A Brief Intermission
Rating: G | Category: Gen | No Warnings Apply | Originally posted 4/10/22
Swaine & Marcassin | Minor implied Swaine/Sindbah
Swaine and Marcassin have to take a quick detour while working on a project together.
This has been rotting in my drafts for 2 full whole years and I decided that it finally dies tonight. Will say though due to the fact that a lot of parts of this are 1-2 years old that the writing and characterization is a little inconsistent at times but good lord I'm just glad that this is finally done and I can post it.
It had been more or less three months since Swaine and the others managed to save the world, twice, actually. Honestly, so much had happened in so little time Swaine had grown kind of numb to it. Within a month, he took in two kids, came back home, saw his brother for the first time in fifteen years, and fought at least three eldritch beings. But since it was all over now, he thought it better than to spend time worrying about it.
Once everything calmed down again, Oliver went back to his world, Esther went back to Al Mamoon, and there was really nowhere else for Swaine to go but Hamelin. It wasn’t like Marcassin would ever turn him away, plus he had a cozy little deal there now, being the overseer of basically any mechanisms the empire was making.
He’d been on a tall platform, meddling away at some new tank he was making, with Marcassin on the ground floor overlooking blueprints. Swaine was reinforcing the window with shadowglass when he reached into the basket beside him, only to reach out for air.
“Oi, Marcassin!” He called from above. “You got any more shadowglass?”
Marcassin looked up at him, glaring. “We’re out. That was the last batch.”
“The hell do you mean that was the last batch!” Swaine yelled down. “I need at least one more basket to top this off!”
“I told you that was the last batch when you grabbed it down here!”
“Well, I didn’t hear you!” Swaine huffed, picked up the empty basket, and began climbing down the step ladder.
Marcassin raised a brow as his brother touched the ground and began walking out of the workshop. “And where do you think you’re going?”
“Going to get more.” He shrugged, and kept going on his way.
“By yourself?!” Marcassin exclaimed, “Swaine, it’s dangerous out there! You know how untamed familiars are!”
Swaine rolled his eyes, “I survived out there when I was a teenager. I can protect myself right fine.”
“Well, I’m coming with you anyway!” Marcassin began speed walking to catch up with his brother. Swaine stopped for a moment and shook his head gently before spinning around and leaning closer to him.
“Have you gotten taller?” Swaine said, jokingly pushing his palm against Marcassin’s forehead, Marcassin whining in protest.
“I have not gotten taller.” He hissed, and all his brother could do was laugh.
“Well obviously! Look at you! You’re half my height!”
“I am not! If anything, it’s more... three-fourths of your height.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re always going to be shorter because you’re a baby. ” Swaine mocked, his palm still stiffly pushing on his brother’s forehead.
“Gascon, I am twenty-one years-” Swaine immediately lightly shoved Marcassin backward and flicked his forehead. “Ow! That hurt!”
“Don’t call me Gascon then.” He laughed, “Let’s go.”
No matter what time of day or year, it was always dark and cold in Southern Autumnia. The sun still shone obviously, but never as bright or as warm as the Summerlands or even the northern parts of the region. Swaine held his old coat closer to himself as he and Marcassin walked.
The beasts and rouge machines that roamed the Pig Iron Plains, familiars that lacked a mage’s heart to keep them in check, left the two brothers alone for the most part. They all knew better than to challenge the duo, and anything that did quickly regretted it.
When they finally got to the spot in the plains where their coveted shadowglass was, Swaine and Marcassin picked up what they needed and quietly began walking back to Hamelin.
That was the issue, it was far too quiet. Normally Swaine would at least be making some kind of snide remark, or Marcassin would be making an observant comment about his surroundings, but there was only silence between them.
Marcassin was the first to break the quiet. “Much colder than usual today, isn’t it?” He said, Swaine could tell he was desperately trying to find something to talk about.
“Tell me about it,” Swaine replied. “Summer’s basically done with, wouldn’t be surprised if we start getting frost soon.”
Despite its name, fall was not a concept that existed in southern Autumnia. At the very best, you would get slightly chilly days during the summer, and then wake up one morning to see it snowing like mad. It wasn’t the pretty kind of snow they get in The Winter Isles either; the only kind of snow Hamelin got was all mud mixed with slush. In particularly nasty years, they even got hail.
Marcassin clicked his tongue. “We’ll probably have to raise the roof on the city again. I’d hate to see any of the machinery malfunction from the rain and snow….”
“We’ll worry about that after we finish this tank.”
“You know this is all your fault, Swaine.” Marcassin said, “If you were actually paying attention, you would’ve known we were out of shadowglass-”
“Oh, we’re playing that game now?” Swaine retorted. “Maybe if you were paying attention to the blueprints, you would’ve known we were short on shadowglass, and we wouldn’t have had to drop everything to go get more!”
“If you had a better grasp of the kingdom’s resources, you wouldn’t have designed the tank to need more shadowglass than we had!” Marcassin shook his finger at him, chastising him like some kind of child.
“I’m sorry I don’t keep an inventory of every single individual material in the Hamelin reserves! I have other things to worry about, you know-”
“Right.” Marcassin rolled his eyes. “Other things to worry about, like making moon eyes at that sailor fellow-”
Swaine’s outcry could’ve been heard from the coastline.
“Now who the bloody hell told you about that!”
Marcassin only laughed. “Let’s just say a little songbird told me.”
“A songbi-Esther!” Swaine stomped his foot on the ground “when I get my hands on that brat! I’ll-“
“Oh, and it’s painfully obvious in your letters.”
Swaine stopped in his tracks, his face twisting. “You read my mail!?”
“....Just once.”
“Once is already one time too much!” He snapped.
Marcassin crossed his arms. “I knew you weren’t getting letters from Esther or Drippy, and Oliver could just drop by anytime if he wanted to say hello.”
“You could’ve, I don’t know, just asked me who was sending them?”
“You and I both know you would’ve dodged that question like your life depended on it! We both have the wax stamp of the family crest, you know. Easy to reseal letters and make them look unopened.” His brother placed a hand on his forehead and pretended to swoon. “Oh, how I, Prince Swaine of Hamelin, miss your laughter, Si-”
“Marcassin, I swear I’ll throw you down that canyon if you don’t shut your trap!”
“I’d like to see you rule Hamelin without me!”
“You wouldn’t.” Swaine replied matter-of-factly, “because you’d be down there,” he pointed towards the canyon, “dead.”
Marcassin threw up his hand lightheartedly, and his brother rolled his eyes.
“Just don’t do it again, right?”
“Oh, I wasn’t planning to.” The young sage began to walk faster, almost skipping as they got closer to their kingdom’s gates. “You’re too much of a sap in your writing anyway.”
Swaine scowled, “ Hey !” He exclaimed, “You get back here!” He also picked up his pace but still went much slower than Marcassin to avoid letting any of the shadowglass in the basket he was carrying spill out. Every step he took, it seemed like his brother got faster. He ended up chasing him all the way up to the mouth to the gates of Hamelin, and he heard Marcassin laughing at him all the while.
Marcassin was still giggling by the time he caught up to him, to where Swaine playfully nudged his shoulder.
“Ankle-biter.”
Marcassin beamed in response.
“I missed this.” Marcassin said, “Just...spending time with you.”
Swaine sighed and smiled. “...Me too.” He cocked his head over towards the city in front of them. “Do we have a tank to finish building or what?”
His brother nodded, “Let’s go, then.”