Runaways- Vania Madan ( Pen-Magic: Short Story- Sem 1)

 

Runaways

vania madan

“Do you remember,” said Troy, “the day we first met?”

Markus glanced at him from across the table, a cup of tea slowly growing cold between the cradle of his hands. “As if I could forget,” he replied, too exhausted to smile. He wanted to be able to give Troy that small comfort, that reassurance, even if things were… the way they were. 

“Yeah.” Troy drummed restless fingers against the tabletop. “Pity we’re gonna kill each other at sunrise, then, huh?”

Mark looked away, bitter taste filling his mouth. “Don’t… don’t say it like that.”

“Don’t say it like what?”

He couldn’t see Troy’s expression, but he could hear the irritation in his voice. Normally, it would take hell and heaven to make Troy snap at him. Normally, animosity wouldn’t fester between them like a dark secret, or an untreated wound beneath their gold-lined tunics. Normally, all it took would be a shared look and a soft, exasperated sigh for all to be forgiven. Normally, they were kinder to each other. 

These were not normal circumstances. 

Because, normally, they wouldn’t have daggers tucked into their boots or swords strapped to their waists or mistrust sown into every gesture. Normally, they would not have to meet in secret, in this abandoned, lightless house, only seeing each other through thick veils of shadow. Normally, two armies wouldn’t be gathering in the valley beyond, both hailing from kingdoms with something to prove and willing to kill for it. 

Mark didn’t even know how it got so out of hand. One day, he was sitting at the round table with his parents beside him, laughing over something Troy’s own parents had said. Two kings, two queens and two princes in a room filled with sunlight and hope. They often talked of peace and shared trade routes and plans for the future, while their sons grinned at each other and silently ordered the other to be the one to first ask if they could be excused to play. Sometimes, Troy would cave, but most times it was Mark tugging at his mother’s gown, asking, “May I please…”, and he wouldn’t even get to finish before his mother was smiling with understanding and telling him to go. 

And he and Troy would run, faster than they could breathe, out to the gardens where they had spent their childhoods learning and relearning each other, and where they would continue to learn. Friendship, Mark had realised, was simply a constant education on someone else, and he remembered sitting under the shadows of an elm tree, watching Troy attempt to catch a bee in his hands, and thinking, I want to learn about you forever. 

And then, the next day, he’d lost everything. 

Was it a misunderstanding that started it? From which camp? Who had uttered the first unforgivable word? Who had crossed the line? Did it matter now, when nothing else did?

Whatever had started it, this was how it ended: two armies sharpening their blades for a bloodbath at sunrise, and two princes stealing away to learn each other one last time. 

With a shaky sigh, Mark said, “Don’t say it like it’s a sure thing. Like there’s no way out of this.”

“Hate to break it to you,” Troy said, “but I’m pretty sure we’re beyond looking for escape routes now.”

“There must be something—”

“We’ve already done everything!”

Troy’s strangled words made Mark snap his gaze up towards him again. He could see the other boy breathing heavily in the dark, his shoulders trembling with every inhale. Instinct made Mark almost reach for him. Better judgement decided against it. 

What would be the point, trying to be kind now, when they both knew how this would end?

Better Troy think he didn’t care. Better Troy think he hated him. It would be easier to raise a sword against him then. 

“We’ve begged,” Troy continued, his words tripping over each other in their hasty desperation, “we’ve offered them solutions to whatever bitter grudge they still hold. They didn’t budge. They’ll never budge. This is…” Inhale. Exhale. “This is it, Mark.”

Mark stared at him for a few stuttering heartbeats. And then he said, “You asked if I remembered the first day we met.”

Troy blinked slowly, but didn’t reply, just waited. The sudden sting of tears made Mark look down at his cup of tea, salvaged from the pantry of whichever family had fled from this house, away from the fighting. Being here, even knowing that there was nobody left to disturb, still felt strange; this house contained childhoods and adulthoods and lives that neither Markus nor Troy were privy to — soft, quiet, kinder lives. 

“We were… six, I think,” Mark began, working to keep his voice even. “When my parents brought me along for my first diplomatic visit. Practice, they said. Someday, their throne would be mine, and I had to know what that meant. I’m still not sure if I know.”

A small laugh that could have been a scoff. 

It was encouragement enough. 

“You were standing between your parents when we arrived. I remember your crown being too big for you, and it kept slipping down over your eyes, and you had to keep it in place with one hand. You saw me first and you said…” Mark chuckled at the memory, bittersweet as it might be. “You said, ‘Oh, brilliant, I need someone exactly like you.’”

“And I brought you to the garden,” Troy continued, his anger momentarily eclipsed by fondness for bygone times. “And I pointed out the kite stuck on the tree. ‘Grab that for me, please.’” He pitched his voice high to mimic the bold, unearned authority only managed by six-year-olds raised to be kings. 

“Your father was so embarrassed,” Mark teased, grateful for even this fleeting moment of levity. “He promised me you weren’t always like that. Guess he lied.”

“Hey,” Troy protested lightly, “at least I said please.”

“We spent the rest of the afternoon flying that kite,” Mark said. “Do you remember that?”

“Obviously.”

“Good. I just wanted to check.”

“Okay.”

“Alright.”

A silence stretched between them, a no man’s land.

They were always going to be the first casualty of this war.

“I didn’t, though,” Troy murmured, so low Mark wondered if he’d misheard.

“Sorry?”

“I didn’t lie.” Dark eyes cut through the shadows of the empty house, finding Mark. “I really did need someone like you.”

Mark’s hands tightened around his cup. “Troy…”

“You were… are my best friend,” he said resolutely, voice growing louder with each syllable. “You make everything easier. And that pisses me off a bit, I think, because you never asked for the burden of making me better, and still you carry it and you never complain and that pisses me off even more.”

“Troy—”

But Troy rushed on, “And it terrifies me, too, how much I rely on you, because how on earth am I supposed to function when you’re gone? How much of me is only me when you’re around?” He didn’t seem to realise he’d stood up, his palms pressed flat against the table between them, leaning so far towards Mark he might tip everything over. “So, fine, I might as well say it, because if the last decade wasn’t enough of a clear message, you’re my best friend and I love you. If you’re gonna take one thing with you into this war, take that.”

“For what it’s worth,” whispered Mark, “you’re my best friend, too.”

“I think,” Troy said, “that’s worth everything to me.”

“Oh, god.” Mark laughed without humor. “This is going to hurt like hell, isn’t it?”

“It already does.”

“I could join you,” Mark said, only because they both knew he never would. “Cross over to the other side, fight against my homeland. Imagine the look on my mother’s face. It’d be priceless. I would laugh if it wouldn’t tear me apart.”

Troy offered him a small grin. “What could she do then? Ground you?”

“Oh, no,” Mark said dryly. “How terrible. That is the worst fate she could ever saddle me with.”

“As if you wouldn’t just sneak out anyway,” Troy teased.

“I did that one time just because you insisted on going gallivanting through the forest at midnight,” Mark shot back with a fond shake of his head. “You’re a bad influence on me.”

“But not bad enough to ask you to betray your kingdom for me.”

“You love me too much to do that.”

“And you love me too much to ask the same from me,” Troy whispered. “Because you know the answer would be yes.”

“And I’ll hate you for it. We’ll hate each other.”

“So,” Troy said slowly, walking around the table until he was standing right in front of Mark. “Obviously, we’re gonna die on that battlefield in the morning.”

“I could stay far away from you,” Mark replied quietly. “If I have to go, I’d rather not have you do it.”

“Huh.” Troy cocked his head to the side as he considered Mark in the dim. “I was gonna suggest the opposite. Thought it would be nice.”

A bitter laugh. “What part of any of this is nice?”

“Dying in your arms. You being the last thing I see. Under any other circumstances, I’d argue it’s the best way to go.”

“You baffle me.”

“No, I don’t. You understand me better than I do.”

“Learning and relearning,” Mark replied with a smile that weighed heavily on his mouth. He was glad for the darkness, then. It hid his hesitation well.

But not well enough for Troy.

“You really don’t want to do this, do you?” Troy asked softly.

Mark felt irritation crawl and settle under his skin—not at Troy, just a general frustration at the nuisance that was the universe. “Of course I don’t. I’d imagine no one would ever want to choose between treason or killing your best friend.”

“Then let’s choose something else.”

The words fell between them like a sudden downpour, pounding against their shoulders and washing everything cold and clean.

“What do you have in mind?” Mark whispered, daring to hope, knowing disappointment or deliverance waited at the end of this road.

There was a renewed light in Troy’s eyes, a familiar one.

Troy put both hands on each of Mark’s shoulders and spun him around to face him fully. The teacup toppled with the motion, spilling cold and bittersweet tea across the table, but all Mark could feel was the warmth of Troy’s palms.

“I can’t make you choose between me and your kingdom. I can’t do that to you. I can’t let you do that to yourself. So, I’m choosing for both of us, okay? Let me do this for you. Let me do this for us.” Troy took a deep breath, his fingers holding on to Mark for dear life. “Let’s go.”

“Go?” Mark repeated, unsure whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the offer.

“Yeah,” Troy said, his face dead serious. “Let’s just go. Let’s leave. Run away and never look back.”

Mark began to protest, but Troy was a force of nature, uncontainable.

“Look, what’s two people missing from the battlefield going to do? They won’t notice. Our parents are so busy trying to kill each other they probably won’t be bothered to ask where we are until this all blows over, and by then we’ll be far away from here.”

“Troy,” Mark croaked, “my family—”

“We can come back,” Troy insisted. “Of course we’ll come back, after everything. But I refuse to let them do this to us. I won’t let them, okay? I just can’t.” His voice shattered over the last word, and Mark felt the same thing happen in his chest. “You were looking for an escape route, weren’t you? This is it. And you’re either with me, or you aren’t. Just say the word, and I’ll be quiet forever.”

For a moment, they only stared at each other, the only sounds their uneven breathing, Mark’s heartbeat rushing in his ears, and the slow dripping of spilled tea onto the hardwood floor.

And then, gently, softly, afraid to break more than he already had, Mark said, “Where will we even go?” and Troy grinned, because he knew it was Mark’s answer.

“Everywhere,” breathed Troy. “Anywhere. I don’t really care. Do you?”

“No,” said Mark.

Just as long as we’re together, he thought, but it didn’t need to be said. He let Troy step closer into the circle of his arms and buried his face against the front of Troy’s tunic. He felt Troy’s own arms go around him, holding him close, and for a moment, they just existed, Troy standing and Mark sitting in a small, dark house, miles away from everyone and everything else. Mark took a deep breath as the full weight of the decision began to settle on him, but he only needed to hug Troy just a little bit tighter for everything to feel light again.

“We could find a little town,” Troy mused. “Make up stories about who we are and where we’re from. We could be anybody.”

“Snake oil merchants,” Mark offered with a muffled chuckle. “Or a traveling two-man circus act.”

“You’ll play the part of Unnaturally Tall Man, and I’ll be the ringleader getting us into all sorts of problems.”

“Oh, so, business as usual, then?”

“Mm-hmm,” Troy said gently, tightening his hold on Mark. Mark could hear his heart through his shirt, keeping in time with the steadying beat of Mark’s own. “Business as usual.”

They left on the eve of the war, vanishing like smoke or figures in the mist that were never there to begin with. They were not on the tally of the survivors, but neither were they among the dead scattered across the dirt and mud. The kings and queens would call foul, blame the other for sabotage, or hostage-taking, or more betrayal to add to the pile, but even if they turned every rock and mountain over, it would be clear that the disappearance was not involuntary. They would understand, quite soon, that it would be more difficult looking for people who did not want to be found.

It will take some time, but scouts would find that little house, abandoned once more, its door hanging open as if in invitation. There, they would find two swords and two daggers discarded on the floor, their gilded scabbards gleaming in the hazy morning light. And on a table, right beside an overturned cup, two gold crowns lying side by side.

Later on, the first of the reports would begin. Many of the claims would be unfounded, but the rest spoke the same, sure story. They will speak of that sunrise battle, of almost getting so caught up in the frenzy of war that they almost missed it: in the distance, standing just beyond where the frontlines had carved the field in two, were twin shadows cast in daylight.

They would say the shadows stood close, almost as if they were a single, two-headed thing, or two separate beings holding fast to each other. The stories began to differ towards the end: was it the taller of the two that had been the first to walk away, or was it the shorter one? Did they linger, or turn away without hesitation?

One truth remained above all.

Neither of them looked back.