PENUMBRA // Tamaki Amajiki x Reader Royal AU

Chapter 17

When the prince came round from his crying fit, he stayed on the floor for a while and I let him be. In the meantime, I made his window slightly larger - which was something I had been gradually doing every time I was there to let more sunlight in - and made the walls slightly thicker to keep more heat in. 

After some time, I was beginning to lose my patience and forgot myself, "Will you get off the floor and talk about what just happened?" But I froze just before I took a step closer to him.

"I'm sorry." He whispered as I watched a trickle of blood run down either arm. He was doing it again. In a frenzy I shook my head and retreated, teleporting back to my usual tree.

Once the initial horror had worn off, I felt disappointed in myself for being so quick to run off and not resolving things. I vowed to go back in the afternoon and help him no matter the state he was in.

So with my head held high to disguise how I was feeling, I headed back after lunch, trying not to imagine the situation I would meet.

What I was not expecting was to find the prince with milk trickling down his arms and a pig snout for a nose.

"Umm... have I come at a bad time?" I was trying to hold back a smile at his peculiar state, as he seemed to be distressed - though when was he not distressed. "No, you can't be here, please leave." He backed up against the wall and wrapped his arms around himself shutting his eyes.

"Did someone do this to you? Have you actually been curse- oh you have just eaten, have you not?" It clicked together in my mind. The snout was from from a pig - ham. And the milk - which was trickling from his wound from earlier, in place of blood - was from cheese, "Did they only feed you ham and cheese, are those foods not usually eaten with bre-

As the word came out of my mouth, so did the strands of wheat from the prince Amijiki's arms only this time, instead of heading straight for me, they followed the path of his arms, wrapping around his body tightly, swiftly travelling around his neck and cutting off his air supply.

Muffled cries came from where the prince's mouth would be if it were not covered in wheat and he flailed around helplessly until he fell on the floor and wriggled around.

I was across the room in seconds and kneeling by his side, "Stop struggling, just brea- I mean stop fighting this thing, that will only make it worse, you have to work with it, that is the only way it will get better, come on prince Amijki, I know you can do this." But his ears had already been covered and I was unsure of how much actually got through to him.

Anyhow, I knew it did not matter how many words of encouragement I offered, it was useless. Maybe it was too early to call him a lost cause but he was still too weak-willed to do anything.

He laid there, gradually wriggling less and less as the wheat covered his trapped his whole body, and I made no move to help him. It was actually kind of... difficult to watch him suffer while I had all the power to help him, I almost felt sorry for him. Nevertheless, I needed to see what would happen after he passed out so I let him go on until his whole body stopped moving and he went completely quiet besides his ragged breath.

Prodding a finger into his side, I was expecting him to return to normal when he passed out but it seemed like this... 'birth defect' he was plagued with was completely, or mostly unconscious, which explained why he struggled so much to control it, and I really had my work cut out for me if I was going to help him control it. It also meant that he was suffocating at that present moment.

Using the only trick that I knew would be able to help him before he caused himself severe damage, I sped up his body clock everywhere but his lungs and brain and the wheat strands drew back into his body. The prince was laying on his back and was breathing irregularly so I magicked him up while pushing more air into him.

In a few minutes he was waking up and breathing normally, I let go of the hold I had on his body to keep him upright and let him slump onto his bed by himself.

"Are you feeling better?"

No response.

"Can you breathe okay?"

No response.

"Does it hurt?"

No response.

"I did not let you destroy your vocal cords, did I?"

Slowly, he looked up. Usually his face was laced with sadness or tears or pain but this time it was something else, "You let that happen." He was angry.

He was whispering, not because his voice was damaged, "You could've stopped it and you didn't."

"I did stop it eventually, I was never going to let you die. And anyway, this needed to happen so I could learn more about your birth defect, so I can understand how to help you."

Not unusually, he seemed at a loss for words, but then he stood up straight and told me to leave.

"Sorry?"

"You heard me. Go away and never come back. I don't want your help." He actually glared at me, though his strained face and lack of blinking told me this was a façade, it forced me to understand that he was deeply upset with what I did.

I never broke eye contact, I could not let him think he was fully getting his way, "I shall leave but you must know I will return." No response.

Obviously I did not actually leave, his outburst was ridiculous and completely irrational and besides, this was not about him - I was fixing him for myself, him being helped in the process was merely a consequence - I made myself transparent so he would not see me so I could see what happened when the mask slipped.

Right on cue, as soon as I 'left', the prince fell to the floor and started sobbing quite violently. I did not think I had actually seen him so tearful before. Every breath he took seemed to be savoured like it would be the last one.

Once the crying was over he tried to get up but seemed to struggle, he appeared almost like he was rooted to the spot, as though moving would prove to be such a burden on his shoulders.

If he was lazy and out of control then I was facing an increasingly bigger challenge - one which was going to require more patience than I thought. I knew that of course, but I did not feel very patient in the moment so I thought maybe it was best if I took a break. Maybe we both needed a bit of space from each other.

Needless to say, that is exactly what I did. I left the prince on the floor and returned to district 2 with my own irritations ready to be projected onto something else.

I found myself in the fields near district 2 where all the crops are grown so they can sustain themselves and asked if they needed any help there. The monks working there directed me to a corner of the field overgrowing with weeds which they could not seem to remove no matter how much they worked the land. All they could do was prevent them from spreading to the rest of the field with daily weeding and tasked me with the job that day.

From the moment I saw the weeds I knew it was a deep problem. These weeds were not native to my land but seemed to be a variant of a type of weed found in the dark forest, ones that burrow deep underground and have to me removed at the source if you have any hope of killing them. Normally I would use sorcery right away and rot the weed all the way to root but I felt like doing some physical labour.

This was a new feeling. Most often I would be embarrassed out of my mind to do something with my own two hands but maybe connecting more with my emotions would be a good thing. Maybe it would help me understand prince Amijki more. I no longer had the privilege of not having to understand him.

During my short time gardening - which turned out to be quite therapeutic - I overheard a conversation between two monks:

"Do you think it will really happen?"

"Hush, you know we must not speak of these matters."

"But, the Helios kingdom has not made their statement yet. If they do not side with us then we are all doomed."

"There is no 'us'. And besides, we need not worry ourselves with matters larger than ourselves. War or not, we live our daily lives as normal devoted to Endeavor."

And together they said: 

"Endeavor, warm us."