Crystal Prince part 2

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The Captain was sympathetic, though he wouldn’t or couldn’t excuse Micholozo entirely to spin the crystal prince’s wings into yarn. He, in agreement with the other Captains, did lessen the watches that Micholozo had to watch, which would have to be enough. Some of the other guards were envious of it- after all; Micholozo wasn’t actually crazy, so how come he got to waste crazy time to help a creature from over the Wall?

The crystal prince moved into Micholozo’s room; the other half had been empty since Raphael left, so there was no one to complain. He did not eat. He did not sleep. Well, he slept, but Micholozo wondered if it was really just meditation.

The first several weeks the crystal prince moved about the keep freely. But one day a butterfly-controlled guard ran into him and slammed him into the wall. Fractures appeared on his elbow- the point of worst impact. The crystal prince wrapped it tightly in rags and remained inside Micholozo’s room thereafter.

They had moved the bed away from the wall so that he could spread his wings while Micholozo brushed them carefully; carding the wool while it was still on the prince. They talked while he worked. Micholozo was intensely curious about life Beyond the Wall in Faerie, and sometimes the crystal prince would answer his questions.

More often their conversations would revolve around the world of mortals, and what the crystal prince might expect there.

It took over a fortnight for Micholozo to brush the soft wings enough to start spinning the long fibers. Glad that the fibers were long enough to be spun with just a bobbin, Micholozo had a few false starts before his hands and muscles remembered the skill.

Weeks went passed, and the crystal of the crystal prince thinned enough that Micholozo could tell. The prince himself said that he felt lighter, and rarely moved from the bed lest he break something. He also stopped lying in any position save on his back, and when Micholozo finally asked him, he replied that it was so the weight of his wings did not crush him.

By the time Micholozo finished spinning, the crystal prince was beginning to look more like blown glass- even his facets were starting to appear somewhat rounded. He looked sad and ethereal as he lay on the bed, shapes of the quilts beneath him visible through his torso, and only a few sad lingering fibers trailing from his back.

“How much longer do you have?” Micholozo asked as he finished winding the last of the yarn into a ball.

The crystal prince shook his head carefully, since bending a knee quickly yesterday had created more fractures in his surface. “Not much. I fear the fading will go faster now that I am less.”

Micholozo set the ball of yarn aside and knelt next to the bed. “I don’t know if I will be fast enough,” he whispered.

The prince’s head turned enough to look at him. “It is enough that you have tried,” he said.

They were close, close enough that Micholozo felt he would feel the warmth of the crystal prince’s body, if the prince had had any warmth. Studying the prince who was so close, Micholozo noticed his inner light was nearly gone. He reached out a hand and brushed it lightly, oh so lightly along the frosted feathers on the prince’s head, his surface smooth under Micholozo’s fingers.

Slowly enough that the prince could pull away, Micholozo leaned forward and pressed his lips gently against that of the crystal prince’s. The prince’s lips were cool and smooth under his own and parted slightly after a moment. Micholozo’s tongue slid inside, and it felt curiously as though he were kissing a statue, his saliva wet and slick in the prince’s cold and smooth mouth that had no moisture of it’s own.

The crystal prince’s texture-less tongue started to move against his own, both soft and hard as it tangled with Micholozo’s. It tasted like ice and like crystal, and Micholozo sighed faintly, pressing forward to get more of that taste.

They heard a crack, and Micholozo was suddenly on the far side of the room. “Are you alright?” he asked, hovering from a distance.

The prince held perfectly still. “I do not know,” he said, the clear tone of his voice dry and scared. “Can you look for damage?” he asked, eyes flickering to Micholozo, though his head did not move.

Micholozo approached slowly, terrified that his movements would cause the prince to crumble and fade before his very eyes.

He inspected the prince’s head first, assuming that he had cracked it when he pressed forward. “There are no fracture lines here,” he said, relief in his voice.

The crystal prince let out a breath of air he had not needed to inhale. “Elsewhere?” he asked, not yet relaxed.

Micholozo’s eyes scanned the body on the bed before him, catching sight of the faint pattern of splintering at the join of prince’s legs.

He let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh. “It looks like you were simply too enthusiastic,” he said, moving a hand to hover over the prince’s crotch.

The crystal prince lifted his head enough to see where Micholozo was gesturing, letting his head drop back into the pillows with a shaky laugh of his own. “We will have to refrain, I fear.”

Micholozo ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll get started on your shirt, then, shall I?” He turned towards the door, then paused. “How complicated does this shirt of yours have to be?” he asked.

The crystal prince considered. “Not very, I should think,” he finally said. “It merely needs to cover my torso so it looks like I am wearing clothes.”

“You’re not?” Micholozo blurted, turning back around to look at this prince. He’d thought it looked that way, but it was somehow different if the prince really was naked.

The prince sighed. “I do not know,” he said. “I suppose I must be.”

“Huh,” Micholozo said, leaving the room to find someone who knew how to make simple clothing.

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It was one of the Efani, from the southernmost corner of that sprawling country, who taught him about the blanket-shirts her people wore on the rare occasion it became cold. A simple square with a hole cut in the middle, and a chat with the elves for a second opinion about its feasibility.

Bough had said it should work, and that was enough for Micholozo.

There weren’t any looms at the Wall, however. And the passes were already blocked, so they could not send for one, or even the supplies for a simple one.

At a loss, Micholozo kicked his heels for nearly a full day, becoming increasingly anxious as the sun trailed across the sky. He was poking his food at dinner, sitting alone at a dark table when an older officer approached him.

“You are the one helping the crystal man?” she asked, inviting herself to sit at his table.

Micholozo glanced up at her, not bothering to respond before dropping his gaze back to his food.

“I know a way you can make cloth without a loom,” she said.

That grabbed Micholozo’s attention, and he listened carefully as she explained the technique that Tarin’s used to make their famous sweaters. “It’s called knitting,” she said, brandishing two giant needles.

She taught him how to use them that evening, Micholozo fumbling in his haste to learn the new skill, sitting next to the officer on the bed across from a curious crystal prince.

Once Micholozo seemed to have the hang of knitting, the older woman excused herself, reminding him to get some sleep, and saying that she would see that he got the next several days off entirely.

Part of Micholozo’s brain noted that that probably meant she thought he was well and truly crazy over this, but most of him found that he did not care.

Not if it meant saving his crystal prince.

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The crystal prince faded fast, just as he said he might, but Micholozo worked faster, and the awkward top was finished when the prince looked as fragile and thin as the wings of a dragonfly.

The light inside of his was dim, but easily visible, shaped oddly like a walnut and roaming throughout the crystal prince’s body.

“It’s finished!” Micholozo cried, holding up the garment, it’s edges uneven, the hole in the middle gaping and so large it looked like it might just fall off the prince’s shoulders, rather than transform him into a mere human.

The crystal prince smiled at him, his light shining brightly for a moment, then dimming again as he slowly shifted around on the bed. “I need to stand,” he said, “or sit, at least,” he amended when his surface creaked alarmingly.

Micholozo moved to help him to his feet, since he could no longer bend quite enough to sit. Micholozo made very sure to keep his hands gentle and soft, and to apply only the slightest of pressure, because it would be beyond a shame to break his prince now, when they were so close.

When the prince was standing, Micholozo picked up the garment once again. “It’s heavy,” he said, hefting it in one hand and looking nervously at the prince.

The crystal prince shook his head. “It does not matter. Waiting will not make it better.”

Taking a deep breath, and hoping against hope that this would work correctly, Micholozo lifted the garment and swung it over the prince’s head.

It settled on his shoulders, and the surface of the prince started to creak, sharp snapping sounds and higher tinkling noises as he began to fracture.

“It’s not working!” Micholozo cried, reaching to lift the garment away.

“A name,” the prince said, even his voice splintering, “I need a name.”

Micholozo blurted the first thing that came to his mind. “Cryst-ozo,” he said, changing his mind half way.

“Thank you,” the Prince—Christozo now—said. His inner light glowed brighter and brighter, and Micholozo watched until tears came to his eyes and he was forced to look away.

The light grew bright enough that he had to cover his eyes with his hand as well, and then suddenly there was a faint shattering sound, and then the tinkle of hundreds of pieces of glass falling to the ground. The light vanished, and Micholozo opened his eyes, blinking impatiently for them to readjust to the darkness.

Christozo stood there, blinking as well, an expression of shock on his face. His skin was a pale flesh color and his head was bald except for several feather-shaped fuzzy patches. He was wearing a lumpy, ugly, hand-knit blanket-with-a-hole-in-the-middle, gray pointed shoes and a pair of pants that fit him like skin.

Slowly, the man who had been the crystal prince raised his hands and stared at them as though he had never seen them before.

Christozo’s expression slowly morphed from shock to glee, and he threw himself across the room at Micholozo. “You did it!” he cried, mashing their lips together before Micholozo could respond.

He pulled back just as suddenly. “Ow,” he whimpered, shifting from foot to foot. “Are they supposed to hurt?” Christozo asked.

Micholozo glanced down to see that Christozo had cut his feet on the shards of his old…surface. “No!” he said, pulling the prince off the floor and tossing him onto the bed. “You stepped on…yourself,” Micholozo added, not sure how to describe it.

“What is that red stuff?” Christozo asked, looking curiously at the blood dripping from his feet.

“It’s blood,” Micholozo grunted, reaching for his shoes and slipping them on before he walked across the room to the tiny first aid kit he kept, crystal crunching under his feet.

“Who’s is it?” Christozo asked.

“Yours,” Micholozo said, re-crossing the room and leaning down to look at Christozo’s feet. It looked bloody but superficial, so Micholozo fumbled some water onto a rag and wiped the crystal shards off.

“I have blood now?” Christozo asked, as through it was the strangest concept in the world.

“You’re human, aren’t you?” Micholozo replied, wrapping some bandages around the pale feet.

“Yes I am,” Christozo said, grabbing one of Micholozo’s hands and tugging him up onto the bed.

Micholozo leaned down to kiss him, as hard as he liked this time, and for as long as he wanted.

Well, maybe not quite that long, as Christozo started coughing after a minute. “I have to breathe all the time now?” he whined.

Micholozo chuckled. “I’m afraid so. You’ll have to eat, too, and defecate, just like the rest of us mere mortals.”

Christozo pouted, and it looked so childish Micholozo realized that he wasn’t used to facial expressions, either. “I’m not sure that I like being human,” he said.

“Well,” said Micholozo, “there are some benefits.” He slid his hand under the ugly garment, sliding it along smooth, warm skin.

“We have sex in Faerie,” Christozo said, though he squirmed under the touch.

“Oh?” Micholozo said, hand traveling lower, over the slick surface of Christozo’s tight pants, looking for fastenings to get them off. “Have you felt something like this before?” he asked, shoving the garment aside and putting his mouth to the new man’s nipples.

Christozo’s moan was answer enough.

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No, you do not get smut.

But maybe I get reviews?