A Hike

Fantasy short. A young mage discusses his youth with his favourite stablemaster.

Just a little Cicero Penllwynog and Coshel Fenwick bickering! 1.2k, light humour. CW for passing reference to corporal punishment and underage sex.

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“You know how to ride?” asks Fenwick.

Cicero, sprawling further into Fenwick’s bed and pressing his skin back into the sur he’d thrown over it for the winter chill — only because Cicero had complained about the cold — says, “I think you know I do.”

“Horses, slag.”

“Yes, I do,” says Cicero. “One of my sisters leads a mounted battalion, you know.”

Fenwick glances at him, a deep frown pulling at his handsome features. “Battle magic from horseback? That don’t spook the horses?”

“No more than any other weaponry.”

Fenwick grunts, apparently finding this distasteful, and Cicero watches him as he runs a washcloth over his skin, sitting back in a tub of water he’d heated for the purpose.

It’s a rare day off for Fenwick, and once he’s bathed the night’s sweat off his body, the two of them are going to go on a hike.

Cicero does not “hike”.

Very occasionally, he has been convinced to amble, perhaps even to walk, but hikes and treks are not for the likes of him. He’s been promised a hard fuck once they reach the summit, though, and a shag in crisp hilly air does sound pleasant.

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Five. Two brothers, three sisters. Plus nine cousins the same age.”

“Jesus,” mutters Fenwick. “Six little fuckers like you. Nasty thought. You the youngest?”

“I’m the middle of my brothers,” says Cicero. “Second youngest overall — Julius is the baby.”

“All of you named for Romans, I s’pose?”

“Tacitus, Cicero, and Julius,” says Cicero. “Lucretia, Vesta, and Rhea.”

“Posh cunts lke themes, don’t they?” asks Fenwick, with little enthusiasm.

“My parents do,” says Cicero. “They bonded over Tacitus.”

“They’re both battle mages.”

“Mm,” says Cicero. “They met one another on a battlefield — my mother was coming to join the military contingent as they marched.”

Fenwick doesn’t like war: he curls his lip and goes back to his ablutions. “Bet they’re good parents,” he mutters sarcastically.

“The regimen followed them home — or the regiment did, depending on how you look at it,” says Cicero. “We had weekly bed inspections, uniform inspections, equipment inspections. Learned to march in formation. To sit, to stand, to raise arms, in synchronicity.”

Fenwick is staring at him, and Cicero realises after a moment that he’s waiting for Cicero to tell him he’s joking.

“No,” he says. “Really. My mother taught us within the ring, my father taught us without.”

“Jesus wept,” mutters Fenwick, and dips his head to rinse his head.

When he raises it again, he repeats, “Uniform inspections? You had uniforms?”

“We got to pick the fabric for our robes growing up,” says Cicero. “The colours, the sort of leather, our leggings, you know. But the style of the tailoring was all the same until we reached fifteen — I had to wear half-gauntlets instead of wrist braces like I have now, which I abhorred.”

Fenwick is looking at him, as he so often does, with a sort of distant, disgusted fascination.

“And I wasn’t allowed to grow out my hair unless I kept it braided properly,” he adds, running a hand through the thick plume of his long hair.

“What happened for uniform infractions?”

“Oh, different things at different times,” says Cicero. “I was a terribly messy and ill-behaved boy, easily the worst of my siblings — time-outs, groundings, docked pocket money. My father tried to beat me once — I was already fifteen, then, and it wasn’t for a uniform problem, but a mess I’d made when I came home drunk. I’d already experimented with boys in that arena, not to mention men, and laughed at how lightly he hit me, told me he’d best put a bit of muscle into it. I thought he’d cry.”

Fenwick stands up from the bath, beginning to dry himself off. He’s frowning as he drags the towel over his body, regular movements of the towel in slow rhythm.

“Huh,” he says finally.

“You’re surprised? At what?”

“Surprised you’re the problem child.”

“Why?”

Fenwick frowns deeper, apparently irritated at being backed into a corner where he might be complimenting Cicero, and it makes him laugh. Fenwick rolls his eyes at him, picking up a shirt and beginning to button it up — flannel, of course, his usual. And he mocks Cicero for his uniforms.

“You’re disciplined,” he says.

“I’m a soldier, Mr Fenwick,” says Cicero. “Of course I’m disciplined.”

“You’re not a soldier yet,” is the retort. Fenwick is concentrating on his own fingers as he buttons up his shirt, and not looking at Cicero. “Why’d you act out?”

“I’m not brilliant at falling into line,” says Cicero. “Working with others, I mean, not even my own siblings or cousins. I objected to being given whistle commands like a dog in the field — and I didn’t like having my time scheduled or my clothes controlled, didn’t like my parents vague preaching about asceticism.

“Sixteen couldn’t come soon enough for me. I didn’t want to wear mundie clothes, jeans and t-shirts and such forth, but I loathed being made to wear the same tailoring as my family, so that we shared a silhouette. I favour a very different cut to them.”

“Sounds like you’ll not be a good soldier,” says Fenwick. “If you never want to blend into the group.”

“I expect I wouldn’t be, were I to be a foot soldier, part of a unit. But I command a great deal of fire power, Mr Fenwick, and my focus is wide reaching elemental force and ritual magic. My hands would be tied were I set into the rank and file: when I set to an army, I’ll like as not serve as a sniper or another sort of ranger, or lead vanguards ahead of the charge, to reduce the potential for friendly fire.”

“You want to be?” asks Fenwick.

“Want to be what? A soldier? A Mercenary? Of course I do. It’s what I am.”

Fenwick lets out a sound of disgust, lips curling, and belts up his jeans.

“You’d rather I were a stablemaster, I suppose?”

“Big brain like that, clever tongue, all that magic,” says Fenwick. “And all you want to do is kill.”

“All my ancestors have been battle mages,” says Cicero, sitting up on his elbows. “For centuries, over a millennium. Why should I be something else?”

Fenwick comes over to the bed, and Cicero reaches out, sliding his hands over his chest, feeling the soft, worn fabric of his shirt. He’d never be seen in them, of course, but Fenwick’s shirts are delightful to wear in bed.

“If you want a say in what I do, put a ring on my finger,” says Cicero, delighting in the pure disgust the suggestion is met with. “Take me to dinner, at least. Just because you put your cock in my arse doesn’t make you my commander.”

“I don’t want to be your commander,” growls Fenwick. “I’m not trying to make you do anything — just saying. Talking. I don’t plan to marry anyone, least of all a nasty little twink who’ll people accuse me of marrying for his money.”

“Imagine the gossip,” purrs Cicero, squeezing Fenwick’s chest and making him scoff, slapping his hand, “were I to elope with some nobody stablemaster.”

“Not happening. Now, get up. We’re hiking.”

Cicero sighs when Fenwick tosses his robe on top of him, and begins to pull it on.

“You’d best fuck me hard,” says Cicero.

“’Til you can’t walk.”

“You’d best carry me down afterward, then.”

“I’ll leave you there.”

“Tie my arms around my neck, if you like,” suggests Cicero. “It’s so cold — suspended like that, I’ll keep your cock nice and warm.”

Fenwick laughs.

He doesn’t say so.

Cicero smirks to himself as he fastens his robe.