Chapter Text
PART ONE
Jean had learned early on that people can betray you. That it hurts much worse when it is people who are supposed to have your back. People who are supposed to protect you, people whom you would die for. He learned early on to not buy into the blood is thicker than water nonsense.
But he now had a family. Family, family. He repeated the word in his head when he woke up from nightmares about his childhood, and Dan and Matt stayed up at nights with him till the sky turned light and the birds began to chirp. He repeated the word in his head when fears about being unloved crawled into his mind, when Renee taught him how to defend himself with her own knives, when Nicky sometimes collapsed in tears on Jean’s shoulder. When Neil told them about his father’s cruelty and the injuries on his body which came as a result of it, and when he and Kevin reminisced about their childhood together while on long rides on their horses. Family, family.
***
He had people who loved him, people who saw beyond his scars and flinches. People he loved, people for whom he would do anything, people who would do just as much for him.
***
It made Dan’s heart beat with fierce pride when she thought about how far they had all come. Life hadn’t been easy on any of them. They all had hurt inside them. Different kinds of hurt, different scars, but they were healing slowly. And Renee always said that scars were proof of God healing you.
***
Neil never understood why Kevin, a woodcarver, needed to read up so much about the land and its history. And he understood even less why Kevin needed to tell all of it to him--especially over the breakfast table. But he bore it heroically, he thought. He wished that Jean were here. He was the only person to whom Kevin actually listened. And he took pity on Neil most of the time and engaged Kevin in conversation about any other topic, but today he was in the palace on duty as a member of the King’s guard.
***
Riko was in his suite when the guard came in. “Your Highness, the King has commanded your presence in his chambers.”
Riko’s relationship with his brother was complicated to say the least. He held Ichirou in the highest respect which his position and personality both commanded, but at the same time, Riko hated him. He was everything Riko wasn’t and never would be. Ichirou was raised to be the king, to enthrall people, to give commands with the knowledge that they would be carried out.
What Riko hated the most, though, was how Ichirou never trusted him with anything of importance. He showed more trust in his guards than he did in Riko.
***
Ichirou didn't get along with his brother. He never got along with anyone really, but his brother stood out among those people because brothers were supposed to get along. But Ichirou had never been good at doing what people expected of him. He was not an orthodox ruler. Taking the reins from King Kengo Moriyama and fixing the fractured kingdom he had left had not been easy. Ichirou grew older than his years doing it, and if it taught him one thing it was to be aware of the people who could betray you. Riko topped the list. His brother was stupid but he was also a prince, second in line to the throne. It would be easy for him to conveniently dispose of Ichirou if he used some cunning. Even from where he was, Ichirou could see entirely too many cracks. You could call him paranoid, but really, who isn’t when it comes to their lives and a kingdom they have worked so hard for?
And so he called Riko to him.
***
His majesty had asked Jean to enter along with Riko when he came. Jean entered the King's chambers and took his position along with another guard, Muldani, at the door. He heard only snatches of the conversation but he could and did understand the tone it was being held in. Ichirou was firm and calm as usual and Riko’s voice was filled with anger, as usual.
“Then take up your sword, Riko,” Jean heard. Was Ichirou going to duel Riko? Riko was extremely good with the sword, having learnt from their uncle Tetsuji. His older brother was much better though. Riko tended to let his anger think for him. Was Riko really going to do this? He would regret it. “Not me, brother. I shall not be against you. It wouldn't be fair then, would it?” Ichirou asked.”Moreau will be the one duelling you.” Ichirou turned and gestured to Jean.
Jean walked closer to them and kneeled in front of Ichirou. “Your Majesty, it would be an honour.”
The king turned to his brother, “Outside, then. Come to the the training hall in an hour”
***
Riko had a complex relationship with his brother.
***
Going against Riko in a swordfight was like going against a hurricane. The best way to survive is to bide your time until it's over. Living with a mother whose anger was like a hurricane had taught Jean that. And so he bade his time. He ducked and dodged and blocked. Riko didn't give him any openings. At first. Then Riko started working offence more than defence. He got sloppy. Jean took the chance. He disarmed Riko.
***
Ichirou watched them fighting. His best with his kin. He had known who would win, wouldn't have called it otherwise, but it felt good to be proved right. His brother was on the ground while Jean remained standing. Ichirou called an end to the fight.
***
Riko was furious. He was furious as he watched his ‘brother’ commend the guard, Moreau, by name, on a fight well fought. He was furious as he went into his chambers and wrote a letter. He was furious as he sneaked out in the night to visit the recipient of said letter, but he wasn't furious when he actually entered the man's presence.
***
There is something calming about vindication, a calm which can't be achieved by anything but revenge for the wrongs which have been committed against you. Riko sought out this calm when he went to his uncle Tetsuji. Tetsuji was much like him. A second child. No one very important. Drowning in jealousy. He had been exiled by his father for practicing black magic and killing several of the subjects in his quest for betterment in his craft of evil. Tetsuji now held a place in the court of a kingdom farther south. He had a new name, a new king. But once you have known the intoxicating power that is black magic, it never leaves you. He still brewed the occasional potion.
***
Jean couldn't shake off the feeling that someone was watching him as he returned to his home at the end of the week.
***
When you love someone you become weak. It was easy enough for Tetsuji to find out whom the guard loved--it just took getting the man followed up to his home.
It is easy to hurt a person when they give their heart out to others. Broken people can bear to be hurt themselves, but can't bear to see the people who have healed them in pain. Riko asked Tetsuji to hurt Jean. The best way go about it would be to harm those people Jean treasured beyond his own life.
They were too many, though. And Tetsuji was out of practice.
***
Dan always knew that the family's greatest strength was their united front. Their ability to hold each other up and sacrifice everything each other.
She was right.
***
Riko was stewing at his window when he saw the bird coming. It had something in its claws. ‘Tetsuji,’ he thought. As it approached he saw that the bird was a raven. It had a pouch and a scroll tied to its feet. It cawed as it landed on his windowsill, and as soon as Riko took the message and the pouch from it, it vanished in a flurry of dark feathers.
***
The pouch had a powder in it. The scroll had advice regarding how to use it. Tetsuji told him to ensure that Jean’s family ingested the powder in any form and the poison would do the rest.
***
There was a young man in the woods where Abby went to collect water from the stream. He was wearing a cloak that covered his face in shadow. He didn't acknowledge Abby when they crossed paths. Abby couldn't recognise him as a part of any of the families that lived there in the forest nor did he have the look of a traveller just passing by. He was a man with intention. Abby felt unsettled.
When she reached her cottage, she asked her husband if he had seen any strangers while hunting. He had not.
***
Shoddy gut feelings do not make good witches. Wymack kept his eyes open as he went out to collect water and a few herbs for his wife that evening.
Abby worked on a dreamless sleep drought for the woman Danielle who lived nearby. Apparently all of her family was prone to nightmares.
***
Riko found Moreau's cottage without a lot of looking. It even had a back entrance into the kitchen. Riko pulled his hood up and knocked.
***
Dan was cooking when someone knocked outside. Renee, who had come over to spend the night with them, went to get the door. She could hear her pleasant but guarded tone over the crackle of the fire. She came back and said that there was a strange man outside who seemed to have lost his way.
***
When Riko knocked a young woman answered the door. She invited him inside on hearing about how he had been walking for a long time and how hungry he was. There were a lot of people in the cottage, he noticed. Another woman stepped away from the kitchen fire.
She was beautiful in the way the dark skinned women of the south were.
“Hello, I'm Mrs. Boyd. Renee said you missed the path?”
“Ah, yes. I need to get to the capital.”
“It's dark outside and it's a long walk there. Would you like to sup with us before my husband takes you to the crossing?”
How gullible people could be. Better for him though.
“Thank you. Your hospitality is very much appreciated.”
“You must be cold. Warm yourself by our fire.” Saying this she turned and left, probably to talk to the aforementioned husband. She left the cooking pit alone as it stewed on the crackling fire.
Riko took the opportunity to slip in the powder and then left.
***
No one was there when Renee returned to the kitchen . The man had gone away. She went outside to check where he might have gone but found nothing. Odd.
But Nicky called her inside to eat so she went in.
***
Nicky started the grace. It reminded him of his childhood, something he wished desperately to forget yet never could. He couldn't escape thinking about his parent's God when he prayed to his own. Their Lord was vindictive. He punished people who did wrong. Renee's God was forgiving. He helped people. So was Nicky’s and Erik’s.
Nicky remembered how much things had changed from when he had first been cast out of his house because of his love for Erik. His parents might have forgiven Erik for being a man and unable to produce an heir, but they couldn't forgive him for the poverty he had come from.
Nicky’s found family never forgave him either. They saw nothing to forgive. They didn't see any wrongs where there weren't any, and this was what he thanked the Lord for every night.
That's what he thanked the Lord for today for their continued togetherness. And for the food, of course.
The soup tasted strange. It wasn't bad, just different from what he was used to from Dan. Matt thought so, too. He asked his wife if she had put in something new today, but she said she hadn't.
***
Abby went to deliver the potion to Danielle when it was done the next morning. She could feel that something was wrong, could feel it since the previous night, since the evening when she had seen that man. But he had left for the forest. She wondered what was causing that prickle on her neck right now.
Abby knocked on the door of Danielle's kitchen but no one answered. She could hear a strange shuffling coming from inside the house. She went to the front door and knocked again. No answer. The sound seemed to be a scuffle of several feet.
Abby checked the door. It was unchained. She stepped inside and was met by a scene that did not make any sense. There were swans in the entrance. A lot of them. How they came to be here Abby couldn't tell, but as she walked inside the house she counted six of them.
Abby went to the dining room. There were several upturned bowls on the floor and on the table, all had been holding the same soup inside them. A mounting sense of fear overcame her. She smelled some of the soup splattered on the table. It had a strange sickly sweet odour. The smell and the swans gave away the identity of the potion: cantatus factorem. She realised who the swans were, ran outside, and rushed to her home.
Abby’s cupboards were usually stocked with at least one antidote to transformation potions. She hoped it would suffice. She found the vial and took her bewildered husband back to the hut with her.
He let out several expletives when she explained what had happened as they worked to shepherd the swans into a single room so that Abby could administer her potion.
Abby had too little of it. And while most of the swans seemed to recognise her and let her put a few drops in without much struggle, one swan kept running away from her. Vincent had to tackle it to allow Abby to dose it, But they did it.
“Now what?” he asked her.
“Now we wait. I'll stay with them while you go and fetch the guard and tell him what has happened.”
***
Jean was on his break when he was called to his supervisor’s office. He had no idea why he would be called there and prayed everything was fine. Inside Jean saw his neighbour, Mr. Wymack, pacing.
***
As soon as Wymack saw Jean, he started to talk about how his brother had fallen extremely ill and how he was needed at home immediately. Jean felt sick himself. He wanted to throw up. Nothing would happen to Neil. That would be too cruel.
***
Wymack waited while Jean sorted things out with Hayden. After, they walked towards the stables so that they would be able to take their horses, and then his neighbour started talking.
“Your brother is not ill.” Relief poured through Jean. Then he saw the expression on Wymacks face. Dread washed out the relief. “I don't know how to put this. Abby will explain this better, but someone turned your family into swans.”
Jean could see that Wymack wasn't kidding, but still his words sounded too implausible to be what he had actually said. Jean must have misheard.
“I'm sorry?” he requested.
Wymack explained the situation as well he understood it. A stranger in the forest. Dan's soup. A potion. Jean’s head spun.
Jean saddled his horse and was about to get on when Wymack stopped him, crouched behind the door, and gestured towards someone just coming in.
It was Riko.
“Moreau.” The inflection of Riko’s voice was too knowing and boastful of that knowledge.
“Your highness.” Jean bowed down to the Prince.
Riko had disliked Jean since the day of the duel. He could never shake off the feeling that Riko was planning vengeance behind the smooth smiles and deference he made to his brother.
Having been a part of Riko’s humiliation, Jean remained on guard. Everyone knew about Riko’s tendency to lash out indiscriminately when he was angry.
Now, hearing his voice. Remembering Wymack’s words. Stranger. Your family. Swans. Jean realised just how badly he wanted to get his sword on Riko’s throat. He almost stepped out, but Waymack grabbed at the hem of his coat from where he was crouched down and stopped him.
He watched Riko to take his horse out. After he left, Wymack stood up and said, “He was there. He's the one who did it.”
“I know.”
***
Abby sat near the hearth and waited for Jean and her husband to come back. She prayed that her antidote would take effect.
Abby had closed the doors to the room so that the swans wouldn't get out and she tried to guess which one was whom as they milled about. They were mostly like normal swans but their eyes and their mannerisms gave them away.
The one trying to open the door would be the youngest one, Neil. His swan form had his eyes, a brilliant, sharp blue. Danielle had once told Abby that Neil never liked anyone complimenting him on his eyes. For him, they were a reminder of his father and a life he had escaped from. But anyone who saw them and was perceptive would be able to note their sharpness and understand the life which caused it.
There was a gray eyed swan who seemed to be Renee, a family friend who often spent her nights with the family. Abby went to church with her and Nicky every Sunday. Nicky would be the swan next to her she seemed to talk to in small hisses.
The mated pair in the other corner of the room would be Dan and Matthew. They were holding a conversation of small touches with their necks and beaks.
Kevin would be the swan sitting on the cabinet.
Abby remembered that they hadn’t been fed properly and so she went into the kitchen and cut lettuce for them.
They came towards her and snorted at her as she put the food on the floor. They ate together.
***
The sun climbed down the sky as Jean and Wymack rode through the forest.
Abby was waiting for them inside.
As Jean entered, the swans came towards him and started nuzzling their heads at his feet. His family recognised him.
He turned towards Abby. “Will they be alright?” They had to be. He would do anything to make sure they would be.
“I’ve given a temporary antidote to them. They should be coming back to their bodies anytime now.”
Temporary. “They'll go back to being swans?”
“Yes. The spell used in making this potion is very complicated. The antidote can’t fully reverse its effect.”
“There has to be a way.”
“There is a way, but it's not easy.”
“I don't care about that.”
“This potion is black magic. Very few things can successfully counter such magic. One of them is love, which you'll have to use to to turn them human again.”
“Love?”
“You'll have to perform a task of love for each of them.”
“What do I need to do?”
“You need to knit a shirt for each of them, out of nettles, using only your hands. You can't talk or laugh while you do this. A word from you will doom your family.”
“I will do it.”
“Jean, You've got only one year to do this. After that, this will become permanent. They will remain swans.”
Jean was afraid that he would mess it up, but he knew that he had to do this. It would be his way of repaying the thousand kindnesses given to him by his family.
****
It was fifteen minutes to sunset when they turned human again. They transformed together.
***
Kevin felt dizzy as he changed from his swan form. He had been sitting on a cabinet. He and the cabinet both fell with a crash. Jean came to him to help him up, just like back when they had been neighbours.
“What happened?”
“You were turned into swans by Riko”
Jean saw the understanding dawn upon Kevin's face.
“Riko was the man?”
“Yes.”
***
Renee watched the family come together as Jean gave them an idea of what had happened. They had become swans due to a potion that the stranger, Prince Riko Moriyama, had put in their food. They would turn human for fifteen minutes before sunset everyday. Jean told them about the nettle shirts he would have to make and the vow of silence he would have to keep.
As the sun set, they pulled each other into a hug.
***
Abby taught Jean how to make thread and how to use his hands to knit it. Then he and Abby decided that he should leave to some other kingdom where the influence of the prince wouldn't stretch as far.
***
They travelled towards the South, Jean on a horse, the swans walking or flying. Getting out of the kingdom was slow going since he didn't want to be too conspicuous. The swans would make their group too noticeable. Each evening, they set camp in a barn or another such safe place they could find.
***
Once they reached their nearest neighbourhood kingdom, they stopped by a pond. Jean and the swans had developed a routine by now. The swans would go to any nearest source of water they found or go looking for food but nowhere Jean couldn't call them.
Before they turned back in the evening, Jean would work to create some sort of shelter for himself to sleep in and look for food in the form of berries or small animals. When they transformed they would talk to each other. Jean savored every word that he got to speak now.
Jean would sing sometimes. Songs he had heard Dan, Renee, and even Kevin singing at their work.
But the routine was going to change now. Jean had started coming across more and more growths of nettle these days and he realised that he would have to start working soon.
He would have to discuss it with his family once they transformed that evening.
***
“I need to start knitting now. I'm thinking that we should set up a more permanent shelter here.” Dan heard Jean say as she roasted a rabbit that Jean had caught.
“I like this pond. It's not very frequented and it will sustain us for some time. So yes.” Matt replied.
***
They started work on the shelter the next day before sunset. Jean had gotten a lot of sticks ready and Matt, Kevin, and Nicky got reeds from the water. The girls tied them up to form a wall-like structure and, along with Jean, erected it into a hut-like building. Long grass was laid above it as a sort of roof. The work took them three days but they did it.
***
Jean woke up early the next morning to start making the threads. He went over to an accumulation of nettles and held it at the branch part as Abby had told him to.
Immediately his hands started to sting, he dropped the stem but no word escaped his lips. He picked it up again. Crushed it in a fist. It didn't lessen the sting from earlier but at least it brought no new pain.
He collected a lot of such stems, forming them into bundles tying them up with reeds from the pond. By the time the swans were to transform back his hands had blisters.
***
As soon as Renee became human she went around the pond in search of the dock. It was the plant which her mother had taught her to put on someone's hands if they came to touch any stinging nettles. Dan joined her in her search.
They found them and Renee took them to Jean with her. He was still working on the sweaters as the men went to collect food.
***
Renee was an easy person to fall in love with, Jean thought as she worked with some herbs to soothe his blistered hands. Jean knew that first hand. He knew her kindness and strength, how her grey eyes and calm face could draw one in. How beautiful the vividness she held inside her felt when it was focused on you. They weren't in love anymore but she still was his greatest source of comfort along with Kevin. They were wildly different people but they had a very similar effect on any worry he took to them.
***
As Neil was about to turn into a swan he looked around at all the people he called his family. Renee with Jean, Dan and Matt comforting each other and Kevin talking to Nicky, probably about some absurd thing he knew about the wood of the tree they had been sitting against.
He was very grateful to have them. He was still figuring out his place among them and in the world, but his family waited for him with patience.