Foretold Drabble (because I need a break from Shirin )

Tai stepped out of the pier-side shop feeling very pleased with himself. The seamen of Eighth Kingdom were notorious hagglers. It was rare to get them to drop their price on fruit from the island tropics to three copper pieces each. Yet, Tai was walking away after paying only two copper pieces for three juicy fruits. It was enough to make any man’s day happy.

In fact, the Twelfth Kingdom prince found himself whistling a merry tune while he made his way through the noonday crowds towards the fountain he’d left Thomas at. The fruits were safely hidden away to later surprise the shy prophet with.

Tai stopped everything altogether when he realized he couldn’t see his prophet anywhere near the fountain, though a large mob seemed to be milling about in his place.

“Psst!”

He followed the sound with his eyes and smiled in relief. There was Thomas crouched down in an alley, his hazel gaze alternating between the prince and the group at the fountain. Tai wandered over to stand beside the prophet. “What are you up to?”

“No, no, shh!” Thomas hissed and dragged the prince into the alley, giving the mob a panicked look. “They’ll hear you!”

“Ah,” Tai said, torn between amusement and confusion. He spared another look around the edge of the building they were hiding behind. Thomas fidgeted in shadows the entire time. Grinning winsomely, the prince returned to Thomas’s side. “What is it they want?”

Apparently, it was just the question to gain a reaction from the quiet little prophet. With an explosion of breath that sounded very much like a snarl, Thomas threw his hands in the air and spun on his heel. He stalked to the rear of the alley and back several times while Tai looked on with an amused twist to his lips.

Finally, Thomas stopped in front of the prince, hands braced on his thin hips and a frown affixed to his narrow face. “They want me to cast their fortunes! Can you fathom that? Like I am some variety of witch doctor to throw bones to the circle or some gypsy woman who—bah!” He threw his hands in the air again and paced away.

“Fortunes?” Tai asked, trying his level best to keep his face straight. Thomas in his element of solitude and silence was a quiet, intense sort of man. Thomas surprised was a stuttering mess that Tai found entirely adorable, though Tai would be hard pressed to admit as much to him even at sword point. Thomas flustered and upset such as he was right then was an incredibly funny thing to see.

Tai bit his cheeks as the little prophet swung around and started back. “Yes! Fortunes! As if I was so cheap! Like—like a prostitute or—or—” he cut himself off again with a snarl, planting his hands on his hips again.

The best part of it all was that Thomas was so irate he really didn’t notice how rarely he finished the sentences he started. He also didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands as they ended up flailing all over the place in his agitation.

“Ah.” Tai finally said with a smile, his mirth too great to mask any longer. “So would you rather they pay more?”

“I—what?” Stopped while he’d been going full tilt, Thomas had the most amusing pole-axed expression on his face.

“You said it was as if they thought you were cheap. Was it that you want more in payment?”

“I—no—what?” The prophet was fast moving into his cutely surprised stage. He had dropped his hands from their prop and stood gaping at his lover, mouth working over silent words and eyes round as could be. “That is—I do not—they—what?”

Tai took pity on Thomas and held up a placating hand to silence the dizzying fall of words. “Mayhap you should take them up on the offer. Money does not grow on bushes or fall from the sky.”

Thomas’s cheeks began to take on a pink tinge. His eyes were greener today than their usual muddy gold, though whether that was because of his irritation or because of the green tunic Tai had forced him into that morning was anyone’s guess. “I’m a prophet, not a mercenary. Just what do you take me for?”

That brought a laugh out of the prince. There were a lot of sides to Thomas and each one Tai loved and took pleasure in seeing, knowing that Thomas was seldom this way around others. Even when his irritation had a biting edge to it was treasure.

“Only you, dear heart, would scoff at the idea of money.”

Thomas turned a little pinker but a smile curled the edges of his lips even so. “And you could charm a tree, I am sure.”

“Ah,” Tai agreed, leaning in to brush his lips over the prophet’s, “but I think a tree would be a hard thing to kiss.” Another soft brush, like a feather floating on the breeze. “Nor would a tree be as delightful to embrace.” Thomas relaxed into the prince’s arms, shivering over the light tracing of lips over his jaw line. “I certainly would find myself hard pressed to love a tree as I do you.”

Thomas tangled his fingers in Tai’s curling red hair and used his hold to direct that charming mouth into a hard kiss that held none of the teasing of before. The prince thrilled at the boldness in the normally timid young man. A few months before, he would have been too terrified and embarrassed to try something so foreword.

“In the alley!” a voice rang out from the street beyond the alley, causing Thomas to jump and release his captive prince. Forward the man might have become but he was still a very private person and there was only so much he would allow in public.

Tai found himself swearing under his breath at the interruption. Damn the locals for their timing anyhow.

Thomas gave a start when the prince wrapped a hand around his wrist. A hand motioned quickly to a stack of crates at the dead end of the alley and Tai nodded his head towards the roof. The prophet nodded, his eyes already mapping out a route up the rickety stack.

Later, while watching from the safety of the rooftops as the villagers search fruitlessly for the missing prophet, Thomas leaned into Tai’s side to whisper, “Was it not you who suggested I go along with them?”

Tai smirked back at his lover. “Ah, my heart, but then I changed my mind. It seems I don’t rightly know how to share.” He finished by pressing a quick possessive kiss to prophet’s lips.

Thomas smothered a laugh into the back of his hand and went back to watching the villagers scurry vainly around for their fortuneteller.