Easy Deals

As the villagers bustled around the marketplace like a starving herd of sheep set free, bleating, or in this context talking, Toril Maely too floated with the crowd, his eyes stuck on the shopkeeper's enthusiastic wave as an apologetic smile graced his lips. He just got his jewelry polished, a cover to veil his motives of knowing the exact whereabouts of the kingdom.

Peace ensued as long as no one knew the whereabouts of Marlin Stewart.

The sizzling afternoon sun did nothing to hinder the sweaty townspeople from rejoicing their weekend in every literal sense possible— which included shoving children away to hog the pub.

As the shopkeeper closed the door shut, Toril felt choked. Forcing his way through the sweaty bodies, he took big steps away from chaos. As the crowd thinned he took a breather beside a scowling man witnessing a fight between a mage and a mouse.

It was an unfair battle. The mouse, whom Toril believed to be a Shapeshifter, was overpowering the drunken mage in every sense possible and the man beside Toril wasn't liking it to any extent. The polished blade gleaming against the sun, looking ever so ready to be used, was one of the many reasons why Troil opted being suffocated than to a standstill.

He apologized and skittered away until the majestic structure of a steel gate graced his sight. Emitting gloom just a few giraffe steps away was the residence of the Necromancer, Mortis Mansion. Narrowing his eyes at the grounds somewhere far away, he spotted people like random spots tainting a beautiful painting.

The Necromancer liked living lavishly and people liked exploiting his dazed richness. He was an addict of addictions. When one lives a day too long in a purposeless life, they happen to have a lot of time to waste on their hands. Much like the Necromancer, who found pleasure in raising the dead and finding company to fall into many a addictions. There was yet an addiction to exist that the Necromancer hadn't tried out.

Drugs. Sex. Drinking. Gambling. Gamming. Music. K-pop. Meth. Math. Netflix. Disney. Death.

He'd done it all. Moved on. Nothing made him stay.

Another gust of wind carried a delicious scent of food with her. Toril's stomach grumbled annoyingly but he paid no heed. He could find a delicious person to suck dry anyday but he had priorities right now.

The sun played hide and seek with the clouds.

Upon reaching the ominous graveyard encircling Mortis Mansion, Toril flung the gates open and made himself home. Half the graves were cracked open, empty, and a few were still resting in peace. Somewhere far, a mockingbird made music.

The darkened mansion welcomed Toril warmly. The Necromancer feared none for there was no ceasing his existence— and if one could, it would be a huge favor for him. He feared no theft, no assassin, no torture, no greed. All he had was to give, wrap people in strange addictions and welcome them warmly to their graves from which he raises them. The necromancer craved good company.

The inside of the Mortis Mansion contradicted it's sombre outside. Mortis within was bustling with life, as much life as dead people can maintain, and drenched in colors. A game of cards in one corner and a game of charades in the other, someone gambled their dead years away in poker and someone danced till their limbs literally fell off. No one paid heed to Toril's intrusion as he walked up the glimmering stairs without entertaining the game they were made for.

Knowing the place all too well Toril easily navigated his way through drunk dead bodies and suicidal dead people to the third floor of the mansion. Beyond glass doors stood the Necromancer, surrounded by a bumbling crowd of the dead and hunched over his laptop.

Toril knocks gently yet impatiently.

The door opens on its own accord.

The redhead alchemist takes big steps inside, shoving the cheering people out of his way, to reach to the Lord of the Dead.

"Hurr, ya see dat? Ya see dat? Dat's ma money!! Line's goin up folks!!" came the Necromancer's thick accented voice from behind his laptop screen. The people, or whatever term they use for the conscious-living-dead nowadays, around him cheered up a storm.

"Necromancer?" Toril announces his presence, pressing a dainty hand behind the laptop's screen and pushing it to a close.

"Da one an' only, God of da Dead," the Necromancer smiles charismatically. He pulls his hood down which gives way for dirty strands of silver to fall over his forehead. He slicks his ghostly white skeletal fingers through them and continues, "What's yer request? Want some dead? Want some back from da dead? Money lendin' happens 9 to 5, yer late. Intrest o'er de years of yer life. I'll fetch da papers ye cut yer hand stamp o'er here—"

With hollow fingertips collecting the universe's power, the Necromancer had already whipped up a stack of papers from somewhere when Toril cut him off.

"It's me mate, Toril, long time, innit?" Their audience had pulled Necromancer's laptop and were entertaining themselves with a flurry of clicks.

"Don't ye all mess up 'em lines for me!! Keep 'em green!" The Necromancer shouted at his hooting crowd then stared back at Toril with a dead scowl gracing his beautiful features. "Toril who mate? I ain't know Toril in acquaintance," he narrows his amethyst eyes at the vision of the man before him. The Necromancer stands up, a thick black fog hides his nether regions as he floats closer to Toril's face in a drunken haze.

"It's me, Toril Maely! Marlin's friend? We met the day you were created! By Goddess, it was a century or so ago. I wouldn't hold you to blame if you forgot, of course, it would be pure flattery if you did remember me. Nevertheless—"

Toril's lips were held between the Necromancer's thumb and index finger. "Ye speak loads," he shuts him up. His breasts press against Toril's muscular chest, almost squishing, as he places his fingers on either sides of Toril's head, reading it.

"My brain won't give you any less than what I could have given with my tongue. Without all this...physical... attachment. By Moons if Nettie were to know of this— my poor Nettie would have the world on her head. She deserves better, I'm not a good husband. I'm—"

Toril's little rant is silenced with a hit to his groin.

The Necromancer sits back down on his plush couch, leaning against the backrest with satisfied smirk on his blue lips. "I'll help ye invade Aningmoon and deliver yer daughter to ye," Necromancer declares, crossing his hands under his breasts. His beady eyes roam over Toril's face, searching for a promise.

Toril catches his gaze just in time to reply with a pained smile, beautiful nevertheless. "And you can count on me to deliver you my potion before anyone gets their hands on it," the redhead promises.

The offer was too tempting to resist and Toril knew it. For someone whose life never had a coma, Toril was offering him a full stop. Once and for all.

The Necromancer claps and a bunch of paperwork falls before Toril's crouching form. "Skedaddle, in da corner," he points to a brightly lit table and chair where Toril takes the unhealthy stack of papers and begins to work their contract.

Necromancer was a man of no fear because he was fucking paranoid and meticulous.

"Fam, if me green lines go down, yer gonna have it!" He shouts, floating to his laptop and analysing something on the screen. Curiously, Toril bends over to catch a glimpse of the screen.

The Almighty Necromancer's new addiction was Stock Exchange.

<3

Czar slowly unbuttons his red shirt, which was once white a while ago, and throws it to a corner in his bathroom. The fabric lands in its home for the dirty, the laundry basket, and sighs for having been blessed enough to snug itself against the Czar Castello's chest and having lived to tell the tale.

If fabrics could speak, that is.

Czar doesn't know. But what he does know is that the shirt would be a grateful one. He met 'her' while wearing it.

Who knew Huxley would be hiding such a gem from his sight...a woman of pure passion and merciless courage. Unflattering to the bone, yet, Czar couldn't get her away from his head.

She had slapped him, twice, two minutes into their meeting and Czar's brain couldn't go two seconds without attaching her face to every second thought of his.

Czar looked at a vision of himself in his bathroom mirrors, untying his hair. "By Selene, I'm Sexy," he whispers to himself, leaning closer to the window and biting his lip. The closer he gets to the mirrors, the more his eyes focus over his cheeks.

She had slapped him on both his cheeks.

Czar leaned even further, as if being in closer proximity would help him relay the past. As if being closer would help him see her hand on his cheek.

The point isn't that she slapped him. No. Czar concludes, the point is that she was audacious enough.

She, her, standing in front of him, a mere human, bruised— there couldn't be a sight more vulnerable. But something in her brown eyes blazed, a forest fire, molten lava, ember, Czar couldn't place a finger on it.

He couldn't understand. Yeah. Maybe that was the point.

Are all humans this brave?

He couldn't understand how she wasn't withering at the mere sight of him and Julius. How she stood so unaffected by their physical forms.

Czar looks down at himself, just to check if everything was alright.

Dreamy yet menacing eyes? check.

Heartbreaking jawline? check.

Sexy Adam's apple? check.

Badass tattoos? check.

Abs? check.

Flexing Muscles? check.

Drool worthy V-line? check.

Long legs? check.

Protagonist worthy title of Crown Prince? check.

For the love of Goddess Selene, Czar couldn't pin-point a fault in himself.

"Sabrina!" he calls out, not a shout, but words demanding enough for the servant to rush in at one call and stand in his presence with her head bowed.

"Look at me, in the eye," Czar orders, turning to face the girl. The Omega's scent spikes with a hint of arousal amongst fear and anxiousness.

"I-uh, cannot, Your Highness, I would never be rude enough to-"

"Don't make me repeat myself," Czar cuts in her irrelevant rant, crisp and cold.

The woman gulps, hands bunching around her uniform as tries to look up. Her eyes take their sweet time in meeting his, raking over his body like a woman starved.

Czar's lips subtly curve in a satisfaction as he hears her heart thundering within her ribcage. She's nervous, yet excited and expectant. Yes. That's the reaction he expects from people.

Fear. Admiration. Lust. The usual.

"Y-y-yes sir?" Sabrina questions, now looking Czar in the eye. Her brave front was commendable in her face but her knees betrayed her the second Czar raised a sharp eyebrow at her.

She collapsed to the ground, kneeling, a mess of stuttering words and incomprehensible sentences.

He had not even released his pheromones yet.

"You may leave," Czar waves her off dryly and turns to look at himself again. He poses in front of the mirror, raising his hands above his head and admires his muscles flexing. He cards his hands through his hair and pretends to be in some low budget perfume commercial. There isn't a fault in him, no, then...there's only one plausible answer.

Blondie is not into guys!

The epiphany has Czar smiling in the mirrors like an absolute psychopath. Still, Czar couldn't be sure with just assumptions. He has to know.

Sabrina, crawling out of the door, wonders if her employer is quite good in the head.

"Sabrina!" Czar calls out again, pulling a towel from his drawer and snuggling his neck with it. He turns to face the door as Sabrina walks back in with shaky steps.

Czar Castello is going to find out exactly what this human girl is made of.

"Ye-e-es, Your H-Highness?" She questions, eyes deliberately stuck to the ground.

"Provide our basement guests a room in the East Wing, have food delivered to them and let Julius know if he does not have any more information to give me by the time Estella Crowne's trial is done, I'll have his head served to the hounds today."

"The East Wing?! Your Highness they won't survive a night!" Sabrina exclaims out of the blue.

"I don't pay you to suggest me, Sabrina," was Czar's only reply as crosses his hands against his chest and glares at the servant, judgementally.

"Your wish is my command," Sabrina replies mechanically, taking small steps behind to exit the bathroom without facing her back to the Crown Prince's face.

He smirks, dropping his pants to the ground and stepping inside the warm bath drawn for him. His tense muscles relax under the water's scalding temperature and he sighs pleasantly.

This is where it all begins.