Chapter Text
The welcome feast is timed with the setting of the sun and the sheer amount of food prepared is more than your mind can nearly comprehend.
Every member of the castle staff is in motion - the kitchens and the launders and the halls between bustling with people rushing to and fro as the foreign procession approaches the gates of Eldur.
You’ve never seen this much activity in your years at the castle. Never worked up a sweat, rubbing the flat of your palm against your queasy stomach to settle it, flitting from task to task in a frantic communal effort to have everything ready in time.
The castle must be pristine. In perfect working order and polished until it glistens and shines, for today marks Friður, a day that comes only once every fifty years.
You’ve heard tale of the Friður’s before your time, of the lavish feasts and the sweeping balls, and you can’t help but ache with some buried tension as you’re swept up in the chaos and commotion of preparations.
Today, the king of the wild people descends from his place in the far western mountains and travels over the grassy plains to the shining Kingdom of Eldur. He and his horde will arrive at the city gates and request entry, to honor a hundreds year old treaty that put an end, finally, to the bloodshed between the wild people and your homeland.
Friður is largely ceremonial, a nicety put on to honor those who perished in the war, but the details are important nonetheless. As a child of Eldur, you’ve been raised on tales of the savagery of the wild people. Of how they live in the mountains in primitive shelters and hunt for their food with their bare hands and their fanged teeth.
It’s difficult to know what they’ll expect while visiting Eldur, but it’s important to avoid offense at any cost. As essential as the peace between Eldur and the mountain people is, it remains tenuous, and the goal of every member of the castle staff, as well as the royal king and his commanders, is that the affair passes quickly and without incident. Whereupon the wild people will retreat to their mountain and Eldur can return to enforcing its borders - and the strict beta-only law that’s ruled the Kingdom for a thousand years.
You end up in the kitchen, kneading bread at a packed table with a fevered pace. Flour coating your hands and your dress as you roll the soft dough against the hard surface before you. Leaning your weight into it as you roll and twist, roll and twist, and bumping elbows with the closest thing you have to a friend, Gida.
Your bones feel as if they’re made of lead, your stomach painfully empty save for your morning tea, and conversation with Gida is a welcome distraction from the exhaustion rooted down deep in your marrow.
She speaks as she kneads, her thoughts spilling freely from her in the bustling commotion of the crowded kitchen, needing little more than an occasional nod or grunt from you to let her mind run wild and spill out from between her lips.
“He’ll be an alpha, don’t you think?” she asks. Her tone is a little scandalous, inappropriate for a kitchen maid, and a man brushing past with his arms wrapped around a bursting sack of potatoes raises his brows at it before he disappears into the throng of people.
Gida continues on, none the wiser. “He must be - that’s how they live up in the mountains, right?”
You bob your head to either side on a soft huff, grabbing a sprinkle more of flour for your work surface. “How should I know what they’re like?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “That’s what they say, anyway. The alphas rule everything and the omegas…” She pauses for a moment, catching herself, before continuing on. “The omegas bow to them because they’re born to be subservient and…submissive.” She can’t help the wrinkle of her nose at that last bit.
Though you have no way of knowing for sure and neither does she, it is indeed what they say.
All you’ve ever heard since you were old enough to remember such things was that all of the advances and comforts enjoyed by the citizens of Eldur were accomplished solely for the Kingdom’s beta-only law, which had been in place and strictly enforced since the Kingdom had been founded a thousand years ago. You’d been told that betas were the rational secondary sex, the only one not driven mad by pheromones and biology and the need to fight and fuck and bite.
Both alpha and omega presentations are rare, so elimination of them from the Kingdom population’s gene pool had taken little time or effort to enforce over the centuries. But, the law had been a source of terrible violence between the Kingdom and the mountain people, a cause of intrinsic and brutal conflict, and before the peace treaty had been reached, the Kingdom had lost thousands of men to the barbarism of the mountain people during the war.
The eventual peace treaty was a blessing, one both the Kingdom and the mountain people benefitted from, and one that neither side was looking to lose.
You say nothing in reply to her, focusing on working the ball of dough in your palm, because your nausea is sitting like a pit in your stomach and it’s not like you know any more about the wild people than she does, but it doesn’t deter her from continuing on.
“I wonder how many there will be. They travel in a great horde, I bet. Do you think they’ll come on wolves? I heard that they ride on wolves the size of horses.”
You huff softly, throwing her a look. “That’s a myth.”
“Is it?” she asks, her brows lifting up to her hairline. “How frightening would that be? Animals riding on animals…”
“Well,” you say diplomatically, if tiredly, placing a neatly rolled ball of dough aside and pulling up a fresh clump to start on. “I hope whoever he is comes with a great number of company, or all of this will be a waste.”
Someone bumps you from behind, punctuating your point as you’re jostled against the table, and a woman scurrying away with a full boiling pot shouts an apology to you as she disappears around the corner and into the hall.
Gida continues on, oblivious. “I wonder if he’ll be eight feet tall. I’ve heard they’re giants, haven’t you?”
You shrug with one shoulder, working the dough between your palms. The smell of roasting meat is rich in the air and it’s making your stomach continue to turn. Hunger and nausea and exhaustion mucking together somewhere inside you and making your chin nearly dip down to your chest.
You’d heard similar in gossip circles around the castle growing up, plus rumors of every possible other horrible mutation. That the wild people have elongated fangs like a snake, that the wild people move on all fours, that the wild people bathe in the blood of their enemies and dress themselves in the spoils of their battles.
It’s impossible to know the truth, but it occurs to you in a resigned sort of way, that you’ll know soon enough. The foreign horde is set to arrive within the hour and word will travel fast through the castle halls once they breach the city gates.
All there is to do now is to keep yourself busy. To keep kneading dough and listening to Gida and to keep yourself upright and moving forward forward forward, so you’re unable to crumble into the weary puddle your bones so desperately wish to.
It’s past midday when a shout echoes down the castle halls, announcing the arrival of the mountain horde.
Your head darts up in tandem with every other there in the sweltering kitchens, a hush of silence suddenly falling at the sound of the slapping footsteps of a castle page as he runs through the cobblestoned halls.
He’s gasping when he appears in the arched doorway. Panting as he leans against the stone wall, his eyes wide with whatever it is he’s seen.
“There’s two,” he says, between heaving breaths. “There’s only two of them.”
A murmur sounds behind you, confusion trickling through the crowd in the kitchen, and when chaos breaks out again, voices raising, people shouting questions, you look around the room at the mountains of freshly baked bread, the ovens teeming with roasting game, and the counters covered thick with sugar-dusted pastries, and don’t bother to stifle a dry, weary laugh.
Hopefully, you think to yourself, continuing to slice the root vegetables on the counter at your hip, the two mountain folk carry with them an appetite equal to their reputations, or all this work will be quite a waste, indeed.
The Great Hall is lit by roaring torchlight and lined with rows of long, oak tables. The tables are filled largely by King Enji’s own soldiers to avoid the spectacle of a vacant banquet, and the foot soldiers are all too happy to partake in the spread of food usually reserved for royalty.
The wild king and his companion are sat up on the throne dais at the head table, a respectful distance but elevated all the same as King Enji and his closest advisor. The tone of the room is jovial and loud, conversation from the tables rowdy and echoing, but a low note of tension fills the edges of the room, as Enji’s men steal subtle glances at the first wild people they’ve ever seen.
You’ve no time to sneak a look, finding yourself in constant, flurried motion as you work to keep the endless rows of tables covered in platters of fresh, steaming food and goblets full of mulled wine.
You move in a breathless, unspoken dance with the rest of the kitchen staff, on a silent, arching loop. Making your way through the Great Hall with fresh dishes from the kitchen, gathering dirtied dishware as you go, and returning them to the kitchen, where you grab a new serving platter of fresh food to bring out to serve.
It’s dizzying, but mindless enough that you manage to keep on your feet. Swept up in the exhilaration inherent in such a feast, in the laughter and shoulder-thumping of the King’s men as they enjoy a rare chance for frivolity, your head respectfully bowed as you move from table to table and ignore any slurred compliments murmured your way.
You’ve worked up a sweat, your linen dress constricting around your ribs when you make it back to the kitchen for the dozenth time and a porcelain pitcher is pressed to your hands with the fervent orders of, “For the head table.”
It speaks to the haze of routine you’ve settled into that you think little of the instruction before you turn and make your way back back through the dark halls of the castle and into the Great Hall. Your head spinning with the sudden roar of conversation and laughter in the air when you step beneath the great stone arches and into the open, torch-lit space.
The pitcher is heavy in your hands, full to the brim with dark, spiced wine, and you watch it closely as you walk with all the care you can gather towards the dais. Side-stepping to avoid a man leaping to his feet with a shout at one table and again to avoid a kitchen server rushing past you with her hands full of a broken bowl.
You realize you’ve reached the dais when your feet stub lightly against the raised, stone edge of it, and when you raise your head instinctively, you lose your breath in an instant at the sight of the King of your kingdom just feet from you. Sitting in a tall chair carved of intricate, dark wood, and looking, by all accounts, like he’d rather be anywhere than sat at the table there.
King Enji had decreed your station in life as a servant of the castle, but you’d never met him personally. Never been close enough to see the detail in the thick, jagged scar that cuts down the side of his face and ends in a fine point at his chin, nor to feel the commanding aura that hangs around his place setting like a shroud.
“Do you mean to stand there all night, little dove?” comes a voice, and your eyes dart to it. Caught lost in your thoughts and embarrassed for it.
A man to the King’s right is slouched in his seat. Displaying none of the reverence for the moment King Enji appears to at least be playing at, pushing his food around his plate with his fork in a decidedly bored manner. His hair is blonde and curled around his ears, and when his eyes meet yours, you find them to be quite seeing. Sharp, like a bird of prey’s.
Hawks. The right hand of the King,
“My apologies, Your Grace” you say, offering a polite smile and dipping into small curtsey out of habit before you force yourself to step up and forward to the table. “More wine, my King?”
King Enji’s eyes flick to yours, and you feel the distinct appraisal in them as recognition lights faintly there, before he nods, motioning to his empty chalice.
It appears he remembers you, after all.
You pour his glass to the top and move down to Hawks, offering him a polite nod when he immediately begins to chatter at you. Commenting on the grandeur of the evening and asking your opinion on the buttered scones, even though he knows that you cannot, and will not, give him any sort of reply. You lower your chin in a show of respect as you finish with his chalice and move to the next setting.
Something tickles at your nose as you move, a light twist of something on the air, and before you can wonder as to it, your feet catch on one another. Lurching you forward, a soft gasp falling from your lips, as the weight of the pitcher carries you forwards and down, and all you can imagine is the porcelain shattering on the floor before a rough hand darts out and grips tight at your forearm. Steadying you, keeping you upright, as the scent that had teased at you just a moment before rushes in around you like an ocean wave.
It’s…strange, the scent. Rich and warm and a little ripe, and you feel it like a weight in the air as it warms over your shoulders and the back of your neck.
You find yourself drawing in a deep, shuddering breath down to your feet as the taste of it on your tongue makes the hair on your arms prickle up, blinking fast to try to clear the sudden hazy cloud in your mind.
The hand on your arm is unrelenting, holding you bruisingly tight, but you don’t return to yourself properly until a voice says, “Easy,” in such a rough gravel that you feel the words vibrate in the air between you.
You look up, then. Your lips parted softly, trying not to pant, your lungs feeling tight, as you lift your eyes upon the king of the wild people, the ruler of the mountain folk and the lord of the western plains.
“Oh,” you say, stupidly, on a hushed little exhale, because you weren’t sure what to expect, and yet, you’re still stunned to near-silence at the sight of him.
He’s no giant. No wild animal either, on his feet and human as he leans over the table, gripping your arm. His chair is pushed back, like he’d risen quickly, and his eyes when they meet yours are the color of an eclipsed moon. Garnet red and sliver sharp beneath drawn brows.
His chest is bare, you realize with an unconscious glance down and then a hard jerk of your gaze back up, his shoulders adorned with a furred pelt and a cape of red wool cascading down his back. There are necklaces around his neck, thick, shiny beads separated by what look to be animal claws.
He’s like no man you’ve ever seen and you find yourself caught for a moment in simply looking.
He wouldn’t approach the height or breadth of the King if they stood shoulder to shoulder, but the presence of him is so plainly masculine, so intrinsically powerful that it makes your blood prickle warm and strange. He stands a head taller than you, at least, and his hand wraps fully, easily around the entire width of your forearm.
His skin is darkened by the sun and sits in stark contrast with the unruly, flaxen spikes of hair upon his head. The muscle that covers his bare chest moves faintly, mesmerizingly, with the low rasp of his breathing, and you get a bit lost tracing the dips and valleys of them, because his body is different from any you've ever observed. One borne from a life of conflict and fight and challenge, a strength in his frame that would make the most mammoth man of Eldur seem meek in comparison.
It’s only when your eyes meet his again that you see the cloud over his expression and the glint of his bared teeth on the flickering torchlight, and the sight of it makes you jolt softly in your own skin.
The scent on the air is hanging around you, still. Thicker now and spiced heady as his eyes bore hard into yours. You realize, dimly, trapped in the weight of his gaze like prey, that it must come from him.
It takes conscious effort to summon your voice, like you have to find it somewhere deep inside your belly.
“I’m sorry,” you say to him, weakly, trying to pull your arm free as you desperately try to collect your wits, but his grip on your arm doesn’t budge.
He’s watching you with an expression you can’t decipher, his brows dipping deeper on his face as his eyes travel hotly over your face, then down the slope of your neck where it turns to your shoulder. Watching you with a simmering intent, looking for something you don’t know.
His thumb travels over your wrist, a light brush, and the touch makes your knees wobble violently. Hard and sudden, unexpected, your weight shifting forward so suddenly that your hips bang clumsily into the table.
Something had pulsed through you, spiking blindingly sharp then soothing immediately after. Something thickening in your blood and making the edges of your nerves want to honey and soften under the pressure of his thumb as you gape uselessly at the sight of his hand around your wrist and try to find the strength to lock your knees once more.
There’s a snort to his left. “Gather yourself, girl,” Hawks says. He sounds more amused than anything, but it’s enough to shake you, and you try again to yank your hand back from the tight grip.
Your head is spinning, feeling muddled and hazed in a way you don’t understand, but that feeling is quickly being displaced by a sinking feeling of mortification as you realize that every set of eyes at the head table is set squarely on you.
The man holding you is frowning at you and it makes your heart thud painfully hard in your chest. You lick your lips when you look back to him from a quick glance to Hawks, nervous, suddenly, that you’ve displeased him somehow, because you don’t understand the intensity in look he’s wearing.
“My lord?” you ask, swallowing against the wet burst of spice in the scent on the air as he finally withdraws his hand from your arm, after a faint pulse of his hand around your wrist. Something like disgust coloring his expression as he sits slowly back down at his place setting, his steaming plate of roasted venison and sugared plums and sweet cake long forgotten.
“Don’t call me that,” he says to you as he sits, and you shiver again at the timbre of his voice. “We don’t do that shit.”
“Oh,” you murmur. Sounding impossibly dim to your own ears but seeming to have lost full control of your mouth. Of your mind itself, as you stare at him openly, only faintly aware of the strange thrum you feel coursing through your entire body. “Um. How - how should I address you?”
“Bakugo.”
Another little burst of spice on the air on the name, and the pitcher in your hands feels like it weighs more than a mountain.
“Should you be addressing him at all?” Hawks muses to the man’s left. His chin resting in his palm, watching with apparent great interest.
You watch the twist of Bakugo’s expression at that. Instantaneous and sharp, his eyes cutting over to Hawks.
“She can,” he says, no room for argument in his tone, and Hawks sighs and lifts his shoulders in a show of intended harmlessness.
“I forget you don’t believe in hierarchies, up on your mountain. Not in any that aren’t biological, at least.”
King Enji’s gaze drifts stiffly from where you’re stood to back out over the festivities in the hall, but Hawks seems intrigued by the turn his evening has taken, turning to face Bakugo and his companion down the table.
Bakugo’s eyes have returned to you and you suppress a shiver as his brows dip even lower on his face. His expression some mix of confusion and anger, though you can’t tell if it’s at you or if it’s a look that comes naturally to him.
Bakugo cuts a look to his right, to the man sat beside him (massive, broad-shouldered and with a fiery red mane of hair that travels down his back), then, when his companion shoots him some silent affirmation, his gaze turns to Hawks, then back to you.
“All those years of war,” he says. Tightly, his jaw gone tense. Keeping as polite as he can muster, as politics requires, even as he speaks through his teeth. “All those lives lost for your disdain of omega, yet you have one here.”
Omega.
The word douses you like iced water. Stunning you wholly, every muscle in your body locking rigid as your breath catches and chokes up thick in your throat.
You know your true secondary gender, everyone in the Kingdom does from the passage of rumor through the back alleys and streets, but it’s shocking to hear it said aloud. And from someone who has no way to know it - no knowledge of you or your mother or your past.
You feel distantly faint as your heart roars in your ears, sucking in a thin breath. Your vision beginning to tunnel as your deepest secret, your fiercest, most painful shame, is laid bare to this man you do not know. Your heart plucked from your chest and splattered upon the floor.
Hawks huffs softly, amused. “Ah. Those famed alpha senses miss nothing.”
The man beside Bakugo speaks then, for the first time. His voice is warm. Softer around the edges than Bakugo’s, but deep, still. Unquestionably masculine. “It’s not obvious.” He gives a look to Bakugo, who nods, curtly.
“It’s not,” Bakugo agrees, his frown sharpening. “She’s suppressed to all hell.”
Hawks shrugs his shoulders again, unbothered as he pops a piece of flaky pastry crust between his lips. “Can’t have those omega hormones running amok, can we? That she’s here at all is a testament to the King’s graciousness.”
King Enji sighs through his teeth beside Hawks, done, clearly, with the conversation, and when he cuts you a measured look of dismissal, scalds you like a burn. Makes you jerk upright and into motion. Reminded, instantly, consumingly, with that one look, of your station in this castle, and what you are standing at the head table to do.
“Ah, uh, yes,” you say, smiling nervously. Apologetically. Shifting the wine pitcher between your hands as you try to school your breathing and quiet the painful thunder of your heart. “Would you care for more wine, my lord?”
“You’re an omega,” Bakugo says, in lieu of answering your question, and a flush of heat ripples over your skin at the sound of the word again from his mouth.
You swallow thickly and nod, shifting on your feet a little, aware of the pressure of King Enji’s stare on the side of your face as you linger at the head table far past your welcome.
Bakugo watches you evenly, if sharply. Waiting, clearly, for an answer, though he seems to know it.
“I am, my lord.” Shame colors your voice, as much as you try to mold it into something politely detached and far more appropriate for addressing a royal. Deeply ingrained into you, from the day you presented years ago.
He exhales shortly. “Bakugo.”
You nod reflexively, your chin dipping down. “Bakugo. I apologize.”
His hand lifts from the table top in a sort of dismissive wave. Not of you, but of your apology. He watches you for a moment longer, then seems to remember himself. His hand flexes where it’s resting on the wooden tabletop, and then he nods. “Wine’s fine.”
You nod back quickly, grateful, and move to refill his chalice. Unable to stop yourself from taking one last glance at him before you move to stand before his companion, feeling the track of his gaze on you beneath your skin.
“Thank you,” his companion says, grinning sharp teeth at you warmly, as you fill his cup. Your brain makes a distant note to tell Gida of his pointed teeth, knowing it will delight her, and you barely stop yourself from filling his chalice to overflowing, lost in the sight of the torchlight glinting off the sharpened edges.
There’s a scent clinging to the air around him, too, you realize. Softer than the one from Bakugo, less heady, but touching at the skin of your neck all the same, and it’s only then, somehow, that the connection clicks into place in your muddles mind.
Alphas. They’re alphas.
The realization sinks through you like a stone and follows you as you bow once more and stumble gracelessly from the raised edge of the dais. It settles heavy in your belly as you make your way numbly to the back of the Great Hall and through the halls towards the kitchen. Feeling removed from your own body as your blood rushes with something you’ve never before felt as you feel the last traces of their scent trace over the surface of your skin - something simmering hot and heavy, something dizzying that makes your skin prickle and makes you feel hopelessly, helplessly, desperately real.
It’s the early morning hours after the feast by the time you make your way to your chambers. Hidden down in a little storage room buried deep in the belly of the castle, one thick, wooden door closing off a space barely larger than the mat on the floor where you sleep.
You move slowly as you descend the winding stairs and slip through the door, exhausted and sore from your evening spent rushing on your feet and the general unwellness that plagues you now more often than not, but your mind turns as you go through your nightly ritual of slipping from your day clothes into your night clothes. Folding your dress neatly and tending to your hair slowly, with clumsy, tired fingers, as the memories of your moments at the head table run through your mind on a dizzying loop.
The glands around your throat ache like a bruise as you ease yourself down to your sleep mat as you remember the intensity of Bakugo’s eyes on you. The thinly veiled anger laid plain on his face, though at you or your station, you’re not sure. You remember the obvious power in body, in the muscle displayed in his brazenly bare chest. The size and strength of his hand where he’d gripped your wrist tight, tiredly ignoring the flare of heat in your chest at the thought of it.
You fall asleep there in the flickering, fading light of the small candle mounted on the wall with your forearm pressed against your face. Nuzzling into it as sleep surrounds you with warmth and comfort and relief, the intoxicating, earthen scent of the only alpha you’ve ever known licking at something deep inside of you like a smoldering flame to kindling.
You’re in the back corner of the main kitchens the next morning, forcing down your daily cup of steaming, bitter tea, when a page comes around the corner and catches your eye with a wave.
You grimace as the last of the tea scalds down your throat and settles uneasily in your belly as you nod back to him - not remembering his name but knowing his face, from seeing it often around the castle halls.
He trots over to you, dodging a kitchen hand carrying a tray of baked pastries, and bumps against your side when he reaches it. His voice is a bit conspiratorial when he leans into you, his brows wagging.
“You’ve been summoned.”
You frown. Wiping your hand over your mouth as your belly flips and churns with the noxious clutch of the tea, immediate confusion turning to nerves and setting your heart to flutter in your chest.
Summons to people in your station rarely herald good news.
“What for?” you ask, rubbing your palm over your belly to try to soothe it. The brew hasn’t gotten any easier to stomach since you were first forced to drink it years ago.
Your mind immediately turns to the night prior - to your ill-advised conversation with the leader of one of the great nations, and your belly turns more fiercely. Wondering if you’ll be punished for addressing foreign royalty as freely as you did, or for lingering well past your dismissal.
The page shrugs, his eyes lit with something a little sparkling. “They didn’t say. I was just told to have you bring the morning meal for two to the Eastern Corridor.”
Your frown deepens as your heart aches from kicking against your ribs. You rub your hand over your belly to still the quease and clench of it as the tea sits bitterly there.
The King’s guests are housed in the Eastern Corridor. You know because you’d spent the last week preparing the dozens of rooms there in fresh linens and polishing every flat surface until it glittered and shone, for the horde of mountain folk that never came.
“Come on, then,” the page says. Offering you a smile that’s no real comfort as your mind trips uselessly over itself. “Best not to keep them waiting.”
It takes a moment for you to realize he’s spoken and by the time his words register, he’s stepping away from you and through the crowded kitchen space. Disappearing back into the darkness of the halls to do whatever it is pages do to pass the day.
You wobble frustratingly on your feet as you force yourself forward after he’s gone. Stepping into the business of the kitchen and searching for platters to fill with the food being roasted and sliced and served on the counters all around you, gritting your teeth against a rising wave of nausea and exhaustion that makes your head feel light and sweat prickle under your arms.
He’s right, you know. Whatever fate awaits you will get no better with time, so you force yourself to draw in deep, grounding breaths and, once you’ve piled a silver platter high with samples of every dish in eyesight, you carry it into the castle halls.
You follow your feet to the Eastern Corridor and work to keep your mind carefully blank as you balance the tray between your hands. Unsure of what awaits you but having no choice but to move forward, and face whatever consequences lay ahead.
The entire eastern wing of the castle had been extensively prepared for guests as Friður had approached, with castle staff assuming the wild folk would travel with an ensemble similar to the royal caravan that accompanies King Enji whenever he leaves the confines of the city.
Then Bakugo had appeared at the gates of Eldur with nothing but a horse, a companion at his side, the clothes on his back, and a cross look on his face, and plans had abruptly changed.
You figure that Bakugo must have been set up in the largest room in the Eastern Corridor - a suite at the far end of the hall with breathtaking views of the Kingdom at dawn and adjoining baths for guests to rest and cleanse in - so you follow the winding halls towards it, balancing the food-laden tray carefully as you walk.
The Eastern Corridor is echoing quiet, all castle staff moved to other posts to afford the foreign guests their privacy, and it makes the sounds of your steps on the stone floor vaguely ominous as you make your way through the casting beams of morning sunlight and try to stop your mind from it’s nervous, whirling tangle. Unsure why you would have been called for the task of bringing the mountain men their morning meal if not to apologize for your behavior the night prior, and preparing yourself as best you can to keep your wits about you in their presence this time.
You catch a faint tendril of scent as you round the last corner, that ruddy spice that registers somehow familiar to you already, and you know that you’ve found them as you approach the large wooden doors at the end of the hall.
It takes some care but you manage to knock on the door as hard as you can with the tray balanced against your hip. You listen for movement beyond, your lungs beginning to burn a bit from holding your breath, and though you hear no motion from within the room, the door is quickly swinging open to reveal Bakugo’s companion.
“Oh, hi!”
His face lights at the sight of you, his smile broad and bright, and before you can even get a polite greeting out, he’s reaching for the tray in your hands and plucking it away like it weighs no more than air.
“That looks heavy! Let me just - ”
A breeze drifts through the open door, carried through the open windows on the far wall of the room, and your eyelids weigh heavy at the wave of alpha scent that tickles over your skin and brushes the scent glands buried deep around your throat.
You knew, from last night. You remembered how it felt, how strange and honeyed you’d felt then, but the scent on this breeze is richer, somehow. Lived in and warm, like sun-soaked fabric and sleep-rumpled bed linens.
It makes something within you shudder. Makes some buried part of you flicker and reach, shaking off dust and stretching from years of neglect and slumber, in a way that has you blinking rapidly and desperately reminding yourself to draw in breath.
By the time your mind catches up to the pull you feel in your blood, the man is sitting on the massive bed at the center of the room, the tray set down beside the broad bulk of his thigh.
He catches your eye, where you’re standing awkwardly in the open doorway, and waves you in with a beckoning hand.
“Come on, come on in,” he says, grinning still as he plops a sugared pastry on his tongue. “Oh, that’s amazing…what is that?”
You look to your left and then to your right, not quite sure what to do, but when he waves you in again, not bothering to look up from where he’s picking apart another flaky tart, you step haltingly into the room and let the door shut behind you.
It bangs when it shuts, carried by the breeze, and it makes you startle a little. Chiding yourself, feeling foolish, skittish, but the smile on his face softens.
“Oh,” he says, dusting his hands on his trousers and leaving a smear of powdered sugar there. “I’m sorry, I’m being, uh…” he thinks for a second. “Familiar. Right? Is this - are you scared?”
You lick your lips and offer him a small lift of your shoulders. Sensing, somehow, that his candor is sincere. That he wants to hear from you, beyond your rehearsed pleasantries.
“I am a bit…nervous, my lord. I don’t mean to be rude.”
His smile lights again. “Kirishima,” he corrects, though not unkindly. “Call me Kirishima, that title stuff is weird to me.”
You nod to him, willing your heart to slow where it’s thudding heavy in your chest. There’s no inch of malice you can sense in him, but you’ve still no idea what to do, or why you’ve been called here, as you hover near the closed door with your hands clasped in front of you.
“Very well, Kirishima,” you say, with some effort. “How may I serve you this morning?”
He smiles at you, his head tilting a little, like he’s puzzled. “Have you eaten yet today?”
You eat only once per day - a small meal of bread heels and whatever leftovers you can scrap from the kitchen before bed time, but he doesn’t need to know that.
Your mouth opens to tell him the white lie but your stomach chooses then to let out a mortifying gurgle that makes your eyes widen and him to laugh easily with a tipped head. He pats the bed next to him.
“Come on, have a seat! There’s too much here for just Bakugo and me.”
You hesitate, and his gaze softens again. Some understand passing through his expression, like he’s seen more than you meant him to.
“I’m not trying to…do anything,” he says, carefully. Diplomatically. “I know that things are different here, but I’d love if you helped me eat some of this food.” As an afterthought, he adds. “If…you want to, of course! If you’re uncomfortable you can go. Ah, geez, am I being too much? Mina says I’m too much, sometimes.”
Your hands twist together as your stomach growls again. Digesting his words and feeling the sincerity in his tone. “Did you summon me yourself?” you ask, after a minute.
He bites into an apple, the juice spilling down his chin. He wipes at it with the back of his wrist and shrugs a little. Looking boyish in the morning light, even as his size, sitting a distance from you, utterly dwarfs yours.
“Oh, yeah! We wanted to talk to you, after last night.”
There’s another slam of a door from an adjoining room, then burst of heavy scent on the air, and you know without even looking, that Bakugo is here.
Kirishima visibly brightens, licking the juice from the apple from his knuckles. “Ah, there he is!”
There’s motion in your peripheral and you look through the doorway to your right to see a blur of bared and glistening skin and nearly break your neck jerking your head back when you realize you just saw Bakugo stroll past the doorway, as nude as the day he was born. Unconcerned by your presence, apparently, as you watch him bend at the waist and rifle through something left on the floor.
You feel your temperature spike, stupidly, instantly, your skin prickling warm in embarrassment, and you step forward to Kirishima on the bed, for lack of any other place to go.
Before you can hover awkwardly near the corner of the bed, Kirishima moves the platter and pats the bedding, nodding eagerly when you sit gingerly on the edge of it.
“Come on, dig in!” he says, grinning still. “Have you had those little puff-things? They’re amazing.”
You haven’t had any of the foods on the tray, in truth, and the sudden deluge of choice is a bit overwhelming. You settle on something small, a square little pad of baked dough with what looks to be lemon custard in the center.
It flakes in your mouth when you bite into it, flavor bursting over your tongue, and you make a muffled sound that has Kirishima laughing softly.
“I know, right? Everything is so sweet here.”
You savor the treat as best you can, eating in small nibbles and feeling the queasy turn of your belly ease with every morsel you swallow. Settling, slowly, into this strange moment - you sitting nearly knee to knee with an alpha you don’t know, a foreign dignitary who addresses you with kindness, and who freely shares his food with you.
You’d always been told that the mountain folk were nearer to beasts than man. That their alpha and omegan nature made them mercurial and violent, slaves to their basest instincts and impulses and completely, utterly uncivilized.
Watching Kirishima hum happily as he chews down a strip of crisped bacon, it occurs to you with an incredible weight that everything you’ve been told of the mountain folk, and of your omegan self, is likely wrong.
There’s a grunt near the door, and when you look up, Bakugo is there. Dressed in his trousers but otherwise bare, save for the beaded necklaces of glass stone and animal claws hanging around his neck, he rubs his hand over the back of his head as he approaches the bed. Shaking his head once like a dog, water from his bath splattering lightly over the stone floor.
He rounds the bed and sits beside Kirishima on the bed with little care. Carrying that scent you somehow know along with him, muttering a greeting to Kirishima as he reaches for the steaming food on the platter straight away, then turning his gaze to you.
It takes effort to not shrink beneath his gaze, but you manage. Your chin dipping instinctively, but you meet his eyes and nod.
“Good morning.”
He takes a ripping bite off the breast of a roasted quail, the points of his fangs glinting in the morning light, and he nods back, as amiable as you’ve seen him.
“Morning.”
You feel a sinking twist of discomfort, all too aware of the presence he carries and the way his closeness makes your lungs feel tight, restricted, but before the feeling can properly root, Bakugo is rolling his eyes and batting Kirishima’s hand away from a frosted roll on the tray.
“Hey, fuck you,” he mutters, snatching the pastry from beneath Kirishima’s fingers. “Eating all the good shit.”
Kirishima just laughs, and the tension dispels, just like that, as they bicker mildly back and forth. Taking heaping bites of whatever they grab from the tray, talking back and forth between bites about nothing at all.
You know, from the prickle along the back of your neck that you feel from their presence, that your conclusion the night prior was correct - that they’re both alphas. The level of comfort they have together is abundantly clear, as they roll their eyes and gently gripe at each other, the conversation flowing easily between them, as if you’re not even there, and again, you think back to all you’d been told about alphas, in your youth.
Alphas are aggressive.
Alphas fight.
Alphas will kill each other over food or sex or territory.
Alphas are dangerous.
Kirishima snatches a slice of dewy melon from Bakugo’s hand, barely avoiding the snap of Bakugo’s teeth, and Bakugo nearly shoves him off the bed in retaliation. Muttering I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you, knock it off, under his breath as Kirishima laughs from his belly and picks himself back up.
You’re caught staring by Kirishima, who tilts his head at you in question, making the back of your neck heat a little.
“I was just…” you say, slipping boiled and sliced duck egg from the tray and into your palm to busy your hands. “I was just wondering if you two were brothers.”
Bakugo huffs a laugh a that, so sudden and sharp that it nearly startles you, but Kirishima just smiles broader.
“What makes you ask that?”
Bakugo pops a blackberry into his mouth and answers your question, saying flatly, “We’re not.”
It occurs to you that what you’re about to say might be incredibly stupid, but you press on. “I was just…growing up, I was always told alphas didn’t get along with each other.”
Bakugo snorts, eyeing Kirishima. “We don’t.”
Kirishima ignores him, brightening visibly at you and shifting on the bed to sit more upright. “Oh, that’s so interesting. Can I…what were you told about us, can I ask?”
That draws Bakugo’s eyes to you too, a silent slide of garnet to your face, and you slip a tender slice of the egg between your lips for a moment to think of what to say.
After a moment of your mind whirling uselessly, you settle for the truth.
“Nothing accurate, I don’t think.”
Kirishima hums to himself softly, thinking.
Bakugo speaks next.
“How does this work?” he asks, raising his brows at your…general self. “I can barely smell you a fuckin’ foot away from you. What’d they do to you?”
An edge has entered his tone again. Not anger, you don’t think, but something steely, and it makes you swallow reflexively.
You hesitate, and Kirishima’s hand lifts from his thigh, before he seems to notice himself and put it back down.
“It’s okay,” he says. “It’ll stay between us.”
Your fingers twist a bit in the skirt of your dress. Unsure of what to say, or what answers they’re even really seeking. A part of you sure that the second you open your mouth, the door to the room will burst open and the King’s men will drag you from the room.
Kirishima helps you, and your heart beats with gratitude for it. “What about your scent glands? Like around your neck? We should be able to smell you from across the room, but your scent is so muted…”
Your fingers touch at the trim of the collar of your dress, feeling your glands pulse distantly at the mention of them. Before you can think to answer him, Bakugo is leaning suddenly forward and into your space, ignoring Kirishima’s exasperated Bakugo, ask first - behind him.
The stillness that jolts through you like a current is instinctive, a jolting lock of your muscles as Bakugo tips forward, reaching out and tugging at the edge of your dress collar to pull it to the side.
The scent of him is intoxicating, this close. Overwhelming. His cheek nearly brushes yours as he bends lower to see where your shoulder meets your throat, and the faint warmth of his breath on your bare skin has you shuddering quietly. Your head tilting for him without any conscious thought, as his fingertips trace down the line of your neck and smooth over the raised bump of your gland.
The sensation sparked there is bizarre. Pain, like a static shock, but a plume of something else in your blood too, from the pressure. Something syrupy and warm that thickens before his hand has even lifted from your skin.
You can’t breathe until he rocks back to his spot on the bed, his face twisted in a frown as he rubs his fingers together, and then you draw in a deep, embarrassingly ragged breath.
“There’s some kind of wax over them,” he says, looking at his fingertips. “They’re blocked.”
You don’t know what that means, but the expression that crosses Kirishima’s face leads you to believe it’s nothing good. He looks to Bakugo for a moment and a silent conversation happens between them.
“Uh, honestly?” Kirishima says to you, after a beat. “We asked for you to bring us the morning meal because we wanted to talk to you. About…this.”
You don’t quite know what to say to that. “I know it’s…unusual,” you start, but Kirishima shakes his head.
“I don’t mean that it’s bad - that you’re bad, we just…” He stops and sighs for a second. Thinking, clearly. Trying to get his thoughts in order. “This doesn’t seem like a good…place for you. If this is how you’re treated.”
The denial comes to you before you can stop it. “I’m treated well - ”
“You’re not,” Bakugo says, and, oh, now he’s angry. Your shoulders round inwards, swallowing against the sudden burst of scent on the air. Edged and sharp on your tongue. “What they’re doing to you is disgusting. There’s nothing fucking wrong with you.”
Why the desire to defend the Kingdom comes to you, you’ve no clue. “It’s - fine. They allowed me to stay? They used to execute omegas before King Enji, my mother told me - “
Bakugo’s lip lifts in a snarl. “Of course they did. How much have they fucked with your head that you think being spared a horrible death is some mercy when there’s nothing fucking wrong with the way you are?”
Kirishima is much gentler when he speaks, clearly trying to soften the edge to Bakugo’s anger. “Even if you don’t feel like you’ve been mistreated…” he says. “Even if you feel they’ve been kind to you…it’s cruel to deny someone their nature. It’s cruel.”
Your mouth drops open, then you close it. Not sure what to say. Not sure why you feel cornered, when what they’re expressing seems to be an anger for you, not towards you.
“I don’t…” you try, your voice trailing. “I don’t know anything else.”
Kirishima nods, understanding, and Bakugo makes a tight sound, leaning back farther and scrubbing his hand through his hair.
“How do they handle your heats?” Kirishima asks, looking like he’s prepared to not like the answer. “Do they at least take care of you during…”
There’s a beat of silence, then your brows dip.
“What do you mean?”
Bakugo’s eyes cut to yours.
“Your heats,” Kirishima says again. “Do they like - give you a space, at least? Do you have someone to stay with you?”
Something in your mind feels stalled out. Confusion shifts quickly to a sinking feeling at the look Bakugo is giving you. Like he knows what you’re about to say.
“I don’t understand,” you say. Slowly, feeling like you’re nearing the edge of some precipice.
Kirishima looks to Bakugo, but his gaze is locked to you, his jaw tensed. Kirishima’s words come slowly, apparently as confused as you are.
“You’ve had…heats, right? You must have presented years ago.”
You shake your head. Dread pooling low in your belly, because you feel like you’ve somehow done something wrong.
You’ve heard whispers about heats in your life - you’d been told tawdry gossip about how omegas lose themselves entirely to their hormones during their cycle - become creatures of instinct and wanton, uncontrollable lust - but you’d never had one. Not once. You’d thought they were a fiction, in truth. Another ghoulish story made up to paint the mountain people in the worst possible light.
“I don’t have heats.”
Bakugo pushes himself to his feet so abruptly that the platter of food nearly slips from the side of the bed. Caught only by Kirishima, whose hand shot out blindly to catch it, his eyes frozen on your face.
“You’re kidding,” Kirishima says faintly.
Bakugo has paced through the room, by then. “I fucking told you. I fucking knew it.”
You realize you haven’t taken a breath in a minute when your lungs start to burn, and you draw in a shuddering one. Wanting to stand, too. Wanting to leave, to escape the sudden tension that’s cut through the room like a knife, because you’ve no idea what you’ve done to upset them.
“I’m sorry,” you say, shaking your head. “I don’t know…”
A hand touches your wrist, large and dry and gentle, and when you look down, you see that Kirishima has reached for you. His forefinger smooths over the ridge of the gland in your wrist, and your body shudders at the flood of relief that courses through you. Instantaneous and overwhelming and coupled with the softened scent that is filling the air and touching at the heated skin of your cheeks.
“It’s alright,” Kirishima tells you. “Easy, now, it’s okay. I’m sorry, I know we’re being…”
You feel like cotton on a breeze. Lighter than air and swimming in your own body, before you can even draw in another breath.
Another deep breath of the haze surrounding you and you can’t help but murmur, “What are you doing to me?” because you feel almost removed from your body. Your anxiety and fear replaced so suddenly with this soothing, heady drift that you feel the world has shifted beneath your feet.
His finger drifts over your wrist gland once more, a whisper of a touch, and then he draws back his hand. “It’s okay. I’m sorry. You’re reacting to our scents - I don’t think you know how to block them out yet. Your heart is racing.”
The scent in the air lightens as he leans away from you, his eyebrows dipped in concern, and it allows you to breathe more freely. Sucking in a breath through your teeth and tangling your hands in the bed linens to ground yourself.
It takes you a moment to gather your words, but they give you time. Kirishima watching you patiently, Bakugo staring out the window with his arms folded tight across his bare chest.
“I’ve never had a heat,” you say again. “I know that - I’ve heard about them but…”
Kirishima is frowning softly. “Do they make you take anything? An omega’s heats are difficult to suppress...”
Understanding dawns on you, and your stomach clenches reflexively. “I drink a tea every morning. It’s…painful.” It makes you horribly ill for near every hour you’re awake, really.
Bakugo exhales tightly and Kirishima shakes his head.
“They make you drink it?”
You try to control the frown tugging at your mouth, your fingers gripping into the linens on the bed beneath you. “It’s…not optional. It makes me sick.”
Kirishima is quiet for a moment. “I bet it does.”
A breeze drifts through the open window, and Bakugo exhales again. Still looking out over the Kingdom, the set of his shoulders rigid and tight.
“Heats are part of your omegan nature,” Kirishima tries to explain. “Suppressing them…”
“It’ll kill you,” Bakugo says, his voice low but edged. “All of this shit,” - he jerks his chin at you - “Is going to fucking kill you. But I suppose they haven’t told you that.”
Your silence is an answer in itself and he scoffs, his jaw working as he clenches his teeth. “Of fucking course,” he mutters, the morning sun casting gold across his face.
There’s a moment of stillness in the room as his words sink in. Heavy in the air, weighing around you as you let their meaning settle in your mind - too stunned to do anything but sit there, staring at Bakugo’s profile in the sun.
“W-well…” you say, after a minute. Your words coming choppily from you as you try to make sense of your thoughts. “Your concern is kind, but I can’t…there’s nothing I can do - ”
Kirishima shakes his head before you finish speaking, but it’s Bakugo who cuts you off.
“You’re coming with us.”
You blink, a thudding pressure suddenly in your chest like you’ve been struck there with a great force.
“What?”
Bakugo turns, finally, to look at you. The expression on his face is level, but dark. Sure in his conviction.
“We’re taking you home with us. No fuckin’ way we’re leaving you here.”
“If you want to,” Kirishima is quick to add, and his immediate joinder in the idea tells you this was maybe the plan from the start. Why they maybe summoned you in the first place. “If you want to stay, you can, but…I really hope you’ll come with us. We really hope you will.”
It’s hard to draw a coherent thought through the dull roar you hear in your ears. Rooted to your spot where you sit on the bed, blinking stupidly at Bakugo and Kirishima, because what they’re saying makes no sense to you.
“But…I’m nobody.”
“You’re omega,” Bakugo snarls. “You don’t belong to them.”
Your heart aches in your chest, beating so hard against your ribs your ears ring with the echo. Dizzy, feeling like the room is shifting around you. “I belong to my Kingdom.”
Bakugo’s lip lifts in a bare of his teeth. “No. You belong to no one but your fucking self.”
Kirishima’s expression is intent, now, as he looks at you. Like he’s found his footing in the conversation at last. “You’d fit right in,” he says. “You wouldn’t have to hide who you are. You wouldn’t have to…” he struggles to find the words, “serve anyone. You’d just be one of us.”
The promise of it sounds sweet to your ear. Filling your chest with something that feels painfully bright, almost blinding in its hope, but reality sweeps in fast on its heels.
You shake your head. “He’d never…” You look between Kirishima and Bakugo. “The King would never allow it.”
The Kingdom of Eldur is a closed community, after all. Walled off by towering stone walls and iron gates that nearly touch the sky. The citizens of Eldur are beholden to it. No one has ever had much cause to try to leave, but those that have…
They don’t seem to share your concern.
“Let us worry about that,” Kirishima says. “The question for you is if you want to.”
The thought comes to you so quickly, of course I want to, that it stuns you a bit. Because the whole idea seems a bit fantastical to you, nonsensical, even. Plus, all you’ve been told of the mountain folk…
“I’ve…been told that you live…with nature,” you say, slowly. Trying to find a way to voice your thoughts without offense.
Kirishima grins. “Yeah, we do. It’s awesome.” He seems to sense your trepidation because he continues on.
“You did say before that what you’d been told about us wasn’t…maybe right,” he laughs softly. “So, uh…let me think. We live together, up in the mountains. On the plains in the warm months, then we move in to the interior caves when the cold season comes. We live very differently than you do here, but you’d want for nothing. Everyone is clothed and fed and warm at night. And everyone is happy, too. Don’t you think, Bakugo?”
Bakugo grunts a soft assent. “You’d be free.”
The next question that comes to you makes the back of your neck heat, but you push it forward anyway, because you need to know. “I was always told that you…mate…freely.”
That makes Bakugo’s mouth twist up at the corners, even as Kirishima shakes his head with a laugh.
“I’m sure you’ve been told some stories,” he says, still shaking his head. “I mean we…we’re a very free people…that way. But we mate for life. And we do not stray from our mates.”
That’s more than you can say for the marriage unions of Eldur.
Kirishima is watching your face carefully as you think. As your mind whirls with the possibility of what they’re posing to you. “You could choose any alpha you wanted. If you wanted to, I mean.”
Your brows lift, surprise and confusion rising immediately. “I thought…” Surely the alphas control…that.
Kirishima smiles again and it’s oddly wistful. He turns over his hand to show you his wrist and you see a silvery ring of scar around the scent gland in the underside of his wrist.
It looks like…a bite mark. Bit deep into the skin, a perfect impression left behind on his body forever.
A shiver tickles down your spine, drawn to it instinctively, and you barely stop yourself from reaching out to touch.
“That’s from my girl,” Kirishima says, voice going a bit warm. “She’s got one of these from me on her throat, too, but…I belong to her, entirely.”
You find yourself getting lost in the sight of it for a moment. Imagining it, an unnamed sensation tightening around your lungs as you picture someone tearing down into his wrist hard enough to pierce the skin…as you imagine him piercing his pointed teeth into the scent glands on the side of someone’s neck.
The morning sun has begun to cast into the room, now. It catches in Bakugo’s hair, where he’s stood near the window, and it very nearly shimmers.
“Get one thing clear,” Bakugo says to you. Watching you seriously, now. His anger from before muted from the shift in conversation. “Omegas control the bonds. No one’s gonna make you do anything you don’t wanna do.”
It occurs to you faintly that Bakugo is speaking like you’ve already agreed to go with them, but you can’t find it in yourself to find offense at the presumption.
You barely know these two men. They’re strangers to you, or close to it, yet you feel secure with them in a way you have no way to describe. They feel…more like you than anyone in Eldur ever has, even just from your brief interaction with them last night and this conversation today.
You want to go with them, you realize. You feel something, a warm tendril of something like hope, but dread follows close on its trail. Warring inside of you, feeling like you’ve been caught in a current you can neither see nor control.
You chew on your lower lip, and decide to voice one of the fears pitting in your belly. “I’m not…I have no skills…living out in nature. I don’t know how I could help you. I couldn’t survive on my own.”
There’s a soft huff from Bakugo and when you look to him, his expression has softened a touch. “You won’t be on your own. You’ll have a pack.”
His arms finally uncross from over his chest, one hand lifting up to scrub over his hair, sending little droplets of water again across the stone floor.
You look before you realize that you are, and it hits you like a blow when you see that the scent glands on his wrists are unmarked.
You breathe against the surge of something hot, rising, in you at the realization, and shake your head stubbornly to clear it. They’re both watching you, waiting, it seems for your answer.
“I…” Your heart roars in your ears, deafening. “I’d like to. Come with you.”
Kirishima nearly rises off his seat on the bed, carried by the bright delight that flashes over his face. “Really? You will?”
“If…” you look to Bakugo. “If you can get the King to agree. I don’t want to…jeopardize you. Either of you. Or the peace treaty.”
Bakugo snorts, his mouth curving up in a grim grin. “All due respect, kit, that peace treaty is worth a lot more to your king than your life.”
The endearment slips over you like a warm breeze, a tender brush against your skin, gone before you’ve even realized he said it.
Kirishima lets out a whooshing breath as his shoulders sag. “Don’t worry about all of that. Bakugo can be very persuasive.” Bakugo snorts derisively but he continues on. “We’ll take care of it.”
While Kirishima seems relieved, nerves have lighted anew inside of you as you realize what you’ve said. What you’ve agreed to, just like that.
“Friður ends tomorrow midday,” you say. Swallowing against the thud of your heart, gathering what courage you can. “Will you have time before then to…?”
Bakugo smirks, the sun glinting off one pointed fang. “I’ve got to spend all day listening to your king talk about whatever the fuck. I’ll have plenty of time.”
Kirishima is still beaming when you look over to him. He grabs a braided twist of bread dusted in cinnamon from the tray and shoves it into his mouth. “Everyone is going to be so excited,” he says to Bakugo. Then, to you, “You’re going to love everyone. We haven’t had anyone new in so long!”
You can’t help picturing it, then. Your mind conjuring a vision that’s swirls of warm colors and hearty laughs, nights spent around roaring fires and hearts bared to one another in the confidence that utter trust brings.
“You’re a family,” you say softly. Realizing it, as the words leave your mouth.
Kirishima nods, earnestly. “We are. And you’ll be welcome.”
It’s more than you can nearly comprehend. The idea of such a place, so far removed from the cold cobblestones and towering walls of Eldur, where people meet and know one another. Accept one another and hold one another, the way that families and lovers do.
A bell sounds from a distant tower, echoing on the morning air, and it’s only then that it occurs to you how long you’ve spent in their chambers. You’re being missed in the kitchens, surely, and your kindled nerves spark brighter and tighter in your chest. It’s too much, all of it at once like this.
But before you can try to excuse yourself, Bakugo glances out the window and sees something that makes him push off from the wall and into motion.
“Leave some mystery, idiot,” Bakugo mutters to Kirishima as he moves past the bed and disappears into the bathing room. “We’re due for a tour or some shit, finish up.”
The gripe rolls off of Kirishima like water, easy, and he shakes his head as he pushes himself to his feet. Smiling like there’s a sun inside of him and he can’t quite tamp it down.
“Don’t worry,” he tells you as he stands from the bed. Stretching over his head til his joints pop, his clasped hands nearly touching the ceiling. “We’ll take care of all of it.”
Bakugo reappears from the bathing room a moment later, slipping the heavy pelt of his cloak over his shoulders with a practiced sort of ease. Touching next at the leather bracers on his forearms to be sure they’re secure.
“He’s right,” he says to you, glancing over to you. “The only thing required of you is the courage to leave when the time comes.” He watches you for a moment, his eyes flitting over the form of you where you’re sat on the bed. “Do you have it?”
Kirishima seems to think you do, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet as he moves to join Bakugo near the door. “Stay here as long as you want,” he says, waving towards you and the platter of food that’s still a quarter full. “Finish all that food! You’re gonna need your strength for the journey home.”
Bakugo grunts his agreement and swings the door of the room open with a light tug, his eyes connecting to yours for just a moment over the strong line of his arm before he turns and disappears into soft light of the hallway. Kirishima follows him closely behind, moving as Bakugo’s hulking shadow as they disappear from your line of sight.
Home.
They leave you there, sitting on the rumpled linens of their bed. Staring after them dumbly as the door shuts behind them, leaving you in a hollowing silence that you feel reverberate down into your bones.
The reality of the moment sinks down heavy around you with every passing beat of silence, and you take the moment to pinch yourself. To make sure you haven’t dreamed all this up while curled up in your little chambers in the belly of the castle, creating some elaborate fantasy to escape your growing unease from your omega turning beneath your skin like a parasite with each passing day.
They said they would ask the King, though they may not. The King will likely deny the request if they make it, but what if he doesn’t? You chew on your lower lip and rub your palm over your stomach as you realize faintly that tomorrow could find you in your usual stead, toiling in the castle kitchens, or could find you leaving the Kingdom behind as you stride out into the great unknown.
It’s hard to know, as the bell rings out over Eldur once more and thrums with the rapid beat of your heart, if everything in your world has changed, or if nothing has changed at all, and your mind swims heavily, helplessly, with the unknown of everything that lies ahead.