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timotey · 7 months

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Ficlet: All Hail the King

The Sign. Sakuna(Nopparuj)/Wansarut. Missing Scene, What-If. Unbeta'd.

Ticharuj realizes he is grieving. For Nopparuj.

(I wondered who actually forged Wansarut's soul into a necklace. Ergo, a ficlet.)

*.*.*

“Kill them. Kill them all!”

That’s what Ticharuj orders his soldiers to do, his wings aflame, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides, when he finds his brother’s dead body by the stream.

For a moment, he just stands there, staring at Sakunanopparuj. Nopparuj. The one with whom Ticharuj has been ruling over the Garuda people for centuries. His only brother. The only family he has ever cared for. As much as he cares about these things at all, that is. And now…

Now Nopparuj is dead. His soul is gone, he’s already entered the reincarnation cycle, he will never be Sakunanopparuj again and Ticharuj is… alone. He feels… alone. Like something is missing. Something essential. Something that has always been there, ever since he can remember, and now it is not. It’s strange. It’s odd. He doesn’t like it, that feeling.

He takes a step closer. And another. He can feel the Naga magic all over the place, all around him, emanating from Nopparuj's body, from all his injuries, from all his spilled blood, it’s all Naga, NagaNagaNaga. And Ticharuj will make them pay! He will make… Chalothon pay, the lord of them all, because there’s no one else who could’ve done this, no one else who was stronger than Sakunanopparuj.

He stops and slowly sinks down to his knees next to his brother. The fury he feels, the sense of… loss, they surprise him. To his astonishment, Ticharuj realizes he is grieving. For Nopparuj. He is grieving for his reckless, hotheaded brother with whom he rarely saw eye to eye, with whom he fought over everything. Constantly. And especially lately, ever since Nopparuj had fallen in love.

she must be a real beauty if she caught your eye

she is, she’s splendid in all her forms

In all her forms…

A dark suspicion forms in Ticharuj’s mind. But Nopparuj wouldn’t. He couldn’t have been such a fool as to fall for a Nagini! Impossible! He couldn’t have fallen for such a simpleminded ruse! He couldn’t have let himself be trapped like that! He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have!

Now that Ticharuj is so close, he can sense more Naga magic, but of a different kind. It’s not violent or aggressive, it’s not a destructive force. It’s softer, weaker, mellower, a spring rain rather than a violent storm, a bubbling creek rather than wild rapids. And it’s coming from…

Ticharuj’s eyes travel down Nopparuj's broken, lifeless body. Then he reaches out and takes his brother’s hand in his - it’s still a little warm, Nopparuj's hand, still pliant as if he were merely asleep and could wake up at any moment - and pries his fingers open. There, in his palm, a Nagini soul, a weak little thing, a scale the size of his thumbnail.

He lifts it for a closer look, rolling it between his fingers, and that's when he realizes to whom this ugly thing must’ve belonged: to the seductress, the enchantress, the traitor who lured his brother here, away from his guards, to a place where the Naga magic was at its strongest, where it would’ve been easy for Lord Chalothon to kill Nopparuj.

Rage seizes him and he’s about to crush the scale and destroy the bitch’s soul, he wants to take at least that away from her, make her lose a piece of herself for all eternity - when he feels something else. It’s radiating off the scale in his hand. It’s warm and sweet, a deep desire, a desperate wish, a promise given in the form of a soul.

i only wish to be right next you

i will always take care of you

That Nagini girl. Ticharuj stares at the scale, now resting in the palm of his hand. Then he glances down at the blood smeared rock next to his brother’s body. It’s Naga blood. The Nagini - he listens hard to the whispers echoing from the soul - Wansarut, yes, Wansarut. She died for his brother, right here, he realizes with astonishment.

As he holds the scale, the images of things past flash through his mind. Wansarut’s pleading, Nopparuj's determination to never let her go, Chalothon’s attack and then… She tried to shield Nopparuj with his own body, the foolish girl. She truly loved him, then. And she died with him. Pledging all her future lives to Nopparuj's protection.

Wansarut’s sacrifice, her promise bound within her soul. His brother’s pledge to keep looking for her, should they ever live again, whispered with his last breath. Their… love. Yes, it was love. They did love each other, truly. Ticharuj can sense it now. He doesn’t really understand it - they’re sworn enemies, the Garuda and the Naga! - but he can’t deny their feelings were genuine. Whoever used, misused, abused their love, it wasn’t Wansarut.

Ticharuj kneels there, on the hard rock in the middle of the woods with a stream rushing nearby, with his brother’s deathly still body in front of him, and his thirst for revenge remains unquenched. He will make the Naga pay, they will die by the scores for every drop of Sakunanopparuj’s blood they spilled, he will make them regret what they had done but–

But that little part of him that belonged to his brother, that part that he hardly noticed before, when he was still there, it longs to see Nopparuj's wish fulfilled.

He closes his hand around the scale and uses his fire power to melt it, forge it, change it, to give its purpose a physical shape.

When he's done, Ticharuj looks down at his brother, at his pale, blood spattered face, and says, “I hope your wishes come true, Sakunanopparuj, yours and hers. And that one day, you remember it all.”

And Wansarut’s soul, now forged into a jewel by the godly fire power of a Garuda king, hears it all.

#the sign #the sign the series #mé #my fics #my the sign fics

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