Solar Eclipse is a prequel to Bloodthirst focusing on the relationship of Toby and Kai, from how they met to how they get together, and how they will eventually make their way into the main story. Chapters will be added sporadically, but I hope you enjoy this step into the world of Bloodthirst!
Comments are welcomed and encouraged, I am very much excited to hear everyone’s thoughts.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
It starts with a cracked window overlooking the training grounds. Scrawny teenagers and overly enthusiastic fighters fill the open area cluttered with gear, from mannequins half falling apart with the many strikes that have chipped away at their wooden exteriors, to targets with perfectly scarlet centres from many missed arrows.
Toby has seen it all before from his room, high up in a tower overlooking the space. It’s the quietest place in the castle, though that isn’t why he claimed it the moment his father offered him free pickings when he became old enough to not need to be attached to the man’s hip. No, the reason he chose this spot is because it had the clearest view of the stars, one that kept him up at night to listen to the tunes that flowed from each sparkling fleck across the sky.
Once, he’d asked his father if that was what he heard—if he looked up at the stars and heard melodies and symphonies—but he was told no, that it must simply be his innate attachment to music. Regardless of the reason for it, Toby couldn’t help but be drawn to the night, to long for it, to wait with baited breath for a new song to emerge, hand-plucked by his very fingers.
Maybe that was why he was drawn to the moonchaser below, the one who’s smile beamed so brightly, Toby could see it from his window. The archer shimmered with flecks of gold, scattered across sapphire-tinged skin, as if the very stars Toby couldn’t get out of his mind had laid claim to this mortal.
That alone wasn’t the only reason the stranger had peaked Toby’s interest, of course. There were too many reasons to count, though the prince had tried his best to. The archer was one of the few trainees that actually stood a chance, who got up regardless of how hard he was flung across the training grounds, who laughed at his arrow snapping in half as it hit the edge of the target. He was also the one who hit the centre the most, the one who stayed long after the sun had gone down simply to hit the same circle over and over until he hit his mark without fault. And the worst reason of all, to Toby, at least…
He stopped every time Toby played. Whatever he was doing at the exact moment that Toby began to drag his bow across the strings of his violin, the moonchaser would pause, look up towards the tower, and smile faintly. As if he could hear Toby’s music. As if he was waiting for it.
Which should be impossible, Toby has reasoned with himself far too many times, considering he was so far up into the sky he could barely see the faces of the people below. Especially because he made sure to keep his window ajar at most, closed when the weather allowed it. But mostly because he had heard far too many complaints from the rest of the castle about missing his music, about wishing he could play more where they could hear him.
To put it simply, there is no logical way for this random archer to know that Toby is playing at all, let alone to be able to hear him.
Perhaps that’s why when the man is being evaluated, when Toby’s father goes to check on the latest batch of newbies and decide who will be formally trained to join his forces and who will be sent away to try again when the leaves fall once more, Toby plays something.
No, he doesn’t just play anything. He plays magic.
Toby, with his curiosity overflowing, sits at his too-far-open-to-be-ajar window with his violin as the moonchaser strides up to his equipment and rolls out his shoulders, obvious nerves radiating from the man. Then, he picks up his bow and he channels his magic into his fingers, he plucks at the strings and he plays with as much energy as he can, casting a spell he has long since memorised. If the moonchaser could hear his melody, he would be imbued with the confidence of a God.
By the time he’s finished, when he strings together the last of his own courage to peek at the scene below, he finds the man staring up at him, meeting his gaze. Blue is the colour of his eyes, as blue as a cloudless sky, something Toby didn’t know he was longing to know but now felt relieved to note in his mind. They crinkle around the edges when the moonchaser grins, a beaming smile that’s crooked on one side, showcasing a dimple that Toby wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t half leaning out the open window with his breath stuck in his throat.
The archer could hear him. The archer very obviously knew he was being charmed, knew that Toby was the one charming him.
This time when the moonchaser readies himself, bow in hand and back straightening, there’s an air of confidence around him that feels much more powerful than Toby’s simple spell should allow for. Though maybe being spelled by the known hermit of the kingdom who rarely speaks, let alone approaches others, would do that to a person. Toby surely hoped not, finding his cheeks aflame at the idea of such a thing.
With the three arrows he’s given, the archer hits the mark thrice. Not a single arrow strays from the crimson centre of the target, nothing but perfection from the man who’d spent countless hours ensuring such a thing. In all honestly, Toby didn’t need to spell him at all, having seen him under the stars, having known he could do it without an ounce of magic, but he was curious.
That was the only reason.
All Toby wanted was to confirm the moonchaser could hear him. And that he’d keep seeing him under the night’s sky, as intriguing as a star. It was simple curiosity.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Kai is royally fucked. Or, he wish he was, but that’s kinda the problem.
Look, it wasn’t like he wanted to feed his delusional little crush! It just…happened! One day, he’s a child helping his dad carry his tinkerer’s tools around a castle so big it felt like a new world; the next he’s face to face with the prince he may have possibly fallen a little bit in love with on that lone day as a kid.
See, he used to assist his dad all the time, though it was more hindering him than anything else but when you barely reach your parent’s thigh, you don’t realise them dragging you around is because you can’t be left alone. As much as he treasured time with his dad, he also got…curious. Whenever Stevie, his old man, was called to a new place, Kai would come along and wait until his dad was too invested in his work to notice him slipping away to explore. Portraits of smiling faces, stuffed dolls, horrible curtains with garish colours and designs: nothing was off limits! It was like stepping into someone else’s mind being able to see their home, to sneak around when no one was filling the space and get a glimpse at the things they put on display—and the ones they hid from sight.
Not that he should be doing any of that, but who could blame him? He was a child! It’s a habit he slowly grew out of. Well, not before he ran into the prince, that is.
Twelve years old with excitement bubbling over in the little cauldron that was his sense of self control, Kai joined his dad in assisting the king. The castle wasn’t a place that people freely visited, nor a place that Kai had ever imagined stepping inside of, and yet here he was. Not only did he get to meet the king himself—an incredibly poised man with golden skin and hair bleached by the sun who smiled as warmly as Kai’s own parents at him in greeting—he also got to see the lavish interior of somewhere he’d only dreamt of.
White marble paint the walls, stars coating high ceilings, staircases with more gold than any one person should own—though the king has ensured it was enchanted to look that way and he wasn’t keeping the region’s supply of precious metals to himself, or that’s what he told Stevie who relayed it to a much older Kai when he could understand gold is precious at all—and carpets that run on from room to room portraying a night sky so pretty, Kai could almost bathe in it. Silly moonchasers, constantly drawn to the night even when it’s stitched into fabrics.
After all this time, Kai couldn’t tell you what he was even there to help fix, nor if they managed to fix it at all. He only remembers music. A violin playing joyfully from a room down the very long corridor, a sound that called to him, as if pulling him closer one note at a time. It was truly enchanting, unlike anything the young boy had ever heard.
So when his dad had gotten to work and the music continued…Kai chased it. He slipped out of the room and tiptoed his way toward the sound until he found a door just open enough for him to press up against and get a glimpse inside. What he found was a boy about his age, with similarly golden skin to the king himself, and hair a few shades too dark to match. His eyes are wide and brimming with excitement as he animatedly talks to someone out of Kai’s eyeline, placing an instrument Kai wouldn’t know the name of until much later down in a plush velvet case as he continues in a tongue Kai can’t comprehend. Even that sounds melodic, mixed with a voice that rings clear with joy.
“Excuse me for a moment, Toto,” a distinct tone interrupts, footsteps quickly approaching the door. It swings open before Kai realises he’d been caught, now blinking up at the very king he’d compared the boy to. “Can I help you, Kai?”
“Uh— I— I was—” Kai fumbles over his words, feeling his heart race. He liked the king, he wanted to king to like him, too, but this was definitely not the right way to do that. Patrons above, he wished he’d been caught before by someone less important so he would know not to sneak around others’ houses. He would never, ever do this again, not if it meant having this awful tight feeling in his chest. “I’m so sorry—”
“Hush, child,” King Luca reassures, leaning down to meet Kai’s shocked gaze with that same smile from before, not a hint of judgement on his face. “Would you like to meet my son?”
Glancing behind the king, Kai finds the prince hiding, barely covered by the table he’s trying to use, and decides against it. Not now. Maybe another time. Some other polite excuse.
“No! I— I don’t want to— I shouldn’t—”
“Toby, would you like to meet Kai?” Luca asks over his shoulder, ignoring Kai’s blabbering. The boy replies in the tongue Kai can’t understand, a simple phrase, barely more than an instant and his voice is gone once more. “That isn’t very polite of you.”
Oh? So the prince—Toby—doesn’t want to meet him? Well, that’s fine! That’s only a little bit bad for Kai’s newly founded feelings considering he’s pretty sure the racing of his heart when he looks at Toby has nothing to do with being caught anymore. When the boy frowns in Kai’s direction before stomping over, it solidifies the crush, Kai’s mind easily supplying the word ‘cute’ to the action.
“Hello,” Toby says, voice accented with hints of the language Kai doesn’t know. He turns to his dad with a stubborn hint to his jaw as he continues. “There. Goodbye, stranger.”
Kai stumbles forward a step, rushing with his words, with his need to say something more than nothing. “I really like your music! You’re really good.”
Toby stops mid-step, glare softening as he looks back at the moonchaser. “You shouldn’t be eavesdropping on people.” Amber eyes run from the top of Kai’s head to the tip of his toes and back again, making his face heat with the intensity of it. “Thank you, regardless.”
“Y-you’re welcome.”
“I would like to practise again now. Please leave.”
Nodding an awkward and rushed goodbye, Kai practically falls over his own feet as he makes his way back to his dad, feeling the lingering effects of a single interaction with the prince settling in his chest. It was a crush, nothing more, nothing less. That’s all it had to be. Right?
Wrong. Kai didn’t expect to meet the prince again, not really. Well, he’d trained ever since that day to become worthy of the king’s brigade, to be amongst the elite in protecting the kingdom, but he never really considered that being at the castle meant being around Toby.
Not that Toby was around all that much but Kai knew he was there, he could hear him. In the late afternoon, in the early evening, into the peak of the moon’s cycle. Hints of isolated melodies flowed from a window up high every night that Kai trained, a soundtrack that screamed of loneliness and longing, something only skill could put into wordless songs.
It made him feel like he was a little less alone in the dead of the night, like maybe as much as he needed the silence to be filled, Toby needed someone to listen. And yes, he was aware he was being delusional, but training was gruelling and there’s only so much a man can do to push himself through it without falling apart!
Which did not help when six years after meeting Toby for the first time, the man casts a spell on him, as if egging on every one of his fantasies that their little night-time rendezvous’ did mean something. The magic that rolled over his person, along with a melody so joyful Kai could never forget it—not since that fateful day he met the violinist—felt as good as a caress. As if Toby had floated down from his tower and wrapped Kai up in a hug to say ‘good luck, you can do it’.
And he did. He did do it. He passed the king’s first trial easily, he proved himself worthy of further training. Kai showed he had the potential to be one of the best. If only his stupid heart could prioritise that and not the fact they’d soon be moved to the inner training grounds, the one deep inside the castle where the coming winter’s cold winds couldn’t interrupt them. Where Toby’s music couldn’t either.
It’s fine! Kai would manage. He would not let this distract him from his training! Now an adult, he would move past the blips of childhood memories, of a crush he had gotten over, and—
The king showed up on the first day at their new training quarters with his mysterious son in tow. The same son who had grown in those six years, the one whose hair now reached his shoulders with streaks of blond that matched his father’s, whose face was as readable as a book just like it had been back then. The son that Kai was not going to fall for again, because childhood crushes don’t have to mean anything.
Piercing eyes as rich as caramel scan the room until they fall on Kai, sticking and forcing him to freeze in place. The world could have stopped and Kai wouldn’t notice, not under that gaze, not when his lungs had seized functioning.
“I would like to introduce you all to my son, Toby. This is a rare occasion indeed, for my boy so rarely is intrigued by what happens down here and yet he has graced us all today,” Luca begins, a beaming smile across his face as he addresses the room of soldiers and trainees.
“Papa, stop it,” Toby mutters, voice so much raspier than Kai remembers, rough and raw and absolutely wonderful. Kai doesn’t want to stop hearing it. He wants everyone else to shut up so he can hear it and nothing else ever again. His not-crush is blooming full-force. “Hello all. Congratulations on progressing through your training. You did…well.”
It’s clear he doesn’t know how to address a crowd, Kai thinks, biting back a smirk. It’s clear in the way the man holds himself, with his hands behind his back awkwardly and his head slightly lowered, with the way he frowns around the word well as if it’s the only thing he could muster up.
A few words are whispered between the two royals before Luca stands straight, glee etched into his features. “Another surprise, I see! Everyone, my boy will be joining me in supervising your training today.”
“Fuck me,” Kai curses quietly, quickly covering his mouth when he sees Toby’s eyes snap to him. It’s incredibly effective at shutting him up, as good as the crack of a whip at making fear run up his spine. How is he supposed to focus on training when the man of his dreams—wait, no, the man of his childhood dreams—heard his slip up? If he’s in the same room as Kai? If he’s currently staring at him as if he’s something to be studied? It’s too much for anyone to handle, let alone someone who’s trying to prove himself!
“Then let’s get started, we don’t want to waste Your Majesty’s time,” one of the instructors calls out, beginning to hand out weapons and gear. There goes Kai’s moment to panic, he has to pay attention, to learn, to become the perfect—
“I thought you were an archer, why are you picking up a sword?” someone mumbles next to Kai as he weighs the hefty weapon between his palms. In his emotional state, he hadn’t noticed the footsteps approach and the familiar voice is a shock—
The sword is dropped in an instant when he realises who the voice belongs to. The prince is stood by his side, watching him intently.
Toby’s eyes follow the clang of metal, frowning at the sound before they flick back up to Kai, a brow raised. “Even more reason to return to your bow.”
“Excuse me,” Kai rushes, bowing and collecting his sword with shaking hands. “We have to be prepared for all events. I need to be proficient with as many weapons as possible.”
“Are you going to spend all night fighting mannequins out in the cold, then?”
“You were watching me train?” the moonchaser gasps, disbelief coating his tone. Yes, he thought—hoped—Toby had been watching him during those evenings out in the open training grounds, but to hear it from the man’s mouth?
Toby squints at him, a dusting of pink crawling over his tan cheeks. “You’re acting surprised. Surely you already knew.”
“I mean— I— Well—”
“You know, I assumed you’d be less…nervous. You seemed so confident with your little smiles before,” Toby mutters, frowning as he starts to eye the door as if questioning his decision to approach the archer at all. A watering can appears in Kai’s mind, with clear instructions to take care of the flower that blooms in his chest.
See, after Kai had met the prince for the first time, he’d rushed home, dragging his dad in tow, blabbering on and on about their small interaction. Thankfully his dad had found his nonsense cute—likely a side effect of being a parent—but who he truly needed to tell was his mum.
Their arrangement was…strange, to say the least. Kai’s dad is a moonchaser much like him, a regular old man who eats and sleeps and works in the same world that Kai does, but his mum isn’t. She’s not here, hasn’t been since he was barely able to stand on his own two feet.
Kai’s mum was a fairy, a species that belongs to the forest, to the fields full of flowers and creatures that communicate without need for words. Fairies do not belong in large cities with tinkerer husbands and excitable sons. Fairies do not belong around mortals that want to use them.
As a kid, Kai didn’t understand why his mum died. Later, he couldn’t wrap his head around it either, not when several species before had disappeared at the hands of the greedy, who killed them for their blood, their skin, their horns—for whatever gave the most magic for the most coin. And yet that was the fate of his mum. She was stolen from her job at the market where she would sell flowers and herbal remedies, where she made friends who to this day still recounted tales of how brightly she shone, and was butchered by selfish criminals looking for a quick moneybag. Torn to shreds for her magic.
And again, at the time, Kai didn’t understand this. He didn’t know that his dad was too intelligent for his own good, or that it wasn’t normal to have to summon your mum using a clunky metal pendant and crushed up primrose. He wasn’t old enough to understand that the cold touch of an astral form wasn’t comforting to most folk.
But now he knows. He gets that he is blessed to have a dad who is skilled enough to give him a way to speak and embrace his mum even in death, where the only thing that exists is a soul in a plane of existence that those without a body can reach and no one else. That’s one of the reasons why he’s here today, training, trying to become to best. Because he doesn’t want any other kids to have to understand that it isn’t normal, to make sure no more species are ripped from existence because of greed. To protect.
Twelve year old Kai with a pendant too big to hold between his small hands, with too much excitement to worry about the fact his mum isn’t actually there even if her form—etched in blue, shimmering like the moon—appeared next to him, told her about Toby. He tells her about a little boy who makes magic with music, who is a little mean and a little nice, and a little bit out of his league. And his mum tells him about gardens.
She tells him that people are like flowers, that you can plant them away in a flowerbed in your chest, and that some of them will bloom and thrive with enough love and care, and some will wither away, even if you spend all the time in the world nurturing them. She tells Kai that sometimes, people can be flowers that can only exist when left alone, that will thrive from a distance, that will only ever bloom when kept away from the sun.
A twelve year old boy learns that he can hold an entire garden in his heart filled with people he cares about. He feels it in his chest whenever he’s with his dad, when he summons his mum, when his best friend storms into his house without knocking because he’s too excited to share his day’s events, when he receives a letter from his other friend that he’s safe and alive out there in the wild. And right now, with Toby and his comment about ‘little smiles’, he feels something bloom inside him that he’d convinced himself had long since died, a gardenia that had gotten sick of Kai’s constant fussing and shrivelled to nothing in rebellion. Kai’s mum was right—she always is—because Kai’s garden is overflowing with flowers, and one of them belongs to the man in front of him, blooming, impossible to ignore.
“I didn’t think I’d get to meet you again so I’m…a bit awestruck. My apologies, Your Highness,” Kai bows again, embarrassment flooding his system. It’s bad enough to make an arse of himself in front of royalty, let alone to be realising his crush is as alive and as thriving as ever. Maybe it would be best to rip out the little gardenia, to hope it never returns if he’ll have to be around the prince in close proximity like this.
“Oh patrons, don’t start with that,” the prince waves, hands hovering around Kai’s arms before he gives up on the idea entirely, dropping them to his sides. “I hate the formalities stuff. I’m a normal person, much like you.”
“You’re very much not normal,” Kai sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. When silence meets him, he realises how awful that sounds. “I mean— Listen, you are, like, the most handsome man I’ve ever met and I’ve met quite a few, so— oh, and don’t get me started on your violin skills, I seriously thought I was in a dream listening to you play for the first time, and then it got better and—”
“Stop. Please.”
Kai shuts up with a snapping of teeth, watching as the prince’s face turns crimson, panic striking his features. “I’m sorry—”
Whatever apology Kai attempts to throw out is lost in the growing space between them as Toby quickly strides towards the door without another word. There’s goes Kai’s chances of getting to know his crush. Patrons, he really fucked up…
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Okay, Toby, no need to panic, you’re simply having some sort of heart problem and very well might be dying, Toby panics—despite his own reassurance—as he paces the floor outside the training quarters. The moonchaser called him handsome, it’s nothing more than a compliment. And yet he is entirely sure he might really be dying.
Who says that to a stranger? Who says to another person how attractive they are? Lunatics, that’s who! Weird, little—okay, the man is definitely not little—psychopaths who want to murder people with words! Even Toby, a bard, doesn’t know how to do that!
There’s got to be something wrong with the moonchaser, that’s the only explanation. And if there is, Toby has got to get to the bottom of it. For the sake of his father’s forces, of course. Having a crazed lunatic as part of his brigade would be incredibly unsafe!
That’s why he’s back a week later, giving himself enough time to recover from the lethal blow, now with determination in his steps as he walks into the quarters once more. It’s early, before sunrise, and there’s hardly any noise as he steps inside, only the quiet mumblings of a few people talking and the distant clatter of swords down the hall. No lunatics in sight.
Ignoring the bows from the members that notice him, Toby starts his search for the moonchaser, peering at the glass walls that separate the main training room into smaller, more private ones, still allowing for supervision to be made from a distance. Each is filled with different equipment but no people, not until he makes his way towards the very end of the hall where the metallic clanging of a sword being stuck again and again echoes.
Of course the bastard would be here, Toby mutters to himself as he sees the moonchaser training with a strange contraption that swings at him. The machine is obviously powered magically, though how is unclear to Toby, holding a long metal pole, swiftly moving forward, then to the side, random motions that the moonchaser blocks with his sword before they can strike his body.
Despite himself, Toby wonders if the man had spent all night practising, if underneath the shirt that covers his torso and arms were bruises from all the effort of learning how to block. Maybe if he was less in his own head, he would have noticed the man spot him, would then have noticed when he stopped watching the machine and had his sword knocked from his hand, slicing his palm in the process.
A curse follows, then blood, too much blood, forcing Toby to rush into the room and turn off the machine before it can get another hit in. “What is wrong with you?” he hisses, glaring at the moonchaser as the man cradles his bleeding hand. “You should have been paying attention!”
“I was! But since you’re here, I’d really like to apologise for my remark last—”
“Are you seriously trying to talk about that when you’re bleeding?” the prince gawks, horror filling him at the man’s awful sense of survival skills. Surely getting his wound seen to is much more important than an apology!
“It’s not like it’s going to stop bleeding without the help of a medic, and they’re not on duty yet,” the man laughs awkwardly, star-freckled cheeks seeming to glimmer as the skin under them turns a deeper shade of blue.
“I hope you know you’re ridiculous,” Toby huffs, making his way over and slowly reaching for the man’s injured hand, assessing the damage. The cut looks nasty, but it isn’t too deep. Nothing his magic couldn’t fix, at least. Which means making music for the stranger. Again. “Are you allowed to get one of the medics if they’re not on duty?”
“They didn’t exactly cover that in the warm-up exercises,” moonchaser smiles. “It’s okay, you can leave me, I’ll figure something out. I appreciate your concern, Prince.”
“Stop that,” the brunet sighs, resigning himself to his fate. No, he can’t leave the man like this. The idea of it makes something awful clog in his throat, makes it harder to breathe. He’d quite like to keep breathing. “Keep quiet whilst I do this or I will give you a much nastier wound for not following instructions.”
“Okay,” moonchaser responds, blushing when Toby raises a brow at him.
Thankfully, he keeps quiet after that, pressing his lips together as he watches Toby encase his bleeding hand with both palms. Channelling his magic, the prince lets the words flow freely, pulling from the stars themself to try to bring forth a healing energy, to imagine his voice stitching together the wound, eyes closed and envisioning a golden string coming from his lips to weave between his hands.
When he finishes, he slowly removes his palms, eyeing the newly sealed wound with a sense of pride. This, at least, he can do. Even if his nerves over performing never quite disappear, he can pull magic from the depth of his soul if he needs to.
“There you go. As good as nearly new.”
“T-thank you, but I really am going to have to apologise now,” the man responds, voice barely above a breath. Toby meets his gaze, finding irises filled with wonder that stir something to life inside his chest, something warm and thrumming. “I don’t think I can treat you as if you’re normal, you are far too special.”
Toby swallows the lump in his throat, ignoring how his skin sets itself alight under the other man’s attention, how his breath halts at his words. He focuses on something to say, an excuse to leave, a reason to stop staring back with what he’s sure is equal wonder. He finds nothing. Instead, there is a question.
“What is your name?”
“Kai.”
“I think you’re very strange, Kai.”
“Then I guess you can’t treat me as if I’m normal, either,” the archer smiles, and Toby is reminded of a little boy peering into a music room, with a face full of awe and hair hiding most of his features, with stardust scattered across his cheeks, who told him his music was ‘really good’. The same little boy who made Toby feel a little less like he needed to hide away when he played, even if only for a short while, even if that feeling couldn’t last.
Toby finds himself smiling despite all of his earlier grouchiness. Kai’s hand is still cradled between his own, grounding him to the spot. Maybe the moonchaser isn’t that boy, but even if only for a few moments, he made Toby feel the same, both from up in his tower and now, in a small training room with glass walls and strange contraptions.
“No, I suppose not,” he settles on replying before he slips away, letting the feeling linger as long as he can before he retreats back to his room.