Card Nine: Six of Cups

The next morning was rough. He slept without a tent and only a mat and blanket to keep him warm, but that wasn’t the problem. The issue was that he was used to sleeping until whatever unruly hour he felt like. Feather never kept a schedule. And he’d gone to bed so late last night… he’d been too giddy with new realizations filling his mind that he hadn’t been able to shut off his brain, so getting called out way too early was enough to make him feel incredibly grumpy. 

“Is sleeping without a tent comfortable for you? Those mats don’t look very good either…” Cirrus fretted above him, Feather’s limbs all splayed out as his blanket scrunched up atop his waist. He was a tall man with long limbs, so the blanket didn’t quite cover him properly anyway, but he was so used to regulating his body heat that he’d never particularly cared to have a proper blanket in centuries. 

“...I don’t mind feeling the rocks underneath me,” he grumbled out instead, going to claw at his eyes as he peeled them open, stretching his eyelids up and down while he tried to forcefully rid them of sleep. “...what time is it?” 

He squinted at the sun that was placed high in the sky, and Cirrus smiled kindly down at him as he gave a thoughtful answer. “It’s nine o’clock. I usually wake up much earlier than this, but since your companions said you would need more sleep, I spent the rest of the time continuing to meditate to prepare for universe hopping. I think that sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?” he offered, Feather forcing himself to sit up as he kept rubbing painfully at his eyes. 

“I guess…” he mumbled, his emotions already starting to feel a bit volatile as he kept scratching at his face, his nerves making him want to tear out his eyes, before he felt familiar and calloused hands take them away from where he was aggressively rubbing, Leocadies’ smile far more comforting than Cirrus' fake one as Feather squinted at him in front of the bright sun. 

“You’ll hurt yourself if you keep doing that, boss,” came the gentle reminder, and he blinked quickly and repeatedly as he tried to chase away the stinging feeling, before he nearly fell onto his thin mat all over again in his blind exhaustion, carefully being caught and propped up by Kya as she took a comb to his unruly blond hair. 

“Just stay still, boss, I’ll take care of you,” she assured him, Feather’s head rocking back and forth as Jayce stared at them incredulously. 

What on earth was he even watching? He remembered Cirrus telling him that Feather was just a bit younger than they were by roughly a decade, meaning he was in his early five hundreds like he and his prince, so why was this grown man being treated like he was a toddler? Jayce had also been told that Leocadies and Kya were both in their seventh century, so it was true that those two were the oldest in their little group by far, but still, seriously?

“What are they, his parents? And is he twelve?” Jayce snarked near the back, his voice lowered enough to prevent most people from hearing him, though Eve still smiled and giggled. 

“Haha, they treat him like royalty. Cirrus, why don’t we start treating you like that?”

“...please don’t,” came the awkward reply, but even if Feather had been bothered enough to listen in on their conversation, the blond was too busy getting soothed by the feeling of his hair being brushed and the firm hands that encased his own, Leocadies’ calming fingers brushing over his fair knuckles making him feel as if he could drown in the calming sensations. 

He didn’t usually need people to take care of him in the mornings so long as he was allowed to wake up on his own terms. But whenever he was forced to wake up earlier than he wanted, which had been a very rare occurrence up until now, he could easily get snappy and irritable if he wasn’t properly taken care of. He just needed something to stimulate him so the rest of his senses would become alert and wake up, and having Kya softly yet firmly comb through his wavy mop of platinum curls usually did the trick. So Feather kept lazily batting his eyes as he let his head get pulled backwards, chin bobbing up and down with the rhythm of the comb as he began to stare at the sun. 

“Ah, boss! Don’t do that, you’ll go blind!” Leocadies began to fret, moving his hands to cover Feather’s eyes while the pesky blond grinned. 

“Will not! I stare at the sun all the time!”

“Boss, you shouldn’t do that!”

“I’ll do whatever I want, hahah!!” he laughed meanly, jerking backwards as Kya pushed on his back to keep him from toppling over.

“Hey! Stay still while I comb your hair!” the black-haired woman snapped as Feather began whipping around and thrashing his limbs with a manic smile. Luckily, they’d managed to cure his mood for the morning, so not much else was needed… this time, at least. 

Still, it had proven to be a good solution for today, and Kya had made sure to buy lots of candy in preparation for the future. Because it was true that Feather had never been able to regulate his emotions well. His past wasn’t… well, it wasn’t ideal, she knew. His obsession with freedom came from the fact he’d been trapped for nearly a century with no autonomy of his own to speak of… and with it came lots of problems with learning how to healthily express himself and how to regulate what he was feeling without letting his emotions explode. Feather had simply never been able to learn those things, even though she’d tried to teach him through herself as a healthy example. She also felt that his disorganized emotions may be what was protecting him from going insane, as contradicting as that sounded... with how often he died, and whatnot. So while he did seem very immature, she was afraid to touch or push his development any further… though, as long as he was happy today, then she could plan for tomorrow. 

And Feather looked gleeful as he stood himself up in front of Cirrus, grand smirk on his face while he waved his hand in front of his own features, like he so often did when he was feeling playful. “So, are you gonna teleport us now, mister pushover prince sir? Can you really teleport seven people all at once? I have to say that’s pretty impressive for someone of your age. I know you teleported three people the other day, but that was such a short distance, and you didn’t even leave this world… but you do have a prophecy on your back, so I’m expecting good things from you,” he jeered haughtily, trying to dig under Cirrus’ skin as the other visibly stiffened. 

Good. He never had liked how Cirrus was so subservient to prophecy. Maybe it had something to do with every prophet in the Udimeia having the same vision of his great, heroic future all at once on the day of his birth, to the point where the gates of Lilino had been filled with more people than ever before in history. Cirrus’ mother, Queen Nadia Aixon, the current leader of the Central Domain Alliance who had led them elegantly over the past four hundred and twelve years, hadn’t been so certain of what to do, and kept her son mostly behind closed doors for his formative years so that he wouldn’t be as affected, but… well, just look at how much that had helped. It was obvious Cirrus still felt like he had a heck of a lot on his shoulders, which he did. But all Feather wanted to see from him was a little bit of freedom seeking, to prove that he was still his own person underneath all of the tellings of his future that guided every waking moment of his present. 

But of course, despite his awkward smile, Cirrus merely moved a hand behind his neck, an action Feather found slightly pathetic, before he admitted weakly, “Actually, I’d only be able to teleport the two of us. Since reality’s bridges have all collapsed from that planet, it takes more effort and concentration to get there... though usually I can teleport at least ten people across universes,” he admitted shyly, as if he was a bit embarrassed by that, and Feather couldn’t help but grimace. 

“Wow. You suck.”

“Ahah, yes, I know…” Cirrus laughed awkwardly, carefully going to extend his hand out to Feather as the blond stared at the gesture. 

“What? Can’t you just open a portal? You even meditated all night, what have you been focusing so hard for? I don’t wanna touch you.”

“Oh, um…” Cirrus blinked, taken aback by those brash statements as he looked down. “I’ve never been able to open a portal before… well, I’ve tried, several times, but have never succeeded. My mother's tried teaching me the mechanics of it herself, actually, I've just never been able to get the hang of it,” he admitted smally, and Feather winced with a sudden flash of guilt as he found himself feeling like he’d just kicked someone’s poor dog. 

“Mmmmm…” he tapped his foot impatiently, not liking the thought of kicking puppies, before he reached forward and snatched Cirrus’ hand in one quick movement, squeezing it like he was trying to break it while giving the prince an unhinged smile. “Fine, then! But if you give me your pushover disease, you’ll never hear the end of it from me! I’ll kill myself and then haunt you from beyond the grave!”

“Ah…” Cirrus’ amber eye blew out wide, his hand throbbing with how hard Feather was squeezing as he stumbled out, “I… I don’t think that’ll be a problem for you… please don’t do that,” he blinked, the entire concept Feather had just suggested making his thoughts halt in slight panic, before Feather got too impatient and dug his nails into Cirrus’ dark, milky chocolate skin, leading him to quickly remember his goal of teleporting them both to the dead planet. And once he managed to recenter his thoughts back to the meditative state he’d embraced for hours the night prior despite the tight ache in his hand, him and Feather’s bodies shimmered like stardust before their physical forms were whisked away. 

“...”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Are they gonna be okay?” Jayce asked first, the only one willing to speak after watching whatever bullying had just transpired. 

“Don’t worry, I have a telepathy concept, so I’ll be able to check in on Feather no matter how far away he is. If they're away for too long, I'll make sure to check in,” Leocadies spoke up chipperly, Jayce glaring at him slightly while his eyebrow twitched. 

“And how am I supposed to know I can trust you?”

“Haha, beats me! Anyways, let’s play a game! How about charades?”

“What?” Jayce glared at the ginger man, fangs already barring as he went to oppose this idea in its entirety. “Why would we want to—”

“Okay, sure!” Eve agreed in an instant, and Kya immediately started digging out her game cards from inside her satchel while Achitha walked over to join them. Seriously… even her? Wasn’t she supposed to be the smart one? Ah, Jayce really was alone here. Was he the only one who had any sense of stranger danger?

Still though, maybe Achitha had a point. Maybe it really was the best thing to try and understand them. They were going to be working with these three for the foreseeable future because of Cirrus’ choices, after all. Which, as much as he liked to call his childhood friend a pushover, he wasn’t really. The man knew how to defend the choices he made and was very firm in his stance and actions when push came to shove. He rarely ever got angry, but the fact he would calmly and pristinely hand out punishments was possibly even more terrifying. So... ah well, if Feather and those other two psychos ever did something really bad, he didn’t have to worry about Cirrus not being able to handle it. He trusted that his best friend could handle himself, and Jayce would support him in any way he knew how. So hopefully, with Feather being shown that dead, forsaken planet that had been destroyed by the apocalypse all those centuries ago, Cirrus would get the outcome he wanted… and Feather would join their side.