hc_bingo fic: ostracised by society
Title: The Devil You Know
Fandom: DBSK
Pairing: none
Prompt: Ostracised by Society
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3723
Summary: Just because Jaejoong never wanted a destiny didn’t mean he wouldn’t get one. And so began his journey to become a Mage of the Tower.
AN: Written, as the subject and tag say, for hc_bingo. Masterpost with game card is here.
People weren’t supposed to be cynical by the age of ten. At least, that’s what the last person he’d told to go suck on a donkey had said. He wasn’t sure he believed it, but he wasn’t really sure what ‘cynical’ meant, either. If it meant being able to keep himself alive and mostly fed and not needing any stupid adults to ‘watch out for him,’ then he liked being cynical.
He didn’t so much like having to run from soldiers when they said he was picking pockets. Especially when they started saying he did even when he didn’t. They didn’t much care about the opinions of kids like him, orphaned street urchins living on the bare good graces of a city that really wouldn’t care if they all disappeared entirely.
All-in-all, that was a lot of not caring.
Not that he cared much about the city or the guards, either, except as much as he needed to care to avoid crossing either, but his not caring about the city didn’t affect it so much. The city didn’t really need him to care one way or another about it, so he was just as happy for the city to not care one way or another about him, either. He decided early on that he wouldn’t care about anything or anyone that didn’t care about him and it served him pretty well, all told.
Of course, simple not caring wasn’t really enough to make a person cynical by the delicate age of ten. Being poor and on the street helped quite a bit, but that wasn’t entirely enough, either. He had... not friends, exactly, but people who sometimes cared about him so he sometimes cared about them when there was enough food or blankets to go around, which wasn’t that often. But he had people-he-sometimes-cared-about who managed to still think the world was a mostly okay place as long as you knew where to look. He thought they should try being cynical for a while, but what did he know?
No, what really turned a person into a proper, low-down cynic by the age of ten was being a poor orphan on the street who also happened to know a bit of what most people called magic. What little he’d known about his parents before they died, they’d been somewhere between con-artists and low-grade magicians but their magic tricks had always been real. His father had taught him how to make cards disappear and reappear and burst into flame almost before he could walk. Which was good, considering they’d both been lynched and him tossed in the gutter to starve a few years later by some people it wasn’t a very good idea to con out of money.
He knew that at ten, so they really should have known that, too, but he figured his parents just must not have been very smart, all things considered, and maybe that was the cynicalness talking, but it was okay, since they were dead either way.
The tricks they’d taught him were useful, though, and five years on his own had taught him even more. Magical and otherwise. He could make cards dance and flash in his hands, and he could cheat any poker game in the city without getting caught. Well, most of them. The games tended to earn him more money than performing on the street corner, but the corner was a lot safer, as long as he avoided the guards. The magic helped with that, too. An old man who claimed to have been a court-trained mage in his youth had taught him a weak warding circle. Drawn on with chalk scrounged where he could, it would at least give him a few seconds’ head start running. It wasn’t anything he was supposed to know, wasn’t anything most people were supposed to know, but if they didn’t know he knew, who was going to tell him no?
Even at ten, though, he knew that the key to staying alive and mostly intact was staying out of the way of people who thought less than kindly of magic. There were fewer of them in the city, but they obviously existed, even under the watchful eye of the Tower. He knew more than well enough to go to ground whenever new mage rumors started going around. He may have been just a cynical ten year old on the streets, but he’d rather be that than dead. Not that he thought the rumors were necessarily wrong. He just didn’t want them attached to him. And proper mages were damn scary, besides, just as likely to turn you into a frog as look at you. At least, that’s how the story went around the lower city, and who was he to disagree?
So, of course, he was in the middle of the most profitable poker game of his short life when the mages finally caught him.
The guards came in first, scattering the players and the winnings equally. What they were doing wasn’t strictly illegal, but there was always the chance they’d just make something up. When you didn’t have anyone to miss you, you learned to be extra careful around the people who could make you disappear. Behind the guards stood quite possibly the tallest man Jaejoong had ever seen, wearing rich brown robes and more jewelry than Jaejoong thought existed in the entire slum.
The sight froze everyone in place. A mage. A mage had left his gold tower and come to break up their poker game.
It took everything in him not to break down laughing on the spot. The mage turning to look straight at him killed that urge pretty effectively, though. “Kim Jaejoong?”
It knew his name?! How the hell did a mage know his name? Was the king going to show up and ask him to tea next? He tried to bolt out a back door, but there were guards out there, too, and they dragged him back inside. Everyone else had vanished. He probably should have felt worse about their abandoning him to his fate, but he would have done the same.
The mage looked even more evil now that he had a guard on each arm. Did they think a scrawny street kid would overpower even one of them? “Kim Jaejoong. It has come to the attention of the His Majesty the King that you have shown some promise in the magic arts. He would like to extend an invitation for you to study at the Tower.”
That... Was that a joke? Jaejoong gaped. He was being held by a pair of guards, surrounded by even more, and this mage was acting like he had a choice?
He spat on the mage’s boot as an answer.
The mage held up a hand to halt the guard who had raised a hand in retaliation. Jaejoong didn’t know why. He was just a piece of street trash, who was going to care? “His Majesty the King has decreed that an orphan who shows sufficient promise or ability, in the absence of any relative to claim them, will be brought to the Tower for training in the Academy until such time as they are apprenticed elsewhere or they reach an age of majority, whichever may happen first.”
Jaejoong stared. He didn’t understand all of the words, but he was fairly sure it meant he didn’t have much choice in the matter.
~
Jaejoong had never been far from the slums of the lower city. He and some of the people-he-sometimes-cared-about occasionally took miniature vacations to gape at the houses of the merchants and the prostitutes in the middle city, but they couldn’t go too often, because the guards stopped not-caring pretty quickly if you hung around too often.
He’d certainly never been all the way to the high city, and definitely not right up to the gates of the Palace. And if he’d definitely never seen the gates of the Palace, then going through them to the very heart of the kingdom and the Tower of Mages was practically unthinkable. And yet. Here he was.
The guards had followed the mage with him in tow, eventually passing him off to a different set of guards who continued following the mage, who finally just shoved him along behind the mage and went back to their duties once they were well within the main courtyard of the Palace, because, really, where was he going to go now?
He gaped at everything, impressed despite himself. It was amazing. It was huge. He’d never seen anything like it this close.
He was so busy staring, he almost walked into the mage’s back. He stumbled back a few steps, earning himself an amused glanced before the mage knocked on the side door. Obviously, street urchins didn’t get to go in the giant golden front gates.
“No one uses those,” the mage commented, as if reading his thoughts. “No one except the king and some of the Council when they want to look important. You’ll learn that. Better to find yourself in the kitchen any day.”
The door opened from the inside, not from any magic, just an older lady who frowned at the mage then glanced past him at Jaejoong. “I swear, boy, you’re going to terrify one to death one of these days. The usual?”
The mage stepped inside, gesturing imperiously for Jaejoong to follow. “Of course. He’s to be delivered to the Council for testing and placement at noon tomorrow, but until then, I’ll leave him to your tender mercies.” He bowed to her, nodded quickly to Jaejoong, then set off farther into the kitchen and out to the hallway beyond.
Jaejoong had never felt more lost and alone in his life. Even abandoned and starving at the darkest time in his life, he’d at least known where he was and where he was going. He had none of that now. But it couldn’t be worse, right? As long as they didn’t try to turn him into a toad or anything.
“They couldn’t have dropped you in a pond first to scrub off some of the grime?” Jaejoong twitched. He’d forgotten the woman who was now supposedly in charge of him. She wasn’t dressed in the fancy fabrics and colors of the mage or some of the other people he’d seen in the courtyard, but this close, he could still tell her dress was of better quality than anything he’d ever owned in his life. She herself looked well-fed and healthy, two things that were definitely in short supply in the lower city.
She sighed, grabbing his arm like it was a distasteful thing. “A bath first, and new clothes so we can burn those rags you’re wearing. They’ve probably got fleas in them. And a haircut. We’ll deal with the rest when you look like a person again.”
~
Jaejoong couldn’t remember the last bath he’d had, let alone a haircut or new clothes. He stared at himself in the polished silver mirror (another thing he’d only ever heard about) and wondered if it had been magicked to lie about the person standing in front of it.
The cook, who’d identified herself as Eunae, seemed to agree. “Look at you. Who’d have thought a pretty face like that was buried under all that dirt and grime? Now how about some food? Then we’ll see Yooman about finding you a room.”
He wasn’t at all sure how he felt about being called ‘pretty’ but he knew exactly how he felt about the promise of food. His stomach rumbled loudly before he had a chance to respond. Eunae laughed. “I take it you think it’s a good plan. Come on, then.”
They returned to the kitchen where it all started to find another boy already there. He looked about Jaejoong’s age, or perhaps a little younger. Eunae frowned when the boy froze guiltily. “Hyunjoong, do I want to ask what you’re doing in the kitchen at this time of day?”
“Uh...” His eyes darted away, then back, then he caught sight of Jaejoong standing half-behind Eunae. “Oh! Someone new?”
She sighed, like she couldn’t believe fate had saddled her with two of them. “Yes, someone new. In fact, since you obviously have so much time, you can take him to see the steward and find him a room.” She crossed the room, gathering a pair of small loaves and a piece of cheese into a bundle and handing it to Hyunjoong. “And make sure he eats those and not you. Now go on! Hurry up before I find you something worse to do!”
He bowed quickly, face set in a well-practiced expression of hurt. “You never trust me anymore.” He pouted at Jaejoong like he expected him to commiserate. Jaejoong just stood there. “...Anyway. Let’s go.”
He darted past Eunae, who just rolled her eyes and went about her business, and grabbed Jaejoong’s wrist to pull him along. Jaejoong let that go as far as the corridor before jerking them both to a halt and tugging his hand free. “I’m not a dog.”
The other boy crossed his arms with a huff. “Why’re you so grumpy?”
“Maybe because I have manners.” Which he didn’t, but no one else needed to know that.
It at least somewhat seemed to work. “Oh. Right. I’m Hyunjoong. What’s your name?”
“Jaejoong. I just got here this afternoon.” No one he’d met had tried to kill him yet, or really seemed all that different from the people he’d known before, the mage who dragged him here notwithstanding. “Do we really get our own rooms?”
Hyunjoong looked at him oddly. “Yes? Why wouldn’t we?”
Jaejoong attempted a nonchalant shrug, but not living shoulder-to-shoulder with other people was the strangest concept yet. The fact that the place seemed half deserted didn’t help, either. “How many people are there, if they have enough rooms to give everyone their own?”
“Well...” Hyunjoong paused. “Actually, let’s keep moving while we talk. If she wants us to see the steward, we have to hurry or he’ll go to bed and you’ll have to sleep in the hallway or something. Oh, and here.” He handed Jaejoong the bundle of food and didn’t try to grab any part of Jaejoong to drag him along this time. “Anyway, like I was saying, it seems like a lot, but only trainee mages have their own rooms in the Tower. And the teachers and the really high ranking people, like the Council. The rest either get rooms in the palace or find their own places. I mean, I guess you could request to keep your room, but most mages don’t. They just get tired of seeing the same four walls all the time. Pluse, they work for the King, so it’s not like they can’t afford it..”
Jaejoong couldn’t even imagine getting tired of seeing the same four walls, especially if those walls were at all warm or waterproof. Then again, he couldn’t imagine being able to afford it, either, so there was that. He dragged one of the loaves out of the bundle, chewing on it as they walked.
Hyunjoong was still talking. He guessed Hyunjoong must really like doing that. “And then there are all the mages fighting at the front.” He paused. “Some of them keep rooms here, just in case, but most don’t bother.”
At the front? Like in the war? People only ever told vague rumors of a long war that they weren’t winning down in the lower city. He’d never heard someone talk about it like they knew everything there was to know. Like it wasn’t some vague thing used to terrify children. “...Why not?”
“Because most of them aren’t going to come back.” Hyunjoong turned a corner and for once stayed silent.
Jaejoong wanted to ask more questions, but it felt like a forbidden topic now. Why wouldn’t they come back? Why did they go in the first place? Mages weren’t warriors, were they? They just... actually, he didn’t really know what mages did, now that he thought about it. He’d only ever done card tricks, but he didn’t think they’d have entire classes on that. That seemed like a safer topic. “So why did they bring me here?”
“Because you’re a mage?”
Jaejoong bristled at the tone, like it was a stupid question. “I am not! I was just minding my own business when a whole bunch of guards showed up and dragged me here. I’m not a mage.”
“Well, not yet.” Was that supposed to make Jaejoong less annoyed? He knew what he was! “But you will be. That’s what the classes are for, to make sure we all get better at our magic. I’ve been here for two years already!”
Well, that was an interesting sidenote. “You’re my age?”
Now it was Hyunjoong’s turn to look offended. “I’m ten, but my parents decided since I was smart for my age that I should start early. I’m on top of most of my classes, too. And when I’m a mage, I’ll go back to my hometown and be an advisor for the Duke! Just wait and see!”
An advisor for a duke? Mages did that? Jaejoong was learning all kinds of things, and he didn’t know how he felt about that. He didn’t know anything about mages, that was obvious, and now he had to try to become one. “What if I want to leave?”
Hyunjoong froze in the middle of the hallway, despite his advice that they keep moving, and stared at Jaejoong like he’d grown a second head or said he didn’t like breathing air very much. “Leave?”
Suddenly if felt like he’d done something very wrong, which of course just made him push the issue more. “Yeah, leave. Like, what if I wanted to walk right back out, right now? Who’s going to stop me? The mage earlier, he said it was an invitation not a command or anything.” No matter that it hadn’t sounded like an invitation at all. “So if I want to, then what?”
Hyunjoong stared and blinked and very obviously tried to think of a correct answer to that. “You... You can’t. No one can.”
“Why?”
“They just... We can’t. We can’t leave. No one leaves the Circle once they’ve started training in the Tower.” Hyunjoong was starting to look vaguely wide-eyed and panicky, like he wasn’t sure Jaejoong wouldn’t jump him or something equally dangerous.
“Well, I haven’t started training yet, have I?” Jaejoong turned, quite prepared to stomp his way right back down to the kitchen and out of the place. He was not expecting Hyunjoong’s response.
“No!” Hyunjoong grabbed his arm, holding it tightly between both hands. “You can’t. I mean it, you really can’t!”
This time, Jaejoong didn’t jerk away. “Why not?”
Hyunjoong looked almost ready to start crying. “You just can’t. Please?”
Jaejoong hesitated. This was obviously something dangerous, and he didn’t know what, but with Hyunjoong reacting like that, he probably wouldn’t get very far, anyway. “I bet I could, but okay.”
Hyunjoong practically sagged to the floor, and very well might have if not for his hold on Jaejoong’s arm. “Good. That’s good. You’ll see, you’ll get to do really awesome things with magic and help the kingdom and- Oh! The Steward! We have to hurry!”
He dropped Jaejoong’s arm, only to take off up a set of stairs at a run. Jaejoong hesitated again just for another moment before pelting after him. He had no idea what was going on anymore, but if leaving wasn’t an option, he’d just have to make the best of staying. He was pretty good at that sort of thing these days.
~
Jaejoong sat on his bed, which was a real bed with a mattress and a pillow and everything, and stared at the opposite wall for a very long time after Hyunjoong left. This all felt too good to be true, suddenly. Who would ever want to pick up some stray and make them into something that might work for the King one day? Who would give them food and a warm bed all for... well, not nothing, but not much more than that, as far as Jaejoong could tell.
He flopped back, looking up at the moon out of his window, just trying to digest everything. Tomorrow he’d be tested. He didn’t even know what that meant. Hyunjoong had been vague when he’d asked, implying only that it was different for everyone. It might mean that he’d have to leave, if he didn’t pass.
He suddenly found that he really didn’t want to leave. And not just because Hyunjoong thought it was such a bad idea.
He sat up abruptly, crawling over his bed to stare down at the lights of the middle city. The lower city was already dark beyond it, but somewhere down there, somewhere... it wasn’t home, but it was familiar. He wasn’t sure he knew how to leave it behind, but he’d have to. He’d have to become a mage instead of just Jaejoong. Could he do that?
But a mage belonged to something. A mage belonged to the Tower. A mage wasn’t at the mercy of guards and people who were stronger than him. If he became a mage, no one would ever be stronger than him again. The Tower was stronger than anything, and a mage belonged to the Tower.
A mage belonged. And maybe everyone else hated mages because they were scared of them, but everyone had pretty much already hated him, so it was okay. He could deal with that.
He’d be a Mage of the Tower, and what people thought would never hurt him again.
A sudden urge struck him and he leaned out of his window as far as he could, eyes on the dark shapes of the lower city. He took a deep breath. “I’m going to be a Mage of the Tower!” He yelled as loud and as long as he could, then ducked back into his room and slammed the shutters closed, hoping no one would kick him out for that. It just... made it official.
He nodded to himself. Official. He dropped onto his back and fell asleep, dreaming of magic.
This entry was originally posted at http://envious-muses.dreamwidth.org/12200.html.
Fandom: DBSK
Pairing: none
Prompt: Ostracised by Society
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3723
Summary: Just because Jaejoong never wanted a destiny didn’t mean he wouldn’t get one. And so began his journey to become a Mage of the Tower.
AN: Written, as the subject and tag say, for hc_bingo. Masterpost with game card is here.
People weren’t supposed to be cynical by the age of ten. At least, that’s what the last person he’d told to go suck on a donkey had said. He wasn’t sure he believed it, but he wasn’t really sure what ‘cynical’ meant, either. If it meant being able to keep himself alive and mostly fed and not needing any stupid adults to ‘watch out for him,’ then he liked being cynical.
He didn’t so much like having to run from soldiers when they said he was picking pockets. Especially when they started saying he did even when he didn’t. They didn’t much care about the opinions of kids like him, orphaned street urchins living on the bare good graces of a city that really wouldn’t care if they all disappeared entirely.
All-in-all, that was a lot of not caring.
Not that he cared much about the city or the guards, either, except as much as he needed to care to avoid crossing either, but his not caring about the city didn’t affect it so much. The city didn’t really need him to care one way or another about it, so he was just as happy for the city to not care one way or another about him, either. He decided early on that he wouldn’t care about anything or anyone that didn’t care about him and it served him pretty well, all told.
Of course, simple not caring wasn’t really enough to make a person cynical by the delicate age of ten. Being poor and on the street helped quite a bit, but that wasn’t entirely enough, either. He had... not friends, exactly, but people who sometimes cared about him so he sometimes cared about them when there was enough food or blankets to go around, which wasn’t that often. But he had people-he-sometimes-cared-about who managed to still think the world was a mostly okay place as long as you knew where to look. He thought they should try being cynical for a while, but what did he know?
No, what really turned a person into a proper, low-down cynic by the age of ten was being a poor orphan on the street who also happened to know a bit of what most people called magic. What little he’d known about his parents before they died, they’d been somewhere between con-artists and low-grade magicians but their magic tricks had always been real. His father had taught him how to make cards disappear and reappear and burst into flame almost before he could walk. Which was good, considering they’d both been lynched and him tossed in the gutter to starve a few years later by some people it wasn’t a very good idea to con out of money.
He knew that at ten, so they really should have known that, too, but he figured his parents just must not have been very smart, all things considered, and maybe that was the cynicalness talking, but it was okay, since they were dead either way.
The tricks they’d taught him were useful, though, and five years on his own had taught him even more. Magical and otherwise. He could make cards dance and flash in his hands, and he could cheat any poker game in the city without getting caught. Well, most of them. The games tended to earn him more money than performing on the street corner, but the corner was a lot safer, as long as he avoided the guards. The magic helped with that, too. An old man who claimed to have been a court-trained mage in his youth had taught him a weak warding circle. Drawn on with chalk scrounged where he could, it would at least give him a few seconds’ head start running. It wasn’t anything he was supposed to know, wasn’t anything most people were supposed to know, but if they didn’t know he knew, who was going to tell him no?
Even at ten, though, he knew that the key to staying alive and mostly intact was staying out of the way of people who thought less than kindly of magic. There were fewer of them in the city, but they obviously existed, even under the watchful eye of the Tower. He knew more than well enough to go to ground whenever new mage rumors started going around. He may have been just a cynical ten year old on the streets, but he’d rather be that than dead. Not that he thought the rumors were necessarily wrong. He just didn’t want them attached to him. And proper mages were damn scary, besides, just as likely to turn you into a frog as look at you. At least, that’s how the story went around the lower city, and who was he to disagree?
So, of course, he was in the middle of the most profitable poker game of his short life when the mages finally caught him.
The guards came in first, scattering the players and the winnings equally. What they were doing wasn’t strictly illegal, but there was always the chance they’d just make something up. When you didn’t have anyone to miss you, you learned to be extra careful around the people who could make you disappear. Behind the guards stood quite possibly the tallest man Jaejoong had ever seen, wearing rich brown robes and more jewelry than Jaejoong thought existed in the entire slum.
The sight froze everyone in place. A mage. A mage had left his gold tower and come to break up their poker game.
It took everything in him not to break down laughing on the spot. The mage turning to look straight at him killed that urge pretty effectively, though. “Kim Jaejoong?”
It knew his name?! How the hell did a mage know his name? Was the king going to show up and ask him to tea next? He tried to bolt out a back door, but there were guards out there, too, and they dragged him back inside. Everyone else had vanished. He probably should have felt worse about their abandoning him to his fate, but he would have done the same.
The mage looked even more evil now that he had a guard on each arm. Did they think a scrawny street kid would overpower even one of them? “Kim Jaejoong. It has come to the attention of the His Majesty the King that you have shown some promise in the magic arts. He would like to extend an invitation for you to study at the Tower.”
That... Was that a joke? Jaejoong gaped. He was being held by a pair of guards, surrounded by even more, and this mage was acting like he had a choice?
He spat on the mage’s boot as an answer.
The mage held up a hand to halt the guard who had raised a hand in retaliation. Jaejoong didn’t know why. He was just a piece of street trash, who was going to care? “His Majesty the King has decreed that an orphan who shows sufficient promise or ability, in the absence of any relative to claim them, will be brought to the Tower for training in the Academy until such time as they are apprenticed elsewhere or they reach an age of majority, whichever may happen first.”
Jaejoong stared. He didn’t understand all of the words, but he was fairly sure it meant he didn’t have much choice in the matter.
~
Jaejoong had never been far from the slums of the lower city. He and some of the people-he-sometimes-cared-about occasionally took miniature vacations to gape at the houses of the merchants and the prostitutes in the middle city, but they couldn’t go too often, because the guards stopped not-caring pretty quickly if you hung around too often.
He’d certainly never been all the way to the high city, and definitely not right up to the gates of the Palace. And if he’d definitely never seen the gates of the Palace, then going through them to the very heart of the kingdom and the Tower of Mages was practically unthinkable. And yet. Here he was.
The guards had followed the mage with him in tow, eventually passing him off to a different set of guards who continued following the mage, who finally just shoved him along behind the mage and went back to their duties once they were well within the main courtyard of the Palace, because, really, where was he going to go now?
He gaped at everything, impressed despite himself. It was amazing. It was huge. He’d never seen anything like it this close.
He was so busy staring, he almost walked into the mage’s back. He stumbled back a few steps, earning himself an amused glanced before the mage knocked on the side door. Obviously, street urchins didn’t get to go in the giant golden front gates.
“No one uses those,” the mage commented, as if reading his thoughts. “No one except the king and some of the Council when they want to look important. You’ll learn that. Better to find yourself in the kitchen any day.”
The door opened from the inside, not from any magic, just an older lady who frowned at the mage then glanced past him at Jaejoong. “I swear, boy, you’re going to terrify one to death one of these days. The usual?”
The mage stepped inside, gesturing imperiously for Jaejoong to follow. “Of course. He’s to be delivered to the Council for testing and placement at noon tomorrow, but until then, I’ll leave him to your tender mercies.” He bowed to her, nodded quickly to Jaejoong, then set off farther into the kitchen and out to the hallway beyond.
Jaejoong had never felt more lost and alone in his life. Even abandoned and starving at the darkest time in his life, he’d at least known where he was and where he was going. He had none of that now. But it couldn’t be worse, right? As long as they didn’t try to turn him into a toad or anything.
“They couldn’t have dropped you in a pond first to scrub off some of the grime?” Jaejoong twitched. He’d forgotten the woman who was now supposedly in charge of him. She wasn’t dressed in the fancy fabrics and colors of the mage or some of the other people he’d seen in the courtyard, but this close, he could still tell her dress was of better quality than anything he’d ever owned in his life. She herself looked well-fed and healthy, two things that were definitely in short supply in the lower city.
She sighed, grabbing his arm like it was a distasteful thing. “A bath first, and new clothes so we can burn those rags you’re wearing. They’ve probably got fleas in them. And a haircut. We’ll deal with the rest when you look like a person again.”
~
Jaejoong couldn’t remember the last bath he’d had, let alone a haircut or new clothes. He stared at himself in the polished silver mirror (another thing he’d only ever heard about) and wondered if it had been magicked to lie about the person standing in front of it.
The cook, who’d identified herself as Eunae, seemed to agree. “Look at you. Who’d have thought a pretty face like that was buried under all that dirt and grime? Now how about some food? Then we’ll see Yooman about finding you a room.”
He wasn’t at all sure how he felt about being called ‘pretty’ but he knew exactly how he felt about the promise of food. His stomach rumbled loudly before he had a chance to respond. Eunae laughed. “I take it you think it’s a good plan. Come on, then.”
They returned to the kitchen where it all started to find another boy already there. He looked about Jaejoong’s age, or perhaps a little younger. Eunae frowned when the boy froze guiltily. “Hyunjoong, do I want to ask what you’re doing in the kitchen at this time of day?”
“Uh...” His eyes darted away, then back, then he caught sight of Jaejoong standing half-behind Eunae. “Oh! Someone new?”
She sighed, like she couldn’t believe fate had saddled her with two of them. “Yes, someone new. In fact, since you obviously have so much time, you can take him to see the steward and find him a room.” She crossed the room, gathering a pair of small loaves and a piece of cheese into a bundle and handing it to Hyunjoong. “And make sure he eats those and not you. Now go on! Hurry up before I find you something worse to do!”
He bowed quickly, face set in a well-practiced expression of hurt. “You never trust me anymore.” He pouted at Jaejoong like he expected him to commiserate. Jaejoong just stood there. “...Anyway. Let’s go.”
He darted past Eunae, who just rolled her eyes and went about her business, and grabbed Jaejoong’s wrist to pull him along. Jaejoong let that go as far as the corridor before jerking them both to a halt and tugging his hand free. “I’m not a dog.”
The other boy crossed his arms with a huff. “Why’re you so grumpy?”
“Maybe because I have manners.” Which he didn’t, but no one else needed to know that.
It at least somewhat seemed to work. “Oh. Right. I’m Hyunjoong. What’s your name?”
“Jaejoong. I just got here this afternoon.” No one he’d met had tried to kill him yet, or really seemed all that different from the people he’d known before, the mage who dragged him here notwithstanding. “Do we really get our own rooms?”
Hyunjoong looked at him oddly. “Yes? Why wouldn’t we?”
Jaejoong attempted a nonchalant shrug, but not living shoulder-to-shoulder with other people was the strangest concept yet. The fact that the place seemed half deserted didn’t help, either. “How many people are there, if they have enough rooms to give everyone their own?”
“Well...” Hyunjoong paused. “Actually, let’s keep moving while we talk. If she wants us to see the steward, we have to hurry or he’ll go to bed and you’ll have to sleep in the hallway or something. Oh, and here.” He handed Jaejoong the bundle of food and didn’t try to grab any part of Jaejoong to drag him along this time. “Anyway, like I was saying, it seems like a lot, but only trainee mages have their own rooms in the Tower. And the teachers and the really high ranking people, like the Council. The rest either get rooms in the palace or find their own places. I mean, I guess you could request to keep your room, but most mages don’t. They just get tired of seeing the same four walls all the time. Pluse, they work for the King, so it’s not like they can’t afford it..”
Jaejoong couldn’t even imagine getting tired of seeing the same four walls, especially if those walls were at all warm or waterproof. Then again, he couldn’t imagine being able to afford it, either, so there was that. He dragged one of the loaves out of the bundle, chewing on it as they walked.
Hyunjoong was still talking. He guessed Hyunjoong must really like doing that. “And then there are all the mages fighting at the front.” He paused. “Some of them keep rooms here, just in case, but most don’t bother.”
At the front? Like in the war? People only ever told vague rumors of a long war that they weren’t winning down in the lower city. He’d never heard someone talk about it like they knew everything there was to know. Like it wasn’t some vague thing used to terrify children. “...Why not?”
“Because most of them aren’t going to come back.” Hyunjoong turned a corner and for once stayed silent.
Jaejoong wanted to ask more questions, but it felt like a forbidden topic now. Why wouldn’t they come back? Why did they go in the first place? Mages weren’t warriors, were they? They just... actually, he didn’t really know what mages did, now that he thought about it. He’d only ever done card tricks, but he didn’t think they’d have entire classes on that. That seemed like a safer topic. “So why did they bring me here?”
“Because you’re a mage?”
Jaejoong bristled at the tone, like it was a stupid question. “I am not! I was just minding my own business when a whole bunch of guards showed up and dragged me here. I’m not a mage.”
“Well, not yet.” Was that supposed to make Jaejoong less annoyed? He knew what he was! “But you will be. That’s what the classes are for, to make sure we all get better at our magic. I’ve been here for two years already!”
Well, that was an interesting sidenote. “You’re my age?”
Now it was Hyunjoong’s turn to look offended. “I’m ten, but my parents decided since I was smart for my age that I should start early. I’m on top of most of my classes, too. And when I’m a mage, I’ll go back to my hometown and be an advisor for the Duke! Just wait and see!”
An advisor for a duke? Mages did that? Jaejoong was learning all kinds of things, and he didn’t know how he felt about that. He didn’t know anything about mages, that was obvious, and now he had to try to become one. “What if I want to leave?”
Hyunjoong froze in the middle of the hallway, despite his advice that they keep moving, and stared at Jaejoong like he’d grown a second head or said he didn’t like breathing air very much. “Leave?”
Suddenly if felt like he’d done something very wrong, which of course just made him push the issue more. “Yeah, leave. Like, what if I wanted to walk right back out, right now? Who’s going to stop me? The mage earlier, he said it was an invitation not a command or anything.” No matter that it hadn’t sounded like an invitation at all. “So if I want to, then what?”
Hyunjoong stared and blinked and very obviously tried to think of a correct answer to that. “You... You can’t. No one can.”
“Why?”
“They just... We can’t. We can’t leave. No one leaves the Circle once they’ve started training in the Tower.” Hyunjoong was starting to look vaguely wide-eyed and panicky, like he wasn’t sure Jaejoong wouldn’t jump him or something equally dangerous.
“Well, I haven’t started training yet, have I?” Jaejoong turned, quite prepared to stomp his way right back down to the kitchen and out of the place. He was not expecting Hyunjoong’s response.
“No!” Hyunjoong grabbed his arm, holding it tightly between both hands. “You can’t. I mean it, you really can’t!”
This time, Jaejoong didn’t jerk away. “Why not?”
Hyunjoong looked almost ready to start crying. “You just can’t. Please?”
Jaejoong hesitated. This was obviously something dangerous, and he didn’t know what, but with Hyunjoong reacting like that, he probably wouldn’t get very far, anyway. “I bet I could, but okay.”
Hyunjoong practically sagged to the floor, and very well might have if not for his hold on Jaejoong’s arm. “Good. That’s good. You’ll see, you’ll get to do really awesome things with magic and help the kingdom and- Oh! The Steward! We have to hurry!”
He dropped Jaejoong’s arm, only to take off up a set of stairs at a run. Jaejoong hesitated again just for another moment before pelting after him. He had no idea what was going on anymore, but if leaving wasn’t an option, he’d just have to make the best of staying. He was pretty good at that sort of thing these days.
~
Jaejoong sat on his bed, which was a real bed with a mattress and a pillow and everything, and stared at the opposite wall for a very long time after Hyunjoong left. This all felt too good to be true, suddenly. Who would ever want to pick up some stray and make them into something that might work for the King one day? Who would give them food and a warm bed all for... well, not nothing, but not much more than that, as far as Jaejoong could tell.
He flopped back, looking up at the moon out of his window, just trying to digest everything. Tomorrow he’d be tested. He didn’t even know what that meant. Hyunjoong had been vague when he’d asked, implying only that it was different for everyone. It might mean that he’d have to leave, if he didn’t pass.
He suddenly found that he really didn’t want to leave. And not just because Hyunjoong thought it was such a bad idea.
He sat up abruptly, crawling over his bed to stare down at the lights of the middle city. The lower city was already dark beyond it, but somewhere down there, somewhere... it wasn’t home, but it was familiar. He wasn’t sure he knew how to leave it behind, but he’d have to. He’d have to become a mage instead of just Jaejoong. Could he do that?
But a mage belonged to something. A mage belonged to the Tower. A mage wasn’t at the mercy of guards and people who were stronger than him. If he became a mage, no one would ever be stronger than him again. The Tower was stronger than anything, and a mage belonged to the Tower.
A mage belonged. And maybe everyone else hated mages because they were scared of them, but everyone had pretty much already hated him, so it was okay. He could deal with that.
He’d be a Mage of the Tower, and what people thought would never hurt him again.
A sudden urge struck him and he leaned out of his window as far as he could, eyes on the dark shapes of the lower city. He took a deep breath. “I’m going to be a Mage of the Tower!” He yelled as loud and as long as he could, then ducked back into his room and slammed the shutters closed, hoping no one would kick him out for that. It just... made it official.
He nodded to himself. Official. He dropped onto his back and fell asleep, dreaming of magic.
This entry was originally posted at http://envious-muses.dreamwidth.org/12200.html.