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a-kind-of-merry-war · 2 years ago

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I Hate You

Five times Ed told Xenk he hates him, and one time... he tells him he hates him again, actually.

2.3k, Rated T for swears.

~~~

Xenk strides ahead through the winding tunnels of the Underdark, his pretentious cape billowing behind him.

It’s like he has his own personal wind, Ed thinks. Probably generates it himself, the smug bastard, no magic required.

The eery little creatures on the walls around them pulsate gently as they pass, their shimmering tentacles casting a dim blue light across Xenk’s armour. It glimmers. There’s something oddly hypnotic about it. Ed wonders when he last polished it. He was probably polishing it that very morning, desperate not to get a speck on it.

Fucking paladins. Fucking Harpers.

Ed watches him forge on ahead with increased annoyance.

“I hate you,” he whispers. Xenk says nothing, but the tilt of his head is enough for Ed to know he heard.

After the incident in Neverwinter, Ed does not become rich beyond his wildest dreams. He does not bring home cartloads of gold. He does not swap out cotton for silk and linen.

What Ed does is quietly curse Xenk under his breath every time he thinks about what he could have had. He isn’t poor - heroes of the realm aren’t left to freeze and starve, after all - but he always wonders what life would be like with a little more lining in his pockets.

That is what makes him to take the job offer when it lands at his feet. Although it’s a difficult job to say no to - a request from the old Lord himself, who has sought out Ed and Holga’s skills personally, to deal with what he describes as a spot of bother in a town a few miles from the city. This time, Kira is undeniably nervous but seems keen for them to go: they’re heroes, now, she reminds them. For the first time, Ed realises that she’s proud of him, and that would convince him to do nearly anything.

He muses, as he dodges out of the way of the snarling creature that’s been eating the local’s sheep and goes barreling into a towering pile of hay bales, that he is very glad Kira cannot see him right now. For a baffling moment, straw poking him in all the wrong places, he has no idea which way is up, flailing wildly for something to grab.

And then he does. He wraps his hand around something firm and strong and cold and—

He's heaved to his feet. Standing in front of him, radiant in his armour and the dazzling light, is Xenk.

Ed quickly lets go of his arm.

“Greetings, Edgin.”

Behind him, surrounded by villagers making ohh noises, is the decapitated body of the beast that Ed had been fighting, not seconds before.

“I had it under control,” Ed says.

“Of course.” Xenk smiles.

Ed thinks of the reward money. Of the accolades. Kira’s pride.

“...I hate you,” Ed says.

The smile does not fade. “Of course.”

First things first: Ed stinks. The stink is everywhere, it’s like it's in his bones, under his skin, in his head.

At least the damn dragon is dead.

“Please, oh heroes, please help us slay the beast!”

Ed had such high hopes. On the ride from their home to the mountainside town, he and Holga had been excitedly discussing how they would split the dragon’s hoard. Gems, jewels, piles of gold: they’d be rich, even after splitting it five ways.

Five. It had taken five of them to slay a dragon last time, after all.

And then, of course, there had been no gems, no jewels, no piles of gold taller than Ed stood.

What sort of shitty dragon hoards garbage?

No wonder the townspeople wanted rid of it.

He slides from the huge pile of muck. He can hear Holga cursing behind him, something about "and it’s in my fucking hair, too", while Doric, transformed momentarily into an enormous bear, attempts to lift a particularly sticky slab of debris from Simon.

Ed tries to stand, slips, and falls down again. This time at least he’s got his mouth shut.

“Need a hand?”

Ed looks up from where he’s on his knees in what he really, really hopes isn’t raw sewage. For a moment, he’s blinded by the sun, then the shadow ahead of him shifts, moves, and suddenly the light is blocked.

Xenk peers down at him, illuminated from behind, one hand extended.

Ed does not take it but instead struggles to his feet, determined not to fall again. He spits as he finally manages to stand.

“How the fuck—”

Xenk is spotless. From his dazzling armour to his perfect cape and his flawless skin. There is not a speck of dirt or shit or mud or even blood on him.

For a moment, Ed can only gape at him with his mouth open. He feels something cold and slimy slide down his back.

“I hate you.”

He goes to push Xenk aside (he dodges, of course he dodges) and strides away.

How Xenk became a regular member of Ed and Holga’s party, Ed just isn’t sure. It’s not just him: Simon, of course, joins them often, as does Doric when she’s able or the need arises. Ed enjoys having them both around - even if their whole on-again-off-again thing is beginning to piss him off - but Xenk is another matter entirely.

What really annoys him, really, actually gets on his nerves, is the fact that everyone else seems to love him. Sure, Xenk is noble and clever and a brilliant fighter. Yes, he’s a keen tactician and diplomat and is popular wherever he goes, and of course he’s the best swordsman Ed has ever seen and is furiously, distractingly handsome, but—

Where was that thought going?

Right, yes.

Everyone else loves him. But, of course, everyone loves Ed, too. Ed is just as popular, even if he is a bit more abrasive. Everyone loves a bard. That’s the way of things.

This is, Ed knows, a dangerous path to let his thoughts wander down when he’s several pints in as they celebrate a decisive victory and is swiftly seeing those pints down with several more, just to keep the first ones safe.

Simon is describing a stunt that Xenk pulled off to an adoring crowd of onlookers. Ed isn’t even sure what part of the daring deed he’s talking about, but the way the crowd is enraptured by his story is grating on him regardless.

Ed sees back his pint, nearly drops the tankard on the table, and the words spill from his mouth before he can stop them - not that he would try anyway.

“I hate you,” he mumbles.

Simon doesn’t stop in his story. None of his audience notices.

But Xenk looks up. He catches Ed’s eye across the table. This, Ed thinks. Let this be it. Let him drop that stupid facade and throw himself across the table and hit me. Go on. He eggs him on in his mind. He wonders what his face is doing. Do it, he thinks. Do it.

Xenk… does nothing. He smiles, the bastard.

The next thing Ed remembers is being poured into a bed in the roof of the inn. Someone is holding him up, making sure he doesn’t trip. There’s a metallic sounding clang that puts his teeth on edge, and when he rolls over he realises that someone’s placed a mental bucket beside the mattress.

“Sorry.”

He looks up. Xenk leans over him. No: he doesn’t lean over him. He’s standing a measured distance away, holding himself carefully.

Ed mumbles something. Xenk smiles again.

When Ed wakes up, horrible dawn light slicing across his face, he’s alone.

It’s all gone a bit wrong. Ed would be the first to admit when it goes wrong, but this time—

This time they’re truly fucked.

They shouldn’t have gone in with three people. But everyone else was busy, and they were running out of time, and so they entered the tower as a trio: He, Holga - and Xenk.

He’s been getting sort of used to having him around.

Which is what makes this—

It’s what makes this so bad.

He hoists him up over the edge of the demolished floor, pulling him up onto the stone beside him. Holga calls from somewhere up above - she’s coming to get them. Just stay there. Just hold on.

That’s what he mutters to Xenk, too, as he pulls his armour away.

Ed has never seen Xenk’s cloak stained red, before. The colour looks wrong.

Xenk’s eyes are closed. Ed’s hands shake as he strips off the armour. Xenk would hate to see him treat the expensive plate so carelessly - not that he would see fit to tell him that himself, not in the sort of language that Ed would use, anyway.

Ed presses his hand’s to the paladin’s chest. He’d feared this. Not this exactly, but the fear of being without a magic user is what forced him to finally tap into his buried bard’s magic late sometime last year. The going has been rough, even with Simon’s - and, to Ed’s surprise, Xenk’s tutelage. He’s learnt little, but enough.

It has to be enough.

Ed’s hands stain Xenk’s shirt in scarlet smears. Xenk's blood is hot. Like this, he suddenly seems human. Fragile.

Ed mutters the healing words. It’s the only healing spell he knows, and he’s shitty at it and exhausted to boot, but at this stage he’s willing to try anything.

He feels the magic course through him, down his arms, into Xenk’s chest. There’s a strange, floating moment where he feels the steady thud of Xenk’s heart in his hands, all the way up into his core. Ed can feel his eyes drooping. He’s so tired.

But Xenk opens his eyes.

“Ed?”

Ed’s never seen him look so scared.

No: that’s wrong. He’s seen him look this scared once before - the moment the hand had wrapped around his torso and pulled him over the edge into the darkness.

Everything hurts. Ed pulls his hands away, and feels himself falling.

“I hate you.”

And then it all goes black.

A gentle wind carries with it the smell of fresh leaves and summer wildflowers. Behind Xenk, hooked neatly on the protruding branch of a tree, his cloak moves in the breeze like ocean waves.

Edgin is unusually quiet. He’s leaning against the tree, his lute on his lap, although he isn’t playing. He stares out at something that Xenk cannot see.

“Edgin?”

There’s no response. Xenk goes to sit next to him, crossing his legs and settling straight-backed at his side.

After a few more moments of silence, Edgin finally speaks.

“It’s been a year, you know.”

Xenk turns to look at him. He does not pay too much attention to the passing of time: the celebration of dates and numbers.

“Since?”

Edgin does not respond, but sits up properly, leans forwards, and tugs at the open neck of Xenk’s undershirt, exposing the edge of the twisting scar that splits his dark skin.

Oh. He supposes it has been a year: although it feels like far less time has passed. A lot has changed in a single year - a lot that once terrified him. It feels less frightening now.

“I see.”

“Do you?”

There’s a sudden heat in Edgin’s voice. Like he’s held these words back for too long, and now they’re scorching him.

“Do you see, Xen? Do you really?”

Xen. Xenk cannot remember the last time someone gave him a diminutive name. This is another thing that’s changed in the last year. Before, he would have demanded his full name. But now… Now it makes him feel like he belongs. He belonged to the Harpers, in a way. He had taken dozens of oaths, oaths designed to make many feel like one.

But this— this is different. It was different when Edgin and Holga accepted him as one of the gang, and it’s even more different now, sitting here alone in the sunshine with Edgin.

Ed.

“I—” he struggles with his words, now. He never did before. “Tell me how you see it.”

Ed takes a deep breath.

“It’s been a fucking year, Xen,” he says. His words have cooled but not extinguished, like fresh-forged red steel. “A year since I thought you were dead. Since we—”

Xenk knows what he’s thinking of. He’s remembering that night - the night after Ed had pulled him back from the brink, nearly throwing himself over in the process. The long, still evening broken by the quiet, quickly smothered confession.

“I told you I hated you,” Ed says, finally. His words are just steam, now. Light and ephemeral.

“You did,” Xenk agrees.

“I never— I never said sorry.”

“I know you did not mean it.”

Ed’s expression cracks. “Part of me did,” he admits, at last. “I hated you for— for leaving us.” And then, even more quietly: “...leaving me.”

The air feels heavy around them. Xenk twists around to better look at him. He takes Ed’s jaw between gentle fingers, feeling the scratch of his stubble, the gentle puff of his breath when Xenk rubs his thumb against his lip.

Ed does not resist as Xenk pulls him forwards and presses their lips together. Even now, it still thrills him - fills him in a way that all the magic and oaths in the world could not. Xenk thought he knew goodness, until now. He thought he knew devotion. He was wrong.

When they finally part, Ed stares at him with wide, dark eyes. He looks like a man lost.

He blinks once. Twice. And then his expression splits into one that Xenk has grown both familiar and fond of: a cocky grin to shrug off the fact that Ed has just experienced an emotion.

“You mushy bastard,” he says. “I hate you.”

Xenk grins, and kisses him again.

“No,” he says. “You do not.”

#dnd hat #dungeons and dragons: honor among thieves #edgin x xenk #xedgin #xenk yendar #edgin the bard #dndhat

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kirkenovak · 2 years ago

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I’ve watched the Dungeons and Dragons movie too many times for it to be healthy and I decided to make it everyone else’s problem.

Honor Among Thieves/Dreamling crossover?

The Endless exist in the DnD setting but they don’t concern themselves with the affairs of gods and mortals, they just ARE. They exist outside the planes and influence all of them, albeit in different ways. They aren’t worshipped and usually aren’t well known.

Dream and Death do their visit to the mortal realm and meet Hob Gadling, Dream and Death have their bet and Hob becomes immortal. Now, in the DnD, unnaturally long lives aren’t that unheard of. There are elves who had already been adults when Hob became immortal, who are still alive. Arguably, Hob could pass himself off as a weird half-elf hybrid and no one would be too surprised he’s been knocking about for several centuries. But a human that not only lives long but doesn’t die? At all? No matter the manner of death, no matter the damage done to him, he just gets up again and keeps on trucking? No. That’s not normal. That shit’s weeeeeird. You don’t want to be advertising that unless you want every evil wizard warlock lich sorcerer and whathaveyou knocking on your door. So Hob still has to hide.

He of course still meets Dream every 100 years in the inn (every paladin and cleric with divine sense in the area does a little >_>). He still pretends to be his own son. He still does hundreds of different things. He still has a fight with Dream that causes Dream to walk out on him. He still buys the White Horse and waits for Dream. Dream is still captured by Burgess, a mighty wizard who really REALLY wants to conquer death but doesn’t want to be an undead because yuck.

Meanwhile, Xenk Yendar has met Hob in his travels several times already and is absolutely not buying the “I’m his son, I’m the son’s son, I’m the son’s grandson” excuse but Hob seems harmless, commits no evil acts (that Xenk knows of *coughscoughs*) and doesn’t register as anything otherworldly or undead so Xenk leaves him alone. That is until he walks into The White Horse one day, sees Hob for the first time in years and immediately senses that this is a temple, the land is consecrated, this man is the priest. The problem? A priest of what exactly? Normally it’s not really his business but given that Hob is a bit shady to begin with, it just doesn’t seem right. He asks Edgin for help, after all, who better to charm and swindle his way into Hob’s good graces and get some answers than a professional conman/thief/ex-Harper/bard who just doesn’t do magic, no seriously, what’s the deal with that.

This is where Ilmater decides to intervene. Sure, normally he wouldn’t stick his Devine nose in the matters on the Endless but he is the god of suffering, and both Dream and Hob are suffering, albeit in different ways. He sends his favourite paladin a vision of Dream and Hob, who then confines in Edgin and his crew and so, the DnD version of the fishbowl heist is born!

Starring: Xenk, the hottest paladin in existence; Edgin the spell-less bard; Edgin’s barely concealed lust for Xenk; Doric the most OP wildshape in existence; Simon the Sorcerer (no not the game, the game is great tho. Available on iOS. Try it. Starring Chris Barrie of the Red Dwarf fame as the voice of Simon. It has a sequel too tho not as good); Hob Gadling, the immortal but he can’t reveal he’s immortal and also has no idea who Dream is or what his true nature or even name is… wow he’s kinda useless in this setting and nobody trusts him; and Holga the carrying everything on her broad shoulders.

#dungeons and dragons #honor among thieves #the sandman #dreamling #xedgin #Hob gadling

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