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"Hey, Chris."

Chris hummed, acknowledging without speaking. He wrapped a rough rag around Victor’s shoulders. It was the sort of yellow that comes from liberal staining instead of natural color.

Victor tossed his hair over the rag - it was golden blond, but the color was fading and Chris needed to re-dye it. "Can I ask you something?"
"You just did, cheri." Chris chuckled and Victor watched in the vanity mirror as he unscrewed a container of dye.
"Oh, you’re insufferable." Victor rolled his eyes. "All I wanted to ask was, why do you do this?"

"Do what? Dye your hair?" Chris put on a pair of gloves, stained the same yellow as the rag and Victor’s hair.

Victor nodded, movement muted by Chris’s tugging at his hair. It ended up center-parted and tied into two separate sections.
"Well, gold is a good color on you. Matches your skate blades, and your ballet leotard."
"I could have silver blades or a silver leotard, Chris. Besides, silver looks good with gold. Complements it or whatever."

Chris briefly looked askance. It wouldn’t have been visible had Victor not been staring attentively at Chris in the vanity as he brushed the dye through his hair. "It looks good on you, that’s all. Better for a performer."

"That’s not the real reason," Victor countered, too loudly.

Chris hushed him, but didn’t speak for several seconds. There was only the light pressure of Chris’s dye-covered hands against Victor’s scalp.
"You’re right," Chris said at last.
"Then what is the real reason?" Victor stage-whispered. They were in a secluded place, surrounded by boxes of costumes and supplies, curtained off from the rest of the circus tent. Victor didn’t see the reason for quiet. And beyond that, he’d only asked about why Chris dyed his hair - that didn’t seem like it should be a huge secret. Chris was acting like it as a matter of life and death or something.

Chris sighed, and didn’t quite answer the question. "How long have you been here, Yurio?"

"Two years or so. And don’t call me that, it’s my stage name, not my real one."

Chris tossed the half of Victor’s hair that he’d finished dying to one side and unwound the other section to begin dying that. "I wish I could have trained you longer before you asked this..."

Trained me for what?! Victor thought. I work for a fucking circus. What practical use is anything I learn to do here? When else in my life will I ever need to know how to do tightrope walking, or gymnastics, or figure skating?

"Okay. You’ve asked and it would be terrible for me, as your friend, to refuse an answer." Chris pointedly did not look Victor in the eyes, focusing for the first time since he started entirely on the dye job.
Victor rolled his eyes, but only a little bit this time. A terrible feeling was brewing in his gut, a bit of anxiety and fear, like a heavily-dulled version of the panic he’d felt five years ago when he came home to find his family’s home empty.
"There is a legend - some even say a prophecy - of a hero who will come to save this land from the Shadow. This hero, according to the legend, will be hunted his whole life by the Shadow. The only physical description we have is this: hair of silver, blades of gold."
The terrible feeling came to a head and Victor felt like he was going to be sick. His hair was naturally silver. And the blades on his skates were gold.

Will be hunted his whole life...

His parents had been taken by the Shadow when he was ten years old, and Victor’s grandfather had become his only caretaker. When his grandfather was killed, three years later, Victor had decided his hometown had nothing left for him and had joined a travelling circus: to pay for his meals and his shelter, to give him something to do, and to maybe help him find a new home.

"There is one other description of the hero in the legend," said Chris, his voice reluctant as he read the shock on Victor’s face. "The name of the hero is given."

"Wh- what is it," Victor said, his voice weak.

"The legend tells of a hero with hair of silver and blades of gold. This next phrase is known by fewer people: a skater of figures, and a great warrior, by the name of Viktor Nikiforov."

Victor couldn’t speak. A prophecy? Mentioned him by name?! He couldn’t understand.

"Two years ago," said Chris, "when you showed up to audition, I saw your silver hair and I recalled the legend instantly. I knew you were the hero. But, I also knew you weren’t ready. A scrawny kid of barely thirteen, barely able to lift the satchel on his back, who has never laced a skate or held a weapon?" Chris blew out a dismissive puff of air. "I staked my own reputation on my ability to train you to be a great performer and a strong athlete. I hoped that at some point, there might come some opportunity to teach you to fight as well, or to become a bit stronger than you are, but..." He sighed.

"So you’ve been training me to be the hero of legend." Victor’s voice was flat. He had gone past hysteria and into emergency mode, all his brain’s non-essential functions shut off.

Chris nodded as he finished dyeing Victor’s hair and let it down, checking a nearby wall clock and noting the time. "Since you weren’t ready to be the hero, I didn’t want the world to know who you were. And being a travelling performer, especially a good one as I wanted you to be, many people will know your name. So, I dyed your hair, and I gave you a new name."

"Yurio..."

"Precisely." Chris carefully removed his gloves. "You know the drill, wait for half an hour then rinse your hair." He walked out of the room, and Victor’s eyes followed until he was out of view.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor snuck in at night.

He crept slowly, stepping around and over creaky floorboards, down short hallways, in and out of rooms, until he found the shelf containing them. The skates of legend. Leather-like material with patches of mesh, the fabric black as the starless night; little gemstones along the outside of each boot by the laces glittering like gold in the light of Viktor’s oil lamp; silver blades, rumored to be perfectly sharp even after centuries of purely ceremonial use, the same color as his waist-length hair.

He removed them from the ornate shelf they sat upon and tied the laces together. it seemed almost sacrilegious to do the same with the skates of legend that he did with the plain white leather skates that he used on the lake each winter, but he reminded himself: I am the hero of legend. These are, in a very real way, my skates.

Viktor hung the skates on a hook at the side of his backpack, tossed the pack over his shoulders, and with just as much caution as he’d entered, exited the town hall of his small hometown. Back through the maze of halls and rooms, back through the main hall, and back out the front door. Just as he spun around to ensure the heavy door didn’t slam behind him, he came face-to-face with-

"Yakov!" Viktor whisper-shouted, startled but not about to make too much noise.
"Vitya," Yakov said, making no attempt to be quiet. The anger that had produced most of the lines on his aged face was etched into his features yet again. "What are you doing?"
"I’m leaving, Yakov." Viktor’s voice was still quiet but no longer a whisper.

"What, to find your destiny? To save your sleeping beauty prince? Vitya, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this: it’s a story! A fairy tale. It’s made up! I don’t know what your parents were thinking when they named you what they did, but the fact that the legend mentions you doesn’t mean anything. I must caution you against this foolishness!" Viktor was walking away, and Yakov was following him.

Viktor stopped mid-stride and turned to face his adoptive father. "You’re right. I don’t know what my parents were thinking. I can’t know. But I have to try, Yakov."

"At the least, take Makka! You don’t know how far away this thing is, or if it even exists. And you cannot be outside when night falls! I fear for your life, Vitya! Do you not fear for yours?"

"I will not take your only horse, Yakov. Better you fear for my life only than mine and hers." Viktor smiled. "I will leave at dawn and not start on my return any later than midday, if I don’t find it. But I tell you, I did see something glimmer in the forest, and it was massive and shone like the sun. I have to know what it is. This could be the beginning of my destiny, don’t you see? The call to adventure."
"It could be any number of things, Vitya. It could be a mirage or a trick of the light. But I haven’t known my son to break his word, despite the fact that he never listens to his old father, who only wants the best for him..." Yakov heaved a sigh. "So I won’t prevent you any longer."
Viktor looked to the east, down the lightly-sloping hill on which his hometown sat. "Nature’s first green is gold," he said. He adjusted the straps of his backpack once more on his shoulders: he had packed for the long haul, just in case he didn’t have the occasion to return home after this. The top of his shortest fishing pole poked out the top of his pack, and inside it were both the warmest and coolest clothes he owned, an axe, a knife, a variety of hair ties, a large skein of fresh water, and his life savings from apprenticing as a fisherman. Half the pack was empty, for items he might gather along an indefinitely long journey.

"Yakov," Viktor said, placing his hands on his father’s shoulders. "I know we aren’t related by blood, but you’ve been the best father I could have asked for. I apologize for the ways in which I haven’t been as good a son." He kissed his father’s cheek once, and said, "If I don’t return soon, please hold off the funeral. For at least a few years. I know you don’t think much of the prophecy, but please just do this, for me. I have this strange feeling I may end up being gone for a long time."

"You would deny me my grief for years, if you were indeed dead? Give an old man false hope?" Yakov sighed, then smiled. "Only for you; my dear, obstinate son."

"I will do my very best not to die. Dasvidaniya, Yakov."

"Dasvidaniya, Vitya."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Victor snuck in at night.

The ringmaster would be asleep now, and if he was quiet, Victor would be able to keep it that way. He was otherwise packed: all the money he had earned, everything from his room that he could get away with stealing, and some things Chris had given him were all in the satchel he had brought to the circus in the first place.
The last things to steal were his skates.
He snuck past racks of costumes and boxes of props, regonizing some of them from his own shows. He pushed past curtains and capes, making no sound. His graceful sandal-clad feet were near-slient against the packed dirt floor.

He recognized the glimmer off the golden blades and bent down to grab them. Quickly he tied the laces together and attached them to the side of his bag with a sturdy clip. He picked up the bag and left as fast as he could out a side exit. As he stepped outside, an unusually cool wind whipped by, ruffling through his hair.

"Yurio, wait," said an accented voice behind him.

The boy with the false blond hair turned around. "I have to leave. You told me about my destiny and now I’m going to find it."

"If you walk away now..." the older man said, "you have to know that you can’t come back."

"I know, Chris," Victor said, smiling. He paused, and set his satchel down. This would be the first, last, and only time he would do this, but if they wouldn’t see each other for a long time, if ever again... he walked over to his mentor and benefactor, stood on his tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. Victor’s lips stung from the stubble there. "Adieu, Christophe. Sorry I couldn’t do what you wanted."

"Adieu, Yurio. Though I don’t think you get to say that if you’ve never done what I wanted." And he gave Victor the most platonic kiss he had probably ever given anyone.

Victor rolled his eyes, stepped back. "Hey, Chris. Call me by my real name? This is probably the last time we’ll ever speak."

"I hope not, cheri." Chris walked over to Victor’s satchel and grabbed it, handing it to his former apprentice. "How do you say it in your language... ah, yes. Dasvidaniya, Victor."

Victor smiled and put his pack back on. He turned, and waved over his shoulder as he walked away. "Dasvidaniya, Christophe."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor ran at as full a clip as he could with all his baggage toward the the thing he had seen the previous day. To an eye less trained, it would have looked like a small shiny thing, close to him - a gemstone laying a few feet into the forest, maybe. But Viktor, who had always been an astute observer, knew it was in fact much larger - and much further away.

Navigation for the first few hundred meters of woods was no problem - he practically had them memorized from a childhood spent playing in them. There was a point where the brush grew thicker, though, and he began to trip on brambles and roots. It was harder to see what was in front of him through the thick leaves. He kept travelling, looking around frantically for landmarks and trying hard to keep from veering off the course. Every once in a while he would get another glimpse of the shining thing, whatever it was, coming closer at what seemed to be a snail's pace. He kept running. He needed to find out what it was.

Viktor felt himself tiring as the trees started to thin out once again. Had he run through the whole forest? That couldn't be - he hadn't run far enough to get to the neighboring town, that was at least a day on horseback. As he kept moving, faster now, and fueled by heightened curiosity, he noticed something flat and shining fast approaching, at the center of a clearing. He could tell now what it was, but his knowledge denied him up until he was right in front of the thing.

It was a sheet of ice.

Viktor stood, dumbfounded, for a solid minute. Only after his breath slowed did his face contort into a frown. What on earth was going on?
Obviously, he thought to himself, there is a sheet of ice sitting unmelted in the middle of the woods in mid-spring. He tipped his head back in brief frustration at the senselessness of the universe, looking into the cloudless sky. He looked back at the ice. The blue of the sky seemed to be reflected perfectly in the pristine surface. Maybe the ice was even glowing a little bit blue.
Something was sitting in the back of Viktor’s mind, itching in his brain but not letting him get at it. Something about this foreign situation seemed very familiar. What was it?

Viktor paced slowly around the outside of the ice sheet. It was melting into the soft soil a little bit at the edges, but the majority of it seemed perfectly frozen. He leaned over the side of the ice a little, kneeling down to swipe his fingers against the surface. It was cold.

As Viktor stood to pace again, the realization hit him so hard he staggered backward. He knew what this was. It was a Trial. If you were to believe the bards - and Viktor was suddenly very inclined to - the Trials had been set up by Prince Katsuki as tests for the Hero. The bards only said they were tests of strength, agility, and poise, though. No mention of figure skating. The idea that the Hero would be a figure skater, so far as Viktor knew, was only believed by his village, because it was in his village where the skates resided.

As it turned out, they’d been right all along.
There was an extremely convenient log next to the ice surface, so Viktor set down his pack and sat on the log to remove his boots and lace the skates. His skates.
Viktor tied the final bows at the tops of his boots and stepped onto the ice. It was perfectly flat, pristine, and beautiful. He saw the blue light reflecting off one end of its surface and skated over to it, then jumped at the sight of something very, very out of place in the wilderness. Even more so than the sheet of ice he was standing on.

It was a door. Rather, a two doors, set into a curved doorway, holding a set of runes that glowed a bright blue—the same blue that reflected onto the ice. Carved into the very top of the doorway was an eye. More importantly, the doorway didn’t look like it lead into a room at all. It justifiably should just lead right back into the forest behind it.

Before the oddity of the doorway could persuade Viktor to remove his skates and walk around it, or to inspect its runes more closely, a great clang echoed through the clearing. Like metal against metal. As Viktor tried to find the source of the noise, he noticed that the eye in the doorway, before only a carving, had come to life: the eyelids were a bright red, the sclera a yellowy orange, and the iris bright blue to match the runes. As soon as his eyes met that lone one, a voice intoned in low hum:

"He who skates well shall be granted passage. Good luck. I am watching."

The eye flashed again, it's colors briefly intensifying before settling. If there had ever been any doubt in his mind that the Hero was a figure skater, this would have settled it. For a lack of anything else to do, Viktor skated. A few warmup exercises that Yakov had taught him, then his jumps and spins and footwork elements.

If he were to take the bards’ songs at face value, there should be music coming to the ice as he skated. There were in fact a set of songs, recorded by prophets and passed down through time. A four-movement orchestra, with four pieces to each movement. He was likely meant to skate a program to each song. Fortuitiously, Viktor, through years of skating in the winters, had choreographed routines to most of these songs. But even if all this were true, he had no idea how to make the music begin: the bards had never said anything about that.

So Viktor continued to practice. He’d certainly never had enough time to skate: it was only safe to skate on the fishing lake between the months of October and March at the most, and there was only so much skating one could get done in that time. He relished the chill that seeped into his skin, making him feel at home.

In the middle of a footwork sequence, the solution came to him, and Viktor skidded to a stop. He’d heard that clang as the Eye awoke, like metal against metal. He tentatively took the starting position that he’d choreographed for the first song in the first movement, then put one blade behind the other in a T-position. He pushed his front foot forward slightly, then shoved it backwards. The same clang he’d heard before echoed across the rink, but this time from his own blades.

He didn’t have time to think, only to move. He heard the initial crescendo of notes and shifted his weight forward, bringing his arms over his head as he spun about his toe. All verbal thought left as the trance of skating took him. Shift back, cross over, swing right, turn left, pirouette. Turn and turn again, hook, spin. Pure emotion and impulse flowed from the song through his body and across the ice for a minute and a half. Then suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, after a great crescendo and a chord, the music stopped. Viktor stared straight at the Eye - and it snapped shut.

Viktor stood, panting in his ending pose for ten seconds. The haze of the program left and he became aware of his surroundings again. A cool breeze lifted the brances of some nearby trees and tossed up some leaves on the ground, tossing Viktor’s ponytail over his shoulder. As he took a lap of stroking to warm down, he wondered at what happened with the Eye. Did it mean he’d failed? What even were the criteria for 'skating well'? Viktor had always considered the performance the most important part-
A great creaking sound directed Viktor’s eyes to the doors, which had opened - and not back into the forest, as they logically should. Instead, there was a room that didn’t seem to exist in this reality.
A pathway of ice extended itself from the sheet to the doors, the edges of it melting into the ground, and got to its destination just as the doors hit the frame with a resounding thud. Viktor moved along the pathway of ice and stumbled a little when it gave way to an odd rubbery substance on the floor of the room. He stumbled across the room to a treasure chest in the center.
The rest of the room was dark, such that it was impossible to see where its boundaries might be, but the chest seemed to glow. It wasn’t large, but the construction was sturdy—thick wood rimmed with metal and dotted with gemstones. The lid was hefty and it rocked the whole chest a little when it fell back on its hinges after Viktor pushed it open.Inside the chest was a small sphere and a piece of crinkled red fabric. Viktor picked up the sphere first, and suddenly realized the source of the glow. The thing was glowing extremely bright in the darkness, so bright as to create a small circle of daylight in a three-meter radius once he removed it from the chest. Still, it wasn’t too bright to look at directly, and when he did so, he noticed it was black stone with brightly glowing swirls of blue cut into its surface.
He rolled the orb around in his palm as he grabbed the wrinkled fabric. It was a small loop, and as he moved it around to inspect it, he found that it stretched. He fit it around his wrist, though it seemed a bit odd for a bracelet.

Viktor left the room and skated back across the ice to the log, beginning to remove his skates. When they were off and his boots were back on, he tied the skate laces together and hung them again over the hook on his pack.
He stood, and took a moment to process what had happened. The Trials were real. And the music from the Hero’s Orchestra played at them - so it seemed, in order. And the skates of legend fit him perfectly. He was the hero of legend.
Based on that, there should be sixteen Trials - one for each song in the Orchestra. And once he completed all sixteen Trials, he would be able to wake Prince Katsuki from his centuries-long slumber, and save Onakoru from the Shadow.

In theory. That rested on a lot of legend and not a lot of hard evidence. And so did the thing he was about to do.

Viktor walked in the direction he knew would lead to the nearest town, holding his new orb. It was a massive risk, being out after dark with only this to protect him. People had tried to stay hidden from the Shadow with torches before, and it had never worked: there wasn’t enough light. But the orb in Viktor’s hand glowed brighter than any torch. On this fact, Viktor staked his life.
 It was hard not to break into a panicked run the first time he saw the Shadow up close. It would still be a lie to say that he hadn’t jumped when the darkness touched the edge of his sphere of light. The appendage of the Shadow was somehow darker than black, darker than the night, and its shape kept changing. It was hard to say whether it was a tentacle or a tendril or an arm, but whatever it was, it seemed startled at Viktor’s presence for a few seconds, then started to get aggressive.Viktor’s breath and feet stopped. There was nowhere to run: the night around him was absolute, the nearest town too far to sprint to before this creature could grab him and take him to wherever people went who were taken by the Shadow. There was nothing he could do to defend himself, either: no weapon had ever harmed the Shadow, to his knowledge. It was more a force of nature than anything else: just as when one steps off a ledge they are pulled down to their death by gravity, likewise when one stays outside too long after dark, they are taken by the Shadow. Just because it appeared to take a form didn’t mean it was any less impersonally deadly.
After a horrifying minute of watching the shadow-creature scream and claw against the barrier of light, looking like it would suddenly break through at any moment, it stopped. Something about it looked dazed, if it had suddenly woken up, and as if it was unaware of having ever had any interaction with Viktor or his light orb, it wandered away into the night and the darker color faded into simple black.

Viktor blinked a few times, his rapid heartbeat slowly steadying. He felt as if he had just tripped off a cliff and, partway through his fall, the universe had forgotten about the existence of gravity, and he had floated to a gentle landing instead of splatting on the hard earth.

He broke into a sprint, and didn’t stop running until he reached the town.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor wasted no time finding the town’s inn. A beaten wooden sign hanging above the door to a large two-story building read "INN & BAR". When he walked inside, the overwhelming stench of alcohol and unwashed men stung his senses. He narrowly avoided being hit in the face with an empty wine-skin as he made his way up the creaky oak staircase.

A very tired-looking innkeeper sat at a desk, rifling through the pages of a fairly beaten tome. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders in straying waves. It took Viktor saying "Hello?" and "Excuse me?" a few times before she looked up.

"Oh, hello." Her tired drawl matched the dark bags under her glassy eyes.

"A bed, please, the cheapest you have," Viktor said. He tossed his pack off his shoulder and set it on the ground, rifling around for his coin-purse.

"Fifty numas a night," the innkeeper said, smoothing wrinkles in her long wrap skirt as she stood. She extended an arm and Viktor put fifty numas worth of aged coins into her open palm. She closed her fingers around them and walked shakily to a nearby open door.

Viktor followed her down a hallway longer than he would have expected given the size of the building to one of the open doors at the end. It led to a room so small the bed very nearly reached both walls. There was a tiny wooden nightstand beside that bed, and a coatrack in the far corner.

"Breakfast at 0700 tomorrow." The innkeeper handed him a key and turned around to go back the way she came.

Viktor stood in the crouching doorway for a few moments, then walked inside. He hung his skates gently over one of the hooks and placed his backpack, now containing his glowing orb, over another. He pulled off his shirt and boots, flopped down in the bed, and willed himself to sleep.
Viktor walked slowly into a grand courtroom in terrible disrepair. The tiles were cracked and stained with rainwater that had leaked in from holes in the ceiling. The carpeting which led from the doorway to the thrones, perhaps purple or red once, had long since lost nearly all its saturation to the slow but steady elemental wear. The stained glass windows were nearly all cracked or broken. The evident cause of most of this was a gigantic, gaping hole in the left-hand wall. Viktor was so preoccupied by staring at the hole that he was startled by the sudden movement in front of him.
Between the thrones there was a large amber pod, shaped and layered like a cocoon. It effervesced a magical aura as powerful as the scent of bleach, such that even a non-sorcerer like Viktor could feel it. And inside the cocoon was a man, perhaps a head shorter than Viktor although it was difficult to tell between the distance and the stairs and the fact that the man was sort of floating inside the cocoon.

The manner of his dress demonstrated his opulence, but there was something very off about him. He looked both too old and too young at once. He had to be slightly younger than Viktor, but a tired expression etched white lines into his face.

A strange feeling came over Viktor, looking at this man. It was as if he knew him, knew him very well, perhaps knew him better than anyone else. That wasn’t all that high a bar - Viktor’s love for the ice had driven away many possible friends, and his semi-celebrity status as the generally-accepted Hero of Legend had driven away many more - but it was odd to think nonetheless.

Viktor moved towards the small staircase that led up to the thrones and, as such, the cocoon. Just as he took the first step up the stairs, the cocoon moved. It cracked and exploded and fell in on itself and disappeared all at once. The magical energy that rushed by him felt like a shockwave, and Viktor stumbled backwards.

That stumble was nothing compared to the way the man walked towards him. It looked somewhat like a baby deer taking its first steps, if the deer was drunk and had one broken leg. The man fell over himself as if he had literally forgotten how to walk. His black hair fell over his face and he looked shocked, his hand moved up to adjust it and then he stared at his palm, astonished. His legs had forgotten to stop moving as he marveled, however, and he tripped over his long gown, falling haphazardly down the stairs into Viktor's arms.

"Yuuri?"
Viktor awoke the next morning just in time for breakfast, according to the angle of the sun through his bedroom’s tiny window. He tried to shake the feeling from his strange dream as he walked down the staircase.
There was a plethora of food of a huge variety of smells set on what had last night been the bar, coloring the air. The same lady from last night was moving around putting more food out by the minute, and a few people were moving around collecting food and putting it on wooden boards to take to tables. Viktor grabbed a board of his own from a stack at the bar’s end and grabbed a few pieces of warm bread, some smoked meat, and a glass of juice. He wolfed it all down, not knowing how tired he was from yesterday's venture, suddenly realizing he hadn't eaten that whole time, either. That wouldn’t be the first time he’d forgotten to eat, but it was probably the stupidest.

As Viktor was going back for seconds, he caught the eye of an elderly woman. It was just for a moment, but even so he was frozen for an instant. The crowd around her seemed to blur into monotone, piercing blue eyes burned into his own from behind a large sunhat. Her wrinkled skin turned paler than parchment, her hands lifting slightly from her sides. But before he could head over to her and ask why she was so perturbed, she blended back into the growing crowd, and the world spun back into color.

He went back to grabbing food, a little disoriented. He did his best to put it out of his mind, raking his fingers through his silvery bangs. He ate his fill, not recalling the last time he'd eaten anything other than fish and unsure of the next time he would be able to. He tried to make himself enjoy it, but he just felt numb.

Not sure if he was full but deciding he’d eaten enough, Viktor left. He wasn’t sure where he was going. Just... somwhere else. He needed air.

Is this what happens when you’re a hero of legend? Viktor thought. You have to run from existential darkness on an empty stomach, and the next day an elderly woman stares at you across a bar so hard that time momentarily stops?

Just as he was about to collect his thoughts, the woman from the bar called to him from a bench. "Boy?" she nearly whispered. "Come here."

Viktor turned and approached her without quite enough consideration for his own safety. Sure, the woman wasn’t physically intimidating, but there were such things as sorcerers - though Viktor had never personally met one. "Yes ma’am?" he said.

"I saw you in the tavern earlier," she said.

He stepped closer still - her voice was so quiet, proportionate to her lithe frame and sharp cheekbones. "Yes," he replied, keeping his voice down too, though he wasn’t sure why, "you stared at me. Assuming the question is not insensitive... why?"

She looked up at him, studying his face for a long second, then looking back to the ground. "I am sorry about that. Your hair... caught my eye." She stood. With a single hand gesture, he was compelled to follow her. "You reminded me of a - forgive the comparison - a hero of legend."

Viktor was struck. He wasn’t aware that other villages knew the description of the hero. What else might they know about him? Would he become one of those heroes from storybooks, where everyone knew his name? "I... hm." was all he managed to say.

"It is likely a silly thought," she said as they came upon a building that looked like it had been in the village the longest. Flowers began to blossom in a homely garden bed out front, and the smell of freshly baked bread wafted out open windows. She opened the door and gestured for Viktor to come inside. "Please, come. You look like you have something to ask that is best asked in private."

Once they were inside, and the door was closed, Viktor spoke. "I did have a question," he said. "I'm not sure if it’s best asked in private. I want to know what legends your village has surrounding the hero of legend. I- I'm a traveller."

The woman nodded. "Before I answer your question, traveller, may I learn your name?"

"Viktor," he replied without thinking. "Viktor Nikiforov."

The woman had practically fainted after that. Staring like the dead, she whispered, "It is true..."

"What is true?" he asked, though he already knew.

Abruptly, she regained her composure, hurrying off. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with..." she cleared her throat, "Viktor. 'Tis but the musing of an old lady." She walked over to a nearby rocking chair and seated herself, pulling a crochet blanket 'round her shoulders and gesturing for him to sit on an adjacent couch. "My name is Lilia."

"A pleasure," Viktor said. Well, did this village have the same legend or not? Was there a different version? And why was Lilia keeping it under wraps, like some major secret? "You were going to tell me about the hero?"

"Yes..." Lilia said, gesturing a wrinkled finger toward the long tapestry on the far wall. Viktor noticed, but said nothing about, the fact that the tapestry had runes in the same language as the doorway by the ice. "The legends tell of a hero with hair of silver and blades of gold. He will wake the prince of Onakoru, Katsuki Yuuri, from his slumber of centuries, by banishing the Shadow beyond the Veil." She gestured to the four corners of the tapestry, which each held a symbol and a picture. "There will be four trials in the forests, four trials in the fields, four trials upon the waters, and four trials in the mountains."
Viktor watched as Lilia explained, and found himself wondering why there was no reference to skating at all in these legends. Besides "blades of gold", which could easily refer to some set of weapons, there's really no way anybody could know that the hero was a skater. Is it some type of security measure? Why is this all so secret?!
He hadn't realized Lilia was done talking until she stared at him expectantly. "Oh, yes," he said, "Thank you. I, um... I wouldn't have known a lot of that if I stayed in my home town."
"Is that why you travel?" Lilia asked skeptically. "To learn the story of the hero?"
Viktor nodded, having taken the half-second to shore up his lie. "It might sound silly, ma'am, but I heard the story growing up and thought, there must be more to this. So I packed up to travel to other towns, to learn more." Really, it was only a partial lie. He really did want to know about the legend - not knowledge for knowledge’s sake, though, he was more practical than that.

"I see..." Lilia stared across the room at the tapestry, and back to Viktor. "Pray tell, what does the story from your village say?"

"It tells of a hero of the light, one who banishes the Shadow to beyond the Veil. A hero with hair of silver and blades of gold. And..." he wasn’t sure whether to say this next part, then realized that he’d paused long enough that he might as well say it. "At least in my village, 'blades' is assumed to refer to the blades of ice skates."

Lilia's eyes went wide again. Viktor seemed to be giving her a lot of important realizations lately. She stood with a dancer’s grace, throwing the blanket back against the chair and walking briskly to a box that looked perhaps even older than the house itself. Perhaps it was as old as the tapestry on the wall. She yanked out another ancient-looking piece of parchment and strode back to Viktor, unrolling it, and showing the portrait to him.

On it was a man with silvery hair, much shorter than Viktor's was—perhaps shoulder-length—but with the same characteristic bangs hanging over his left eye. He was more muscular than Viktor was and he wore something like high-heeled black boots, skin-tight black pants with gemstones sewn into the sides, and a very strange white tunic which seemed to fail to obey the ordinary constraints of sewn fabric. He held between his fingers a set of golden throwing daggers – and he wore a pair of black figure skates Despite the significant artistic rendering, the man still looked a little older than Viktor—perhaps he was twenty-eight—and at the bottom of the tapestry were two words in those ancient characters.

Lilia pointed to the characters. "Viktor Nikiforov."

"Lilia," said Viktor, a bit of trepidation brewing in his voice, "how many other people are liable to know who I am just by looking at me?"

"Anyone who has heard the true legend," Lilia replied, swiftly rerolling the parchment and placing it back into the trunk, returning to her chair. With a wave of the sorceress’s hand, he returned to his own seat. "And there is more, young hero. The Shadow’s followers know of the legend. Seeing you, they will know you for what you are and hunt you."

"Shadow... followers?" Did that mean what it sounded like it meant?

"Yes, young hero - there are human followers of the Shadow who believe in it and do its bidding. They tempt people to go out after dark so the Shadow can take them, and commit atrocities in the Shadow’s name."
A small part of Viktor that wasn’t appalled by this prospect found it laughable. The idea that the Shadow would have followers would be as silly as there being a cult following of gravity. Wasn’t it?
"Young hero, tell me - though, given the sensitivity of the subject, if you don’t wish to answer, it's alright if you don’t - was anyone you know killed in the Shadow’s most recent massacre?"

"Ten years ago? Um... someone in my village, I think, but nobody I was very close to." Viktor felt incredibly guilty about not even remembering the young man’s name.

"Do you think the Shadow itself is capable of such an elaborate strategy as burning buildings in order to force people out into the night so that it can take them? Do you think that the Shadow itself is even capable of burning buildings?"
"I..." can only assume no, because for one thing, you’re asking what sounds like a rhetorical question, and for another thing, if the Shadow were capable of doing that on a large scale, the human race would have been wiped out en masse five centuries ago. "No, I don’t think so."
"During the massacres - and there have been more than I care to mention over the past five hundred years - this is what the Shadow followers do. They entice and force people outside during the dark, when humanity is vulnerable. The lucky ones are simply taken."

"What on earth does the Shadow do that people find even slightly appealing?" Viktor said. His throat wanted to scream, but he kept his voice under control. "It has done nothing remotely good for anyone since it came to our land."

"The type of person who will have power, no matter the cost to themselves or others. The type of person who is perpetually on the side of whoever seems to be winning a war. The type of person is tired of cowering in fear of the Shadow, and has a certain disposition. These types comprise the ranks of the Shadow cult." Lilia sighed. "I know not who is at the top of this cult, or if they even have a single designated leader. As such, I know not if it can be dismantled."

"And these people know about the legend."

Lilia nodded. "They will hunt you as soon as they recognize you."

"So I give fake names at inns from here on out. And cut my hair. And buy a hat. And keep my skates in my bag with the blades, wrapped so they won’t cut anything."
"These are sensible precautions," Lilia said. "Well. Since I have made it my life’s work to find out about the Hero, I will help him now that he has been so abruptly deposited at my doorstep. Come, young hero, I’ll help you cut your hair."Lilia left the room for a moment and returned with a pair of scissors, as well as a black woolen cap that looked hand-knit. She sat him down in her kitchen.
"Don’t cut it all off, please," Viktor said. "It... might be useful to be able to prove my identity."
"If you need proof your hair grows naturally silver, your eyebrows demonstrate that well enough," Lilia said. "Still, I will humor you, as the hero’s intuition is not to be doubted. how much hair would you like to keep?"
Viktor felt a pang of sadness at the thought of losing any of it, then a pang of guilt for worrying so much about his stupid hair. "I suppose to here is fine," he said, indicating just above his shoulders. Just barely enough to ponytail... it hasn’t been that short since I can remember.

He stared at the floor, watching numbly as silver locks he’d spent his whole life growing fell to the floor. They looked like patches of ice, shining in the sunlight.

After what felt like an eternity, Lilia said, "There. Finished." She presented him with the wool cap and set her scissors on the countertop.

He put his remaining hair into a high ponytail - the only ponytail it would all go into - and covered it with the cap. It was a bit out of place for mid-spring, but it was much better than nothing.

"Viktor," Lilia said, her voice hushed. "Pack your things from the inn immediately and leave this town. Never return. Your name is now Shura Nazarov." Her last sentence was said to an audible rhythm, like poetry, and it reverberated in his mind. He was sure now that whenever he was asked his name, this new one would come from his lips immediately, as if he had never been known by anything else. Perhaps only by a deliberate effort could he say his real name aloud.

"Thank you, Lilia," Viktor said, a bit disoriented. "You’ve... helped me a lot. I have one last question, actually - forget about it if it sounds stupid. Is there anywhere a sheet of ice that doesn’t melt year-round?"

"That does in fact sound stupid," Lilia said with a small grin, "but I won’t forget about it. I’ll contact you under the name Shura Nazarov if I find anything about that. I have my ways of getting messages around." She gave a wink, then practically shoved him out the door. "Now go! The Shadow will find you if you stay."

Viktor nodded, jogged (purposefully trying not to look like he was in a hurry) over to the inn, grabbed all his belongings, stuffing his skates and the glowing orb into his backpack, and setting out, just as the sun was approaching its midpoint in the sky.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Four in the forest, four in the plains, four on the water, four in the mountains, Viktor thought. He pulled out the map of Onakoru he'd bought from a shop on the way out of town and consulted it. There were two mountain ranges in the country, and neither too close to him. So that was out, for now. Four on the water... There were many lakes dotting the landscape, and many more rivers, but the closest one was already behind him. Forests were likewise. But plains... there was something that could be considered a plain that he was trekking through right now. Long hay grasses blowing about with the winds, the occasional small shading tree, large swaths of hills and small cliffs. With the sun high in the sky, a sheet of ice might be indistinguishable from a lake in its shimmer and reflectiveness.

So Viktor went to every lake he saw, every one spotted across the landscape, even the tiny ones, especially the tiny ones, just in case they might be sheets of ice. He kept his compass in one hand the entire time to make sure he continued on southwest instead of accidentally walking in circles.

As the sun began to set, he pulled his glowing orb from his backpack and kept walking; whenever he got too tired to walk any longer, he set his warm coat on the ground as a pillow and slept where he stood, orb at his side to keep away the Shadow. Some nights, and especially ones where he woke from nightmares to the darkness, he stared out into the darkened, starless sky and saw the tendrils of the Shadow moving back and forth. He told himself each time that they couldn’t hurt him - for if they could, why would they have hesitated so long - but each time he saw them, the light shield brought about by his orb seemed a little more precarious.

After at least a week of walking, fishing at whatever lake he came upon, cooking his food, and walking again, Viktor came upon another town, first a speck in the distance, then growing into thatched roofs and dirt roads. As he moved closer he saw people and livestock. The people wore triangular thatched straw hats, which made perfect sense: as Viktor had moved south, it had become very hot. Viktor seriously considered switching his woolen cap for one of those: it would have the same effect as his current headpiece without making him so overheated. He made a mental note to find one and buy it.

Before he was able to do that, he was nearly mowed down by a small child: a bronze-skinned young girl of 6 or so years, with dark hair that barely peeked out from under her hat. Viktor stumbled slightly, but the child was knocked over completely. In a moment she sprung back onto her feet like an uncoiling spring, exclaimed a "Sorry mister!", and was about to run off when she saw his hat. She turned around and pointed, her vibrantly green eyes excited but her eyebrows confused. "Aren't you hot?" she asked.

Viktor wiped some sweat off his brow, flashed a tired smile, "Yes, actually, I am. Do you know where I could buy a hat like yours?"

"Of course!" the little girl exclaimed in an accent Viktor had never heard before. She pointed to a shop at the edge of town. "My daddy makes them from straw and twine! He sells them to the whole town and to travellers! You're a traveller, aren't you? What's your name?"
"I am," Viktor said, smiling. "My name is Shura. What's yours, little one?"
"Oh, okay! Cool! My name's Sabina! Well go see my daddy if you want a cool hat, okay mister Shura? Bye!" And with that, Sabina ran off.

Viktor had started to notice that the different subcultures in Onakoru had become very pronounced since the Shadow. Because there was no longer any real way to get from any one village to any other that was more than a day away on horseback, cross-country communication had been all but completely eliminated.
The only people Viktor knew of who were able to go between distant villages was a certain troupe of circus performers, whose tent was the size of a small village and therefore lent them about as much protection.

Viktor entered the shop that Sabina had pointed him towards and saw a stout, middle-aged man with his back to the door weaving straws together in a triangular shape. He looked like he was finishing up a hat.

"Hello?" Viktor asked, "Are you open?"

The man flipped around quickly. "Yep, I'm open. Do ye need a hat? Passing through these parts?"

"Excellent," Viktor said, and walked up to the counter where the man had been working. "Yes, I need a hat. I'm a traveller, gathering stories of the legendary hero." It was still a good cover story for anybody who didn't have the same one.

"Ah, a traveller... well, I do make custom hats, which could take a day or so. Cost you around ten numas - less if ye'd help me tend my fields."

"I'd be happy to help, mister..."

"Oxar," the man replied with a wrinkled smile. He looked up from the hat he was working on. "I'll need your measurements. Would you mind taking yer cap off for me, sir?"

"Um... I'd rather not. I'm alright if it fits a little loose."

"Why'sat, boy? Ye bald?" Oxar gave a chortle, then came around with his measuring tape and gave Viktor a smack on the back just as the younger man was trying to come up with something to say. "I'm just messing with ye. It's my policy to not ask about a customer's head if 'e don't want me to." He measured around Viktor's head, took note of the number, and went back to his work.

"If ye'll be helping me tend to my fields, ye can stay in my house. It's just across the way, I have a couple apprentices there who'll be happy to getcha a room, and my daughter Sabina might be home 'swell."

"Thank you, Oxar. You're very kind." Viktor flashed him a grin.

"And ye have a smile that belongs in a painting!" The older man said after him.
Viktor walked across the dirt pathway to a large house with a sizable porch and a sheet of woven straw hanging in front of the door. He knocked on the doorframe, and a man who looked about five or six years younger than Viktor opened the door. He had bleach-blond hair, a freckled face, and a thin but muscular frame; he wore a long-sleeved baggy shirt and shorts with enough pockets to hold several pounds of trinkets.
"Oh, Oxar has another helper," the man mumbled, as if the words left a sour taste in his mouth. "Come on in," he told Viktor, gesturing inside with a calloused hand. "There are four of us right now - well, five if you count the kid - but we have another room. Trust Oxar offered ye a cheap hat for yer work? What's yer name?"

"That's true," Viktor said with a superficial smile. "Good price for a free room. It's Shura."

"Hm. It might be useless to introduce ye to everybody, then," the blond man said, "but I'll do it anyway." He raised his voice to shout up at the ceiling, "Hey! Y'all! Come on and meet our new helper!"
Thunderous footsteps fell down the stairs. A man with auburn hair came down the stairs in nothing but a long nightshirt, buttoned crooked, with a sleepy look on his face. Then there were two women, one looking strong enough to lift and throw the other, both with short brownish hair and wearing those triangular straw hats. Both the women are wearing tattered denim trousers over flannel shirts. Viktor noted the matching tattoos encircling their wrists above linked hands.
"This is Ninna," the blond man introduced the woman who seemed to be carved from stone. She gave a grunt of acknowledgment.

"And this is-"

"Hi!" The thin woman cut him off, "I'm Brigit and I'm apprenticed to Oxar with my beautiful wife Ninna here! I hope you're here for longer than a day like the rest, I'd love to get to know you, you look sooooooo interesting! I like your hat! We always have the same boring ones, and though they're really great for, like, shade and such, it's always nice to see something new! That's why I love Ninna! She's always got something new to say! Right babe?"

"Hm." If Viktor squinted, he might have seen Ninna's lips turn upward, but then again, maybe not.

"Right!" Brigit agreed with herself.

"Yeah, that," the blond man breathed. "I'm Dalmann. That's Kristall." Dalmann gestured to the auburn-haired man who was now staring at Viktor. He wondered if a strand of his hair had slipped out of his hat.

"Everybody," Dalmann said, "This is Shura."

"Um, hello...?" Viktor fought the urge to wave a hand in front of Kristall's face. Some nondescript emotion swirled in his green eyes.

"Oh! Hi! Sorry. You're, um... never mind. I-I'll show you your room." Kristall stumbled over his feet up the narrow staircase, a very confused and slightly concerned Viktor followed.
Kristall led him to the first room on the right. "This is, um... our guest room. You can stay here, y'know, if you want." He opened the door and let Viktor in, still somewhat clumsy. Viktor wondered why until he turned to look at the younger man and saw a light blush across his face.Oh, Viktor thought as he finally realized why his escort had been stumbling over himself. A smirk made its way onto his lips. Oh, alright. Let's just see about that.
"Excuse me," Viktor said, just as Kristall was about to leave. "Pardon the intrusion... Do you have anywhere I might draw myself a bath? I’m so tired after such a long journey..." He tipped his head back slightly, showing off what he’d been told was a very nice jawline, making a show of fanning his shirt collar against sun-bitten skin.
Kristall all but squeaked. "Um... yes... we... do have a bath... I'll just show you where it is. And you can, um... bathe and stuff... yeah..." Kristall practically ran down the stairs, and Viktor followed him with a sly sway to his hips.There was a large wooden tub out the back door, held together by iron rings. It was deep enough to sit up in and long enough to stretch out in.
"I'll go get some water! And soap! And other stuff... you just get comfortable, and, um, stuff." He waved his hand before dashing off.

Viktor immediately began pulling off his boots, which stuck to his feet with sweat. He made a mental note to find a pair of sandals as he tossed one of his shoes aside. He had just taken off the other one when he heard a clamor of footsteps across the grass.

"Shura!" Kristall called, "I just turned on the water, I'll put the bath here." He moved the bath under a spout on the roof that Viktor hadn't seen before. "It should start filling soon. I can, um, leave if you want..." He started pulling at his collar nervously, then deliberately averted his eyes as Viktor removed his shirt.

"It's fine, Kristall, you can watch if you want. I'm not modest." Viktor gave a near-audible wink, which as he now expected, caused the other man to blush furiously.

"It's okay I'll just stand over here if you need me but call if you need anything okay bye," Kristall spoke so fast the words began to blur together, darting around the corner.

Viktor gave a short hum as he tossed his shirt aside and stepped out of his trousers. The water splashed from the spout and into the tub, the steam smelling of grasses and herbs. He eased himself into the hot tub and felt very glad he asked this particular favor. It was always something he asked of people he suspected of having crushes on him, notably because it gave him a reasonable excuse to get naked in front of the person in question, but in this particular instance, an herbal bath was just what he needed.

After a short time, he called out, "Kristall, may I request some soap, please?" The bar he had brought with him was, in fact, in his bag, which was, in fact, elsewhere. The other man quickly returned with a hand covering his eyes, although he peeked a few times through his fingers. He presented a bar of soap, petals of red flowers embedded in its pearly surface. Viktor accepted the bar with a saucy "Thank you, Kristall" and relished in the chirp that came from the younger man's lips before he scampered off. Then he took to washing himself, pleased with the smell of roses.
By the time Viktor finished his bath, it was mid-afternoon. He meandered into the house, pants and boots on but shirt in one hand. Kristall was finishing getting dressed in the main room of the house, but everybody else was out.
"Where is everyone?" Viktor asked, glancing around.
Kristall looked at Viktor for a split second, then promptly looked away again, straightening his hat with vigor. "They’re probably out in the fields with Oxar. Planting. Y'know. I need to go join them, you should too." He pushed the door open.
"Absolutely," Viktor replied, pulling his shirt over his head and following Kristall. "Would you be so kind as to show me the way?"

"Oh, um, sure. It's just this way." Kristall gestured in the direction he was already walking, and Viktor followed in his stride.
The farm was across town, but given how small that town was, it was a short walk. They arrived a few minutes later and saw Ninna pulling a large wheelbarrow full of seeds along paths, Brigit taking a seed carefully from the pile for each little hole in the ground and planting it. Dalmann was hoeing the ground a good ways ahead of them, and Oxar was kneeling just behind Dalmann, digging out the little holes for the seeds behind him with a spade. The smell of tilled earth and mulch saturated the air.
"What are we doing?" Viktor asked. "I've never worked on a farm before; I come from a fishing village."

"Oh, well, I usually come through and cover up the holes after Brigit puts the seeds in. I dunno what you'll be doing—probably tending the crops over there, watering em and such." Kristall gestured to a large field full of what looked to be sweet potatoes and basil. "You should go to Oxar and see."

“Wouldn’t

you

like to help me, Kristall?” he took a step closer, stared into the younger man’s darkening green eyes.

Kristall stared back for a long, long moment, but ultimately said “No. No, sorry. I have my own work to do.” And he marched off to join Ninna and Brigit.

Viktor shrugged and walked over to Oxar, who was crouched over the soil. "Excuse me? Oxar? I'm here to help, what do you want me to do?"

"Oh! Shura! Hello! You can go and check on those sweet potatoes, water them if they need it. Just check if the soil is wet enough, and if not, pour a little from your can on it! Simple as that. You can refill your can at that well over there." He gestured at a barely-visible stone structure at the field's opposite edge, beside which sat a little metal thing Viktor assumed was a watering can. "We're done at sundown."
It was exciting to do something new, even something as generally monotonous as watering plants. Viktor almost never got to do that at home, and he welcomed the change. Not that he didn't enjoy fishing, it just became... boring.
The field was just so big, big enough to feed the entire village, and Viktor got somewhat carried away in watering other plants than the ones he'd been told to. He wouldn't have stopped if Oxar hadn't come over to inform him that it was getting dark, and they should head inside. With all the weeks he spent with his orb of protection, Viktor almost forgot about the peril of the dark.

"Shura," Oxar had called to him, "It's getting dark, we should go inside. Come on, quickly now. Don't want to get swallowed up, now do we?" He gave a humorless chuckle.

"Oh, thank you, Oxar, I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't reminded me. I can get so carried away sometimes."

"It's fine, son," Oxar said as they walked back to the house with no small amount of celerity. "Ye were out there a long time. The kids and I went in for supper a good while ago, good thing I thought to go check on ye. Ye couldn't take that long just watering the sweet potatoes, though. What else did ye do?"

"Um... to be honest I'm not sure. I did that whole half of the field." Viktor gestured behind him to the half he'd been working on that afternoon.

"Wow, son," Oxar said as they entered the house just as the sun began to set. Viktor welcomed the cool shade of the house and wiped his forehead. "In that case, yer hat's paid for! And I'll give ye a little extra, too!"

"It's not that hard," Viktor said. "I'll take the hat, but keep the change. Really, it was great to do something new. I had a good time."

Oxar chuckled. "Well alright then. Go ahead and grab some food from the kitchen, then, and get some rest. I'm nearly done with yer hat, it'll be finished when ye wake up tomorrow and ye can be on yer way. Yer a traveller, ain't'cha?"

Viktor smiled. "Yes, I am." He was about to make his way into the kitchen for a much-needed meal when he turned again. "Hey, Oxar? I have a question."

"Shoot."

"What are the legends around here surrounding the hero of legend? The one who's supposed to save the Prince?"

"Ye said that was why ye were travelling earlier, yea... Well, around here, stories get passed around about the hero tracing a pattern on the ice with golden blades to seal the Shadow after weakening the darkness with the colors of the light. We have paintings done on ancient parchment depicting the orbs of light channeling the hero's life-force to defeat the Shadow."

"Would you... show me these paintings? Tomorrow? I'd like to see that before I leave."

"Of course." Oxar smiled. "Now, eat, then sleep well. You deserve it."

"Now! Go!" the prince's voice was close now, shouting from right behind Viktor's ear. Viktor knew exactly what he had to do, and he leapt onto the ice, shutting out the fear. He stood in center ice for only a moment before the music began. It sounded familiar, like he ought to know it, like he did know it. The opening of the song was slow, and he forced himself not to rush it, though his heart hammered in his ribcage. Gradually, he picked up speed. He felt the colors of the orbs flow through his soul, focusing his thoughts; accompanied by encouraging words from Yuuri.

An accent, a jump, and another after that. So many rotations in the air, and so close to the edge. A spiral, legs in almost a full 180 degrees. Lunge into a spin that centered perfectly in place. Exit in exactly the right spot, move into a step sequence. Each edge and turn calculated and precise; it needed to be to seal the Shadow.

Viktor felt the darkness moving under his blades, trying to force him off balance. No, focus. Don't think about it. Just focus on the routine, the presentation, the form. Just focus on...

"Vitya! You can do it! Keep going!"

Yuuri.
Viktor woke in a cold sweat, jolting upright in the bed. It was early, too early. He glanced out the window. Still the middle of the night.
His blood still ran thick with the adrenaline from the intense program, the tips of his fingers throbbing with his pulse. The air felt too warm, too stagnant. He had been in motion, and suddenly stopped. Transported from the ice to an unfamiliar bed.

Viktor jumped out of bed and paced, bouncing on his toes. His muscles were filled with explosive force, his nerves itched, his heart tremored, his cheeks hurt. Why did his cheeks hurt?

Then, he finally understood. He wasn't nervous. He was excited. His cheeks hurt because he’d been smiling. Actually, he hadn't recalled the last time he felt so good. He brushed his cheek with his knuckles, feeling the heat nip his skin. Was he blushing? He didn't recall the last time he actually blushed.

Viktor blinked into the darkness a few times, then once more when that didn't seem to help. The mere implication was ridiculous, but the symptoms were there. He’d just seen them on Kristall.

Did he have a crush on the Prince?
Viktor hadn't been able to get to sleep again after his realization. Soon, he heard Oxar's heavy footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hallway towards his room. He was dressed and at the door before the man's first knock came, and when it did, Viktor opened the door immediately.
"Oh, hi, Shura. Glad you're up. Ye wanted to see the paintings, and I thought we should do it before everyone else woke so I'd have some time to see ye off before I had to get to work. Yer hat's on the counter downstairs, by the way."

"Thanks, Oxar. I really appreciate it." Viktor descended the stairs so quickly and smoothly it looked to be in a single bound, grabbing his pointed straw hat from the counter before leaving after the older man.

They walked in silence in the early morning air through the small village toward a building in the center that looked to be some sort of town hall, or village meeting place. Oxar led him inside and up towards a set of paintings on the left wall. There was a large one in the center that depicted an obsidian-colored rack with sixteen glowing orbs set into it, each orb streaming a different color into the back of a man with silvery hair, pulled up into a ponytail with a thick red hair-tie, en pointe in white ballet shoes and looking to be standing on a lake before a huge castle.

There were a few others, other angles of the silver-haired man, in different art styles, but they depicted different bits of the same scene. The part that made Viktor pause was that he'd dreamt this exact scene last night, and these paintings looked like renderings of what he might depict if he were to try to put what he saw to paper. It was easy to see how a sheet of ice might be resolved into a lake, figure skates into ballet shoes, by a human mind that doesn't know what it's seeing.

Come to think, that was a theme among pieces of the legend: slightly incomplete but independently understandable renderings of a common scene. Perhaps the only reason his town had known the hero was a figure skater was that they knew what skates were, figure or otherwise.

"These paintings were done by the more artistic prophets through the centuries," Oxar said, gesturing to the parchments attached to the walls. "During the time Prince Katsuki has been in stasis."

Viktor nodded, nothing more to say but "Thank you." Then he left with his things, in search of the next town, or the next sheet of unmelting ice, whichever came first.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It turned out that the next thing he'd find was a sheet of ice. It was just on top of the sort of hill that was just small enough that one didn't feel the need to climb it to see what was up there, but that was just tall enough that one couldn't see the top. Viktor had climbed it anyway, and was so overjoyed he nearly slipped when he stood on it in his shoes to make sure it was really ice and not just a flat lake. He immediately laced his skates up and stepped on.

The instant his blades touched the ice, the door materialized, the runes glowing orange. There was the same metallic clang that rang across the ice, and the Watching Eye awoke. The same voice as before said the same words, but they still made Viktor's blood chill. It didn't help that it seemed significantly cooler on the ice sheet than in the surrounding area.

He who skates well shall be granted passage. Good luck. I am watching.

Viktor wondered for a moment who the "I" was who was watching. He entertained the momentary thought that it might be the Prince himself, but then shook his head. The Prince was using his entire life-force to hold the Shadow back. He probably didn't have a thought to spare to watch Viktor go through these trials.
When he was prepared, Viktor clinked his blades together and got into his starting pose: arms crossed in front of him, fingers splayed, chin pointed down. One foot behind the other, toe in the ice.
The music started immediately. He heard the cellos, echoing through the hills and across the plains, as if they were right by the side of the ice, though there was nothing there. Three backward cross rolls, then a high double salchow. Turns into a spin just as the violins joined the melody. Exit the spin on the downbeat and go right into the step sequence with the double flip at the end, taking a serpentine pattern across the whole sheet. Every movement was perfect, the fiery anger of the song flowing through Viktor's limbs. Except...

Viktor felt the ice moving. At first he attributed it to fatigue, but then he remembered his dream from that night at Oxar's house and decided otherwise. In that dream, it had felt like the ice itself was shifting, trying to throw him off his balance. This is the Shadow’s work, he thought, with a disturbingly high certainty. I need to focus.
He focused so hard he almost forgot the next steps of the program, but the music reminded him: a twizzle and a spiral. He felt like the ice was tilting back and forth under him, keeping his balance even in such a simple maneuver was a massive challenge. Yet somehow, after that spiral and one final spin, as the notes fell over each other into a diminuendo and he raised his arms over his head, he managed.
He collapsed to his knees as soon as the doors began to open, brutally out of breath. He knelt there as the ice melted through his trousers and chilled his hands, panting, trying to make his eyes focus.

And then he heard something. A voice. Calling as if from far away, but as he looked around the surrounding field, he saw nobody: there was nothing but hills and horizon as far as his eyes could see. He couldn't make out the words at first, but soon it was loud enough for him to hear. "-don’t give up, hero. Please. I need you. Stay strong."

"Who are you?" Viktor shouted into the empty fields. He had recognized the voice but couldn't pinpoint from where.
The voice made somewhat of a whimpering noise, like the question had hurt him. "I'm the reason for your quest, hero. Or, well, I think..."The prince. The pang of realization hit Viktor's mind and he immediately regretted his question. "You are," Viktor said aloud, "You are. I just didn't expect you to be able to talk to me."
"Ah. I should have expected that." The voice- The prince paused. "I am truly sorry, hero. Yes, I am able to speak to you. I have been watching you overcome these past two trials, and it gives me hope that you shall be able to pass the next fourteen. However..."
Viktor waited a few moments during which the prince didn't continue before speaking up. "However...?"
"My... time is running out. Faster than I expected it to. I feel my hold over the Shadow growing weak. I cannot help you... I can only tell you to hurry, hero. The Shadow controls the night already... should my hold over it destabilize, it would destroy the day as well. No light would get through to the world any longer, and whatever life anyone has in this world would become nothing but misery. I... need your help. Everyone does."

"I understand," Viktor said, though he didn’t. Not the details, anyway. There were a lot of questions he could ask, but he didn’t need answers. They didn’t matter. "I’ll do my best."

Through whatever rift enabled their communication, he felt a wave of relief wash over the prince. "I do have a request, though, your highness," Viktor said.

"Yes?"

"Could you tell me where the trials are? I'm having to spend a lot of time finding them, and if I knew where they were I could finish them faster."

There was a long pause, and Viktor wondered whether the prince was still listening to him. There was really no way to tell. "Hello? Yuuri?" he called warily.

"I didn't think of that," the prince's voice came, finally. It was angry, and sad, and it made Viktor tense involuntarily. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"You're using all your strength to hold back the Shadow," Viktor said. "You’ve been doing that for centuries. It's understandable that you might not think of things." Viktor swore he was going to hug Yuuri so hard when he climbed out of that stasis pod. He didn't really know whether hugging royalty was appropriate, but damn, it really sounded like Yuuri needed it.

"Okay." Yuuri sounded relieved, and Viktor felt it. It wasn’t just empathy from Yuuri’s tone of voice, it was his own emotion too, as if Viktor himself were relieved by his own words. "Do you have a map? I can tell you where the trials are, but I can't really do anything else. I wish I could help more..."

"That's fine, Yuuri." Wait, when did I get on a first-name basis with the prince? Well, he doesn't seem to mind... "Thank you. I do have a map, it's in my backpack. Let me grab it." Viktor stood up, feeling the cold of the now-melted ice on his legs. He shivered slightly as he opened up his backpack and pulled out his map and a pencil.

"There's one on the southernmost peak in the Elms Mountains," the prince instructed, and Viktor made a mark on his map there. "Another at the base of the northernmost peak, on the eastern side... another in a cave on the same peak's western side."

This instruction continued, Viktor moving his hand under different parts of his map and making marks, accompanying them with notes as to more specific attributes of the trials' locations. Viktor was just happy the map had labels; he had no idea how Yuuri kept the names of every hill, valley, and pass in his head. That, and he was exceedingly happy he'd asked this of the prince: a lot of these trials were in locations he would never think to check.
When they were finished, there was a long silence between them, the sort of awkward silence wherein both people want to keep talking but neither is sure about what.
"How are you talking to me?" Viktor asked suddenly.

Yuuri hummed—a cute, low note full of contentedness—and said, "That orb of yours. It's a useful piece of magic."

"Oh!" Viktor pulled it out of his pack and held it in his palm. The pale blue light—the blue of the ice, of the sky, of the ocean—felt peaceful and inviting, and Viktor stared into it. "Why didn't I think of that?"

They both chuckled at that, and Viktor got this feeling like he'd known this man his entire life. There was a particular warmth in his chest, and he knew it would leave if Yuuri were to go away. "Can I... talk to you whenever?" he asked.

"Sadly, no... I was able to guide you now, but I likely won't be able to speak again for a while. I am using all my thoughts to maintain my hold over the Shadow. This brief conversation was an exception, rather than a rule, I am afraid..."
The princely tone is back. "Okay, Yuuri. That's fine. I can manage." He cracked a smile, ignoring the ache in his chest. "I’ve made it this far, haven't I?"
"Mhm. I believe in you. It's me I'm worried about." The prince gave a light, self-deprecating chuckle.
"Don't be. Yuuri," he gripped the orb a bit tighter, "you are so strong. I admire that about you. I'm not the knight in shining armor coming to sweep the helpless prince off his feet. You're contributing just as much as I am. Never forget that." Viktor curled around the orb, holding it close as if hugging the prince talking to him through it.
Prince Yuuri did that beautiful hum once more. He was, Viktor was beginning to realize, the sort of person who didn't do well when left alone with his own thoughts, let alone with the fate of a nation on his shoulders. Viktor wanted to be there to reassure him, every day, always.
"Oh! I almost forgot," Yuuri interrupted, and Viktor let his thoughts be derailed. "One more thing. That red thing around your wrist is a scrunchie, and it goes in your hair."
"Ah! I see..." Viktor looked around once, twice, and then pulled his cap off. As Viktor smoothed his hair through his hands and gathered it up at the nape of his neck, Yuuri told him, "You don’t need to worry about keeping a hat on. Not on the ice, at least."

"Hm? Why?" Viktor belatedly realized that he needed to do a high ponytail if he didn’t want any flyaways, since his hair was so brutally short now, so he started over, gathering it in the right spot.

"The ice sheets are royal magic, created by my family and I. The Shadow and its followers won’t go near them."
"Okay." Viktor finally twisted the stretchy "scrunchie" around his high ponytail. "Do I look cute?" he asked, looking straight into the Watching Eye with a heart-shaped smile.
"You look adorable," Yuuri said before he caught himself. "Er, I mean..."

"I know what you mean," Viktor said with a wink.
"And, um, it's called the Scrunchie of Power because, um, it'll increase your strength, like, jump straight up right now, you'll see you can jump about twice as high and your legs will hold you when you come down..."
Viktor did stand and jump, and he noticed a significant increase in how high he could leap. "Wow, Yuuri! This is great! Can I lift heavier stuff too?"

"Yes, you can. The scrunchie increases the energy in your muscles so you can do just about anything better. Now, um... I have to go. It's been over half an hour, my power needs to be elsewhere..."

Viktor sat down and bit his lip, but smiled a second later. "I understand, Yuuri. Stay strong! I'll complete these trials and be there to save you in no time." Hopefully, less than no time. So they could talk again.

For a second, there was an overwhelming feeling of warmth, contentment, love, and Viktor wasn’t sure whether the emotion was his or Yuuri’s anymore. Surroundings blurred and fell away, and for a second it was like Yuuri stood in front of him, looking like he had in Viktor’s dream: regal black gown with blue-silver gemstones, soft face and warm eyes, a hopeful smile on his lips.

It was only a second, and then Yuuri was gone.

One second of silence. Two. Four. Viktor listened to the sound of his own breath for ten more seconds, then squeezed his eyes shut and tipped his head into his hands. The expanse of open field that had been his home for weeks now suddenly felt empty, and cold. It was as if there had always been an unnoticed absence within him, and suddenly that void had been filled for a few minutes, only to leave again.

For lack of anything better to do, he stood, grabbed his things, and kept going.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor was pretty sure which music was next, and what program he'd skate to it. Every song so far had been in the same order he heard bards sing them in, so he assumed the pattern would continue. The next one was the third song in the first movement: On Love: Eros.
He always thought he knew what this song meant. Pure, selfish lust. After all, that was how he’d come at every previous relationship - part out of necessity and part out of habit. When most of your village thinks you’re some kind of legendary hero, that ascribes to you this inherent status that makes it impossible to have an equal romantic partner. In most relationships, people share tasks - like, one cleans the house and the other cooks dinner - but it isn’t possible for any lover to do something on par with being destined to save the world from evil. And once you’ve had enough partners who don’t really care for you, because they don’t think they can, you stop really caring for them, too, and it becomes normal.
But there was something else now. A relationship of equals... or at least the possibility. Assuming that he had read Yuuri right, and he wasn’t just projecting.

No, he had definitely felt emotions that were not his. And that glimpse, as if Yuuri had stood with him for just a moment; that was definitely some kind of powerful magic.

So if he was right about all of that, what did eros mean, then?

Viktor crossed a bridge over a large lake to an island in the center, on which he could glimpse another, smaller lake, as well as a few houses that looked like they had been abandoned some time ago. Possibilities flitted through Viktor’s mind as he walked, watching the glimmer of midday sunlight off the lake and across the metal railings of the bridge. It was an unusually cool day for this latitude, possibly 25ºC, and a swift breeze made it almost pleasant.

The small lake, of course, contained a sheet of ice. Viktor found the stone at the edge of the ice and set down his things, preparing to remove his boots when he heard a loud metal clash followed by the crunch of ice under blades. Startled and confused, he looked up to see a young boy with a straight bob of silvery hair and long bangs covering the right half of his face.
There was another skater with silver hair."Who are you?" Viktor asked, surprised at how much shock was evident in his voice.The boy ignored him. He continued his practice of a routine that was definitely to Eros, but totally different from Viktor’s. He had placed a step sequence where Viktor had a spin, and his jumps had more rotation and less height.
"What’s your name?!" Viktor shouted, leaning forward and cupping his hands around his mouth, sure that the boy must have heard this time.

"If I tell you," the boy skidded to a stop, his voice reminiscent of a furious kitten poised to strike, "will you get out of my hair?!" He skated closer to Viktor, one hand on his hip. He wore skin-tight black clothing that looked like it was a part of him. Viktor recognized the material from somewhere, but he couldn’t place it.

"Sure," Viktor said.

"My name is Victor. Now you, so we’re even."
"Viktor. Pleasure to meet you." Viktor smirked, but inside his head there were many blown fuses and a decent amount of stuff was on fire. There was another silver-haired figure skater named Viktor. There had been, once upon a time, a point in Viktor’s life where he thought the universe made sense. Right now, he missed that.
The other Victor seemed to have roughly the same problem. "You’ve gotta be kidding me, old man. I’m the only Victor."
"Well, clearly that’s not true. Actually, if you think chronologically," he put his finger to his lips, "I’m older, so I was the original."
"I can’t believe you!" Victor threw his hands up in some combination of exasperation and disgust, skating away and then back. "You know that doesn’t make any logical sense at all."

Viktor ignored him. "Hm... now since having two Viktors would be confusing, let’s make a name for you. How about Yuriy?" The name meant feisty in his mother tongue.

"You don’t get birthright claim over the name, asshole. I’m Victor." The boy skated away, continuing to do his figures.

"Alright, then, Victor. Who gets to skate for the Prince, then?"

"Me, duh. I got here first. Wait your turn." He fished the blue scrunchie off his wrist and tied his hair up, pulling back his bangs. His eyes were violently green, flickering slightly like emerald flames.

I suppose there’s no aruging with that impeccable logic, Viktor thought, propping his head up with his hands. He watched as Victor began a warm-up from the beginning. It had looked like he was nearly done warming up earlier, doing some very passable program run-throughs, but now he was doing cross-strokes up and down the ice, running crossover and turn drills, and skating figures.
Viktor looked around, at the trees, and the ice, and the sky, and back at Victor. He was running through his jumps and including beginner jumps that nobody who wasn’t still learning how to jump ever bothered with, like the half-flip and the half-lutz. He did every jump, including all his singles, at least three times. Not for lack of skill or practice - each one of the three was perfect - but purely to take up time.
He spent at least half an hour on spins, running almost every possible combination of positions. There were nowhere near this many spins in his program, probably not in every program for every song.

Viktor’s blood boiled. This other Victor was absolutely insufferable! Did he not know they were on a clock? Had the Prince not spoken to him? Perhaps not. Perhaps Yuuri had taken one look at this cocky kid and decided not to bother.

After an actual eternity of messing around in a vaguely warm-up-ish fashion, Victor took a starting position. But he didn’t click his blades together first. Just a dry run. How much would he tire himself out, in the name of pissing off Viktor?

As Victor ran his program, Viktor laced his skates. He’d had enough. When Victor hit his ending pose, Viktor tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hate to interrupt your extensive warmup," Viktor said, "but I thought I should tell you that the Prince isn’t going to let you pass these trials."

"He’s what? What are you talking about? You’re telling me the Prince actually exists?"
Wow, so Yuuri really hasn’t talked to him. "Of course. In fact, we’re great friends! He’s personally helped me."
"He’s what?!" Victor spat. "I don’t believe that in the slightest."

"Really? That orb you have in your bag, I have some as well. Yuuri talked to me through it."

Victor gave a look that said you’re on a first-name basis with the Prince?! and Viktor smirked, ignoring how wrong it felt to use Yuuri and his generous help like this. And then Victor stared straight at the Eye above this ice sheet’s doorway and shouted, "Hey, Princey! I know you’re watching! Cut the crap and listen to me!"
Viktor narrowed his eyes at his counterpart. If that’s how he behaves toward royalty...
The Eye turned towards Victor, looking confused despite its lack of eyebrow. The low hum of the door, or more properly, Yuuri’s voice through the door, said, "Yes?"

"Let us both skate this program. Whoever does better gets what’s in that chest." He pointed at the doors. "Deal?"

The Eye looked contemplative for a moment, then settled with resolve. "Deal. Viktor goes first."

"We’re both named Viktor!" they exclaimed in unison.

The door made a low noise like a suppressed giggle. "You, young one, you first."

Victor grinned sharply, and Viktor took his place at the side of the ice. Victor clicked his blades together, and the music started. The low strums of the guitar accompanied powerful strokes, then in the moment of silence he flew through the air in a huge fly. He landed perfectly on the downbeat, spinning in an elegant back camel spin. He turned over to grab his blade, and as he did, the sunlight hit that blade and Viktor noticed his blades weren’t the silver color of his own, but a shade of pale gold. Blades of gold...
Victor moved from that spin into a front pancake, threading his arms through to grab his skate. He smoothly transitioned into a crossfoot, and before Viktor could even blink, he was out of the spin and into a series of fast back crossovers and elegant turns into a double lutz just as the flute came into the music.
Crossovers, elegant and with beautiful extension, into a spiral that Viktor could have sworn was further over than straight up and down. This boy was flexible. Viktor wondered what on earth he did that made him so good at this.
Another jump, elegantly executed, and a step sequence. A sequence of rockers and loops followed by one final spin wherein the boy arched his tired body into a teardrop shape, holding his skate above his head in both hands, then a stop and an ending pose with one hand on his thigh and the other behind his neck.
His skating was incredibly good, perhaps even better than Viktor’s own. He was suddenly, for the first time in years, genuinely on the same level as someone else from a skating standpoint.

Still, something about the boy’s performace had looked off. The movements and parts of the choreography had this raw sex appeal that seemed very out of place for a young boy, and it showed in his performance of it. It was as if the program wasn’t his own, but someone else’s.

And as Viktor skated out to the ice, he realized what he would need to do to best this boy. Not just superior presentation - that wouldn’t give him enough of an edge - but a particular type of presentation. He realized, finally, what Eros meant. It wasn’t just sexy - there’s a lot that can be sexy - it was confident.

Confidence wasn’t only another possible presentation for this song. It was something that would appeal to his audience directly. Yuuri is the sort of person who doesn’t do well when left alone with his own thoughts. He lacks confidence - in himself, as well as in me. By demonstrating confidence, then, I can reassure Yuuri.

With the knowledge of this edge, he would skate a perfect program with the optimal performance, and he would best this kid who thought he could save the world.
Yuuri watched Viktor move across the ice and take his starting pose. His arms were held slightly outwards from his body, fingers splayed, one toe in the ice and hip popped. He took a few breaths to steady himself, the role he was to play for the program transforming him.
The first strums of the guitar came and Viktor folded his arms up over his head, arching his back into a pivot. The most fluid possible motion, made more so by the smoothness of the ice and the grace of his skating. He did a simple edge where Victor...Yurio? had been doing a flying camel, but he stared straight into the Eye which pierced right into Yuuri's gaze, millions of kilometers away, and winked.

If Yuuri hadn't been in a semi-magical state of stasis where his consciousness was preserved no matter what, he would have fainted. He knew the theme of the program and the music was Eros, but goddess above you're not supposed to make it that sexy.
He couldn't take his eyes off him.
Immediately he turned into turns and steps, his arms gesturing towards both himself and Yuuri as if beckoning, come closer. A twizzle, crossovers and brackets. He ran a hand from the tip of his chin down his chest, touch me. A counter into a spreadeagle pulling around a tight curve; Viktor ran his hands sensually down his sides. Hold me.

Yuuri didn't even see the back camel spin coming, but there it was, Viktor's chest turned skyward and his arms at his sides. Then a cannonball, so low to the ice it looked like his heel pick would catch the ice any moment.

Whoa.

Moments later the spin ended, and there were more steps, then a flying sit into a tuck, one hand delicately resting just in front of his forehead, the other holding the heel of his skate. Then suddenly, so quickly but with such grace, crossovers into a beautiful outside spreadeagle and a double axel. Even as Viktor pulled in for the jump, he looked graceful, like he was embracing a lover.

The program ended with a building of octaves, and Viktor turned to his sides, extending his arms like pushing away imaginary suitors. Then, panting and out of breath, he curled his arms around himself, fingertips just brushing his sides, like possessively keeping a lover all to himself, staring at Yuuri with a piercing gaze.

Needless to say, he already knew the winner. The boy Victor’s program had been flawless, but it had lacked a spark that Viktor’s program had - it had been carefully hand-crafted, and his steps had a surety to them that couldn’t be replaced by a thousand clean jumps.

Both Viktors skated to center ice, and seeing the two together gave Yuuri a sudden pang of memory and hope. His interpretation of the prophecy could be true, after all. He shook off the thought, and spoke to the two skaters.

"The elder is the victor," Yuuri said, smiling epiphysically at his pun.
The doors opened. Despite shooting poison daggers from his eyes, Victor didn’t move to stop him, so Viktor moved along the icy pathway to the room. Inside the chest, he found yet another orb, this one glowing bright red, and some very long shiny things. Once he fished them from the chest, he realized why: they were golden skate blades.
There was only one issue: Viktor had no idea how skate blades were fastened to the boots, or even, before just now, that they were designed to come off.

"Hey, Victor," Viktor shouted.

To his surprise, the boy was not only still there, he deigned to talk to him. "What."

"How did you put the golden blades on your skates? I have no clue how." Viktor’s mouth formed an embarrassed heart as he left the room and skated back towards Victor.

The boy sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. He’d taken it down and put the scrunchie back on his wrist, and his skates were unlaced but not entirely off. "I can do it, if you promise me something."

"Sure," Viktor said, tentatively, a bit confused.

"Coach me. Show me how you performed so well. And how I can do better for the next one. We both know what it is."

Huh. "I have nothing against this plan," Viktor said, sitting on the opposite side of the stone and taking off his skates, "but we both can’t save the Prince."

Victor raised his eyebrows and tipped his head to the side, like he was saying true, which is why I’ll be the one to do it. Viktor wanted to tell him that it was beyond stupid to compete over something like this, what with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, but he couldn’t actually say that, because Victor hadn’t actually said that.

Viktor pulled off his skates and tied the laces. "When did you want to start?"

"As soon as I get something to eat," Victor replied, standing and hoisting his large satchel over his shoulder. "There’s a village over there. Want me to pick you up something?"

Viktor frowned. "I was planning to go fishing. I try to stay away from towns unless I need something I can’t make myself-" he held up his straw hat, then put it on "-or I need to know where something is."

"Why?" Victor said. "Village food is way better than stupid deer meat."

"I take it you don’t know about the Shadow followers."

"The Shadow has followers?" Victor’s expression was probably the same as Viktor’s when he’d first heard - between bewilderment and shock.

"Yes. Unlike the Shadow itself, they’re able to hunt you during the day, and they’re intelligent and persistent. There aren’t many of them, but they have strange powers unlike any magic, and they’re human, so it’s harder to pick them out."

"Okay? Cool ghost story bro - this is interesting to me why?"

"Your hair. The Shadow itself can’t tell the difference between humans - it’s not that smart - but its followers certainly can. They know the prophecy, they’ll be looking for a human with silver hair. That’s why I have a hat."

Victor was quiet for a minute, eyes wide and staring at the ground. "...oh." He half-sat, half-collapsed onto the stone. "After those first few Trials and being out at night with those light orbs, I thought Chris was full of shit. He said the Shadow would 'hunt me' or whatever because of my hair, but like, it didn’t seem to care about me much, and it also kinda looked like it only had a memory of about thirty seconds. But... that makes sense. Have you seen any Shadow followers yet?"

"Just one," Viktor said, recalling the early morning as he left the village where he’d met Oxar. "Someone in this long hooded cowl was standing in the shadowed side of a building, and as the sun rose, I watched them meld into the shadow. It was intensely creepy."

"Oh. Well then. Got a spare hat, old man?"

Viktor, for a second, debated whether or not to give the boy his hat. And then he felt very guilty about being so hostile towards this kid, a head and a half shorter and probably more than five years younger than he was. He had been just as much of an asshole at that age. "Sure," he said at last, and fetched his wool cap from his backpack.

Victor took it and put it on, then left for the village.
When Victor returned from the town with a large bag that smelled like fresh meat in tow, Viktor had a small pile of catches already sitting beside him on the beach, as well as some wood gathered for a fire. Victor, however, had apparently also thought to get firewood, and dropped a large pile of it on top of Viktor’s.
"Coulda told me you were gonna get firewood, I wouldn’t have bought some," Victor grumbled. Before Viktor could respond, Victor said, "Hey, by the way, I thought about what you said. It’s confusing having two people named Victor. I used to have another name. You can call me Yurio, if you want."

Viktor looked over, but Victor - Yurio - was intently setting up the fire and lighting it, then propping up a large thin stone slab over it. "Alright, Yurio."

After the fire was set up, Yurio’s meat was grilling on it, and Viktor had begun to prepare his fish, Yurio said, "Thank you."

"For what?" Viktor said, not looking up.

"Telling me about the hair thing. I owe you one."

"You're welcome, Yurio." Abruptly, as he looked up from gutting his final fish, Viktor saw a figure approaching from behind them that definitely hadn't been there before. It just seemed to appear from the shadows of the trees that stood tall by the side of the lake. He then deliberately fixed his eyes back on the boy sitting across the fire from him. "Oh, and by the way, I realize I never told you my name."

"Huh? You-"

"It's Shura."
Realization dawned in Yurio's eyes as he made a quick glance that was meant to gesture over his shoulder. Viktor gave a barely visible nod in response, friendly smile never fading. "Ah, you're right, I didn't even notice. Thanks, Shura." Yurio gave a smile that looked too sweet for his normally-scowling face just as the figure approached the two of them.
"Excuse me?" the person said from just behind Yurio. Xir voice was low yet quite androgynous. Xe wore a dark hooded cloak which covered xir torso and arms, the little skin showing on the bottom of xir face was so pale it looked as if it had never seen the light of day. Under the cloak were baggy black pants gathered at the ankles, and shoes fitted so tightly to xir feet they looked more like socks.

"Yes?" Both Viktors said in near-sync.

"I was wondering if I might join you. I have some food to cook as well, but I have no fire to cook it over."

"There doesn't seem to be room right now," Viktor said, gesturing to the dark slab covered with sizzling deer meat and fish, "But you're welcome to sit with us and cook your meat after we're done."

For a brief instant, before their guest sat down, Yurio shot Viktor a glance that said what are you doing, but before Viktor could reply in any way the person sat by the fire to his right. Xe sat in a slightly oriental style, feet tucked under xem.

"So, what are your names?"

Without a hint of hesitation, they replied with their nicknames: "Yurio." "Shura."

"Yours?" Yurio asked a moment after.

"Onyx," the person said.
That was an incredibly suspicious name - for a hard, black mineral - but Viktor couldn't be convinced this person was a Shadow follower. There was something that seemed just a little wrong about that assumption.
"Nice to meet you, Onyx," Yurio replied as if nothing had happened. "So, are you from that village?"

"No, unfortunately, though I was just there and it is a pleasant locale." Onyx made an expression like a smile under xir hood, though xir lips were a little too thin and xir mouth spread out instead of up. "I'm a traveller. I presume you two are as well?"

"Yes," Yurio said. "We come from not too far away."

"Why do you travel?" Onyx asked, leaning towards the fire. It seemed to darken slightly with xir presence.

Yurio looked helplessly at Viktor for a moment, but the latter was more than happy to save them: "We're looking to hear the local legends. We're storytellers of sorts, looking to draw inspiration from them."

Yurio looked very pleased with this reply, nodding. "What about you, Onyx?"

"I paint, actually." Was Viktor imagining things, or did xe actually sound sheepish? Xe reached under xir cloak and pulled out several paintbrushes, a few stained with pigment, as proof. "And I deliver messages. Which reminds me. You said your name was... Shura?" The being gestured at Viktor with an arm covered in a skin-tight material that looked like it would stick to you should you touch it.

Viktor nodded and the being pulled an envelope from a different portion of the area hidden under xir cloak, holding it out to him between two fingers. Viktor took it numbly and Yurio had the most confused look on his face as he opened it. There were two pieces of parchment inside, one a tiny slip that simply said "read this only when alone", the other longer and letter-folded.

"Excuse me," Viktor said and showed the other two people the slip. They both nodded, to Viktor's surprise, and he walked away. He looked over his shoulder several times, as furtively as he could manage to do it, but Onyx wasn't following him or even looking at him. Xe seemed to be striking up a conversation with Yurio, helping the boy turn over some of the food.

As soon as he felt safe doing so he pulled the letter-folded parchment from its envelope and unfolded it gently. It smelled of freshly baked bread.

Viktor, the letter began.

And Viktor thought, oh.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

I did as you asked and looked into information concerning unmelting ice. There seem to be many of these, mostly referred to as "Trials", in ancient legends. I believe these are relevant to your quest.

I found an additional piece of relevant information: there are sixteen Soul Orbs, obsidian spheres of unknown origin and with magical properties which are likely hidden somewhere in the vicinity of each trial. Prince Katsuki’s stasis pod is a modified version of a giant Soul Orb, and it channels his life-force towards whatever end he chooses. I hope you find these and that they are useful to you.

There are also, in all likelihood, magical items hidden around the trials. I am presently unsure of the form they might take, but I am sure there are sixteen of them, just like the trials themselves and like the Soul Orbs.

One last thing you may wish to understand before I leave off. Prince Katsuki has many watching-places, not just the trials. It is rumored that should you see a flower with no leaves and glowing blue petals, the Prince may see you through it when it blooms. I am reasonably sure you will want to communicate with the one you wish to save, and His Highness may be able to help you with your quest.

Should you wish to write me back, leave your envelope in a sunny place and one of my messengers will come collect it.

Lilia Baranovskaya

Viktor folded up the letter and placed it back in its envelope. He walked back over to the fire to see Onyx and Yurio pulling food off the slab and onto small pieces of wood with sticks and knives, Onyx putting diced pieces of some dark meat onto it.

"You got food for me?" Viktor asked, grinning.

"Of course we do," Yurio said, a slight bit of his usual scowl coming back. He shoved a slab of wood with cooked fish fillet and venison on it at Viktor before returning to his own meal.

"Thank you so much, Yurio," Viktor said as he dug into the food. "Mm! Vkusno!"

"Indeed," Onyx agreed, meat juice dripping down xir gloved hands and forearms. "I can't thank you two enough for letting me share your food. You’re welcome to some of mine, of course." Xe gestured to their own meat which sat sizzling above the fire.

Yurio glanced between Viktor and Onyx with a heavy frown. "So let me get this straight," he said, pointing accusingly at Onyx. "You’re not a Shadow follower."

"No," Onyx chuckled out, "though I’m somewhat glad I pass for one. Lends some protection. I am a servant of the royal line. I came to deliver a letter to Shura - and, as I said, to paint!"

"Oh, well that’s good," Yurio said, sounding more annoyed than relieved.

After they all finished eating, Onyx pulled a small canvas and a portable easel from behind xem, beginning to paint the water. As xe painted, Viktor scratched out a quick reply to Lilia - which the royal messenger assured him xe would deliver immediately so long as Viktor was fast.

Lilia,

Thank you so much for your letter. I hope you are faring well. I met your messenger, Onyx, and xe is a very nice person, and although somewhat mysterious, xe is very good with a paintbrush. I had the pleasure to behold one of xir paintings!

I thank you for your information regarding the Trials. I have already communicated with Prince Yuuri once via one of my Soul Orbs (of which I presently have two, obtained as you presumed from the two trials I passed), and though he could not talk for long he helped me greatly.

I shall seek out these blue flowers, and I thank you for informing me of them. I believe communicating with Yuuri will be important to my future.

I have a few questions I'd appreciate your research into. Firstly, I have had several seemingly prophetic dreams, one concerning waking the Prince from stasis and one concerning completing the pattern upon the Veil which seals the Shadow. Does any legend speak of this?

I may speak in great folly, but have you ever heard in any legend about the Prince and the hero falling in love? If not forgive the question.

Thank you so much for your continued help. I hope to hear back from you soon (send a less ominous messenger next time?).

Viktor

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The next day, Viktor woke to the sunrise. He was packing his things to leave when Yurio woke, rising like the dead. Apparently he hadn’t been as quiet as he liked.

"Where you going," Yurio grumbled out.

"I’m leaving to find the next Trial," Viktor replied, hoisting his pack over his shoulder.
Yurio looked like the older man had shot his puppy. "You were going to train me, dumbass!"And then it dawned on Viktor. "Oh, I did say I was going to do that, didn't I?" He gave a small smile which obviously infuriated Yurio. "Let's go to the ice now, then. I'll teach you how to perform."The two Viktors were at the ice with their skates laced up before either could say "Eros". They stood in center ice, right in front of the icy path to the open doors, a meter or so apart.
"This may be difficult for you to understand, since you're so young," Viktor mused, finger stroking his stubbled chin, doing a few little turns as a fidget.
"Hasn't stopped me before." Yurio glared up at Viktor. "Try me."
"Whenever you perform a piece, you have to find the part of you that is the music. I don't know what part of you is Eros, since you're still a boy."

"I don't know either. How do I find it?"

"It can be anything. It can be a story. The story I craft to Eros involves a temptress and a playboy. But it could also be a memory, like when a girl told you she loved you. It could even be a food you find particularly tempting."

Yurio shot him another glare, but this one was much more half-hearted. He was obviously thinking about this. He mumbled something like "okay" and skated away.
Viktor watched the boy skate in little circles which developed into a sort of distracted practicing of his version of Eros, which developed into a less distracted practicing, which turned into run-through after run-through, frequently stopping halfway through to shake his head and start over, either from the start of that section or, more commonly, from the beginning.
There was definitely more emotion in this one, that was for certain. The only problem was it didn't seem characteristic of Yurio - it was as borrowed as his sexualized choreography.
"Hey, old man! You listening?" Yurio yelled at him from halfway across the ice.
"Yes, Yurio?" Viktor looked up from his musings to see Yurio in his starting pose.

"You think the music will start if I strike my blades again?"

"It would make sense. You can't know if you don't try, though. Go ahead, I'm watching."
And with that remark, Yurio tapped his blades together, and to both of their intrigue, the music did start again. This time, he stepped right out of his starting pose and into a spreadeagle around a tight curve, running his hands up the backs of his thighs. And then the same spin entrance, beautiful flying camel, grabbing his skate blade. On the crossovers into the double lutz Viktor now knew was upcoming, he dragged his right hand down his jawline and neck.He had his arms in a similar position to Viktor's ending pose during his jump, and exited like he was pulling away from an embrace - that part directly stolen from Viktor’s own performance, he knew. Yurio’s arms and hands were strong, sharp, and poised, like the blades on his skates, then fluttered out gracefully into the spiral.
He has definitely found an Eros, Viktor thought as he watched Yurio's double flip, Not his Eros, but it's better than having none at all.

Yurio finished the step sequence and finished his rendition. He held that ending pose, flushed and panting, for a long moment. And then he was at Viktor's side, asking "How was it?"

"It was much better." Viktor stood and skated around the ice, looking at the tracings—a ghost of Yurio's program—then glancing over at the boy gliding by his side. Black, long-sleeved, high-collared unitard, with the bottoms of the pant-legs stretched over the boots of his skates. Silver hair the same color as Viktor’s, falling haphazardly around his head and over his right eye. And violently green eyes, only one visible. "If I may ask, where did you get that emotion? What part of you did you show in that song?"

Yurio was silent for a good bit of time after that. He skated ahead and did a few steps and turns, not to any particular choreography that Viktor could perceive. Just as a means of avoiding the question for a few seconds. And then as Viktor caught up to him, he mumbled, with something in his tone, like remorse? Wistfulness? It sounded so odd off Yurio's tongue.

"What?"

"I said, I got it from Chris."

"Chris? Yes, you mentioned him before. Chris who?"

"Christophe Giacometti. We... worked together. In a circus. For a long time. We were never really friends, I mostly yelled at him and he mostly tried to grope me, but I did learn a lot from him, if from a distance most of the time."

Christophe? The pole dancer? I can see the similarity... "What prompted you to work in a circus? With someone like Christophe?"

They arrived once more at the spot by the side of the ice where the stone stood, and Viktor sat down.

Yurio stood in front of him, arms loosely crossed. "It's a long story."

"I have time," Viktor replied, patting the spot on the stone beside him.
Yurio sat, kicking at the ice, his heel picks tossing up glittering ice shards. "I had to make money was the long and short of it. I didn’t have any useful skills that somebody else in my village wasn’t way better at. When the circus came to town I auditioned. But I didn't get in... that was my first encounter with Chris. He thought I was great. I got in anyway, thanks to him.
"For a few weeks he trained me himself. I had my own act soon after that, with over-dramatic ballet stunts and such. I strapped kitchen knives to my ballet shoes and did a dance en pointe on the knife tips one time. On top of a piano which was, if I remember correctly, at least partially on fire. Lots of things were unnecessarily set on fire honestly. It mostly wasn't very hard, but the sort of thing where if you did make a mistake you'd get royally fucked up."

"Why did you need to do all that?" Viktor asked through chuckles.

"You have to be at least Level 4 Friend to unlock my Tragic Backstory, old man," Yurio said dryly.
"Then let me get there. Travel with me, Yurio? We can go to the next trial together!"

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor and Yurio made their way towards the fourth of the sixteen trials - the first one in the mountains. It was impressive how far they’d come, but it was also daunting how far they still had to go. Not only that - as Viktor found out very quickly - mountains are cold. He’d put on his warmest clothes, and he could still feel the chill seeping into his skin with every passing wind.
At least he had Yurio to complain with.
"I was under the impression," Viktor said, panting as he crawled up the forty-five degree slope of jagged snow-covered rocks, "that being a figure skater was supposed to require physical exertion in only those areas required by the skating itself!"

Yurio, shortly ahead of him, shouted a good bit louder than he really needed to in order to be heard over the wind, "No, old man, didn’t you know? All good figure skaters are also somehow mountain climbers!"
The two had started their trek uphill around midmorning and didn't find the ice sheet until nearly sundown. Viktor wouldn't have noticed it was even what he was looking for if not for the eerie green glow off its surface. It sharply contrasted the sunset that tainted the sky orange and turned white clouds the blue-violet color of the bruises on Viktor’s hands and knees.
"Hey, Yurio," Viktor said, out of breath and doubling over the instant he’d stepped over the edge of the mountain ridge, "I think we found it." He pointed at the sheet of ice with a sizable rectangular rock by its side.

"It's about fucking time," Yurio grumbled. He sat on the rock and laced his skates up, and Viktor sat down next to him. They practiced for a short while, no noises other than the whistle of the wind and the crunch of ice under blades.

Viktor ran through his usual warmup and noticed it was much warmer on the ice than elsewhere - around the same temperature as the previous ice sheets if he had to guess. This was pretty powerful magic, to cover this much space and keep out such rampant cold.

Viktor paused his warmup halfway through and sat back down on the rock. His hands were raw from crawling up a mountainside all day, fingers frigid and covered with grit from clinging to dirty snow. His knees and ankles were sore, his skin prickled from the residual cold. His toes were burning inside his skates from the drastic temperature change and the sudden compression. In short, he was exhausted, and battered. He hunched over, elbows on his knees.

Trying to ignore the discomfort, he watched Yurio practice.

The boy’s program was brilliantly choreographed, but in a way as different from his rendition of Eros as his rendition was from Viktor’s. Clearly, this was Yurio’s own original choreography, not inspired or altered by anyone else. The performance, too, was his own, and it conveyed a strange interpretation of the song.

On Love: Agape was about a perfect, pure love, but Yurio’s rendition of it didn’t look like giving himself over completely to someone; instead, it looked like fighting desperately to protect someone. He wasn’t carefully preparing his lover’s favorite meal for their birthday, he was leaping in front of an enemy’s sword to save them.
Viktor could only assume about Yurio’s own experience with love, if this was how he visualized it.Yurio grew tired and glided over to the rock-bench, sitting beside Viktor. "After I have a minute to rest, can I do this one first?" he said. His skating hadn’t betrayed it, but there was exhaustion in his voice.Viktor nodded, appreciating the additional time to rest. He considered bringing up what he’d seen in Yurio’s performance, but decided against it. The two sat in silence for a minute, neither awkward nor comfortable, and afterward, Yurio stood, skated to his starting pose, and clicked his blades together.
As Yurio skated, Viktor pondered. When he’d met Yurio, it had been somewhere between absurd and awful. Here he was, a brilliant figure skater, sure of his destiny as the savior of the world, and then there was another skater, just as brilliant, just as sure of his destiny. Calling him Yurio didn’t dull the pain of the fact that they shared a name, either.

The question hadn’t escaped him - and he was sure it hadn’t escaped Yurio either: which one of them was really The Hero? They were comparable skaters, and so far as Viktor was aware, that was the only real qualification.

Actually, in point of fact, did that really matter? Viktor’s had been competing with the kid - trying to one-up him and skate better than him - but was that really the best choice? Viktor admittedly had only a vague idea about what "defeating the Shadow" entailed - just that it had something or other to do with skating really well - so he couldn’t be sure of the best course of action. Could they be meant to help each other? Was the final program a pairs skate? Or, were there just multiple possible Heroes, because redundancy is useful in a mission-critical system?

Yurio did a final spin at the end of his program, and Viktor realized how astonishingly good that performance had been. It had all of Yurio’s usual technical perfection, but this time accompanied by impressive presentation that Viktor would have to try pretty hard to beat.

He didn’t have a simple foothold to anchor his performance on this time: he didn’t know Yuuri well enough. Besides, he really shouldn’t be relying on Yuuri’s role as the judge of these performances: the final skate wouldn’t be judged by the Prince. So far as Viktor was aware, it would be judged by the Goddess herself.
He did have one edge, though. He’d never landed one clean in-program before, but he had practiced a few and his off-ice drills told him that, in theory, he had the ability to pull off the necessary height and rotation.
A double axel, he told himself. In this program, he would attempt a double axel.
With that thought, he took his starting pose. It took a lot longer than necessary to adopt his actor’s posture, since it took a while to push all the discomfort from climbing a mountain out of his mind, but eventually he felt ready to click his blades together.
His choreography didn’t give him much time before the axel. That meant he didn’t have as much time to be afraid of it, but it also meant he didn’t have as much time to prepare.

Sic mea vita est temporaria

He raised one arm, brought it down beside his face as he turned around. Then he bent down, arms behind him, then pulling them up in front of him, like a bird taking flight. A fluid three-turn into crossovers around two sharp curves, carving an S pattern into the ice.

cupit ardenter caritatem aeternam

He glided backwards for a beat, looking up at his hands and spread fingers, a gesture like a blooming flower.
The axel was the next element. He stayed in the landing-position a bit too long, taking a last breath and trying to steady himself. With one step he turned forward-
leaned in-

--jumped--

--snapped in--

--rotated once--

--and twice--

-and fell.

The ice didn’t even have time to melt onto his hot hands before he was up again and moving into the step sequence, but the impact of the fall wasn’t just on the timing of the program.

credam, dabo, sperabo, honorabo

laborabo, gratias agam

He tried to pick up the feel of the music again, rotating in turn after turn in a huge circle covering three-quarters of the ice, followed by a double salchow with one arm stretched above his head. He’d stolen that position directly from Yurio - it was exactly as fun as it looked. By the time he entered his flying sit spin, the fall was nearly out of his mind.

et denique aperiens fores occultas,

nobis, grandis et clara nosque curabit

nobis, grandis et clara nosque curabit

The spin turned into steps and a flourish, a double-single toe loop, and a twizzle into a chinese spiral and a double lutz. He wasn’t sure if he got points from Yuuri for doing the hardest jump at the end, but he knew it would impress Yurio.

magna magna, caritas

ah, audio vocem tuam

adest mi libertas

A stop in center ice, arms to his right side, followed by a pivot into a step sequence that covered the ice like a bass clef. The ice seemed to shift slightly under him as he set up for the double flip, and it almost became a lutz.

mea vita amabit, caritatis pacem

In an interesting choreographic coincidence, Viktor’s program ended similarly to Yurio’s, with a combination spin. Back sit to a tuck, then up into a camel. He thought about grabbing his blade - Yurio had acquiesced reluctantly to teaching Viktor some stretches for that spin, and he had been practicing, but he decided against it. The crossfoot, always his favorite upright, came last, his fingers laced over his chest.

hanc felicitatem aeternam esse oro

Viktor shoved his toe in the ice just as the song ended and bent over backwards as in a layback spin, shoving his clasped hands upward as though wrenching his heart from his chest.
It was a good program, but not as good as Yurio’s, and frustratingly, Yurio knew it. "Impressive double axel, old man," he said, after the door had proclaimed him the victor.
"It was clean," Viktor said after Yurio as he went to fetch the glowing orb and whatever trinket it was from the chest. "I caught my heel pick on my boot on the way down because I didn’t snap out fast enough."

Yurio did an exaggerated shrug without turning around. He walked into the room and grabbed the things.
Viktor began unlacing his skates - flubbing it slightly for the numbness in his fingers - then stopped. He would have to practice more, work harder, get stronger, if he was going to beat Yurio. No, not that, that wasn’t really the goal. He would have to get stronger if he was going to defeat the Shadow, and save Yuuri.
Yurio left the room, skated over, sat down, and removed his skates. "You gonna take your skates off, old man?"

"Sure," Viktor said, absently fidgeting with his blades. "'m just thinking."
"Alright," Yurio said, wasting no time packing up his skates and rolling out his sleeping bag, "I’m going to bed. G’night."
Viktor stood and skated aimless laps which turned into purposeful laps which turned into drilling footwork routines. He decided, he would keep skating until he couldn’t anymore. The darkness didn’t matter, sleep didn’t matter. Getting better was what mattered. What was he against the Shadow, evil embodiment of darkness and pain, if he couldn’t even best a fifteen-year-old boy?

He drilled single axels, then single axels to back scratch spins, then single axels with multiple single loops at the end. Did that stupid catch-camel until he knotted up his back so much he couldn’t do it anymore.

"Hey!" Yurio shouted.

Viktor skidded to a stop. Had the noise of his edges woken the boy up? "What?" he said, sounding a bit angrier than he was.
"What are you doing? You did this Trial, we did it, it’s done, we can go to bed now! Why are you still skating?"Viktor started a footwork drill while he spoke. "I need to get stronger."
Viktor heard Yurio clamber to his feet. "Than me?! Viktor, I only did better because you fell, and you barely even fell! You’re a stronger skater than I am-"
"Not stronger than you! I mean, yes, tactically you’re my point of reference, but in the broad scheme it doesn’t matter if I’m better or worse than you! I care about being strong enough to destroy the Shadow!"
"That’s not why you’re doing this and you know it," Yurio said, propping fists on his hips. "So you’re allowed to beat me, but I’m not allowed to beat you? Is that it? When you did better than me I got pissed, yeah, but I asked you to teach me. I didn’t, like, go torture myself doing endless crossovers in the middle of the night."

"I swear I’m not doing it because of that. That is the right line of cause and effect, but it’s not the right reason. I’m... I have no clue what I’m up against. So I’m overpreparing. You skating better than I did today made me realize how far I still have left to go." At the end of the ice he switched to a different drill, and kept going.
"Why don’t I believe you," Yurio muttered under his breath.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A five-year-old girl took a deep breath outside the curtained entrance of her mother’s boudoir. Her younger brother had just been born, and she wanted to make a good first impression. Confident, not nervous or stumbling over her feet. She took one more breath, tipped her chin up high, then pulled the lilac curtain aside.

Her mother was laying on her parents’ huge futon, head propped on her husband’s lap as he ran his fingers through her thick brown hair. She held in her arms a small bundle of blankets, wrapped up like a gift.

"Mother?" Katsuki Mari asked politely, just as she’d been told. "You asked to see me?"

Her father responded. "We appreciate your formality, Mari-chan, but it’s not necessary now. This is your little brother, not a foreign diplomat."

Mari put her little fists on her hips and huffed out a breath. "I want to make a good impression!"

"An admirable goal," her mother said, smiling wearily. "Now, Mari-chan, come sit."

"Yes, mama."

Her father gently took the blanket bundle that his wife had been holding and held it out for Mari. A tiny, chubby, reddish face, with wisps of straight black hair swept across its forehead, poked from a hole in the blankets. The babe didn’t cry - its face scrunched on occasion, but it was almost like it didn’t want to inconvenience anyone by crying.

"Mari," her father said gently, "this is your baby brother, Yuuri."
When Katsuki Yuuri was three years old, his parents let him onto the ice for the first time. It was mid-spring, the birds chirping and the flowers blooming all around the edges of the artificial ice sheet. A pair of fine black leather ice skates had been fashioned for the young prince. Mari of course laced up her white ones and joined him, helped him onto the ice and helped him to march. His young mind picked up the intricacies of the new set of physics being handed to it very easily, and in minutes he was pushing off his toe picks in a beginner’s attempt at stroking.
From that point on, for the rest of his life, Yuuri would pull on a pair of custom-made black figure skates and get on that same artificial ice sheet whenever he was nervous, or scared. The ice rink was his home more than any other part of the castle, including his bedroom, and he went so often that the palace attendants would go there first to look for him.
Twelve-year-old Katsuki Yuuri was a promising diplomat, according to his tutors. Master of five languages, proficient in the martial and creative arts, a powerful sorcerer, and now, nearly to marrying age.
Yuuri was truly overwhelmed at the number of handsome young men who wanted to wed him. So in order to avoid talking to any of his suitors in person, he wrote a letter announcing that he would choose a suitor at the ceremony of his passing - on his thirteenth birthday.

Hundreds were in attendance to the young Prince’s passing ceremony. It was tamer than his sister’s five years prior, since there was no circlet of future queenship to place on his brow, but it was still a royal ceremony, and it was still spectacular. His father had a giant swan sculpted of meringue as an ornament - and that was only for the dessert table.

After his passing speech, which to ask anyone besides Yuuri went spectacularly, and after the banquet, Yuuri stood again, this time to address his suitors. In the course of the banquet, he had chosen a suitor, and he was about to announce which, but he had no more than drawn breath to speak when-

A young woman slammed open the doors and shoved through the crowd towards the Prince, her gaze harrowed. She had seen something - something, perhaps, that a person was not meant to see. There was something wrong, but it was like a sound Yuuri couldn’t locate, a scent he couldn’t place.

The royal guards moved forward to protect Yuuri, but the woman stopped before she reached the base of the royal dais. She held up a lightly glowing orb and exclaimed in horrified tones, "There is danger coming! I tell you, danger!"

"Excuse me, my lady, but what danger do you speak of?" Yuuri asked, voice calm. He read the crowd with a glance - they thought this woman was crazy - and shifted his expression just slightly toward contempt. Enough for the nobles in attendance to notice, but not quite enough for the serf woman to see. It wouldn’t do to mess up his public image - even as the sense of wrongness persisted.

"We are all in great danger! There is an evil, a great evil, coming to this land! It will come, and it will destroy everything, and it will make the people of this land know to fear the night!" There was a hollow tone to her words, like they had come from somewhere else, someone else.

And at last Yuuri placed the wrongness. The young lady becoming the crone, the vase becoming two faces...

"What is this evil?" Yuuri said to the prophetess, hardly succeeding at keeping his voice from breaking.

"The Shadow," she whispered, like she was breaking a solemn vow of silence by telling those present, or like it would materialize in the room if she said its name too loudly.

Yuuri knew without breaking the woman’s gaze exactly what expressions he would see on the faces in the crowd. Confusion. Bewilderment. Shock. Fear. Questions would be rising in their minds. Some would have recognized the woman’s prophetic aura; most would be reacting to the crowned Prince taking this serf seriously.

"I do not know what challenges may be faced," the woman continued, her voice still hushed. "I saw towns... cities... people... swallowed in darkness. Silenced." The prophetic aura off her grew stronger as she recounted, and to Yuuri it became nearly tangible. Like the racing of his heart that told him the darkness outside the window must harbor some terror; like the strange noise coming from a disused basement; like the warm, coppery flavor of fresh blood.

Yuuri screwed his eyes shut and steadied his breathing. He could give himself time to panic later. Now was not the time. "Father, mother," he addressed them formally without turning around or raising his head. "Evacuate the city and surrounding towns. Bring as much light as possible - use the soul orbs if necessary. Mari, please come with me. We will talk to other prophets in the city and hear their words."

"Wait," said the prophetess, her words almost inaudible over the stumbling panic of the crowd.

Everything stopped.

"There is a prophecy," she said, and lifted a shaking hand to point, "concerning you, my Prince."

Yuuri’s eyes widened - more than they should have, if he were showing purely surprise and intrigue; he knew he betrayed his fear. "Yes?"

"The orb told me... a man would save you. A man with hair of silver, and blades of gold."

"Understood," said Yuuri, though he did not. "Mari?"
Yuuri strode from the room, letting the young prophetess lead the way, his sister following silently behind.
Katsuki Yuuri spent most of his fourteenth and fifteenth years in the home of a young woman by the name of Lilia. She was around his age, and she ran a bakery in a small town a long distance south and west of the royal palace. Over the years, they grew to be good friends, and when Yuuri left again for the palace shortly after his sixteenth birthday, having consistently heard word of an utter lack of chaotic destruction by a colossal inhuman monstrosity, he left behind a network of royal guards and messengers for his friend.
Prophecies have a bad habit of coming true in the worst possible ways. Every oracle across the land couldn’t stop screaming about the Shadow for three years, but nothing came of any of it. Four years later, it was nearly forgotten.
Katsuki Yuuri had taken a husband, a generous and energetic nobleman by the name of Philip, who adored horses and had befriended all the ones at the palace. His favorite spot to relax with Yuuri was the lounge closest to the stables, so he could leave to feed or check on his babies any time.

It was their neighing, in fact, that first startled the pair. Philip looked up at the wall clock from his position in Yuuri’s lap, noticed that it wasn’t anywhere near their dinnertime, and frowned.

"Sounds like the horses are in a tizzy over something," Yuuri said, audibly nervous.

"Yeah," said his husband. "Well, let’s check it out. Come on, love!"

He said it like it was an adventure to walk the twenty meters to the stables, which got a smile out of Yuuri. It was weak, though, and it faded. Yuuri had a bad feeling about this.

They walked briskly down the hall, Philip practically dragging Yuuri, to the small door on the side of the palace. When they arrived at the stable, not one or two but every single one of the royal family’s five horses was neighing nervously at something in the distance. Yuuri heard Philip cooing at them, trying to calm them down, but Yuuri was sure it wasn’t just some random bout of nerves. They knew something. Animals can predict storms, and there was a big one brewing now.

On his third trip pacing around the stable, Yuuri noticed something dark in the sky. It was black as a cloud in a thunderstorm and shaped like the mushroom cloud of a volcanic eruption, but it wasn’t either of those. It was a trail of some kind, left by a huge black monster. Yuuri saw its eyes as it circled its path once more. And as its eyes met his, it suddenly changed course.

It was moving toward him. And it was moving very, very fast.

Anything that massive must not be capable of moving that fast, some part of Yuuri’s brain tried to say. Especially without anything resembling wings, said another part. Those parts were drowned out as the prophetic aura returned in full force. Darkness. Terror. Blood.

Yuuri ran to Philip. "Take the horses and leave!" he screamed. He swung to the back of his horse and rode bareback through the palace. Horseshoes on tile. Horrified screaming into the throne room. People scattered, rushing for escape. The crowned Prince had just ridden a horse into the palace and called for evacuation.

Without time for speech, Yuuri spoke to his parents in curt military hand-gestures. Evacuate as much as possible. Time is critical. Anyone who stays will be killed. I’ll meet you at the front gate in ten minutes. If I’m not there, leave immediately without me.

They nodded an understanding, perfect composure betraying no pain, and Yuuri wasn’t still watching after that. He threw himself off his horse and sprinted down the hall and up the staircase. He screamed incoherently at Mari’s door, she opened it. He hoisted her up and carried her bridal-style down the stairs.

He reached the end of the staircase and turned the corner. Through the open doorway to the throne room, his horse stood, ready to carry both of them away from this place. Yuuri ran towards that doorway, his heart pounding in his chest, his sister screaming in his ear-

A man with silvery hair walks into a room toward an amber cocoon.

An obsidian rack holds sixteen glowing soul orbs, each channeling its light into a dancer on golden blades.

A leafless blue flower pokes out from the side of a sheet of ice.

The indescribable feeling is distance, not only of space, but of time.

"Mari," Yuuri said, voice strangely calm. He was standing beside his horse with her still in his arms. "Take my horse, help our parents evacuate. Please tell Philip I love him, and tell everyone I’m fulfilling my role in the prophecy."
Mari’s face contorted as confusion became understanding became horror, but she said nothing. She nodded with lips pursed, mounted her brother’s horse, and spurred it with her bare heels. Over her shoulder, as she rode out the main gates of the palace, she signed, "I love you."Yuuri allowed himself one breath in silence. Looked over the throne room - trampled violet carpet, overturned tables, and the stained-glass windows that streamed in cheerful sunlight regardless.
One breath doesn’t take long.

He walked up to the dais to begin his spell. He pulled both of his wands from his robe - he would need both for a spell this complex, since he didn’t have time to choreograph and skate a program - and set about creating a magical stasis pod.
He brought the tips of his wands together and drew them out in a vertical line.
This spell’s central function would be as a powerful source of magic, which would draw in the anti-magic monstrosity and force the two of them to share a segment of space and time. Therefore, when he limited his own freedom, he limited the Shadow’s. He gave himself the minimum necessary amount of influence on the world: he could see most things, but he was only able to directly contact the chosen heroes by their descriptions in prophecy; he could think, but not move or speak; he could act, but mainly indirectly, through accident and influence and foretold events, rather than through deliberate effort. This also happened to prevent Yuuri from naturally aging.

He murmured a series of arcane phrases, then drew his wands in two concentric circles.

Because the two would share a single line of potential, Yuuri’s mind and the Shadow’s would become intertwined. What form this would take depended on the exact nature of the Shadow. Yuuri decided not to think about it.

He drew two simultaneous complex sigils, careful to get the stroke orders right.

There was a final problem. Even if someone was destined to save Yuuri in five hundred years, his own life-force wouldn't be able to last anywhere near that long. By himself he might be able to keep something with a magnitude as great as the Shadow at bay for the better part of a single day. He would need some additional source of life-force - but he had no idea what that source would be. He added a generic life-force input to the spell and moved on with its other components.
If the rest of this spell worked, he would have eight hours to live before staving off the Shadow expired all his life-force. That was good. It was much longer than his current estimated lifespan of a few minutes.
He could feel the magic bubbling up inside his mind. It was expending a lot of his mental energy, like trying to remember too many things at once. He murmured a few more archane phrases and touched his wands together at the tips, pulling them apart gently as though spinning a fine line of silk between. The spell was nearly finished.
Being in magical stasis for five hundred years would be terribly dull. Given that he was also going to be staving off a shadow demon for five hundred years, he would need some motivation. He'd already factored in the part of the spell that would set the trials he had already made in motion. But he wanted to see more of his kingdom; he wanted to know who he was saving.
He traced out a small pattern like a lily but with a thicker stem and no leaves, deciding to leave some near towns.

After this he finished up his spell, crossing his wands over each other in an X before flipping his wands back into his robes.

He felt the magic flee his mind, like a slightly less unpleasant version of getting the wind knocked out of him. As the magic left, he was surprised to find that he had pulled enough energy into himself that he could see everything along the major leylines. For the most part, his brain couldn't process all that information, but two scenes stood out.

Just outside the Capitol’s western gate, Mari spoke with their parents and with Philip. His parents were bawling openly. Philip was sobbing quietly with wide eyes, his hands in his mussed black hair. Then, suddenly, Philip felt Yuuri watching, magically and unintentionally. His eyes sparked with realization.

The spot where the darkness had erupted was nearly on top of a backwater fishing town, where a large portion of the population was born with silvery hair. This was the town he had spent his early teens in, where he had met Lilia. And Yuuri watched, as the town was swallowed by darkness.

A horrible idea sparked in Yuuri’s mind, amid that darkness. Surely, he could think of a better solution, within the eight hours he had to live. But if not... he would have to do it. A sacrifice for the greater good.

The town was crawling with void monsters. They had pale faces with red streaks from forehead to chin over their void-eyes. Were these the soldiers of the Shadow? Figures quickly made their way towards the forest by the light of dying torches, and Yuuri could make out Lilia as one of them, carrying a young silver-haired boy in her arms. Yuuri's consciousness was pulled from the scene before he found what happened to any of them, and in an instant he was sealed behind a wall of amber.

Yuuri never did think of a better solution.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It had been four months since Viktor and Yurio had been travelling together, and they had a fairly perfect back-and-forth tradeoff going with who did better at the Trials. After Trial #4, which had gone to Yurio, there had been #5, which Viktor solidly won with his newly-acquired double axel and a shockingly good catch-camel, and then there was #6 - which they both sort of thought didn’t quite count because it was in a cave - going to Yurio, who had somehow managed three triples, the salchow, the toe loop, and the loop.

When Viktor had told Yurio about the location for the next Trial, he hadn’t believed him. Kamyinsk, Yurio said, was a myth. It didn’t exist outside of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Viktor reminded Yurio that Prince Katsuki himself had said the city still existed, and it was rumored that the Prince was able to see across all kinds of places in the country - at which point Yurio had said that Viktor was using fairy tales as evidence to support other fairy tales.

A blanket of harsh white covered the world around the two of them now, tinted grey by the overcast clouds. A thin fog of windblown snow covered the ground, shifting to and fro like a sea of tiny ghosts. Viktor had long since zipped up his coat and buried his flushed face in the high collar. He had been trying for some time to not breathe on it because his breath would condense and make it wet and cold, but after a few hours of occasional slip-ups it had happened anyway. Yurio had shoved his arms into the body of his coat and wrapped them around himself. The empty arms of his coat flapped about in the freezing wind.

"Are you sure the trial is this far north?" Yurio mumbled, not wanting to open his mouth to the cold.

"What's with you always asking whether I'm sure? It should be only another kilometer or two." Viktor didn’t need, or want, to open the map again to show Yurio. Besides, the mountain range that made up the upper edge of Onakoru’s borders was nearing, so the city should be close.

"I'm getting frostbite."

"Give me your hands." Viktor beckoned, and Yurio barely poked his hand out from the bottom of his coat. Viktor reluctantly took his hands from his coat pockets to take Yurio’s hand in his. The younger man's fingers were very cold, but there were no visible signs of frostbite. "Do they feel numb or warm?"

"What? No, they're just tingly."
"Then you don't have frostbite. You should be fine, but let's pick up the pace." Viktor broke into a light jog and Yurio followed, tucking his arms back around his body.Kamyinsk, according to the stories, was the only city besides the Capitol that remained mostly intact after the war. The Capitol was still there because Yuuri protected it. Kamyinsk was still there because it had always been a city of sorcerers. Before the Shadow, it had been an arcane epicenter for inventing and researching. Perhaps it still was.
As Viktor approached the city and saw the intact skyline towering on the horizon, he knew the city was very much alive. The harsh winds and chill would have long since destroyed those massive buildings if there were no force field protecting them. And as the two approached, they saw it: a massive magenta dome over the city in place of a wall. As they came further, they noticed hundreds of guards behind the barrier in plated armor, carrying weapons aglow with various enchantments. Behind them towered the city of Kamyinsk, a monolith of dark wood and metal.

"How are we going to get in there?" Yurio mumbled as they walked towards the barrier.

Viktor raised an eyebrow at him, then walked a little closer to the barrier and waved. Two of the guards walked forward to meet them, spears at their sides. "Who are you?" asked the right-hand guard in a heavy Spanish accent. The barrier didn't seem to block his voice at all.

"We're travellers," Viktor said with a smile. "Very cold ones."
"Mhm," the left-hand guard said, clearly not buying it. She might be American or English. "Travellers from where?"Viktor pointed back they way they came.
"There's not a village that way for at least a day's journey on horseback, and you two came on foot. You're going to have to do better than that," the right-hand guard said. She smiled beneath her helmet, pearly teeth glinting in the light of the barrier, like she got some sick pleasure from their suffering.

"She thinks we’re Shadow followers," Yurio muttered.

"She thinks we’re Shadow followers?!" Viktor exclaimed, turning to Yurio.

"Of course she does, you idiot." Yurio shifted under his coat in a way that looked like he would have slapped Viktor’s arm if it weren’t so bloody cold out. "How else would we have made it through last night?"
"But we have-""She doesn't know that!"
"Oh."

The guard's spear made a soft thudding noise as she tapped the end of it in the packed snow impatiently. "Is there something you can show me that would convince me otherwise?" she asked.

"What if I told you I'm the hero of legend?" Viktor said without a second thought, index finger on his lips.

"Viktor, is that smart?!" Yurio chided.

"She's obviously not a Shadow follower, it's not likely she associates with them, who else cares?"
"You are too damn trusting..." Yurio facepalmed.
"Excuse me," the guard said, loudly, obviously tired of being ignored. This was a fine thing for her to be tired of, given that she had a spear and they didn’t. "Do you have any evidence for this claim?"

Viktor dug around in his backpack and pulled out his skates, "I have the blades of gold," two of the soul orbs, a red one and a blue one, "these soul orbs that I got from the Trials, and-" struggling to hold onto the rest of the stuff, he awkwardly pulled off the wool cap he'd taken back from Yurio earlier, "-hair of silver."

The guards were silent, then retreated to talk with a few other guards in the line. They seemed to be mostly listening to two short stocky guards, one carrying a long spear and the other carrying a longsword in each hand as though they were daggers.

Viktor made to replace his wool cap, but Yurio swiped it from him. Not keen to look like bickering children in front of people with spears, Viktor put all the trinkets back in his bag, then grinned and bore the wind whipping through his silver hair. Actually, it had been so long since he had his hair out of a hat when not on the ice that the familiar sight of his fringe shifting back and forth over his left eye gave him some small comfort. That combined with the biting cold... it felt a little bit like home.

Only one of the guards returned. "You may enter," she said. "Stand back." Viktor and Yurio took one step, then took about seven more when the guard brought her spear down in a vertical slice through the barrier. The line she’d cut stretched out into an oval wide enough to allow the two passage inside.

They hurried in and Viktor noticed how much warmer it was inside the barrier than out. Yurio noticed too, finally brought his hands out from under his armpits, put them back through the arms of his coat, and cupped them over his mouth to breathe on them.
Looking at the famed city of Kamyinsk from up close, Viktor noticed just how incredible it was. The architecture, centuries beyond anything he or anyone else he knew could build. Massive buildings stretched so high into the sky it looked like they might cut the edge of heaven, and even the smallest buildings were two or three stories tall. Everything clustered next to everything else, with deliberately-placed roads and passageways exactly as wide as they needed to be. And beyond all of that, the entire town sat on a massive sheet of ice. Buildings were held in place by giant iron stakes driven into the ice sheet, and townspeople glided around on variously-styled skates.
"Yurio, look!" Viktor exclaimed, "They’re skating everywhere!"

"I noticed," Yurio said, the edge of his voice taken off by his amazement.

"I’m putting my skates on," Viktor said, walking to the point where packed snow melded into ice. He stood at this border and bent over to lace his skates. Yurio followed suit after noticing a total lack of benches.

They began down the main road, skating towards what looked like a town square. The air was warm and pleasant, a light breeze meandering through buildings. A young boy in a baggy sweater whizzed by the two of them wearing bright pink padded skates, and an older man in a prim suit stroked easily along in brown leather skates with thin laces and pointed tips. The variety in the attire was reflected in the people, too: people from so many countries glided about, the air buzzing with a hundred languages. Viktor felt like he’d stepped through a portal to pre-Shadow times, the likes of which he’d only ever heard about in stories.

Looking up, Viktor saw the blizzard forming outside the magical dome. He was glad he had been, as Yurio had put it, 'too damn trusting'. He would not have liked to be outside in that storm.

"Hey! Look where you're going!" exclaimed a young lady in a puffy white coat, who darted around him. Oh. He wasn't used to having to avoid people while on ice. He'd have to get used to that.

Deliberately looking where he was going now, Viktor saw a group of children playing in the town square. One of the children had a very good hydroblade and was teaching the others. On the other end of the square, a small band was playing an upbeat tune. Viktor looked down the street to his left and he saw a long string of shops with tiny multicolored glowing things strung up along their roofs.

"Yurio! Let's go shopping!" Viktor exclaimed, his mouth forming a heart.

"Remember what we're here for. Come on, let's go to the town hall, they might have someone who knows where we might find our next trial."

Viktor knew this town had lots of amazing things, and he couldn't just let them all be unknown. He looked over his friend quickly and got an idea. "You look really cold, though. Wouldn't you like something nice and warm to drink?"
Yurio stopped aggressively breathing into his palms to consider the proposition. Finally, he replied, "You're buying.""Of course! I'm freezing too!"They stepped into the first shop they saw that said "cafe" on it. A sign on the front glowed and flashed red and blue, reading "OPEN", and Viktor wondered whether that was magic or not. When they entered, they found that the interiors of buildings used the same rubbery material on their floors that the rooms in the trials did. Fortunately, they both had a bit of experience walking on it now.
"Hi!" Viktor smiled and waved at the young man at the counter. "What do you have that's hot?"

"We have cocoa, tea, and warm wine and sake," he replied with a smile, "as well as pastries I can heat up for you."

"Cocoa," Yurio said.

"He'll have a cocoa and I'll have a warm wine, please."

The drinks were served up almost instantaneously in some odd cups that had a texture like paper but were much thicker. They had smooth white lids that snapped seamlessly on top, with little holes you could sip your drink through. Viktor ranted, heart-mouthed, over the amazing technologies that made all this possible as they made their way further along the shops. Viktor managed to find out that the strings of glowing things were called fairy lights, that the rubber flooring was invented to be skate-blade-friendly so it wouldn't dull your blades to walk on it, and that the majority of the advances in the city's tech were made by the team of scientists in the royal lab, presently headed by a Mr. Choulanont. Viktor made a mental note to go visit him at some point during their trip.

For the time being, they had meandered long enough around the shops, and Yurio was dragging Viktor to the huge town hall so they could find the trial. They were nearing the town square when Viktor noticed a section of ice walled off with barriers around half Viktor's height, about the size of the sheets he had been skating on for the trials. People in glittering costumes performing elegant tricks scattered about the ice, most moving very quickly. The sheet seemed tinted a little darker blue than the rest of the ice.
Viktor stared at it, briefly transfixed. "Yurio," he muttered, "I think I found it."
"Found what?"

Viktor broke from his trance, turning to face his friend. "The trial." He pointed.

Yurio looked skeptical, but loosened his death grip on Viktor's arm. "How do you know that?"

"I just do, let's go look at it okay?"

Yurio grabbed Viktor once more and began to drag him inside. "It's nearly sunset, you've led us off on too many tangents today, come on."

"You go wherever you want, I’m going to the ice," Viktor retorted, pulling away hard enough to make Yurio flinch.

Yurio opened his mouth to yell, then closed it. He huffed a sigh and spun around, headed for the large open doors to the town hall.
The inside of the rink's barrier was lined with fairy lights. Viktor had never seen so many attractive men in spandex before. He'd also never seen the sorts of tiny skin-tight sparkly dresses the women were wearing. They were more leotards with thin pieces of fabric around the waist than real dresses.
Two women in particular stood out to him from the small crowd on the ice. One had caramel skin and long black hair, pulled up in a ponytail at the crown of her head with a scrunchie. Her dress was a glittering purple with a low v-neck in the front, nearly backless save for two thick crossing straps, with a black ruffled skirt. She was practicing what looked to Viktor like a triple lutz. The other was taller and paler, with short, fiery red hair that hung in unkempt curls. There was a little piece of metal, or a gemstone, pulling back part of her hair. Her dress had a low scoop-neck, purple with white flower details and a layer of white lacy chiffon peeking out from under the solid purple of her skirt. She was practicing some immensely intricate step sequence which trailed around the whole rink.

He watched them as he put his hair up. When they skated over to the barrier opposite the rink doors, sipping from water bottles and chatting, he skated over.

"Greetings, ladies," he said cordially. "I couldn't help but notice-"
"Your hair!" the bronze-skinned lady exclaimed, her violet eyes widening.
Viktor ran his hand through his fringe sheepishly and nodded. "Viktor Nikiforov, legendary hero. A pleasure to make your acquaintance." He did a little bow to regain his composure. "May I ask your names?"

"Uh. Sara. This is Mila." Sara looked like she was questioning the input her eyes were giving her right now.

"Is it really you?" Mila asked with much better composure.

"I would say the one and only, but I actually have a compatriot by the same name."

"That's got to be confusing," Mila said casually as Sara's mouth continued to hang open. Mila had gone back to standing with her hip popped, like she had been when she was standing around talking with Sara.

"I call him Yurio."

"So how'd you get here?"
"Waitwaitwait." Sara literally stepped into Viktor's conversation with Mila, standing in between them. She jabbed Viktor in the chest with her index finger, leaning forward. "So you're telling me you're the legendary hero Viktor Nikiforov."
"Yes."

"You're destined to save Prince Katsuki."

"Yes."

"And you wanted to talk to us?"

"Yes."

She removed her finger and stepped back to stand beside Mila, looking a slight bit deflated. "Why?"

"Simply: I thought you were excellent skaters and I need you to teach me."
"You don't have a coach or an entourage or something?"
"I barely even have Yurio."

"Aren't you famous though?"

"Yes, but that means more threats on my life than fan mail unfortunately."

Mila tapped Sara on the shoulder, who whipped around rapidly. "Sara, I think we should let the nice man-"

"Legendary hero!" Sara gestured emphatically.
"-nice legendary hero ask what he came here to ask."Viktor looked around at everything he didn’t understand—the fairy lights, the unknown substance of the barrier around the rink, the OPEN signs flickering off in the storefronts—and smiled. "I have a lot I would like to ask, if I had the chance, but most of it is silly. You're probably used to all this stuff, but the concept of, for example, making a drinking container out of paper, is novel to me. The technology everywhere else is just pitiful compared to here."
"Well if you wanted to ask about that, you should see Phichit at the royal lab. We just skate here." Mila chuckled.

"Phichit... Choulanont?" Viktor asked, pointing his finger back and forth as he mentally connected the first and last names he'd heard.

"That's him. He skates here sometimes, when he's not busy doing sciency stuff."

A royal scientist and a figure skater. What an extraordinary person. "I’ll do that. But, I came to you to ask whether one or both of you could teach me."

Mila gave a thumbs-up and a smile. "Sounds good. It's going to get dark soon, though, so we can't teach you very long. It's not smart to skate by moonlight, you can't see well enough."

Viktor, who had skated in a cave, in the snow, in the rain, and on top of an actual mountain, simply nodded.

"You got a place to crash after we're done?"

"No, actually. I 'crash' at inns when I'm near a town and on the ground in the middle of nowhere when I'm not. If you're... offering to let me stay with you... I'd be honored." Viktor didn’t usually stumble over himself like that, but he had been so paranoid that the next human being he bumped into would be a Shadow follower waiting to kill him that he hadn’t had a genuine interaction with anyone besides Yurio in months. But since there weren't likely to be any Shadow followers here given the way he and Yurio had been welcomed...

"Of course I'm offering," Mila said with a sympathetic smile. "That sounds like a rough way to live. Sara, can we take him and his pal back to ours?"

"Sounds good to me..." She still seemed to be recovering from the whole 'a legendary hero is talking to me' thing, but Mila seemed to calm her.

Mila skated to center ice and Viktor and Sara followed in her stroke. "Okay, so go on through your jumps. Sara's the better jumper so she can help you with that. Then I can help you with spins and footwork, and then we'll be done for the day. We can work some more tomorrow morning if you like. Sound good?"

Viktor nodded, glancing at the sun that peeked out between the buildings, streaking violet through the sky. Not a lot of time today, and tomorrow, Yurio would force them along. He had better make the most of this, right now.

Viktor took a deep breath - and skated on.
By the time the sun had fully set, Sara had worked Viktor through all his jumps through the triple axel. He was positive that every single triple was cheated, but at least they weren’t overrotated doubles anymore. There was apparently a trick that involved snapping his hips around during the initial rotation that he would need to practice later.
As soon as Sara was done with him, Mila had put him through his paces for spins and footwork. The trick to centered spins was a part of the blade called the rocker - Viktor had found it intuitively before, but knowing what to do explicitly helped a lot. And the trick for footwork was the ability to adjust his center rapidly instead of trying to stay perfectly steady.

On their way out, they found Yurio in the town hall talking to a tall man with coppery skin and a quiff of walnut hair, who eyed Sara oddly as they left. The group headed to Sara and Mila’s home long after the streetlamps were the only available light.

The house was in a residential district directly across town from where Viktor and Yurio had entered. Viktor was still getting used to skating everywhere - he could skate much faster than he could walk, but if anything he wanted to slow down. Appreciate each home, with its slightly different construction, look at the layout of the city and the small crowds of people still moving through it, watch the streetlamps which had come on automatically and now illuminated the scene with a pale yellow glow.

Nevertheless, they arrived at the couples’ home: a simple two-story place with a sloped roof and a porch at one side. Sara unlocked the front door and snapped her fingers to turn on the lights. They all sat on cushy stools in the foyer, and Mila taught Viktor and Yurio how to dry their blades. Skates were unlaced and stored on a wooden rack.
The foyer led into the kitchen, where multicolored bar stools stood at an island in a sea of white tile. Viktor and Yurio sat, and Sara fetched them water. The warm yellow of the glowing glass orbs above their heads reflected hundreds of times over into the ice in the glasses.
"We’re going to get changed into regular clothes and wash up," Sara called from halfway up a flight of stairs. "Do you want us to grab you some clothes to change into?"

"Would you even have anything that would fit us?" Yurio asked, just as Viktor was about to say 'we’re fine, we have our own clothes'.

"You can wear some of mine, and I think Mila’s ex-boyfriend left some stuff here that might fit your friend," Sara said, ascending the rest of the stairs.

Yurio raised his eyebrows and Viktor shrugged in response.

"We’ve had quite the day, haven’t we," Viktor said, slumping over on the table, cheek mushing into his forearm.

"Mm," Yurio replied, sipping his water. That curt response said it all: they had been up at the crack of dawn, balled up in both of their coats haphazardly affixed together, spent most of the day talking and arguing and trying not to get frostbite, and then they’d ended up in the legendary city, which definitely had not disappointed. They’d eaten a large dinner of pirozhki and done a lot of window shopping, then Viktor had had a skating lesson and Yurio had talked to whoever he was talking to.
"And tomorrow I have another lesson with these two nice ladies," Viktor said, "Assuming you’ll let us stay here another full day."
"Of course," Yurio said, his knitted brow saying why would you think I wouldn’t.

"Well, you were so adamant about-" Viktor shook his head. "Never mind. Anyway, what were you talking about with that man earlier?"

"Michele? Oh, he’s going to teach me to sword fight tomorrow."

Yurio is learning to sword fight? Why? Viktor wanted to ask about it, but he couldn’t find the right words.

"You’re getting a sword-fighting lesson from my brother?" Sara said, returning down the staircase, dressed in a thin white t-shirt and tight-fitted grey pants, holding an armful of clothes. She heaped the pile onto the stool beside Viktor and grabbed a black apron off the top.

"Michele Crispino is your brother?"
"My very own overprotective big brother," Sara said, a bit disparagingly, as she tied the bow at the back of her apron. "Did you meet him when you came here?"
As Yurio talked with Sara, Viktor sifted through the pile of clothes she’d brought down, looking for something reasonable to try on. There was this sleeveless top that looked like it was supposed to make a man look as sexually appealing as possible. No thanks if Yuuri's not there to see it. Not that he would probably want to... Um. There was a short sleeved black shirt that looked like it would fit, so he put that in his lap. A pair of black pants that looked around the right size, as well as a pair of grey ones that looked kind of similar to the ones Sara was wearing. He put all that in his arms and looked to Sara.

At a break in the dialogue, he asked, "Where can I try these on?"

Sara pointed to a door to her right. "That's the living room, there's nobody in there."

"Thank you," Viktor said as he entered. He heard Sara resuming her rant about how her brother didn't even let anyone come near enough to date her until last year, before the door he shut behind him blocked the sound.

Viktor sat on the thickly-padded off-white couch and began to try on clothes. The black pants were around the right size but wouldn’t go up past his hips; the grey ones were better, but he had to cinch the drawstring to get them to not sag down at his waist. Perils of having a skater’s assets, he supposed. The black shirt fit with a comfortable snugness, and he finally took his hair down, fitting the scrunchie around his wrist.
He gently swung open the door and stepped back out. "How do I look?" he asked, running his fingers through his fringe.
Mila wolf-whistled, Sara punched her playfully in the arm before going back to stirring something in a pan, and Yurio shrugged noncommittally.
Whatever Sara made turned out to be immensely good, and after dinner sleeping arrangements were worked out. Viktor and Yurio were both ecstatic to sleep even on the floor - they may have worried their hosts. Clean carpet beat a hard straw mattress or the cold wet dirt any night.In the end, Yurio got the couch in the living room and Viktor got a small bed in a spare bedroom upstairs. He didn’t feel that tired, but the bed was so comfortable that Viktor fell asleep almost instantaneously.

"They're going to come at you from all angles. Trying to distract you or throw you off your pattern. They'll walk onto the ice and try to get you to move around them, they'll disguise themselves as anyone, just to make you flinch." Yuuri's voice sounded like it was a short distance behind him, but apparently Yurio couldn't hear him. That was odd, but maybe Yuuri was saving his strength for the upcoming battle.

"What did he say?" Yurio asked absently.

"The Shadow followers are going to walk on the ice and try and get me off pattern," Viktor replied.

"Then I guess I just have to kill them before they can get to you." Viktor didn't understand how Yurio could say that so nonchalantly. He stared blankly into the fire as his companion sharpened his sword.

"Yuuri, will a sword even kill a Shadow?"

"If they take physical form, pieces of the Shadow can be hurt and yes, killed, by physical weapons. However, for optimal effect, the weapon should be imbued with a light or fire spell."

"Is lux solis enough?"

"Yes, but be on your guard. Begin as the sun rises. Tell Yurio to be on his guard too. I love you, Vitya."

"I will. I love you, too."

Viktor and Yurio spent the next half hour in darkness. At one point, Yurio began sketching something in the dirt with his sword, so instead of asking him about it Viktor sketched his choreography for the Key. The sky lightened gradually around the pair, and when the sun was just about to peek over the horizon, Viktor saw them: the Shadow warriors. His heart instantly began racing. They looked all wrong: too dark, strangely proportioned, monstrous. And far too fast. They kept melding in and out of the shadows every time Viktor blinked, and their walk was as fast as an ordinary person's sprint.

"Viktor!"

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor heard his name almost immediately after he woke up - or had it woken him? He peeled himself from his sweat-soaked sheets. Every movement was exhausting. He shuffled across the room to ensure the door was locked - it was. He stripped, sat naked on the floor in the dark, leaning against the side of the bed. He was worried he might pass out in any other position.

His skin burned like his blood was aflame, breath coming in shallow and shy. The thudding of his heartbeat in his ears drowned out any attempt at thought. The room felt freezing - when he rooted around in his backpack for one of his orbs, every movement was like an icy wind across his damp skin.

The orb was the pink one he’d gotten most recently. "Yuuri...?" he asked. His voice shook involuntarily.
"Are you okay?" Yuuri’s voice sounded like it came from the other end of a long tunnel.
It was strange to hear Yuuri speak after so long of not hearing it, but it was more of the not-hearing that was strange. He should have always been there, not gone away.

"...Call me... Vitya." That was what people he loved called him, and he loved Yuuri, so Yuuri should call him that.
"Vitya... what happened? I felt this awful disturbance, and I was worried my hold over the Shadow was slipping, but it wasn’t that, it was temporal, and focused on you." Yuuri’s words were blurry. "I noticed your life-force flickering through our link - which has been growing a lot stronger for some reason - and I wondered what you could be doing in the middle of the night to-"
"I’ve," Viktor said, then caught his breath. "I’ve been having, dreams. Bits of possible futures, but, in reverse. First I saved you from your magic cocoon, and then I skated the routine that sealed the Shadow, and then the Shadow pieces tried to throw me off pattern and Yurio, killed them."

"Yuri...o?"

Yuuri sounded like he barely understood him, so Viktor tried to stop accenting his words so much. "The younger Viktor. Bob cut, green eyes, travels with me... we’ve been competing at the Trials."

The room had become a bit clearer, a bit warmer, so Viktor ventured to stand. He tossed the covers back over the bed and flipped over the pillow, easing himself onto the mattress. Immediately, he felt a little more temperate, and present.
"Okay... I’m not sure why a dream would make your life-force fluctuate, though I do see now where the temporal rift came from...""I don’t understand life-force at all," Viktor said. "Or magic in general. You don’t do a lot of magic while fishing or figure skating."
Yuuri smiled. Viktor knew it, without really knowing how. It was as if he had seen it but had never seen anything before and lacked words to describe the concept of sight.

"Oh. Um, Vik- ah, Vitya. I wanted to tell you something, also..." There was a concentrated pause. "I’ve known you for a lot longer than you’ve known me."

Huh?
"Um, I had dreams: the same kind of dreams you have. They showed me pictures of what might happen. And they were all about you. I couldn’t not talk to you that first time, even though I really didn’t know how to direclty communicate with anyone. I tried to talk to you again, so you wouldn’t think I’d just abandoned you, but I couldn’t, but I’m talking to you now, and-"
The anxiety was bubbling up inside Viktor - it felt like his own emotion.

"Yuuri," Viktor said, his soft tone dulling the edge of fear. "Please slow down?"

"I can’t just summarize it because you’ll think I’m crazy, but I can’t tell it in order because it’s too confusing!"

A sudden pang of panic and anger. Like some part of Viktor, far enough below the surface not to show on his face, ought to be sitting with clenched fists, sobbing.

Viktor closed his eyes, focused on that part of himself, and imagined reaching out, taking his hand, and pulling him into a close hug. Eventually it stilled. Like ragged sobs slowly becoming even breaths.

"Yuuri," Viktor said again, more slowly. "I won’t think you’re crazy. Say something I don’t understand and I’ll ask questions, but I will never disbelieve you for no-"

"I love you, Vitya!"

Viktor bolted upright. "What?" His suddenly-rapid heartbeat ached in his chest.

"I love you," his voice was quiet this time. "And I think, I always have."

Yuuri... loves me?  It fit perfectly into place, like the last piece to a puzzle, but Viktor didn’t understand. Things didn’t just do that, they didn’t work out so perfectly all of a sudden, you didn’t dream about someone and crush hard on them in the one conversation you had and suddenly have perfectly requited love. It made no sense. "I..."

"Oh, you don’t-" Brewing devastation...

"No, Yuuri! Of course I do!" he exclaimed without a second thought, "I love you, Yuuri. I just didn’t... I didn’t think you would ever... love me." He blinked at the words he’d just said aloud, and flung his legs over the side of the bed. He picked up his pink soul orb and held it close.

"I should have told you sooner," Yuuri said. "I didn’t know how to communicate with you, and even after I did, I didn’t want to influence your choice by telling you, I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to love me because-"

"Yuuri," Viktor said, interrupting the self-defeating monologue, "You are being silly. You’ve told me now, and I am the happiest man alive." He stood and began pacing, bouncing on his toes, liable to run through the streets shouting Yuuri loves me! any minute. "I have no idea what to say. Can you tell me again a few hundred times and also etch it into my soul?"

Yuuri smiled. "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. I don't know about the soul etching. I... think I can do something special for you at your next trial... if you want."

"That sounds amazing, Yuuri!" Viktor stopped pacing energetically for a moment, somewhat coming to his senses. "Um. I don't want to keep you. How much longer can you talk?"

"Actually, as I mentioned, our link has become much stronger since we last spoke... and I’ve also devised a more efficient way of talking that uses your life-force as well as mine. I can talk for some time... if you want."

"I would like that. I don’t think I’ll be able to get any more sleep." Not that he needed it. Viktor smiled out the window at the roof of the neighboring house, at the edge of the street, at the dark sky and magenta-tinted moon. Sighed, and sat at the edge of the bed, bouncing his leg and tracing the swirled patterns on the orb with his fingers.

"Oh. I’m sorry-"

"Don’t be. You’re wonderful, and amazing, and I love you. It feels very good, being able to say that. I love you, Yuuri Katsuki."

"I love you, Viktor Nikiforov." Yuuri giggled. "You’re right, it does feel good."

"Hey, Yuuri. Tell me more about yourself. I should know more about you."
"Oh! Sure. Maybe we should alternate, ask questions about each other?"
"Alright," Viktor said, "What’s your favorite meal?"

"Katsudon," Yuuri replied without a moment’s hesitation. "Mm, deep fried pork cutlets with eggs and rice. It’s not very healthy, but it’s delicious." There was a pause, sounding like Yuuri was sorely regretting being in magical stasis where one can’t eat anything.

Viktor made a mental note to learn how to make katsudon at some point, so that when Yuuri 'woke up' that could be his first meal.

"Why did you grow your hair so long?" Yuuri asked, pushing Viktor’s thoughts back on track.

"A lot of my friends growing up had long hair, so I grew mine out too. We braided and styled each others’ hair often. You got used to it, as well, and it becomes a part of how you see yourself. I wouldn’t have cut it had it not been a... safety risk."

"It was pretty before, but I think it looks nice short too."
Viktor ran a hand through his hair, tucking some behind his ear. "It feels strange that you see me so often but I only saw you once." And that didn’t count, really: it was like taking a brief look at a picture, not like really meeting him.
"I understand." There was something to Yuuri’s tone that Viktor couldn’t place.
Viktor elected to ignore it. "Have you ever figure skated?"
"Oh, yes, I love to skate. It helps calm my nerves." For a moment, Viktor almost felt the cool breeze of an artificial ice sheet. "I would love to skate with you, Vitya. I never used to skate with Philip."

"I could make us a pairs skate, if you want."

"That sounds amazing."

There was a silence, and neither of them broke it for a long time. Viktor laid down on the bed again, legs crossed at the ankles as if in a jump, and stared at the ceiling. The moonlight through the window made every pock-mark in the ceiling noticeabe, every grain of the wooden trim visible. He wasn’t sure how long he laid like that, listening to the sound of his own breath, feeling some essence of Yuuri through the soul orb at his shoulder though he wasn’t speaking.

"It’s my turn, isn’t it," Yuuri said after some time.

Viktor chuckled. "Yes."

"Tell me about your family?"

"My only family is my papa, Yakov. he adopted me after my parents were taken. I never had any siblings... I don’t think. Yakov is great, but he’s very strict sometimes, and he never thought much of the prophecy or the legendary hero idea. Still... he’s more right than I used to think he was. What about you?"

"Well... with the caveat that they’re all dead now, I had an older sister, mom and dad, and a husband."

Of course they’re gone. It’s been five centuries, I shouldn’t have asked-

"It’s okay, Vitya. I’ve had four centuries to cope." His tone was gentle. "I’ll tell you about them.

"Mari, my sister, was a lot like you, actually... she was kind of laid back most of the time, but kind of impulsive, and a natural leader. Brutally determined when she needed to be. She was pretty and smart, a good skater, a brilliant sorcerer, and a supportive sister. She would have made a great queen, if she’d had the chance. My parents did a great job - they loved their country and they loved their kids. They had this air that made people like them... I’ve been told I have that too-"

"You do."

"You’re biased."

"I am not! Why do you think I fell for you in the first place? Yurio even tolerated you when you two spoke, which is more than he could say about me when we met."

"I don’t know why. I’m not doing anything special. Whatever I’m doing... it’s not because of me, it’s because it had to happen, because people would die otherwise, and anyone who’s a good person would put their life at risk if it meant saving people."

"Even if everything you said was true, being a good person isn’t trivial. And besides that... anyone who thinks they’re a good person might say that they would give their life to save others, but that doesn’t mean that when they’re actually put in that situation, they will be strong enough to do it."

"...If you say so."

"Yuuri, you inspired me. You continue to, every day. Your constant determination, your strength to go on, helped me find mine." Viktor clasped his hands together in lieu of holding Yuuri’s. "If you think that what people do is completely dependent on their circumstances, then I am nothing - it’s only you."

"Vitya, I love you."

"I love you, too. I’ll never get used to saying that." He glanced out the window at the lightening sky. "The sun’s coming up - I think I’ll go to practice now."

"I’ll be watching."
"I know."Viktor hurried into his skating gear. He couldn't pull it on quickly enough. He ran down the stairs to put his skates on, and Yurio greeted him at the bottom with a death glare.
"What were you doing up there?" he demanded. His eyes were slightly glazed over, with dark shadows under them. Had Viktor kept him up?

"I had a nightmare, then Yuuri talked to me again because of something to do with my life-force fluctuating or something, and Yurio, Yuuri loves me!" Viktor was half-tempted to hug Yurio.

"I knew it. I'm going back to bed." He turned back to the living room. "Where are you going?"

"To the rink! I'm going to practice On My Love."

"Figures. I'll send Sara and Mila your way when they wake up."

Viktor skipped into the foyer and began lacing his skates. "Hey Viktor," he heard Yurio shout from the other room.

"What?" he replied.

Yurio lowered his voice. "I'm happy for you."

"Thanks, Yurio, that means a lot." He smiled and walked out the door, saying over his shoulder, "Have fun with Michele!"
Yurio grumbled into his pillow before falling asleep. "Damn sap."The streets were relatively empty, many filled only by the dawn sunlight. The scene was tranquil in a way that felt like a new beginning. Viktor smiled at the empty and mostly-empty streets, smiled at lamp-posts and at the sky. A few times he spontaneously burst into fits of giggles, feeling his cheeks flush pink.
Feeling a few of the same stop that it's weird impulses as if he were dancing in public, but not caring enough to really stop, Viktor practiced some of his choreography. He practiced his step sequence, hearing the dance of octaves in his head. Whenever someone skated by, he muted his movements but didn't stop. A few people stared, a young girl followed him in a trance for at least a block, and an elderly man beamed at him from the window of a café. He hit his ending pose at the edge of the rink and stopped. A young man with dark skin and short black hair applauded him, gloves muffling his claps.

"Can't wait to practice, huh?" he said. "I mean, me too, but you'd be better off doing that at the rink. The ice is better here."
"I've noticed." Viktor stepped onto the ice, and it felt like stepping from thick undergrowth onto a well-kempt path. "Hey, could I have the ice to myself for a few? Not right now, but in a little bit."
"Sure!" The man returned to warming up his footwork elements as Viktor started warming up his own. "So, are you that legendary hero I've been hearing about?"

"One legendary hero, at your service. I wasn't aware there were rumors." Viktor turned backwards and began warming up his jumps: a few singles, doubles, triples. He felt like he was getting better; mostly using Sara's advice, but there was also something that had shifted in his head, like there had been some well of untapped potential which had recently become available to him. Everything was happening easily today.

"Oh yeah, everyone's talking about the silver-haired man who skates like wind through falling snow. My assistants have been asking me if they can request autographs."

Viktor finished his short warm-up and skated over to the barrier to catch his breath, meeting the man there. "You're Mr. Choulanont, correct? The royal scientist?"

"Yes, but call me Phichit! Sorry for not introducing myself." Phichit rubbed the back of his neck and smiled widely.

"Do you always skate in the mornings?"

"Of course! Sound body, sound mind, right? Besides, this rink seems to help get my ideas flowing."

"May I visit you at the lab later? I would love to learn all about the advances this city has made in the past few hundred years while the rest of the world was back in the stone age. What, for an example, is this barrier made out of? How do the glowing signs in the shops work? What about the fairy lights and the paper cups?"

"In order: yes, you may, I love visitors; the barrier is made of plastic, a substance named for its properties and synthesized from polymers; the glowing signs are made by running electricity through noble gases such as neon and argon; the fairy lights are magic-sensitive crystals lit by the will of those who put them up; the paper cups are made by layering what you know as paper together and compressing it to eliminate absorption." Phichit took a long sip from his water bottle.

"I didn't understand them, but at least I have answers." Viktor laughed. "Thank you, Phichit. Could I trouble you to leave the ice to me for a few minutes now?" Viktor hadn't warmed up any spins, and the extent to which he had warmed up his full footwork sequence was the extent to which he had skated it on the way to the rink, but even so, he felt ready in some fundamental way that no amount of warming up could help.

"Sure, my dude. Have fun." Phichit gave him a thumbs-up as he got off the ice, leaning on the barrier. Viktor gave a wink in return.
Viktor skated into center ice by elongated curves and with half-lidded eyes. His heart raced as soon as he thought of Yuuri. He took a deep breath and steadied himself, focusing on the theme of the song. On My Love.
Viktor's love had always felt muffled, undefined - he'd never understood what love really meant to him. He’d dedicated previous performances of this program to past flames and flings, to his friends, or even to the act of skating itself, but those all had been missing something. He hadn’t known what it was before- not until now.
Yuuri’s love was it. The missing piece to the puzzle he had always been. With it complete, he could finally skate a perfect program - triples and all.
He clicked his blades together just hard enough for it to be audible and took his starting position. The soft, swift melody of the beginning piano notes filled the air in waltz time, and Viktor brought his arms up in front of his chest. This is all of me, Viktor thought. He glided for a second to his left, skidding to a stop. He brought his arms over his head, staring into the lightening sky. I give everything to you.

He moved into an artistic sequence of crossovers interspersed with choctaws and brackets. The second repeat of the motif was shorter, interrupted in the second-to-last measure by a high and a low chord in sequence. Triple toe - double toe combination. He knew it was clean.

The flying sit spin was next. Contrasting the quick pace of the song, Viktor’s choreography contained long gliding steps and spins, highlighted throughout by quick twizzles and jumps. It emphasized the beautiful, unpredictable nature of love. The idea had come mainly from stories and poems - but the performance came entirely from personal experience. Dreams and conversations and emotions.

The violins came in slowly but surely and Viktor cut across the diagonal, his step sequence coming up. Mila’s voice echoed in his mind as he rounded the corner: readjust your center.

Twizzle, counter, rocker, on one foot on the first three octaves. The violin was getting stronger, tugging at his heartstrings. He felt his chest tense.

Toe turn followed immediately by another cluster, on the other foot: rocker, counter, bracket, counter. His next breath came in ragged but he readjusted his center again and kept moving.

Twizzle, outside loop, bracket. His body swayed to the music as it pulled him towards its melody.

The end of this choreographic sequence came as a break: an edge into a lunge, trailing his hands down his chest. An outside spreadeagle into an Ina Bauer. This piece is about a first recognition of something like love. This piece is about today, about right now, about Yuuri. The choreographic sequence ended and he had to set up for his triple axel.

When setting up for a hard jump, it’s tempting to hold the landing position for too long, throw off timing to get slightly more breathing room. Viktor refused. His setup and jump were one fluid motion - he rotated once and twice and three times and half again - and landed cleanly, leg snapping out and back.

The music picked up again and Viktor laughed to himself. His eyes burned and his cheeks hurt, but the few falling leaves on high-pitched accents made him feel like flying. He had so much energy, and he couldn’t stop smiling, and oh there was a jump combination, triple lutz-triple toe, perfectly clean. Of course it was. A few more steps until his signature move, the final jump, the triple flip.

It would be over, he realized. He didn't want it to be over. He wanted to sing his heartsong to Yuuri forever. His legs and lungs burned but he didn't care. Pouring all his energy into every movement, Viktor set up for his final jump. Pull the shoulder back, pick, and-

Viktor heard his rapid heartbeat in his ears. His vision had gone dark—he didn't remember closing his eyes—but the darkness resolved into a blur, the blur resolved into an outline of a face, and the outline resolved into Yuuri.

He was close, so close. And so beautiful. When he moved towards Viktor, his movements were fluid, not like the hesitant staggering from the dream. His red-brown eyes shone, his ears and cheeks and lips were flushed pink. Viktor reached up in awe to caress the side of his face, and Yuuri leaned into his touch. His skin was warm and soft.

Yuuri's eyes closed slowly, his short dark lashes fluttering slightly. His blush deepened as he leaned in closer, lips parted slightly. Is he doing what I think he is? Viktor felt his face heat as he reciprocated Yuuri's actions. In a fraction of a moment they closed the space between them.

Viktor thought he heard a soft, strong piano chord the moment their lips touched. A few more, getting faster, as his hands trailed into Yuuri's hair and Yuuri's found their way into his. Viktor was out of breath and his heart pounded in his throat but he didn't care. He kissed Yuuri like he knew nothing else until the other pulled away.

"Vitya," he sighed through shining lips, "I love you."
The music overtook Yuuri's voice, cold swept across where Yuuri's warmth had been moments before, and Viktor fell out of his rotation and his trance on the right edge.
The triple flip was perfect. Viktor skated the rest of the program in a daze, vision blurred. When he did the final part of his combination spin, a crossfoot looking up at his outstretched hand, he felt the tears stream down his hot cheeks, wetting his ears and hair. As the music came to a ritando, Viktor spread his arms, closed them in on himself, then brought his arm out towards the doors, and the Eye, and Yuuri.

The music ended and Viktor held his pose for a long second, breathing heavily, covered in sweat, and staring longingly into the Eye like he expected Yuuri to appear and take his hand. Then, his legs requested permission from his brain to collapse, and his brain, having no other orders to give them, acquiesced. Viktor fell like a dropped ragdoll onto the ice, numb to the cold and pain. He felt tears welling in his eyes and had no reason this time to stifle them. He sobbed and dug his nails into his arms, choking out Yuuri's name.

Phichit skated over, surprised and worried and mystified all at once. Mila and Sara—when had they gotten here?—followed suit, concern etched into their brows.

They asked questions, but Viktor’s sobs muffled them. Slowly, he registered the feeling of the ice melting onto his forehead, his bare arms, his knees. He pulled himself up, muscles cooperating begrudgingly - then beamed at the three figures standing over him. "I did great, right?"

Before any could respond, Yuuri’s voice came through the door - unaltered and genuine. Everyone turned to look at the doorway and the opening doors - Phichit looked amazed, while Sara and Mila just looked confused. "You were wonderful, Vitya. I just wanted to surprise you as much as you’ve surprised me; that was the only thing I could think of."

"It worked," Viktor chuckled and wiped his eyes.
There was a long, awed silence. Viktor stood slowly, collected himself, and walked into the room that didn’t seem to exist in this reality. He emerged with a palm-sized ball glowing dark blue and a little blue gemstone.
"I have so many questions," Phichit said.
Viktor smiled and held up a hand in weak protest. "Later."
The music picks up again, I am the man I hoped to be

The bright air hangs freely near your newly cut hair

It is so easy now to see the love in your face

How did I fail to see it so long before?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Victor got up and checked the clock on the wall. It was 0942 now, and he’d scheduled his meeting with Michelle for 1000, so he fetched two slices of bread from the kitchen and skated out the door.

He didn’t know where Mila, Sara, or Viktor had gone. It had been at least four hours since Viktor left at dawn, he’d have finished his Trial by now. Maybe he was at that royal scientist’s place.

The streets were crowded but navigable. A few people gave Victor sideways glances - awe or confusion or both. He ignored them and made his way to the eastern guards’ station. It was a large building of more metal than wood, three stories high. Through large windows on the first floor he saw guards in skin-tight black outfits and high-heeled black boots practicing complex movements with staffs in the kind of lockstep synchronization one expects from an army.

Viktor pushed open the hefty wooden door and said "I’m here to see Michele" to the first guard he saw, who nodded and disappeared through a doorway at the far right end of the room. A minute later Michele entered with another man, both wearing the black uniforms.

"Victor, hey." The corners of Michele’s mouth twitched, which seemed to be the closest thing to a smile he could pull off without facial strain. He gestured to the guard who had returned with him. "This is my friend Otabek; he’ll be helping me to train you."

Otabek was similarly stone-faced, short - around Victor’s height - but solidly muscled with bronze skin and dark brown hair swept back with an undercut. His eyes were dark and piercing - he looked like he was sizing Victor up.

Two can play at that game, Victor thought, giving Otabek an equally piercing stare in return and holding out this hand. "Nice to meet you, Otabek."

It was hardly visible, but Otabek flinched before taking Victor’s hand, looking shocked or impressed. They shook hands, and Victor was sure to match his strong grip, not breaking eye contact.

Michele turned away toward the doorway, motioning for the others to follow him. "We’re going to the third floor, we’ll have the most space there."
Victor and Otabek followed; behind the door was a stairwell. Otabek started up the stairs faster than Viktor, so Victor sprinted up the next few steps, passing Otabek by a stair. Otabek took his next two steps quickly in response. They glanced briefly at each other from the corners of their eyes, and Victor thought he saw Otabek smirk.
They reached the final stair in perfect sync and followed Michele down a hall to a room at the end. Having done little more than shake hands and climb some stairs, Victor was finding Otabek intensely interesting. He should ask him to lunch later, or dinner.
The room they ended up in was spacious, with a lightly-padded floor and bare walls. Two large windows let in the midmorning sun. In one corner, a tall basket held kendo swords and thick wooden staffs. Neither Michele nor Otabek moved to grab anything from this basket - they just stood in the center of the room and waited for Victor.Confused but not about to show it, Victor walked over and stood in front of them, silent.
"We’re going to teach you to fight without weapons before you fight with them," Michele said.

Victor sighed internally. Alright, let’s hurry up so we can get on with it.

"We're going to start with something called the Heaven 6. It's a system of six strikes, in between each you're defending yourself." Michele balled his fists and formed an L with his forearms, left fist under right elbow. "This is your starting position. You can easily pull this into a defense if necessary-" he pulled his arms up so his left covered his forehead "-but for now this is just our starting position. Your first strike comes out this way-" he punched forward with his right fist, pulling it back so that his arms were on top of each other "-and comes back to this defensive position."

Victor put his arms into the starting position Michele had demonstrated. It felt odd, too brittle to be a performance but not aggressive enough to feel like a means of combat. He tried his first punch and it felt like the first step to an awkward but elaborate dance.

"Your second and third are backhands, like this." Michele took his left arm out from under his right, striking the air with the back of his hand, bringing it up so his forearm was vertical and slightly to the left of his right fist. He stopped to let Victor try it, and when he did apparently well enough, he resumed, punching with the back of his right hand and bringing it under his left elbow. "Now you're back to your starting position; your next three are the mirror image of your first."

"Perhaps we should give a demonstration of the effectiveness of this techinque before we proceed," Otabek said. The man’s voice was low and rich, like the growl of a tiger.
How did he read me so well? Victor narrowed his eyes at Otabek just slightly.
Michele nodded, fetched a short wooden staff from the basket, and handed it to Otabek. The shorter man brandished the staff in a way that looked to Victor more like a fighting stance, while Michele stood in the starting position Victor had just learned.

Otabek rushed Michele, running with staff poised like a knife. He took a final step, jabbed his staff down-

-before Michele’s arms twisted rapidly, took the staff from Otabek’s grip, and came down as though to strike him with it before stopping inches from his neck. Then, as though breaking character in a play, the two stood straight, stepped away, and Michele returned the staff to the basket.
Victor’s brain had barely registered that the movements Michele had just done were the same ones he had just been shown. He knew his eyes were probably sparkling with excitement or some shit by now, and he didn't care. "Please show me how to do that!"
Otabek definitely smirked. "Most certainly."
 
Victor totally lost track of time. He had perfected his Heaven 6 empty-handed and learned how to disarm someone with a knife or dagger. He learned a variety of kicks and was learning how to fight using sticks when they were interrupted.

"Otabek, Michele, take a break. It's lunchtime." A curvy, muscular girl with long, dark hair and bangs stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. Unlike Michele and Otabek, her uniform was white like her boots.

"Hey Ana. Thanks, we'll be down in a minute."

Victor gave Michele a questioning look.

"That's Anastasia, a friend of ours," he said. "She's the resident expert at fighting on skates. Nicest girl I've ever met, but also has a death glare like nothing you've ever seen if you somehow end up on her bad side."

"A veritable master of the spear and staff," Otabek added. He collected Victor's sticks and placed them in the basket with his own.

"Why am I not learning from her?"
"You will be this afternoon."Victor and Otabek didn't race down the stairs the way they'd raced up them, simply perambulating to the main floor. When they arrived, they found at least fifty guards, sitting cross-legged on the floor in groups and chatting over steaming bowls of some kind of soup.
They rounded a corner and saw several people behind a serving hatch, handing bowls out to others. Victor grabbed a bowl first. There were thick noodles in a dark broth, bits of vegetables and greenery interspersed throughout. It smelled like beef and had a pair of black chopsticks sticking out.

Michele and Otabek fetched their bowls and sat on the floor with them next to Ana and one other person, seemingly a friend of Ana's.

"Who's this?" Ana's compatriot asked, gesturing towards Victor.
"This is Victor Nikiforov. He asked us to teach him to fight, so we've set aside today to do that. Victor, you met Ana, this is Sky."
Sky was both very muscular and quite fat, perpetually smiling, with dark brown skin and thick, curly hair that came down to their waist, nearly enveloping them. Their uniform was grey and their eyes were the vibrant blue of the clear afternoon sky. "Are you one of the cooks?" Victor asked.

"Everyone cooks," Ana replied. "But no, Sky fights too. They're one of the strongest people we have."
"I wouldn't say that," Sky said with a shrug. "Are you that legendary hero I've been hearing about?"
Victor finished his bite of noodles and shook his head. "I'm his bodyguard."

"Dush sho cool!" Sky exclaimed through a mouthful of noodles and veggies. They swallowed and continued. "Why did you come here?"
I thought I was the hero of legend, because I was born at the right time and I was a great figure skater. Well, Chris thought I was, anyway. All I did was believe him. Then I met the real hero, kind of hated his guts, had a brief existential crisis, realized I don't hate him that much actually, figured out that I kind of cared for the doofus, decided I wanted to help him but wasn't sure how since he’s a better skater than I am, and then I figured out that the Shadows can be killed. "I wanted to learn how to protect my friend.""That's sweet," Ana said quietly. "I know a lot of people here joined because of hatred, I'm glad somebody else came here because of love."
Victor snorted. "I wouldn’t call it love. We do a hell of a lot of arguing."

"Ana and I argue all the time, that doesn’t mean we don’t love each other. Honestly, if you never argue with someone, you don't communicate well enough to have a real relationship with them." Sky shrugged and went back to slurping down their noodles.
"I’m also pretty sure that he cares too much about Yuuri and doesn’t have room for anyone else."
"Wait, Yuuri like Yuuri Katsuki like the Prince?" Sky leaned forward excitedly and Victor scooted backward.
"Yeah. They don’t get to talk often, but he’s is always going on about him. Makes me a bit sick."Victor suddenly noticed that Michele, Ana, and Otabek had already finished their noodles, so he wolfed down the bowl he’d been picking at and followed them, saying a curt goodbye to Sky. They didn’t seem to mind.The four walked out a back door and found a walled-in ice rink, like a backyard. Otabek handed Victor a pair of the boots the rest of them wore, and he was very confused. "What do you expect me to do with these?"
"Put them on?" Otabek replied with an exaggerated shrug.

"How will that help? These are just boots, not skates." He glanced toward Michele, who was standing on the ice. Wait, how had he laced his skates that fast? And where had he done it?

"They transform magically into skates when you step onto the ice," Michele said. "Because there is both ice and solid ground within the city limits, Dr. Choulanont created a spell to transfigure a skate back and forth. Most people in the city have it. If you have a pair of skates I'm sure he could do that to yours."

Victor finished lacing his boots, finding them surprisingly comfortable. He stepped onto the ice and found that they transformed so effortlessly he didn't even notice they'd changed until he started gliding. Victor suppressed a giggle but not the accompanying smile. This is awesome, he thought. I love magic.

Same as the room he had trained with Michele and Otabek in, the rink had a basket at its side.

Ana skated out in front of them, skidding to a stop. Her hazel eyes, which Victor had found were permanently half-lidded, turned from warm and brownish to bright green and orange as she explained. "The key to fighting on ice is to make precise use of the blades on your skates. Ideally, you never more than graze your enemy. Instead, you make them scared to come close to you. The real weapons, you keep in your hands."

Of course you don't attack people with skate blades. They're not shaped right to do any real damage and it would be worse for you to break your flow than for your opponent to get a minor cut. Victor nodded.
"The kicks and moves you learned off-ice will be helpful, but you know there's a different set of physics on ice. A decent portion of your moves will involve something like a fly. Otabek, can I demonstrate?"Otabek nodded and stood a short distance from Ana. Before Victor knew what was happening, Ana sped into something resembling a fly but backward to forward instead of forward to backward. Her skate came right between his chin and collarbone, blade a few inches from his skin. Victor flinched visibly but was nonetheless impressed.
Ana skated back over to her spot in front of them and Otabek glided back to his place beside Victor. "First off, how high can you jump? I can teach you the technique but unless your legs can jump high enough there's not a lot I can do."

Victor pulled crossovers around a tight circle and did his best triple: the toe loop. He was sure he got nearly forty centimeters off the ice, but he was sure Ana had gotten higher. He skated back over.

Ana raised her eyebrow slightly. "That was good! But you're probably not going to use any of that stuff about rotation or landing on one foot. If landing on two feet doesn't compromise your efficiency, by all means do it."
"You landed on one foot earlier," Victor pointed out.
Ana nodded. "True. The full version of the move, where you ward off a sizable number of enemies, goes like this." She did exactly as she had earlier—a quasi-fly backward to forward—but then she repeated it, forward to backward, then again, and again. She seemed to get enough speed from the takeoff (which she did on two feet, picking with one and digging into her edge with the other) to do it indefinitely. She looked like a terrifying windmill of ice and metal.

She skated back over to Victor. "You can vary the height of the jump as well as the depth and length of each edge in order to reach multiple targets. It's also possible to do this on land without much difference in the physics, so you can hop off the ice while doing this and fluidly move into other things if necessary. Now, let's try it. Let's do the forward one first, because though you don't start that way, you already know how to do flying spins, so it should be easier for you."

Victor nodded and tried to do a fly without the spin. His rotation left him spinning out on two feet. "That was an excellent fly, but you actually want your legs to be uneven. Your body in an ideal fly is horizontal to the ice, but did I look horizontal?"

Victor shook his head as he remembered. "No, you were sort of diagonal. One leg way below the other."
"Exactly. If you're attacked during a proper fly, you're pulled out of your rotation and you fall on your face. If you're attacked during a falling kick, you can just put your lower foot down and get back over your center. It looks awkward, but you don't get points for being pretty in combat."Ana brushed her bangs aside, though they weren't in her eyes to begin with. A little fidget, Victor assumed, like when he tucked his hair behind his ears even when it was tied up. "Falling in a performance is bad, but falling in a battle can easily be deadly. Whatever you do, stay on your feet. Don't worry about looking good, worry about keeping your footing and your timing."
"Timing?" Victor asked.
"Otabek and Michele didn't tell you about timing?" She gave the two a sidelong glance.They raised their hands in surrender at the same time, Michele looking much more visibly terrified. "We forgot.""You're going to get him killed," she said through gritted teeth, her eyes turning red-orange. Victor understood what Michele had said earlier about her death glare; he found himself shuddering and he wasn't even the target.
A moment later, she turned to Victor and picked up where she had left off, just as confident and sweet as before, as if nothing had happened. The green had returned to her eyes. "The Shadow is exceedingly bad at what humans think of as intuitive timing. That's why all the fighting techniques you learned were done to a count, like music." She did what Victor now thought of as a slow Heaven 6, counting out 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 on her right hand. "The Shadow learns quickly, although it retains nothing. The most effective method in combat is to use a certain timing until it stops being useful, then trade it for a new one. Being able to read the Shadow is a skill attained only by doing battle with it, though."

Victor's brow furrowed. That means if I want to learn I need to find actual Shadow warriors. And learn fast enough to fight them without getting killed. That feels way too high-pressure to be legit. "How did you learn?"

"I went outside the city at dusk with a more experienced guard and she watched my back while I learned," Ana replied.

"Could you do that for me?"

"No, but Otabek can."

Victor looked at Otabek. "Can you?"

Otabek nodded with raised eyebrows, his expression saying yes, but I'm being humble about it. Victor really wanted to learn more about this guy. They hadn’t had any opportunity to talk over their brutally short lunch.

"Great, let's do it. I'll meet you at the south end at dusk."

Michele piped up. "Viktor, you have only been in training for one day. Not even that much. Are you sure you can handle it? We spend months training new recruits before we let them do this." He was like Otabek in that he didn't emote a lot, but he still had a wider range of emotions than chill and slightly smug but in a humble way. He was clearly worried.

"Roughly what percentage of our new recruits walk in the door with a triple toe loop," Otabek said. It wasn't a question. Victor shot him a look, something like are you defending me? He shot Victor one back that said yes, I am.

"...None. Fine, Otabek, have it your way. If he gets killed it's on your record."
Either Victor was getting better at picking up on Otabek's little smirks, or Otabek cared progressively less about hiding them. Victor wasn't sure which possibility he liked more.
After two hours of consecutive fighting on skates, Ana had sent him off the ice to rest. He was furious at first, until Otabek mentioned he would be taking this time to choose his weapons for that night.

The second floor of the guards’ station had a deceptively high ceiling and was organized almost like an art gallery. Instead of paintings, however, on the walls there hung weapons. Swords, spears, daggers, melee weapons of all sorts hung on pairs of simple metal hooks. About half were sheathed; of those that weren’t, nearly all were unenchanted.

Otabek didn’t seem to be leading him anywhere in particular, just pacing through the rows slowly, so Victor followed, looking around at the weapons. A one-handed short sword with a half-moon pommel and a thick S-shaped guard hung low on the wall at his left. A long, leaf-bladed spear hung a short distance further forward. A longsword with a bronze crown-shaped pommel and a grip that looked like it was made from marble stood on the opposite side. Beside that, a polearm that looked sort of like a sword blade had been attached to a spear handle.

As they rounded the fourth or fifth corner, Victor stopped, backed up a few steps. Otabek returned and followed Victor’s gaze to the sword against the wall: something like a short one-handed katana.
Otabek picked it off the wall, easing it away from its hooks. He unsheathed it, handed it to Victor. Its golden, disc-like hilt glinted like Viktor’s blades in the light; the handle was oblongly shaped to align with the sharpened curve of the blade, the wrap on the handle was elegantly woven and leant just as much grip as necessary; the unenchanted blade was the same color as Victor’s hair.
Victor tilted the sword back and forth in his right hand, and the fingers of his left felt fidgety. Something felt missing. "Does this go with something?"

Otabek narrowed his gaze, nodded. "That is a daito - it has a brother, the shoto. It should be here somewhere." He disappeared around the corner, returned with a similar sword. He unsheathed that one, gave it to Victor.

Victor nodded, grinning. The grips seemed to be made for his hands, and there was a sense of power in them that made him feel strong just by holding them. There was an invitation there, too, a perverse and powerful one. "How do you fight with these?"

"Your typical starting position has them crossed, like this-" he came to Victor’s side, took his fists and maneuvered them so the blades were crossed at roughly waist-height in front of him. "You parry attacks with your shoto, and strike with the greater reach from the daito."

He moved through the motions slowly: parrying an imagined enemy’s weapon with the shoto, then cutting into the opening with the daito. It felt very right, this style. "I like this," he said.

Otabek nodded and stepped out of his peripherie, holding out the sheaths. Victor slid the swords in, the golden hilts clicked into place. "I imagined daisho would suit you, so I’ve already taught you some of the style. Like the katana, the curve makes them forgiving with the cut: a bit easier for beginners to align the blade properly. The daisho require more coordination than the katana, and they are slightly heavier overall, but-"

"I’ve got no problems with that."

Otabek nodded.

If those are my weapons... "How do you wear these things, then?"
"Typically, both at the waist." He held the scabbards against his hip, at slightly different angles.
"Wouldn’t that make it hard to run?" Or jump, or crawl...

"It does. That’s always the trouble with wearing a sword at the waist."

"What about I put the longer- the daito behind my back, and the shoto on my hip?" Victor lifted his arms the way he would to draw the two swords, worn in that configuration. Left hand at his hip, right behind his shoulder. "Hm, if that was going to work, I would need a cutout in the side of the scabbard so I could get it out, since the blade is longer than my arm. And to put it back, I’d want a guide. So maybe a panel to the side, with a lip at the edge, and a cutout the length that I can draw it easily." He moved his arms through the drawing and sheathing motions, then dropped them back to his sides, satisfied.
"Victor," Otabek said, and Victor’s gaze snapped away from the ceiling. "You’ve just reinvented the back scabbard, which I was about to suggest."
"Oh. Then someone’s made it already right?"

Otabek gave him an odd look, then nodded.

Then there are only two things that still bother me. One... "Shouldn’t I have armor?"

"Of course. Though I believe our plate, or even chain, would hinder you. You would be best suited to padded cloth, a gambeson perhaps... or maybe even mere enchantment."

"Like, enchanted armor?"

"No; there is an enchantment for clothing which helps it mend itself and its wearer. It’s an adequate replacement for armor, for one who wishes complete freedom of movement."

"You could enchant this?" he gestured to his unitard.

"I couldn’t. Someone could." Otabek crossed his arms loosely. "I should warn you that this enchantment does hardly anything to prevent wounds, it only hastens their mending. If an opponent makes a fatal blow, there would be nothing to soften it."

"I got that," Victor said. "You’ve taught me to dodge and block, and I’m a fast runner."

"I don’t doubt your talent or trained skill, Victor. But you’ll find that running from a fight is easier to do unarmed. Your blades, in hand or in sheath, will cry out for blood. They hunger for it, in a way. It can be difficult to reign them in."

A heavy unease settled in Victor’s stomach at that, but he didn’t have a denial. He’d felt the power of the blades in his hands. The invitation to slice through flesh. That was the second thing that had bothered him. "Those aren’t designed for fighting Shadows, are they."

Otabek sighed, closed his eyes. "No, they aren’t. It doesn’t matter much how deeply you cut into a Shadow, and there is no clothing to worry about slicing through. There is a slight resistance at their outer edges, hence the choice of a blade over a blunt weapon, but in theory someone strong enough could defeat Shadows with a club, if it were enchanted appropriately. That is the only issue: a weapon without a light enchantment will pass straight through a Shadow. But no, the daisho are designed for fighting human opponents."

"Shadow followers."

"Precisely." Having decided then that the conversation was over, Otabek turned and led the way out of the weapons hall. Victor could do little but follow.
  
Victor had returned to the ice after that, working with Ana until she had to leave for her shift with Sky that night. Otabek told him to take a nap so he could stay up.

"Where do I sleep?" Victor asked.

"Where have you been sleeping?" Otabek countered. They were skating away from the guards' station slowly, mostly gliding with only the occasional half-assed push.
"With some nice ladies we met yesterday. But I don't want to bother them by asking everyone to be quiet so I can sleep on their couch in the middle of the afternoon."
Otabek seemed to consider this for a time, then he said, "You can sleep at my house. I will be sleeping 'in the middle of the afternoon' as well."

Victor blinked a few times. It seemed Otabek was serious. "Thank you" came out of his mouth before he thought about it.

Otabek nodded and began to skate faster, leading the way. Victor followed.
Otabek's house was small and wooden, with a shingled roof atop a single story. He unlocked the door and unlaced his skate-boots at the entrance to the living room. There was a small stool there, but he wasn't using it. Victor took the hint and sat there himself.
Victor usually hated when people called cramped spaces "cozy" in an effort to make the smallness seem like a good thing, but as he looked around at Otabek's living space, that was the word which came to mind. A low couch sat in the corner by a bookshelf, a small end table with a lamp on it on the couch's other side. Opposite the couch was the entrance to the kitchen, beside that sat a small upright piano with some complicated-looking sheet music on it. Beside that was an entrance to a hallway with two visible closed doors.

"You play piano?" Victor asked, remarking on the most remarkable part of the scene.

Otabek nodded. "I've found it's relaxing, and it helps me maintain my sense of timing." He walked over to his couch, pulled his shirt off, and fell onto it. Victor very deliberately did not stare at his chiseled abs.

"Hey, aren't I sleeping there?"

"Why would you be? The bedroom is that way." Otabek gestured down the hall.
"That's your bedroom," Victor said.
"You're the guest."

"It's your bed!"

"I want you to be most comfortable."

"With the exception of last night, Beka, I'm used to sleeping on the ground." Victor had not intended to give him a pet name - where had that come from? - but he refused to be embarrassed, even as his cheeks flushed. "Frequently in the snow or rain. And if you don't sleep in your own bed I'm sleeping on the floor."

"Why?" Otabek's already purr-like voice became quiet. He seemed, for the first time, genuinely confused.

Victor looked askance. "I don't want to be a burden."

"You're not. Victor... or should I say, Yurio. I've met you before."

It was Victor's voice that was quiet now. "...When?"

"Your circus came through my hometown a few years ago. Your hair was shorter then, and blond like gold. But what I most remember of you is your eyes. You have the unforgettable eyes of a soldier."

"A... soldier..." Victor echoed, sitting on the arm of the couch. He was flattered, impressed, but confused how Otabek had remembered all this time. What had he done that was so memorable? He was just like every other circus performer. Perhaps a little better at figure skating; was that it?

Again Otabek seemed to read his mind. "I got the date wrong and came to the circus the day before it started, and I saw you practicing. Your dance was beautiful, and I watched until you left the ring to go backstage. It seemed almost a shame that the next day you would wear makeup and a fancy dress. I went backstage, carefully, and spoke to you for a short time. I knew in that moment how much we had in common."

There was a pause. Otabek seemed to be finished with his explanation, but Victor wanted more. After an expectant look got him nowhere, Victor asked, "What do you think we have in common?"

"You are driven and ambitious. You know what you want and you know how to achieve it, and it's the world's job to get out of your way. You know no limits, you have no boundaries, and you thrive on challenge and competition." Otabek sat up against the opposite arm of the couch to meet Victor's eyes. "You also have a difficult time forming meaningful relationships and you're frequently angry." He gave a trademark smirk. "Sound familiar?"
Victor slid into the couch. He didn't have anything to say to that. He stared, not directly at Otabek, but in his general direction, for a long time. There was just so much he wanted to ask but couldn't quite articulate. Otabek was mysterious to him. A rival, but an exceedingly friendly one. Or just a competitive friend? An experienced fighter, perhaps an experienced figure skater. Or just someone knowledgeable in the area? And what did he really see in Victor, back then and right now?Otabek seemed to be similarly studying Victor. Is he wondering any of the same things I am right now? Victor thought. What’s going on inside his head?
"Do you want to share my bed?"

"What?"

"Do you want to share my bed."

"Why?" Victor didn't think why would I do that, you're basically a complete stranger. Only why.

"You said you didn't want me to sleep anywhere else. I know I don't want you to sleep anywhere else. The obvious solution is for both of us to sleep there." Otabek stood and walked toward the bedroom, and Victor followed numbly.

The bedroom was decent-sized, wider than it was long, and mostly taken up by workout equipment. The bed was simple, barely big enough for two, covered with a dark blue blanket that looked like it would be immensely soft to wrap up in.

Victor walked over to the right side hesitantly, crawling under the covers. Politely, he turned away from Otabek's side. From the corner of his eye, he saw Otabek pulling dark curtains over the windows. He felt the mattress give under Otabek's weight when he sat down. He had slept with Viktor before, but for some reason sleeping under the same coat felt different than sleeping in the same bed. It shouldn't, possibly, but it did.
Otabek didn't seem to be laying in any way differently than he normally would, and Victor seemed to be the only one preventing them from touching. Victor heard Otabek's breathing slow. Could he really fall asleep that easily?
Victor really was kind of uncomfortable trying to prevent any contact between himself and Otabek, but he didn't want to invade the other's personal space. So he just lay there, trying to sleep cramped up against the edge of the bed, beating himself up for not asking if he could come closer before Otabek had fallen asleep, until Otabek's hand grabbed his hip and flipped him over. "You're going to fall off the bed," Otabek mumbled. "That cannot be comfortable.

"I didn't want to bother you," Victor whispered into Otabek's chest. He told himself that his heart was only beating faster because Otabek had startled him.

"Yurio," Otabek's voice was quiet but firm, "when will you understand that you would have to try much harder than that to bother me."

Victor nodded and curled closer to Otabek. Otabek was warm and comfortable, and he wrapped his arm around Victor. "And, Beka?"

"Mm?"

"Please call me Victor." His voice was nearly a whisper, but Otabek seemed to have heard him.
Victor nestled into Otabek's bare chest as the other pulled the blanket up over their shoulders, and he fell asleep to the sound of Otabek's heartbeat.Victor awoke to the reds and pinks of sunset and a delicate melody. He sat up and noticed that the bed beside him was empty but meticulously re-made. He stood up and made his side out of courtesy before he walked out of the bedroom.The room was bathed in sunset colors, even more so than the bedroom because of the larger windows. The furniture cast long shadows across the floor and Otabek was sitting at the piano, quietly playing something that sounded traditional. At first, Victor didn't recognize it, due to the difference in instruments, but then he heard a sequence of chords and his mind instinctively filled in the lyrics: honorabo, laborabo, gratias agam. It was On Love: Agape.
Otabek didn't seem to notice Victor as he made his way into the living space and sat down on the couch. Victor watched Otabek's strong hands dance on the piano, each finger moving down its key like a caress. Victor sat there and watched, entranced, until Otabek played the last rolling chord.

"Hello, Victor." He turned around on the piano bench, looking over his shoulder.

Victor smiled. "Hey Beka."

"We should have some food before we begin training." Otabek stood and walked around the corner to the kitchen. "What would you like?"

"I don't know." That was a lie. Victor knew exactly what he wanted. When he and Viktor had gone through the market the other day, they had pirozhki with a pork and rice filling. But he didn't know how to make it and he didn't want to make Otabek buy him stuff.

"I made some pirozhki yesterday; I can heat them for you."

Victor's breath hitched. "T-that sounds amazing, thank you." He stood and walked into the kitchen, where Otabek was placing frozen golden-brown pirozhki on a metal tray. He put them into a large metal box and closed the glass door, turning a few little black dials on the top and then walking towards Victor.
There was a small wooden table against the wall of the kitchen, with two chairs at it. Otabek pulled Victor's chair out for him before sitting down. "Victor," he said, "You look like you have many questions."
I don't have questions, I just have this feeling I can't articulate. You mean so much to me and I know so little about you. I want to spend more time with you but I'm not sure how to ask. It seems like you feel the same way, but I'm not sure why. I'm not the kind of person who falls in love that quickly, but what do you call a platonic crush? "I guess I just don't know a lot of things about you."

"I was born in Almanty, I have two brothers and a sister, I grew up figure skating, I am terrible at ballet. I am an exceptional lancer and horseback rider-"

"No, I don't mean random facts." Victor’s eyes widened as he waved his hands about. He just realized how rude that sounded. "I mean, random facts are good, but I mean, how did you get here, why, what do you see in me, is it the same as what I see in you..."

"You want to develop a meaningful relationship and you wish to know whether I want the same thing."
Victor paused, then nodded, not sure how Otabek continued to know exactly what Victor wanted to say and then said it better than he could.
Otabek had no sooner drawn breath to speak when a ding came from the metal contraption, and Otabek got up to attend to it. He was in the kitchen, his back to Victor, for a short time, fishing things from cabinets. He brought back two plates full of pirozhki, setting one at each place at the table.
Victor was quiet while he picked one up and blew on it to cool it off a little. The crust was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, the outer edge rolled and pressed flat so Victor could hold onto the pirozhok from there. He bit into it and found it had a rich, creamy flavor, fish complemented by veggies and spices. He wanted to exclaim how amazing these were, but he kept silent, hoping Otabek would take the hint and pick up the conversation where they'd left off. After that he would compliment Otabek's amazing cooking.
Otabek did in fact take the hint. "I do want a meaningful relationship with you, Victor. Of what variety I'm unsure. I'm aware that I will have to decide before you leave, and you will likely leave tomorrow. I'm unsure what I will do after you do leave, because it's likely I won't see you again for years."

Victor hadn't thought about that, but it was true. His time was limited because Viktor's time was limited. He realized then, as he picked up another pirozhok, that he had a decision, a decision he didn't want to make. He could continue his journey with Viktor, or he could stay in Kamyinsk with Otabek.

He considered as he ate. The logical choice was obvious: Viktor needed him as a bodyguard and as a friend, and occasionally as a coach. He had known Viktor for... he couldn't point to exactly how long, but probably the better part of a year. He just met Otabek this morning. And yet something pulled him in the opposite direction.

"I'm having to make a difficult choice," Victor said at last. "I can either go with my friend or I can stay with you. ...My friend needs me, but..."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want..." Viktor looked down at his plate, at his partially-finished pirozhok. He glanced around the room. "To eat with you. Pirozhki." The he looked straight at Otabek, voice raising. "I want you to teach me everything you know. I want to sleep with you every night and I want to hear you play piano every morning."

"There is a way that could happen." Otabek's gaze was fierce, determined.

Victor blinked, lowering the remainder of his pirozhok to his plate. "How?"
"I could come with you."
Victor was shocked. He raised his voice without meaning to, "You can't-"

Otabek cut him off, his voice even louder. "Victor, stop saying you'll inconvenience me as if that is the end of the world! I know you don't think it's true, because you won't allow yourself to believe it, but other people are perfectly capable of caring for you just as you care for them."

Victor was silent, slowly eating the last few bites of his last pirozhok. When he finished, Otabek gathered both their plates and set them in the sink. His gaze was still sharp as the edge of a blade whenever he glanced in Victor's direction. He returned to the table, made a gesture that would have been unclear if Victor had not already known exactly what they were doing next, and Victor followed him to the front door. They laced their boots in silence, Victor taking the stool without Otabek needing to prompt him. They stepped out the front door and into the chill twilight air.

The white snow drifting about above the magenta dome, outlined by darkness and the last of the sunset. The white ice tinged yellow by the light of the street-lamps and littered with the webs of cuts that came from hundreds of skate blades. Victor was only broken from his trance when Otabek's fingers brushed his.
"..May I?" Otabek asked, quietly. He seemed almost... shy. How could Otabek be shy?Victor nodded and Otabek grasped his hand with a much stronger grip than his handshake that morning. Victor was startled. It felt almost desperate. He squeezed Otabek’s hand as hard as he could in return, digging his nails into the calloused knuckles.
They headed slowly toward the southern end of town, the light in the sky gradually diminishing until there was only moonlight, which was soon washed out in artificial lamplight. Everything was quiet save for the low shhhh of their skates on the ice and the rapid, steady rhythm of Victor's heartbeat in his ears.

Victor watched Otabek as he led the way, skating half a stroke in front of Victor. Had he really been serious about leaving all this behind just to be with him? Victor had dropped everything to follow Viktor around, but he really hadn't had that much to drop. Otabek had a home and friends and a job and a life.

The two met Ana skating towards the south end. She didn't comment on their clasped hands, just talked about fetching them weapons and wished them luck.

Victor and Otabek stood at the edge to the barrier. Victor's left hand held Otabek's and his right held the handle of a green-bladed short-sword. He stared out into the night, terrified and excited and determined all at once, a weight beneath his ribs but a fire in his chest. His veins were pumped full of gasoline and he might explode any moment.

"Do you want to do the honors?" Otabek asked, gesturing to the magenta barrier that encircled the city. Victor nodded, brought his sword above his head and cut a slit in the barrier that stretched into an ovular doorway. Otabek squeezed Victor's hand - the harsh pressure and sharp pain of his nails grounded them both - and they stepped through at the same moment.

Victor could have sworn the barrier made a popping noise as it sealed itself back up.
The very presence of the overwhelming darkness sped Victor's heartbeat, pulling his mix of emotions away from excitement towards fear. Walking at night with an orb protecting him was one thing, but going with only his sword to protect him was another. He might have learned how to defeat the darkness, and Otabek might be there to protect him if he was lacking, but he still felt afraid.
Otabek took a step forward, beginning to walk away from the barrier, and it took Victor a long moment to follow. Otabek gave him a long glance, face already half in shadow. Are you ready? it said. Victor nodded, forcing himself to move forward at a normal gait, and they walked forward until they were swallowed in darkness.
The glow of their weapons was the only light for hundreds of meters when Victor first heard the Shadow move. Otabek squeezed his hand and they both stopped. It was somewhat of a noise, like a whoosh, somewhat of a feeling, like a chilling breath across his face, and somewhat just like an inherent knowledge. Victor let go of Otabek's hand to clasp the handle of his sword in both hands. And in that moment, a void stepped out from the shadows to greet him.
It was darker than dark, a void outlined in the blackness. Victor's eyes were trying to avoid it, like they kept slipping off it.

"That is a scout," Otabek said to an audible rhythm, like reciting poetry. "It is looking and scoping you out."

Victor simply nodded. He lifted his sword, stepped forward in preparation to strike, but the figure melded back into the shadow before he could complete his swing. He sighed in frustration.

"It will send more pieces in a moment," Otabek said to the same rhythm as before.
Victor heard a low, strong note this time, vibrating arhythmically. He wasn't quite sure whether he heard it or not, or whether he heard the high note that accompanied it. It was more of an association than a real sound, because his eyes couldn't process what they were seeing.The figures were malformed-looking, wrongly proportioned, that same void-black but with pale faces and red streaks from forehead to chin that crossed over where the eyes would be. There were no eyes; there were only voids. Victor's breath hitched and his chest contracted involuntarily. His brain didn't even get to think the last two words of what the fuck before one of the figures lunged at him.
He pulled into his defensive stance quickly enough to deflect the shadow—Victor wasn't sure whether it had used its fist or a blunt weapon—but he didn't land a blow; his sword he held uselessly off to the side in one fist. When he tried to swing it back around, that shadow jumped out of his way and another came up from behind.

Then Victor remembered what Ana had told him. Timing. Before his brain could consider his options, he simply picked 2/4 time and counted 1-and-2-and as he stepped sideways to dodge, turned around, and swung his sword in the direction he assumed the other shadow would be. He heard an awful, high-pitched screech, which he was more sure was actually audible because his eyes could better comprehend what they saw: the face or mask of the shadow was melting and fracturing and dissipating into nothingness. He glanced at Otabek, who gave a small, approving smile.
Then he felt the presence of two more shadows—he had given up on trying to describe which of his senses noticed this presence—and he counted out his motions to the same beat.
1- Victor stepped forward, pulling his blade around,

-and- he turned around the ball of his foot, sword in two hands, moving like a pivot,

-2- the first shadow was caught off guard and he heard the screech as his blade carved a line across what might be called its chest,

-and- the second shadow tried to move out of the way but Victor moved fluidly forward out of his pivot and stabbed it where a human's heart would be. He stepped backward towards Otabek, smiling.

Victor had only let his eyes shut for a moment, barely a blink, when he felt an overpowering burning sensation across his shoulder. The fire in his chest returned with full force and with the hand that was not presently clasping his wound he swung his sword towards the shadow. He caught nothing but air with his blade. The wound was not bleeding, but festering with a void-like blackness darker than his clothes and darker than the darkness around them, and it seared like it had been pressed against a poker. Victor struggled to make himself focus as his eyes began to water and counted out loud through gritted teeth: "One, two-" he breathed out shakily, "One, two..." His sword missed the shadow each time, and he watched in what felt like slow motion as the shadow brought its blade down upon him-

A high scream filled Victor's ears as he saw the pale mask two inches from his nose begin collapsing in on itself. Otabek's spear made a popping noise like a cork from a bottle when he pulled it from the creature's side. Victor wiped his tear-filled eyes on the sleeve of his free arm.

"You alright?" Otabek said, in 3/4 time this time.

Stupid. I didn't change timing fast enough; that's why I was hit. Victor nodded.

"Touch your wound with your blade. It'll eliminate the shadow's curse."

Victor did as Otabek said and sighed with relief when the pain dissipated into what might normally be expected from a cut. He was brought back from his pain-free trance when he felt the presence of another shadow.

1-2-3- he focused on counting out his strike. The shadow's blade met his, and he pulled its blade off its striking pattern. He took that opening as an opportunity to leap forward, a longer distance than the shadow could move in time, and stab. -4-5-6. The noise that came from the dying shadow was all the satisfaction he needed.
"Victor," Otabek said, worry in his voice, still talking in 3/4 time, "there are far more coming than I expected. You have handled them well so far but I believe there may be even more.""I can handle it," Victor replied unthinkingly, readying his sword again. More than he expected? Why would there be more? What about me is speci- Victor turned towards Otabek. "Beka, I think they think I'm..." He made a hand gesture he felt signified Viktor pretty well—he held his free hand in half a heart shape over his mouth—but Otabek didn't seem to understand. When Victor figured that out, he tried to verbally clarify. "The other one."
This time Otabek did seem to get it, but it didn't ease any of his worry. Actually, unless Victor was misinterpreting, Otabek's face took on an expression of goddess help us. It was not reassuring.

"...Should we head back?" Victor asked. He didn't feel any more shadows approaching, which felt eerie. Had they gone to regroup? Was that even a thing the Shadow did?
Otabek's expression shifted between concern and consideration for a few moments before settling in determination. "No."
Victor was confused, but he didn't want to talk too much just in case more shadows showed up. He wasn't used to being anywhere near this on-edge. It was like the feeling of bobbling on a tightrope in front of a crowd, but all the time. He tried his hardest to pull his heart rate down to something resembling normal as he glanced around fervently; the next second, his vision whited out.

Victor sat on a stone on the opposite side of the fire from Viktor, sharpening one of his swords. It would only be half an hour till dawn; the stars were burning out every minute. Viktor and Yuuri were talking through their mysterious link, Viktor listening intently. Normally, Victor would be privy to these conversations, but this time Yuuri was saving his strength for the battle. Victor couldn't say he blamed him.

"What did he say?" Victor asked.

"The Shadow followers are going to walk on the ice and try to get me off pattern."

Nothing new then. Just kill all the bad guys. Been there, done that. "Then I guess I just have to kill them before they can get to you."
"Yuuri, will a sword even kill a Shadow warrior?" Viktor asked. Of course it will. It has a thousand times before. Victor was shocked even still at just how oblivious Viktor could be sometimes. "Is lux solis enough?"
That was only the second-highest solar enchantment in the universe, and Viktor should know that, because he enchanted the blades himself. For a moment, Victor couldn't figure out why Viktor was suddenly doubting everything, and then he realized: he was nervous. Victor couldn't say he blamed him, either.

"I will. I love you, too," Viktor said.

Victor spent the next half hour of darkness sitting by the fire, considering all the battles he'd had with the shadows so far. Contemplating strategy and moves and timing. Occasionally, he would pull out his sword and sketch battle strategies in the dirt with it. Before he knew it, dawn was breaking. The shadows were here.

Victor gritted his teeth and readied his swords the moment he saw their ugly, distorted, pale masks. He knew Viktor was terrified, so he had to act fast. He leapt up onto the stone he'd been sitting on, one sword over his head and the other in front of his chest, and yelled a battle cry.
Victor staggered backward, dazed. What the hell was that? he thought. But somehow, the sweat was gone from his brow, his heart had settled, his mind could think clearly. More importantly, perhaps, the fire had returned to his veins. He narrowed his eyes.
The shadows were here. At least a score of them, maybe more. Their swords seemed to be forged from the night itself. The darkness gleamed off the razor-sharp edges of their blades like sunlight off metal. And these ones didn't move at a normal pace, either. They seemed to teleport, melding in and out of the black. Their grotesque forms and movements became even more horrifying when they moved five meters closer with each blink. But Victor was no longer afraid.

He counted out 4/4 time and swing-kicked his way toward the shadows. The vision had felt so real, but so distant, and it had the same sense of intuitive correctness as a farmer's knowledge that it would rain tomorrow.
He cut down the first shadow in one blow and kicked the second back when it lunged at him from behind, pivoting off the ball of his foot. He waited for another full beat, defensive, and then struck on it. After that, he didn’t even bother to put his left foot down, he leapt back off his right to roundhouse kick the next shadow through what might have been its shoulder or neck. It toppled unceremoniously to the ground and Victor stabbed through its midsection before it could stand back up.
The next shadow came at him faster than he'd expected, so without enough time to spin around and raise his sword Victor lifted his boot up into the air, legs in a full split. The unsuspecting shadow's weapon was caught in the divot behind the heel of his boot, and Victor brought his leg around in a half-fly so the weapon was yanked from the shadow's hand-appendage. It made a dull thud against the hard frozen earth. Victor then got the opportunity to cut the shadow down, and it fell to the ground with a scream.

He turned to look at Otabek... but couldn't see him. The blackness was absolute, save for his own green blade. Another shadow was coming and he barely had time to react. He switched into 6/4 and continued to fight, but he nevertheless started to get scared. Where is he? Victor thought. He was here just a minute ago, I should see his spear at least...

In that moment, as he killed two shadows in a single spinning strike, Victor saw a flash of blue in the black. It felt like his heart had restarted. A figure moved towards him at a normal, though quite fast, human pace, the glint of blue which reflected through the black coming from somewhere nearby. But then Victor realized that the figure was much too large to be Otabek.

Sky made their way through the throng of shadows, fighting and running at the same time. When the shadows moved too close, they kicked one and grabbed the heads of two others and smashed their foreheads together hard enough to split their masks down the middle. The screams of the dying shadows ran together, becoming one loud shrill sound that seemed to fluctuate in intensity as Victor’s ears tried desperately to tune it out. Sky arrived at Victor's side carrying two swords that glowed the same deep blue as their eyes. That had been the blue he'd seen. Victor felt his heart sink.
"Where is Otabek," Sky said. Their voice lost all its warmth; their eyes, previously pools of sky-blue water, had frozen into chips of ice."I don't know," Victor admitted. His voice was small and fragile.
"I'll look for him. You can hold your own." Face still stone, Sky gave a thumbs-up over their shoulder before disappearing into the blackness in front of Victor.

The dark was disorienting; Victor couldn't see where he'd come or where he was going, he didn't have any idea whether he was going in circles, moving closer to Kamyinsk, or farther away. He saw no hint of the magenta barrier, and after a few more dead shadows, he no longer could orient himself well enough to remember from which direction Sky had come. His ears couldn't perceive anything more than the horrible screeches, his body couldn't understand anything more than the exhaustion that crept forth with every move he forced it to make.

Then the glint of blue came out of the dark, stronger this time, from the corner of his eye. He spun towards it as soon as he had an opening wide enough, and he saw a figure even larger than Sky. No wait, not one figure; two. One over the other's shoulder. Sky was carrying Otabek, fighting all the way with their one free hand and their feet. As soon as they got within earshot of Victor, they shouted, "Follow me back to the city!" If their eyes were ice before, now they were blue flames. Victor followed them, grabbing Otabek's spear from Sky.
The magenta barrier was closer than he'd thought, its light was simply swallowed up by the intrusive blackness until they were only a few meters from it. Victor sliced it open and they rushed inside. The shadows couldn't follow, but Victor couldn't make his ears ignore the harsh banging the barrier made as they beat against it. It took all his strength not to look back at their grotesque masked forms.
Sky didn't collapse and lay Otabek on the snow like they might have if this were some story. Instead, they continued to carry him through the city, leaping onto the ice and skating as fast as they could. Victor was surprised that even with Otabek draped unconscious over their shoulder, their speed still rivaled his own.

The closest hospital was on the corner between the southern and western wings, and Sky entered the building quickly, practically leaping through the doorway as Victor followed.

The doctor, a short Korean man with straight black hair and a perpetual frown, helped Sky lay Otabek out on a stretcher, which he wheeled down a hall and into an empty white room. This was the first time Victor had been able to see Otabek's wound in the light, and it forced his heart into his throat. Below Otabek's ribs on his left side there was a festering mass of void, its edges mixed with blood and dripping in thick, viscous streams down his side, staining the white parchment on the stretcher. When a shadow blade had merely grazed Victor's shoulder he was in more pain than he'd ever been in his life; he was on some level glad that Otabek was unconscious.

Immediately the doctor motioned for a nurse and they both pulled white wands from their medical gowns as another nurse brought over a tube with a needle on one end and a clear bag full of what looked like blood attached to a pole on the other, sticking the needle into the crook of Otabek's elbow.

The doctor and nurse cast an intricate-looking spell together, drawing arcane lines in the air which appeared yellow to Victor's eyes. The sigil, once complete, flipped horizontal, shrunk, and fell into Otabek's wound. In an instant the void was gone, and there was only a gash seeping blood. It was still sickeningly large.
The doctor seemed to consider for a moment, knuckle of his index finger pressed under his lip. He said something, but Victor didn't hear it. Had his ears stopped working properly after all that high-pitched screaming from the shadows? Or was he just dazed? The nurse that had previously stuck Otabek with the needle was now handing the doctor various instruments. The first one looked somewhat like a wand, but with an awkward-looking thing on the handle. The doctor was studying a white box in front of him intently as the nurse stuck the wand end inside Otabek's wound.
Victor watched them as they worked, between horrified and mesmerized. If a dancer broke his foot in the circus, a splint was the best anybody could do. But as the doctor checked various things and as the nurses hooked him up to more and more little beeping and whirring machines, Victor began to have a little hope that Otabek would be alright.

He was soon ushered from the room, by which nurse he didn’t notice, and into the front lobby. Sky was already sitting in a chair in the corner, and Victor sat next to them, staring at his shoes.

"He's gonna be okay," Sky said. "Dr. Lee is excellent, he knows what he's doing. I've been here before. Otabek's been here before, though not for Shadow wounds."

Victor's mind was blank, his mouth devoid of words. He stared at the drops of blood and void scattered across the wooden floor where Sky had carried Otabek in. He glanced at Sky and saw the long red-black stain smeared down the front of their grey uniform. They saw him staring and said, "Shame I'll have to get a new uniform now, huh."

Victor chuckled dryly. He hoped Sky was right about what they said, that Otabek would be fine.  He hoped it with every part of his soul.
The sun rose and Ana came in, sitting in the waiting room beside Victor. They talked for a few minutes before falling into the same silence that had enveloped the room for the previous hours. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Lee walked out. "Mr. Altin is going to be fine. He is on intravenous fluids for the next few hours while the spells complete the removal of the Shadow curse, but after that he should be fine." Victor didn't figure the doctor to be older than Viktor, in fact he looked younger, but he had crow's feet and frown lines and an expression as if he were fifty.
"When will he be back on his feet?" Ana asked.

"In all likelihood, three days. A week at the most." The doctor straightened his mussed, thin bangs.

I'll be gone by then. It wouldn’t make sense to stay, and Viktor knows it. We are on a clock. Victor's limbs tensed, he balled his fists. He wanted to stay with Otabek. He wanted Otabek to come with him. And now neither of those could happen. And it was all because Otabek had been a damn idiot and cared about him. Why should anybody, especially someone like Otabek, care about Victor?

A nurse came down the hallway. "Mr. Altin is asking to see you," he said.

Victor raised a hand to his chest and lifted his eyebrows. Me? Why does he want to see me?

The nurse nodded, and Victor stood, dumbfounded. Victor followed him down a different hall than before, to a smaller but nicer-looking room. This one at least had some color, with an accent wall of washed-out blue and light-colored wood baseboards. Otabek lay on the bed in the center, shirtless, two tubes covered over with gauze and white tape sticking out of his left arm. His wound was sewn shut with dozens of little black stitches. His eyes were weary, but they lit up when Victor hesitantly entered the room.

"Hello, Victor."

"Hey, Beka... Are you okay? You-"

"I'm fine, Victor. Even better now you're here."

Victor smiled, blushed, averted his eyes from Otabek's gaze. "Dr. Lee said you'd be out in three days."

Not quite all the happiness in Otabek's tone vanished, but a good portion of it did. "Yes."

Victor dragged his gaze back to Otabek. "Can you try to get better faster so you can leave with me?" He hoped against hope that by some medicine or magic the answer would be yes.

"Can you stay longer here, putting the fate of the whole nation on hold until I can accompany you?"

"No..."

"My answer is the same."

Victor was silent for a time. He sat down in the wooden chair beside Otabek's bed, cradling his face in his hands. His hair fell over his right eye. He stared at the silvery strands, and hated them. He reached up, not sure what he intended but fueled by fierce passion and hatred, when Otabek grabbed his hand.

"I will be there for you, regardless of whether I am able to stand by your side. When you complete your fated mission, I will be here. I would deny anyone else my loyalty. You have my soul, Victor, and you should know as well as I do, that such a bond cannot be broken by mere distance."

Victor could hardly process what he had just been told. He found his eyes widening, his lips parting as his lungs filled shakily, without his mind having a say in any of it. Before he knew it, tears spilled over his lashes. A few drops at first, then so many as to carve rivers into his hot cheeks. His chest was racked with silent sobs, breath catching in his throat.

Otabek brushed his hair from his face, shifting slightly in his bed with a wince. He looked mesmerized, tracing his thumb up Victor's wet cheek.

"What are- you doing," Victor half-snapped, half-sobbed.
"I've never thought... you would cry," Otabek said quietly.
Victor snarled, baring his teeth; he shook his head to force Otabek's hand away from him, and strands of the thick silver hair that whipped around his head stuck to his damp face. Tears ran into the corners of his mouth as he shouted, "I'm mad, okay?! What do you expect me to do?!"

Otabek didn't seem to have a response to that. He let his hand hang in midair. His expression mumbled an apology, but his mouth said nothing. He held his hand there for a moment, then let it fall forlornly to his side.

After a long minute Victor’s tears began to dry. The rage had poured itself out through his eyes, and left him exhausted. He didn’t know what to do.

What do you want to do? Otabek’s voice echoed in his mind.
Victor reached out abruptly, grabbed Otabek’s hand and squeezed it hard. Otabek seemed surprised - then took Victor’s hand in both of his own and squeezed even harder. His gaze was fierce - and Victor matched it, eyes burning, threatening to tear up again. Then he leaned over - movement brittle as his tired muscles ached - and pressed his lips to Otabek’s knuckles.
"I’m sorry, Beka," he said, reaching up to lay his free hand on the other man’s arm, gripping the muscle there, "this is my fault." He felt his own breath, hot across Otabek’s hands. "I was an idiot. I let you stay out after we knew it would be harder than we expected. I didn’t stay by your side. I didn’t protect you."

"If that ever happened again," Victor said between kisses planted across Otabek’s hands and up his forearms, "I would fight to my last breath before I let them hurt you." He never opened his eyes more than a crack, hardly enough to see anything beyond his tears and silver lashes, but he didn’t need to. "I know you’re going to say something like 'but you’re new to this, I should have protected you', and I see the logic. I just refute it outright."

He looked up, expecting a response, and found Otabek shaken: eyes wide and bright, shoulders shaking slightly, skin hot and flushed. Victor found Otabek's hands in his hair, tugging him into a kiss. He smiled into it, raking his hands through Otabek’s hair, pulling him closer. In a minute they broke away, gasping. Otabek's blush ran down his face and neck, fading at his chest. It was beautiful and he was beautiful.

He tucked Victor's hair behind his ear, speaking quietly, "I wouldn't take you for the type to fall in love so fast."

Victor rolled his eyes, and kissed him again.

Outside the window, the golden hours of daybreak faded into the simple yellow of the morning sun.
  
Bridges burning, broken on different sides

We start anew

Being chased by monsters to face head-on

Or be consumed

Reaching out for something, grasping onto

Nothing to lose

Payback’s left too long unpaid, but today

Today we’ve got to

Cast the shadows out from sight

A final stand, a shouting cry

All the wrong’s now turned to right

So fight the past, take back the night
 
- Take Back the Night, Jordan Maron & Igor Gordienko

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

After his emotional performance to On My Love, Sara had insisted on taking Viktor back home and getting him changed. He’d put on a pair of dark blue slacks and a grey sweater, then left again with Phichit to visit the royal lab. While they skated to the southern end of the city, to the royal lab, Viktor tried to explain what had happened that morning.

"So the royal family set up a bunch of artificial ice sheets and rigged them so the Prince could see them through a magical eye on an invisible door?"

"Well, 'a bunch' is sixteen, but yes."
"And you and the Prince are in love."
Viktor's mouth formed a heart as he exclaimed "Yes!"

Phichit's eyes widened, eyebrows raised. "Jeez."

Viktor did a fidgety twizzle and skated a circle around Phichit. He thought he had drained all his energy with that program, but it turned out that after a half hour's rest, it came flooding back. If he weren't on skates, he'd be bouncing on his heels.

"So how do you two even communicate?"

"Oh! I have these little glowing balls called soul orbs. I don't really know what they do, but it has something to do with magic and life-force. I can talk to Yuuri with them and they also emit enough light to keep the Shadow away, so I can be safe by myself at night."

"Life-force magic?! That's the riskiest kind of magic in the world! If you use it wrong, it can kill you! And you two use it like a damn cell phone?!"

A single drop of sweat ran down Viktor's temple. "What's a cell phone," he said quietly.
Phichit pulled a little metal rectangle from his jacket pocket. "This. You can use it to contact people from far away if both people have one."
"But Yuuri doesn't."
"Point. But you still shouldn't be using his life-force."
"He's already using it to fight the Shadow, talking to me has to be a rounding error compared to that."

"Look dude, I don't even know how he does that. A single human's life force shouldn't be able to do even a tiny fraction of the crap the Prince pulls off, and it's been a scientific mystery for centuries how he does it. But... I guess you make a good point. Though I still wanna see that soul orb of yours, I might be able to make some modifications to make it more efficient and less potentially deadly; the tech is five hundred years old after all."

"That sounds like a good plan."

Phichit and Viktor approached the royal lab. It was halfway down the main southern road, off to the right. The building was gigantic, made of metal and glass, constructed like a massive brick turned on its end and towering over the other similar buildings that surrounded it.

There was a small lobby with chairs and small corner tables, a presently-empty reception desk, and a set of glass doors. Phichit fetched a small white card from his pocket, stuck it into a slot in the door, and pulled the door open after a little light on the slot lit up green. He gestured for Viktor to go in first.

In the next room, there was a rack along the wall with white coats, helmets, and bracelets. Phichit fetched one of each for both of them.

"What's the bracelet for?"

"Protects you from arcane discharge." Phichit led him along a path that was painted orange on the floor past large machines making peculiar mechanical noises and into another room toward the opposite end of the lab. The room Viktor was led into was smaller, had less equipment, but still contained a plethora of devices and machines on tables around the room. There was a wooden desk at the far end with stacks of papers arranged neatly on it, and three large whiteboards along the nearest wall. The closest diagram was the most complicated, with hundreds of boxes and lines and circles and arrows. Phichit removed his helmet and set it on a shelf against the wall; Viktor followed suit.

"This is my private lab. I mainly specialize in magic, that's what I'm schooled in, but because I'm the head scientist I do some of everything." Phichit beamed from behind a table covered with instruments.

"I have a lot of questions."

"Okay, well since you don't know much, I'll start from scratch." Phichit seemed to appreciate the opportunity to ramble. "First, general world stuff. Everything in the world is made from some tiny little things called atoms, far too small for you to see. Different materials are made up of different kinds of atoms arranged in different ways: for example, lead and diamond are both made of the atom carbon, but arranged differently. There are two main categories of atoms, depending on whether a certain kind of elementary particle—that’s a piece of an atom—is present in its composition. That particle is called a magica, and it is totally unlike any other kind of elementary particle. Quarks, photons, bosons, whatever, are all quanta of fields. Magica are freaking weird, their fields don't have quanta and wave-particle duality doesn't exist-"

"You lost me at quanta of fields."

Phichit laughed. "Sorry. Basically magic is separate from normal stuff on a fundamental level, and it has to do with the fact that magic links sentient brains, like humans, to magical objects."

"Okay. You found me again. What makes magical objects-"

"Magical? Simple. They have an incredibly regular crystal structure. The way their atoms are linked together makes simple shapes. Examples of highly magical things include ice, diamond, certain metals, and recent inventions like carbon nanotubes and graphene."

"Uh..."

"Those last two are made by manipulating carbon—that’s the thing that makes lead and diamonds—at the atomic level to create a perfect lattice of hexagons. Nanotubes are tiny little straws made of carbon hexagons, and graphene is a flat sheet made of them."

"I believe I understand. Somewhat. You said ice was magical, does that mean-"

"The 'trials' you talked about were much easier to create because they used ice."

"And the reason the Veil is an ice sheet is because ice is magical!" Viktor thought he might be getting the hang of all this science stuff.

"Yeah, you’re getting it! Oh, and about the Veil and the Shadow. See, every thing in the universe has an anti-thing. Whenever a thing and an anti-thing collide, they explode with tremendous force. The two are equal and opposite, but for some reason there's way more matter - that’s a fancy word for stuff - than antimatter, nobody knows why. The only exception is magical stuff. There is an equal amount of magic as anti-magic, and the anti-magic things are commonly called the Shadow."

"Uh, then how does the Veil work? Didn't you say things and anti-things explode when they collide?"

"The exception is magic. Again. Magic is weird. Magic and anti-magic both try to sort of... swallow each other. The Veil is very powerful magic that swallows anti-magic, and the Shadow as we all commonly know it is very powerful anti-magic that swallows magic, including humans. All humans are inherently magical because of some neuroscience stuff I won't get into."

Viktor pressed his fingers to his temples and leaned over to rest his elbows on the nearest table. He started to think he might not be getting the hang of this science stuff. "Neuro...science?"

Phichit pointed at his head. "Brains. Basically, magic is attracted to brains, specifically sentient ones." He walked over to Viktor and patted his back. "Sorry, this is a lot. You wanna give me one of your soul orbs and I can take a look? There's a chair over there." He gestured to the chair behind the desk in the corner of the room.

Viktor handed Phichit his favorite soul orb, the blue one he'd gotten first, and made his way to the chair. He sat down, cradling his head in his hands. The world was a lot more complex than he'd been brought up thinking it was. And then Viktor thought—of course he did, because every thought of Viktor's somehow makes its way back to Yuuri—Does Yuuri know about all this stuff? Phichit said the soul orbs were outdated, but Yuuri would have to know at least some of this to make those and the trials in the first place. Phichit should be talking to Yuuri instead of me. He'd understand. And I think they'd be great friends.

Viktor looked up with a new smile on his face, watching Phichit do something to the soul orb. He had a black wand in one hand and what looked like a small knife in the other, and he was carving the orb along the swirling blue patterns. When he'd been at it for a little while, he stopped to grab a pair of darkened glasses from the desk. He urged Viktor to put some on, too, or to look away. Viktor put on the glasses.

It only took another few small cuts with his blade for Phichit to pull the black casing from what Viktor soon found was a much smaller orb of pure blue light. He only looked into it for a moment before his vision whited out entirely.

What had just happened? Where was he? Viktor was sitting cross-legged on a surprisingly comfortable floor in front of Yuuri, who looked even more surprised than he was.

Below an olive green robe tied loosely around his waist, Yuuri was gently muscular with prevalent collarbones and sculpted shoulders. He had truly impressive thighs Viktor had to try too hard not to stare at, and his calves and feet were bruised and scarred just like Viktor's from years of skating.

"V-Vitya? How are you here...?" Yuuri whispered, leaning forward onto his knees. He reached the arm that wasn't supporting his weight out to touch Viktor's cheek. His hand was warm, and Viktor leaned into it.

"I don't know," he said, mirroring Yuuri’s movements. "Phichit took apart one of my soul orbs, he said he would make it more efficient. I don't think he meant to-"

Yuuri's face already showed understanding, and he sat back down. "He took off the black shell, didn't he." It wasn't a question; Yuuri knew he was right. Viktor simply affirmed his lover's statement with a nod.

"Thought so," Yuuri said, smirking. Why was Yuuri so hot when he smirked?

"How long do I have with you?" Viktor said, crawling over on his hands and knees and probably looking pretty desperate as he did it. He nearly tripped himself over the baggy green robe he was wearing now for some reason. Probably because it matched the one Yuuri wore, and this was probably Yuuri's mind, or at least a space he controlled.

"Not long, probably... a minute or two tops. Assuming—Phichit you said?—doesn’t freak out and replace the covering."

"You did this once while I was in the middle of a triple flip. I think a minute or two in Yuuri's-mind-space is about half a second of real life, probably less."

"Oh. I hadn't known the exact coefficient, but that makes sense."

Viktor moved even closer to Yuuri than he already was, and decided to straddle his lover's crossed legs to hold him as tightly as possible. "Why can't we do this more often," he murmured into Yuuri's hair. He felt Yuuri's arms around him, fingers trailing up and down his back underneath his robe.

Yuuri's response was muffled by Viktor's robes. "Um... because it would drain too much of my life-force... and I would probably die. Which would be bad for a number of reasons, uh, the least of which being you would be sad."

Viktor pushed Yuuri just far enough away from him to see him clearly; his eyes teared up a little, brows creasing. "I would be more than sad, Yuuri, I would be devastated! I can wait to see you again until I save the world..." Being honest, he really did not actually want to do that, but given the alternatives he didn’t have a lot of a choice. "But..."

"But?" Yuuri asked. His voice was becoming slightly quieter and Viktor knew their time was running out. Their surroundings were turning to white around them.

"May I kiss you again?"

Yuuri's lips pressed against his in lieu of forming a response. Viktor squeezed Yuuri tighter as they kissed, dragging his tongue along Yuuri's lower lip and feeling his lover shudder in response. When Viktor ran out of breath—it was somehow always him; Yuuri had such brilliant endurance—he gasped against Yuuri's neck and relished in his last few moments in Yuuri's embrace before he faded back into reality.

When Viktor came to, he was leaning forward in Phichit's chair against his hand. His eyes refused to focus for a short while, but he felt something wet run down his chin. Startled and a bit embarrassed, he sat up and wiped the drool with the back of the hand he'd been leaning against. Yuuri, why do you taste so good...
He looked up once his eyes decided to focus properly to see Phichit putting the finishing touches on the black casing, fortunately not looking at Viktor at all, and replacing the orb to its home in the center.

Phichit walked over to Viktor, soul orb in hand, a moment later. "There! Good as new. Well, better than new actually. Modernized." He held it out with a smile and Viktor took it, staring at its radiant blue light.

Viktor questioned briefly whether he should tell Phichit about what had just happened, and decided he would simply spare the details. "Hey, Phichit? When you took the black case off the orb, something weird happened. I was in a fancy room with Yuuri. Sort of like I was during my program, except I saw a lot more of what was around us. Is that..." Viktor looked up to Phichit, who was staring wide-eyed. "What?"

"Dude, you were in his head?!"

"I suppose so? I wanted to ask you whether that was the case."

"Yeah!" Phichit began pacing back and forth, hands running through his black hair. "Theoretically that sort of thing is possible by linking two peoples' life-forces, but it's never been done because one, life-force is far too risky, but two and more importantly, no two people have been so perfectly matched that their life-forces are that compatible! Amazing! And you say you've talked to him twice."

Viktor held up three fingers. "Thrice, including this time." He didn't figure that one time he met Yuuri just long enough to kiss him counted.

"You two have to be soulmates."

"I didn't think that was anything more than a fairy tale."

"It is, mostly. People aren't born with soul marks or anything, that sort of thing is a fairy tale. But what you two have done... it makes you as close to soulmates as you can get in real life. And that is honestly awesome."

"I've never heard anything in the legends about the Prince falling for the hero."

Phichit shrugged. "Neither have I, but that doesn't mean they don't say anything about it. The legends have all been fragmented over the centuries and honestly, don't try to live your life by them." Viktor thought he sounded like some combination of Yurio and Yakov. "Why haven't you asked Yuuri about the legends? Presumably he knows all about the legends as they were originally given by the oracles."

Why didn't I think of that? "I don't know."

"It's cuz you were too busy making out," Phichit said, teasingly.

Viktor decided to change the subject. "Hey Phichit? May I get a tour of this facility? I would appreciate a more detailed understanding of what you all do."

"Absolutely, but you probably won't get most of it. I'm pretty bad at explaining things, if you haven’t already noticed. I could give you some books to read for when you continue your great quest, if you like."

Viktor nodded. "That sounds brilliant. And for the record, you're fine at explaining things. I'm just not that smart, at least not as it comes to this. I have been told I'm a genius in a skating context... but I'm not sure I believe Yurio about that."

"I can attest to your skating genius, Vik. That performance was like nothing I've ever seen. I would say it was enough to make a grown man cry, but you already know that." Phichit winked. "Seriously, that was the best choreography I've seen in my life, and the presentation was masterful."
"Thank you, Phichit, I'm flattered."
"And I'm sure Yuuri's impressed with your skating, too."

Viktor thought of Yuuri's words immediately after he finished his recent skate. You were wonderful, Vitya. I just wanted to surprise you as much as you've surprised me. That was the only thing I could think of. He thought of the way Yuuri had looked at him when they'd met in his mind-scape a few minutes ago. "I hope so."

Phichit smiled at Viktor and then walked along the back wall to the other side, which Viktor saw contained a decent number of bookshelves. He saw Phichit start pulling books off the shelf by the armful, and he only walked back over when the stack got so tall he couldn't see over it anymore.

"Phichit, this is far too nice of you. But those are your books, and besides, where will I put them?"

Phichit smirked, held up one finger, and rushed out of the room, leaving Viktor in silence. Viktor looked up at the top of the huge stack. It was an introductory book on neuroscience. Viktor picked it up and began reading.

He didn't even realize that Phichit had gotten back until the scientist dropped a bag in his lap. Viktor looked up and saw all the books were gone from the desk. Before Viktor could ask about them, Phichit pointed at the bag. "This bag is a semi-spacial gateway, like a smaller version of those rooms behind the doors at your trials. It stretches spacetime and puts a little pocket in it where you can store stuff. Your books are in there."

Viktor pulled the fastener down the drawstring and pulled the top of the bag open. Fully opened, the rim was large enough to fit books in and out of. He put the book he had been reading into the pack, and pulled it out, not feeling the weight of the bag change meaningfully. "This is amazing, Phichit. Thank you, I really appreciate it."

"Hey, no problem! Always happy to be of service to the hero of legend." Phichit gave a thumbs-up. "So, you still want that tour? After that we can go to lunch, if you want."

"That sounds brilliant."
Viktor signed quite a number of autographs for Phichit's various lab assistants and coworkers as they toured the lab. As a side benefit, Viktor also saw how plastics were made, how spells were invented, and how their research was conducted. He’d been completely right that he didn’t get most of it, but that was alright.The place they ended up going for lunch afterwards was small and a little kitschy. There were six-pointed stars all over the place, an odd eight-branched candle holder, and a lot of little tchotchkes, mostly colored blue and silver.
Either the silverware was real silver, or a very impressive forgery.

Viktor looked over the menu. A dark-haired, olive-skinned waitress came over to take their drink orders, but dropped her pad when she looked at Viktor after taking Phichit's order. He smiled at her, giving a small wave. She looked like she was about to faint and she practically choked out the words "And- wh-what will y-you have, s-sir?"

"Just water, thank you." He made sure to pour some extra sweetness into the thank you.

"How do you always do that to people?" Phichit asked, lowering his menu to meet Viktor's gaze.

Viktor lowered his menu in response. "Do what?"

"You're so damn charming, but you act like other people charm you. I don't understand how or why you're so likable."

Viktor did a little sheepish shrug. "Other people do charm me. I remember when I was younger, it used to be almost entirely a facade I employed to make people like me." Viktor chuckled and straightened his fringe. "By younger, I really mean a year or so ago. But I suppose I've realized recently that there's love everywhere, and all I'm doing is returning it." He smiled down at his menu, vision doubling as he stared into space.

Phichit, however, didn't seem amused. "This is all because of Yuuri, isn't it." He rested his cheek on a loosely balled fist, tugging his mouth into a bemused frown.

Viktor nodded. "I had love around me all my life, but Yuuri helped me realize it. I had lovers before, but I was always so selfish..." Viktor fought the impulse to bury his face in his hands, simply raking his fingers through his hair. "I played them like fiddles and cast them aside when I got bored."

"Wow. Harsh."
"I was used to everybody worshipping me, mostly just because I was in one of those specific places where everything that people around me did lined up perfectly with the small handful of things I’m really good at. I’m good at fishing and figure skating. I come from a town that fishes and figure skates. That on top of all the 'legendary hero' stuff floating around... To a lot of people, I seemed like Goddess’s gift to man, and because of that, I got anybody I wanted. It spoiled me." Viktor shook his head. "When I first met Yuuri, I immediately thought, this one is way out of my league. He was the first lover I ever felt I wanted to prove myself to. I was terrified. He sounded as if he loved me too and I couldn't accept it even though the signs were there. Yuuri... had to tell me explicitly that he loved me before I believed him."
Phichit was sniggering by now.
"What?" Viktor asked.
"You're such a sap. Go on."
Viktor went back to staring lovingly at the tablecloth. "I didn't realize it until recently, until we talked last night, that Yuuri seems to think I'm way out of his league, too. He thinks he's not doing anything special. All I want to do is reassure him that he is."
Viktor looked up. The drinks had come while he was reminiscing but the waitress had kindly let him finish; he wondered what part of his sappy monologue she had heard. Phichit was in the middle of taking a long sip of something pink and fruity-looking. When he finished, he looked to Viktor and said, "Sounds like a good life. Find someone way out of your league who also thinks you're way out of their league and live in perfect confused harmony with a dog."

Viktor sipped his water. Either it was very cold or his face was hot; the truth was probably some combination of both. "I do have to save the world first."

"Excuse me?" said a voice from the end of the table. Viktor looked up; a different waitress had come to check on them. "I didn't want to interrupt, but I felt I should ask whether you two were ready to order."

"I am," Phichit said, "but I think he's been too busy telling me about his boyfriend to think about what he wants."

The waitress nodded knowingly and walked off with a noncommital "kay, your waitress will be back in a bit" while Viktor buried his face in his hands. Peeking at Phichit through a hole between his fingers, he mumbled, "Why do you love to tease me?"

Phichit laughed. "It's so easy! I mention Yuuri one time and you melt into a heart-shaped puddle."
"Have you never had a lover?" Viktor brought his hands down from his face and crossed them on the table in front of him as he looked over his menu. There were a lot of oddly-named dishes and even with lists of ingredients Viktor had a difficult time figuring out which he would like. What exactly is matzo, and how do balls of it taste in soup?
"Never one I was quite that head-over-skates for after talking to them twice."

"Thrice," Viktor mumbled as he tried to decide between latkas and tsimmis.

"Whatever. What do you even know about him besides 'he's kept the world from disappearing for the past five centuries'?"

"He's absolutely beautiful, kind to everyone but himself, loves skating, made the trials himself, has the whole country's landscape memorized, and he's just so..."

"Perfect?"

Viktor shook his head. "Amazing. Inspiring. He's not perfect. But he does his best to help his country and to help me and I think that's more important than being perfect. And... Yuuri's been doing this longer than either of us have been alive, and since he's been the proverbial pillar which holds our world in place, it's so easy to just think of him as a natural force, like gravity, that will continue to do what it does regardless, as opposed to a person with flaws and struggles of his own, fighting a constant battle." Viktor looked up at Phichit. "I'm ready to order now."

As Phichit looked around to try to wave down their waitress, he said, "You two really were made for each other. Never thought I would see a prophecy play out so perfectly right in front of my eyes."

The first waitress walked back over and took their orders. Phichit ordered the matzo ball soup, and Viktor made a mental note to ask him for a bite. Viktor ordered the tsimmis, which he figured was sort of like a pot roast. The waitress still stammered a little when she spoke to Viktor directly.

"We're through talking about me and Yuuri," Viktor said deliberately once the waitress walked off to the kitchen. "I want to hear about you. What was it like growing up in this city? When did you decide to be a scientist?"

"I'm not sure what to say about growing up here, because I don't have a frame of reference for growing up anywhere else. Why I decided to be a scientist? When I was a kid, I learned in school that the rest of the nation was in a sort of dark ages. My friend and schoolmate, Seung-gil Lee, was infuriated by that... he wanted to help everyone else. Honestly, I did too; I was just less angry about it. All the grownups said no, it was impossible, the Shadow was too powerful for us. They kept telling us that even when we developed great proficiencies in magic. Soon enough, we learned for ourselves that they were right. After a brief period of existential crises and feeling helpless, we took paths to try and achieve our goals of helping people, if only within this city. I became a scientist and he became a doctor—well, at the beginning, I was a lab assistant and he was a nurse. We tried to ignore the happenings outside our literal sphere, because we knew by then that we couldn't change them."

Viktor stared at the candles burning in one of the eight-branched holders, letting the orange of the flames blur in his vision, letting the background fade into a sea of brown. He had never quite fully realized the depth of the sorrow that consumed the nation. Everyone else grew up in this terrible world too, but they had no clue how to change it. They only knew that someone else was going to do it.

"You can stop staring off into the distance," Phichit said wryly.
Viktor looked back toward Phichit, though not directly at him. He stared at his reflection in his water glass, at the loose silver hair that fell over his left eye. "Sorry."
"I just need to know you're still paying attention."

"No need to involve yourself in my existential crises?"
"Nah, I have enough existential crisis material myself." Phichit laughed.
"I understand."
The waitress returned a moment later, carrying their food on a platter. "A plate of tsimmis for the, uh, living legend, and a bowl of matzo ball soup for the head scientist. Enjoy." Instead of walking off, she turned to Viktor and pulled out a pad of paper similar to the one she had taken their orders on. "And, um, would you mind... signing this?""Not at all," Viktor replied with his kindest smile. "Would you happen to have a pen?"
"Oh! Yes. Sorry."

"Not a problem. And what is your name?"

"Gavriella, why?"

Viktor wrote—in Common, because he didn't happen to know this lady's native tongue—a short message:

Ms. Gavriella –

It is apparent that you have no trouble seeing the light in others. I pray you never fail to also see the light in yourself.

Viktor Nikiforov

When he returned her pad and she read his message, she raised a hand to cover her mouth. "Thank you," she whispered through her fingers.

Viktor smiled and picked up his fork. "Thank you."
Gavriella stumbled away, clutching the pad to her chest. Phichit looked impressed over his bowl of soup. "What did you write?" he asked."Well... she seemed to me like the sort of person who thinks too greatly of others and too little of herself. I wrote her something reminding her to see the light in herself as well as in others." Viktor shrugged and started to pull the stringy meat on his plate apart with the tines of his fork."Vik, you are too damn nice. I kinda cringe when you gush over Yuuri, I'm glad he made you such a nice person."
Viktor couldn't find a way to tell Phichit that he'd always been nice to his fans, so he just ate his glorified pot roast. It was actually much better than any pot roast he'd ever had; it had prunes and carrots in it, the meat was incredibly tender and juicy, and there was some kind of a sauce, it tasted just like the meat and it was perfect for dipping the prunes and carrots in. After a few bites he looked at Phichit, who was working on dividing his matzo balls into little bite-sized portions which could fit on his spoon and leave room for an ample amount of broth. Apparently, matzo balls were round pock-marked spheres of doughy stuff that looked kind of like bread taken out of the oven far too early.

"Phichit, may I try some of that?"

"Sure." He put a chunk of matzo ball on his spoon with some broth and handed it to Viktor, who leaned across the table to eat it. Viktor found that the matzo absorbed the flavor of the chicken broth but added a soft, spongey texture.

"You were supposed to take the spoon," Phichit said, but Viktor was too busy loving the taste of this soup to notice.

"This is amazing! Phichit, is everything at this place so good?"

"Yeah, actually. That's why I brought you here. This was one of the places Seung-gil and I used to go when we were in school. He doesn't have a lot of time to do much with me anymore, but sometimes we still go."

"I wouldn't imagine you have a lot of free time either."
"More than he does." Phichit's silver spoon clinked against the porcelain bowl as he stared into it, fidgeting with his soup.
"I'll eat that if you don't want it," Viktor offered sarcastically.

"No way. My soup. Eat your tsimmis." Phichit wrapped an arm protectively around his bowl. He was smiling again.

Viktor raised his hands in surrender. "I am!"

"Good." Phichit chuckled. "Sorry for being a downer. You make me miss him."

Viktor pointed accusingly at Phichit and said, "You make me miss Yuuri, but then when I talk about him you call me a sap."

Phichit looked taken aback and gestured with his spoon. He retorted, "You've never even met Yuuri! Seung-gil and I grew up together!"

"I have too met him! And besides, that comparison makes it sound like you two are an item."

"Who says we aren’t?" Phichit playfully raised an eyebrow.

Viktor did his best I just heard the best gossip gasp, fingers over his lips. "No!"

"No. We aren't. He's attractive enough, certainly a nice person, but he never cared enough to pursue a relationship with anyone, so I'm not about to initiate."
"That's probably smart. My life story seems somewhat like a bard’s romance story—I suppose in a lot of ways it is, sometimes even I don't believe all this is really happening. But I don't presume anyone else should attempt to find a lover the way I have. There are all matters of both of your normal lives to consider when there's no destiny involved."
"Surprisingly well-considered." Phichit took the last sip of his fruity drink, slurping through the straw a second before setting it aside. "How long have you been on this quest, anyway?"

"Oh, six or eight months I believe, though it feels much longer. Especially the time I spent with Yurio—I feel somewhat like I've known him much longer than I have."

Phichit furrowed his brow and pressed the side of his fist to his lips, staring at Viktor's end of the table. "Have you considered that that might be because you two are destined to be together?"

"What makes you say that?"

"You seem to feel the same way about Yuuri, from how you talk. Maybe the prophecy is making you feel that way so you'll have the resources you need to succeed."

Viktor... didn't know how to feel about that. If that's true, how much of what I feel is legitimate and how much of it is the prophecy toying with me?

Phichit apparently read him like a book. "If you're freaking out about which of your emotions are genuine, don't. Magic can only enhance feelings that are already present, it can't make new ones. Assuming this is the prophecy and not just lucky coincidence, which isn't certain, but assuming it is, you and Yuuri aren't in love because of magic. You might be more passionate, but that's it. Magic can't create a friendship out of nowhere, either, so don't worry about Yurio."

"That's... at least somewhat reassuring." Viktor finally took another bite of his food. He should eat faster; it was getting cold, and it would be a shame to let such amazing food go to waste.

Phichit ran his hand through his hair. "Sorry for running my mouth and freaking you out. I do that too much, just thinking out loud without considering what comes out."

"It's fine; I shouldn't be 'freaking out' anyway. I don't suppose my feelings are made less valid by their source being external instead of internal; it's just that I, like most people, am not used to my feelings having an external source."

"Are you always so philosophical?" Phichit set his spoon into his bowl and it clattered a moment before settling.

Viktor was reminded again to eat faster; he didn't want to hold his new acquaintance up. He took another bite before responding. "No; I just really want to be with Yuuri. I suppose I'm alright with being a pawn in the universe's game if it means I end up with him." He wondered if he would ever stop blushing whenever Yuuri was mentioned.

Phichit buried his face in his hands and Viktor was momentarily confused before he groaned out, "You are such a sap!"
He was in a different room this time. Walls painted a cream color, full of light woods, with the bed in the center accompanied by a small nightstand totally inaccessible from the bed without necessitating some awkward spinning-about, upon which sat a bouquet laughably large for its vase. The room's only present occupant faced away from the door, relentlessly doing his rehabilitory exercises and grunting through gritted teeth. The mid-afternoon sunlight filtered through open blinds which let thin strips of shadow fall onto the wall adjacent to the window. Light but sure footsteps came down the hall and stopped in the doorway; the occupant of the room stood up and turned to face the door. In the doorway stood a lithe figure, silhouetted in the artificial hallway light.
"Hey Beka," said a quiet, broken voice. "I... I wanted to see you again. One more time, before I leave."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor hadn't felt this way since he'd left home. It was odd missing a place you couldn't stay, missing people who weren't travelling with you. Neither he nor Yurio had done so in a long time. But after numerous rounds of hugging and crying, after Mila and Sara gifted them both clothes and a decent chunk of change, after Phichit enchanted both their skates to become comfortable and warm walking shoes off-ice, Viktor and Yurio were on the road again heading eastward.
The thick snow crunched loudly under their boots, and the cold air whipped across their faces. Yurio's face was buried in his scarf and his eyes were watering, probably not just from the cold.
"You miss him," Viktor said, quietly.

Yurio stayed silent, but he glanced away just enough that Viktor knew he was right.

"I understand. And I'm sorry we had to leave. But you know the reason, no?"

Yurio nodded, reaching up to adjust his scarf. They had both gotten scarves with moisture-wicking properties, and while Viktor had simply tied his around his neck, Yurio had wrapped his around his head and most of his face. It was designed for that, but Viktor didn't think it was cold enough to warrant that and a hat.

Viktor looked around. The snow had stopped for the time being, the clouds mostly cleared, the sky a washed-out shade of light blue. There was a massive evergreen forest approaching on the horizon, and he knew the next Trial was somewhere in there. From the scale of the map, it was a week's journey at the least. A week's journey through a snowy forest full of pine trees. To Viktor, it sounded like winter at home. Exploring the forest with his friends, having snowball fights and ambushing each other from behind trees... he wondered whether Yurio would like to have a snowball fight.

He reached into his magic bag and pulled out the leather-bound book he'd been using to keep track of his choreography. His gloves made him a little clumsy, but they did keep him warm so he didn't need to shove his hands in his pockets every few minutes, so he tolerated the way they made him fumble the notebook. The next song was The Journey Continues, a simple solo-violin piece that for some reason reminded him of the village where he'd met Oxar. It felt like a song for walking through a forest.

The sequence of lines, meant to symbolize ice tracings, showed a program with a clear beat: a sizeable number of mohawk-crosses and loops emphasized the undulating melody, the jumps were mainly combinations and there were two spins. He was in the process of retroactively including more triples in all of his programs, now that he could do them. Change the first double to a triple, but leave the second double alone... Would it be smart to do a triple flip at the end? I don't think so, this is a longer program, but I'll have to try it to be sure...

A strong wind whisked past, kicking up a cloud of powdery snow. Something moved in the snow drift; exactly what, Viktor couldn't tell. He glanced to Yurio, who was squinting into the whiteness.

"What was that?" Viktor asked calmly. Maybe before Yurio had gotten all that training and been gifted not one but two awesome glowing swords he would have been afraid, but now he was confident in his friend's ability to protect them.

"A wolf, looks like. A bloody huge one. Something else moving beside it, but I'm not sure what..."

"I think I might have read about giant wolves." Viktor pulled open his magic bag, closed his choreography journal and put it in before rifling around for the reference guide: a thick hardback book with a green cover entitled Nature Illustrated. After flipping pages for a moment he came upon the entry for lupus grandis, supposedly a wolf twice the size of most—growing up to four meters long and two meters tall—with a white coat which lived and hunted in these northern parts of the country. "Yurio, I found it! And it says here that people used to ride them!"

"How would you even do that? A wolf's back isn't flexible like a horse's, it would be like riding a bull. I knew people who used to do that in the circus, it was not fun or easy, certainly not a good mode of transportation."

Viktor attempted to describe the illustrations in the book for a moment before giving up and handing the book to Yurio.

There was one illustration with a man doing a running-like motion at the side of one of the huge white wolves. One of his arms was raised, the other pulled across his body, and both hands clutched clumps of thick white fur. The second illustration featured a man curled around the wolf’s side as a toddler curls around their parent’s while being carried, but horizontally instead of vertically.

"I see." Yurio adjusted his scarf again, though it didn't seem to need it; perhaps this had replaced his usual fidget of tucking his hair behind his ears, since all his hair was presently bound in the scarf.

"That one was probably wild, though. I don't think anybody would be riding one this far away from any town."

"Beats me. There was definitely something beside it, maybe chasing it? I couldn't see whatever it was too well. It seemed a lot smaller than the wolf. And it seemed brownish colored, at least partially. Besides that... dunno, sorry."

"Don't be. I didn't even pick up on the fact that the big thing was a wolf."

"That's cause you're old and your eyesight is awful!"

"Yurio! How could you?!" Viktor brought the back of his hand elegantly to his forehead and stumbled backward dramatically, imitating a faint.
"Whatever that was... do you think I should do a triple flip at the end of this? There's a perfect accent for a jump and-"
"Do you even have enough endurance for that?"
Viktor bit his lip. "Maybe? I have been practicing."
"I wouldn't do it."

They came up on a pond that had iced over very thoroughly and started walking around it before realizing that they didn't have to bother and promptly skated across it. They were silent, listening to the quiet whooshing of their blades. As they stepped off and began walking again, Viktor came up with a good reason to put a triple in there.

"How do I know the Veil program won't have a triple at the end?"
Yurio turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you have, like, a vision or something?"
"I did, but I only skated the program partway through before I woke up. And I only sort of remember that."

"That sounds like a gip."

Viktor shrugged. "I suppose. I only sort of remember the music. It was... operatic? A tenor, with... Piano? Violins?"
"How do you even know that you're anywhere close to being ready to skate it then? You're, what, a third of the way through the trials, and you have a few shaky triples you happen to be lucky enough to have landed for your last trial. How do you know the program isn't going to be like six minutes long, super fast, and full of all sorts of triples, or even quads?
I guess I don't, Viktor was about to say, when a third voice spoke up.

"I can tell you for sure that the Veil Key isn't six minutes long," it said.

Viktor was shocked speechless for a moment, but he processed the owner of the voice right away. Yuuri.

Yurio spoke up first: "Do you always just sort of pop out of nowhere like that?"

Yuuri chuckled; his voice implied a shrug. "I don't know how else I would do it. You can't see me, so I can't announce my presence physically, and that's most of what cues a person to noticing another."

"Annoyingly good point," Yurio sighed. "So what is this Veil Key anyways? What do you need to do to complete it?"

"It's a four and a half minute long program, and the music is an aria entitled Stammi Vicino. The choreography is not set, but the Key has certain requirements; for example, three spins."

"Yuuri," Viktor spoke up, "Why is the program called a key?"

"Short version, because it is a key. Longer version... Well, think of a key, specifically, the part of one that actually fits into the lock. It has two functional dimensions: length and height, corresponding to the number of pins in the lock the key needs to push down and the amount the key needs to push them, respectively. This program has four dimensions: the three dimensions of normal space, within the confines of the ice sheet, and the dimension of time. Instead of pins, though, there are parameters that need to be met."

"I think I understand. Do you, Yurio?"

"All that dimension stuff makes my head hurt, but I got the requirements part. What are the requirements anyway?"

"At a minimum, the Veil Key needs four quads and a triple axel, at least two of those jumps need to be in combination; three spins: one single-position, one single-position with a flying entry, and one combination; one step sequence and one choreographic sequence."

Viktor blinked a few times. Yurio facepalmed.

"In four minutes," Yurio said from behind his hand.

"Four and a half," Yuuri corrected.

"Whatever. And you said at a minimum? Is it even possible to do more and why would you want to even if it is?"

"I saw someone complete a program with five quads in it without any magical assistance."

Viktor blinked some more. "Really?"

"About three hundred years ago or so, a man named Nathan from the village you're heading towards did a program with six quads and landed five of them."

Yurio laughed. "Dude."

"Humans are really impressive! If you watch lots of them, you understand."

"You know, Yuuri, you're right. I look around at the state of the world now and I think, how would we even hope to fix this? But then I remember that people have always been able to do great things, and I remember that the world was built from the ground up before... we did it once, we can do it again. And I also suppose if that man can land five quads, I can also."

"Viktor, all due respect to the legendary hero, but is that smart?! That guy probably trained for, like, his whole life, and had a professional coach, or something like that-"

"Yurio is right," Yuuri said. "but I think you can still do it."

"Yuuri– Goddess it feels so weird to call you by your first name. What else can I call you?" Yurio's face was scrunched up in something resembling disgust.

"Well, Prince, I suppose, but that feels pompous. Katsuki, if you like, or some friends of mine used to call me Katsudon."

"Why?"

"I presume because I love katsudon? It's also sort of a play on Katsuki? I don't know, I'm just giving you a list of stuff I'll respond to that isn't my name." Yuuri laughed out that last sentence.

Yurio nodded. "Okay. As I was saying, Katsudon: you said at a minimum. Is there any reason for Viktor to do more than that?"

"Oh, actually, yes, and I'm glad you mentioned it. This is unfortunately where my key analogy breaks down, so you'll have to bear with me. You know how there are degrees of spells, and how it uses up more magical energy to cast better spells?"

I do now, Viktor thought.

"Well, because skating is a very powerful type of magic, skating better, faster, more elegantly; jumping higher, spinning longer and in more difficult positions; doing more difficult turns in your sequences... those all make the spell that is your program stronger. Does that make sense?"

"I think so. I didn’t know skating was a powerful magic, though. I’d appreciate knowing specifics as to what counts for each of those, too... What's a difficult position? What's a difficult turn?"

"A difficult turn is easily explained: loops, twizzles, counters, rockers, and brackets are difficult turns. That's just the ice tracing being more condusive to spells just like certain shapes are better for sigils. A difficult position a little harder to explain, it's commonly anything that pulls you off your center of gravity... for example-"

A very odd thing happened just then. Overlayed on Viktor's normal vision of the snow-covered plain with the forest ahead, an artistic charicature of Yuuri wearing suit-like outfit with similarly copious amounts of glitter to Sara and Mila's dresses did a spin like a front sit spin, but with his body twisted such that his left hand was on his calf and his right arm was extended behind his back and his chin was over his shoulder. "Because your core is twisted in this position," Yuuri said, "it counts as 'difficult' because it would be easier to pull you off your center."

"Viktor, are you seeing this?!" Yurio sounded dumbfounded.

"Yuuri, how are you doing that?" Viktor said as confirmation.

The vision vanished as quickly and unobtrusively as it had come, which was to say not very. "Um, my life-force is kind of... linked to yours? I can influence you in some limited capacity?"
"Yeah well, please stop fucking with my eyes." Yurio rubbed at his face, breathed on his gloved hands before shoving them back into his pockets.
Yuuri sounded a bit offended. "I'm not, actually. I can't make you see things that aren't there. I can just make you imagine things. I've been doing it this whole time. I'm not talking to you out loud, because my vocal chords don't actually work; I'm thinking and letting you hear what I think in a way that seems to you like I'm talking. That's why you 'hear' me just as well with the soul orb in your bag as you do with it in your hand. I do that at the trials also, which is how I can get away with making you hear loud noises at them while keeping their locations secret to others. Well, the same thing means that when I think of an image, I can let you 'see' it."

Yurio nodded, shrugged. "Kay."

"Is there any way that I can hear the music?" Viktor asked. "I've never heard anything called Stammi Vicino, as far as I'm aware. Can you... sing it?"

Yuuri's reaction was to sputter in embarrassment. Viktor laughed; he figured that if Yuuri were physically present he would be blushing and waving his hands about.

Yurio chuckled dryly. "I take that as a no. But, can't you make us imagine stuff that isn't you?"

"Um, no. Well... sort of? I don't know. Let me see if this works..."

As it turned out, Viktor had been entirely wrong about the instruments. Some type of wind instrument, plus a harp, began playing somewhere in the distance to his right. Viktor also suddenly felt warmer, and the kind of bubbly that comes with being just slightly tipsy. The scene before him was bathed in a light just slightly orange, not like a torch but like sunlight filtered through amber. The lyrics began in a language Viktor didn't understand:
Sento una voce che piange lontano
Anche tu, sei stato forse abbandonato?
The tempo was slow and steady, and something about the voice seemed sad, like he had been lonely for a very long time. Viktor could understand that.
Orsù finisco presto questo calice di vino
e inizio a prepararmi
Adesso fa’ silenzio
The instruments pulled back in, forcing up the beat as well as the volume. The next lines were sung with passion like poison, anger evident in the singer's voice and in the very tempo of the song. And yet, the loneliness still persisted. It made him seem spiteful, or vengeful. Viktor immediately began mapping out choreography in his head, muscles twitching as they wanted to move in the ways he was imagining. He forced himself to keep walking, but tapped the beat with one hand inside his coat pocket.
Con una spada vorrei tagliare quelle gole che cantano d'amore
Vorrei serrare nel gelo le mani che scrivono quei versi d'ardente passione
All the anger in the voice ceased abruptly, and the yearning took over, accompanied by something like hope. Something like love. Viktor noted the abrupt change in tone. A lone, high violin entered the song.
Questa storia che senso non ha
Svanirà questa notte assieme alle stelle
Se potessi vederti dalla speranza nascerà l’eternità
The last sentence of the bridge was building in power, brass entering in chords as the singer drew out each note.
Stammi vicino, non te ne andare
Ho paura di perderti
This song would definitely require a lot of power to skate properly. And four quads, at the minimum. Viktor nodded to himself. He could do it. With remarkable dexterity given the gloves he wore, he opened his notebook and began sketching out what choreography he’d already come up with, as well as jotting down emotional notes and rough estimates of lyrics and timestamps.
Le tue mani, le tue gambe,
le mie mani, le mie gambe,
"This would be around the time you'd start getting tired," Yurio pointed out mid-lyric. Viktor nodded absently, continuing to sketch.
e i battiti del cuore
si fondono tra loro
The last note was held for a long, long time, and Viktor figured it would be best to put one of the spins there. He made a quick note in his book, then considered doing a footwork sequence instead, and made another note. With most of the choreography and emotion taken care of, he could worry about specific elements.
Partiamo insieme
Ora sono pronto
The song built to climax in the last two lines, power evident in the singer's voice as it lingered over the last syllable. The song ended with a great clash of brass, then all sound ceased. Along with it, the warmth fled Viktor's body, the odd sensation of tipsiness left his senses, and the warm orange glow vanished from his sight. He was taken aback, blinking a few times. Nothing about his surroundings had changed, yet everything had. A sudden cold wind made Viktor shiver.

"Yurio, did you feel that?" Feel wasn't the right word, but Viktor couldn't find a better one.

Yurio looked shaken. He stared off into space, eyes wide and glassy. I'll take that as a yes.

"Yuuri, what happened just now? I-"

Yuuri sighed. "You asked me if I could make you imagine things that weren't me. I initially said no, because I'm the person doing the magic, and so everything I'm making you imagine is from the inside of my own head. Because I've spent so much time in this stasis pod doing it, I think of myself in the third person, so I can make you imagine what I think I look like, in varying degrees of realism. But then I reconsidered: could I make you experience my memories? I had heard the song Stammi Vicino performed several times. But you didn’t need to end up living my life, so I tried to select only the parts of the memory you needed, namely, a specific portion of what I heard."

Yurio’s eyes had refocused, his brow furrowed. "So we felt warm and slightly drunk because..."

"I was warm and slightly drunk at the time."

"And everything sorta glowed orange for the same reason."
"The lighting in the palace ballroom is orange." Something about his tone gave Viktor the mental image of Yuuri running his fingers through his hair. It was incredibly distracting. "Evidently, I couldn't separate the individual pieces of my memory very well."Yurio nodded. "I wouldn't say you didn't do it well, Katsudon. You just didn't do it perfectly." Just as Viktor was thinking aw, that's sweet, Yurio added with a scowl: "We already have one perfectionist in this group, we don't need another."
Yuuri laughed, and again Viktor got a mental image of him: tired, a little bleary, but genuinely happy. A moment passed, then Yuuri sighed and said, "I'm sorry if you see me doing things. That particular piece of magic took a lot out of me, so I'm having a hard time controlling my thoughts."
Viktor tried to say it's okay, but the only thing that ended up in his head was Goddess Yuuri, you're amazing. All sound caught in his throat. Yuuri giggled, though at what Viktor wasn't aware.
"Hey, Katsudon," Yurio said abruptly. "If you can make us imagine you doing random junk, can't you make us imagine you walking beside us?"

"It... might take a little work to tweak, but yes, I think so. It's... probably getting dark where you are though, so I don't think I should do it today."

It's getting dark? Viktor looked around. He and Yurio were only a few meters from the forest's edge. The sun had set over the horizon, the clouds lingering pink and the western sky red. The eastern half of the sky was already dark, blue-black space speckled with stars. Yurio hastily pulled a pink soul orb from his pack and held it out to Viktor, who took it as Yurio pulled his swords from their sheaths on his belt. "You didn't notice either, did you," he said. Viktor shook his head.

They walked into the forest, the soft pink light from their soul orb bouncing off grasses and snow and tall pine trees. A small amount of sunlight still came down through the treetops, speckling the ground in red and orange, but for the most part the forest was dark. They slowed their pace instinctively, warily.

After a period of silence that felt longer than it likely was, Viktor spoke up. His voice was smaller than he’d intended. "Yuuri, can you keep talking to us?"

After a brief pause wherein it felt like Yuuri was checking something, he replied, "Yes. Phichit did an excellent job at improving your soul orb, so I can probably talk indefinitely if you want."

"I um, knew that, I meant, can you keep talking, please, because this forest is scary and your voice is comforting?"

"Oh. Yes, I can. What should I talk about?"

"Before we get into that," Yurio interrupted. "Yuuri, Viktor, I need to tell you something. When I was out training with B- with Otabek, way more shadows came for us than either of us expected. They thought I was you, Viktor, because of my hair. I wouldn't be surprised if they tracked us this whole way, and they're coming for us." Viktor blinked at Yurio, so before he could say anything Yurio continued. "I can handle it, I did before, but I'd like to point out that this isn't going to be a walk in the park."

"I didn't think it was going to be in the first place, but now we have to deal with Shadows on top of giant wolves?"
"Well, by 'we', you of course mean 'you'," he gestured to himself, trying to clarify the confusing statement but only making it more confusing, "because you have no idea how to fight. But yes, I know. I can do that."
Is he just being rash and overconfident? He does do that, but he was also just trained by the best warriors of Kamyinsk. "Alright, Yurio," Viktor said aloud, nodding vehemently. "I trust you."

"You’ll be fine," Yuuri assured them with gentle confidence.

He’s so sure about us. How much of that is a facade? How much is the fact that he knows more about- "Yuuri," Viktor said, "What do you know about the prophecy?"

After a moment of silence at the abrupt change of topic, Yurio added, "Yeah, we've only gotten fragments as retold over centuries. You probably heard the original, so tell us."

"Well... there is of course the risk that I change the course of history by telling you what has been foretold. But I think I can circumvent that by only telling you what the prophecy says about what's already happened.

"I don't have it memorized - the phrasing the oracles used was much more eloquent than what I'm going to tell you, but here's the gist, with some of the original phrasing that I happen to remember thrown in." Yuuri cleared his throat in the exaggerated manner of someone impersonating a royal announcer. Viktor smirked. "The Prince of Onakoru, Katsuki Yuuri, son of Katsuki Hiroko, second heir in the Katsuki royal line—yes, it gives a lot of detail about me, it actually goes on longer I think—will be woken on the turn of the fifth century of his slumber by..." Yuuri paused, trying to remember something specific. "A man with hair of silver, a man with blades of gold. A skater of figures, and a great warrior, by the name of Viktor Nikiforov.
"At the time, everyone was confused about the details of the description. For how specific it was about me, the prophecy left out a lot of details about its hero. Where does he come from? Who are his parents? How does he travel, and where? How long does it take him to accomplish his goal? But I noticed that not only is the prophecy not specific about any of that, it's also not even necessarily about one person. Everyone interpreted a man with hair of silver, a man with blades of gold as an eloquent way of describing a single person. But, a skater of figures, and a great warrior, by the name of Viktor Nikiforov could refer not to one multitalented person but to two, more specialized ones, who happen to have the same name.
"Still, the lack of locational specificity forced me to put a Trial near every major city in such a way that wherever the hero or heroes came from, they could find their first trial quickly; after that, it was only a matter of the heroes being determined enough to find the rest. It was a messy solution, but it was the best I could think of."

"Actually, that’s brilliant! So you're saying," Viktor mused, finger to his lips, "the prophecy could be talking about both of us. Yurio, isn't that neat?"
Viktor looked around when Yurio didn't respond and didn't see him, but it was dark and there were so many figures moving around... wait, figures? Viktor glanced around fervently and saw outlines moving in the blackness and the occasional gleam of moonlight off a blade. He tried to call out to Yurio, but didn't actually move his lips enough to let any sound out. There was a brief flash of green in the corner of his vision and a humanoid blur, but as soon as it was there it was gone again. Viktor clutched his pink soul orb tighter and with great effort continued to walk forward."He's fighting shadows," Yuuri said, at only slightly less than his normal volume. Viktor nearly jumped out of his skin, terrified the Shadows would hear him, before he remembered what Yuuri had told him earlier: his lover's voice was merely a figment of his imagination. "I can feel Its attention moving away from me and towards him."
How do I respond to him? Viktor thought.

"I can hear your thoughts," Yuuri replied. "I don't need to use my voice to talk to you, you don't need yours to talk to me. Vitya, listen: you need to walk rhythmically. Pick a tempo and stick to it."

Viktor started walking to a beat in 2/4 time, at first counting in his head and then letting his body remember the rhythm. Done. Why?

"Because the Shadow has the polar opposite of an intuitive sense of timing, and a total absence of a memory. I'll tell you to change timing periodically, just do it whenever I say. It doesn't matter what timing or tempo you pick, just pick one you can sustain."

Viktor nodded. He pulled his cap further down, bowing his head and glancing about. A single minnow trying to pass unnoticed through a sea of sharks...

Viktor wanted to keep hearing Yuuri's voice, but he also didn't want to be distracted from the situation at hand. His physical alertness was helpful - if he needed to he could break into a sprint any moment - but it was also making it near-impossible to focus on anything, and the worst thing he could do right now was zone out. He wanted Yuuri to ground him, but wasn't sure how that would happen, though admittedly his brain was fuzzy with adrenaline-
A soft melody with a sure beat began to play in Viktor's mind. He had never heard it before, but it had a waltz tempo. He changed his steps instinctively. On top of what sounded like piano, Viktor began to hear Yuuri's voice: maybe singing lyrics, maybe only humming, it was difficult to tell, but in any case it was soothing. Though the shadows of the trees in the moonlight were certainly moving, and though Viktor still saw the occasional flash of green in the blackness, he kept focused on moving forward. After that song ended another began, this time in 4/4, accompanied still by Yuuri's gentle humming.
After a surprisingly long period of this, Yurio came running up from behind, favoring his left leg, one sword in his hand and the other in his mouth. "Viktor," he said, voice loud but muffled, "I’m sorry. There are too many. Start running."
Viktor immediately began to jog to keep up with Yurio, but lingered a step behind him. "I won’t go without you."
"Of course not. I'll be right behind you." Yurio grabbed his sword from his mouth and fell back.

Viktor broke into a sprint, tripling his pace. Where are we going? he thought as he ran. There isn't a town for nearly a hundred kilometers. I don't know if I can run until daybreak, but if that's my only option, I'd need to favor the muscles I've developed for skating... He shifted from a normal run to a quasi-leap, bending at his ankle more and jumping forward like he did for axels, making sure to stay on time.
He looked over his shoulder, and Yurio was a blur of green and silver, running and jumping and swinging swords, the magical glow reflecting in his eyes. When he had first seen the boy, Viktor had thought of Yurio's eyes as emerald flames, flickering slightly like candles in a draft. Now, his eyes were viridian infernoes, blazing like hellfire and consuming anything which dared to cross his path.
Viktor shuddered, and looked forward.

Trees blurred past Viktor as he wound through them. There was no path; he pushed away stray branches and tripped on overgrowth when he prioritized the timing of his steps over their placement. After at least ten songs, Viktor was exhausted, his lungs and throat burning with the cold, hearing only his harsh breath, the crisp thuds of his feet on the brush and snow, and the occasional clash of metal behind him.

There had been some part of Viktor that expected something ridiculous to happen - the sort of magical rescue that happens to princesses in fairy tales. An armored knight on a glorious steed would take him by the arm, pull him up to his horse, and together they would find Yurio and ride to safety.

A magical rescue completely failed to happen.

After at least fifty songs, Yuuri’s voice returned. He sounded even more terrified than Viktor felt. "Yurio’s hurt," he said.

Viktor stopped in his tracks, nearly falling over from the excess momentum. He hardly noticed the way his legs were threatening to collapse if he stood still much longer. Where is he? some small part of his mind thought, over all the other parts that were screaming as he spun around and ran the opposite direction.

"Your left. Two hundred paces. Cluster of pine trees."

Theoretically, yes, heroes were supposed to run toward danger instead of away from it. But Viktor wasn’t a hero. He never had been.

Viktor found Yurio collapsed against a tree, unconscious, looking like he’d been slammed against it hard. He had a massive gash on his leg, festering void-black, and another on the inside of his forearm. One sword sheathed, the other held uselessly at his side, limp fingers curled around the handle.

There were three -

- standing over Yurio.

He picked up his companion and his sword in nearly one motion and bolted. The young man was thin, perhaps only 55 kilos, but that was 55 kilos more than Viktor was used to carrying while running at top speed.

He didn’t have any other choice. He ran.

"Vitya," Yuuri said, an edge of desperation in his voice, "there’s a lake a few hundred meters to your right."

It took Viktor a long moment to realize what that meant. As soon as he did realize, he changed course; as he jumped onto the ice, his speed doubled, leaning forward as hard edges crunched into the ungroomed ice. When came to the far edge of the lake he stumbled hard but refused to fall, regaining his footing on solid ground, and kept running.

The edge of a small town crawled toward Viktor from the horizon, in glimpses from between trees. Somewhere in the depths of his mind, Viktor registered the sky lightening with the coming morning.

The town came closer, and closer, the vague brownish outline resolving into houses and fences. Viktor blinked once, and he was nearly on top of it. A few more meters and he would be there. He blinked once more, and-

Viktor crashed into a wall.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Guang-Hong Ji woke to a resounding smack. It sounded almost like someone had run face-first into the side of his house. Concerned, he slipped from his bed, tucked his wand into a pocket of his nightgown, and made his way out the door.

Hand against his pocket, ready to threaten any potential intruder, Guang-Hong made his way around the side of his house toward the source of the noise. As he rounded the corner, he immediately pulled his wand out - but not to defend himself.

Two men with hair the color of the stars were sprawled against the stone wall of his home. Guang-Hong quickly cast a health-check. The older man was entirely exhausted, heavily scraped up and bruised - and was inflicted with the Shadow’s curse. The younger only had a concussion and major blood loss.

"Leo!" he yelled, then felt a hand on his shoulder.
"I noticed," his lover said, picking up the taller man and hoisting him over one shoulder. "I’ll get this guy some bedrest until you can start working your magic. Can you carry the other one inside and bring out my healer’s trunk?"
Guang-Hong nodded. He picked up the shorter man - who was surprisingly light, all things considered - and tried not to get blood all over his nightgown.
Victor woke to a harsh, stinging pain in his leg. His eyes refused to open at first, but he eased them open to see a bright room and a figure clad in brown kneeling over him. Victor realized he was laying down, stripped nearly naked, on a packed dirt floor, the top of his head over-warm with the flickering heat of a nearby fireplace.
"Where..." he croaked out. His mouth was dry and uncooperative.

"Hey, you’re awake!" the figure said, his accent American. "Here, drink this."

Victor was handed a quarter-full glass of water. He strained his neck to tip his head forward enough to drink it without spilling it on himself. The taste was strange, too sweet and too salty, sort of what he imagined glitter might taste like; it was hard to swallow.

He tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and felt the same sting in his forearm. He was too tired to grit his teeth.

"You’re pretty lucky to be alive," said the figure that was slowly resolving into a man. His arms seemed patchy and pale; he wore a dark black and brownish shirt and baggy trousers; his face looked heavily bruised, or maybe tattooed. It was hard to see clearly; every time he opened his eyes, it was like looking up from the bottom of a glass of water as someone stirred it. "You should thank your friend. Ran through nearly ninety kilometers of forest, carrying you."

Victor tried to sit up, but failed. He relaxed again, groaning, and felt the pull of bandages around his thigh and forearm.

"Hey, easy. He’s going to be alright. Been sleeping most of the day. My partner has been helping him heal."

"Who are..."

"My name is Leo," the man said. His voice was like warm sunshine. "My partner, Guang-Hong, found you two. Your friend crashed into the side of our house."

Victor started to breathe very deliberately, as though focusing on his breath would steady his mind. He felt fuzzy, dizzy.
"You fought bravely, man. I haven’t met many people who fight as well as you, not even most of the warriors at Kamyinsk. Heck, maybe not even the Shadow warriors themselves." Leo frowned. "That being said... you really shouldn’t be out at night alone. Sometimes, when you get a ways from any city, there’s a lot of Shadows in one spot, and that can get real bad real fast."
"You... saw..."

"No, I didn’t. I would have helped. I was out with Luna when you two left Kamyinsk, but I didn’t realize you were planning to come all the way here. Most people just go out to fetch some wood or something, then head back to the city. Anyone who wants to make the whole trek takes a wolf-steed."
Victor didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep, but he woke again with a clearer mind and working senses. A young man with unruly light-brown hair stood at the side of the bed he lay on, setting a tray of something on an end-table.
Victor sat up abruptly, his vision going black for a few seconds, then slowly clearing. "How long was I out?"

The man spoke quietly, almost shyly. "About ten hours. It looked like you might wake up soon, so I brought you breakfast." He gestured to the tray - on it was a bowl of thick stew and a glass of something pink.

"How is he?"
"Your friend is still resting." He took a seat in a small chair at an adjacent wall, lips curved into a little smile. "He woke up long enough to scarf down a meal, then passed out again. I’ve been mending his injuries while he’s slept. The Shadow’s curse was harsh on him, even from that one small cut. He’s lucky to be alive."
Victor crossed his legs, leaning forward. "Who are you?"

"Many questions." The man giggled. "I’m Guang-Hong Ji. And before you ask, my partner, who’s about to walk through the door, is Leo de la Iglesia."

The door swung open and a man walked in. He had henna-colored hair, middle-parted with long bangs, and he wore a tight black shirt and leather gilet, with ecru cloth wrapped around his arms to the palms of his hands. It took Victor a moment to recognize that this was the same man who had bandaged him initially, though, because his face wasn’t bruised: instead, dark fabric was wound around his head, over both eyes and most of his forehead.

"Hey, man! You’re awake again - for good this time, I hope?" He moved just like someone who wasn’t blindfolded.

"Hi, Leo," Victor said. He picked up the glass of pink whatever it was and glugged it. It tasted fruity and saccharine. He was hungry, too, so he scooted over to where the end table was and started slurping up the stew. Venison, it seemed like, with some blue glowing bits.

"Can I take a look at your injuries real quick?" Leo said, gesturing to Victor’s bloodied bandages.
"Sure," Victor said, glugging down the rest of the hot stew. He leapt out of bed - stumbled - but caught himself.
Leo knelt, beginning to unwind Victor’s bandage. "So, I didn’t get to ask you before you passed out earlier: what’s your name? And what were you doing out in the middle of the night in the middle of a swarm of Shadows?"

"I’m Yurio," Victor said, wincing as Leo prodded at him. "V-" he stopped. Should he say his name? Shouldn’t he use his alias instead? They were outside of Kamyinsk and had no guarantees there were no Shadow followers around.

"Hm?" Leo didn’t seem purturbed.

"Sorry, it just sounds stupid," Victor said with a snort. "A friend of ours dared us to go into the woods to find a wild giant wolf and try to ride it. We thought we’d found one, and we were tracking it down, but it got dark... I’m a royal soldier in training, so I thought I could handle it... guess I was wrong."

Out of the corner of his eye, Victor noticed Guang-Hong was standing in the corner, facing the wall, and had started to trace lines in the air with his wand, muttering incantations. What’s with him?

Leo stood back up, having redressed Victor’s leg wound, and turned to his arm. "I see," he said. He unwound the old bandage, poured a bit more alcohol in the gash, and wrapped it in clean cloth.

Guang-Hong came back into view, sheathing his wand. "You can tell the truth now."

Victor blinked. "What?"

"I cast some quieting charms so that we wouldn’t be overheard. Apologies for not asking beforehand - most people don’t have secret identities, so it’s not a normal precaution I take."
"How did you-?"
Leo chuckled. "I admit, you are a good liar. Just not quite good enough to fool GH and I."
Victor tipped his head down, resting it on his fingers. "That’s good, I guess. Okay, you caught me." He sighed, looked between the two. "My name is Victor Nikiforov. I’m the personal bodyguard of the destined Hero."
Guang-Hong’s eyebrows shot up, and Leo gave an impressed frown.

"Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Hell of a bodyguard who nearly gets himself killed. Give me a break, okay, I held a sword for the first time two days ago."

Guang-Hong’s eyes opened wide, his fingers pressed over his lips. And Leo said, "Well then. In that case, could I offer you a lesson?"

"You’re a swordsman?" A blind swordsman?
"You got me." Leo cracked a smile."Leo trained with the royal soldiers for many years," Guang-Hong said, pride in his voice. "But he decided he could learn more elsewhere, so he journeyed across the country, finding and training from the best swordsmen."Leo laughed. "You make that sound a lot cooler than it was, baby. Honestly, I just wanted to learn more sword styles, to see what was out there."
"What time can we start?" Victor said, voice betraying his enthusiasm.

"After you get more rest," Leo said, making his way out of the room with a warm smile. "You’re not going to be at your best with a giant gash in your leg."

Victor bolted forward, gripping Leo’s shoulder, maybe a bit too hard. The Shadow’s blade came down before he’d even seen it, slicing through darkness and burning through flesh... "I don’t have time to wait around," he said.

Leo froze. He stood there, back to Victor, like a tiger whose tail had been bitten by a little mouse, wondering whether he cared enough to gobble up the nuisance.

Victor’s blood chilled. His hand dropped slowly back to his side, and he took a step backward instinctively, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

He swallowed it. "Leo," he said, "I meant that. Let me explain."

The tiger looked over his shoulder.

"Viktor and I... we don’t have forever." How had Viktor phrased it... "We’re running out of time, not in the sense that we only have a few minutes, but in the sense that if we don’t hurry, we’ll get to some point where we do only have a few minutes, and we’ll find out that we don’t have enough."

"Running out of time..." Guang-Hong nearly whispered. "To save Prince Katsuki?"

Victor nodded. "I can’t dawdle around, Leo. Even if I’m a worse fighter because of my injury. I’m sorry if I’m harder to train. But I won’t hold back, I can’t. I’ll give my body, my mind, my soul over to you, no holds barred - if that’s what it takes to win. Please, can we start now."

Leo sighed, spun around. Then he smiled - not his ray-of-sunshine smile from earlier, but something else, a dark smile somewhat like a grimace. "Okay." He opened the door, and held it for Victor as he walked through.
Victor followed Leo as he walked out to a flat part of the clearing covered with short patchy grasses, carrying four short sticks. They arrived at nowhere in particular - somewhere vaguely in the middle, though not directly in the center of the clearing - and Leo stopped.
"Let me see your style," Leo said, tossing two sticks to Victor, of the same varying lengths as his swords, and keeping the others for himself.

Victor stood in a battle-stance: knees lightly bent, left foot pointed straight at Leo, torso twisted to keep a slim profile, left sword in front, right resting down to his side. After Leo didn’t move for a moment, he took the offensive, feinting right and swinging left. Leo countered, and Victor counter-countered, taking the defensive.

"Huh, they teach daisho in addition to eskrima nowadays," Leo said, lunging forward as Victor leapt back. "Good!"
A few more minutes - just as Victor’s left arm was starting to ache - and Leo stepped away.
"Alright, I have a pretty good guess how you fight. You’re more skilled than most beginners - definitely have a knack - but still, long way to go."

"What did I do wrong the most," Victor said, recovering his breath.

"Besides the limping and the weak strikes with your left hand? Hm, you flinched a bit too much when I came straight at you. That’ll get better though. You’ve just got to get used to..."

"Dying?"
"Well, no. Fighting." Leo smirked. "The dying only happens if you do it wrong." He dropped his staffs and walked over to Victor. "Sit down."
"Why?"
"I’m going to teach you to fight in the dark."
It’s the middle of the afternoon. How?
Even despite his confusion, Victor did as asked, easing himself into a cross-legged position on the hard dirt.Leo knelt behind Victor and began wrapping a strip of dark cloth around his head. Oh, Victor thought.
When Leo had finished, no light at all reached Victor’s eyes - Leo’s wrapping method even closed the gap between his nose and cheeks.

Victor had a hard time so much as standing up without falling down again, arms constantly reaching out in all directions into the blackness. He distinctly heard Leo chuckle. "You’ll be teaching me to fight, like this." He gestured to where he hoped his body was.

"Mhm." Victor could only assume that Leo had nodded.

"...How?"

"Easily enough. We have your ears replace your eyes." Victor hoped that wasn’t a literal term. Leo’s voice and footfalls had begun to trail slow circles around him; Victor’s arms twitched upward, flinching toward a defensive stance.

Leo seemed to notice. "Hey, chill out. I’m not going to hit you yet."

Victor dropped his hands back to his sides, but his muscles and breathing held, steady and shallow. Leo didn’t comment, his steps only continued to circle. "The reason I’m not going to hit you yet is that your ears aren’t attuned to noticing movement by themselves. You’re still relying too much on your eyes. But your ears are powerful if you train them, so that’s what we’re going to do.

"To start you off, I’m going to cast a quieting spell that absorbs nearly all noise. We’re going to let your ears get acclimated to perfect, complete silence, then we’re gonna see how you do."

Victor thought, he can do magic too? And then suddenly, every single sound—the birds, the rustling of the wind through the trees, Leo’s footfalls, everything—was eliminated. All of a sudden, there was nothing.

Victor opened his eyes against the fabric in hopes of seeing something, anything, but it was black. He inhaled a sharp breath, cool and fluid in his lungs as he felt the oddly heavy pressure of the sun on his skin. He was completely deprived of two senses, and it made his hands itch for something solid, his blood rush in his veins. Again his arms twitched, in some combination of grasping for purchase and moving into a defensive position, but Leo had promised not to hit him, so he slowly, ever so slowly, allowed his breathing to slow and eyes to shut to the void.

He felt peaceful... if a bit claustrophobic. This was definitely the quietest place he’d ever been. Victor sat down - not because he still had problems with standing upright, he’d gotten used to that - but just because standing for however long seemed like a less comfortable idea.

Minutes drifted past. The dirt was cold and just slightly damp in places from the morning’s melted snow. He didn’t quite hear, but he definitely experienced it in some way when Leo sat down a few meters away. Perhaps he felt the grass shift under his fingers.
He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting like this, but it didn’t feel like it’d been very long. Leo spoke up. He hardly so much as whispered, and he was several meters away, but Victor heard him clear as day. In fact, he wouldn’t have even known it was a whisper if not for the breathy tone of his voice. "Can you hear your heartbeat yet?"
Victor whispered back, and it sounded as loud as his normal speaking voice. "No. Should I?"

"Tell me when you can. Then we’ll start. If you can hear me now, you’re doing well. It’s been around fifteen minutes."

Fifteen minutes? It didn’t feel like it had been that long, but it also didn’t really matter.

Victor concentrated on his rhythmic breathing, trying to notice the sound of his heart. Every other tiny sound was amplified: he shifted slightly in the grass, he licked his lips and swallowed.

It was a bit longer before Victor could say he heard his heartbeat. As with Leo’s presence on the grass, this wasn’t quite hearing, it was more an innate sense, or an awareness. When he felt his heartbeat, it was like every pulse spread outward like a wave, wracking his chest.

Still, Victor figured this counted, and spoke up, voice as soft as he could make it. "I can hear it now," he said.

Leo nodded. How did I know that? Victor thought. It was a shifting of hair, he supposed, that he must have heard, but still, it was strange. A moment later, Leo stood, took a few paces, and Victor knew where he was. A meter and a half to his left. He turned to face him.

"You’re doing well," Leo said. "It’s been around half an hour. Can you point at me?"

Victor pointed.

Leo smiled. Maybe the edges of his cheeks had brushed against his bangs - or maybe not; Victor honestly couldn’t pinpoint how he was doing what he was. "Well done. Now walk towards me: can you point to my nose?"

Victor didn’t think he could do that, but he moved towards where he knew Leo was standing and he held out his arm. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to hear where his nose was, so he approximated Leo’s height in relation to his own and pointed vaguely.
Poke! His finger jabbed Leo’s cheek, near his jawline. Leo chuckled, low and quiet. At this distance, to preserve Victor’s heightened hearing, he didn’t even whisper. He moved his lips and pushed a tiny amount of air through them, and this was enough for Victor to make his words out. "Not quite. I tilted my head to the side, see? You should have heard my hair shift. Can you hear it now?"
A small, ruffling noise reached Victor’s ears. He nodded.

"Try again."

Victor corrected his perception for Leo’s head tilted to the left, and poked again. His finger felt cloth and thick cartilege: he’d touched the bridge of Leo’s nose! He pumped a fist into the air, triumphant.
"Well done!" Leo mouthed, backing up. He held something out to Victor, who grabbed what felt like a long wooden stick. His staff. He took a second one from Leo, and stepped back.
"We’re going to try mock-fighting now. You up for it?"

Victor shrugged and got into his fighting stance. He heard, or felt, or something-ed, Leo get into one also. From his stance and from the balance of his weight, he had his staffs as well.

Leo tapped him in the chest with his staff and laughed, very quietly. Victor hadn’t seen it coming at all. Well, duh, he hadn’t seen it, but he hadn’t heard or felt it either... He hadn’t noticed it.

"Hey, Leo. Don’t go slowly, okay? I feel like I could notice it coming easier if it’s cutting through air. That makes more of a noise."

Leo nodded.

This time, he did hear the staff coming. Unfortunately, he didn’t hear it in time to block, and he was smacked in the side, hard. Definitely not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to leave a bruise. Victor winced, but shook his head. "Again."

Probably so he wouldn’t hit the bruised side again if Victor couldn’t block, Leo came at him from the other side. Victor heard it cut through the air with a fwish and twisted his staff leftward, deflecting Leo’s attack.

Victor heard Leo’s clothing shift as he made a circular motion with his hand that asked, again?

Victor nodded.

Leo brought his staff down toward Victor’s shoulder, but as he was blocking it, a breeze came through and messed up Victor’s awareness. He managed to block anyway, because he’d already begun the motion, but the fact that so much as a stiff breeze could mess him up got on Victor’s nerves.

"How do I account for wind?"
"Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. The sound of something moving through wind is different, not nonexistent." As another breeze came through, Leo swung his staff; not at Victor, just in a direction. Out to his right, to be exact. Victor heard it and understood what Leo meant: the sound was different, but it was there.Victor nodded and thumped his chest. Hit me again. He raised his staffs.This time it was easier. He heard the staff move right away and he blocked it. And then one came at him again, from the other side. He blocked it. Top. Block. Side. Block. Diagonal. Block. Other side. Block.
Victor was smiling. He started to take the offensive between blocks. Leo never let himself get hit, but Victor’s staffs grazed him once or twice.

They paused after a few minutes, stepping away and nodding to each other. Victor breathed heavily and sat back down onto the dirt; Leo followed suit shortly thereafter.

"That was good," Leo said after a minute. "Are you ready for me to turn up the noise?"

This was moving fast, and Victor wasn’t sure if he could do it. But then he recalled how damn close he’d been to defeat last night, and how they were running out of time...

Victor took a deep breath and got to his feet. "Go ahead."

The sound of birds chirping rang in his ears, and Victor sucked air in through his teeth. It wasn’t quite painful, but it was very sudden. He tried to attune himself to Leo’s position despite the background noise. It still wasn’t anywhere near normal volume, so it was possible, just very hard. He couldn’t hear Leo standing still or nodding anymore, but he could still hear his footfalls, and he could make out his staff as it swung his way.
Not quite in time to block it, though. There was a sharp thwack as the hard wood connected with Victor’s shoulder, and he sighed. He did the same circular motion Leo had done earlier in lieu of saying again aloud, not wanting to risk talking and messing up his hearing.
The staff whisked through the air once more, from Victor’s other side, and this time he blocked it, just barely. The birds made it hard to hear, and the slight breeze that ruffled the leaves in the forest nearby was impossibly loud. Though he knew on some level it wouldn’t make any difference, Victor squeezed his eyes shut and furrowed his brow, trying to focus all his energy on listening.

Leo struck him again before he could react, smacking his side just below his previous bruise. "Are you sure you’re ready?" Leo whispered, and Victor could barely hear him. He nodded and swung his own staff preemptively. Leo blocked easily, and Victor grit his teeth: Leo was so much better.

And then Victor realized something. The sound of the air was loud, and the sound of the staff cutting through it was loud - but they were slightly different. It was like the wind.

When Leo’s staff cut through the air again, Victor heard it easily - suddenly realizing how much of a mock-battle this really was. If Leo had been pandering to his low skill when he’d assessed him before, now he was treating him like a toddler. As he batted Leo’s staff away, his own connected with Leo’s shoulder in the same motion. He could hear Leo wince.

"Sweet, you’re getting it!" Leo whispered enthusiastically. "More noise? Or do you need to sit here for a bit?"
"I need more time," Victor replied, that little bit of confidence slipping away. Don’t I always. He listened to how the air moved as he huffed out a breath, suddenly realizing that in trying to stay quiet, he’d been partially holding his breath.
Leo clicked his tongue in approval and lifted his arm, probably in a thumbs-up. The air didn’t get any louder, but Leo’s staff did come down again.

Victor thought he heard the clack as his staff connected with Leo’s this time. Yes, he definitely heard it, even despite Leo’s sound-blocking magic. His ears were adapting, learning to notice quiet sounds even among louder ones. In a few more days, he’d perfect this technique, and then he wouldn’t need to see or feel the shadows to fight them: he could hear their movements.

Clack. Their staffs connected again, between their chests. They wrestled for a moment, Victor eventually pushing Leo’s staff off in a circle.

Clack. They connected above Leo’s shoulder, and Leo forced Victor’s staff off his.

Clack. Clack. Clack. Victor blocked strike after strike, tuning out the noise of the last one so he could hear the next one coming.

"I’m turning the world fully back on now. You can do this," Leo said, at something approximating a normal volume.

Victor wanted to brace his ears, which had acclimated to near-silence. But he didn’t. Instead, he focused as hard as he could on the way Leo’s staff cut through the air as the other man continued striking.
Clack. Clack. Tweet-tweet, whoosh-clack. Clack. Stomp-clack, stomp-stomp, clack. Fwish-clack. Any noise that was irrelevant, Victor tuned out: the only things that mattered were the ground beneath their feet and the air their staffs cut through when they moved. Clack. Clack. Clack.
Leo stepped back. Victor took the hint and stopped, stepping away and lowering his staffs. He was breathing hard, but he didn’t hear that, he only felt it like sandpaper over his throat. His cheeks were hot and his feet were heavy, but the only thing he heard was the wind.

That is, until Leo spoke. "That was amazing!" He said it at normal volume, but it didn’t hurt Victor’s ears.

"Thanks." His own voice sounded odd to him. He tried to make himself notice more sounds, and they came back, one at a time. His ragged breathing. The chirping birds. Leo’s mildly ragged breathing, and the shifting of his clothes as he doubled over, gripping his knees. Victor wanted to do the same. Or better yet, just lay down. Victor laid down. It took him a second to notice the thud of his weight hitting the earth, the rustling of the grass.

"Hey, don’t you want me to take your blindfold off?"

Victor had nearly forgotten he’d had it on. "Oh. Yeah, I guess. Sure." He sat up, and Leo moved around to kneel behind him, footfalls heavy.
Leo undid his bandage, but instructed Victor to keep his eyes closed. The first thing Victor saw was the blinding orange of the sun through his eyelids. He shielded his eyes with his hand.
As the bandage slipped all the way off, Victor squinted, eyes still shielded. The world was blurry for a second, but it quickly came into focus. Grass and shrubs and tress and bushes and birds and buildings and sky. The vivid details of his vision combined with the vivid details he’d acquired in his hearing were overwhelming, and Victor sat there dumbfounded.

Leo laughed. "Yeah, that happens. Don’t worry about a bit of shellshock, you’ll get over it in a minute." He patted Victor on the back, and at this point Victor remembered that he had yet another sense, and at this point he fell backward into the grass, groaning.

"Why is the world so..." he gestured vaguely, waving at the sky. It was very blue. And bright. Victor closed his eyes again, grumbling.

"You’ll learn to control it eventually." Leo’s hair ruffled as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Can I turn it off?"

"You can ignore it, just like you can ignore distracting sounds when you’re focused. So in that sense I guess so. But it never goes away, no."

Victor sighed. He tried tuning out the quieter sounds. It seemed to work. He opened his eyes again and the world seemed a bit easier to coexist with, so he stood up. He didn’t hear the grass shifting with his footfalls, that was progress. His breathing had also slowed, enough that he didn’t feel it anymore, so he tuned that out too.

Leo gave him a thumbs-up, and lead the way back to his and Guang-Hong’s house. Victor practically fell through the door when Leo opened it for him. He didn’t care. He wanted a nap and then dinner.
Guang Hong looked up from a book and waved to Victor as he passed his desk. Victor simply nodded and retreated to his room. He shut the curtains at the window and pulled more around the four-poster bed before climbing into it and covering his face with the pillow. He sighed. That wasn’t too physically exhausting, but it had been mentally exhausting, and Victor needed a quiet moment to recuperate.
Victor drifted to sleep.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Bright, blinding light. Yellow, and red, and orange. Heavy breathing became calmer. Fingertips twitched, settled. A door clicked open.

"Hi," said a gentle voice with an Asian accent, "I wanted to come check on you."

Viktor’s eyes opened a sliver. Tawny brown, pale yellow, and a cross-hatch of blue and red stood at his bedside. He tried to speak, but he only got out a groan. Everything ached.
"Be careful and slow, please, my magic hasn’t totally run its course yet."
"Who..." Viktor whispered. "Where...?"

"Ah, you don’t remember." The man smiled, warm and sad. "That’s alright. My name is Guang-Hong Ji. You are in the house I share with my partner Leo."

"Yurio...?"

"Your friend is here too."

"Thank you... letting us stay," Viktor said. Talking felt like sandpaper in his mouth.
Guang-Hong giggled. "I’m not sure what else I might do. You crashed into the side of my house at 6 in the morning." He handed Viktor a glass of something, partially full, and Viktor drank it. Whatever it was, it tasted too sweet and too sour simultaneously - and still it made Viktor realize how intensely hungry he was.
"Do you.. have anything to eat on hand?" Viktor said, voice in working order now that he’d had something to drink. "I’ll be happy to repay you."

"Don’t worry about that," Guang-Hong said. "Here."

Viktor finally noticed that his eyes actually worked just fine, stopped staring at the ceiling, and sat up gingerly, propped up by pillows. There was a bowl of stew on the nightstand. He grabbed it, mindful of the slight tremor in his hands, and began to eat.
He expected to be more tired than this, more scarred. His hands and forearms had a slew of small cuts and scrapes on them, but they were healing pleasantly, mostly scarred over. His feet were a little sore, but not too badly blistered. His head hurt, but only with a little nagging ache near his hairline.
When Viktor finished his food, he set the bowl down again on the nightstand. Guang-Hong was sitting in a small white chair on the opposite side of the room, next to a mirror that faced the bed.

Seeing his reflection, his brows creased together. He sat up a bit further, abs spasming momentarily as they struggled to hold him. He traced over his cheek with the tips of his fingers. The entire right side of his face was covered in bruises, variously healed, and a deep cut had torn its way from his left cheek just under his eye to the edge of his sideburn, just under the edge of his fringe.

"When you came here," Guang-Hong said, "you were totally exhausted. Most of my effort has been spent on that, since your friend told me that you two were 'on a clock'. Leo did stitch up that gash on your cheek, though."

"I appreciate that," Viktor said, his voice hollow as he stared at his face, with its newly-acquired blues and violets. He looked broken.

His reflection mirrored him as he laid back down against the pillows. "You didn’t mention - where is Yurio? What is he doing?"

"Training with Leo, mainly," Guang-Hong mused. "You’ve been out for about three days, he’s been working this whole time. Says he 'never wants to let you down again'."

Viktor’s thoughts fought for which one would take precedence. I was asleep for three days? Leo is a sword-fighter? Yurio thinks he let me down?

"Are you ready to try getting up? In theory you should be able to." Guang-Hong tilted his head just a little to the side - you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.

Viktor nodded, eased himself toward the edge of the bed. He stood. He was sore and stiff, but his legs didn’t shake. He bent over slowly, but couldn’t even reach his toes. Stood upright again; he definitely needed to stretch. But otherwise... "No permanent damage?"

"There might have been," Guang-Hong said, glancing upward, "if you had just run yourself to exhaustion and then slept for three days with no magical assistance. But Leo and I taken care of most of that, and time took the rest. You should be back to normal soon."

Viktor’s hand flinched up to his cheek, fingers grazing the stitches.

"There... will be a scar." The look on Guang-Hong’s face apologized.

Come on, it’s one tiny scar. Yurio’s are probably much worse. "It’s fine, Guang-Hong. I apologize for being unappreciative." He looked up, smiled. "...May I go see Yurio now?"

"Oh! Sure. I think he and Leo are outside..."
Viktor followed Guang-Hong out into the late afternoon sun. They rounded the corner of the house, climbed a short hill - and Viktor saw them.
Leo was a muscular man of middling height, wearing light, baggy trousers and a tight shirt, cloth wrapped around his arms to the wrists. He moved with intense surety, every motion betraying brutal, deadly competence. Yurio wore a tight black shirt with a high neckline and cap sleeves, brutally small shorts, and his magic skate-shoes; it was like he wore as little clothing as possible so that it might lend him maximum mobility. An angry red scar ran down his right thigh, and another dashed across his left forearm. His silver hair hung loose, flying about his head like a silver fire as he moved. Both men dual-wielded heavy wooden staffs, one short and one long, like Yurio’s swords - and both were blindfolded.

As Viktor watched, Leo swung a staff at Yurio, who vaulted sideways through the air, long staff swinging back toward Leo as soon as his toes touched the ground while his short one was raised to block. Leo blocked with his short staff and freed his long one to swing high at Yurio. Yurio responded with a duck and roll, Leo moved to strike before Yurio could stand, and, kneeling, Yurio lifted his long staff behind him to block, standing in the same motion that he forced Leo’s staff off his. Through it all, Yurio moved rhythmically, almost like he was dancing, while Leo’s movements seemed so erratic as to be almost completely unpredictable.
After several minutes, they stepped away, like the timing had been prearranged. "Hey Viktor," Yurio shouted up at him, turning his head toward where Viktor stood at the crest of the hill. He was still totally blindfolded. "You’re up!"
"Yeah," he said, walking down the hill and meeting Yurio at its base.

The young man gently tugged down the cloth down from the left side of his face with his index finger, uncovering one emerald-green eye. He smirked - but his voice betrayed his relief. "Good to see you, old man."

Viktor wanted to hug him. He wanted to apologize for forcing them away from Kamyinsk so quickly, say that he should have given them more time, say that being on a clock didn’t mean they should rush into things and get themselves killed. He wanted to apologize for failing to realize Yurio wasn’t ready. He wanted to tell his friend that he hadn’t let him down, that it was Viktor who had made an inexcusably stupid decision, and that carrying Yurio here had hardly repaid that idiocy. But instead of any of that, he rested a hand on Yurio’s shoulder and said, "Good to see you, too."

Yurio eased the cloth wrap back up his face, did a little twirl. "Neat, huh?"
"Yes, actually. How does that work?" Viktor asked. "Did you grow a magical third eye while I was asleep? Is it under your hair?" He lifted Yurio’s fringe and made a show of inspecting under it.
Yurio shoved him away, a wide grin on his face. "Hey, get off me, dude No, I didn’t."

"Then what did you do?"

"He trained his ears," Leo said - he’d walked over and stood a few paces to Yurio’s side. "You find there’s a lot the human body can do, if you give it the right training."

Viktor had definitely noticed that.

"Are you two going to be done training soon?" Guang-Hong said, glancing to the setting sun. "I’d like to know when I can call you in for dinner."

Viktor paused, glancing into the distance behind Guang-Hong. That’s the kind of world I’d like to live in, that I’d like to create. Where if a child stays outside after dark, all it means is that their dinner might get cold.

Yurio glanced at Leo; Leo smiled and said "We can be finished now."
As they reentered Leo and Guang-Hong’s house, they went through the living space to a kitchen at the back wall. Guang-Hong sat at one end of the rectangular dining table, and Yurio and Viktor took chairs opposite each other on the long side.
Leo fetched a large metal pot from a counter against the far wall from atop a plate that shimmered black and brought it over, setting it atop a large colorful woven trivet in the center of the table.

Leo pulled the lid from the crockpot and waved a hand over it to disperse the heavy cloud of steam which wafted off its contents. Viktor was affronted with a wave of hot, damp air, rich with the scent of stewed meat. Leo walked back over to the counter and pulled a bread-box from a drawer under it, cutting four thick slices of bread off a loaf. He walked back to the table after putting everything away where he'd found it, setting a slice of bread in front of each person. He served up a stringy, thick piece of meat accompanied by an assortment of vegetables and what looked to be glowing mushrooms. When he’d finished, he sat down at the table’s other end and tossed the serving utensils into the crockpot.

Viktor looked helplessly to their hosts for guidance on how to eat this, and at first got nothing for it. Leo was unwrapping the cloth from his arms up to his elbows - revealing forearms covered in a spider's web of deep red scars, the sight of which sent pins and needles through Viktor’s chest. Meanwhile, Guang Hong was rolling up his sweater sleeves.
But then they simply began tearing the meat apart with their hands and shoving handfulls into their mouths, letting the juices drip from their chins onto the bread on the table. When he looked to Yurio, he saw that his friend was already doing the same as their hosts, so Viktor mentally shrugged and dug in.
"What's with the glowy mushrooms?" Yurio asked with a mouth full of meat. Viktor would cringe, except that he wasn't sure whether that counted as poor etiquette here or not.
"Nothing crazy," Leo replied, "they grow around here in the snow, and they're good with veal.""Is that what this is? Not some kind of crazy huge magic caribou or something?"
Guang-Hong giggled.

Leo smirked and said, "Sorry to disappoint, but no. Just regular deer."

"That isn't disappointing," Viktor added. "This is delicious. We really appreciate how hospitable you two have been."

"It's no problem," Guang-Hong said. "Leo has somewhat a habit of picking up travellers, so we’re used to having guests. They’re not typically legendary heroes, though... hm, about that, we weren’t aware there were two of you. I thought the legends only mentioned one."

"We thought so too," Yurio replied. "But Katsudon told us about the original phrasing, and it seems that it could be interpreted either way."
"A... pork cutlet bowl...? Told you about the original phrasing of the legend...?" Guang-Hong looked at Yurio like he’d recently gone bonkers.
Viktor sighed and cut in, "Katsudon is Yurio's nickname for the Prince."

"You nicknamed the Prince after a pork cutlet bowl."
"The pig nicknamed himself after a pork cutlet bowl."
"So you guys can talk to Prince Katsuki?" Leo said, sounding excited.

"Yes, they can," Yuuri said. He sounded a bit sheepish.

Leo and Guang-Hong looked very confused - Guang-Hong’s eyes darted around, looking for a source of the voice and not finding one.

"Yurio's right, actually some friends of mine when I was a kid used to call me Katsudon, because I love it so much, and it sounds a bit like Katsuki."
"Prince... Katsuki...?" Guang-Hong looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
"Hi," Yuuri replied, his voice implying a little wave.
"How...?!""I can telepathically interface with people using life-force magic," Yuuri said.
Guang-Hong looked like he was about to have another heart attack. He had about the same reaction to 'life-force magic' that Phichit had.
Viktor tried to clarify, "According to the royal scientist at Kamyinsk, Yuuri and I are soulmates-" and he was definitely never going to get used to saying that "-so the resonance won’t kill either of us. I’m aware of the normal riskiness of direct life-force magic."As Guang-Hong blinked at Viktor, you could see him updating his mental model of how magic worked.
"What do you know about life-force magic," Yurio said.

"Well, I’m a wand-maker... I need to know about how magic works to do that, especially since wands are connected to life-force like any other piece of magical apparatus."

"How, exactly?" Viktor asked.

"Diamond and ice are the best channels for magic. So, wands have diamond cores. But since direct contact with magically-charged substances can sometimes give off a shock, they’re encased in some non-magically-conductive material, typically wood, except at the tips." Guang-Hong drew a wand from a pocket and handed it to Viktor.

The tip sparkled like a precious stone, since, in fact, it was. The wooden casing was intricately carved with swirls and stars. "Is there any use for these carvings, or are they just decorative?"

"Besides improving the grip, they’re only decorative." Guang-Hong held out his hand and Viktor handed the wand back to him, belatedly realizing that between the two of them, they’d gotten meat juice all over it. His host didn’t seem to mind, though; he just set it on the table beside his partially-eaten bread-plate. "I make multiple models of wands for different purposes. For sorcerers who mostly draw sigils on surfaces, I make one like a pen, for example."

That made sense. If the only requirements were 'magic core, non-magic case', you could create a lot of variations on that. Viktor wondered what kinds of wands Yuuri had.

"So how's the linkage?" Yuuri asked, as if summoned by Viktor's thought of him.

"I custom-make each one, so I can create the core or cores to the sorcerer’s individual specifications." Guang Hong’s tone was pulled taught; he suddenly sounded like he was being interviewed.
Yuuri made a hum that implied a nod. "Makes sense. What kinds of conductivities do your wands have in general?"
"Well, I obviously would have a purer core if I were going to make a wand for you, Your Highness. I can make most of my wands with synthetic or impure diamonds. If someone wants a better wand, I typically ask them to bring me the diamond for the core."
"Can someone please tell me what the hell any of this means," Yurio interjected, folding his arms and leaning across the table. He had finished eating, not only his food but his plate.
"Basically," Leo said, "Diamond is magic, better diamond means you can do better magic." He stood up, pushing his chair back with his knees. "Unrelated question, anybody want seconds?"

A show of everyone’s hands prompted Yuuri’s question, "What are you having?"

"Roast veal with mushrooms," Guang Hong replied proudly, glancing at Leo, who smiled bashfully.

"Sounds delicious. I wish I could be there to try it."

"Wait, Katsudon, didn't you say earlier that you could make us imagine you walking beside us? What about we pull up a chair and you make us all imagine you're sitting with us?"

Yuuri audibly hesitated - and Viktor knew why. Even if everyone imagined his presence, he wouldn’t really be there - which not only meant he wouldn’t get to eat with everyone, he also wouldn’t be able to physically interact with anyone. Sitting right beside his lover, not being able to touch...

"You don’t have to if you don’t want to, Yuuri," Viktor assured him.

"No, it’s good. I’ll be right there."

'I’ll be right there'. It’s like he’s coming over to pick me up for a date.

In a few moments, as Leo was serving seconds, Viktor heard quiet footsteps. Sandals on hard dirt. He stood, spun around-

Yuuri stood in the center of the living room, wearing a simple violet robe - the same color as the one he’d worn when he kissed Viktor during his program to On My Love. The light from lit candles and the setting sun through the windows danced across his soft face and sleek, dark hair.

"Hi, Yuuri." Viktor forced his suddenly parched lips into a smile as he pulled out the chair beside his.
His lover walked over to the table with measured grace, as if he was balancing a stack of books atop his head. He pulled his skirt aside and sat down, glancing at Viktor with firelit eyes. "Hi, Vitya."
After a long moment, Viktor dragged his gaze from Yuuri’s, like pulling a magnet from its opposite. And he noticed Leo and Guang-Hong sitting in a state of awkward, rushed formality. Viktor wondered what to say-

Yuuri waved his hands and said, "Relax, please. I’m not Prince Katsuki here - just someone who’d like to spend an evening with his lover and his friends."

Viktor smiled. Guang Hong and Leo did as asked. Yurio, who seemed to be the only one who’d been entirely unaffected the whole time, said through a mouthful of meat, "If it helps, call him Katsudon."
Guang Hong and Leo both laughed. "So, Katsudon. How've the past five centuries been?" Leo asked, chuckling.
Yuuri leaned forward, relaxing at last, and propped his chin on his palm. "Pretty shitty, to be honest. Glad I've got these legendary heroes to save me now. I had started to worry they weren't coming."

Viktor pressed his palm to his chest. "Yuuri! How could you?!"
The night was passed with multiple large helpings of meat and mushrooms, a decent amount of wine, and a lot of cheerful banter. Only when everyone was practically falling asleep at the table did anyone consider actually going to bed.
Viktor stood - helped Leo bring the empty pot to the basin and rinse it out - and walked/stumbled back to his room. Yuuri, quiet as a ghost, followed close behind.

As soon as Viktor shut the door, Yuuri fell back against the wall and sighed, tipping his head back, then nodding forward.

Viktor considered how difficult it had to be to make four people imagine his presence for several hours. "You don't have to make me imagine you anymore, if you don't want," he said. "I'm probably going to go to sleep soon anyways."

"I know I don't have to, but... I want to be beside you." Yuuri moved away from the wall, stepping a moment closer to Viktor. He held his own hands, lacing his fingers together and concentrating on the floor. "It won't take that much more effort to keep myself here until you fall asleep."

Viktor smiled and gestured for Yuuri to follow him; he hesitated, then did so. Viktor pushed the mattress down and climbed into bed; Yuuri lay down next to him, facing him. He reached a hand up almost close enough to touch Viktor's cheek, then stopped himself. "Do you know what the lyrics of Stammi Vicino mean?" he asked, looking away and forcing his hand down.

Viktor frowned. "They're in... Italian, no?"

"Yes, they are. You don't speak Italian?"

Viktor shook his head. "Common, English, Russian, a handful of words in a few other languages, but no Italian."

"The song is... well... it's about us. When my family and I created the Veil and its Key, I composed the song based on what I knew about the prophecy, and what I knew and inferred about you. I didn't know you then, except through snippets of dreams and prophetic visions, but I had felt the emotions through those visions, so I wrote about those..."

"Why does the song sound so lonely?"
"It sounds lonely in the beginning because I was lonely in the beginning. Hell... I’m lonely now. I want to really be next to you, and I know I'm not. No matter how convincing my illusion is to you, it's not convincing to me because I'm the one making it."
"A magician always sees through his own smokescreens," Viktor murmured.

"But the reason I asked if you spoke Italian," Yuuri continued, "is because I wanted to know if you understood it. I didn't actually write it in Italian—I wrote it in Japanese, and I had it translated to fit the operatic theme. Some nuance was obviously lost in translation... I wanted to ask you that before I..." Yuuri's voice was quiet; his gaze danced around the room, looking anywhere except into Viktor's eyes.

"Yuuri..." Viktor said, voice a low purr. Yuuri's gaze snapped back to his as instantly as a reflex. "What did you want to tell me?"

"I..." Yuuri looked like he was trying to look away but failing. "Vitya..." He closed his eyes, which seemed to help. "Hanarezu ni soba ni ite. That was the original title of the song. That's what I find myself wanting to say to you."

"Something about... going away?" Viktor was slightly confused. He only knew one of those words.

"Mm. Stay close to me, and never leave."

Oh.

"I won’t," Viktor said. His voice was shaky. He closed his eyes to steady himself, understanding why it had worked for Yuuri a moment ago. "I won’t ever leave you. I will stay as close to you as I can. And, I will do whatever is necessary to make you less lonely. This, I swear to you." He put a hand to his chest cordially and opened one eye, hoping for an answer, or a smile, or a pleasant acknowledgment. He did not get any of that. Yuuri was crying.

Viktor bristled immediately. What did I do? What did I say? "Yuuri, I’m sorry, whatever I said that-" He was interrupted by a loud outburst of either laughing or sobbing, and he couldn't quite tell which one.

"Viktor, I adore you so much," Yuuri choked out. There was absolutely no hostility and no hint of sarcasm in his voice, which confused Viktor even more. He took a shaking breath. "There’s nothing you can do about this, right now. I need to wait until you finish all your trials, until you skate the Veil Key and seal the Shadow. Then I can really be with you. Please, just... skate well, keep improving, move as quickly as you can." At last, he smiled. "I’ve already waited four hundred years, what's four more?"

Viktor smiled. "I wish I could wipe away your tears."

"I wish I were really physically crying, purely so you could do that." Yuuri wiped his tears on the sleeve of his robe and flipped over to face the ceiling. The mattress did not give under his weight. "You make it sound so certain that you're going to come save me, like there's no hint of chance involved, as if it's just a matter of waiting four years instead of a matter of life and death for the people I care about the most..."

That’s something you don’t understand, though, Yuuri. I’m not any more certain than you are. I only know you’ve already dealt with this once, and you’ve already lost once. I can’t let that happen again. That would be the worst kind of failure.

Yuuri turned his head. Glanced at Viktor for a moment - his stare speaking volumes in a language Viktor didn’t understand - then looked down at the slice of mattress between them. The corners of his lips were turned up, just slightly, in a sad sort of non-smile. "Goodnight, Vitya."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor woke shortly after sunrise the following morning. He rolled out of bed with something resembling his usual ease, walked around the house, and noticed that nobody else was awake yet. Returning to his room, shutting the door, and pulling his blue soul orb from his pack, he called Yuuri's name. He spoke softly, but aloud.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," came Yuuri’s voice in reply. All the tumult from last night had gone from his voice.

Viktor was surprisingly relieved, and his grin betrayed him. "Good morning, love. I would ask how you slept, but you don’t; what did you do while I was asleep?"

Yuuri giggled. "Mostly I was fighting the Shadow, as usual."

"As usual." Viktor smirked and walked over to the white wooden table in the room's back corner and sat at a chair tucked at its side, propping his chin on his hand and staring out the window. There was a crown of light over the snow-covered tops of the trees, where the sun hadn't come up far enough for its light to get past the hill on the clearing's eastern side. "Y'know, I had this dream-"

"Another prophetic one?" Yuuri sounded excited.

"No, sorry, just a regular one. I dreamed that instead of fighting the Shadow with your mind—which is amazing by the way—you were engaged in this five-century swordfight with the Shadow in human form, or something." Viktor knew he wasn’t describing it very well. In the dream, every clash of their massive swords had created an explosion, multichromatic like the soul orbs, with a sheer force which threatened to blow over both fighters (and which swept Yuuri’s hair back in a very attractive manner). It was brilliant to watch, and it felt like a perfect metaphor for real life which also happened to make no sense.

"How does a universal force, which by its very nature exists in opposition with humans, have a human form?"

"Well, they were... androgynous and had short purple hair and bright red eyes... and they carried a huge sword."

"And I kept myself alive for five centuries for the purpose of this swordfight how...?"

"You've kept yourself alive for five centuries for the purpose of your mental swordfight!"

"No, I've kept my consciousness continuous. Maintaining a physical body for five hundred years is a lot more work than maintaining a mind for that long. Physical bodies degrade and break down; a mind is just a really complicated pattern of connections. A five century swordfight would require me to have come up with a way to get my cells to perfectly replicate my DNA, or in some other way prevent my body from aging. And even if I could do that-"

"You could do it."

"In five minutes?" Yuuri asked.

Why only five minutes?

"I had about that long to decide what to do while the Shadow was coming for me."
"Oh." Viktor briefly wondered what he would do if his functional lifespan was five minutes. Keep talking to Yuuri, probably. That would be a good way to go.

"So even if I could cure mortality, in five minutes... physical bodies also require lots of maintenance. When would I sleep or eat?"

"I don't know! It was a dream!"

"I know, Vitya," Yuuri said, obviously smiling. Viktor felt his frustration dissipate, and a pleasant, loving ache replaced it. "I was just taking it literally for fun."
Viktor set his soul orb on the table for a moment, then didn't like not having it in his hands, and picked it back up again. "I think it was more of a symbolism thing. I don't understand magic very well, and I don't understand what you're doing very well, so my brain made me think of it as a physical activity instead of a mental one, because I'm more used to that."
"I don't know if I would say that. Choreography is a mental activity."
"With an immediately applicable physical component."
"Well... Fair."

"Hey, Yuuri," Viktor said, staring at his soul orb as he rolled it around in his palms, "May I ask you something?"

"Mhm?"

"You know more about magic than I do - is there any kind of spell backfire that might cause scarring all over someone’s arms?"

"Like Leo’s, you mean?"

Viktor nodded.

"Not... exactly... Not magic, anyway... um." Yuuri sounded like he was having a hard time putting something into words.

"Could you show me?"

"Mm." Yuuri paused. "This might be a bit... shocking. I’m going to try my best to dull the impact of the memory... but I don’t know how well I’ll succeed."

Viktor abruptly saw yellowed grass, close to him, like he was kneeling. Heavy boots crushed the brittle blades as a figure moved into Viktor’s field of view; he looked up. A grey, hooded cloak blew in a wind that tossed smoke and glowing embers off the fires behind. It covered the figure underneath it almost completely, leaving only their mouth and chin exposed.

Like a sudden breeze, the figure’s arm swept outward, pushing aside the cloak to reveal a one-handed arming sword hanging at their hip. On their bare arm, a spider’s web of angry red scars. They reached around and grabbed the handle, making to draw it - then suddenly hesitated.

Their hand came off the sword’s handle, and they knelt, rapidly and with too much force. The grey hood was too close, and the scarred arms raised up, fingers inched under the edge of the hood. They threw it back, and at last Viktor saw.

The scars stretched in crisscrossed pattern across their face, up their eyelids, across their forehead, down their cheeks. Up close, they didn’t look like scars, nor even like burns; the sharp reddened lines bubbled and festered, cracked and blistered, like some horrendous parasite had made its home behind the person’s eyes and was slowly burning away the skin from the inside out. And in the center of all the mutilation, where the eyes should have been, two pure-black voids bore into Viktor’s gaze.

The figure smirked, the twist of its features hollow, corpse-like. "Hello, my Prince," said a broken voice, as though its throat had been destroyed along with its arms and face and eyes. The thing stood - drew its sword, blade black as the infinite space between stars - and brought its weapon down-

The vision vanished abruptly as Viktor crashed backward, a warning twinge in his wrist. He blinked at the pale sunlight streaming gently in through the window, reorienting himself in the blue and white guest room. He rolled awkwardly onto the floor and picked up the chair he’d just tipped over backward, setting it back at the table and sitting down again.

Before either Viktor or Yuuri could speak, realization sent a jolt of adrenaline through Viktor’s body. The scars - the eyes - the burning buildings - the void-black weapons - and Leo.

Leo is a Shadow follower?
Just as most of his mind was trying to find the fastest way to grab Yurio and run very far away, a wall of confusion stopped him. That made no sense. Leo’s had way more opportunities than Viktor could count to kill them both. Why wouldn’t he? And what about Guang-Hong? He’s clearly not associated with the Shadow at all - if Leo was really a Shadow follower, he would have served his boyfriend up on a silver platter for the Shadow by now.
"Leo is a Shadow sorcerer," Yuuri answered. "There aren’t many who don’t also follow the Shadow, but it is possible to use Shadow magic without being in Its cult."

"Shadow... magic? You mean anti-magic?"

"That’s another name for it." There was a momentary pause, and for some reason Viktor imagined Yuuri pushing a pair of glasses up his nose. "Shadow magic is an extremely powerful force, just as magic is, and though the process to acquire it is painful and difficult, it has a lot of benefits for the user."

"...Such as?"

"Well-trained Shadow sorcerers have all the abilities you’ve seen Shadow followers use: shadow melding, true randomness, teleportation. It’s really different from proper magic."

"Normal magic can’t do that?" Viktor asked. He admittedly had only gotten partway through one of Phichit’s books.

"Um, no. Normal magic is a slow process; even simple spells take several seconds, and more complex ones take whole minutes."
"Ah, like skating a program.""Exactly. Actually, how long it takes to complete a spell is a good rule of thumb for how powerful it is.""And... Shadow magic isn’t like that."
"No. All Shadow magic happens almost instantaneously, or even becomes a fundamental part of the person using it so that they have to try fairly hard to not use it."

"Then why don’t more people use Shadow magic? You did mention it was difficult and painful, but I would be lying if I said skating was easy - though I don’t know about other types of magic."
"You’re underestimating Shadow magic," Yuuri said, voice low. "Human beings, like every magical creature, contain magic as a fundamental part of us. The Shadow is the opposite of magic - so it’s also the opposite of humans. For a human to gain Shadow magic, it requires a permanent sacrifice of some part of their humanity. They stop looking like a human, stop thinking like one somewhat, and most of all, they sacrifice a large part of their ability to do normal magic. As with anything, to become partially its opposite... requires a certain lack of attachment to its initial state in the first place, as well as a lot of effort."
"Why would anyone do that?" Viktor’s voice was nearly a whisper.

"Why does the Shadow have followers?" Yuuri’s voice was dry, humorless. "Some people just want power, no matter the cost. Leo may not be a Shadow follower... but I can’t say that being a Shadow sorcerer is much evidence for his upstanding character."

Viktor hunched over the table in front of him, cheek against one outstretched arm. He didn’t understand, he thought as he traced one of the curved lines on the soul orb with his thumb, it didn’t make sense. Leo had taken them in, let the two of them stay in his house for the better part of a week, fed them both on his own dime, and taught Yurio to sword-fight. That certainly sounded like upstanding character, at least to Viktor.

But then again, what did he know.

A loud slam came through the wall. Was Yurio leaving already? Viktor looked out the window, the blood red sunrise had just hardly faded to yellow. He stood and jogged to the front door, pushing it back open just as it was swinging closed.

"Yurio," he called.

"Huh?" he didn’t turn around or stop walking. There was force and purpose behind his strides; his swords were in their scabbards.

Viktor broke into a jog again to keep up. "May I stretch with you?"

"'M already stretched," Yurio said. There wasn’t quite hostility in his words, but there was something. "Going to go train now."

Viktor refused to be deterred. "May I join you?"

"Sure."
They arrived at the flat piece of ground where Viktor had watched Leo spar with Yurio yesterday, and Yurio dropped the things he’d been carrying on the cold dirt - a few thick wrap-weights, the type that are filled with sand, and a few rolls of the dark cloth that Leo used to make his blindfold.
Yurio began with something like a very rushed skating warmup: rolled his neck and shoulders, twisted his torso a few times, kicked his legs back and forth, rolled his ankles. Then he drew the longer of his swords from the scabbard on his back, wrapped the blade from tip halfway to the hilt, and fastened two of the weights to it.

He held the sword straight outward in one hand, level with the ground, then rotated it in an arc. Back and forth twelve times, then the other hand the same way.

Viktor realized he’d just been standing there staring when Yurio gave him a look, so Viktor began his stretches: rolled his neck around slowly, drew small circles in the air to his sides with the tips of his fingers, then larger circles. Leaned over to one side, then the other. Stretched down to touch his toes, and found he was much less stiff than yesterday, in defiance of everything he thought he knew about his body. It was the magic that did that, probably.

As Viktor sat to do his butterfly stretch, Yurio was drawing horizontal figure-eights with the tip of his sword. One hand, then the other. Strokes as tall as he was, then narrower ones, then the tall ones again but while he stood in sort of a lunge. His blade broke in its motion only long enough for him to change stances and tie his hair up.

When Viktor had finished all his sitting stretches - most of which involved him staring hard at the dirt two centimeters from his nose - Yurio had removed the weights and sheathed his sword, holding a plank position, arms straight but not locked. His breath was remarkably even.

"Ey, come here," Yurio said, trying and mostly failing to gesture with his fist clenched against the dirt.

Viktor stood, walked a few paces closer, tilted his head quizzically - not to much effect, since he was mostly out of Yurio’s view.

"How much do you weigh?"

Viktor blinked. "About sixty kilos, I think - why?"

"That’s good. Come sit on me."

"Yurio... all due respect to the legendary hero, but is that smart?"
Yurio cracked a smile. "Yeah, old man. C’mere."Viktor shrugged, spun around, and sat gingerly on his friend’s back. The flex of his muscles shifted, but didn’t give out under his weight.
"Bit further back- there you go. Thanks." Yurio huffed out his breaths. "I’m gonna do some pushups, kay? Don’t fall off."

Viktor had to brace himself with a hand against Yurio’s shoulder to oblige, but he managed it - staring intently all the while at the back of his friend’s head, searching for a sign that this might be too much for him. "Yurio," he said.

"Ff. What." He did another few pushups, exhaling like the wind had been knocked out of him. "'M fine."

"No, you-" Viktor paused. "You didn’t let me down. In the forest."

Yurio didn’t speak, but he held the rest position at the top of his motion for a beat longer.

"It’s not true. You didn’t let me down. You did exactly the best you could have. I failed you. I didn’t realize you weren’t ready." Viktor’s fingertips traced his scar. "I shouldn’t have one small cut when you have so many more."

"Get off," Yurio snapped. Viktor scrambled off him, and he collapsed onto the dirt, rolling over slowly. He stood, lacing his fingers behind him and stretching his shoulders back.

After he didn’t get a reply for several moments, Viktor continued. "Yurio, it wasn’t reasonable for me to expect you to be an expert sword-fighter after two days holding a weapon. The fact that I didn’t specifically expect it, I failed to think about it, doesn’t make a difference."

"That is so useless," Yurio snapped. "It doesn’t matter if it’s reasonable. Where is it written in the rules of the world that it has to be fair? Can you show me that fine print? Besides - I’m not doing this because of you. I mean yes, tactically you’re my point of reference, but really it doesn’t matter if either one of us lives or dies. One of us needs to be strong enough to defeat the Shadow."

It wasn’t as funny when Yurio echoed Viktor.

And yet, Viktor did consider the possibility. Was Yurio allowed to do only what could reasonably be expected from him?

On a sort of moral level, he should be. It doesn’t seem fair to force someone to become brutally competent at something after only a week of training. But, since when is the world fair? A prophecy gives an illusion of agency to the uncaring universe. Just because they’re prophecized to save the world doesn’t mean it’ll be easy, doesn’t mean it won’t hurt, doesn’t mean it can’t irreparably break them in the process.

If that’s the case, then maybe Yurio is right.

To Viktor, the magnitude of their goal had always seemed on the border of possibility. They had worked themselves incredibly hard on the ice - struggling to compete with each other - but in the end, the real judge of their progress wouldn’t be relative, would it? It wouldn’t matter, in the end, how much better a skater Viktor was, or how well Yurio had learned swordsmanship. There was an objective test, and if they didn’t pass it, it wouldn’t matter if by some other definition they had 'won’. They would have lost, in the only way that mattered.

Life isn’t graded on a curve. They couldn’t pay attention to what was reasonable, or even considered possible. Neither of them could.

Viktor’s mind tried to flinch away from the prospect of considering what it would mean for him to compete with the universe, instead of with Yurio. But he forced himself to consider it, forced his brain to stop making excuses.

How complex is the Veil Key? He didn’t remember the exact specifications... four quads? Probably? He couldn’t remember the number exactly but they were definitely quads. Viktor didn’t have any of those. He hardly had all his triples. And three spins, one of them flying... and one in combination. One step sequence or two? It was a bit of a blur. Still, he did remember the length. Four and a half minutes.
Four and a half minute program. That’s a full minute and a half longer than any of the ones he’d done so far. He presumed the other trials would work him up to that kind of program length, but still, he only skated a trial once every few days or weeks; in the meantime, he would need to do some workout besides walking. He already did, but it wasn’t enough. How could he do it?
A lot of the things he did for cardio—grapevines, skipping, running—could be done along a straight path. He could do those instead of walking. There was only one problem with that, and it was the fact that after a workout, he usually rested. If he were to do this, it would actively slow him down to rest, so he wouldn’t be able.

That would be really difficult. He had no guarantee it wouldn’t break him. Where is it written in the rules of the world that it has to be fair?

"It isn’t. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try our best to make it fair."

Viktor’s head jerked up from the ground, still instinctively looking for a source of Yuuri’s voice for a second.

"Please don’t break yourself, Vitya."

"I can’t promise that," Viktor said, aloud. Yurio had run off and nobody else was around to hear him, standing in an empty clearing talking to himself.
"Why not?" His voice sounded broken.
"Can you guarantee that I’d succeed, if I kept that promise?"

Yuuri was silent. Viktor’s vision blurred; he blinked away the tears.

"I’m sorry."

Viktor didn’t know whether the words he spoke came from his mind or Yuuri’s.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The crisp outdoor air attacked Viktor’s lungs, sharp and icy as it pricked his face and stung his eyes. Quick breaths took in the scent of winter, the pine trees and the snow, reminding him slightly of the ice. It was past dawn, but today the sun was blotted out by grey clouds that precipitated snow the color of ash.
He ran through town, boots dragging in the building snowdrifts. He paused at the treeline, did a set of one-legged squats - his final set, at last - and sprinted back to town, tripping over his exhausted, unresponsive feet.
When he returned to Leo and Guang-Hong’s house, run turning to a jog and then a walk, he ran into Leo - almost literally.

"Hey," Leo said, a quizzical tone to his voice. "What are you doing?"

The obvious answer was obvious and didn’t need repeating, so Viktor stayed silent, catching his breath.

"You’re going to hurt yourself, doing this. How many hours did you work out yesterday?"
"Only three," Viktor said. That didn’t include the skating, but that was different.
"And the day before?"

"Three. Give or take."

"Three hours of straight exercise a day for over a week with no breaks?"
"Yurio’s doing it," Viktor retorted. "With you, I might add."
"With my instruction, not my consent. And, he didn’t have any of the Shadow’s curse to worry about. His blades are enchanted; he touches his wounds with his swords, and the curse is removed. You worked yourself to near-exhaustion with Shadow magic infecting you. GH had to spend the better part of three days repairing that damage."

Oh. That explained a lot. "But it’s finished now, isn’t it?"

Leo shook his head, taking a few paces back to lean against the wall of his house. "It never totally goes away. That’s why you’ll always have that scar, even though it only cut about a millimeter in."

Harsh anger flared up inside Viktor, but he smothered it, and spoke calmly. "You’re saying I’ll be weaker for the rest of my life."

Leo sighed, gestured. "Magic could improve it tactically, but... yes."

Was that what Yurio was blaming himself for? Why he’s been working himself so brutally hard?

"But the Shadow curse can’t be the reason you’re working so hard," Leo said, "you didn’t know. Are you doing it because of something Yurio said?"
Viktor’s momentary silence was all the answer Leo needed, apparently.
"What was it?"

"He just made me realize that the universe has no reason to be nice to me."

"Whaddya mean?" Leo’s head tipped to the side, red-brown hair shifting over dark cloth wraps.

"Just because it’s prophesied that I’ll save Yuuri doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to do. We both have to work much harder than we thought we did. I realize that now."

"Man, you really shouldn’t worry so much about Yurio. He’s just angry, okay? Probably not even because of you. He’s a rude kid sometimes."

"Not like that," Viktor said under his breath.

"Hm?" Leo raised one eyebrow above his cloth wrap.
"He is a rude kid. But not like that. He’s rude because he says 'Yes! I like food!' when people offer him hospitality. He’s rude because he pitches my old gear into the woods when he makes me something new. He’s rude because he calls me 'old man' and pretends my hair is thinning when I’m not even thirty." Viktor touched his scalp where Yurio liked to jab him, cracking a brief smile. He let his arm fall back by his side. "But he doesn’t say things like that."
Leo tipped his head back and let his breath cloud the air. "So you think he’s right, then?"

Viktor was quiet for a long moment. He sighed slowly and watched as his breath left him, the warmth from his lungs condensing and becoming briefly opaque before dissipating into the atmosphere. "Yeah."

"Hey..." Leo said, pushing himself off the side of his house and beginning to slowly plod down the street. His voice was low, solemn for the first time Viktor had heard. "Do you know how I got these?" He gestured to his arms - currently wrapped, but Viktor knew what he meant.
Viktor followed in his step, but said nothing.
"I should have expected as much. Even if you hadn’t figured it out yourself, I s’pose the Prince would have told you." Leo sighed. "Have you figured out why GH wears long skirts all the time, then?"

Viktor blinked. "No," he said slowly. He’d hardly even noticed.
"About... ten years ago," Leo started, then stopped, swallowing hard. He continued, words almost monotone in their deliberateness. "The Shadow cult came to this village. They destroyed everything, took so much from everyone. I was off training with the Royal Guard, but Guang-Hong, he was here, and-" his composure, and his voice, broke. "They took his leg! The bastards, they saw him skating, a seven-year-old boy, and they-" he huffed out short breaths, fists clenching, shoulders shaking- until at last he shuddered out a sigh, tipping his head down. "When I came back, saw what they’d done, I joined the Shadow cult immediately. I was going to climb their ranks and destroy them, bit by bit, from the inside, the way they’d destroyed me."
"I haven’t succeeded yet," Leo said quietly, voice nearly a whisper. "Ten years, and I’ve only managed to kill thirty-eight of those bastards. There have to be hundreds." He stopped walking abruptly, but didn’t turn, leaving Viktor staring at the back of his head: cloth wraps and wispy red-brown hair.

"I know you’re wondering why I’m saying all this. It’s just... really obvious to me that you care about Yurio a lot. And I know you’re willing to do anything for him. I just wanted to say that I know what that’s like... and I know what it can force you to become."

Viktor’s eyes widened and his breath hitched as Leo began to unwind the cloth wrapping his face. He rolled up the strip, held it loosely in one fist. He turned, facing Viktor, eyes shut, chin down. And then slowly, he looked up.
The scarring on his face wasn’t nearly as bad as that on the other Shadow follower’s - the marks there were like those on his arms, dark red lines that looked like scars. Comparatively, they were few and short, hardly passing his eyebrows or his cheekbones. It looked like the parasite inside him was a bit more compatible with its host.
For anything to become partially its opposite, requires a certain lack of attachment to its original state...

Leo’s void-black eyes were sad, pained. "I couldn’t bear to show my face to Guang-Hong, so I taught myself to wear this." He gestured with the fist holding the cloth roll, shook his head. "I’m not trying to say this is going to happen to you, if you care about someone that much. I hope that just looking at me shows you that, if you didn’t know it already. But like... when you care about people, you can make crazy, stupid choices." Leo lifted a finger and traced a scar that carved down his cheek like a tear, smiling mirthlessly. "This was just mine."
Viktor pushed open the door and practically fell through it in the process. He walked, feet dragging, over to the dining table and slumped into a chair. He felt exhausted mentally as well as physically; he needed a break. Maybe just to sit and stare at a wall for a while. Guang-Hong was sitting at a desk built into one level of a wide bookshelf nearby, writing something. He looked up when he heard Viktor sit down. "You’re the second person who’s fallen through my doorway within the past twelve hours," he said. He set the pen he’d been using into its inkwell, turning in his chair and clasping his hands in his lap. "Yurio came through the door almost exactly like that."
"Leo worked him hard last night?"
"Think so."
Viktor stared at the rough grain of the table. If he really did have to take a break, maybe this would be the way to do it. Magic could improve it tactically...

"What’s that you’re working on?" Viktor asked.

"Wands. Different models I could make. New sigils I could create. That type of thing."

"Actually, Guang Hong. If I may interrupt?"
"I think you already interrupted," Guang Hong said with a little smile and an eyebrow raise. "Go ahead."
"I’ve been trying to learn about magic," Viktor said, "and I’ve learned a few things on an abstract level from the books the Royal Scientist gave me. But I feel I’m missing a practical component. I haven’t met anyone else who works with magic and magic items in as hands-on a way as you do."

"You’d like a lesson?"

Viktor nodded.

Guang Hong seemed to consider for a moment, pondering his notes. Then he tossed the paper he’d been writing on aside, grabbed his pen, inkwell, and a clean sheet of parchment, and sat down beside Viktor at the table. "Ok. What do you know?"

"Almost nothing," Viktor said candidly. "Some stuff that doesn’t matter, like the fundamental structure of magically useful materials. And also what you said last week, about wand cores."

"Ok," Guang Hong replied, "Then I’ll start with something easy. Think about your soul, essence, whatever. The fundamental piece that makes up you. This is your life force, which is the piece of you that does the magic." He touched his chest. "We might think the life force resides here, in our chests with our hearts, but actually, it’s up here." He touched his temple.

"All humans have life force; so do magic animals like the Great Wolves." The life force is the intersection between the magic creature and magic energy itself. So, it’s the life force we need to worry about when we think of how magic creatures, like humans, do magic." Guang Hong drew a human figure inside a circle. He labeled the part of the paper outside the circle "magic energy" and the part inside the circle as "non-magic world". He then drew two bidirectional arrows: one from the human figure’s head to the inside of the circle, and another from the human’s head to the outside of the circle.

"This is how magic creatures can use magic to manipulate the non-magic universe," Guang Hong described his drawing. "They use their life force to first tap into magic energy, then they use that magic energy to interact with the non-magic world. Ordinarily, magic and non-magic things are separate," he retraced the circle, "but with a magic creature around, there’s a way for them to indirectly influence each other." He retraced the arrows.

"I thought you said you’d start with something easy..." said Viktor, whose head was starting to hurt.

"I’m sorry!" Guang Hong backpedaled quickly. "Ok, um, let’s try something else. Should I try explaining spells and sigils?"

"...Yes, please."

Guang Hong nodded, moving to a different spot on the paper. "Spells and sigils are basically the same. They both combine certain basic elements to form more complicated ones, which gain characteristics of both elements. It’s actually a lot like the Chinese writing system."

"How so?"

"Well, in Chinese, you can combine primitive elements we call 'radicals' to create characters. Let me find a simple example..." Guang Hong tapped his pen on his cheek. "Ah! Alright." He dipped his pen into the inkwell and wrote three characters at the top of the page. The third character looked like first two squished up against each other.

"This first character means nǚ, or woman. This second one means zĭ, or child. If you put them together, the meanings combine, and you end up with hăo, which means good. You can imagine why this combination works: a woman is good to her child." He wrote the sentence below the characters:
 女 + 子 = 好
A woman is good to her child 
"Hm." Viktor nodded. "I don’t actually know any Chinese at all, but that made a little sense to me."

"I hoped it would," Guang Hong laughed, "I don’t have another way to explain this."
"So, basically, when you combine two spells, you get a similar, related, third spell. The same with sigils." Viktor saw Guang Hong nod, which was encouraging. "I am wondering, though, about the level of freedom that sorcerers have in combining spells. Is there only one fixed combination of any two spells, or can there be several? For example, if Sorcerer 1 combines A and B and expects to get X, but Sorcerer 2 combines A and B and expects to get Y, is it possible that Sorcerer 1 gets X and Sorcerer 2 gets Y?""That’s a very complex question for a beginner." Guang Hong shifted the paper down to get more writing space and dipped his pen in the inkwell again. "The answer is yes - kind of. When you combine spells, your result can be within a bounded range of possibilities." He drew a circle. "If you combined two fire spells, you wouldn’t get an ice spell, but you could end up with anything from a spell to light a candle to a spell that defrosts food. It depends, of course, on which two fire spells you used, but also on your own interpretation of the spells." He drew two flames above the circle with a + between them, then drew a few small images inside the circle: a lit candle, a steaming turkey, and a forest fire.
"So..."

"Going back to your example of the two sorcerers," Guang Hong said, "if they use the same two starting spells, they could end up with slightly different results, but only if the results were both within the realm of possibility for the spells they combined." He retraced the circle, then tossed his pen back into the inkwell with finality.

Viktor nodded twice, slowly. Alright, he was starting to understand this. "I hate to impose further," he said, "but would it be possible to teach me a few spells?"

"Sure! Given what you know they should be easy to learn. Do you know any Latin, by chance? That could make this even easier."

Viktor shook his head.

"Oh. No problem. Alright, we’ll start with something simple." After Viktor raised an eyebrow, he held up his hands. "I mean it this time, I promise!"

Guang Hong stood and fetched a generic-looking wand from a desk drawer. "You can use this without it being linked to you, but if you wanted to do much more than this, I’d recommend buying your own." He brought the wand over to Viktor.

"Okay, first thing you need to know about wands is proper grip." Guang Hong held his out. "Index finger along the length, other fingers wrapped around it."

"Done."
"When you say the incantation for a spell you need to make sure you imagine the thing you’re trying to do, as well as just saying the words." Guang Hong closed his eyes, held his wand out, and said, "Lūx." The tip of his wand began to glow faintly.Viktor’s lips formed a silent whoa. He repeated Guang Hong’s intonation as best he could. "Lux." It seemed to be good enough for his wand, which glowed obediently. Perhaps a little too brightly.
Guang Hong noticed this. "If you want to change how bright it is, you decide how bright it should be." The light he produced fluctuated in brightness a bit, back and forth, then went out.

Viktor, accustomed to working with fire, which fluctuated in brightness depending partially on fuel but mostly on its own whims, had a difficult time 'deciding how bright it should be'. He ended up thinking of smothering a fire, which did make his light dimmer, but it dimmed too quickly and then went out entirely.

He sighed. "I did that wrong."

"Well... yes. What image did you think of?"

"Tossing thick blankets over a fire."
"Okay. Hm, how to explain... magic is based around your control over the universe. With enough will, you can control anything. If you’re thinking reactively—fire already exists, what physical actions can I do to change that—you aren’t thinking about how you can control the universe, only about how you can mitigate its effect on you. In order to do magic, you need to think actively—what do I want to happen, independent of what usually happens, of what I think should happen, or even what I think is possible.""...I think I understand."
"This is a way in which being a legendary hero messes you up, I think." He gestured with the end of his wand. "The rest of us, not bound by prophecies, are the orchestrators of our own fates. Nothing is ever set in stone for us, so we don’t need to worry about what needs to happen, only what we want to happen. But you—well, you, Yurio, and Yuuri—aren’t in perfect control of your own fates. Your life has a script."

"That makes learning magic harder?"

Guang Hong nodded. "You can learn, but there will have to be a mindset shift."

"I think I can handle that. Let’s try again?"

"Sure."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It was another full week of training before Yurio got Leo’s stamp of approval on his fighting skills, but as soon as it happened, the two Nikforovs packed up to leave the same day. Viktor bought from Guang-Hong the best wand he had laying around, and Leo let the two of them borrow Luna - a beautiful she-wolf with fur the color of starlight - to head to the next Trial.

Nobody had heard anything from Yuuri.

It was about a six hour ride to the next trial. Leo had given Luna verbal directions, which she seemed to understand, so Viktor was simply a passenger. He’d tried to work on choreography, or read a spellbook, but had gotten motion sick after a while and had to put his books away. He ended up alternating between staring straight ahead and closing his eyes completely, burying his face in Luna’s soft fur. He detested wasting six hours, but at some subconscious level he was grateful for the break.

Viktor wasn’t sure what Yurio was doing or thinking. He hadn’t been sure of that for over a week now. He would ask, and Yurio would gruffly respond "getting stronger". He supposed that was what they’d both been doing.

They arrived at the Trial well after dark. It was a short ways off some ancient ruins but otherwise in the middle of nowhere, so Yurio went to fetch some wood for a fire so they wouldn’t freeze in the night, instructing Viktor to stay put in one of the abandoned buildings with a soul orb. When he removed it from his backpack, Viktor noticed how cold the orb was, and how hollow. The light it gave off was just as bright as it ever was, but it lacked a warmth that Viktor had never known he enjoyed until it was gone. He shivered in place, and snuggled up to Luna.

"Luna," Viktor whispered. "Shouldn’t you go home?"
Luna shifted the shoulder that Viktor was leaning against slightly, which served as an ample response. Viktor chuckled, very softly.
"If that’s what you want. I do very much appreciate the company."

In a few minutes, it started to drizzle—a frigid rain that bordered on slush, falling in globs from the holes in the hollowed building’s decrepit ceiling. Luna curled into a smaller ball around Viktor to avoid being dripped on, and at some point or another Viktor fell asleep in her fur.
Viktor woke in the middle of the night. Luna hadn’t left—she was still curled loosely around Viktor, breaths heavy and laden with sleep. No, there were light footfalls on the hard sod, the sound of someone getting to their knees, then piling twigs and lighting a fire. Viktor’s eyes snapped open; though it was dark and his vision was hazy, he saw someone sitting on the other side of the seedling flame.
It wasn’t Yurio.

The figure was dark, cloaked, covered from head to toe so that no skin was exposed except the lower half of the face. Its slightly inhuman movements were exacerbated by the flicker of the air over the heat of the fire; it grabbed larger pieces of wood and fanned the flames, seemingly without having even noticed that Viktor existed. Still, Viktor in his warm winter clothes was a black blot in a sea of Luna’s silver fur. A fly on a wall, sitting very still in hopes of not getting swatted.

The figure’s partially uncovered, pale face tilted upward.

"Hi," it said. "Fancy some dinner?"

Viktor blinked a few times. "Eeh... Sure?"
"I apologize if I frightened you," the figure mused as it set up a simple stone slab atop the fire and fetched a decently sized bento-style box from its cloak. "I had to creep through a maze of Shadow to get here, since I can’t teleport anymore after sunset. The disguise had to be on point."
Viktor bolted to his feet, legs suddenly responsive. As he looked over the fire he felt a pang of recognition, but it couldn’t distract him. "Onyx, where’s Yurio."

"I... huh." The royal servant leaned back on xir heels, arms crossed. "I’m not sure. I didn’t see him on my way here."
A sudden rush of adrenaline made Viktor’s feet twitch. He paced, quickly, looking out each shattered window into the darkness, hoping for a glimpse of green and silver. Where is he? I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. I shouldn’t have let him leave. He’s gotten stronger but the Shadow might be stronger still, he shouldn’t have been that confident, I shouldn’t have been that confident in him-
"You can stop freaking out now," a young, irritated voice said, followed immediately by the clatter of wood falling on dirt. Viktor spun around. Yurio stood there, blindfolded, hair tied back, a huge pile of wood on the ground in front of him. Viktor didn’t know whether to hug him or pat him on the back or-

"Oh, hi Yurio," Onyx said, relieving Viktor of having to make that decision. "We were wondering where you’d gone."

"Trying to keep track of where I put my damn firewood is hard enough without having to fight off four scores of Shadows," Yurio grumbled, taking his hair down and undoing his cloth wrap. "Glad you’re here to take care of this idiot."

Onyx did a little bow. "Always a pleasure to be of service. Want some food?"

"Fuck, yes please." Yurio sat at the fire and waited impatiently for the meat and veggies Onyx had brought to be done cooking. "Oh, there’s more wood if you need it," he gestured vaguely at the pile he’d brought back, like an afterthought.

When the food was done, Onyx dished up even portions for the three of them, but Viktor ate about two bites before handing the rest to Yurio, who was almost too ravenous to be grateful. As the others ate, Viktor stared at the ceiling, or what was left of it, and watched the tinge of orange flicker up the walls.

It was impossible to tell anymore what this building could have been before: there had probably been multiple stories, since the ceiling was very high and there were multiple rows of windows, but it was hard to tell the difference between a window and a spot the wall had caved in, so Viktor couldn’t say how many stories exactly. What had this been? Who had lived here, or worked here, or played here, or learned here? Every ounce of the place beyond its physical husk had disintegrated, like the last log turned to ash by a dying fire.
"Shura," Onyx said.
He looked away from the ceiling in something like a daze. "Yes?" The name was as familiar as it had ever been, even after months of disuse.

"I have a box for you. Lilia told me to give this only to you, but since you seem to be with the same kid still, it can’t hurt for both of you to see."

"Not a kid anymore," Yurio grumbled under his breath as Viktor grabbed the box and opened it.

At the top of the box, neatly letter-folded, was a piece of parchment. Viktor picked it up and set the box aside.

Viktor,

I apologize sincerely for the extended delay in getting this letter to you. Your questions were too specific, too curious, for me to simply give an ignorant response. As such, I have spent many months searching for answers. And at last, here they are: I hope they suit your purposes.

As to your prophetic visions. The massive disturbance in spacetime created by the Shadow's original appearance clouded the eyes of prophets even for centuries afterwards. However, as the foretold fifth century nears its close, there is at last another major spacetime disturbance that can be felt. I speak of course of your destiny to seal the Shadow.

This means two things for you. The first is that you are naturally magically inclined. The second is that something similar to what you have seen will almost certainly come to pass. I caveat this statement twice - "something similar to" as opposed to "exactly", and "almost certainly" as opposed to "certainly" - for a reason. Firstly, the future is a fickle thing which changes by mere observation of it. If you have made choices, even minor ones, as a result of your visions, you have thus changed the likelihood that those visions are to come true as they are. Secondly, it has occurred in the past that a prophetic vision has failed to come true entirely. Usually, this is because of a specific preventing event, not large enough to alert any prophet of its existence, but large enough to cause another event which had been foretold to not occur.

As to you and your Prince falling in love. The legend is almost deliberately vague about every aspect of its Hero, including his relationship to the person he saves. It is clear from the phrasing that the Hero and the Prince are very close - perhaps even connected by life-force, which would entail a heretofore-unheard-of, extraordinarily deep interpersonal bond - but whether that is a romantic or platonic one, I cannot say. I suppose that is one aspect of your life which is truly of your choosing - a rare commodity for a chosen hero, I'm sure.

If I may venture to ask, what is your progress through the Trials? I'm unsure as to how direct the meaning of the "five centuries" marker is - it may be any point within the year or it may be the exact five hundredth anniversary of Prince Katsuki's battle with the Shadow. In either case, approximately three years remain, and I would appreciate updates on your progress. Please also let me know what you are doing in general - I may be of assistance in some way you have not thought of, or otherwise, it may simply be useful for you to have a friend. I am unsure as to whether you have acquired any companions in your travels, but regardless, another cannot hurt.

I've provided additional parchment, a pen, and an inkwell with this letter, in case you are lacking them. Whenever you desire to write me, leave your letter in a sunny place and one of my messengers will collect it.

Lilia Baranovskaya

Viktor picked the box back up, and in fact, it included a corked inkwell, a pen he had come to regard as old-fashioned after his foray in Kamyinsk (where Phichit had evidently snuck a lifetime supply of ballpoint pens into his magic book sack), and a decent stack of loosely-folded parchment. He smiled.
"What’s it say," Yurio said.
"Lilia answered the questions I asked her."
"Oh."
"It seems I’m having visions because the Shadow’s initial disturbance has let up. Something about the fact that since I’ve had them, they won’t come true exactly. A bit about Yuuri and I, and a request for information about our progress."

Viktor realized, as he returned to staring at the ceiling, how little he’d told Lilia. How long it had been since they’d spoken last. She didn’t know anything about how many Trials he’d completed, she didn’t know anything about Yurio. She didn’t know he’d become Yuuri’s lover.

"Would you like to write a letter now for me to deliver in the morning?" Onyx offered as xe finished xir food.

Viktor paused a moment, nodded. He pulled out a ballpoint pen and unfolded a sheet of parchment.

Lilia,

Viktor tapped the pen against the side of the box he was writing against, glanced at Lilia’s letter, then back to his parchment.
Thank you for letting me know about the meaning, and precariousness, of my visions. It’s helpful to have a reference for what these might mean.

I hesitate to give an update on "what I am doing in general". A lot has changed, more is yet changing, and I don’t think I can give an effective summary. However, I belive I can inform you as to why the prophecy is so vague concerning its Hero. There are two of us.

I’d met my counterpart - who shares my name, my hair color, my aptitude at figure skating, and almost nothing else - on the same day that I wrote you back last time, but I didn’t write about him. This was mainly because he was nothing short of insufferable when we met - though I now realize that so was I.

For many months we’ve travelled together, and completed a number of Trials - seven in total, to be exact. I’ve grown to care about him; "more than my life" seems excessive to say, except that I risked my life to save him less than a month ago. He has been training in swordsmanship of late, and he has improved drastically over a few short weeks. Still, I worry sometimes that I may do something irreparably stupid, if he ever did come to harm.

I have a question for you, concerning magic. One of my recent visions seemed to imply that I would become a powerful sorcerer, and as a result I have been studying. Is it written anywhere that the hero - or one of the heroes - is a sorcerer?

I appreciate your gift, and I will try to use it to write you more regularly in the future. However, I do hope you understand the scarcity of time.

And one final question: when is the exact five hundredth anniversary of the Prince’s battle with the Shadow? It would be helpful to know, in case that is my true deadline.

"Same," mumbled Yurio’s voice from right behind Viktor’s shoulder. When Viktor glanced over, confused, Yurio pointed to part of Viktor’s letter: I worry sometimes that I may do something irreparably stupid, if he ever did come to harm.
"I think you did that already," Viktor said with a smile as he signed the letter, folded it, and handed it over the dying fire to Onyx. "Hey, Yurio, you stole my spot."
Yurio cackled from where he sat nestled into Luna’s fur. "Move your feet, lose your seat."

Viktor stood, walked over, and squeezed himself right next to Yurio. But instead of complaining, Yurio snuggled up against Viktor’s shoulder.
The sun streamed in at a steep angle through a hole in the roof, prickling warmth on Viktor’s skin. His eyes fluttered open, half-lidded for a moment against the sunlight that drew circular rainbows on the tips of his lashes, before he lifted his free hand to block it. He tipped his head up, looked around. Luna and Onyx had left with the sunrise, leaving Viktor and Yurio alone with the ashes.
He was about to get up, warm up, and head to the ice, but he didn’t.

Yurio was holding Viktor’s hand in both of his, curled up in a loose ball, eyelids heavy against the sunlight and breath even. His head lay against the dirt, silver hair in disarray; he hunched a bit to the side, strong shoulders relaxed and toes curled.

Something about him looked almost desperate, laying there like that. His fingers, loosely curled around Viktor’s, somehow felt like he was holding on for dear life. And in that moment Viktor squeezed his hand, and he thought, this is the closest I’ve ever been to having a brother.

"Yurio," Viktor said quietly, shifting a bit to his side and laying his free hand on Yurio’s shoulder, "The sun is up, we should go practice."

Yurio woke like from a daze. "Oh... okay."

He looked so vulnerable, even awake.

They sat up together, hands clasped loosely for a few more seconds before Yurio gripped Viktor’s hand so hard it hurt, nails digging into his flesh for a second. Then the younger man let go, and stood up.

Viktor sat, curling his fingers, feeling the tingling echo of the marks Yurio’s nails had left as he watched him strap on his scabbards and grab his weights. "Hey, Yurio."

"Huh?"

"Would you like to train by the side of the ice?"

"I was just about to ask if I could drill my on-ice techniques. Mind sharing the rink?"
Viktor did his off-ice warmup, then his on-ice warmup, and Yurio mirrored most of it. As Viktor warmed up his jumps, Yurio did this strange rotating quasi-fly thing around the edge of the rink, occasionally moving off and on the ice without a break in his movement. Viktor was glad Yurio was on the opposite end of the rink while he practiced his triple lutz.
As Viktor drilled his step sequence, Yurio did a dance-like sequence of stabs and slashes, footwork modified for the physics on ice. As Viktor practiced his spins, Yurio worked on doing his no-armed cartwheel thing on skates. And when Viktor glided over to the side of the ice to rest a moment before running his program, Yurio joined him.

"I saw you do a backflip a few Trials ago," Yurio said out of the blue.
"During Shadow Dance." Viktor said, "I did."
"Teach me how to do that," Yurio demanded.

"You can’t do one already?" He’d seen him do things that were much more impressive than a backflip - even if his had led into a double salchow.
"Front flip, sure, cartwheel, sure, backflip, nope." Yurio stood, turned sideways. "Best I can do is this." He bent over backward, and as soon as his hands touched the ice, he kicked his legs over one at a time until he stood upright again. "But I imagine you can see the problem with a back walkover in combat."
Even if you did it really fast, your arms would still be on the ground supporting your weight for a split second - easy targets. Viktor nodded. "That doesn’t mean the type of backflip I do would be any more helpful. For one thing, I land on one foot."

"I land on one foot for my flying kicks," Yurio shrugged. "Better edge control. C’mon, old man, show me."
They’d practiced together for several more hours, alternating between working and teaching, correcting each others’ form and cracking jokes. By the time the sun had risen to its zenith, the air turned hot and heavy, and sitting at the edge of the ice for only a few minutes had sweat glistening on Viktor’s skin.
"Hey, Viktor, you wanna go get something to eat?" Yurio skated over to the side of the ice and eased his laces a bit looser.

Ah, yes, Viktor remembered. Food was a thing humans needed to survive. "What were you thinking of?"

"I dunno. What’s around?"

Viktor stood, picked up his backpack, paced. There wasn’t much - not a lake to fish in, not a patch of grass trodden by any animal, not an edible plant. A massive tangle of deadly nightshade grew nearby, and that was it.

Actually, that would do. Viktor walked over to it.

"Viktor, you know those are nightshade, right?" Yurio said, cautiously pacing up behind him.
Viktor nodded. "I know." He pulled his wand from a pocket on the side of his backpack and knelt next to the plant. It would be a few minutes’ work to remove the toxins from the berries, but it would be good practice.
He combined the sigil for poison - itself a combination of the sigils for vine and pearl, an interesting coincidence given it was a nightshade plant he was working the spell on - with the sigil for negation. It took a long moment to write them - it felt like he was pulling his wand through molasses, trying to collect the appropriate energies and conduct them in the right way. But at the end, when his arm was nearly vibrating with the strength of the magic flowing through it, he tapped the tip of his wand against the base of the plant, and he felt the energy flow out.

There was no visible difference in the plant after he was finished, which made Viktor nervous as he picked one of the little blackish berries and ate it. It was pleasantly sweet, but for all Viktor knew, that was how it tasted even when poisonous. Actually, that was likely the case, since he didn’t think that atropine, hyocamine, or scopolamine had any taste.

Still, after several minutes spent in a complete lack of pain or delirium, Viktor figured he had succeeded, and ate another few berries.

"What did you do?" Yurio asked.

Viktor shrugged, swallowed another few. "Removed the toxins. Be careful, every other plant around here is still deadly - this one is the only one I neutralized."

Yurio picked a berry and ate it, tentatively. "Hm. Mmm..." he ate a few more. "These are actually really good."

"I know," Viktor said, "I wish they weren’t poisonous most of the time."

"Can you do this for anything?" Yurio’s grin was excited as he picked a large handful off the vine and chucked them all in his mouth.

"I think there has to be some part of the plant you’d want to eat," Viktor mused, "For example, I believe I could remove the toxins from poison ivy, but you probably still wouldn’t want to eat it."
"Eh, that’s valid," Yurio shrugged.Viktor sifted through the branches and started picking the berries off another one. "Yurio, do you think I’m ready to skate this next Trial?"
"I’d say you’re ready, but you’d know it better than me," he said from the opposite side of the bush, "Your endurance seemed good. Your triples are mostly clean."

"I flipped the lutz a few times," Viktor mumbled.

Yurio crawled back around the bush with another handful of berries, sat next to Viktor. "The lutz is the hardest one for a reason. If you really think you need more time, you can wait till tomorrow."

"It’s hardly even noon. What about the rest of the day today?"

"Stretch? Practice magic? Read a book? Take a nap?" Yurio shrugged, slouched a little. "I dunno bro, it’s your life."

Is it?

"It really is,” Yurio responded to his unspoken retort. “Look... I know you feel like you don’t have a choice - believe me, I understand - but every day you’ve gotta choose to stay on this path. You don’t have to save the world. There’s nothing forcing you to do it, except the fact that you think you’re a good person."

Viktor shook his head. "I couldn’t just... not-"

"Sure you could." Yurio shrugged. "Lots of people don’t. Heck, there are some people who actively make it worse. Look at the Shadow followers."

"That’s different. They aren’t legendary heroes."

"That still doesn’t mean you have to save the world. I mean the impulse to save the world isn’t just yours. It’s what motivates Otabek, and Leo, and Seung-Gil. Probably it motivates more people than that, I just haven’t met em. Sure, you’ll have an easier time of it. It’ll be easier for you. But I mean... you’re looking right at least one of the reasons it’s not just up to you.”

"If I left this burden on you, I’d be a terrible person. And further, your logic applies to yourself, you hypocrite."

“First off, that’s my point. Second, I’m not a hypocrite. I’m sitting here talking with you instead of training my ass off right now.”

Viktor sighed. He couldn’t explain it to Yurio, but there was something viscerally wrong with the idea of stopping, or even slowing down, even for a little while. There was a stopwatch, ticking, ticking down somewhere, and he couldn’t see it, didn’t know what it had started at or how long he had until it hit zero, but he knew it was ticking, and he knew that something bad would happen when it hit zero. He didn’t know what exactly, but it was bad.

He had come to understand why Yuuri was so anxious.

"Hey, Viktor." Yurio’s expression was concerned. "Let’s stretch out, okay? Then I’ll go set a few traps to see about catching us some dinner. You can work on your triple lutz more after that, if you want."

“Okay.” He was sure he sounded just like Yurio had that morning.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Yurio had ended up sleeping through most of the rest of the day, with the idea that he would want to stay up all night to ensure whatever Shadow follower might have still been following them around didn’t decide to commit a little midnight murder. His ability to just go to sleep whenever was a bit jarring to Viktor, who physically could not go to sleep before 0900 and would pretty much pass out if he tried to stay up past midnight.

During that time, Viktor took Yurio’s suggestion: he stretched, he read a few chapters of his magic books and did a couple of practice exercises, and he even curled up next to Yurio and failed to sleep for an hour or so.

As the sun was setting, Viktor decided to get back on the ice. He felt more ready than he had that morning to skate the Trial, and as soon as he finished it they could get on with the journey and stop being sitting ducks.

He heard Yurio’s loud yawn over the crunch of his blades and looked over. "Hey, sleepyhead."

Yurio leapt to his feet and only stumbled a little bit once he got there. "Yo. You gonna skate the Trial now?"

"I think I’m ready."

"I believe in you, bro." He gave a thumbs-up, then leaned over to pick up his scabbards.

Viktor did half a dry run, just the first half that included the triple lutz, and when Yurio told him that everything, including the lutz, was clean, he decided now was as good a time as ever. He got into his starting position - a simple pose with one toe in the ice and the opposite hand on his shoulder, like holding a knapsack - and clicked his blades.

The music began without fanfare, just a simple solo violin, and Viktor began his program with two pivots in opposite directions. A set of crossovers blended into a swing-counter, then the setup for the double axel. On one chord, he jumped, and when the root note repeated he landed. Perfect.

Viktor had tried to choreograph consistent arm movements to this song, but each time he’d wound up abandoning whatever he’d previously written down in favor of doing whatever felt right at the time. This program, skating it for real, was no exception: a flick of the wrist on the rocker, pushing his arms to one side on the toe-hop, hands clasped behind his back on the mohawk-crosses that led into the setup for the triple lutz.

The pace of his choreography didn’t really give him time to be nervous about the lutz, and besides, he’d landed it multiple times in practice and had gotten Yurio’s approval on it. Without a moment’s hesitation, when the chord came in, he jumped.

Yurio actually clapped when he landed it perfectly.

The hardest element out of the way, next was a choreographic sequence and a spin. The violin’s melody went up an octave as Viktor began his choreographic sequence, and a series of drawn-out notes with liberal vibrato accompanied a twizzle sequence that led almost immediately into a combination spin.
This program was really one of the most fun to mess around with, and today, Viktor was doing that. As he exited the spin and set up for a triple flip-double loop combination, he was grinning and nodding along with the song as the chords grew more numerous. The improvisational choreography did help, but the break he’d taken earlier was a greater boon than he’d expected it to be.
Maybe Yurio was right, that he should take a break once in a while.

The song ended with as little fanfare as it had begun, and the ending to Viktor’s program reflected it: a quick t-stop and a simple ending pose with a hand on his hip and wistful gaze into the horizon.
The instant he visibly broke character, Yurio started applauding again. "That was sweet!"
Viktor laughed, skating over to the log at the ice-side. "Thanks." For a lot of things.
As Viktor removed his skates, Yurio began putting his on.
"You going to bed now?" Yurio asked as he double-knotted his laces and stuffed the ends into the tops of his boots.

"I’ll do a bit of reading to wind down, but yes."

"Cool.”

Viktor walked over to where he’d set all his stuff, laying out his coat over the hard dirt and covering his backpack with a thick sweater. He laid down, shifting a bit, and grabbed his magic book sack. He pulled out a soul orb and The Basics of Magic and flipped to chapter 11, where he’d left off.

After a few paragraphs, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. He looked up, and his gaze shook.

"Hey," Yuuri said. He was kneeling beside Viktor’s backpack-pillow, wearing Kamyinsk-style street clothes: a soft black overcoat with a tan sweater, black sweatpants, and sneakers.

"Hi," Viktor said.

"May I lay with you?"

Viktor scooted over and patted the spot next to him.

Yuuri crawled over and flopped down on the ground, laying his head on Viktor’s backpack. He looked at Viktor, studying his face for a minute, then stared up at the darkening sky.

Viktor wasn’t sure whether he should pick up his book again, or wait for Yuuri to say something, or stare at the sky with him, or something else. He looked at Yuuri, the man who was more a mystery than anyone else had ever been to him, and tried to find some clue in his soft cheeks and firelit eyes.

"I’m sorry," Yuuri said.

Viktor blinked.

"I was so worried..." he shook his head. "So afraid that you’d hurt yourself, and that you’d do it for me. I didn’t even know why you cared about me so much, I couldn’t let you do that. And, when I thought you were going to do it anyway, I thought I could keep you from doing it by leaving... like I could undo the damage I’d already done."

Viktor blinked again.
Yuuri wasn’t looking at him. "Yurio made me realize I was being an idiot. I think he knows this already, but I had to figure it out, that you’re just going to do what you’re going to do, and you’re better off with people who care about you than without." Yuuri lowered his eyes, staring at his hands as he fidgeted with his fingers. "I’m sorry for abandoning you."
A hundred thoughts flitted through Viktor’s mind, none staying long enough to become words, until what he’d really wanted to say ended up on his lips. "I missed you."
Yuuri looked over at last, and met his gaze. The fire in his eyes spread heat across Viktor’s cheeks. He did that sad non-smile, but this time it faded into a real one. "I heard you, by the way."Every night while they’d been at Leo and Guang-Hong’s, after Viktor returned to his room and pulled the covers up to his chin, he would look around the cold, empty room, and say goodnight to Yuuri. He hadn’t known if Yuuri could hear him, or if he was paying attention, but he said it anyway. Goodnight, Yuuri. I love you.
"I wanted to talk to you, but..." he sighed, pressing his hands against his face for a second, then letting them fall back to his lap. "I was being stupid. I wish I could make it up to you-"

"You can," Viktor said, turning on his side. "Just stay close to me."

“You’re just going to forgive me?”

Viktor nodded. What would he do if he didn’t?

There was something strange in Yuuri’s eyes for a second, but before Viktor could make any attempt at placing it, it was gone, replaced by an overwhelming gratitude. “Thank you,” he said.

Viktor smiled. His soul orb, now the only significant source of light, glowed so warmly that he figured if he grabbed it from where it sat above his shoulder, it would be warm to the touch. Its orange light reflected in Yuuri’s eyes as he returned to staring at the sky.

Viktor tipped his head a little toward his lover, shutting his eyes. “Goodnight, Yuuri. I love you.”

“Goodnight, Vitya. I love you, too.”
After several hours of searching, Victor had failed to find any Shadow followers; in the woods, near the ruins, or in any of the buildings. He headed back to the ice and their quasi-camp, planning to stand guard just in case.
When he arrived, unwinding his blindfold and unbuckling his scabbards, he looked over to where Viktor slept and saw Yuuri laying beside him.

He turned his head when Victor walked over.

“You stole my spot, Katsudon,” Victor said, propping a hand on his hip.

Yuuri looked like he was about to get up, so Victor shook his head. “No, you stay. I know the rules. Move your feet, lose your seat.” He laid down at Viktor’s other side, curling up loosely in his friend’s warmth.

After a moment, Victor said “You’re gonna stick around this time, right?”

Yuuri looked over, nodded once, definitively.

“Good,” Victor replied, shutting his eyes, “I wouldn’t forgive you if you didn’t.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It was a sunny, cold day at the tail end of summer, the type of day that warns of a winter coming hard and fast. The chill breeze prickled Viktor’s bare arms but didn’t raise the hair there.

Yurio was walking beside him, holding the smaller scabbard at his waist, thumb fidgeting against the tsuba (Viktor has called it a hilt before and Yurio had corrected him sternly), pushing the blade a centimeter out and letting it slide back in. He’d let his hair grow out to almost the same length as Viktor’s for a while, but he’d cut it again recently. It had looked elegant long, but he said it had started to get in the way while he fought, so practicality had taken precedence.

“Hey, Yurio.”

He didn’t respond at first, and when he did he didn’t look over. “Hm?”

Viktor smirked. “What’re you thinking about? You look a little... on edge.”

“Oh my Goddess Viktor,” Yurio groaned.
“Hey, Vitya, take it easy on the puns,” Yuuri piped in, “some people have a tendency to... flip out.”
“I can and will kick both of you with my knife shoes.”

Viktor grinned. “But you have swords!”

"But in all seriousness, Yurio,” Yuuri said. “You haven’t talked all day. What’s up?”

“Just thinking, I guess,” he said, returning to fidgeting with his sword, “I’ve seen a lot less Shadow followers lately. They have to be avoiding us. Why the hell would they do that?” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, I’ve been killing some, but I wouldn’t think they’d leave us alone that easily.”

You’ve been killing some? Viktor thought, his brow furrowing. How many is “some”?

On some level he knew he shouldn’t be so outraged - when someone is trying to kill you it’s probably acceptable to kill them in self defense. He supposed he was really more shocked than anything else; Yurio had sounded so nonchalant about it. Actually, thinking back over the past year and a half since Kamyinsk, there had been no time Viktor could pinpoint when Yurio had seemed as shaken as he thought a newly minted killer should really be.

Then again, Viktor was comparing to what he would do. Maybe a real hero doesn’t flinch at killing the bad guys. Maybe that’s just a thing-heroes-do, like running toward danger instead of away from it, or showing love with clenched fists, one around Viktor’s hand and the other on the handle of a sword.
Still... somebody merely being a Shadow follower doesn’t inherently make them evil. Arguably, somebody trying to kill you doesn’t make them evil, either. It just makes them a person who’s been pushed into a circumstance miserable enough that they think that’s the right thing to do. And some part of Viktor thought the ending of any human life - no matter how broken or miserable - was sad. Perhaps necessary, nonetheless sad.
“Hey,” Yurio said voice concerned. "Whatever you’re worrying about, don’t.”

Viktor smiled only because he didn’t have anything else to do with his expression.

“I’ll race you to that town!” Yurio exclaimed suddenly, taking off running.
Viktor threw his head back in an exacerbated laugh, running after his friend.As they ran closer to the town on the horizon, quipping at each other and with Yuuri, there came an odd smell - at first it seemed like a bonfire, but there was something else in the air besides just wood ash.
Something was wrong. Smoke poured from rooftops, but nobody would light the fireplace in the middle of June. The ubiquitous patchwork quilt of tended farmland was absent, and instead, on the opposite side of the town, a span of yellow and black stood dead and desolate. And as Viktor was running, still running, he saw something move through the street.

STOP.

Viktor had thought it so loudly that he and Yurio both stopped in their tracks, dropping to the ground the next second.
There had been a person there, a human figure, wearing a hooded cloak. And Vikor had felt it look at him.Yurio’s breathing was erratic, chest heaving. "What was that," Viktor heard him say without his lips moving. That was what telepathy felt like, to him.
Shadow follower, Viktor thought back. It took more energy to not speak aloud, but there was so much adrenaline coursing through his system that he hardly noticed. Not the normal kind. Something’s wrong.

"Powerful Shadow sorcerer," Yuuri said, "it can't see you but it does notice you. Its magic is resonating with yours."

Can we hide? Viktor thought.

"No."

Run?

"Probably not."

"Anything I’ll need to know to fight this thing, then?" Yurio interrupted.
"It can teleport," Yuuri warned.
"So could Leo," Yurio murmured aloud as he stood up and bolted toward the town and the thing.

Anything I can do to support him?

"Can you create a forcefield?"
Yes. Viktor left out "barely".
"Then yes."

At his lover’s word, he took off after Yurio, whipping out his wand as he ran even though he could do nothing with it until he found a place to sit down and concentrate. Force fields were stationary, and he would want to create one that Yurio could duck into and out of if needed, which would mean he’d need to be close to the fight.

Yurio had disappeared - probably into one of the many buildings - so Viktor sat in the middle of the main street between the burned-out husks of buildings. He cast his spell, wrist flicking out sigils with precision and rhythm, lips murmuring incantations to the staccato beat of dactylic hexameter. After a torturous length of time, breath dragging in his throat and magic vibrating in his veins, he was finally finished, and a barrier of blue shimmered into place around him. Its edges cut so perfectly into the cobblestone that he was sure the field was truly spherical, encompassing not only the space around him but also the few cubic meters of dirt he sat on.

There came a loud conversation and clashes of metal from a nearby building, but Viktor couldn’t quite make words out over the rhythmic thrum of his force field. That is, until Yurio kicked down the door and ran out, pursued by the Shadow follower.

The man’s cloak was nowhere to be seen now, and in a show of absurd bravado he wore nothing else over his chest. His trousers were tight and his feet were bare, his hair cropped short and dyed deep blue, his darkly tanned skin held the Shadow’s scars as well as one new one, bleeding red and black from his jawline. And yet, despite the lack of any such cuts on Yurio, this man grinned an overconfident smile. "Ah, I see we have an audience!"

Viktor rolled his eyes. "Backup, actually." He surprised himself with the calm in his voice.

"Ganging up on me then, huh?" He shrugged even as he deflected Yurio’s attack. "Not a problem for the king!"
King? Viktor thought. Is the Shadow cult some kind of monarchy?Yurio and the Shadow follower seemed almost evenly-matched, even despite the Shadow’s random teleportation. For extended periods Yurio actually shut his eyes, trusting his hearing more than his sight.
After far longer than Viktor would have expected, Yurio rolled over and phased cleanly through the barrier Viktor was maintaining. Sweat glistened on his brow and stained his shirt, the very tips of his swords jittered slightly as he only mostly succeeded at keeping his hands from shaking.

"That’s some strong magic you’ve got there, Viktor," the Shadow follower said, tapping at the top of the forcefield with his void-black blade. "You would be a great Shadow sorcerer." He walked away, then, sat down on his feet in a disturbingly familiar way. "Whenever you feel like coming out again, kitten, let me know."

"You’re not gonna try and break the barrier?" Yurio spat.

The Shadow follower shrugged. "Nope. I mean actually, I don’t really want to kill you. It would be such a shame to let such good - if misguided - people get hurt."

"This is coming from the guy who burns towns for kicks."

"Oh my Shadow, you two are so naive. King JJ does no such thing." He did that overconfident grin, formed two Js with his hands, looking briefly like he was posing for a photo. "I’ve been trying to get the others to stop doing it, and I’ve mostly succeeded. The guy who did this-" he gestured to the burned buildings around him "-got a pretty strong reprimand. I do get what he was trying to do, but it was way too violent."

"This coming from the guy who sacrifices people to a murder demon."

JJ sighed. "Alright, I really should have expected that you’d be brought up with all that Shadow-is-evil dogma. Can we call a truce till I can explain?"
Viktor was about to nod, but Yurio beat him to the chase. "In about thirty seconds I’m gonna come over there and skewer you like a shish kebab."That definitely sounded 'way too violent'. JJ seemed to agree. "Whoa, you are a feisty one. How about I explain anyway, and if you feel like making good on that threat we can duke it out again."
Yurio opened his mouth to say something else, but looked to Viktor instead.

"Go ahead, JJ," Viktor said. He didn’t try very hard to keep the note of disdain from his voice.

"Thanks! Knew there were at least two sensible adults here. So - what do you know about what happens to the people the Shadow takes?"
Viktor blinked. Not... much. They just disappeared and were never seen again.
"Soooo, you have no idea. You just assumed it was bad, right?"
Viktor’s silence was as good as agreement, so JJ continued.
"What if I told you you’re wrong?" He paused, seemingly for no other reason than dramatic effect. "See, the truth is that the people the Shadow takes are actually still alive, safe and sound, and not only that, they’re immortal. Within the Shadow realm, people are free to live unbound by the problems of this physical world. It’s like stepping into a world of pure magic!"
"Do you have any evidence for all this crap?" Yurio said. There was venom in his words, and he was still in a battle-ready stance, but he had yet to move from Viktor’s protective forcefield."Knew you’d ask that. Yeah, there’s totally evidence - I’ve seen it myself. When you use Shadow magic, you can feel the people inside the Shadow; you can’t communicate with them, really, but you can definitely feel their presence."Viktor knew how that felt. Even when he and Yuuri weren’t speaking - like now - he could still feel his lover’s presence. However, if it worked like his link with Yuuri... "I assume I can’t see this for myself unless I acquire Shadow magic.""You guessed it. Sorry, Viktor, if I could show you I would. Certainly’d make my life a lot easier." JJ shrugged. "Anyway, another thing. What do you think happens when you seal the Shadow?"
This time, Viktor did have an answer. "All Shadow magic disappears from the world, crippling all the Shadow sorcerers, including yourself." And Leo.

"Well, that’s true, and admittedly that would really suck, but that’s not the biggest thing. Think about the more obvious thing."

"...Nobody gets taken by the Shadow anymore." Viktor could complete the pattern, "Which is bad, since being taken is actually a good thing."

"There you go! Exactly." JJ clapped twice. "Now, obviously, since none of us wants that to happen, there have been a lot of people gunning for you two. Again, it makes sense. Someone comes along and tries to take away paradise, that’s scary. But it’s way too violent. I knew you weren’t trying to hurt anyone, you just didn’t know any better, so I went to find you!"

"You wanted to end this without any more suffering," Viktor said, his words hollow. It was exactly what he would say.

JJ nodded emphatically.

"Can I... think this over?"

"Sure." JJ stood, sheathed his sword. "I wish I could promise that nobody else will come after you, but not everyone listens to me yet."

"I thought you were the king," Yurio said, no edge taken off his hostility.

JJ snorted. "That’s just a play off my surname, kitten. Leroy sounds like le roi - the king in French." He tapped at his temple with eyebrows raised, then spun about his heel and waved over his shoulder. "Later."

Viktor broke his forcefield, and the silence, as soon as JJ was out of view. "Yuuri... what was that?"

"I..." A heavy sigh escaped him. "I didn’t tell you, before. But he’s... that’s... sort of... right."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

"What?!" cried Yurio.

"Not all of it! But the part about the people who are taken not dying... that’s right."

"So there’s a method of immortality just sitting around every night and you just let everyone be afraid of it instead of-"

"Not immortality!"

Viktor didn’t know Yuuri could yell that loudly. It scared him.

Yuuri seemed to take notice, speaking again a touch more quietly. "Is someone in a coma dead? Even if they never wake up?" He lowered his voice again, approaching normal speaking volume. "Technically, no. But I don’t think that person is immortal, even if they stayed in that state until the end of time."

Viktor hated asking, but he had to. "Do you have... any evidence, for that?"

Yuuri hummed like a solemn nod. "I’m likely the only non-Shadow-sorcerer with the ability to sense the Shadow. I know what that man JJ was talking about; I’ve felt it too. And, if you’d like... I could show you."

Viktor shook his head, but Yurio shot him a harsh look. "I want to see."

Yuuri hummed acknowledgment, and Yurio’s gaze snapped up to where the horizon would be if there weren’t houses and hills and forest in the way, staring impossibly far into something Viktor couldn’t perceive. He climbed slowly to his feet, as if in a trance, and took a single step forward. His swords clattered to the ground as he stretched out his hands. Viktor couldn’t see his expression from this angle, but he could watch the tears fall silently down his chin, and he could hear his friend’s soft whisper. "Mama?"

The trance broke, and Yurio collapsed to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"What was that?" Viktor whispered.
"I saw her," Yurio whispered, as though he didn’t trust his voice if he spoke any louder. "I saw her, I knew she was there, but... it was kind of like looking at a picture. I couldn’t talk to her, she didn’t move or breathe or speak, but she was there. Goddess, she was there..."

Yuuri’s sigh was defeated. "I would be glad, it would be so much easier, if the Shadow was a good thing. I wish I were misdirected, fighting this war. I wish it had been in vain. But it’s not. It’s not."

"Can we convince him of that?"

"Who, JJ?" Yuuri asked. "I... don’t think so. Once someone is convinced of a pleasant lie, it’s that much harder to tell them a painful truth." That last sentence sounded like he was reciting a proverb.

“I see,” Viktor said. He saw nothing but the ashes that speckled the cobblestones.

There was silence for a minute, and then Yurio crawled over to where his swords had fallen, sheathed them, and stood. He offered Viktor his hand, and when he took it, pulled him to his feet.
As per usual nowadays, Yurio had taken a long nap in the afternoon in preparation to stay up all night, and as per usual, Viktor had carried him for that time so they wouldn’t need to stop moving. They made camp as the sun began to set at the end of an ancient pier.
"I’ve got dinner tonight," Viktor said when Yurio woke.
"You don’t need a fire?" He sat up and looked around at the pier, with the ocean stretching out to the eastern horizon, the beach to the north and south, and the distant forest silhouetted against the sunset at the west. Besides the brine washed deck, the only wood was the two thin slabs that the fish sat on.Viktor shook his head, looking back to his work. He finished filleting his last sea bass, wiped off his hands, pulled out his wand, and combined the sigils fish, heat, and fire. In a few minutes, several tender fried fillets sat on the slabs of wood.
Yurio gave an impressed look - you’re getting really good at this - then picked up the slab closer to him and dug in.
Viktor picked up his own food, grabbed a pair of chopsticks from his bag, and ate. It was better than last time. He’d gone through about five years of magic books in less than a single year; though perhaps he should expect that. Magic, he’d learned, was trained like any other mental or physical faculty - it gets stronger as one does more with it - and he had unwittingly been using a very powerful magic since he was a toddler.
Still, he hadn't known, so he hadn't been able to control it. Then, as now, what he could do with a skating program was roughly the equivalent of a sorcerer pouring a ton of magic into an elaborate light show because he doesn’t know any actual spells.

“Hey,” Yurio said, breaking Viktor from his thoughts. He’d already finished all his food.

“Hm?” Viktor hummed, continuing to eat at his pace. If it got cold, he could always heat it up again without wasting firewood.
He looked off, like wondering whether to say something. “In case you were wondering who was right back there, it was you.”
Back there... oh. “You only say that because pacifism fits your mental picture of what a hero is." Viktor looked down, took another bite of his fish. "But I’m not a pacifist, Yurio. I’m not fighting and choosing not to kill. I’m choosing not to fight. There is a difference."

"But sometimes choosing not to fight is the right thing to do!" Yurio yelled, slamming his fist into his wooden plate and cracking it in half.

Viktor looked up, blinked.

Yurio mumbled as he picked up the pieces of his plate and set them aside. "And you only think I’m more heroic than you because your 'mental picture of a hero' is a sword-fighter." He fiddled with his hands for a minute, then picked up one of the pieces of his plate and snapped it in half again. The wood was a solid centimeter thick, but he didn’t seem to have any trouble. "I used to think that too. The princes in fairy tales are all great swordsmen. But once you pick up a sword yourself..." he sighed. "You find out you’re just you plus a sword, dude. It doesn’t make you a hero."

"That which empowers a hero does not make them wise," Yuuri mumbled.

"What’s that from?" Yurio asked.

Yuuri hummed a shrug. "I don’t remember."

Yurio kept picking at the gradually disintegrating plate, breaking the halves into halves. "I guess my point is that you’re a better person than I am, Viktor, and I want you to know that, because I don’t want you to shut up and let me pick more fights than I can win. Or than I should." He ended up with a pile of little more than wood shavings: if Viktor hadn’t seen it at its outset, he would have never known what it had begun as.

“You want me to be your conscience?”

“And my self restraint. Yeah.” The wind blew a lock of hair into his face, and he brushed it behind his ear. “We got a lot of useful info out of JJ. I was just gonna kill him. You stopped me."

I suppose I did.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor sighed and climbed to his feet. He had fallen this exact same way approximately fifty times, and at this point he no longer cared about the pain of his bruised hips and elbows, or the way the ice melted through his clothes. It was just getting dull.

He knew this was the best way to fall, that if he fell backward at this velocity he would badly bruise his tailbone and if he fell forward he would likely break his wrists, but that didn’t stop it from getting boring. He wiped his ice-burned palms on his trousers, which hardly dried them at all, and skated back over to try it again.

"I think you’re at the point of diminishing return, Vitya," Yuuri said. "Practicing it more will just burn the wrong thing into your muscle memory."

"Or you could break something," Yurio added. He paused in his own exercises, looked over. "Actually, Viktor, would it be useful to be able to watch yourself do this?"

"Even if I could create a mirror large enough, I wouldn’t be able to watch and also-"

"No, no, I don’t mean with magic, I mean with this." He reached into the pocket of his jacket that he’d tied around his waist and pulled out a little metal rectangle. It was attached by a metal cable to something else that was still in his pocket.
Viktor had seen one of those before, years ago in Kamyinsk... what was it called? A sell something?
"It’s a cell phone. Otabek gave me one before I left, with a ton of batteries. It does a bunch of stuff. I can record you, if you want, and play it back."

Viktor nodded, and Yurio finnicked with the 'cell phone' for a moment before pointing it at him. It felt slightly like performing for an audience for some reason.

He did the setup again for his quadruple loop, the jump he’d been flubbing all morning. Three back crossovers, a fourth for good measure, set with the right arm in back and the left in front, weight on the right back outside edge, left gliding in front, ready to snap in. 3, 2, 1, jump.

Another of the same fall. As he stood, brushing the ice from his sides, he looked to Yurio, who held his arm out in a thumbs-up. "Want to see?"

"Yes, please."
When Viktor had stepped off the ice and come to Yurio’s side, he looked down at the phone. Some lights behind a glass screen displayed a light-grey circle and a little black triangle, pointed right. Yurio tapped on the triangle, and an image of Viktor began moving on the screen, accompanied by the muted sounds of ice under blades. He did the three crossovers and the fourth, set up, jumped. In trying to jump high enough and pull in tight enough, he was shrugging his shoulders and leaning just slightly forward. And Viktor watched as his image was pulled out of his rotation and fell, rolling out to the side.
"Anything useful from that?" Yurio said as the video ended.

"I was closer than I thought. It was slightly over a quarter cheated. I can see I was shrugging my shoulders and breaking at the waist; I didn’t think I was still doing that." He stood straighter, pushed his shoulders back with the tips of his fingers the way Yakov always did when he corrected that mistake. Tapped his shoulders and then his hips, reminding himself of the importance of keeping the one over the other using the same motion Sara did. Nodded absently the way Yurio did when he realized what he’d been doing wrong. "I’ll do a few drills off-ice, then get back on and run it again. Yurio, will you record me then?"

Yurio nodded, clicked a button at the top of his phone that turned the display black, put it back in his pocket and picked up his sword.

Viktor walked away from the ice and from Yurio, stared out into the seemingly endless expanse of ocean as he walked along the beach. This trial was on a small island off the coast of Onakoru that looked like it might have once been a kind of beach home for some well-off person centuries ago. As a result, there was a paved piece of a deck where Viktor could do his drills.

He began with the off-ice equivalent of a back spin to a loop: little hops spinning in place with his arms in his set position, followed by a vertical leap with as much rotation in it as he could muster. He didn’t try to get all four times around off-ice - three was good enough - but he focused on getting the correct air position and timing his landing right.

He did that drill until he was satisfied with his air position, then tried jumping into the rotation from a standstill on two feet, focusing this time on the landing. He hopped backwards a few times in the landing position to simulate gliding. Again he drilled it until he was satisfied he’d done it right - three times in a row, Yakov’s standard of adequacy.

The beach and the ocean and the trees blurred into a haze as he spun in the air, his eyes momentarily de-focusing each time. With years of trained reflex preventing him from getting dizzy, he could appreciate the beauty of a scene reduced to mere color.

Most of improvement in skating was in simply doing the skill over and over again, though, so after less than half an hour of off-ice drills he walked back to the ice to do the loop again. As he took the ice again, Yurio did a little inquisitive wave. Are you ready for me to record again?
Viktor nodded, taking two laps to get his skates back under him. The three-turn that began the setup was like the first step of an adventure. He took a deep breath, picked up the speed he needed in his crossovers. The sunlight glinted in the corner of Viktor’s vision, reflecting off Yurio’s phone and its little mechanical eye. It reminded Viktor for some reason of the Watching Eye on the opposite side of the ice.He lingered a moment in the setup, but only a moment. He pulled his shoulders back, imagined as Yuuri had told him to an invisible string attached from his chest into the sky, pulling him upward.
Last second. He let out his breath, bent his knees, and jumped.

After several seconds of gliding, he skidded to a stop, and it sunk in. He’d landed a clean quadruple loop.

Yurio’s phone was back in his pocket and he was applauding loudly. "That was awesome!" Yuuri echoed the sentiment with a cute hum and a warm smile.

Viktor clapped once, laced his fingers together for a moment, then skated off again. "One down," he said.

"Perfectionist bastard," Yurio said, laughing. "Go for it, you dork!"

Viktor nodded, grinning, and set up again. One clean jump might be a fluke. Crossovers, landing position, setup, and-

His leg snapped back in another clean landing, this time punctuated with an elegant flick of the wrists. He saw Yurio pump his fists in the air, but he didn’t stop this time, setting up again.

Two clean in a row might just be lucky. Three in a row, that would make sure he really had it.

It made him just a bit anxious, this third jump. It could make or break his streak. Prove he could really do this, or prove it was still inconsistent. But he chose to take that nervousness and turn it into power. He took a larger circle in his setup this time, putting as much energy into his crossovers as he could. His fringe and his ponytail whipped in the wind, or rather, the stagnant air that he cut through at top speed, but the only thing he focused on was the jump.

Imagine the string...

The world blurred for a split second. Four rotations in the air ended in a landing on the fraction of a point that was the outside edge of the lowest tooth of his toe pick. And shortly thereafter, all that momentum was dispelled in a perfect landing.
"Yes!!" Yurio screamed, leaping as high as Viktor had just done, fists clenched in the air.
"Shouldn’t I be the one saying that?" Viktor asked as he did a lazy mohawk and skated over to the edge of the ice where Yurio stood.
"I’m not stopping you."

Viktor smiled, nodded.
"You know," Yuuri said quietly, "ever since the day I first saw your skating, you’ve never ceased to amaze me."
Taking a seat at the ice edge, Viktor shut his eyes. "That’s the most I could ask for," he said, his sigh contented. "That I amaze the person who amazes me."

"So that’s, what, Viktor - three quads down?" Yurio dropped down to sit next to him.

"Mhm. The quadruple salchow, toe loop, and loop. I imagine the flip will be easy, and the lutz will be hard."

"What about the axel?"

"Harder than the lutz, of course," Viktor said. "An extra half a rotation is not trivial."

"Obviously I’d say no quints," Yurio mused, "even with the magic. That much... what do you call it, g-force? You’d shatter your ankles."

"I agree with that," Yuuri added. "I would like to note that I’ve never actually seen anyone complete a quadruple axel, though."

"Then landing one would make me the best figure skater in the world, correct?" Viktor was adopting a little bit of Yurio’s trademark evil grin.
"I think you’re already one of the best figure skaters who has ever lived."
"I don’t think 'one of the best' is gonna cut it here, Katsudon." Yurio frowned.

“It’s pushing the limit of physical possibility. The only way you could do it would be a combination of perfect technique and magic. It would be very easy to, as Yurio put it, shatter your ankles.”

“I have to take that chance,” Viktor said. “But is there anything I could do to make it safer? I already need near perfect technique in order to not break my bones on the quads I do already.”

“Hm... well, I suppose that depends - Yurio, if you had an angled pole attached by a cable to weight at the end, how much could you lift?”

He stood and did the motion, clenching fists in front of him and pulling upward. “Those are muscles I use to fight, so a lot. I’d ballpark like 70 kilos in short bursts, less if you needed it held for a long time. Why?”

“There’s something I used to train with. It probably wouldn’t be hard to construct, if you can find a blacksmith. It’s called a jumping harness. It makes a good air position easier to get and can help break a fall.”

“But I’d have to be able to lift him,” Yurio completed the pattern. "I can do that."

"You wouldn’t just need to lift him, you’d need to do it while skating at the same high speed, half a meter apart."

"Now that’s hard enough to be interesting."

So there were two components to this, then. First, find a blacksmith who can create this jumping harness. Second, train to be able to actually use it. Part one sounded almost trivial, and part two was mostly a matter of time and practice. Might as well start now.

"Hey, where are you going?" Yurio yelled after him as he took his pack and started back toward the mainland.

"Headed to find a leyline," Viktor said, "so I can contact Onyx and ask xem where to find the nearest blacksmith-"

"You still have this Trial to skate!"

Viktor stopped, dropped his pack, and turned around. "Oh, oops. I forgot."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

As soon as Viktor successfully completed the twelfth Trial - the music aptly titled I Must Get Stronger - he made his way back across Yurio’s simple rope bridge to the mainland. He wasted no time finding the nearest leyline.
Broadcast telepathy - mainly used to send out signals for help, but sometimes also used to find someone - was a difficult magic. Not because it was particularly complex - in fact, the incantation was only two words - but simply because it required a lot of energy to cast. The magic poured into the spell was directly proportionate to the distance the message would travel.So Viktor gathered his magic - not all he had, but definitely a plurality of it - and touched his wand to the ground. "Nuntius cōgitandī," he said, and felt the channel open. Onyx, he thought, This is Shura Nazarov - I’d like to ask a favor.
"Yeah?" Onyx said, "What’s up?"

Viktor stood, lifted his wand from the ground and felt the channel break. That was fast. "Do you know the location of the nearest blacksmith?"

"Oh, sure. Emil Nekola, in the nearest town." Xe pointed up the coast. "I can walk you there, if you like."

"You don’t have anything better to do?" Yurio piped in.

Onyx shrugged and started walking. "Lila’s had me off on this wild goose chase for ages. She won’t notice if I take a break for half an hour. I told her I watched that book burn twelve years ago, but she’s convinced there’s another copy."

"A book about... history? Magic?" Viktor followed in xir stride, Yurio beside him.

"Magic. Techniques for doing it near-instantaneously. I learned how to do it when I was a kid, but only for a few things. Like, there was this one technique... you sort of take the time to create a spell, but you don’t cast it, you just sort of let it sit in your head until you’re ready." Onyx shrugged. "There was a bunch of stuff in that book, but it burned with the rest of my house in the Shadow raid, and I can’t find another copy. I don’t even remember which village I used to live in, so it’s not like I can start there."

"Dude," Yurio said. "That’s rough."

"But Lilia thinks there’s another copy?" Viktor asked.

"Mhm. I think it’s mostly wishful thinking, to be honest, hoping those techniques aren’t lost. But, whatever. I’m her servant, I do what she says, even if it’s silly." Xe giggled. "So anyways, what’s going on with you two?"

"Well..." Yurio said, then stopped. "Uh, how much has Lilia told you about us, anyways?"
"Oh, almost nothing, but I can piece it together. Two young athletic men who always cover their heads who I keep finding near magic ice sheets a ridiculous distance apart despite the fact that they don’t have so much as a horse... I mean, obviously you’re the legendary hero." Onyx pointed at Viktor. "I’ve found you at three Trials, but I guess you’ve completed a lot more than that, right?"
Viktor nodded. "That last was number twelve."

"Oh wow! So only four more to go, then!" Onyx made sort of L-shapes with xir fingers, pointed them in Viktor’s direction. "What kinds of tricks can you do now?"

"He just got his quad loop consistent," Yurio said.
"Quad, that’s like, four revolutions in the air right?"
Viktor and Yurio both nodded.

"Awesome! How about you, Yurio? You’ve been legendary-hero-entourage for like, what, two years now?"

"Well, I’m his bodyguard, not his onto-whatever. I’ve seen more Shadows in two years than I thought I would in my whole life, which kinda sucks. But this guy’s cool, so that makes up for it." Yurio elbowed Viktor hard enough for it to actually hurt.

Viktor smiled and rubbed at his arm.

"Ah, bodyguard, I should have known from the swords. Could you teach me to sword-fight, sometime?"
"Hell no," Yurio said, chuckling.
Onyx shrugged. "Alright." Xe tapped Viktor on the shoulder. "I should give you this - Lilia has another letter for you."

This one was plain, letter-folded but without an envelope, and Viktor opened it straight away.
 
Viktor,

I cannot express the volume with which I exclaimed "Eureka!" upon receiving your last letter. The most nonsensical phrasings of the legends fall into place under the consideration that there is not one Hero, but two.

As to your second question, the five hundredth anniversary falls on the fifteenth of May.

As to your first and third, this requires slightly more explanation of prophecies and how they operate. Understand, a prophecy is a reflection of the future, and so it is as fickle as the future itself. This manifests mainly in riddles of many interpretations, where one interpretation is almost certain to come true, but which is unknown, and it is not guaranteed to be one that anyone has thought of.

Beyond this, there is another trouble in trying to interpret the prophecies surrounding the hero in particular: it has been five centuries since the prophecies were originally given. You have likely run up against this through the fallibility of memory of the one who heard the originals; I have run up against the same problem for a different reason - that prophecies were not transcribed, or transcribed and then copied imperfectly many times - but the outcome is the same. There is no one source of truth for the original tellings of the legends.

Despite these troubles, I have spent many a year searching through the imperfect reflections, trying to piece together the truth. I can say with confidence that both you and your companion - what do you call him, if he shares your name? - have significant magical aptitude. It may manifest in different ways between you, though.

There are many ways that magic can be used, and the central school of magical thought (magic as incantations, sigils, and skating programs) is hardly the only one. Magic, as a part of the human condition, manifests in many areas, from extreme capacity for physical improvement to uncannily accurate intuition in certain areas of study.

As a reference for my upcoming answer to your third question, here is my guess about what areas of magical aptitude you and your companion are most capable in. If this guess is inaccurate, you should take my below analysis with a large grain of salt; if not, please take me seriously.

You are most capable in the traditional school of magic: you’ve moved extremely quickly through any set of spells given to you, and if you have acquired a mentor at some point you’ve likely amazed them with your rapid progress. You likely also have an immensely good intuition about standard magic, from an excellent sense for timing and choreography to accurate precognitions about how spells work. By contrast, your companion likely excels in more innate magic, from an impressive capacity to quickly pick up a vast array of physical skills to an intuitive understanding of fighting and battle tactics.

Assuming these are mostly correct, here are several possible futures.

1. You will be forced, by constraints of time, to skip the final two Trials and go straight to the Capitol. This may lead directly into #3, and perhaps also #4 - though it’s difficult to say, since it seems many paths lead to #4.

2. Your companion will be separated from you, by any number of means, before or possibly even after the Shadow is sealed. Some strong possibilities include that he falls in battle - most likely in the final battle - or that he becomes a Shadow follower - another type of falling, I suppose. Alternatively, you yourself may be separated from him, or defeated by the Shadow.

3. Your final program will be adequate to temporarily contain the Shadow, but it will return in a few years, and require a vastly different and more powerful magic to contain it.

4. The act of containing the Shadow for five centuries, coupled with a final effort to assist you (and perhaps your companion) in sealing It will drain the last of the Prince’s life-force, and he will emerge from his stasis pod but never truly wake.

It is a very narrow keyhole through which you thread this string of Time, Viktor. Many lives have already been lost in this battle with the Shadow, and the duality of the Hero may have another purpose than simply allowing you to specialize. It may allow one of you to go on after the other has fallen.

I regret that I have no advice to give you to prevent any of these futures, beyond what I believe will already be clear to you.

I am unaware how accurate my analyses have been. If I am incorrect, you may ignore much of what I have said above. But if by chance I am right, you could do to try ensuring the most unpleasant of those possible futures do not take place.

Lilia Baranovskaya
 Viktor turned the page back over to its front side, folded it again, opened his book-bag, and slid it into the back cover of his choreography journal with Lilia’s other letters. He would think about its contents in more depth later. In the meantime, he looked up, and noticed he stood at the entrance to a large stone-faced building at the edge of a small town.
"We’re here," Onyx said. "Yurio just went inside."

Viktor pulled open the heavy door to the blacksmith shop, and a wave of heat affronted him.
The forge sat, huge and burning hot, in the center of the building, a wide-mouthed metal pipe squatting over it and venting the worst of its heat into the air above. At the outer edges of the building, thick wooden tables were covered in heat-inflicted scars and various metal things, from small rivets and screws to pommels and even disembodied spear-heads.
Standing in the corner, assembling the pieces of a simple arming sword, was a twiggy young Japanese boy, Yurio’s age or perhaps younger, his unruly hair dyed fire-red with a streak of yellow. In the back corner, hammering out a blade on an anvil, was a strong-shouldered man with dirty blond hair and a scruffy beard along the length of his angular jawline. Both of them wore leather aprons over dirtied white shirts and thickly-woven pants.

"Kenji, we have customers," the man in the back said after Viktor and Yurio had been standing in the entryway for a few seconds.
The fire-headed boy jerked his head up from his work as his face flushed red. He dropped the sword, which clattered against the counter, and rushed over to greet them. "So sorry! Hi! I’m Minami Kenjirou, this is the Nekola smithy, how can I help you?"
"We’d like something a bit out of the ordinary," Viktor began to say, before the man in the back said "Kenji, the fire," and the boy said "Oh! Right!" and rushed over to the forge blower.

"Sorry, what?" Kenjirou asked as he pushed down rhythmically on the blower.

"We’d like to create something like this." Viktor said loudly to be heard over the noise of heavy breathing, holding out a piece of parchment on which he’d traced - from imagination, with Yuuri’s help - the form and all the pieces for a handheld jumping harness.
"How much weight is this supposed to hold?" Kenjirou asked, squinting at the diagram as he continued to press with all his weight on the blower. In the back of the room, the hammering stopped, and a loud kssssss came from hot metal being dipped in cool water.
"Probably around a hundred kilos is a good ballpark for sturdiness."

"Emil can decide that - how much actually will you be lifting?"

"Sixty-five-odd kilos, with a lot of force."

"Okay," Kenjirou stepped away from the blower and took the paper from Viktor’s hand, walking over to the table at the edge of the room and making marks in illegible handwriting with a charcoal pencil. "And you need this bit to spin, right?" He drew an arrow on the parchment. "How many revolutions per minute?"

"Um..." Viktor said, before Yuuri popped into his mind and told him. "Four hundred fifty."
Kenjirou’s eyebrows shot up, but he wrote the number down anyway. "Okay, thanks!" He darted over to where the other man - Emil? - was standing at the forge, turning something over while standing away with long metal tongs. He held up the paper, and Emil looked it over.
"I’ll need about a day to make this," he shouted across the room. "It’ll be 1600 numas for just the metal bits, if you want the leather part I can do that too for another 300."

"Wow, blacksmiths are expensive," Yurio mumbled, taking off his backpack and fetching his wallet. "We pay you up front?" he yelled across the shop.

Between the loud metallic strikes against the anvil, Emil said "Now or when you pick up, I’m easy."

"Might as well do it now," Yurio said.

Kenjirou ran back over to collect Yurio’s coins, quickly counted out the full 1900 on his desk, then unlocked a small safe, tossed the coinage in, and locked it back up.

"We’ll be back tomorrow," Yurio shouted.
As Emil set down his giant hammer, he gave a thumbs-up.
The long scraping sound of a sword being sharpened vanished behind the door as Viktor and Yurio stepped back outside. The comparatively cool air washed over their sweat-soaked faces, and Viktor fanned his collar against his chest.

"Ughhhh," Yurio said, which was about how Viktor felt right now.

Viktor nodded. "Did you know blacksmith shops were so hot?"

"Nope, never been to one. Ehhhh.” He wiped his hand across his forehead. “So, what are we gonna do for a day?"

Viktor looked around. Onyx had disappeared, as xe was wont to do, so they were simply standing in a strange oceanside town waiting for their harness to be forged. He looked across the field, down the gentle slope to the beach and into the ocean beyond. "Hey, Yurio," he said.

"Hm?" His eyes were also fixated on the water.

"You want to go swim?"
Yurio looked up at him, and smiled. "Hell yes."Viktor awoke the next morning and sat up. His pants were sun-bleached on the front, with strange folds from being soaked in ocean-water then drying. Fingers running through his hair, he shook the sand out. The motion was familiar, though the length of his hair wasn’t.
"Hey, hey, stop that!" Yurio exclaimed, doing a roll that turned into a cartwheeel away and brushing the sand off his face.

Viktor laughed. "Sorry!" He finished combing the sand out of his hair and tied it back up.

"Hey, your harness should be ready now!" Yurio picked up the soul orb from where it lay between them and strapped his scabbards back on, tossing his backpack over his shoulder. He started running up the hill before Viktor had finished standing up, so Viktor picked up his pack and sprinted after him.

They arrived at Emil’s smithy and pulled open the door, finding Kenjirou standing there pulling at a leather strap. He looked up when he heard the door slam shut. "Oh! Hi again! Your whatever-this-is is ready!" He held up the handle and the belt of the harness; the metal strings, separated by the pole, and rotating bearings hung between.

"Thank you," Viktor said, taking it from him and inspecting it. The belt was a thick, high-quality leather that felt soft on the inside; it was exactly the shape that Yuuri had specified. There was a fine brass buckle on it and five holes, close together. Just slightly behind the exact sides of the belt, two steel loops held up thin metal ropes, attaching the belt to an aluminum pole that held the ropes apart before they connected with the bearings. They rotated with perfect smoothness - was there was a track? The end of a final, thicker metal rope was fastened to a long steel handle with a bend at its three-quarter point and a leather wrap around its grip.

"May I ask a favor?" Kenjirou’s high-pitched, boyish voice was excited. "Could you show me what this does?"

"Honestly, neither of us have used one of these before, so it might look awkward - still, you’re welcome to watch as we test it." Viktor led the way as they all stepped outside onto the packed dirt road.

Yurio took the grip of the handle as Viktor strapped the belt tightly around his waist. He reached behind him and tugged on the metal ropes; the belt didn’t ride up or slip. "This seems good," he said, "Yurio?"

"All ready when you are, bro." He lifted the pole and softened his knees and elbows, preparing to lift as soon as Viktor jumped.

Viktor nodded. "I’m just going to go for as many rotations as I can."

As he jumped, Yurio lifted him up, and he was able to get a ways higher than he would even with all his magic items. He snapped in as tightly as he could until the very last moment, then he stumbled out a bit awkwardly on two feet.

"Whoaaaaaaaa!!~" Kenjirou exclaimed. "That was awesome!!"

"How many revolutions was that?" Viktor turned around and looked to Yurio, removing the belt.

"Looked like about five," Yurio said, taking the rest of the harness from him as soon as Viktor was done. "That stumbled landing made it hard to tell what fraction of a rotation you finished on, though."

Viktor nodded, shrugged. "That harness seems to work really well. I felt it keeping me on my axis."
"Are you some kind of performer or something?" Kenjirou said, eyes wide. "What do you do?"
"I’m a figure skater," Viktor said.

"Oh, so this is for that thing, where you jump and spin in the air?" He did a jump and a spin, but his body was in all the wrong position and he stumbled when he landed from less than a single rotation.

"It is."

"You have to be so strong to lift him like that, too! He’s so much taller than you are-"

"He’s not that much taller than me, squirt." Yurio reached over and flicked his face.
"Oww," Kenjirou rubbed at his forehead.
"Yurio..." Viktor glared.

"Kenji! What are you doing?" a voice boomed from down the path. "Why aren’t you manning the shop?"

"Sorry!" Kenjirou said, rushing inside. As he stood in the doorway he bowed hastily. "Please enjoy your whatever that is!" Then he spun around, letting the door slam behind him.

Viktor looked over at Emil as he made his way to his shop. "I apologize for distracting your apprentice," he said. "He was doing an excellent job at staffing the shop before we came in."

"Oh, don’t worry! That kid has the attention span of a squirrel." Emil pushed Viktor’s shoulder hard enough to send him stumbling. "Feel free to come again if you ever need any more weird contraptions! That thing was fun to make."

"We’ll be sure to. Thank, you, Emil!" Viktor waved as Emil entered his shop, swinging open that heavy door like it was made of plywood. Emil waved over his shoulder before the door shut behind him.

"So, what are we doing now?" Viktor turned to Yurio.
"We find the next Trial and try this out, duh," he said, walking off further up the coast.
Viktor shrugged, and followed.
They took the ice as the mid-afternoon sun glittered on its surface, and Viktor warmed up his jumps as quickly as he could. Yurio did his own warmup - basically just a bunch of pushups - at the ice edge.
When he was adequately warmed up, Viktor waved to Yurio, who grabbed the harness and stepped on.

“Alright, let’s go for the lutz.” Yurio said as Viktor strapped in.

“Shouldn’t you try the flip first?” Yuuri asked.

“Flip’s too easy for him.”

“No, I think Yuuri is right. We’ve never tried this on ice before. And besides; you know there’s much more to jumps than lots of rotations, otherwise overrotation would be better. I think I might have to try not to overrotate in this thing.”

“Fair point. Eh, alright, let’s go for the flip, then. On three, your count.”

Viktor nodded. “One, two,” he took a breath and set his shoulders back. “Three.”

The two moved in almost perfect sync through the setup for the flip: forward crossovers around one end of the rink, then straightaway down the center. Pull the right shoulder back, three-turn and pick-

“Hey, that was only a triple!” Yurio exclaimed.

“Yeah. Sorry, to jump that close to someone...”

“Pretend I’m not even here.”
Viktor crossed his arms. “That’s hard to do when we’re almost joined at the hip.”“Didn’t you, like, do pairs before?”
“That’s different. You don’t jump that close to your pairs partner. You weren’t at all anxious?”

“Nah. You’d need to light yourself on fire or cover your arms with knives or something if you wanted to scare me. Circus, remember?”

Oh, right.

“Let’s go again,” Yurio said, skating away and dragging Viktor with him. “Don’t flinch this time!”
“Nice!” Yurio exclaimed. “That was clean!”
Viktor nodded slowly, looking over his ice tracings with a finger to his lips. Several quarter cheats that Yurio had broken his falls from, and now one solitary clean landing, the exit edge cut short by the triangular scrape of a T-stop.

“Try it without the harness now,” Yuuri encouraged.

Viktor bit his lip, but unbuckled the belt even so. “Okay.”
Yurio hopped off the ice and gave a thumbs-up. Viktor huffed out a breath and began his setup, going over his old tracings again.It was odd how unsafe he suddenly felt, without the tight belt that promised a softer fall. He tried to ignore the nerves, recalling the worst falls he had experienced and reminding himself there were worse pains than even those. At least with this ice, he couldn’t fall through.
Run through the motions. One last deep breath, because nobody breathes during a jump. Shoulder back, elbows soft, three turn, lean forward, reach back, pick.

The world blurred around him as he snapped into position, clinging to the imaginary string that pulled him up. He held that position until the last millisecond, then pulled away all at once - then sprawled out on his side, earning a bruise on his other hip.

“Overrotated,” Viktor and Yurio said simultaneously.

Yurio made his hand motion for again, and Viktor said “Of course.”
Viktor stepped off the ice, pacing around its edge as a warm-down. He hadn’t gotten three clean in a row out of the harness; trying for that would be tomorrow’s work. Yurio followed in his step; he'd slipped on a red hoodie, his hands rested in his pockets.
“You got a letter yesterday.”

“True.”

“Am I allowed to see it?” Yurio raised an eyebrow, smirked.

“Yes, of course you are. Let me get it.” They rounded the corner of the ice sheet and Viktor grabbed his book bag, pulled the letter from the back of his choreography journal, and handed it to Yurio.

Either he was a very slow reader, or he spent a long time staring at the page after he was finished. Eventually, he handed it back to Viktor, who re-folded it.

Viktor looked at him, and his expression was scarily familiar. “You’re having another who said the world has to be fair moment, aren’t you?” He’d tried to make his tone lighter, but it came out flat and serious.

“Yeah, why aren’t you?!” Yurio stopped walking abruptly. “She basically said the most likely futures are, in order, we fuck up, I die, you die, we fail completely, and/or Yuuri dies! I’d think you’d be a little more upset!” He punctuated a string of loud gestures with a flail of his hands around his head.

“Well... if I’m completely honest, the ones that scare me the most are 1 and 3.”

His violent eyes, now only ten centimeters below Viktor’s, were hardly hidden at all by the low furrow of his brow. “You’re not worried I’ll die? Or turn evil? Or that Yuuri will?”

“No, not really. Yurio... I believe in you. I trust you, and I trust Yuuri. I know both of you will worry about the parts of the future that affect you. There’s no point in me worrying about it too. I’m going to worry about the parts that affect me, so neither of you need to.”

Yurio gave him an odd look, then looked away. He put his hands back in his pockets. “You’re so much stronger than I am.”

“I’m not strong.” Viktor laid his hand on Yurio’s shoulder. “I’m a romantic idiot.”

“I think the term I used was damn sap,” Yurio muttered, but the corners of his lips turned up.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The last few trials, to trust Viktor’s map, led nearly a straight path up to the Capitol. Number fourteen, as it happened, was tucked into the edge of a sparse forest with an unkempt grove of clementine trees at its edge.

Viktor arrived in the early afternoon, and as he was in the process of setting down their things and making a bed for Yurio on a softer patch of grass, his friend woke from a light sleep.

“We’re here,” Viktor said, as Yurio climbed off his back.

His fingers traced Viktor’s shoulders as he let go. “I noticed.” He spun in a circle, looking around.

The clementine trees squatted low to the ground, looking almost more like bushes than trees; bright orange fruits nestled in clumps against the leaves like they too were trying to keep warm from the cool December air. Glowing the same deep green of the foliage around, the ice sheet occupied the center of the scene, slightly melted edges glimmering in the bright sunshine. On the opposite side from the forest, a grassy hill slid down into a thin, gravelly beach, sun-bleached pebbles falling under a turquoise surf.

“This place is gorgeous,” Yurio said, matter-of-factly.

Viktor nodded from where he sat at the ice edge, already tightening his laces. He took the ice and began his warmup.

Yurio stood at the side. He peeled a clementine without looking at it, eyes fixed on Viktor.

“I won’t need the harness today,” he replied to Yurio’s unspoken question, rounding the edge of the rink for another lap. The thirteenth trial wasn’t far behind them, and they had stayed long after he had finished it to keep working on his quad lutz. It still wasn’t totally consistent, especially in program. But he was going to try it more today, and stay at this trial until he could land it cleanly at the end of a three and a half minute program.

But first, there was something else he needed to do. Something more important than the lutz.

Recently, his magic books had introduced figure skating, and some spells done on ice. It was surprising how

immaterial

the results of these spells were, even compared to regular spells. With a wand, one could remove invisible toxins from a plant. With a skating program, one could increase the probability that it would rain tomorrow. It was, of course, because skating tapped more directly into magic energy, a force as alien in its inner workings to his human brain - used to

things

like trees and oranges - as Schrödinger’s wave equation.

But despite the difficulties and strangeness, Viktor had learned how to create spells from skating programs. And that was the last skill he’d needed, to choreograph the Veil Key.

That

was the other thing he would do today.

“Yuuri,” Viktor said as he skated around absently, the music playing in his imperfect memory. “Would you be able to play it for me?”

“Of course,” Yuuri said even as Viktor realized he hadn’t verbalized what he wanted. “I’ll give you the standard choreography controls.”

Viktor was about to ask what that was when Yuuri supplied his memory as a preemptive answer, and he knew. He took his tentative starting position in center ice but didn’t bother with a pose, and snapped his fingers to start the music.

It was interesting, to say the least, to watch Viktor practice today. Katsudon had given him the telepathic equivalent of an MP3 player and he was choreographing a very, very complicated program. Often he would pause in the middle of a section, snap his fingers, swipe his hand left a few times as he skated back to a prior section, then tap downward and snap again before flying into his skating-trance once more.

Victor wasn’t listening to the song, just sitting at the ice side and eating clementines, but he could hear it through Viktor’s skating. Something was a little off. Like one note on a piano out of key.

“Ey, Katsudon,” Victor said. “Can I hear the song?”

“Oh, sure. I just thought listening to the same thing over and over might bore you.”

The music faded in, moving mostly in time with Viktor, stopping and restarting at his whims.

“You can see it too, can’t you.”

Katsudon started at Victor’s non-question, silent. But then he was sitting next to him, nodding. “I don’t know what to say about it. I wasn’t even that sure something was really wrong, until now."

"How would you describe it?" Victor wondered aloud. "I thought it was like a song being played on a piano with one key out of tune, or something."

Viktor restarted the song multiple times in quick succession, the instruments skipping in a loop before they were allowed to continue.

"His instrument is a little out of tune... maybe." Katsudon shrugged, head turning to follow Viktor around the ice. "I don’t have an elegant metaphor like that. It just seems to me like... he has energy, but not emotion. Or not the right emotion, maybe."

After another minute, Viktor paused the music in the middle of a crescendo and skidded to a stop, skating over to Victor with meandering strokes. Sweat glistened on his brow, but his smile was warm. "Hi, you two." He said it like there was no one else in the world he would rather talk to.

Victor dug his nails hard into his palms to ground himself; Viktor’s warm smile reflected on his face. "Hey," he said.

"Hi, Vitya." The same warmth saturated his words, too. "Yurio and I were just talking about you."

Viktor’s toe pick caught the edge of the ice, tossing up a little shard as he leapt off; his blades disappeared just before he touched the ground. He walked a half-circle around them, sat down beside Yuuri. "May I ask what you were saying?"

"Well..." Katsudon began, his voice cresting and dipping like a wave, fidgeting slightly with his hands.

"Your skating seemed off today," Victor said bluntly.

Viktor looked back to the ice; the same dissonance that had enclosed him before returned. "I know," he said. "I haven’t found the character for this piece yet. I thought it would be simple, but it’s evading me." He shook his head in frustration, but even that movement was muted, distant.

Katsudon leaned a little closer to him, like trying to physically bring him back. His voice was small but edged with desperation, like an infant clinging to its parent’s fingers. "What have you tried so far?"

Viktor’s eyes moved across the ice, like he was watching a shade of his past self. "Well, at first I tried an abstract character, like the one I created for

Eros

. I tried a few different variations on that, but it didn’t seem to be working, despite how well I’d imagined it. So then I tried to get more direct inspiration, and I tried to be the ideal Hero, the person I’ve seen myself become in visions and that I’ve heard about through legends. But I don’t think that worked, either." He sighed one quick breath, cracked a sardonic smile that looked eerily like Victor’s. "I even tried to be you, Yuuri."

Katsudon’s eyes said

why me?

, but his mouth stayed silent. For a second he became as distant as Viktor, but quickly he returned. "Vitya, I think you’re doing this wrong."

Viktor looked over to his lover; in his face, confusion, hope, uncertainty.

Katsudon pursed his lips, licked them. "You’re trying to be someone else. A character, or some ideal version of the Hero, or

me

... You should just be who you already are."

Victor nodded emphatically. That sounded like it would work. "And if you’re looking for somewhere to get the emotion, try to think about skating

to

someone. Like singing to them, but out there." He gestured at the ice.

Viktor crashed abruptly back to the present with the gravitas of a sudden realization. And immediately his character changed. His gaze had been vacant, focused inward, but in the next moment all his energy turned outward so forcefully it was like some wild beast was about to burst forth from behind his eyes. He didn’t look at either of them again, he just stood and leapt to the ice.

It took him a few minutes to get it completely, but there was something in his skating that was different, suddenly

right

. Victor clenched his fists as he watched. The lonesome flat key had been tuned, and not only that, the worn strings and beaten hammers had been replaced. It sounded beautiful.

A few more seconds and Victor looked over at Katsudon. But he wasn’t looking at him; he was still staring at Viktor, entranced, with a sharp determination in the curve of his brows.

Victor looked back at him, content to watch.

The choreography was coming together, slowly but surely. He’d left the ice once to eat - a handful of nuts and about fifteen clementines - but otherwise he stayed on through the afternoon and into the evening’s early sunset.

Yurio and Yuuri had been right - disconcertingly so. He should expect it by now, but it was still strange for people to know him so well. The past four years aside, nobody had ever been able to offer any kind of help with his choreography; if he’d had trouble finding the right character for a song, it had been up to him and only him to fix it.

It was nice, not being alone.

And then there was the substance of what they’d said.

Be who you are

, it had amounted to.

Not a storybook character, not some ideal version of you, not someone else you think is better. Be who you are, and sing to who you love.

It seemed so obvious in hindsight, but really he had spent so long trying to be someone else that he had nearly forgotten who he was. It was the essence of striving forward, he’d thought, to relentlessly compare yourself to someone you wanted to become. For who you are to never be good enough.

But pushing forward didn’t need to mean ignoring how far he’d already gotten. He saw that now.

After working on the choreography and carefully easing magic from the ice with his blades, working on the quad lutz had been a welcome break. In fact, it had been so welcome a break that he started working on the axel.

He had done, successfully, every drill he could think of to prepare. Three triple axels in a row. Triple axel - triple loop combinations. Triple axel followed by as many double loops as he could muster. Double axel to back spin with a single loop out of it. In short, everything besides getting in the harness and doing the thing for real.

But that, he would do tomorrow.

He got off the ice, unlaced his boots. It wasn’t just because he didn’t want to wake Yurio, that he didn’t attempt the axel today. It was also because he had been skating, on and off, for six hours today, and before that he had been walking since dawn, carrying Yurio a good part of that time. He might have been able to eke out a bit more work, a few more jumps, but Yurio’s voice in his head was telling him to rest.

He set his boots by his bag, pulled off his tight athletic clothes and changed into a loose t-shirt and sweatpants. The five hundredth anniversary - his self-imposed deadline, and possibly also his actual one - was less than six months away. Six months to choreograph this program, get his quad lutz, and land a quad axel.

It was both a long ways away and brutally close at hand. Years had become months, but it would be a while before months would become days. Viktor wasn’t sure whether to be stressed or relieved, and so he was caught up in a strange in-between, dreading the passage of time but simultaneously wanting it to move faster.

He sat in the grass near Yurio, pulled out a book on physics. Thinking about jumps in terms of angular momentum and vertical velocity and moment of inertia was a helpful perspective sometimes - a way to scientifically explain a bunch of ideals and intuition - but he couldn’t focus on the words. His eyes kept skipping lines and glazing over.

He got back up, made his way to one of the clementine trees. Picked one out of a bunch, and held it between his thumb and forefinger. The rind gave to the touch. He paced down the hill to the edge of the grass and sat there, looking into the ocean, pebbles between his toes. He peeled his clementine.

A large part of him wanted to stay here. Not physically here, although he did enjoy the beach; temporally here. In the time before they sealed the Shadow.

He had told himself he wasn’t worried about what might happen to Yuuri and Yurio, because he trusted them to take care of their parts of the future. And that was true, but some part of him was still afraid, the way he was afraid going into each and every jump he tried these days. He was confident in himself, as he was in them, but no matter how hard any of them tried there was a strong possibility of failure and that scared him.

If he’d had the option, he might have considered prolonging this time indefinitely. If the rush of time wasn’t coursing past and through him every moment regardless, he would consider it. Consider... but ultimately disregard.

He might love almost everything about his life right now. He spent nearly every day skating, something he still adored despite the pressure and stakes surrounding it. He spent large swaths of each day with his best friend and his lover. Yuuri had become so good with his illusion magic that he was frequently able to cuddle with Viktor in a way that made him forget it was an illusion. Yurio was so excellent with a sword that Viktor never had to fear for their safety. If this world were as perfect for everyone else as it was for him, there would be no need for a hero.

But this world didn’t contain heaven for everyone.

It didn’t contain heaven for Yuuri. He was good with his illusions, but nothing would let him see them as truth. Until the Shadow was sealed, he could never truly be anywhere. He was the ghost in his magic shell.

It didn’t contain heaven for Yurio, either. He might have Viktor, and Yuuri, but he was still away from someone he cared for. He talked to Otabek almost nightly, Viktor knew, but it was through a form of communication even less personal than Yuuri’s illusions. Until the Shadow was sealed, he couldn’t be with his lover.

This world didn’t contain heaven for so many others. Nearly everyone he had ever met would have a better life if the Shadow were gone.

So that was what he fought for.

In the end that was what would matter. So long as they succeeded, it wouldn’t matter which of them lived to tell of it. They were three people. The faceless multitude of humanity’s future, that he would never know nor personally care about, but who would be cared for by countless others, those would be the people who mattered.

That was his final consolation to himself. No matter what, he would succeed. And regardless of what might happen after that, humanity would go on.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The skyline of the Capitol loomed desolate on the horizon. Empty skyscrapers stood like tombstones on an uneven island-graveyard, the rest of the peninsula stretching out of view. The bay was bisected by a four-towered bridge of concrete and twisted metal that stretched and curved outward from where Viktor and Yurio stood, toward that dead city.

It was here. They were here.

They walked across the faded and crumbling concrete, steps in sync. Viktor half-expected the rusted cables to creak as they walked, but the bridge was eerily silent, its deck as solid and sturdy as any solid ground.

Viktor could feel time rushing down upon them like the water upon the bridge supports. They nearly had no time left. It was May the fourteenth, the day before the Ides. The time for trying to become people who could see this thing through had ended for them. Now it was time for finding out if they had succeeded.

At last, the bridge melded into a city street, and Viktor paused to look up. In the light fog the city was blurred like an old painting, sunlight filtered down onto words that spoke to nobody, unaware their audience was gone. As his chin tilted still further upward, he saw their destination at the top of the tallest hill. A spectacular tier of sloped roofs stood silhouetted against the cloudless sky: the royal palace.

Yurio tapped him on the shoulder once, and they began walking again, falling into step.

It felt like something other than Yurio’s hand was pulling him forward, as they walked. An almost-perceptible string of... Time? Destiny? Prophecy? It wasn’t physically moving him, only eliminating all other choices, narrowing the world so that his only option was to continue walking on this path, through this dead city.

This place didn’t smell right at all. In fact, it smelled of nothing but the ocean. There was a scent that came with inhabitance, with life, but stale concrete had no smell. Against the wall of an old coffee shop was a rusted bicycle, its tires flat and paint nearly gone. Its chain lay dead against the sidewalk.

Viktor wondered at the different stages of decay through this city. Some places looked like they had been vacant for centuries, while others seemed much more recently abandoned. It told a story, one of gradual losses in power and population, a struggle to hold sand slipping through fingers, and a recent relinquishment in despair.

Twisted panels of metal and shattered glass lined the sides of the street, fallen from the monstrous skyscrapers as they slowly decayed. In smaller buildings, the shops and townhouses, doors had been left open or fallen off their hinges, revealing ruined interiors lightly illuminated by the light that streamed gently in through caved-in roofs.

One rusted, dented mailbox read

Nishigori

.

They passed the remains of an elevated railway; rust had eaten away the iron and steel from its girders and a large section had collapsed. A buckthorn bush grew up from the crumpled mass of metal. Ivy climbed up the faces of the nearby buildings and curled from the blown-out windows.

Viktor’s mind blanked more often as he walked further. His thoughts wanted to slip away from his destiny. Not-thinking about the passage of time wouldn’t make it stop - nothing would make it stop - but it happened almost instinctively. A flinch-reaction, like looking away from the Shadow-creatures.

Viktor wondered briefly if Yurio might be running toward his destiny, the way he ran toward danger, instead of merely being pulled along, floundering in the current of time. He could only hope so.

They came to the base of a steep hill and began to climb up the slope. At the top of that hill, they took a right and kept walking. One massive skyscraper had crashed to the ground in a giant mass of twisted metal, crumbled concrete, and shattered glass. They made their way around it.

As they climbed the final hill and approached the palace, it gained dimension and color. Its faces were white - not from paint, which would have faded centuries ago, but from natural pigmentation of the stone. On the first floor, the edges of tall windows glittered with the remnants of stained glass. On many others, the windows were set below elegantly-sloped, mostly-intact, maroon-black roofs. The entire thing looked centuries, perhaps millennia, older than anything else in the city.

They approached the outer wall: the delicate ornamental carvings were worn down, near-unrecognizable, but the wall itself stood tall. What surprised Viktor the most was that the wooden gate at the entrance was still standing, the only hint of the elemental wear being the harsh fading of its red stain.

As Viktor looked beyond that, stepping onto the palace grounds cautiously, reverently, he saw it. The Veil. At first glance, it appeared to be just another artificial ice sheet set in the middle of the courtyard. But as he stared, a pastel-rainbow of muted colors began to appear to him, swirling just under its shining surface, patterns emerging and shifting, almost coherent– until he blinked and they disappeared, leaving only the ice once more.

Neither the Veil and the Shadows seemed to exist in this reality, but it was in opposite ways. While the Shadow weapons looked like holes in the world, blade-shaped cutouts in the surrounding night, the Veil had a powerful aura of permanence that made the rest of the scene around it - the massive palace gates, the imposing figure of the palace itself, the overgrown courtyard - look like a transient shadow.

"Whoa," Yurio said. Viktor nodded.

He looked at the sun, setting over the western courtyard wall and the ocean, as Yurio walked over and began setting up camp near a rock garden. He rolled out only one sleeping bag; Viktor smiled at the gesture, but didn’t think he would use it. A storm was coming tomorrow, and he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t run away or hide from it, because he would be the one to cause it. How does someone sleep, knowing that would be coming when they woke?

Viktor walked over and sat on a rock opposite Yurio as his friend set up the fire. As Yurio was fishing around in his bag for his lighter, Viktor pulled his wand from his hoodie pocket -

ignis

, he murmured - and lit the tinder.

"Thanks," Yurio said. Viktor shrugged.

Yurio cooked a bit of heavily cured meat with a few tomatoes off a nearby vine, and Viktor forced himself to eat. He didn’t feel like it, but he would need his strength.

As Viktor sat there, he began to notice another presence besides the Veil. A strong magic with an aura he very much recognized. He recalled his visions, and belatedly realized: Yuuri was there. Not just present in his mind, but actually physically close-by, floating in his stasis pod just behind the main gate of the palace.

The image was clearer than any memory, like he could see straight through the gate and into the throne room beyond, see Yuuri encased in his amber cocoon. He wouldn’t stand up, walk around the Veil, and push the gates open, though. That moment was for tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

For so long, it had been "in a few years", "in a few months", "in a few weeks". And while having a timer ticking down to this day had been stressful, it was another thing entirely for the ordeal to happen

tomorrow

. Perhaps the strange feeling came from the ability to visualize literally every single moment that would lead up to that point. He would finish eating, lay down and try to sleep, fail to sleep, and get up again. He would decide to sit across from Yurio, watching the sky darken and then gradually lighten again, and then it would be time. About eight hours, that was all he had left.

He’d been eating more slowly, as though taking longer to do an individual action would slow the passage of time, but when it started to get cold he scarfed the rest down in a few unsatisfying bites and handed his bowl back to Yurio.

He

knew

he wouldn’t actually be able to sleep, but laying down seemed at least a little bit more comfortable for now, so Viktor climbed into his sleeping bag. He looked at the sky that had begun to speckle its blue canvas with white pinpricks. He really didn’t want to prepare, or work out more, or

do

much of anything - he just wanted the thing to not be quite so immanent. He wanted more time to spend in this era, the one before he tried to seal the Shadow. Not forever, just a little while longer. He wished there were some spell to pause time, but to his knowledge, there was no such thing.

Except, wait. Maybe there was.

"Yurio, would you like a few extra hours for any reason?"

Yurio looked away from the drawing he was sketching in the dirt with the tip of his sword, raising his eyebrow. "You can stop time, bro?"

Viktor shook his head. "I think I can do something, though."

"Whatever it is, I’m down."

Hey, Yuuri.

"Hm?"

If I removed the casing from my soul orb, would Yurio and I both be able to stay in your mind-space for a while?

"Probably..." he said slowly. "In theory, yes, but that would take up a lot of life-force to do for very long." He did the telepathic equivalent of looking away for a minute, then returned. "Okay, you can do it. What does it matter, really. In about eight hours, it will all be over anyway."

What did

it will all be over

mean?

Viktor fetched his wand and his blue soul orb, traced the carvings. He felt the casing begin to move. "You might want to shield your eyes a little," he told Yurio as he squinted at the almost-entirely-disassembled orb. Yurio obliged, holding a hand out and looking through a crack between his fingers.

Viktor pulled the rest of the casing off, and his vision whited out.

"Hi, Vitya," Yuuri said. He sat with his legs crossed at the ankles, arms behind him, leaning back.

"Hi, Yuuri." He was still laying down on his side, but his clothes and sleeping bag had been replaced by a green robe that matched Yuuri’s, the dirt and grass replaced by soft tatami.

"Where the fuck are we," Yurio said, staring at Viktor. He pulled at the hem of his robe. "What the fuck is this."

"This is, um, my... mind, for lack of a better term. A space I’m pretending I physically inhabit." Yuuri leaned forward, did an abstract gesture. "If I want it to, time can pass slower here: at the most, at about three minutes to half a second."

"Which would be... uh..." Yurio’s eyes rolled back.

"Technically, eight hours translates to two months, but I don’t actually have eight whole hours worth of life-force-energy to do this with. I do have enough for a few days to pass here, though-"

"That’s more than enough, Yuuri. Thank you." Viktor sat up, crawled over to where Yuuri sat, and laid down beside him. Yuuri laid down, resting his head on his chest.

It felt nice, laying like that. His arm wrapped around Yuuri, he knew he wanted to take care of him, protect him, love him forever. He decided not to think about the fact that they might not have that long, that they might only have the next few hours. He just nuzzled Yuuri’s soft hair, reached over and traced his shoulder and his collarbone as his jawline with the tips of his fingers. Something about the way Yuuri held him told Viktor he was thinking the same things.

He looked up for a second, before Yuuri’s warmth could lure him to sleep. Yurio was curled up a meter from him, facing away. There was tension across his shoulders.

"Yurio," Viktor whispered, "Please come over here."

Yurio’s head snapped up, looking over his shoulder. The knit of his brows craved assurance.

"I want to spend tonight with the two people I care about most." He patted the space beside him.

Yurio got to his knees and crawled over, a smile on his face that drained the pain from his eyes. He nodded as he laid down at Viktor’s side, laying a hand on his chest beside Yuuri’s.

They awoke and left Yuuri’s mind-space, hardly a difference in the real world for the four minutes of passed time. After replacing the casing on his soul orb, Viktor rose from his sleeping bag, well-rested at last, and eased his hood up over his low ponytail. He grabbed his book-bag, pulled out a novel, and sat cross-legged on top of his sleeping bag to read.

Occasionally, he looked up at Yurio, who was mostly staring off into space: at the dirt, the fire, the horizon, the sky. Once, he stood and walked to the opposite end of the courtyard, pacing back and forth while talking on the phone.

As the first light came over the horizon, Yurio was back, sitting on his stone and sharpening his swords. Viktor had finished his novel and was sitting across from Yurio, watching the hesitant yellow push into the blue-black night.

No Shadows or Shadow followers had decided to show up all night. Viktor decided to be grateful for the break instead of thinking about the fact that they were likely gearing up for an all-out attack. A headache had begun to build at that thought, but he ignored it.

As the sun began to rise, he pulled off his hoodie and did a warm-up, longer than his ordinary off-ice one since he got the nagging feeling he wouldn’t be able to warm up on-ice before he had to skate the Key for real.

"Vitya," Yuuri said as he sat back down, "there are some things you should know."

"Tell me," he said.

"The Shadow followers will control the Shadow in any way they think will stop you from completing a perfect program. Walking onto the ice, shapeshifting, moving the ice sheet under you, anything. Once your program begins, they can’t actually touch you, the Veil prevents it, but they’ll do their best to screw up your program."

Viktor leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring out at the sunrise. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Well, I’ll be doing damage control," Yurio said with a shrug, "as usual."

"Besides that, and your soul orbs, no. There’s nothing you can do, except try not to flinch." Yuuri paused, his attention shifted. "Yurio, I wouldn’t be surprised if every Shadow follower in existence appears here in a few minutes. It seems an understatement to say you should be on your guard, but I’m not sure what else to tell you."

Yurio nodded once, finished sharpening his short-sword, which gleamed the same pale yellow as the rising sun, and sheathed it. Viktor had tried to surpass his vision-self in magical ability, but

lux solis

was still the best he could do -

ignis ūniversālis

required more magic than he could control.

"Get on the ice as soon as the sun comes over the horizon, that will give you the most advantage," Yuuri said. "I’ll be fighting the Shadow as hard as I can for my part, but I’m relying on you. Please, do the best you can."

"I will," Viktor said, nodding. "I love you, Yuuri."

"I love you too, Vitya." His voice was more confident than Viktor had ever heard.

"Hey, Viktor." Yurio said. There was a finality in his voice. "Before this starts, there’s one last thing I wanted to tell you."

Viktor’s brow furrowed.

What is it?

"For a long time, I’ve been thinking of you this way, but I realize I never said it aloud. So far as I’m concerned..." his gaze flinched down, but he pulled it back up, "you’re my brother. Not by blood, but by everything else that matters."

Viktor buried his face in his hands for a moment, then stood. He walked over, paces measured, and held out one hand.

Yurio took it, looking confused, and he pulled him up into a close hug. Viktor buried his face in his brother’s shoulder.

Yurio hugged Viktor the same way he held his hand, with a clinging desperation that bordered on fear, but this time there was a promise in it.

I won’t let you down. Not this time.

And with one final squeeze before he let him go, Viktor tried to say,

I believe in you.

The Shadow’s presence was so sudden and overpowering that it became near-tangible.

His lungs and throat burning with the cold, hearing only his harsh breath, the crisp thuds of his feet on the brush and snow, and the occasional clash of metal behind him.

Viktor stepped onto the ice in one swift motion, taking his starting pose at center ice, ignoring the fear and the blackness that had swallowed everything around the ice.

The universe decided to be nice to him, and gave him a second of silence.

He took one breath, and thought about what this program meant.

So far as I’m concerned... You’re my brother.

Feel free to come again if you ever need any more weird contraptions! That thing was fun to make.

You’re going to hurt yourself, doing this.

Alright, let’s try something simple. I mean it this time, I promise!

Please also let me know what you are doing in general - I may be of assistance in some way you have not thought of, or otherwise, it may simply be useful for you to have a friend.

Hey, no problem! Always happy to be of service to the hero of legend.

Of course I’m offering. That sounds like a rough way to live.

I love you, Vitya! I love you. And I think, I always have.

My name is Victor. Now you, so we’re even.

Wow, son. In that case, yer hat’s paid for! And I’ll give ye a little extra, too!

Dasvidaniya, Vitya.

One breath doesn’t take long.

The music began.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Yuuri had prepared for this day in every way he could think of. He had gathered as much life-force as he could over the past several years, saved it up for one final assault. All sixteen of his soul orbs would be drifting through the air now, settling on a pedestal that would have just materialized at the side of the ice. His life - perhaps the very last of it - would give Viktor and Yurio the strength they would need to finish this.

As Viktor took his starting pose, it seemed he was willing to pour his whole life into this performance, too. And as he took his posture, settled into his character... something about him seemed to reflect Yuuri. He had composed the music and done the performance to set the Key based on his own life and visions, and it seemed Viktor had come at his choreography the same way.

There was one moment of silence, and within that moment, the corners of Viktor’s lips turned up. An overwhelming wave of hope-confidence-faith-determination-love flooded through him, and Yuuri was taken aback. He didn’t have time to try to find the source of the emotion - the music started.

Viktor looked up, took a breath and set his shoulders back. The rest of his expression may have been forlorn, but his eyes were filled with energy and joy. He brought a hand to his forehead, then traced the edge of his silver hair with his fingertips. His arms were cradled against his chest as he spun a single revolution, then he stepped out and reached forward.

Yuuri could watch the summary of Viktor’s life in the choreography. Finding out about his destiny, becoming as lonesome as the person who he was fated to save, then reaching outward and taking his own life by storm. As the lyrics began, Yuuri mentally translated them.

I hear a voice calling in the distance

Have you perhaps been abandoned as well?

Viktor fell to one knee, lifting himself up again in time with the slow lilt of the music. The way he held his arms above him, tracing the air just out of reach, it was as though someone else had pulled him up. He began his setup for the first jump of the program: the quadruple lutz.

Was Yuuri imagining it, or was there a confident smirk on Viktor’s lips as he completed the setup?

Come now, I’ll quickly finish this glass of wine

He landed a perfect quadruple lutz, and almost immediately Viktor began the setup for a quadruple flip. He took only enough time to gather speed, and by the time he reached the opposite end of the Veil, he picked, jumped, and landed.

If the ice moved under his blades, if the looming darkness of the Shadow disturbed him in the slightest, Yuuri couldn’t tell.

I’ll start to get ready

Be quiet, now

With almost no time for rest, the setup began for the hardest jump of the program. The one that would make or break this. The one Yuuri had almost told Viktor not to include. It wasn’t necessary, it was dangerous, and it came on top of several other increases Viktor had made to the already absurd base difficulty of the Veil Key.

I can’t be nervous now,

Yuuri told himself. Within his mind-space, which he now decided he inhabited, he began to pace. The scene of Viktor’s program still took up nearly all of his vision.

Through his choreography, Yuuri could clearly see the love in Viktor’s eyes, the determined crease of his brow, the hopeful smile at the corner of his lips.

Look at him!

Yuuri chided himself.

He’s out there, skating an impossible program, surrounded by Shadow, and he’s smiling! If he can smile, the least I can do is...

Viktor entered his landing position, the last component of the setup for the axel, and Yuuri gathered together every ounce of energy he wasn’t already using to help Yurio fight the Shadow. With a combination of magic and raw emotion, he focused it into his soul orbs. Viktor’s eyes widened a fraction - he had surely felt the sudden influx of energy - but it didn’t break his timing in the slightest. He jumped.

Yuuri watched it in slow-motion, counted the rotations. One, two, three, four, and one half-

Viktor’s edge out of the quadruple axel was deep and strong, and it was all Yuuri could do not to cry out to him. Within his mind-space he started to sob, but he stopped abruptly: he couldn’t afford the distraction.

With a sword I wish I could cut those throats singing of love

A longer sequence of footwork came before the solo spin, but Yuuri could no longer spare consideration for it, besides the fact that every step came precisely where and when it needed to. The spin had enough speed to squeeze in twelve revolutions in both the front and back camel positions. That was something else Yuuri had considered advising Viktor not to do: getting the timing and speed right to complete so many revolutions in such a short time was immensely difficult.

It was surprising, how little he had believed in Viktor, compared to how much Viktor had believed in him.

I wish I could enclose in ice those hands that write those words of passion

The choreographic sequence began with a spiral, Viktor’s legs nearly in a full split, his fingers trailing from his chest to his chin and out in front of him. Something about this sequence looked to Yuuri like building a new world, or at least imagining one. A spreadeagle, a falling leaf and a twizzle preceded a flying sit spin.

This story that has no meaning

Will vanish together with the stars tonight

Viktor came to a complete stop for a solid second, face obscured by his silvery hair, then he lifted his arms and pushed off his toe, twice. It looked like starting over. He brought his arms around him in a short inside spreadeagle, and set up for the quadruple loop. He started to look over his shoulder in his final edge, but decided whatever might be there wasn’t worth seeing. The loop was clean.

If I could see you, eternity would be born from hope

With another falling leaf, again Viktor held his arms in an embrace, but this time it seemed like he held someone else’s heart between his palms. The next jump would be a combination, a triple axel - double loop.

Except, as Yuuri watched Viktor strike his landing pose, he saw a glimmer of something in his love’s eye. It was the same thing that he’d seen when Viktor had skated

On My Love

, and suddenly changed nearly all his doubles to triples. The expression was almost subservient, like Viktor was giving something to him. Yuuri didn’t have time to tell him to stop before Viktor jumped with far more force than would ever be necessary for a simple

triple

axel.

He was doing a

second

quadruple axel. Over halfway through the program - and in combination.

And yet something about that expression of his gave Yuuri a glimmer of hope. When he’d skated to

On My Love

, he

had

given Yuuri a perfect program, complete with a number of jumps he’d never landed cleanly before. So as he watched the takeoff, Yuuri brought all his strength to bear and thought,

you can do it, Vitya.

A quadruple axel - triple loop combination, both clean. His shaky landing didn’t cause him to put either his free foot or his hand to the ice.

Yuuri let himself cry as Viktor began his footwork sequence.

Stay close to me, don’t go away

I’m afraid of losing you

Viktor was openly smiling now, as he did block after block of complex, perfectly-timed turns. It wasn’t his teary-eyed smile from

On My Love

, but it had the same relationship to that as a five-hundredth kiss had to a first. Confidence and warmth had replaced all the nervousness.

Your hands, your legs,

My hands, my legs,

And our heartbeats

Are blending together

If Viktor was at all exhausted by four continuous minutes of skating, his performance didn’t betray it. There were still three quads left in the program: a salchow, a solo toe loop, and, finally, another toe loop in combination with a triple. In quick succession, Viktor set up for all of them, and Yuuri watched as he landed them, one after the other.

It was getting harder to watch, harder to help either Viktor or Yurio, as Yuuri began to drain the last of his life-force. Everything was getting blurry, hazy: Viktor’s program, the Shadow’s movements around Yurio, even his own body within his mind-space became hard to see and feel and move.

Let’s leave together

I’m ready now
As Viktor’s program ended with a combination spin and a great clash of metal, Yuuri hardly noticed. A tempo more vital than his heartbeat - the rhythmic beat of magic in his mind - began to slow. His vision was dark, now, and he felt cold. He should be afraid, he was always afraid, but now he wasn’t. He was just tired, and he wanted to sleep.

Couldn’t he just sleep, for a minute?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Viktor held his ending pose, red-faced, panting, for one full second, and immediately fell to his knees. His lungs ached, his throat felt like sandpaper, his breath caught in his throat and made him cough. Beyond all of that, there was a weakness in him, like something that had given him strength until this point had suddenly faded away.

The ice of the Veil didn’t melt, but it was still cold against his hot hands. As his blurry vision cleared, he stared down into its muted colors, and he saw something else that wasn’t present before in its pastel rainbow. There was blackness under the ice, and as Viktor tried to look at it, he flinched away with the same reaction that he might have to nearly falling off the edge of a building.

As he stood up, slowly, all his muscles protesting, he saw the darkness had gone from around the ice. The royal palace was all that stood before him, white stone washed yellow with the pale light of dawn.

We did it,

Viktor thought, the happiness pricking tears in his eyes. He clenched his fists.

We really did it.

At that thought, Viktor spun around.

The palace courtyard before him was a bloodbath. Easily fifty, perhaps more like a hundred people lay unmoving against the dirt and grass and rocks. Viktor scanned the bodies, increasingly anxious as he looked for a head of silver hair. Near the center of the courtyard, someone stood slowly.

Yurio got to his feet, movements muted as he sheathed his bloodied swords. His fingertips stuttered as he pushed some red-tipped strands of hair behind his ear, and turned to face Viktor.

A deep cut had cleaved his left eyebrow in half, and his right shoulder was stained red. He reached up and wiped away the blood that threatened to get into his eye, smearing it instead across his face and the back of his hand.

It looked like he was processing the scene in slow motion: his tired green eyes blinked twice, then he pulled his drooping shoulders back. "We..." his voice was hoarse, and he coughed. "We won?"

Viktor stepped off the ice, walking a winding path over to his brother. He nodded. "We won."

Yurio half-leapt, half-fell into Viktor’s outstretched arms, which threatened to topple the both of them. They clung as tightly to each other as their weakened bodies could manage.

"You are amazing, Yurio." He did a warm hum like Yuuri’s, ran his fingers through Yurio’s hair.

Yurio’s grip against him stuttered, his breathing spasmed. "I can’t believe it’s finally over," he whispered into Viktor’s shoulder as he wetted his shirt with tears.

"Well... it’s not quite over yet," Viktor said. He tilted his head away from Yurio’s, toward the palace behind them.

Yurio stepped back a pace, nodded. He wiped his cheeks with his palms, sniffling. "By the way, Viktor, what the hell are you wearing?"

Viktor blinked, looked down. He was wearing a strange costume with black pants that stretched over the boots of his skates, odd black elbow-length gloves that only covered the thumb and palm of each hand, and a thin pink and purple coat with sheer coattails fastened with golden tassels across a white undershirt. "I... don’t know."

"Well, let’s wake our sleeping beauty, maybe he’ll know." Yurio grinned and began his walk around the Veil toward the palace gates; Viktor followed.

When he got to the gate, Yurio stopped and stood aside, gesturing for Viktor to open the doors. Viktor stood in front of the giant gate and took both handles in his grip. With a strong pull that used most of his body weight to supplement his lack of available strength, he yanked the doors open.

Viktor walked slowly into a grand courtroom in terrible disrepair. The tiles were cracked and stained with rainwater that had leaked in from holes in the ceiling. The carpeting which led from the doorway to the thrones, perhaps purple or red once, had long since lost nearly all its saturation to the slow but steady elemental wear. The stained glass windows were nearly all cracked or broken. The evident cause of most of this was a gigantic, gaping hole in the left-hand wall.

The palace was precisely how he’d seen it in his vision, and the very fact of that slowed his steps. As he paced forward, he looked out the hole in the wall and saw the light of the rising sun streaming in, refracting through Yuuri’s amber cocoon.

The feeling of the magic was intensely powerful, just as he’d remembered it: it made him crinkle his nose a bit involuntarily. Still, Viktor walked up to the edge of the dais, and as soon as he placed his boot on the first step, the cocoon moved.

It cracked and exploded and fell in on itself and disappeared all at once. Viktor braced himself for the shockwave of magical energy so it didn’t send him stumbling back, but it still sent a painful shiver through his body.

Yuuri stood there, in a position like Viktor’s starting pose to

Stammi Vicino

. His arms were held just slightly out from his sides, his eyes shut, chin tipped down.

For a long second, he didn’t move, and Viktor took another step up the stairs, then two more. Something about this felt wrong, and the unease was beginning to settle in Viktor’s stomach. He reached the top of the dais, stood just in front of Yuuri– and he collapsed.

Viktor darted forward to catch him, managed to break his fall. He knelt to the ground, his tremoring heartbeat in his ears as he cradled Yuuri in his arms. His lover’s body felt cold, like he too had just come off the ice.

"Yuuri?" Viktor asked, not expecting the way his voice broke. His throat and chest were bound tight. His lungs filled again and again with the freezing air.

Yuuri’s eyes were shut, with no sign of startling from his abrupt fall. No breath, no heartbeat moved his still chest.

A cold sweat dampened Viktor’s palms as his unease turned to nausea. He should be checking for a pulse, but his hands were frozen in place. Checking might mean that he could find it wasn’t there, and he wouldn’t know what he would do after that.

He remembered the way Yuuri had clung to him the night before, with a hint of desperation in the press of his fingers. Had he known? Had he

known

?

never truly wake

Viktor shook his head and took Yuuri’s cold hands in his own, pressed his fingers against Yuuri’s chest. As the tears stung his eyes, Viktor gathered all the magic he could bring to bear and forced it straight through the tips of his fingers. He pressed it through Yuuri’s clothes, through his skin, and spread it across all of him.

He had no idea what he was doing. Even if he did, he had no idea if it would work. But he had to do

something

.

Anything.

Viktor’s tears fell onto Yuuri’s chest as his magic flowed through him, rhythm following his spasming breaths. It crashed forth like waves on a shore, strengthened repeatedly like the lilt of a waltz.

“Viktor...” Yurio was standing behind him. He laid a hand on his shoulder. Viktor’s magic stuttered.

Viktor flinched away, pulling Yuuri closer. “No,” he choked out, “no, I can’t- I can’t let-“ He couldn’t finish that sentence.

Yurio took a breath to speak, let it out again. His hand slid off Viktor’s shoulder, his footsteps clicked away.

The steady, warm pulse of his life-force magic was the only thing Viktor felt. He ignored the spasming pain in his chest, the hot tears that spilled endlessly over his lashes. They didn’t matter. He needed to focus on his magic. The tide kept crashing forth, the music-box kept playing. But it seemed to push out into an infinite nothingness. Like hot breath dissipating into cold air.

A sick dread began to spread through him. Nothing was happening, and nothing might continue to happen, and then he would have to face reality. A reality without Yuuri in it.

That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t. What was that reality? What had they won, if this was what they had lost? It wasn’t fair, it couldn’t be fair-

Who said the world has to be fair?

Yurio’s voice echoed in his mind.

"I DO!"

Viktor screamed aloud. And he pulled out every stop, tore away every barrier, and pushed his mind and his magic far past its limit. A great tsunami crashed forth over the shore, an orchestral crescendo overtook the music-box. This world wasn’t allowed to exist as it was. He wouldn’t stop at

trying his best

to make it fair. He would

make it fair.

That, or expend all his life trying.

Time stopped.

The silence whirled around, in the lack of breath and sobs, and a strange sensation took him. Abruptly he was both himself and a small part of himself - a part which broke away. He could feel it, and feel through it, as it pushed down his throat and through his chest, across his right shoulder and down his arm, and through his fingertips where they lay on Yuuri’s chest. The awareness of that part didn’t stop there: it travelled through Yuuri, too, cold and dark as he was. It made its way up to his head, and there the small part settled.

Time crashed back over him suddenly with the tsunami of his magic, and the larger part of Viktor clung to Yuuri’s body. The stabbing pain in his chest returned, and the moisture on his face. But now, Viktor felt a rhythm besides his own now, soft but strong, from where he held Yuuri.

It took him a moment to process it, and by the time he did, it was undeniable. It grew stronger and stronger with every passing second. It had the rhythm of Viktor’s magic, but it had Yuuri’s aura, and it was its own. When Viktor lifted his fingers from Yuuri’s chest, it remained.

Another few seconds, and Yuuri’s eyes fluttered open. He glanced around for a moment, then his gaze settled. "V.... Vitya?"

Viktor’s breath caught in his throat, and his overjoyed smile turned into a loud sob as he pulled Yuuri close, choking out his name. He was warmer now, his heartbeat and his magic pulsed strong as Viktor held him. "Yuuri... Yuuri, I was so afraid..."

"Vitya, I..." he gasped sharply as Viktor sent another pulse of magic through him - this time without meaning to. "You can stop, I’m okay!"

"I’m sorry," he eased Yuuri away from him once more, trying to quiet the buzz of magic that shocked through him like a live wire. Slowly it did settle, and his twitching fingers turned steady, curled around Yuuri’s shoulder.

Yuuri lifted a hand up and laid it against Viktor’s chest, the touch reverent. The real thing was so much more than any magic could replicate, and it ripped away any thought that this might be any kind of dream. "You’re really here," he said softly, "You did it."

"

We

did it," Viktor said, laying his hand across Yuuri’s. Because he’d known the instant he felt it where that surge of energy before the first quad axel had come from. Yuuri had expended his life-force - nearly all of it - to help Viktor to skate a perfect program. And just now Viktor had given it back.

Yuuri nodded, lifted his hand from Viktor’s chest and began to sit up. He seemed a little out of his body still, but he acclimated quickly enough to stand, and Viktor climbed to his feet after him.

“You’re really okay?” Viktor whispered. His voice was as reverent as Yuuri’s touch.

Yuuri nodded. “I am.” He stepped into the small space between them, traced his hands over Viktor’s shoulders and arms and chest. "This looks nice," Yuuri said.

Viktor blinked, recalling slowly. "I... did want to ask about that," he said, lifting one of the tassels with a finger. His other hand was still affixed to Yuuri’s hip.

"I didn’t think it would happen but I’m... not surprised it did. This is what I wore when I set the Key."

"Why’d you do that?" Yurio asked. Viktor looked over; he was sitting a few paces away on the edge of a table, smiling softly.

"You just... wear flashy stuff to skate, I guess." Yuuri shrugged. He was so casual and nonchalant; it was like he was saying

everything’s okay

.

Viktor nodded, because everything

was

okay now. "Like Sara and Mila, and most of the other skaters at Kamyinsk. Is it a permanent transmutation?"

"I could undo it, if you cared about those clothes," Yuuri said.

"Not really. I like this much better." Viktor bounced on his heels a few times. He found himself grinning.

Yuuri reflected his smile. "I’m glad."

"Oh!" Yurio exclaimed. He leapt up and ran out of the room, saying, "Sorry, speaking of people not being dead, I need to call Beka and let him know I'm alive!"

"That does sound like an important thing to do," Yuuri chuckled. He watched Yurio leave and the gates slam shut, then his gaze shifted back to Viktor. His eyes traced over the lines of Viktor’s form, his hands following shortly after. A soft flush bloomed slowly across his cheeks.

Viktor stood a bit straighter, his heartbeat quick and heavy in his chest. He traced the edge of Yuuri’s soft jawline, feeling every tiny bump and scar and scratch of stubble. He felt so much more in the real world than he ever had before in a dream or illusion; it made him want to explore every inch of him. His hands traced over the soft cloth and sheer mesh of Yuuri’s robes, and heat nipped at his fingertips.

"Vitya," Yuuri said, staring up at him through half-lidded eyes. "You promised me something, years ago. Do you remember?"

Viktor blinked, glanced aside. What did he promise him?

Yuuri smirked, reached up and grabbed Viktor by the collar. "You promised that when we ended this, you’d kiss me."

Before Viktor could say anything more, Yuuri was tugging him over, closing what little space was left between them. His kiss was captivating, lips soft and warm as they moved in time with his. That single point was nearly all Viktor could feel, even as Yuuri’s hands tugged at his hair, undoing his ponytail, even as his cheeks burned. Only when all his breath was spent did he pull away, gasping quietly for air.

Viktor looked away, shut his eyes, ran his fingers through his hair. "Am I ever going to match your endurance?"

Yuuri let out a short laugh. "Probably not. That’s one of the few things I’m very good at."

Viktor smirked, raised an eyebrow. "Is it now."

Yuuri’s face flushed an even deeper pink as he pushed gently against Viktor’s shoulders. "Hey..."

Viktor looked him up and down, still smiling, then abruptly scooped him up in a bridal carry.

"Hey!"

Viktor spun in a little circle, then carried him down the steps along the disintegrated carpet. "I’m so happy, Yuuri. You’re here, I’m here, we’re here. We did it."

"Mm." He nodded, looked up at Viktor and laid his hand on his shoulder. The touch was as gentle as the look in his eyes. "We did."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

One day post-Shadow.

Yuuri had found his old pair of glasses, cracked and rusted, on a rotting coffee table in front of a disintegrated couch in one of the back rooms of the palace, and Viktor had watched in silence as Yuuri stared at them for a very long time. After that, they’d decided to head to Kamyinsk to buy a new pair.

As it turned out, Yuuri could teleport - albeit not nearly as quickly as Onyx - and so they headed over, and found a glasses shop. Yuuri’s new pair was a vibrant blue that perfectly complemented his red-brown eyes, and matched the stripes on the athletic jacket he’d bought from a shop next door. (Yurio, who had come with, had purchased a black t-shirt with a roaring tiger printed on the front from the same shop and then immediately skated off in the direction of the residential district.)

Viktor had led Yuuri off to the royal lab, and they had met with Phichit, who immediately shut off the power to the generator that maintained the most powerful of the many force fields around Kamyinsk. ("The only thing we have to keep out now is the blizzards," he’d said. "Need much less magic for that.")

Evidently, Phichit had an immensely detailed, highly efficient plan for what to do as soon as the Shadow was gone, so Yuuri simply gave him the green light to get started on it. Viktor hadn’t understood a lot of the plan when Phichit had explained it, but he got that the first thing to be built would be a shinkansen - a bullet train.

With the mechanics of the restoration plan safely in Phichit’s hands, the next place they went - after stopping at a restaurant and getting Yuuri a bowl of katsudon - was Lilia’s village. When Viktor had knocked on her door and Lilia had opened up, she smiled - when she looked to his side and saw Yuuri standing there, she took a step back. Yuuri had much the same reaction.

"Hi again, Yuuri," Lilia said.

"Lilia?" Yuuri replied. "But, how-"

As it turned out, Yuuri had met a woman named Lilia Baranovskaya: the modern Lilia’s many-greats-grandmother. Out of an impressive sentimentality, Lilia’s family had been naming every girl-child with the same name for many generations, in hopes that when the Prince finally woke from his slumber, he would have a friend - not the Lilia he had met and befriended those centuries ago, but someone who shared her name and her blood.

At this explanation, Yuuri had bowed to Lilia, and she had responded with a hug. Shortly thereafter, Onyx had shown up; Yuuri bowed to xem as well, and this time he got an even deeper bow in response. Evidently, Yuuri had told Onyx’s many-greats-grandparents to protect Lilia - and everyone in xir family had kept that promise.

Viktor was sure that, were Yurio there, he would have been loudly complaining the whole time about how sappy it all was.

One week post-Shadow.

The construction was moving along smoothly; Phichit had conscripted just about every mechanic and metal-worker to work on, not the train or the rail or any end-product, but instead a series of complex robots. The robots, he explained, would be the ones to actually build everything. Of everyone Phichit gathered, Emil Nekola had taken most ardently to the work: he was an even better engineer than he was a blacksmith.

Next, Yuuri had, by an official Mandate of the Crowned Prince (he was not the king yet, there was a ceremony for that, which he had neither the time nor energy to conduct), disbanded the last of the Royal Guard. At a suggestion from Ana, he had the guards’ stations converted to hostels; at Michele’s suggestion, those hostels still taught the martial arts - entirely as a way to exercise.

Restoration of the Royal Palace has been high on Phichit’s priority list; Yuuri had bumped it down to near-last. Instead, Viktor and Yuuri slept in camps, intertwined under the stars. If Yuuri was at all uncomfortable, sleeping on hard dirt instead of the regal silks he must be accustomed to, he didn’t show it.

There was one last important thing he needed to do, and Viktor chided himself for taking three whole days to do it.

Viktor and Yuuri stood at the door of the house that had been Viktor’s home for twenty-four years. The past five-odd years had it no worse for wear: in fact, it seemed it had been renovated.

Yuuri shifted from foot to foot anxiously as Viktor lifted his hand to the door. He rapped loudly against its smooth oak surface, and took a step back.

The man who came to the door was about as much worse for wear as the house was better. Even more of his already sparse hair had fallen out, the lines on his face were etched even deeper, and beyond that, for a split second before his eyes met Viktor’s, there was a brutal tiredness that, despite his father’s years, Viktor had never seen.

But the instant Yakov saw him, that exhausted expression lifted, replaced with a smile that was gentle and surprised and almost beautiful. “Vitya.”

“I’m home, Yakov.” Viktor grinned, and held out his arms.

Yakov’s hug was as gruff as he always was, and he smacked Viktor’s back twice as he said, “Well done.”

“Hm?” Viktor asked.

Yakov pushed him away, gesturing at Yuuri.

Viktor nodded, wrapping an arm around Yuuri. “A beautiful catch, huh?”

“Had better be, you spent five years on it.” Yakov turned around, motioning for them to come inside. “Come in, both of you. There are a few things I’d like to ask.”

There was a rocking chair now, beside Yakov’s usual armchair. He left it empty; Viktor lounged into the spot on the couch that had always been his, and Yuuri sat perfectly straight beside him.

“It’s Yuri, right?”

Viktor was about to correct his pronunciation, but Yuuri simply nodded.

“And you’ve known Vitya for how long now?”

“A little less than five years, sir.”

Sir?

“Well then I'm sure you know this already. Vitya is very smart, which sometimes makes him very stupid.”

Yuuri nodded; Viktor made a face.

“He has made some very good decisions - like following his destiny to seal the Shadow. And he has made some very poor decisions - like attempting double jumps on thinning spring ice. I don’t know whether his decision to be your lover belongs in the first category or the second.” Yakov sighed. “I admit, I’ve aired too far on the side of caution. Both of those decisions, I protested. But many people would be gone now had Vitya not ignored me, so I would not try to keep you from him even if I did disapprove.”

“Thank you.”

“I still reserve the right to ask you questions.”

“Of course.”

“To begin: I’m not sure how you royals treat marriage with non-nobles.”

“I’ve never been one to draw those lines, sir. It was a necessity of life to care about it when everyone else did, but the culture has shifted. Your son’s life wouldn’t be harder for marrying me.”

“I hope not. Relatedly, what are the duties of a King’s husband? Will he share the throne, or be some kind of concubine?”

“The former,” Yuuri said, somehow with a straight face. “His duties are the same as mine. Repair the Shadow’s damage, build a new infrastructure, and after that, create a sustainable post-Shadow society.”

“You don’t expect him to magically be able to conduct foreign relations and such right now, I hope.” Yakov raised an unamused eyebrow.

“I will handle foreign policy for now. I’ll take responsibility for training him in the affairs of the court, as every ruler does when they take a spouse not versed in such matters.”

“Hm.” He stroked at his coarsely stubbled chin. “I see.” He took the arms of his chair and pushed himself back, leaning forward with elbows on his knees. “I have one last question for you then, Yuri.”

The impromptu interrogation is almost over?

Viktor sighed. He sort of expected this from his father, to question any prospective lover after he had not taken one for so long. Still, it was more than a little frustrating - both to see his lover so uncomfortable and his father making him that way.

“Why have you chosen my son?”

Viktor watched Yuuri’s eyes widen, just a sliver. “I...” his eyes turned down, and he swallowed. “Why did

you

choose him, sir?”

“Huh?” Yakov snapped.

His gaze was still fixed on the floor. “Vitya told me you adopted him. Why?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.” He sounded more angry than confused.

“You ask why I chose him, like there’s some purpose I have in mind. But did you have a purpose for him set out when you took him in? Or did you just want to see him happy, and you were willing to do whatever it took to see that heart-shaped smile?” Yuuri looked up again at last, the curve of his eyebrows sheepish. “I chose him because I love him, sir. I’m not sure what other answer I could give honestly.”

“I suppose that’s an answer I can accept.” The edges of Yakov’s lips hinted at a smile. “Please learn better than I have when Vitya’s stupidity is really genius.”

“I will do my best.” He stood and bowed, then left the house with a quick glance to Viktor as a promise to wait outside.

Just as Viktor was about to ask what all that was about, Yakov gave him a piercing stare. “That man really loves you, you know that?”

Viktor laced his fingers together, nodded. “I know,” he said. And he also knew why Yakov had been acting like this. It was because he knew Viktor and Yuuri would both be up to their ears in work, and so he wanted to quickly ensure his son was in good hands before sending him off to help rebuild the world. It was such a uniquely Yakov thing to do.

Yakov’s eyes softened, as if he noticed Viktor’s realization. He said, “Take care of him, Vitya.”

Viktor did a nod that turned halfway into a bow, standing swiftly. “Until the end of the world and its magic.”

“Did you not just prevent that?” Yakov said after him as he made his way to the door.

Viktor pushed the door open and shouted back through the entryway, “I did, which is why it had better not happen for a very long time!”

One month post-Shadow.

The rail line was completed with brutal efficiency, and cities were the next target of Phichit’s robot army. They built and renovated houses, installed solar panels, put up wind turbines and installed magic distributors. Yuuri and Phichit became inseparable in those days, dragging Viktor around while discussing programming and processing and all kinds of things Viktor didn’t understand.

They had gone to visit the village where Oxar had his farm so Phichit could interview him and his assistants about the new farming equipment his robots had built. Before he could get a word in, though, everyone was clamoring around Viktor.

“Hey, everyone, Shura’s back!” Dalmann had shouted into the house when he saw Viktor standing there.

And for the next forty minutes Viktor fought off a swarm of questions about everything from his hair to his journey to his relationship with Yuuri. Phichit and Yuuri stood in the back of the room, laughing softly.

Three months post-Shadow

The daylight hours were full of people making requests and proposing ideas. Mainly it was Phichit, still coming up with ways to make things more efficient though his progress was growing exponentially. However, many others had come to the Kamyinsk town hall, where Yuuri had set up shop as the palace renovation was under way.

A doctor named Seung-Gil wanted to set up a medical school in the Capitol. A teacher named Maria wanted to create preschools and daycares for the small children who weren’t old enough yet to apprentice in a trade. A young man named Satoshi had an idea for a completely digital currency.

Outside of the time he designated for listening to these proposals, Yuuri talked to Viktor and Phichit about the new legal and political systems he was designing, although neither of them knew anything about politics or law. Yuuri said it was called rubber duck debugging, which got a laugh and a light punch on the shoulder from Phichit and a confused look from Viktor.

The days were full, from skating first thing in the morning followed by breakfast, court, lunch, more court, planning the structure of their country, dinner, explanations of politics, and stargazing. Viktor spent every minute at Yuuri’s side. He held him close as they danced on the ice at sunrise and as they stared out at the sky from the porch of their Kamyinsk apartment at night. His hand rested on Yuuri’s thigh through the morning and afternoon, and held Yuuri’s hand across the table through nearly every meal.

He would stop, if Yuuri ever told him to, but he never did.

Six months post-Shadow

After the palace renovation had finished, the coronation happened at last. As it turned out, a coronation ceremony is a solemn affair, neither large nor extravagant. Most of it was a memorial service for Yuuri’s family, through which Viktor sat in respectful silence. And even after that, when Yuuri had taken his crown, there were no grand declarations or inspiring speeches, only a short remark.

Yuuri promised to take this torch from his parents and move forward with every breath until his last. Then he’d bowed to those present, donned his crown - a fairly simple braid of gold inlaid with spots of ruby and sapphire - and left.

After the trivial matter of cleaning up and bidding adieu to those present, Viktor had looked for Yuuri and found him on the ice skating figures. He said nothing, just watched for a few minutes and returned inside. There were times, he knew, when Yuuri needed to be alone.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

"Yuuri... it's late. Shouldn't we sleep?" Viktor walked to his lover, who was curled into a ball at the edge of their futon, and knelt in front of him. Yuuri's eyes were tightly shut, the rest of his face obscured by his arms.

It had been just over a year since Viktor had skated the Veil Key and sealed the Shadow, and every minute had been busy. Still, a few days ago they’d had time to go to a fancy restaurant, and afterward, Yuuri had taken him down a row of shops to the front steps of a church. It had made Viktor so happy, having that golden band on his finger engraved on the inside with half a snowflake, knowing the matching half pressed against Yuuri’s skin. But ever since that day, Yuuri had been distant - taking a moment too long to respond, staring out windows and into space. He’d been the one to propose - so what was wrong?

Viktor hesitantly ran a hand through his lover’s hair, and Yuuri loosened his death grip on his arms. Slowly, he looked up to face his lover, his fiance, soon to be his husband. Those words made them sound so close, but for the way Yuuri looked at him, Viktor might as well have never met the man. The way he just politely raised his eyebrows made him want to scream.

Yuuri shook his head, slowly, and made to bury his face in his arms once more before Viktor put a hand on his shoulder.

He forced his lips to speak despite the burning ache in his chest. "It’s nearly 3 already; are you going to stay up all night?"

Yuuri said nothing. His stare was imperceptible.

"Yuuri, what’s wrong? What do you need from me?" He sat down beside Yuuri. He didn’t know what, but he had to do

something. Anything.

The curve of his eyebrows pulled together. "I... don’t need anything. There’s just something I... have to tell you, but... I can’t."

"You can," Viktor said with quiet assurance. "I’ll love you no matter what."

"

You haven’t heard it yet!

"

Viktor almost physically recoiled. He reached out, but stopped himself when he saw his fiancé shaking.

"Y-you can’t just say you’ll b-be with me forever if you, if you don’t know what I did..."

"Then, tell me...?" Viktor hesitantly touched Yuuri’s shoulder to gauge his reaction. He shuddered, nerves prickling at the touch, but he didn’t try to move away. When he figured it was safe, Viktor wrapped his arms around him, taking his time in tucking his chin over Yuuri’s shoulder.

Yuuri glanced in his direction, and Viktor still found himself admiring the warm brown of his eyes, the curved line of his cheek, the shadow under his epicanthic fold, the sleek darkness of his hair, the reflection of the yellow lights in the tears brimming at the edges of his eyes.

Yuuri looked away, blinking. "You wouldn't understand."

"Maybe not, but Yuuri..." Viktor sighed and rubbed his thumb over Yuuri's shoulder. "Whatever this is, you did it in the time before I defeated the Shadow, yes?"

The slight tilt of his head said

yeah, so?

"So, it’s at least partially my fault. I’ll take responsibility for whatever this is."

Yuuri was silent for some time, and it took Viktor a moment to realize he was crying. His unfocused eyes stared piercingly into emptiness, gaze shaking like his limbs. His breathing turned erratic and his muscles spasmed under Viktor’s touch.

"H-how c-could you say something like that?!" Yuuri spat tears as he shouted. Viktor leaned away instinctively, but Yuuri turned to face him and somehow that made it worse. "I sort of felt the whole time like you were just saving me because, destiny or something, so when you try to say that it’s-"

Is that what he thought, this whole time? Then why...

He couldn’t find what should come after that so it was just

why

. His betrayed mind scrambled for words and found very few. "That’s not true-"

"

I know!

"

Viktor glanced over Yuuri, the one he never quite understood, the one he was never able to predict - the one who shared his bed. He didn’t know what to do at all. "I'm... not good with people crying in front of me." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Should I just... kiss you or something?"

"

No!

"

Viktor bristled. What was supposed to work, if that didn’t?

Yuuri was silent for a long time. He turned away from Viktor, letting his hair fall over his face and obscure his eyes. He sat there, letting his breathing slow, though his body still shook, for many minutes. When he finally began to speak, quietly and hoarsely, he choked out each word as if it were his last. "I... I... Vitya..." Even his sigh stuttered. His voice sounded like he was desperately trying to hold back more tears.

What could he possibly have done that-

"I killed people. I killed... lots of people. Deliberately."

Viktor tried to speak, but his lips hung ajar, useless. Did everyone he knew have a body count?

After several seconds he tried again, managing only to get out the words "how many?"

"If I had, to estimate..." Yuuri’s glassy eyes turned up to the ceiling, like they did when he was doing mental math. "Six... hundred..." His voice trailed off, eyes focusing on a spot where the wall met the ceiling.

Six hundred,

Viktor echoed, trying to process it. He had maybe met that many people in his lifetime. His mind tried to visualize that, killing everyone he had ever met, but he pulled the emergency shutoff on that thought long before he could finish.

He almost didn’t hear Yuuri’s next word, spit out in a whisper. "...thousand."

Viktor blinked. And again, and again, because the previous times hadn’t helped. He felt his mouth go through the motions of swallowing, noticed how cold the air was as it filled his lungs.

He should be sad. Or angry, or furious, or

something

, but there was nothing. Hearing that Yurio had killed twenty-some-odd people had felt terrible, hearing that Leo had killed nearly forty had felt even worse, but this was outside the scope of what he could even fathom. Too many questions were rising now, but between "how" and "when" and "who", the question that won out, that came to his lips, was "Why?"

"If I didn’t... everyone would have been taken."

Viktor had no more words left. He didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t ask.

But something about what had taken Viktor’s thoughts from him had given Yuuri’s back. He shifted to face Viktor again, spoke slowly but steadily. "When the Shadow takes people... it doesn’t kill them, it just... stores them. Their body is destroyed, but their mind remains, in a sort of permanent coma. Because life-forces are attracted to each other, and I shared space with most of the Shadow... I could find where the Shadow kept the life-forces it took, and... use them. You know that if all of someone’s life-force is used up, their consciousness ceases to exist. Well... in order to continue fighting the Shadow, and keep it from swallowing the world... I had to use the life-forces of the people that were taken."

Viktor's brain seemed to be whirring back to life, logic centers coming online slowly and with great effort. "You... Yuuri, you didn't kill anyone who wasn't already doomed." His brain then politely provided him with a way that this statement could be false. "Unless there’s any way for a consciousness to exist without a brain or body, outside an environment of pure magic?"

"There isn’t right

now,

" Yuuri said. "I should have found something out."

"In five minutes?"

"Eight hours," Yuuri muttered. "I had five minutes to create the spell framework, but it would have taken eight hours for the Shadow to expend all my life-force."

Viktor was silent, staring at the slice of mattress between them. If he’d had eight hours to live, could he have come up with a perfect solution that meant no one had to die?

No

, he thought,

I couldn’t

. And he knew this for certain, because he’d already had that opportunity. And even given years instead of hours, he hadn’t been able to make it so no one had to die.

"I knew it," Yuuri whispered, like he didn’t trust his voice. "I knew you would never look at me that way again, if-"

"I love you," Viktor said, clasping both his hands over Yuuri’s.

"But, but I..."

"You killed six hundred thousand people. But you saved millions. Billions. If you hadn’t done what you had, there might be billions of people suspended inside the Shadow, but without ever being able to get out, with no-one left to find a way to do it." He shifted closer to Yuuri, but stared out the window. "For better or for worse, I don’t think anyone ever expected to see the people who were taken again. I know I never expected to see my parents again, after that day. No one will blame you."

Yuuri looked beyond shocked, like he would be bordering on ecstatic if he hadn't previously been so devastated. "You... you mean... you mean you still... still want to be with me...?"

"Of course, Yuuri!" Viktor made to hug him, but stopped. "Um, may I?"

Yuuri nodded, blushing and sitting forward cross-legged. Viktor straddled his lover and pulled him into his arms, raking his hands through Yuuri's soft hair. "I've never loved you more."

He felt Yuuri shudder as he slipped his hands cautiously under his robe, tracing loops and curves over his back. With both hands he began to rough out the choreography he'd created for their pairs skate, though it was somewhat difficult to concentrate given how adamant Yuuri was in kissing and nibbling at his chest. Viktor took a shaky, deep breath—his first in some time—and shut his eyes, holding on to Yuuri's shoulders and tipping his head back. His lover's caresses spread warmth through his body where he wasn't previously aware there had been cold.

Of course I still love you, Yuuri. How could I not? We all made difficult decisions and had to do things we weren't happy with.

Yuuri looked up, eyes glistening and sparkling. His eyebrows creased together just slightly, his lips turned up. "I love you, Vitya. I'm glad you still love me after you heard... what I'd done." Yuuri glanced down briefly, but then he looked right back at Viktor, who presently felt like he was about to melt.

"I love you too, Yuuri... of course I do... and um, Yuuri..."

"Mm?" Yuuri replied in lieu of ceasing to kiss him.

"I was going to wait to ask until... we were married but... would you call me Vitenka?"

Yuuri did stop kissing for this one. He looked up and raised an eyebrow, smirking. "More Russian diminutives?"

"I call you Yuuri-chan when we speak Japanese!" Viktor exclaimed, playing defensive. It was so easy for Yuuri to make fun of him like this, because he knew Viktor could never mind. He was easy to tease and he knew it.

"Not objecting, just pointing it out." Yuuri tilted his chin just slightly downward like he was going to continue with his previous occupation, but didn’t lean any further forward. He looked up at Viktor through thin dark lashes and said, "So,

Vitenka

... would you like to sleep with me?"

Just when Viktor had decided he was going to die on the spot, Yuuri corrected himself rapidly. "I mean, like, really sleep, it's past 4am I think and I'm exhausted, um, if you wanted to we could do that tomorrow but-"

Viktor sighed and kissed Yuuri with a smile. "The standard meaning of that phrase sounds perfect." Viktor half-rolled, half-collapsed off of Yuuri's lap onto the futon.

Yuuri leaned over him, smiling with eyes that looked like they had just gotten the memo that it was past 4 in the morning. "So... tomorrow. Sleep till noon, then wedding plans?"

Viktor nodded. "Sleep till noon, then wedding plans." He leaned up to kiss Yuuri one more time, then rolled over and let his lover curl around him.

Viktor was in the middle of explaining the tradition of wedding games between bites of pancakes when Yuuri’s brows suddenly furrowed. He was about to ask what was wrong-

“Yurio,” Yuuri muttered at the table.

Viktor’s mind flitted through possibilities of what that might mean, since his brother wasn’t in the room, then settled. A bit of the ache left over from the previous night brought a hint of grimace to his face.

Nobody expected to see their families or friends again, after the Shadow took them. Nobody, except for Yurio. In fact, he already had: Yuuri had shown him.

And come to think, ever since they had sealed the Shadow together, Yurio had been more absent than not. Viktor had always thought that he was busy making up for lost time with Otabek, but maybe he was doing something else as well.

Still, no matter what, Yurio was his brother, and Yuuri’s friend. It had been hard for Viktor to accept what Yuuri had had to do, but he had done it. With a sound explanation, Yurio would see it, too.

“It’ll be okay,” Viktor said, laying his hand with an open palm across the table. “If you tell him the way you told me, he’ll understand."

It took Yuuri a moment to take it. Even when he did, he had trouble meeting Viktor’s eyes. “You’re sure?”

Viktor nodded once. “I am.” His features were hard in confidence, then softened. “Would you like me to be there, when you tell him?”

Yuuri looked contemplative for a moment, then looked up, shook his head. “Thank you, Vitenka, but I can handle it.”

Viktor squeezed Yuuri’s hand; it was the only thing he could do about the heat on his cheeks. “I believe in you.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

In the courtyard behind the palace, there is a massive ice rink surrounded by daffodils. No part of the scene is natural: a flat plateau of grass- and clover-covered land had been the scene of an intense magical transformation which took twelve sorcerers the better part of three days. Cherry-blossom trees were grown, flowers were sprouted and bloomed, and an ice sheet three times the standard size was paved into the center of it all. Behind the ice was a pop-up stage with a piano and a violin, and two mirrored semicircles of white chairs that left space between them for aisles at the two sides and a dais in the center.Victor looked up from where he sat on the stage, rosining his bow. He watched Phichit - who had been designated as Tamada - at the dais, sifting through papers and nodding along. He glanced over his sheet music: an instrumental duet arrangement of On Love: Agape would be followed by a similar arrangement of Stammi Vicino . He glanced at his partner.Otabek was warming up softly on the piano, improvising around the edges of the melodies. He’d grown his hair out these past few years: though his undercut was the same, the rest of his hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the crown of his head. It was beautiful combed down loose, elegant in a ponytail, and pretty adorable in a French braid. He looked infinitely more comfortable in his suit than Victor felt, although they’d gone to the same tailor.Victor knew that right now, Viktor would be getting wrapped up in his kimono, probably gushing over Yuuri the whole time. He wasn’t sure what Yuuri himself would be doing. Victor hadn’t met him in person very many times, or for very long each time, but he was clearly very different from what Victor had imagined after being on a sort of perpetual phone call with him for the better part of four years. Victor had expected a ditzy, shy, wallflowery man, but what he’d gotten was someone ruthlessly dedicated to his work, with a commanding presence and seemingly total control over his expressions. The shy wallflower, he had quickly realized, was one face among many. It might be the most natural one for him to affect - or it might just be the one he’d found Viktor liked the best - but there was no real reason to believe it was his real face.After he’d seen that, he’d abruptly noticed things he’d been blind to before. Yuuri was a comparable figure skater to Viktor, a comparable swordsman to Victor, and without a doubt the best sorcerer in the country. He had enough power, from the combination of his blood and his charisma, to mobilize resources for a complete restoration of a large country within less than a year. And if that wasn’t enough, he had the second most powerful skater and sorcerer at his beck and call day-in and day-out.Victor had stopped calling him Katsudon, after that realization. That kind of a nickname befitted a little piglet, not the Janus-viper that wore the piglet as a mask.Victor turned at a movement from the palace. Viktor walked out from a small doorway, paced the outer edge of the chair-circle to the further aisle. He looked out of his element in his white kimono, but he was grinning like the romantic idiot he was. Somewhere in the dressing-room, his hair had been cropped short, such that his fringe was now the longest part of it. Maybe that was some kind of a royalty thing, having short hair. Come to think, in every depiction he’d ever seen of the royal family, no-one’s hair fell past their jawline.The thing was, Victor was sure Viktor knew who he was marrying. He’d spent the past year totally glued to Yuuri - he probably had seen more of the viper’s faces than Victor had. So Victor wasn’t worried his brother would be duped. He was, though, worried that he was going to be blinded by love into not-realizing something.Hell, maybe he already had been.Yuuri walked out a different door of the palace with measured grace, looking much more comfortable in the Japanese formalwear. His kimono was the inky black of his hair, and the light reflected harshly off his lightly-bejeweled crown and got in Victor’s eyes. He looked away, stood up, and rested his violin on his shoulder.After the first verse and the bridge, they quieted the music; the couple had met at the altar. They knelt down, and took three sips of sake from each of three differently-sized cups. Then Yuuri stood, took a crown from Phichit that matched his own but contained more sapphire than ruby, and placed it on Viktor’s head.It might be hard to see him as the same person, behind the reflections off that crown, if he hadn’t been bawling the whole time.Victor could understand that, at least. He had known, the instant that they sealed the Shadow, that they’d succeeded. And he had cried a few tears at that. But it had taken several weeks to fully realize what it meant. Not only that he could go for a walk at night outside the Kamyinsk barrier with no soul orb or sword, but that neither he nor anyone else would need those things ever again. The eternity of what they had accomplished had crashed down on him all at once one night, while he and Otabek were out night-hiking, and he had fallen into his lover’s arms, crying out to him and to the empty shadows under the trees.Viktor didn’t stop crying for a long time after that, while Yuuri recited his vows. Victor eyed Yuuri with a sidelong glance as he played his muted melody. His composure was too perfect. Even as Viktor took his turn, taking phrases of love from an amalgam of poems, Yuuri smiled gently but shed no tears. That is, until the end. Viktor lowered his voice, such that Victor had to use his carefully-honed hearing to pick it up, and said something in another language. At that, Yuuri had started crying softly, brows shaking and fists clenched against his chest. His sappy grin finally matched Viktor’s.Victor smiled, nodded, and played the last few bars of Stammi Vicino .After the vows, and the toasts - where Yurio had been first to yell gor’ko! and the chanting of the crowd had let him kiss Yuuri at least fifty times - Viktor found himself sat down and blindfolded. Evidently Phichit had decided that 'guess the groom' would be the first game on the itinerary."Yurio," Viktor said as Phichit pulled him to his feet, guiding him to where their friends were lined up, "How did you ever fight like this?""Ssh!" Phichit exclaimed. "You’re not allowed to talk to anyone who might be in the line!"Viktor chuckled and stumbled along blindly. "Okay."Phichit stopped pushing him and he reached out, touching the edge of a wrist that had been gently extended in front of him."This isn’t him," he said."Alright," Phichit said noncommittally.He walked down the line, touching an arm here, a leg there, whatever was held out. Sometimes he paused, mostly he just kept walking. "No, no, no, hi Yurio, no, no..."Phichit was chuckling to himself the whole time he led him along. Occasionally he would stop him, and ask "are you sure?"Viktor didn’t check anything further. He only nodded.At last they came near the end of the line, and Viktor stopped. He took the hand that had been gingerly extended toward him, and faced the man to whom it belonged. "Hi, Yuuri."Phichit tore off his blindfold. Viktor blinked up at Yuuri, who stood there grinning. "How did you know?" Viktor looked back across the line, shrugged. "I know Yuuri’s magic when I feel it.""You could tell based on his magic?! " Phichit, along with several of the men in the line, broke out in confused, exasperated laughter. "Oh well, suppose I should have known better than to question a life-force bond. Yeesh!"Like the first dance at a normal wedding, Viktor and Yuuri had skated a pairs exhibition program - to a duet arrangement of Stammi Vicino , of course - and then the "floor" had been opened up to everyone. People were meandering about the ice rink, many having changed out of the more restrictive formalwear and into clothes suited better to skating. Some only stroked around, some did fancy tricks, according to their inclinations and abilities.It was here that Yuuri caught up with Yurio. Neither had changed out of their most recent outfits: Yuuri was still in the blue version of his Stammi Vicino outfit, Yurio was in his tailored suit. Both of their coattails fluttered behind them as they stroked."Hi," Yuuri said. He’d tried to mask the violent beating of his anxious heart, but there was still a slight catch in his throat."Hey," Yurio said. He either hadn’t noticed, or didn’t care.There was a silence. Part of Yuuri wanted to talk about something else, anything else. But he also knew that postponing it meant skating through smalltalk with sweaty palms, brushing them over and over on the sides of his trousers and not being able to tell Yurio why. He took a breath, and sighed it out, careful not to let his breath stutter. It was hard to muster even that ounce of self-control. "Yurio, there’s something I need to tell you."Yurio looked over. He had pulled his fringe back for today, braiding it around his head in a crown-shape, and with both eyes visible his expressions were even easier to read than usual. There was a slight confusion and inquisitiveness, but there was also a sense of disappointed foreknowledge. Did he already know-? Yuuri looked away, then tucked a loose bit of hair back into its gelled position as a way to excuse the glance. Almost certainly he didn’t, or at least not the specifics. He probably had some kind of general suspicion.Why might he be suspicious? But as he thought of the question, Yuuri already knew the answer. Yurio had always been an open book. He never made any effort to conceal his feelings. He said what he said, he thought what he thought, he was who he was, unequivocally and unapologetically. Viktor hadn’t been that way at first - he wore a mask, or several, with varying degrees of competency. But over time, in Yurio’s company, his mask had disintegrated. So had Yuuri’s.But recently, Yuuri had been forced to replace his mask. The crown came with one attached. People expect strength from a ruler, and when the ruler is not strong, they must pretend to be. They take on a character like one does for a skating program. That wouldn’t be what Yurio would see, though. He would see Yuuri’s public-facing mask and wonder whether, perhaps, that was his real face, and his real face was an illusion.Yuuri realized what he had done wrong far too late to change it. He couldn’t explain now - not believably - all that he’d done and the reasons for it. But he would still tell Yurio the truth that he had come to tell.Yuuri gave Yurio a purposeful glance. He said, "We have more in common than I think you realize."Yurio frowned. He was genuinely confused now."You’ve taken lives, right." Yuuri’s tone was flat.He nodded, still frowning. The slant of his eyes said yeah, duh. And then he connected the two statements, and skidded to a stop, turned to face Yuuri. "You-"Yuuri stopped with him, nodded. He wanted to shut his eyes, but he didn’t."Who? When? How? " He whispered as a brute-force way to prevent himself from shouting.And Yuuri explained what he had told Viktor that night, weeks ago. About the inner workings of the Shadow, the nature of the souls it took, and the way Yuuri had used those souls to prevent the world from being consumed in darkness. Every few seconds he’d wanted to look away, but he refused the impulse. He forced himself to watch Yurio’s reaction, even as it shifted from confusion through grief to rage, even as his chest began to heave and tears began to glisten in his furious eyes. He might have tried to scream, then, but his voice broke so much that it came out quiet. " You monster. "Yuuri held his hands behind his back, with a white-knuckled grip on his own fingers. He breathed very deliberately, focusing on trying not to break down and creating a very flat affect from all that excess control. He said nothing."How dare you," Yurio said, his voice low but regaining strength. He wasn’t looking Yuuri in the eye, which should have made it better, but didn’t. "How many."He was pursing his lips to keep from throwing up; it kept him from answering for a second."How many?" His voice didn’t pass speaking volume, but the snarl on his face gave the same impression as a shout."Six hundred thousand," Yuuri said all in one breath."Six hundred thousand..." Yurio breathed, only mouthing the last word. "And my mother-"Yuuri nodded, the jerk of his head mechanical. She was one of them. "I was going... I was... I was going to save her, you bitch ." He turned his head away. "I was trying to figure out how to bring her out of that thing ," he gestured toward the palace because it stood between them and the Veil, "trying to figure it out for over a year, and you say... you say ... it was all pointless?! " He was sobbing openly now, but as a small note of grace his voice was still small. People skated obliviously around them."I should have told you sooner," Yuuri agreed.He grasped for words, finding no purchase. "That’s not- you can’t-"And then, Viktor skated over. At first, there was a calm composure about him, a little smile on his face, but that fell away to concern as soon as he saw the tears streaking down Yurio’s cheeks. "Viktor," Yurio said, voice spilling over with anger, "There’s something I need to tell you." His tone was a mocking impersonation of Yuuri’s. And he told Viktor what Yuuri had just told him.Two parts confusion and one part dismay moved Viktor’s face at first. Then came realization, and then sorrow."Don’t you see, what a viper you married?" Yurio gestured violently at Yuuri. "Viktor, come on, come with me, you can’t possibly stay with-"But Viktor took a step closer to Yuuri, and didn’t respond.Yurio’s face contorted in an angry mirror of Viktor’s emotions. With wide eyes and bared teeth he said, " you knew ."Viktor shut his eyes. The fingers of his left hand twitched, wanted to run through his fringe or grab at his clothes, but it pressed to his side. The gesture was as good as a nod, and Yurio knew it."You knew ! You... you... I thought I could trust you!"Viktor’s shoulders tensed like he’d been physically hurt. "You can. And you can trust Yuuri, too. He only did it because he had to, Yurio. If he hadn’t, everyone-""Are you really saying there was no better way?""Could you think of one?" And with that question Yuuri realized what had led Viktor to accept him. He had let Yuuri be fallible because he, too, was."It doesn’t matter if I could! It wasn’t my decision! He’s better than we are at everything , Viktor, do you really think he couldn’t come up with something like that?!""Then why w-""And why wouldn’t he tell me? For over a year , he let me hope- for nothing! ""Yuuri was only just able to tell me-"But in the verbal sparring Yuuri could tell that Viktor was losing ground, struggling to find a reason. Because there was no reason. If he’d been a better person, Yuuri would have told them all as soon as the Shadow was sealed. As soon as the fate of the world no longer depended on their good relationships, that was when he should have told them. But he’d been selfish. He’d been selfish, and he’d been afraid. Because he didn’t want the only two people he’d come to care for, over countless lonely centuries, to leave him. And so he’d come up with all sorts of excuses. He’d tell them as soon as this thing, or that thing, or some other thing was done. He kept procrastinating, and hiding behind work, and not thinking about it, until that night after he’d proposed to Viktor when it had become unbearable.It was his fault that this was happening. It was his fault, and he knew it. And if the hurt was his alone to bear, as a result of his failure, he could handle that. But he’d hurt Yurio, and now Viktor, with his idiocy. Yurio was shaking his head, lips mouthing "no" over and over again, hands wanting to rake through hair but finding it braided. And Viktor was trying to figure out whether to hug Yurio.But he wouldn’t get to make that choice. Because Yurio turned around, then, and skated away, shoving blades into ice as hard as he could.Yuuri didn’t follow. "Yurio, wait!" Viktor shouted after his brother. He was on the verge of tears again, after he thought he couldn’t cry any more, and he had trouble controlling his voice.Yurio didn’t stop, still weaving through the thin crowd at the highest speed he could manage. "Go away, Viktor!""Please let me talk to you about this!" Viktor was skating as fast as he could as well, and catching up slowly. The massive ice sheet was like an endless forest."There’s nothing to talk about! If you insist on staying with that, that snake, that murderer ... you should just leave me alone!""Yurio," Viktor finally caught up with him, and stretched out to grab his shoulder. It made him slow, but he didn’t turn around. "You called me your brother, once. Would you do this-""No," Yurio whispered, choking on his tears. He shook his head.Viktor’s chest tightened; his hand came off Yurio’s shoulder, and wiped away tears. He didn’t want Yurio to finish that sentence.He did anyway. "You aren’t my brother."And he skated away, leapt off the edge of the ice. Viktor watched his golden blades disappear, and stared until he faded behind the blur of the crowd.He ran, knowing who he was going to but not where he was going, and he bumped into people as the tears clouded his eyes. When he finally got to the stage, he collapsed into Otabek’s arms.They sat there, in the quiet space behind the stage, clinging to each other. And he told Otabek, in fragmented pieces, what had just happened.Otabek had pressed just slightly against his shoulders, easing him away just enough to see him, to tuck the stray locks of hair back into his braids. And he said, "I’m sorry, Victor."And he pulled his lover back in harshly, fingernails digging into Otabek’s back through his dress shirt. He snapped, "Don’t call me that!"Otabek’s hands hesitated."That’s his name," he whispered, cheek pressing against Otabek’s dampening shirt collar. "His name..."The rest of the world went on. It wasn’t supposed to, but it did. Viktor stood there with the people skating around him, staring into the space Yurio was supposed to be. There was no silver, in the blur of color he saw, besides his own fringe over his left eye. There had been someone he thought he might lose, in those Shadow-stricken days. There was someone he’d been worried about losing. But it had never been Yurio. Prophecies have a bad habit of coming true in the worst possible ways.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

An unusually cool wind whipped by, ruffling through silver hair. The man to whom it belonged stood in an empty clearing. His eyes were closed, and yet he saw everything: the warm, late-summer sun that streamed down into the clearing from the west; the branches of trees, tossed about in the ascending breeze; the single leaf that fell onto the grass at the clearing’s edge. For a long second the leaf stood still, but then was disturbed: a boot nearly fell upon it, made the quietest little cracking sound before lifting up again, realizing its mistake.

“I was wondering where you were at the battle at the Veil,” Yurio said without moving or opening his eyes.

The man sighed and took a step forward, letting the leaf crunch into the dirt. “I never wanted to kill you in the first place, so that’s one reason.”

“What’s the other?”

“More complicated.”

Yurio looked over at the man - JJ, that was his name. His natural steel-blue eyes weren’t any less unsettling than when they’d been void-black, but the crow’s feet at their corners softened them. His hair was still cropped short, but the blue dye and the undercut were both gone, leaving it a shockingly normal salt-and-pepper mop. His clothes were muted shades of red, with the brightest color being a shining chain around his neck holding a golden ring. The Shadow’s scars, and both of his visible tattoos, were all deeply faded. It was only his smirk and his posture that remained recognizable.

Yurio shrugged. “Alright,” he said.

“Aren’t you curious how I found you?” JJ leaned forward in anticipation. “You’re not exactly easy to track down, you know.”

“I guess I care. I’d like to prevent anyone else from doing the same.”

Evidently, JJ had been close to the forest bordering Kamyinsk when Yurio had teleported out of the city to his hidden teleporter platform, and had seen the brief flash of dim white light. From there, he’d been tracking Yurio for the past week, all the way here. It wasn’t an easily replicable hack, but it was also simple to fix: he could ask Otabek to put up a light-blocking spell around the teleporter. It would be extremely simple, low-cost, and long-lasting.

“Gotcha, thanks. I’ll fix that. Now, can I just ask why the hell you felt the need to spend a week tracking me down in the first place? That seems like the kind of thing you’d just come right out and say.”

JJ nodded, walked over and sat down a few meters from Yurio. His smirk was gone, and without it he looked immensely tired. He sighed. “You aren’t the only person to lose someone to the Shadow, you know.”

Yurio frowned at him, confused, but he was looking at the ground.

“I lost someone, too. It was what put me on the opposite side from you in the first place. So when I say what I’m going to say, I don’t want to hear you say I don’t understand.” He looked up at Yurio with an unwavering stare. “You need to go back, Victor.”

“That’s not my name,” Yurio said.

JJ looked taken aback; he met his eyes again. “No? But I could have- with your fighting skill- you’re not the second hero? You weren’t?”

“It’s Yurio now.”

Let him think whatever he wants about that phrasing

. “You said I need to go back. Where?”

JJ’s eyes turned back to the grass and fixated there. It was a moment before he spoke again. “Her name was Isabella, you know. The one I lost. She was the love of my life, the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, and we were going to be married. But she was…” he shook his head, “the Shadow stole her from me. In my grief, I let the Shadow cult take me in, and I believed everything they told me because I

just wanted her not to be gone

. Even though I swore I’d never kill anyone… I still caused so much grief in that time. To you specifically... Yurio. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath, pressed his palms to his knees.

“But as someone who’s caused and endured grief, I need you to stop this. You’re hurting someone you love, and the part of me that still misses Isabella can’t stand it.

Believe me

, I understand why you

started

on this path - I used to hate Yuuri Katsuki too! But it’s not worth staying like this! Viktor’s a good man; he doesn’t deserve what you’re putting him through. He loves you, Yurio. You at least

used

to love

him

. Go back.”

“But, I-” the retort escaped his lips before he even knew what he was saying, before he realized he had nothing

to

say.

“If you really need revenge on the person who murdered your family…” he lifted his arms, inviting the cut of a blade or the strike of a fist. “Here I am.”

His voice came out sadder than he’d expected. “I don’t want to hurt you, JJ.” Because he didn’t. He really didn’t need revenge on whoever had killed his family. What had JJ been doing, these past fifteen years? He’d just been able to take a week away from his life at a moment’s notice to chase down Yurio. That said something, surely. And his hands, bereft of rings or bonding tattoos… had he never moved on?

“But you want to hurt your brother?”

“I don’t-”

JJ climbed to his feet, a bit slowly. “You had a beautiful friendship, Yurio. Don’t waste it? Because it really is gone before you know it.” He turned around, walked out of the clearing. Between the rufflings of the leaves, his tired voice said “Adieu.”

“Hey, JJ!” Yurio stood and called after him. He heard, but did not see, JJ stop walking and turn around. “21 Natashi St., in Kamyinsk. The man who lives there is named Otabek. Tell him you’re a friend of mine; you’ll be able to stay as long as you like.”

JJ chuckled, and nodded. This time when he turned to leave, he walked north.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Yuuri Katsuki, king of Onakoru, woke to a gentle rapping at his door. His futon was empty, and otherwise the room was fuzzy and bright, so Yuuri put his glasses on and pulled a sheer curtain over the floor-to-ceiling window. He pulled his robe on and paced to the entrance to the bedroom, pulling back the curtain to find his youngest son standing beside the doorway, hand poised to knock on the wall again.

"Hi Asahi-bo," he said, walking down the hall towards the palace kitchens, where he was sure he would find his missing husband. Probably intending to make Yuuri breakfast in bed. Again. "Are you looking for Baba?"

Asahi nodded, brushing his silver bangs from his face and following behind his father. Though the rest of the kids' features were a mix of the two of theirs, all their children had Viktor's brilliant silver hair. Yuuri couldn't say he minded, even if Viktor's conspiracy theory about Phichit messing with the genes when he’d recombined them was correct.

They turned a left down the staircase which led to the main floor of the palace. On the stairs, they were stopped by Sana. "Oh, hi Otouchan!” she said. “Baba wanted me to tell you something. He says to please stay out of the kitchens; he'll bring you breakfast in a moment, but he's also making something special for Itsuki-kun's passing ceremony that he doesn't want anybody to see."

Yuuri raised an eyebrow.

Something special he doesn't want anybody to see? What could he be making?

"Obviously you two spoke; haven't you seen whatever it is, Sana-chan?"

She shook her head. Sana had Viktor’s strong cheekbones and defined jawline, and they made her look older than eleven. She pointed to her navy blue headband. "He made me pull this over my eyes when I went in, so I wouldn't see what he was doing. All I know is how it smells, and I'm not allowed to tell you." She gave a smile and a little wink.

"Alright. Tell Baba that I'm waiting for him in the dining hall, and he should bring breakfast there."

"Sure, after I fetch his hair clips. I'm sure he won't be much longer!"

Yuuri smiled as Sana continued up the stairs. "I suppose we're headed to the dining hall now, Asahi." His son shrugged and nodded as they descended the rest of the staircase, but made a left instead of a right and entered the dining hall. They ascended the stairs to the dais where the royal family sat and Yuuri pulled out his chair, moving Asahi's highchair over next to his own and lifting his son into it. At six years old, he was too short to be comfortable in a normal chair, so he’d kept the highchair; fortunately, unlike his siblings at his age, he didn't seem to mind.

The dining hall was massive, and Yuuri was early for breakfast, so it was empty. Long rows of dark wooden tables and benches filled the better part of the otherwise mostly off-white room, strewn out in front of the royal table so that theoretically every person in the room could be seen and spoken to by the royal family whenever necessary. Practically, the royal family rarely needed to exercise this ability, but it was nice to have anyway.

This wasn't the only dining hall in the palace. The other was much larger and fancier, decked in purples and reds with elaborately-woven banners depicting past rulers and significant events hanging from ceiling to floor. It was reserved for occasions when large numbers of people who didn't live and work in the palace would be eating there. Such as Itsuki's passing ceremony.

It was amazing to think that their oldest son would be thirteen soon. It seemed like it had been only yesterday when Yuuri had first spoken to Viktor. Only yesterday when they had kissed for the first time after Viktor had skated

On My Love

. Only yesterday they had defeated the Shadow, only yesterday they had been married, only yesterday they had last spoken to Yurio.

Yuuri wondered in the back of his mind what had happened to Yurio. Yuuri pictured him as he had looked the last time they'd spoken: nineteen years old, covered in fresh scars, with silver hair falling from loose braids as tears fell from furious green eyes, and he tried to imagine aging him up to his early thirties. The emotions and scars would be dulled, perhaps even his previously-perpetual scowl would be gone. Hairstyle redone for an older face. Still thin and muscular, but with a subtle surety to his gait.

Even so, Yurio as Yuuri knew him was trapped at nineteen. Maybe he would be forever, Yuuri had to consider. He’d had had that thought before, in various capacities, over the years, but this time it stung with the realization that in Yuuri's mind, Yurio was only a few years older than his oldest son.

The heavy back door to the dining hall groaned on its hinges and Yuuri turned to look. Viktor backed into the room carrying a tray of food, and Sana, carrying another, followed him in. They made their way up the stairs before setting their trays on the table. Makkachin followed on their heels, tongue lolling out and eyes excited.

"Hello, my love," Yuuri said. The Russian syllables felt odd on his tongue after he'd been speaking Japanese all morning, but the way Viktor beamed made up for it thrice over. Of the two of them, Viktor had changed less over the years. At nearly forty he was still athletic as ever, though he had become a bit cuddlier with the liberal helpings of katsudon. If someone had asked Yuuri twenty years ago whether he thought a forty-year-old man would look good with a fringe, he would have said

absolutely not,

but yet Viktor looked amazing. Actually, Yuuri might even say he looked even better now, with the crow's feet and the smile lines: he was really growing into that silver hair.

"Hello to all the stars in my sky," Viktor replied, passing bowls of rice out to each of them as Sana sat down a seat away from Yuuri, leaving Viktor a place beside his husband. "Well, all except one - where’s Itsuki?"

"I haven't seen him," replied Sana. "He's probably rehearsing his speech for the fiftieth time. Should we send someone up to his room, tell him breakfast is ready?"

Viktor nodded and was pulling his phone from his robe to call for an attendant when Yuuri held out a hand. "Tell someone to bring his breakfast up to him, and that we're all in the dining hall if he wants to join us. If he wants to be alone, leave him be."

Viktor smiled and raised his phone once more, tapping away at it for a second and then sliding it back into his pocket. "Transcribed precisely, love." He then finished handing out bowls and plates, and sat down beside his husband.

As he nearly always did during meals, Yuuri pulled out his phone to respond to whatever texts and emails his advisors and friends had sent during the night and early morning. Nothing was terribly pressing: the thing that required the most thought was the page-long rant Phichit had texted him about a new magic distribution technique he’d invented. With nothing else to consider, his previous train of thought quickly reabsorbed his mind.

Yuuri had never been able to forget about Yurio. He may have tried, many times, every time the painful memory of his stupidest mistake resurfaced. He may have even succeeded for a few years. But it always came back to haunt him.

Every time, he thought of so many things he could have done, should have done, and didn’t do. He should have found a better solution, all those centuries ago, before he’d been forced to choose a life-force input for that accursed spell. Or he should have told Viktor and Yurio what he’d done as soon as he woke up. Or maybe… maybe he shouldn’t have woken up. Maybe Viktor shouldn’t have brought him back. Maybe he should have died that day.

But at the very least, he shouldn’t have waited an entire year to tell Yurio. He shouldn’t have given him hope for a year, and then crushed it all at once. No wonder he had disappeared.

Viktor's hand was on his shoulder suddenly. "Yuuri, what's wrong?"

"I'm... just thinking," he said, only glancing at his husband. "About Yurio." Yuuri turned to look at Viktor and saw a sad, wistful smile on his face, the kind of smile that implied no genuine happiness, only a lack of anything else to do with his expression.

"I understand," he said.

"Who's Yurio?" Asahi asked. His voice was high but it sounded quiet and reserved.

"Yurio is... was... a friend of ours. A long time ago."

"How long?"

"Before any of you were born."

"Oh."

The door at the other end of the dining hall opened and attendants began filing in, filling the long tables with breakfast foods: pots of soup and rice, plates of fish and meat, dishes of vegetables. More followed carrying tall stacks of plates and bowls, huge boxes full of chopsticks and spoons. Yuuri watched as they moved about making the hundreds of place settings. Just as they finished and sat down to their own meals toward the closer end of the hall, more palace employees poured into the hall, taking up the remaining seats. A few who passed closer to Yuuri greeted him with waves and bows, and these he returned.

Yuuri pulled his phone from his pocket to check the time as he shifted dishes around and began to pick at his salmon filet. 9:00 am. The ceremony was to start at 1, which gave Yuuri ample time to change into formalwear and get otherwise ready after he finished his breakfast. He would stop by Itsuki's room and make sure he was ready, mentally as well as physically.

Viktor leaned over and glanced at Yuuri's phone. "Good, I have enough time to finish my cooking." He smiled and pushed his chair back, and Yuuri noticed that he had already finished his food.

"You're leaving me again?" Yuuri asked with an exaggerated pout.

"Only for another hour or two. I'll be back upstairs to get washed up after I'm done in the kitchens." Viktor leaned over for a kiss, and Yuuri gave him a quick peck. "I haven't forgotten my vow, love."

"Stammi vicino," Yuuri echoed the implication, in the Italian of the original song instead of the Japanese Viktor had used in his vow.

"Non te ne andare," Viktor completed the lyric, his voice almost sing-song as he planted another kiss on Yuuri's forehead, then headed back out the door.

"Don’t ask what that means, Asahi," Sana said. "It’s

really

sappy."

"I wasn't gonna," he said, "But now I wanna know. What's it mean, Otouchan?"

"

Stay close to me, and never leave.

It's part of a song I wrote for Baba."

"See, I told you!" Sana exclaimed, sticking her tongue out and scrunching up her eyes in an exaggerated expression of disgust. "Sappy!"

Asahi pouted a little. "I think it's cute."

Yuuri just smiled as he finished his breakfast.

Yuuri made his way down the hallway on the second floor towards Itsuki's bedroom. The kids' rooms were all smaller than Viktor and Yuuri's, but not by much, and each got their own. Itsuki's was furthest down the hall, on the left-hand side. Yuuri knocked on the wall beside the doorway and waited.

A minute later Itsuki pulled back the curtain, turning around to walk back in even as he did so. "Hi Otouchan, come in."

The room was in more disarray than usual. Papers were strewn over the chabudai and the surrounding floor space, and Itsuki pushed them away from two sections of it, then sat in one and let Yuuri take the other. Itsuki pulled a half-finished bowl of rice toward him and picked up his chopsticks, nibbling almost one grain at a time.

"Is Baba's cooking really that bad?" Yuuri asked.

Itsuki shook his head. "Just not hungry."

"Nervous?"

"Yeah."

Yuuri recalled the day of his own passing ceremony. He had carefully written down and compiled what to say and do in every possible circumstance, in case he forgot. Mari had forced him not to stuff all those papers into his robes. "You don't need to be scared, Itsuki. You're going to make a speech, and your Baba and I will give you your circlet, and then there's going to be dancing and skating. You're not going to be quizzed on your knowledge of politics or magic in five different languages, you're not going to have to balance a book on your head and recite proverbs."

"I know!" Itsuki suddenly snapped, turning away. "Spare me the

when I was your age it was so much harder

lecture."

"I didn't have to do any of those things either, Itsuki-san. And for the record, I was nervous too. But that's not my point."

Itsuki recoiled, almost dropped his chopsticks, and at first Yuuri was confused. "You... you called me -san," he said, so quietly it was nearly inaudible.

Yuuri smiled. "Of course. You're an adult now; we're equals. That's all this ceremony is, Itsuki-

san

: an acknowledgment of your becoming an adult, and of your future kingship."

"You make it sound so simple." Itsuki took a real bite of his rice, but then put his chopsticks on the table and leaned back on his palms. "But I still have to make a speech in front of the whole world."

Yuuri nodded. "Alright, and what's the worst case scenario? You forget everything you wrote, and you try to improvise, but you forget how to speak entirely, and you can't get any words out." Yuuri began gesturing emphatically, grin on his face: "Suddenly the whole palace goes up in flames, and the universe explodes in a ball of fire."

Itsuki rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

Yuuri shrugged. "Or something like that. No matter what happens, you still have Baba and I, you still have your brother and sister, you still have Makkachin. You're still alive and you're still the Prince. And the great thing about embarrassing things is that later on, you can look back and laugh about them. Nobody, including you, is going to judge your worth as a Prince and eventually as a King by your passing speech. That's not to say that what you're doing doesn't matter; it develops you as a person. Just, the worst case isn’t actually that bad."

"And...” Itsuki pointed back and forth, visually connecting dots, “part of developing as a person involves overcoming fear."

"If you can do it, that will be a great step forward, but if you can’t right now, you can always do it later. Remember that I'm here if you need my help, alright?"

Itsuki nodded, biting his lip and glancing aside. "Don't you need to get ready?"

"Yes, and so do you, but I'll be right down the hall. Feel free to come and bother me, alright? Otherwise, I'll see you at 1, Itsuki-san." Yuuri stood and bowed formally.

"Thank you," Itsuki said as Yuuri left, returning the bow.

Behind him as he left, Yuuri heard the sound of paper crumpling.

Yuuri returned to his room and slipped off his robe, pulling open the closet door. He was sifting around for a suitably formal kimono when he felt Viktor's strong arms around his waist.

"Hey love," Viktor said in English, tracing loops and curves into Yuuri's skin with brushes of his fingertips.

"Hi Vitenka," Yuuri replied, anticipating the way his husband curled around him. "Do you need me to help dress you?"

Viktor nodded, pressing his cheek against Yuuri's.

"Well first of all, shave, mister stubbly. Then I'll pick you out a nice kimono." Yuuri smiled as Viktor sighed and walked to their bathroom, the noise of an electric razor following the sound of his footsteps.

Yuuri, meanwhile, began the process of putting on his own kimono. It was intricate and complicated, with many steps that had to be completed with perfect accuracy. However, Yuuri had enough practice that he could do it almost in his sleep. It had a similar feeling of rote comfort as skating figures.

He put on the first of two plain robes, then fitted a strip of stiff fabric through the folded collar of the second and slipped it on as well. He held both parts of the collar in one hand and the center of the robe’s back in the other, then pulled down on the back to loosen the collar enough for it to sit in just the right spot. Then he pulled on a soft sash, padded in front and with thin strings in the back, crossing the strings and then pulling them around to the front, half-knotting them and tucking in the ends carefully.

The razor’s buzzing ceased abruptly and shortly afterward Viktor left the bathroom almost entirely naked, everything save his underwear shed. Yuuri smiled and tossed Viktor the first undergarment-robe. "I'm ahead of you. Let's get yours done."

Viktor walked over, a slight reluctance to his gait. "I always feel like I'm being gift-wrapped when I wear these," he said, pulling it on.

Yuuri giggled, taking the second layer from the closet and fitting the stiff fabric into the collar, handing the completed piece to his husband. "Then it's good you don't have to do it very often. To be fair, it’s good I don't have to pick ties very often, either."

Viktor smiled knowingly. He had let Yuuri pick his own suit for Sara and Mila's wedding, and Yuuri had picked (at least according to Viktor) the worst tie imaginable. Now whenever they went to those sorts of events, Yuuri let Viktor pick his outfits.

Yuuri picked out two kimonos, black and patterned only below the waistline: kurotomesode, highly formal kimonos for married persons. His own had a pattern of sakura blossoms like those which bloomed around the palace in the spring, Viktor's had an intricate design with bright flowers and swans.

Yuuri helped Viktor into his first, draping it over his shoulders and then straightening the sleeves to line up with those of the robes beneath. He adjusted his husband's collar meticulously, making sure the kimono collar sat above that of the lower layer in back and below it in front, and that the crossing point was just below his ears.

“Vitya,” Yuuri said, not lifting his gaze from Viktor’s collar, “I just gave Itsuki some advice-“

“Yes, you said the right thing.” He smiled, briefly but genuinely.

Yuuri was quiet, pausing before he returned to the closet to get the silk datejime. Viktor always had that complete trust in him. It made Yuuri wonder sometimes, how he could say things like that while he too had been burned by Yuuri’s worst mistake.

He returned to Viktor, tying the datejime around his kimono and straightening the folds it created.

“Yuuri,” Viktor said, and there was a note of sternness in his voice. “The well-being of every person you love is not your responsibility. I do wish you would realize that.”

Yuuri peered up at Viktor. The slightest crease pinched his brows, but still he smiled. Yuuri knew his thoughts had been written on his face - he deliberately never masked them around Viktor - so he wasn’t surprised by words like those. He just shook his head and returned to the closet.

Silently, Yuuri helped Viktor into his tabi and geta - split-toe socks and platform sandals - and put on his own. He then began the process of putting on their obi - the wide, stiff, colorful, very expensive sash that completes a kimono.

“Yuuri?” Viktor didn’t turn around to look at him, reluctant to do anything that might make Yuuri’s process harder, but his head turned a millimeter to the side.

“How is it not my responsibility?” He said to Viktor’s back. He was beginning to tie the obi into its customary large bow.

“Just because people you love depend on you, doesn’t mean they depend only on you.” He turned a millimeter back again, staring out the window into the sea. “They’re dependent on themselves, first. If someone you love does something bad or wrong, it’s their fault as much or more than it is yours.”

Viktor turned around when Yuuri finished tying his obi, but Yuuri was straightening his own kimono, tying his datejime and putting on his obi. He did it backwards, bow at the front, in order to see his work.

“You think this same way about Yurio,” Viktor continued into the silence. “It was his problem that was the reason he left. He held you to a standard that was far too high. But you won’t forgive yourself for your mistake, because it combined with his and exploded.”

Yuuri finished tying his obi and slowly twisted it around so the bow was at its place in the back, careful not to ruin the pattern of the folds. He still didn’t meet Viktor’s eyes.

Viktor kept half a meter in front of Yuuri, though the twitching of his fingers made it clear he didn’t want to be that far apart. “Itsuki is your son,” he said, “but he is his own person, love. If I were to use your logic, anything he messed up today would be

my

fault. But I won’t, because the last time I tried to take responsibility for something you were determined to beat yourself up over, I made you cry.”

Yuuri looked up at his husband at last. A smile tugged at his lips. “And we can’t have that.” He didn’t say

you’re right

aloud, because he knew the thought was written all over his face.

Viktor shook his head emphatically, then reached up and cupped Yuuri’s face gently between his hands. “My poor heart couldn’t take it if I made you cry from anything besides joy.” The tilt of his head and the shape of his smile said he’d read Yuuri like the open book he was.

Yuuri smiled, traced Viktor’s fingers with his. “It’s probably time to go downstairs now.”

Viktor nodded, pulling himself a short distance from Yuuri with apparently great effort. “I’ll be right down, once I do my makeup.”

Yuuri nodded. He closed the space between them once more for a self-indulgent kiss, then left to escort Itsuki to the main dining hall.

Viktor walked in through the back entrance to the dining hall. The front entrance, much larger and more ornate, connected directly to the courtyard, and guests were still coming in through it, wearing formalwear of various cultures, elegant gowns and suits. Viktor himself would have preferred to wear a suit if it were up to him, but since he was part of the royal family now, the kimono was necessary. If being wrapped like a present and literally tied up with a bow was the price he had to pay to be married to Yuuri, he would take it in stride.

Despite the massive crowd, the room itself was even larger, so the space didn't feel hot or cramped, just pleasantly warm. Sunlight filtered through amber glass skylights washed the room in a pleasant orange glow, and as Viktor passed a waiter carrying a tray of champagne he took a glass, sipping it lightly as he ascended the stairs of the royal platform.

"Hello, Yuuri-chan," Viktor said, fingertips brushing his husband's shoulder as he moved to sit down beside him. Yuuri preferred that they speak Japanese at official functions, and Viktor was more than happy to oblige.

"Viktor-kun," Yuuri acknowledged.

"Is Itsuki-san here?"

Yuuri glanced down the table, where their son sat fiddling with the way he held the stem of his water glass and staring into space.

Viktor looked at Itsuki, then at Yuuri. "I'm sure he’ll be okay."

He nodded. “You’re right,” he said, tone totally confident. Then he looked away, checked his phone. "Do you think we should start the ceremony now? It's a bit past 1."

"People are still arriving, let’s wait a moment. I don't think Itsuki-san will spontaneously combust if we wait another minute or two." Viktor held out his hand on the table and Yuuri took it, fiddling with his husband's wedding band. He shouldn’t—they were in public—but he really wanted to kiss him.

Viktor turned to watch the crowd, so he wouldn't be tempted any longer by Yuuri’s adorable chubby cheeks. Friends, relatives, people of all statuses were milling about and conversing in a hundred languages. Viktor spotted Sara in an elegant ball gown, holding Mila's hand and talking with Michele. Further toward the back of the hall, Phichit sat at a table talking quietly with Seung-gil. Walking in the door were Guang-Hong and Leo, arm-in-arm, Guang-Hong’s metal prosthetic and Leo’s Shadow scars both clearly visible. And it looked like Brigit had shown up at last, Ninna pushing her wife's wheelchair to a table close to the door. A thousand colors moved and shifted across the huge dining hall in the amber daylight.

Then Viktor caught sight of another color, a color he didn’t see often, save in the mirror and with his children. A brilliant, vibrant silver pushed through the main doorway, making its way through the crowd. As Viktor watched, the silver refracted into other colors: a silky black, a stark white, a suntanned beige, and a bright green which flickered slightly like emerald flame.

All other colors blurred and swirled into a grey sea as the figure approached the base of the royal platform. The crowd split for him like the red sea, allowing Viktor to see him in the clear. It looked almost like his own past self was reflected back at him: his long silver hair was braided around the sides of his head into a high ponytail, its end falling down to nearly his waistline, the braids fastened with glittering hairpieces. And yet his skin was tan and aged not only by time but by experience, and his muscular form comfortably filled the tailored suit he wore.

All his hair was pulled from his face so both his piercing green eyes were visible, but even so his expression was nearly unreadable. He stopped walking a few meters from the base of the royal platform and looked up, directly at Viktor. The confused crowd distanced themselves from this strange man as Viktor looked down at Yurio.

In practiced Japanese, he said, "Hello, Viktor-sama." He then bowed, exactly like every other guest, as if he was pretending not to notice the effect of his entrance. He bowed again to Yuuri, "Yuuri-sama."

"Is that Yurio?" Yuuri whispered.

Viktor was speechless. He couldn't so much as nod. Was that really Yurio? It had to be, nobody else had that hair except Viktor and his children. But where had he been the past fifteen years? And why was he suddenly back now?

As the man turned to walk away, Viktor's voice returned to him. "Yurio?" he asked, voice loud but not as loud as he had intended.

He turned back, ponytail whirling around him. "Yes?"

Viktor stood, pushing his chair back vehemently, and bowed. "Thank you for coming."

Yurio smiled; not a smile Viktor had seen on Yurio before—not sadistic or determined, not even excited, just sort of simple and melancholy. "You're welcome, old man."

"Baba, Otouchan? What... just happened?" Itsuki asked. Viktor turned to him, losing sight of Yurio. The world spun back into color.

What

had

just happened?

"That was... a man we were both friends with... before we defeated the Shadow," Yuuri said slowly. "He... didn't like some of the choices I had to make, and he disappeared for the past fifteen years. I didn't think I would ever see him again."

"I wonder why he came back," Itsuki pondered, taking a long sip of his water.

"Maybe he missed you," Asahi said.

Sana sneered. "Don't you think he would have come back sooner if he missed them?"

"Maybe he was doing something else important," Asahi retorted, sticking out his tongue.

"Quiet, please," Yuuri said. "Itsuki-san should start his speech soon. Would you like to now?"

"Might as well get it out of the way," Itsuki replied with a wry laugh. He pushed his chair back, picked up his water glass and a spoon, and a crystalline ringing sound echoed through the dining hall, silencing all else.

"I was going to do that," Viktor whispered, pouting.

"Hush, dear," Yuuri replied, patting his husband's shoulder.

Itsuki walked around the table and stood in front, looking over the crowd. He couldn't specifically pick out the man—Yurio, was it?—who his fathers had been freaking out about, but he could pick out a few people he knew. Everyone was watching him intently. He tried to put it out of his mind, trying to look anywhere other than the massive crowd. He shut his eyes.

"You know," he began, in Common, "a great author a long time ago said,

it usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech

. If that much is true of impromptu, you can imagine how much thought should be put into a speech that was previously rehearsed. Logically, you’d think I would have thought about this speech for a very long time. But you would be wrong. I came up with everything I'm going to say today within the past hour.

"Don't get the wrong idea– I did have a manuscript written up, and it was a ten-page manuscript which I spent the better part of a month perfecting. The thing was, I read it all over an hour ago and I realized it was drek.

"I was so focused on being eloquent that I forgot to be myself, and so it sounded like... someone had handed a toddler the complete works of Shakespeare and had them circle whatever they liked, then tried to make a speech from that. And, I was so focused on trying to make myself sound like a competent future ruler that I forgot entirely about the reason a ruler is important in the first place. Their people, of course.

"So today, I'm going to be talking about you. ...First of all, hi." He opened his eyes and waved. Nobody was throwing rocks so far, so that was good. He focused on a spot on the far wall as he continued. "My name is Itsuki Katsuki-Nikiforov. How are you? Probably pretty good, there

is

going to be a big party tonight—well, as soon as I shut up, there is—and that party is for you. True, it may be

about

me, but it's

for

you.

"Really, everything my parents do is for you. Not just the banquets and parties, which you already know you never have to pay for, but every other thing too. Every law they pass, every tax they collect, every diplomatic mission they conduct; they do these things for you. And so, my parents having set such a good example, all I have to stand up here and say is that I will follow in their footsteps.

"I can’t promise to be perfect. In fact, at the beginning I'm nearly certain I’ll be a bumbling idiot. But that’s precisely the reason that I begin my royal duties now, under the gentle and proficient tutelage of my parents, and why I hope I never have to perform them without the guidance and council of my siblings. I could not ask for a more supportive environment in which to learn, nor could I ask for a more excellent country in which to rule. For all of that, I must thank you." He bowed formally, like Otouchan had when he called him -san. Itsuki-san. That sounded nice.

Itsuki began to pace slowly across the platform, focusing on the floor in front of his feet as he walked, then on his hands as he gestured. "Five hundred years ago, this world fell into ruin. Fifteen years ago, we all brought it back. Not just my parents, though they instigated the change; every one of you. You took what the royal scientists had learned and made it widespread within the span of only a few years. You adapted your skills in wand-making to build satellites, your skills in construction to build skyscrapers, your skills in tinkering to build computers. This world is now, and continues to be into the far reaches of the future, a world of your own making.

"We all have to know that new challenges await us ahead. We must continue to rebuild the world, and to help our siblings in other nations. We must continue to build our own nation as well. And we must consider our future as a planet, working to help it thrive and to eventually venture elsewhere.

"These are daunting tasks! Who am I to ask those of you who have already accomplished so much to go even further above? Well, I am no-one, and I do not ask. These new challenges are the tasks of the next generation. We appreciate your guidance and we value your support, but just as every generation takes the proverbial torch from their forebearers and runs with it as far as they can before handing it forward again to their successors, so we are prepared to carry the weight of these responsibilities squarely on our own shoulders.

"So to my fellow young people, children and young adults: having heard the great deeds of your parents, both from them and from me, aren’t you inspired to go further? What are your dreams, or better yet, your wildest fantasies? What can

I

do to help you achieve them? Ask yourself these questions, and together we will work towards whatever the answers lead you to. Thank you."

Itsuki bowed low and suddenly there was a great uproar of applause. He stood in shock, stepping back; he heard someone whistle. A tap on his shoulder made him whip around, to see his fathers standing next to him.

"That was excellent, Itsuki-san. Well done." Baba ruffled his hair with the hand that wasn't helping Otouchan hold his circlet.

Itsuki stared at the symbol of his future kingship that they held between them as he muttered thanks. Finely crafted of silver woven loosely with sapphires, it looked like it was made of spun silk and blue roses, and it glittered like an ice rink in the sun.

"Katsuki-Nikiforov Itsuki," Otouchan began as he and Baba lifted the circlet and slowly set it atop his head, "first son and heir to the Katsuki-Nikiforov royal line. This day marks the beginning of your life's journey just as this circlet marks your birthright. Yesterday you were a child, today you are grown; yesterday you were a boy, today you are a Prince."

The circlet—

his

circlet—fit snugly and comfortably, the metal warm from his fathers' hands. He turned to face the crowd once more, and then with every ounce of Baba's dramatic flair, he lifted his arms to the front and then turned his palms upwards as he swept them to the sides. The long sleeves of his furisode swung in mirror of his movements, and for the second time the crowd was in uproar.

Itsuki smiled. "Now, as promised: the party!"

A standard ice sheet, like those Viktor had skated on for all sixteen trials, like the Veil in the front of the palace, is 30 meters by 60. The ice sheet at the back of the palace, however, was three times that size.

This was the rink Viktor and Yuuri had skated on for their wedding, the same one where everyone had danced for the reception, the same one where Viktor and Yurio had spoken last. It was the same rink on which everyone would be skating for Itsuki’s passing ceremony.

Viktor laced his skates after changing out of his formal kimono, and stepped onto the ice. People talked and skated around the rink in small groups while others in the middle did fancier tricks - jumps, spins, and the like. It felt eerily like the last time he’d been on this ice with so many people, fifteen years ago.

Viktor skated quickly around the outer loop until he found Yurio. It wasn’t hard to miss the waist-length silver hair, or the silk tuxedo he had yet to change out of.

"Yurio," said Viktor, catching the younger man’s attention. He slowed his pace to match Yurio, who gave a tired smile.

"Hey."

Viktor smiled awkwardly. He didn’t know what to say. He’d just needed to say something. Why hadn’t he thought this through?

Fortunately, Yurio kept talking. "Your son made a pretty impressive speech."

"Thanks." Viktor laughed and sighed simultaneously. "He definitely did work on it for most of the last month. I don’t know what Yuuri said to him to make him want to start over, but I’m glad he did."

"Did the old version really sound like a toddler circling Shakespeare?"

Viktor sucked in a breath through his teeth. That seemed to be answer enough for Yurio, who burst into laughter.

"You know, Yurio, I’m very glad you came today. If you hadn’t, the most interesting thing would have been that stupid meringue swan I made."

"Hey! That was a good swan. Don’t put down your cooking, old man. Especially since you probably have chefs to make your food for you. Any normal person would never cook again."

Viktor shrugged. "We do have chefs, but that just means I have professional teachers. Besides, it wouldn’t do for my Yuuri to have to get out of bed to eat breakfast."

Yurio shook his head, rubbing his cheek with his left hand. "You sound exactly like you did twenty years ago."

"I love him exactly like I did twenty years ago," Viktor said with a heart-shaped grin.

Yurio tried to run a hand through his fringe - did he really still have that? - but found his hair ponytailed. Viktor noticed a golden ring on his finger. Fifteen years before, a younger Yurio would have said "Oh my

Goddess

Viktor". But the man who skated next to him now just smiled.

There was a silence. They began to round the short end of the rink.

"You grew your hair out," Viktor commented.

Yurio shrugged. "Wearing a cape everywhere is frowned upon for some ungoddessly reason, so I have to make do."

It was Viktor’s turn to burst into laughter. "Oh Yurio, I missed you. Remember how you used to call skates

knife shoes

?"

"What makes you think I’ve stopped," Yurio deadpanned.

Viktor cackled into his palm. Yurio grinned the kind of evil grin that had been his semi-permanent expression years ago.

There was another silence, but this one wasn’t as awkward. They had settled, somehow, into the same kind of comfortable rhythm they’d had together for four years, before being separated for more than thrice as long. Viktor was smiling, and so was Yurio, in almost exactly the same way.

"So... I assume you’re wondering why I came back," Yurio said, casually.

Viktor blinked. He wasn’t expecting this, but it had been exactly what he’d wanted. He nodded instead of speaking for fear of messing it up.

"It’s a bit of a long story, so bear with me. When I left in the first place, it was because I felt... betrayed. Yuuri made some hard choices, and looking back, I think they were the best ones he could have made. But then, I’d thought for a long time that he was hiding something. He wore too many masks, y’know? One for me, one for you, one for the country, probably way more I hadn’t seen. When I found I was right..." he shook his head. "And he was better than I was at everything, and better than you at almost everything. Some part of me turned him into a god, who couldn’t just

make mistakes

. It’s dumb, I know, but I’m just telling you what I thought.

"So between all those things, I hated him. More than I’d ever hated anyone, or anything. But I loved you, Viktor. When I couldn’t get you to leave him, and come with me, I... just ran away. I told myself I’d never come back. I think that was the stupidest thing I ever did, leaving you.

"But anyway, for five or ten years, I was still fueled by that hatred. I stayed out of sight, never in any one place for too long, and I never went to big cities or on public transit without a very good reason and an even better disguise. I even made Beka get a teleporter so I could come to his place without going through the rest of Kamyinsk. And these sorts of things become habits, y’know? Well, I suppose you don’t know, but they do is the point. And even after all the emotion had left me, I kept doing them. Until one day, someone came and told me to go back, and I had no reason to tell them no. Because somewhere in my head I’d realized that Yuuri wasn’t any kind of god, that he was allowed to make mistakes, and that not everyone who wears a mask is doing it to hide something from you.

"So I forgave him, and I still loved you, so I decided I was gonna come back. I was sure you would get wind of it in any case, so I wanted to be direct. I didn’t want any rumors giving you the wrong idea."

"What would be the wrong idea?" Viktor asked.

"Like... I was back to assassinate you. Or something." Yurio shrugged and did a little twizzle, skates as under him as they’d ever been. "Rumors are always worse than you think they’ll be."

Viktor nodded. That was almost a direct quote from one of Yuuri’s proverbs about power.

Yurio shrugged nonchalantly. "I wasn’t

trying

for a crazy dramatic entrance, but I also wasn’t sure how I could do it another way."

Viktor was mute for a while after that. It made sense, everything made sense, and it was almost too easy. Could he really just forgive himself for everything? Could he forgive Yurio? The only viable answer seemed to be yes. What would he do if he didn’t?

"So, um, yeah. That’s about it I guess. No ill will from me. Uh, none from you either?"

"No," Viktor breathed. "I’m just happy you’re back. Do you want to find Yuuri? Tell him all this?"

Yurio nodded. "Sure. And while we’re at it, talk to your son."

"Itsuki."

"Itsuki. And the others. The other two are yours too, right?"

"Sana and Asahi, yes. How could you tell?"

"Hair of silver," he said as he pulled his long ponytail over his shoulder.

Viktor glanced at his old friend—his brother—and gestured at his skates, nonverbally completing the prophetic phrasing that had started it all. Yurio lifted his foot, showing that he too still had them. He said it aloud. "...and blades of gold."