twin, meeting his eyes behind those garish red glasses he wears. They are seldom of one mind about things. Maybe if Indrid was actually sensible, they’d have agreed on something since the age of twelve.
They agree on what must be done.
“He is mine.” Indrid steps forward, bowing to the woman, “I apologize, both for any distress this has caused you and for the fact that I was so outside my senses I cannot recall your name.”
“Clara.” She curtsies.
“I suppose this calls for a wed-”
“No.” Their father cuts Indrid off, “I have made plain I will not have some common noblewoman on the throne beside you when my time comes.”
Apollo smirks at the anger on Clara, her father, and her guards' faces.
“But her father wishes to marry her off without offspring in tow. So the boy will stay here and be raised as an heir. He is, after all, of our bloodline. No one will question it if they know what is good for them.”
“Understood.” Indrid offers his arms, “I can take him.”
Clara looks down at the silk-enrobed bundle, pathetic tears in her eyes, “Goodbye, Orion. Be good for your father.”
Just over three years have passed. For the first of them Apollo never saw the brat at all; he was in the care of a nursemaid, with Indrid spending a truly confusing amount of time with him. Gradually, he’d appear in the gardens, first in Indrid’s arms or, later, toddling between him and his bulldogish brick of a knight.
Apollo takes it as proof father likes him best that he assigned Sir Capra as his personal knight instead. Vincent is the only person who does not bore Apollo to tears or fill him with a desire to gouge their eyes out, is going grey at thirty-three in a way that he wears strikingly well. He is also, much to Apollo’s annoyance, nowhere to be found.
Indeed, the castle seems rather empty; ah yes, there’s some silly solar eclipse. Vincent asked if he wanted the knight to accompany him to a viewing. Apollo had snorted and said he had better things to do.
The trouble is, he has now done them. His father is not as omnipotent as he once was, but Apollo still fears being caught idle.
Something warm closes around his legs and his hand goes for his dagger.
“Dada!” Orion looks up from where he’s hugging Apollo’s knees.
“I am not my brother. I look nothing like him! I am far more attractive!”
“Uncle!” The word is a bit mushy in that little mouth. More worryingly, it does not cause the little leech to release him.
“What do you want?”
It sounded more demanding and less panicked in his head.
“Play blocks!”
“Then go play with the wretched things and leave me in peace!”
The boy frowns, then begins tugging on Apollo’s robe, stubby little nails tearing at the golden embroidery on the hem, “Blocks.”
“As soon as we get to them I am locking you in.” He mutters, following the urchin down the hall. He could just pull away and leave him to cry on the floor, but the noise is so horrible and he is not in the mood for a headache.
They reach the playroom, and Apollo calls out for Vincent once, in case the knight returned early. The Capras are a large family, and the older man thinks nothing of bouncing Orion on his knee or crouching to speak with him if they cross paths in the garden.
“Make a tower.” Orion says, more to himself than Apollo. He’s seated on the floor, surrounded by beautifully smooth, birch blocks. Apollo sits picking up a triangular one to study it; this is the same set he and Indrid played with as boys. He remembers the feel of them, the smell of opening the toy chest, wood warmed by the sun.
The playroom has changed since then. No longer drab, no longer stuffed with portraits of kings long dead. Instead, each of the four walls is painted to match a time of day; dawn, afternoon, dusk, and night. Orion’s back is to the night wall, making him look as if friendly hedgehogs are convening on him from the painted grass.
Apollo’s heart twinges and he wills his ribs to close around it, crush it. The boy is an impediment on the way to the throne. He must not become attached to him, see him as anything more than a potential tool or bargaining chip.
Orion is stacking rectangles haphazardly. They keep falling down after six or so block, and he’s huffing and pouting at them more each time.
“If you want it to be taller, you must widen the base. Honestly, did my brother teach you nothing?”
Orion cocks his head,confused.
Apollo sighs, removing his outer robe and rolling up his sleeves, “Watch closely.”
He starts with two rows of ten, then of nine, then eight, the boy gradually disappearing behind them the taller they get. When he’s hit the top rows, Orion stands and wanders around to join him, eyes wide and smile bright.
“There. See how much more stable this is? I could make it as tall as I please using the same principle.” He glances at the boy, “why do you want it to be tall in the first place? A small stack of blocks is no impressive feat of engineering.”
“Dragon.”
“Excuse me?”
Orion picks up a stuffed dragon from the floor and lets out a piercing yell as he rams it into the tower. The bricks fall in a clatter, the boy laughing uproariously the whole time.
Apollo wants to be furious. As it is he is confused, first by the action and then by the emotion it stirs in him.
He remembers taking turns with Indrid to knock the blocks down, the two of them seeing if a troll at the bottom or dragon at the top made the bigger disaster.
“Again!” Orion claps his hands together.
“You really are a little monster, aren’t you.” Apollo mutters, but does not feel the venom he meant to put into the words.
Orion drums his hands on his knees and then crawls over to watch the construction. Apollo widens the base more, making the structure more a true pyramid.
“There, it would take you a siege engine to destroy that.”
His nephew accepts the challenge, ramming the dragon into it and sending the blocks cascading once more.
“Again!”
“Very well. But this time, you must assist me.”
The eclipse comes and goes and neither of them notice it, moving from destroying the towers many times over to seeing if they can build a fortress for the conquering dragon out of the wreckage.
Apollo figures that is teaching the boy the realities of war, in case any asks him why he was wasting his time in such pursuit.s
Footfalls hurry down the tiled hallway and the door flies open. Indrid stands in it, his knight behind him.
“Oh thank goodness.”
“Dada!” Orion runs as fast as little legs allow and hugs first Indrid, then Duck.
“I am so sorry my treasured one, there was a mix up and no one came to watch you.”
“Yes” Apollo stands, draping his robe over his arm, “the foolish child though I was you and waylaid me when I was looking for Vincent.”
“If you laid so much as a finger on him-” Indrid bites.
“Dragon attacked the castle!” Orion yells gleefully, then turns to Apollo, making grabbing hands in the hair, “up? I dragon now?”
“It…seems you got along.” His brother still looks ready to break his fingers, which would be admirable were it not unnecessary.
“Indeed. I taught him the finer points of defense construction. Now that you have returned, I can turn my attention to more important things.”
Indrid scoops the boy into his arms, “Thank you. For watching him.”
Apollo turns, pulling on his robe, “Just do not expect me too again.”
—---------------------------------------------------------------------
He’s not sulking. Sulking is what one does when one is upset, and Apollo is not upset. Vincent being out on a date with someone from the city does not upset him in the slightest.
A stuffed dragon lands on his face and he growls, whipping his head to the side.
Orion, on tip toe, is peering at him over the edge of the bed.
“Play dragons?” The boy seems to sense his mood and is already looking like he regrets throwing the toy onto him.
He picks it up. It would be pleasant to rip the head off.
Then again, perhaps his nephew will let him take a turn as the beast, and he can knock some blocks over himself. That would be supremely satisfying.
“Yes, let us shore up our defenses once more.”
—--------------------------------------------------------
After that, the boy seeks him out nearly daily, slipping from under the watchful eye of knights and nannies to demand Apollo enable his dragon-based havoc.
He learns that “Be dragon” means Orion wants him to lay on his back and balance him on his feet, holding his hands as needed so he can pretend he is flying. He decides to use the moments to discuss the finer points of offensive attacks, as well as taking an enemy by surprise. He doubts the boy takes much in, too busy giggling and roaring, but surely no one will think twice about once prince preparing another to lead armies.
One day, he finds his nephew has been given a small, felt sword. This results in Apollo being given the dragon toy, then chased about the room by the small knight. When he is caught, he takes to falling about dramatically, bemoaning his fate, cursing his luck. Orion thinks it is hilarious.
“Now” he says after a particularly drawn-out death scene, his eyes still closed, “you must remember, little drake, to check that your enemies are thoroughly vanquished. Indeed, your great great great great grandfather was brought low when his enemy faked his death andAH”
Orion’s means of checking whether he’s dead turns out to be hurling his whole body onto Apollo’s torso and hugging him. He’s laughing as he does. Apollo puts his arms around him, laughing as well.
The truth is not often an easy thing to handle. His father insists it is often the harshest things that are true.
Apollo knows two of them at once.
One: Orion is now the second person other than himself he would truly die for.
Two: he will never harm this boy. Even if Apollo tries for the throne, he will find some other way.
The door creaks open and he sits up, Orion still in his arms.
“Hello your highness” Vincent smiles at Orion, “and your other highness.”
“You saw nothing.” He cannot bear the thought of someone like Vincent thinking him soft, thinking him weak.
“If you insist. But I must say, that is a pity. If I saw what I thought I did, it made me happy to see.”
“Ah.” Apollo looks at his nephew as the boy waves at Vincent.
“Indeed, since his father and knight are at a function, and his night attendant is delayed, I was coming to offer to read him a story until bed.”
Orion shrieks in excitement and hurries toward the bedroom. It takes some coaxing and bargaining to get him to change into his pajamas, but the two of them–if he’s honest, mostly Vincent–get him settled into bed.
He should leave, but when Vincent pats the space on the other side of him, he sits down on the soft, butterfly-patterned comforter, shoulder to shoulder with his knight.
Apollo is not cut out to be an uncle. But he’s certainly starting to enjoy it.
