#also hey Ivana hon this is for u *blows kiss*

[heartoferebor]

A sword

Note: I changed the fight the scene from the end of 4x09 ever so slightly to make it a little more dramatic ;)

“Silver’s blade is cold at his throat but it doesn’t move. They are both frozen in their places, a grotesque statue of time’s twisted and cruel ways. Flint wonders if he is fast enough to push aside the blade and flip Silver over before he can react. He wonders if he truly wants to. He wonders if it’s worth it.”

“You’re slow!” Thomas laughs and steps around James, his blade touching his neck ever so lightly. “And dead now.”

James glares at him, trying to look offended. It doesn’t have the desired effect, however, just making Thomas laugh more loudly and shake his head when he offers James a hand to help him up from the ground.

“Still, not bad though. I never thought the navy could produce such savvy sword fighters.”

“And I never thought that spoiled little lordlings like you knew how to fight this well,” James grumbles as Thomas draws him up from the ground. Thomas throws a quick glance around but there is nobody in sight. With a little smirk he grabs James’ behind, ostensibly to help him dust it off. James barely suppresses a yelp. He still isn’t at all used to how playful Thomas can be at times.

“Say that again,” Thomas grins as he pats James’ behind a little harder than necessary.

“You’re impossible,” James shoots another glare at him that only causes Thomas to withdraw with a little laugh.

“Your fault for choosing a, ah what where your words again…’spoiled little lordling’ like me,” he winks. James groans. When Thomas is in one of his playfully teasing moods little can snap him out of it. In bed it usually ends with James kissing him just to shut him up, but that’s quite impossible here outside. For all his apparent softness, Thomas has a tongue as sharp as that of the old women at Borough Market.

“Maybe milord would care to use his sword rather than his mouth to speak for him then,” James states and immediately regrets the words the moment they leave his mouth. He can feel his ears blushing bright red already and please, Thomas don’t say it-

“Oh, so that’s the way you like it?” Laughter is painted so brightly on Thomas’ face you’d think he’d explode any second. James just makes a slightly helpless noise but Thomas is, of course, merciless as always. He continues teasing him even as they take their positions for another fight, talking about swords, and ‘thrusting’ and mouths as gleefully as Miranda and he go over the newest court gossip. James thinks his face must be bright red by now and he wishes he could spontaneously combust.

Thomas’ laughter becomes intertwined with his sword and long after when he hefts the hilt he thinks of that afternoon and the barrage of terrible puns Thomas fired in his direction. Strange, that this would be one of the things he would remember the most.

***

The whetstone draws along Flint’s blade with a soft rasp. He knows he should be using sticks instead of real swords for fighting practice with Silver since every slash will dull the blade; but he had been unable to find anything of suitable weight and size and so the real weapons will have to make do. It’s not like they have endless amounts of time anyway.

“You’re teaching him the sword?” Madi sits down next to him without waiting for an invitation. Her fingers are deftly putting some of the pearls and stones back on her necklace that had snapped earlier.

“I am.” Flint continues his slow and steady movements, only pausing occasionally to trickle more oil on the whetstone and metal. Madi nods and the silence between them stretches until she breaks it again.

“Do you think you will have enough time to achieve anything useful?”

“I think so. He’s certainly improving.”

“Good.” Madi gives him a sideways glance and turns her eyes back to the necklace in her hands again. Her fingers keep working with the same surety as Flint’s; often when they both have work to do they end up doing it together and Flint has come to like those sessions that are mostly filled with amiable silence.

“Do you think he will ever have cause to use it against you?” Madi asks all of a sudden. Flint’s hands stop in their movements for a moment before they pick it up again.

“I hope not,” he says softly. He trusts Silver, more than he has trusted anyone ever since Miranda died. He doesn’t care what past the man might have or whether the future will spin their lives’ threads together somehow. He trusts him and that’s all that matters.

“They will all try to drive a wedge between you, you know.” Madi sounds as if she is talking to herself rather than to Flint. “Everyone knows that it is your alliance that keeps this movement alive. You two separate and it’s likely that we’re all dead, ground up between the wheels of violence here.”

“I know. I trust him.” It’s the first time he says those words out loud and truly means them.

“You truly do, don’t you.” Madi’s voice carries fascination. “Even when it comes to me?”

This finally makes Flint look up from his work, lowering both sword and whetstone. Madi meets his gaze without flinching, the question still painted all over her features. He knows that Madi is Silver’s weak point just like Thomas and Miranda had been his. Though both he and Silver would be destroyed over each other’s deaths they would manage to continue, somehow; but he feels that without Madi Silver would lose the wind in his sails before turning into a darker, more dangerous version than what he already is. Like Flint had after seeing the last remaining person he loved at the time murdered in front of his eyes. Would Silver place Madi’s happiness and life above everything else, even the success of their war? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to find out.

“I think he will keep his head on his shoulders no matter what happens. It wouldn’t be like him to forsake everything he stands for for the sake of one person, no matter how extraordinary,” he smiles a little at her, “he or she might be.”

Madi smiles back at his compliment, but her eyes are still troubled.

“Let’s hope you are right. Because I would not see the freedom of my people endangered either.”

Flint nods and takes up his task again, just like Madi next to him.

***

Their blades meet with a sharp sound and for a moment Flint wonders if he has trained Silver too well. Or is it simply because he himself is holding back? He is defending his life, true, but no more than that. He doesn’t attack, doesn’t press his advantage when it comes, only takes care not to die.

Silver has a wildness in his eyes when he attacks that makes Flint shudder; it’s like looking into a mirror, seeing all the violence and pain in his own soul laughing back at him with almost ghoulish delight. And yet, he cannot say a word, cannot beg for this to stop because he knows his path is the right one.

His bones are filled with weariness.

Silver attacks again, a slash to his right followed by a quick stab to his left, blocking Flint’s blade when it tries to catch the opening in between. Flint evades the following quick attacks, concentrating solely on Silver’s blade as he steps backwards bit by bit. The ground is treacherous here in the forests of skeleton island, roots and little brushes providing obstacles that can easily bring one off-balance.

Flint’s boot catches something and suddenly he has to fight for balance, losing it when Silver attacks again, fully aware of the opening it has given him. His back hits the ground with a thud, driving the air out of him and he can barely bring his sword up to stop Silver’s blade before it runs him through. Flint is disadvantaged now and he knows it. He can fight with all the ferocity that he wants, but Silver is no weakling himself and he knows Flint as well as no other, seeing right through every kind of ruse he tries to pull.

Their gazes meet for a moment and then Silver smashes Flint’s wrist to the ground, over and over until he has no choice but to let go of his sword. Somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear Thomas laughing, calling him slow again.

Lord, but he is tired.

Silver’s blade is cold at his throat but it doesn’t move. They are both frozen in their places, a grotesque statue of time’s twisted and cruel ways. Flint wonders if he is fast enough to push aside the blade and flip Silver over before he can react. He wonders if he truly wants to. He wonders if it’s worth it.

He looks up and his gaze meets Silver’s once more. Flint has always been good at reading Silver’s emotions from his eyes – only now it seems like even that ability has left him. Silver’s eyes are a whirlpool of emotions all mixed up until they seem to flow into each other, anger and worry, sadness and stubbornness, like a loud scream that echoes endlessly between Flint’s ears.

“Why the hesitation?” Flint asks and is surprised when his voice is barely more than a gruff whisper, as if he has been shouting for too long without knowing.

Silver just shakes his head, as if to chase away an annoying voice inside his mind. His hands on the blade are trembling and Flint thinks he can almost see his heart racing through his chest. And here he had thought he had a place somewhere in that heart.

Somewhere behind Thomas’ soft laugh is the memory of him teaching Silver to fight, them talking about his past, the slight shame in his voice when Silver admits that he was a nobody who only became a somebody when he rose through and beyond Flint’s shadow. A rise that has found its eclipse now, it seems.

“Do it,” Flint growls. By the light, he finally wants to rest.

Silver opens his mouth to answer when faint sounds ring through the forest, sounds like that of a ship exploding. They exchange another glance and suddenly Silver is off Flint, has drawn himself up and grabbed his clutch to walk towards the source of the noise as fast as he can. After a moment of stunned silence Flint slowly collects himself, stands up and follows him, his bones heavy with forbearance.

It seems like fate doesn’t want him dead just yet.

He only wonders what else he must endure before he can finally find peace.