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waterfallofspace · 2 months ago

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Allergic To Concepts

Is anyone else still into the M/agnus Archives? Maybe, maybe not, but I have had this fic sitting in my google docs for months, and I just finally managed to get myself to finish up the last bit, so here is part one of a possible two part fic, if I can ever manage to get myself to write the next part!

So, if anyone wants, please enjoy a little Allergic to concepts Jon. aka, Jon is so allergic to dogs that just the idea of them gets him a bit worked up~

I'll never be over this podcast, and I might start sharing small (tiny) drabbles of these guys if anyone would be interested <3 or even just to start coaxing myself back into writing~

Characters: Jon, Martin, Tim, and Sasha Word Count: 2.7k

“-so to conclude, we absolutely, most certainly, cannot do that,” Martin finishes, hands woven into his hair. Seems to happen more often nowadays; getting a job you’re not exactly qualified for tends to bring on a touch of added stress. What brings even more stress, however, are the faces staring back at him, twin smiles painted across worryingly calm canvases. Seems once a poet, always a poet, even in your own thoughts.

Tim chuckles, mischief running through his eyes. “How do you even know that? You been stalking our new boss?”

“W-well no, it’s just that…” Martin starts, beginning to study the floor as his rambling starts to take over. “Well there may have been an… incident, of- of sorts, with a uh… well it was, I was trying to open this door, but see I was holding files, and there was this dog, and they kinda just- well I was trying to stop it but it got in and- so I went to Jon’s office and he was just kinda… and then I-”

“So what?” Tim interrupts, mercifully saving Martin from his own tongue. “Why should his issues stop us from havin’ a good time?” With a snap of his fingers, Tim casts Sasha a devious wink. The colour seems to drain from Martin’s face as he holds up a shaking finger, aiming somewhere behind Tim’s shoulders.

“Ah, speak of the devil,” Sasha mutters, her smile never wavering.

Spinning on his heel, Tim turns to greet the newest arrival to the hallway. “Fancy seeing you here, boss! Burning the midday oil?”

Jon pauses, papers nearly spilling from his crowded arms as he fumbles with some keys. “That’s not an expression. And what are you all doing cramped in the hall? Don’t any of you have work to do?”

Martin nearly keels over as Jon’s glare settles against him, seemingly deeming him responsible for this lapse in progress. As if! In fact, he’d been the one begging them to get back to work. Honestly, Jon should appreciate the fact that he talked them out of-

��Actually, we’re thinking of heading off for the day,” Tim cuts in, leaving Martin’s mouth nearly hanging open. Had they not just gone over why this was a horrible idea? As if to answer his unspoken question, Sasha joins in with support for Tim’s cause. Martin’s pretty sure there’s actually a gap between his lips.

Jon, having opened the office by this point, merely stops and stares. Seconds pass, though it feels more like minutes. There appears to be some sort of staring match between the three of them.

Finally Jon breaks the silence with a short… well, it’s hard to call it a laugh, more like a huff. His posture tightens as he attempts to pull himself to his full height, casting Tim a wary glance. “You can’t be serious.”

“Quite serious in fact! See, me and Sasha have been thinking,” Tim pauses, gesturing to the aforementioned with a sickly sweet smile. Merely performance charm, which given the eye-roll she shoots back, Sasha’s well aware of. “All of us here need a chance to bond.”

“Bond, you say,” Jon’s monotone voice offers no insight to how he’s taking this suggestion. As Martin’s mouth begins to dry, his hands start working their way back into his hair.

“Indeed!” Tim continues, seemingly oblivious to Martin’s rapidly increasing heart rate. “We’ve all been stuck here together, figured we should become more of a team, you know? A team-building exercise you could call it. Something to get us more on the same page.”

“And what is this ‘team-building exercise’ you have in mind?”

Well, his heart may have been racing before, but it’s not anymore. In fact, he’s almost entirely convinced it’s just stopped completely. Jon’s eyes meet his own, and Martin drops his gaze fast enough to leave him dizzy.

This time Sasha speaks up, her coy tone doing nothing to alleviate the heart attack symptoms Martin’s now convinced he’s feeling. “An animal rescue cafe. They rescue dogs and cats, the ones that need rehoming, and bring them there so you can get to know them before you adopt. One opened just down the street from here, and me and Tim have been looking into going. We figured, might as well drag you and Martin along with us.”

Jon’s glare narrows further, a single hand coming up to rest between his eyes. The movement is completed by pushing up his glasses with a sigh. “And how exactly does drinking tea in a room full of animals qualify as team building?”

“You can tell a lot about a person from the way they treat animals,” Tim offers. “Not to mention the fact that there’s a whole study about how psychopaths are more likely to hate cats, which is mostly due to the fact cats have willful behaviour.”

Martin can almost taste his heartbeat at this point, a fact he’s finding quite alarming. Still rummaging through papers, Jon steps into his office. Much to Martin’s chagrin, they all seem to be following him.

“Are you suggesting someone working in this office is a psychopath, Tim?” Jon continues, huffing out another sigh as he notices the entourage entering his office. Jon’s glare lands on Martin once more, something he’s almost gotten used to at this point.

Laughter begins to flow from Tim, Sasha joining in with a mild chuckle. “Of course not, but hey, this job’s all about researching things that probably aren’t true. Better safe than sorry, right?”

Seemingly the only one noticing Jon’s growing apprehension, or maybe just the only one that cares, Martin can’t peel his eyes off their boss. Unaware of the scrutiny, though perhaps expecting it nonetheless, Jon pushes up his glasses again. Martin doesn’t miss the way he lets a single finger brush against his nose during this action. Nor do his eyes skip over the light scrunch forming at the bridge of said nose.

Oblivious as always, Tim’s still going on about the cafe. Something about which animals are available, what tea they serve, scones, and more useless information. Sasha’s typing something in her phone, apparently fact checking his current ramblings. Still, all of that fades into the background as Martin’s attention is drawn to Jon once more.

At first, he can’t figure out why he’s watching. Jon didn’t speak, and from his posture he hasn’t made any significant gestures. There doesn’t seem to be anything specifically that should have caught his eye, and yet-

And then it happens again. Jon’s brows tighten, his eyes begin to flutter shut, and his lips part just enough for his tongue to peek out between them. There’s a beat of silence, then a single breathy inhale, barely noticeable above Tim’s monologuing.

“ihh-”

Just as quickly as it began, Jon crushes it back once more, a hand roughing swiping against his nose. There’s a quiet feeling of– perverse excitement as Martin watches him. Why? No earthly idea. It’s not as if there’s anything specifically… exciting about the action. There’s no physical stimulation beginning, to phrase it politely.

Still, there’s something… almost electrifying, about bearing witness to a moment so personal and private. As if the only person in the room is Jon, and he’s opened the door for Martin to join him in his world. Which, as you think about it, just becomes more and more– creepy as hell! Damn it!

Pulling himself from his thoughts, Martin manages to peel his gaze away from Jon. Zoning back into Tim’s rambling, he just barely catches the tail end of a rant about different toppings on cinnamon buns. His silence was entirely unnoticed. Understandably, given only Tim had said anything in minutes.

“Personally, I’m a fan of the regular cream cheese icing,” Martin offers, forcing himself to keep his eyes on Tim as another soft sniffle sounds behind him. The others don’t notice it, Sasha rolling her eyes as a light begins to dawn in Tim’s.

“Well, interesting you say that Martin, they actually have those at the cafe down the street! Isn’t that such a wonderful coincidence?” Tim swirls his body towards Martin, casting a playful glance back at Jon as he continues. “Wouldn’t you like to stop by and get yourself one of those delicious buns?”

Martin feels his face begin to pale again, and barely manages a meek, “W-well… I don’t need to… get one right now… but if you want-”

Thankfully he’s saved from himself as a gasp sounds out from the desk. Everyone in the room turns, Martin included, just in time to see Jon duck into his wrist with a tight, “ih’nGXt–uih!”

“Bless you!” Sasha calls, Tim and Martin echoing the sentiment. A flush begins to spread over Jon’s cheeks, but it’s brushed off as he waves a hand, continuing to scribble on some papers. Casting a glance over to Tim, Martin sighs as the mischief floods the other man's face. He’s very clearly not letting this go.

“Was that actually a sneeze?” Tim laughs, mimicking the sound as Sasha suppresses a giggle.

Jon keeps his head down, pen still moving across the paper in disjointed movements. “It was in fact a sneeze, yes. Happens to everyone from time to time, no need to make a big deal out of it. Now, I believe you were going to a cat and do- hiHh! rescue cafe?”

The hitch manages to escape from Jon’s tight grip, his posture shuddering slightly with the force of continuing the sentence. It doesn’t go unnoticed by Martin that just the word dog seems to leave him breathless.

“A dog cafe, yeah! You’re coming too, right boss? Come see all the adorable little puppies?” Tim offers, gesturing towards the door. Apparently it didn’t go unnoticed by him either.

An audible gasp sounds out, and all eyes turn back to the rapidly hitching boss. Jon manages to stifle the first one almost silently, only a rush of breath escaping at the end.

“Bless you, boss.”

Jon waves a hand, wiping away the water beginning to flood his eyes. “Was just sihh… sighing, Tim.” He finishes the statement with another stifle, this time his whole body jerks along with the rough exhale.

“Really? Because that sounded like another sneeze,” Tim taunts, poking a finger towards Jon’s face. “And given the way your nose is twitching, you seem far from done.”

Jon seems to consider debating, but another frantic hitch decides it for him. Giving up the ruse, he ducks into his shoulder with another, “eh’tNGxt–uh! ih’NTchhuh!”

“Bless yo-”

“eH’DGZSHhh –uu!” The volume makes everyone jump, seeming to surprise even Jon.

“Oh- mby apologies, I seeb to be… hiehh–” Jon trails off, one hand frantically searching for a tissue, nose visibly trembling behind the other. In a move of uncharacteristic pity, Tim pushes the box within reach. Jon mumbles out a thank you, before swinging his chair around for a touch of privacy.

The silence is almost deafening, cut up only by the rustling of fabric as Jon attempts to subdue the onslaught. “eh’nGNt –oo!” And fails miserably.

“Do- maybe do you want… well possibly we should, actually I think you might- I mean he might want–” Desperately trying to find a way to fill the space, Martin rambles on, gaze bouncing between all three of his coworkers.

“Martin,” Jon cuts him off, “just say it.”

The annoyance Martin’s come to expect seems unaffected by the breathy quality of Jon’s words. Unless you notice the flushed nature of his ears, which… is kinda hard to miss when his nose is starting to match.

“S-sorry! I just figured you may want a touch of uh… privacy..? You seem… itchy,” Martin offers, already beginning to back out of the room.

Jon glares, lining up a retort before pausing as the first syllable comes out muffled with congestion. A sharp sniff and quick rub later, he continues in an easier tone. “I’m quite alright. No need for such concerns.”

“I mean- If… if you’re sure…”

Tim interrupts this time, draping an arm across Martin’s back. “You heard the boss, he’s fine. Now, onto that cafe?”

Before Martin can get a word out, Jon stands from his chair, dropping the tissues in the wastebasket next to his desk. Sasha chuckles out her approval, sticking her phone into a pocket and beginning to exit the office. Tim follows suit, leaving Martin standing alone with Jon.

There’s a beat of silence, Martin watching, horrified, as his body refuses to move an inch, silently waiting for Jon’s approval.

“Well?”

It’s not exactly an invitation, but it’s more than enough to send Martin scrambling for the door, muttering more sheepish apologies under his breath. If Jon heard them, he gave no indication, busy rustling through a desk drawer. A few more muffled stifles make their way through the noise, no indication given they were heard either.

As Martin makes it into the hallway, he catches Tim waving from the door. He’s propping it open with one foot as Sasha waits outside, once again on her phone. Martin waves back his acknowledgement, before gesturing towards the kitchen. Tim simply shrugs, calling something about ‘not waiting around’, before joining Sasha in the crisp autumn air.

Making his way back to the kitchen, Martin pauses at Jon’s door. He’s not eavesdropping, just… listening in, to see if Jon’s alright. It’s his boss after all, and he’s an assistant! He’s supposed to… assist! Perfectly natural thing to do, isn’t it?

A harsh double pulls him from his spiralling, Jon’s voice coming through audibly in the groan that follows. Alright, enough listening in, this is starting to feel more creepy than curious.

With what little confidence he can muster, Martin works his way through his plan. The mugs are where they always are, but the water in the kettle was a bit more cold than a proper cup of tea would allow. Flipping the switch, Martin began heating it, and hurried out of the kitchen to his desk. He picks out a fairly bland tea, Jon seems the bland type… right?

Another few sneezes sound out from the boss’s office, and Martin almost starts to feel guilty for still being in the office. It’s obvious Jon assumes he’s alone, if not from the sneezes themselves, from the groans that come after them. Ever the stickler for a Professional Appearance, he’d never allow himself to be seen or heard in such a state willingly.

The kettle sounding pulls Martin from his thoughts once more, and he pours the water over the tea bag. Moving carefully, as not to spill, he makes his way back to Jon’s office, knocking softly on the door.

“Yes?” The reply is sharp, a frantic sounding shuffling occurring as Martin begins to slide open the door.

“Hey, yeah sorry I just- you sounded like… I just thought that maybe you’d want… you might need some…”

“Spit it out, Martin,” Jon sighs, giving his nose a subtle swipe. Unfortunately for him, this seems to have been the wrong choice. His nose twitches, eyes beginning to unfocus, and Martin finds himself pausing for the interruption. At least, until Jon gestures at him to continue.

“Well, I just ma-”

“ih’tNGT–uu!”

“Bless you. I just made you some tea, it seemed you cou-”

“hHUh’dNT–uh!” There’s a pause, Jon’s breath catching dramatically, before he swivels around in the chair and aims a harsh, “eH’dZSHH– eih’DSCHhhh–oo!” at the fistful of tissues he managed to grab.

It wasn’t exactly quiet, and Martin finds himself flinching against the noise, but holds it together as he places the mug on Jon’s desk, hurrying through the rest of his sentence.

“Seemed you could use some tea, bless you again by the way, anyways I’m gonna head off with Sasha and Tim, I’ll see you there I guess! Or, well- not just me, we’ll all see you there, as a group, if you choose to come that is! Which of course you don’t have to, though we’d lik-”

“Martdin,” Jon, mercifully, cuts him off, congestion seeping through his words. With a deep sigh, he finishes his sentence. “Thagnk you. You mbay go ndow.”

Taking the out, Martin gives one last nervous smile, sliding out into the hallway. Another desperate sneeze leaves him wincing, Jon’s vocal groan sounding out yet again. The poor guy sounds miserable, and Martin almost considers going back in and telling him not to come. If he’s this bad from just the thought… well…

But he’s embarrassed himself enough for the day, and, albeit hesitantly, Martin heads off to meet Tim and Sasha at the cafe.

#waterfallwrites #the m/agnus a/rchives #i do not promise quality or reliability in my posting/writing but! recently i've been back from quite a few trips #so i have a bit more free time and motivation #and starting to feel less 'pressure' (self given) to be 'perfect' when i post things #or focus on likes or comments so!! might start posting little drabbles more #but!!! if no one else cares~ thats okay!#i enjoy this and im starting to write for myself again~ and i have been QUITE enjoying m/agnus content ive been scouring lately #so heeeeeeeeres a bit of my own <3 #and like i said there is an idea for a part two but it will depend on if i have the motivation or inspiration to write it #so i wouldnt count on ittttt~ buuuuut i do wanna torture t/im a bit so~ ;3 we'll seeeeee hehe #snzkink #snz fic #snzblr #snzfic #snz

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silverskye13 · 17 days ago

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Swordhearted -- Pt 2

You can read part 1 of this AU here TW for graphic depictions of violence, character death

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Welsknight hasn’t drawn the sword in two weeks. He counts it as a point of pride. Two weeks of running through the wilderness, surviving on little more than his wits, what is left of his pack and the treasure he found when he escaped the Vault that nearly killed him, and what he can scrounge from the wilderness. He considered, once or twice, returning to a town somewhere. He considered selling the sword and being rid of its curse. He considered drawing it and asking it a lot, a lot, of questions. Like how it knows to look like his dead brother. Like how long it has been stuck inside a sword. Like if it is, was, a person. Like if it is, was, alive.

Welsknight hasn’t drawn the sword in two weeks. He counts it as a point of pride.

There’s probably something going on here about knights and temptation. The sword is probably a demon? Or demonic. Or, like he mentioned before, cursed. He pulled it off a dead body, after all, and the Spirit of the Sword had been pretty upset about that dead body. The Spirit of the Sword had been upset about a lot of things; like being stuck in a Vault, and being threatened with going back in the sword, and cutting through all the malicious undead trying to kill them in the Vault. Welsknight had, admittedly, been a little abrupt when they cut their way free of the place. Seeing the image of his dead brother covered in blood and zombie-bites, holding a broken arm, and smiling up at the sun like it was the first time he’d seen it in years – Welsknight had slammed the sword in its sheath and ran.

Welsknight hasn’t drawn the sword in two weeks. He counts it as a point of pride, and definitely not an object of shame, and avoidance, and fear.

He’s about to break his streak.

Welsknight is running through the woods at a full gallop, stretched out over the neck of his horse, praying to every god and saint and, yes, every demon, that his horse doesn’t trip and break her leg or her neck. It is dark, and the world is a blur of shifting, baffling shades of blue and grey, and behind him, like thunder, the bandits are following. He had hoped they wouldn’t. Most people aren’t stupid enough to run breakneck through the woods on a good, bright day, let alone the middle of the night where visibility becomes the next branch crashing against your face, but they’re doing it. He’s doing it. They had been trailing him for days, ever since they passed at the crossroads and they clocked the treasure he was carrying from the Vault. Never mind that all that treasure amounts to is two swords (one definitely probably cursed, one mundane), a handful of coins older than the Vault Gods themselves, and some tarnished jewelry. It is, at best, a small fortune, and certainly not worth anyone’s life. But when they caught up with him, they had informed him, in no uncertain terms, it would be his life. Welsknight is, admittedly, carrying on him a second small fortune in armor – thus is the life of a knight. It probably has a high resale value, it being half enchanted. In hindsight, the attempted mugging might have more to do with the armor than the treasure, but regardless, he is in the mood to lose his life over neither.

Welsknight’s horse is tiring. He is a good rider in the saddle, and he can tell the beast is done in. He is a lot to carry when he is in full harness, and they have been galloping for far, far too long. Still, he clings to her neck and whispers encouragement. There is a flickering in the dark to his left, one of the bandits drawing up alongside. Welsknight reaches for his sword and thinks about drawing it. He can manage maybe one good lunge, if luck will allow it, and no tree takes his arm off at the shoulder. He is too scared to risk it. He thinks long and hard about reaching for the other sword. The Spirit of the Sword would certainly be a good distraction, if they didn’t just whip right past it and into the dark. Welsknight doesn’t draw the sword. His hand shakes around the hilt, and he thinks about how good it would be to hear his brother’s voice, even coming from someone who isn’t him, and he doesn’t draw the sword.

And then his horse trips in the dark.

It was only a matter of time. He has that clear, succinct, uninterrupted thought as she stumbles and falls: it was only a matter of time. He loses consciousness, briefly, when he hits the ground, and regains it again before his horse scrambles to her feet. He is a lot slower to rise. He’s wheezing, winded, and there are stars in his eyes that blind him even more than the dark forest does. There is thunder in the ground, and it passes him close, close. Too damn close. Hoofprint-by-his-head close. It is a battle to keep from curling up on the ground and praying he doesn’t get trampled. There’s a chance, a chance, they didn’t see him fall.

Welsknight stumbles to his feet, and wheezing and sore and sick with adrenaline he runs back the way he came. He doesn’t make it far. Something punches into his knee, hard, and he goes down again screaming. The arrow that hit him isn’t stuck in his leg -- thank gods thank gods -- but where it hit the plate of his grieve something is desperately bruised. Welsknight limps to his feet again, and the thunder of hooves is something that aches in his already swelling joint. One of the beasts leaps out at him from the dark, its rider rolling free of the saddle like an acrobat, and Welsknight barely has time to draw his (mundane, uncursed) sword to catch their blade. They clash twice and then the bandit breaks, circling, pacing.

A bandit is not a match for a knight.

Four bandits and an archer, however, can kill a knight handily.

Two more of the thugs dismount and barrel forward, while the fourth stays back to grab reins and keep horses from bolting. Welsknight is caught between two swords and an ax, and it's barely a contest. He parries, blocks, limps his way backwards. The ax puts a handy cleft in his sword arm, and Welsknight doesn’t feel it because of the adrenaline, but he knows it's bad. Then a sword dips in like a sewing needle, darning the place where his chestplate parts near his hip, and Welsknight can feel his blood like a river down his leg, and adrenaline turns to panic. There is a tree at his back, and nowhere to run, and his sword arm is getting hard to lift -- and a second well-shot arrow between bandit shoulders hits him square in the chest. There is a brief moment where all the air leaves Welsknight’s lungs and he thinks, once more, with fully-formed crystal clarity: it was only a matter of time. And then, with equal clarity: that’s it. I’m dead.

Except if he were dead, no one would bother grabbing him by the tabard and throwing him off his feet. A boot lands against the wound in his side, and Welsknight screams.

“Shut up, tin can,” one of the bandits snaps at him with disdain. “Unless you’re in a hurry to quit breathing.”

Welsknight gasps for wasting breath and tries very, very hard to stop screaming. It’s difficult. The boot is a relentless weight on his wounded side, pinning him to the ground, grinding his hip downward. His breath wheezes through battered and winded lungs, impeded by a new dent in his breastplate that won’t let his chest expand all the way. He’s going to die here, he knows, he knows, he’s going to die here. Or they’re going to make him wish he had. There is a brief, heady moment, where Welsknight fervently wishes he’d broken his neck when his horse threw him, and he retracts it almost instantly when the bandit shifts his weight, and the pressure on his side eases. Animal panic gives way to the animal need to live like a tide ebbing, and Welsknight finally, finally, manages to ease his cries into something closer to a grunt and a whimper.

There are tears running down his face. He couldn’t stop them if he wanted to. He hopes it's too dark to make them out. He always cries when he’s scared. He’s not ashamed of it, not in any way that matters. Still, he would rather not go to the grave while his captors laugh over the crybaby knight who sobbed while they robbed him. He still had pride.

“Alright,” the bandit declares when they’ve caught Welsknight’s rampant horse, and grinds his boot heel down. Welsknight chokes on his next breath, and stars bloom in his eyes, and it takes a force of will to pay attention to what the bandit is saying. “You got a castle or fief you hail from in the next ten leagues, knight? Someone who will pay to take you back?”

Welsknight groans, both because of the pain and because of the question. Someone -- not the bandit pinning him -- reaches down and unbuckles his sword belt. They could at least wait until he’s dead to start pilfering, surely.

“E-err--- errant,” Welsknight manages through grinding teeth as the bandit leans more weight on him. He reaches a gauntleted fist to clasp at the offending boot, and its slick against his fingers from his own blood. At the realization, Welsknight’s head gives a nauseous spin. How much is he bleeding? He can’t tell. “I’m-- I’m-- kn-knight errant.”

“I don’t give two shits about your name,” the bandit snaps, and Welsknight would have laughed, if the comment hadn’t come with another grinding twist from the boot heel. Welsknight gasps, and chokes on air again.

“Hey boss,” someone calls, a breakthrough in Welsknight’s buzzing hearing, “this sword’s silvered.”

“You think this guy’s a monster hunter?” someone else asks, sounding distant and bored, and high overhead. Horseback level, Welsknight thinks headily. The archer, maybe.

“Errant,” Welsknight gasps again desperately. “N-n-no castle. N-no lands. I do-- I do quests. For hire. Like. Hah.” It’s not funny. It’s never funny. But he’s heard the joke in taverns a thousand times. “L-l-like an-- an-- expensive. M-mercenary. With a t-title.”

The bandit above him swears. It’s not the answer he wants to hear.

“Last chance to save your life, tin can,” the bandit leans over him, and the movement against Welsknight’s wounded side is breath-taking. It is such a starburst-white, lightning-strike pain he can feel it run up and down his spine, and briefly wonders if the bandit has found a way to tear him in half just by standing on him. “Who will pay a ransom for you? Wife, brother, parents, rich uncle…”

At the word brother Welsknight’s vision briefly blurs over. Gods, his brother. He should have drawn the sword, just to hear the voice again. Even derisive and scornful, and divorced from any speech patterns that were familiar, it would have been nice. Then a clicking makes it to Welsknight’s ears, the puzzling sound of someone trying to draw a sword from a sheath, and never quite managing to clear the leather. Like a--

“A lock?” one of the bandits spits, outraged. “Who puts a lock on a gods-damned sword?”

Welsknight’s vision focuses past the bandit standing over him, to the ax-weilder standing a few steps away. The bandit who had, apparently, taken his swords. She is holding the cursed blade, trying with no success to open it, which is strange to Welsknight because it had slid open with ease beneath his fingertips. The rust around the scabbard was superficial, and pulled apart with ease.

“ ‘S enchanted,” Welsknight says, desperate enough to lie. Desperate. Desperate enough to tell the truth, even, if it means just a little longer alive. “It-- it-- responds t-to my touch.”

The bandits exchange wary glances. Welsknight counts them again. Four, one holding horses. Somewhere, there’s an archer. One of the horses is in his periphery, that one perhaps.

“I can d-draw it for you.”

“What kind of enchanted blade is it?” The bandit pinning him down asks. He doesn’t grind his boot against Welsknight’s wounded side, but he doesn’t release any pressure. He isn’t a fool. That’s a shame. Welsknight would prefer the bandit be stupid.

“S-silvered,” Welsknight says, not a lie. “For w-werewolves n-- n vampires n things. Locks so it can’t-- can’t be stolen, or t-tarnish. It’s got--” he searches his memory for a low-level enchantment a knight errant might possibly be able to afford, “-- flame. Needs recharged. It’ll still spark. If. If I draw it.”

The bandit narrows his eyes at Welsknight. Finally he leans against his heel and says loudly, emphatically, so Welsknight can hear it over the sound of his own rushing heartbeat and need to faint, “No funny business.”

Welsknight wonders if he’s supposed to laugh. Then the sword’s hilt is down by his hand. He reaches, and tries not to look desperate. He reaches and tries not to look like a liar. His hand shakes. He thinks he might pass out anyway. The blade slips free with a smooth grin of silver.

When Welsknight drew the blade for the first time, Helsknight had been in the middle of screaming at his previous owner. It seemed when the blade was sheathed, it caught him in whatever moment he had last been lost in, frozen in time. So, when the blade pulled free this time, slowly glimmering its moonlight smile up at the bandit pinning Welsknight to the forest floor, Helsknight came back into the world the same way he left it last. He had been standing still, his sword in his hand, staring up at the sky in open-faced relief and mute wonder.

Helsknight came back to the world quietly, a shade who was simply, suddenly, there. The shape of him was hard to see. He wore the dark stained armor of Welsknight’s dead brother, and carried his dark, tempered blade. Only his plume held color, a flickering red that, with no light to catch, was merely a frond-like outline of feather and horsehair in the night. Welsknight only knew he was there because he could smell his brother’s blend of sealing wax and armor polish suddenly light on the night air, and could feel the sudden, radiating anger, like a wight on a tombstone.

The bandit pinning Welsknight to the ground is headless, and his body slumps ingloriously to the side, hardly aware of its parting. The ax-wielder lets out one sucking breath through a hole in her lungs and dies. Then the night is filled with the sound of steel and screaming. The remaining two bandits demand to know what is happening, who is here, and get only cold, bristling silence. An arrow whistles by in the dark and hits something. Welsknight tries to watch, tries to see who is wounded, how and why. He can only place Helsknight in points of darkness just darker than the surrounding trees. Helsknight wields his sword two-handed, like he is used to something longer and heavier, and he meets the steel of the two bandits with the ringing shivers of broken bells. Another deadly whistle sounds, another hit, and Welsknight watches Helsknight stagger. There is a grunt of lost air, and something that could be a shrug, and one of the bandits dies.

“I’ll carve you to pieces!” The last one declares boldly, breathless and terrified. “I’ll put so many holes in you they’ll make a puzzle out of you in the afterlife! I’ll--!”

Something tears through his throat, and his words are lost in an ugliness of blood that makes Welsknight squeamish just to hear. The Spirit of the Sword, which looks and sounds like Helsknight, Welsknight’s dead brother, laughs bitterly and says, “If only I could be so lucky.”

There is thunder in the ground. The archer is running away. Welsknight takes a deep breath, and another, and realizes the night has gotten so dark because he’s been holding his breath. The relief very nearly steals it from him, and he lies on the cold ground gasping in relief, a hand bunched into a fist against his hip, and he can’t catch his breath. His other hand scrabbles at the dirt, and he thinks, if he can just sit up, he can breathe better. He thinks if he can just drag his back against a tree, he can catch his breath and figure out how badly he’s hurt, and he can, maybe, get the voice of his brother responding to death threats with if only I could be so lucky out of his head, because his brother is dead. His brother is dead. His brother is--

-- staring down at him. He’s taken the helmet off -- he never liked helmets really, did he? -- and he’s standing over him. Welsknight has to try very, very hard to keep his mind present. He has to remind himself over and over that he hasn’t died, and his dead brother isn’t here to take his soul away. The thing that has his brother’s face but isn’t actually his brother makes it better, and worse, by opening his mouth and speaking.

“What the hell, man?” Helsknight demands, reaching bloody hands down to grab him and drag him against the tree he’s desperately trying to crawl towards. “Five against one? You thought you could take on five against one? Are you literally stupid, or did they invent a new brand of crazy while I was in the sword?”

Welsknight tries to respond, but the jostling to get him against the tree takes his breath away. That, and something is prodding him in the shoulder, and it takes too long to realize that there is an arrow shaft sticking out of Helsknight, and the feathers keep brushing him. There are two arrows in Helsknight, actually. One is in his collar, a very lucky shot that cinched between the breastplate and the gorget. The other is in his back somewhere, the tufts of feathers flickering around every time Helsknight moves.

“S-shot,” Welsknight says helplessly, baffled the Spirit is still moving.

“Stabbed, actually,” Helsknight hums dispassionately, unbuckling Welsknight’s chestplate like he’s done it a thousand times. The minute the buckles are undone, Welsknight takes a breath that's at least two times deeper than all the others, and his focus returns from the odd, overhead place it's been retreating to with a suddenness that feels like waking up. “It doesn’t look terribly deep, but you’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”

“You’re shot,” Welsknight corrected. “Gods -- do you not feel pain?”

Helsknight looks down at himself briefly. “Of course I do. It just stops mattering after a while, doesn’t it?”

“That’s-- that’s your collar,” Welsknight points out, because it seems important. “There’s big veins there. You’ll-- your arm--”

“We’ll worry about you first.”

“And your back--”

Helsknight lets out a heavy sigh that implies being shot twice with arrows really isn’t that big of a deal, and, in spite of his assurances that he can, in fact, feel pain, Welsknight watches him wrap his tabard around his fist, reach up to the arrow in his front, and yank it free. It is not a quick process. Being so close to the act, where Welsknight can hear and, he thinks, almost feel the motion himself, makes him abruptly want to be sick. The arrow is barbed, and doesn’t come out cleanly, and there is a lot of blood. Helsknight removes it soundlessly, his only sign of discomfort the curl of his lip, like he’s been forced to smell something rotten. Then the arrow is gone, and Helsknight tosses it into the dark where it’s lost forever in the leaf litter.

“There, happy?” Helsknight demands. “Now, if you would shut up for two seconds, I can--”

Welsknight doesn’t even know he’s still holding the sword and its sheath, until he’s abruptly clicking it shut. Helsknight disappears just as quickly as he was summoned, gone in a blink, with little fanfare. Welsknight is left gasping in the dark, watching the swaying canopy of leaves far overhead, fervently praying its wind making them twist, and not his reawakening need to pass out on the ground. Welsknight closes his eyes. He sees the thing that isn’t his brother pull an arrow from his chest like it’s nothing, and opens his eyes again. On the forest floor in front of him are bodies, and past them, his horse is waiting with the quiet patience of an animal long bonded to him.

Welsknight closes his eyes again and, with the abruptness of someone falling into a well, drops into sudden sleep.

#the barking writer #welsknight #helsknight #swordheart au #i first wrote on this like... a year ago #and here i am back again #because countthelions reminded me it exists #and i remembered i still had... so many ideas #for this silly thing #there might be a part 3 #depends on how much Sick Energy i have #[energy while i'm sick]#its 1.20 am whoops

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