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silverskye13 · 1 month ago

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The Best Seat in the House

Summoning Helsknight is easy. Their souls are so inextricably tangled, they are nearly the same person. It's terrifying. It's exhilarating. Its

Welsknight is flying through the end. He has the coordinates to his destination memorized, like a lodestone in his heart. There is something about a person's blood sweeping so deep into the ground that makes the connection almost physical, like a thread pulling. He thinks this must be what sends doves and pigeons home. Why salmon swim upstream. There's something about blood

It's mutual, this dance. Hatred and disgust and thrill. It's beyond words, somewhere deeper, in the roots of teeth and the marrow of bones. Inextricably tied, souls and blood.

Helsknight is the perfect knight.

Tenets. Poise. Form. Kit.

Bloodlust.

Helsknight is the perfect knight.

They don't talk anymore. They don't need to. Words fail. Words circle and circle and circle and go nowhere.

It reads our thoughts.

Helsknight isn't waiting for him when he lands, but Welsknight can feel him on the other side of everything, like an itch beneath his skin. Like if he just found the right place, the source, where the itch is the most intense and bothersome, he could set a blade to his skin and dig Helsknight out.

In a way, that's what he's doing.

And yet they play the game.

By the time Welsknight has folded his elytra and put on his breastplate, Helsknight is there. The itch in his skin is crawling across the surface, spider legs and teeth; a brand, a flaying. He turns to face his other half.

Helsknight is a perfect knight. He's a fortress, a wall, and he's right there with a sword in his hand. Welsknight's strongest images of him are of blazing eyes in the depths of a blackened helm, all netherite and embers. Maybe it's hels that scours him black, the baking heat and unending fire. Maybe it's just that he's standing by Wels, and Wels is light and life and brilliance and

Welsknight is not a perfect knight. If he were, Helsknight wouldn't exist.

And the universe said the darkness you face is within you

There is something brutally honest about a battle like this, here, bared for the void, and the universe. A person can lie with words, but swords, like angels, can only speak the truth. In the face of death, they can only be who they are.

Helsknight is death and terror. He must be, because that is what Welsknight feels every time they meet.

One step, two, a mirrored circle across the end stone. There is no dust here to kick up, no gravel to throw. This island in particular is stark and flat. No upper hand, no useful terrain. Three steps, four, swords in hands. No shields, only armor, and the places it fails. Welsknight's breaths are long and loud and reverberate in his helm, wash back across his face with heat and condensation.

Helsknight is sparks and smoke and perfect form. The red plume in his helm sometimes sparks with the glimmer of his eyes. There is no moon in the End, and Helsknight's fire is an island of firelight in starry black.

Silence draws out between them like a blade.

Five steps

Six

And the universe said

Helsknight springs first, because he always does. Welsknight can feel his impatience like goosebumps, a phantom thrill of expectation. Welsknight meets him, because to be too far to one side is to be too close to the End. The ringing clash and slithering screech of metal on metal is like lightning and thunder in the perfect silence. They test each other, feints and parries.

Helsknight is impatient, and Welsknight shudders with it. He is always impatient. It's a thirst for blood, and a thirst for efficiency, and pride in the decisiveness of his hand. Helsknight would kill him gladly in one stroke if he could. His is not the joy of suffering, but the joy of superiority.

And yet they play the game

They break apart. Welsknight needs time to recover and reassess. Neither of them is wounded, but Helsknight is powerful and sure, and Welsknight's wrist stings, and his elbow twinges. Too many solid strikes caught instead of deflected. Too many tests done wrong. Mistakes. Too many mistakes.

Helsknight is humoring him. There is derision in the air like the scorn of distant thunder. It makes Welsknight mean, feeling it passing over. If Helsknight wanted, he could press his advantage until Welsknight was off the edge of the world. Welsknight can feel his other half's sense of superiority. It stokes the embers of Welsknight's own pride. He wants to rip the smugness out of Helsknight with his bare hands, bloodied to the elbow.

The red in Helsknight's eyes glimmer, a dare, an invitation. Come and try, he says, come and try. He says it with every line in his body, with the way he holds the point of his sword just a little too far out, a Fool's Guard. An invitation to where the plates of his armor gap at his armpit, reticulate near his waist. An invitation in the tilt of his head, slightly upwards, to look down. Slightly upwards, where the gorget and the helmet separate to show a hint of vulnerability.

Helsknight is a fortress.

And yet they play

One step, two, circling. Swords pointing and guarding. Three steps, four, Welsknight only knows he's caught his breath, because the heat of it is rolling across his face again. His hair is sticky with sweat, and threatens to thread into his eyes. Five steps. Helsknight blinks slowly, boredly. The bloody red light of his eyes winks out and returns. Six steps.

Welsknight attacks first this time. It's a lunge he knows will miss, but he sweeps the blade up anyway and feels the clamor of disrupted momentum as he's deflected away. Helsknight bursts forward a fist and punches Welsknight hard in the center of his breastplate. It kicks away some of his air, surprises him, surprises him again when that same hand snaps up to grab his gorget and pull, threatening to drag Welsknight off his feet. Helsknight's knee comes up and Welsknight catches it, throwing his shoulder into Helsknight's stomach.

They fall hard on the stone.

And yet they

It's tangling limbs, and wrestling, and that little bit of air Welsknight lost is felt, because he can't catch his breath. They're both on top of and below each other. The horizon is yellow and black and stars and stone, twisting. Swords are useless this close, but they grip them desperately anyway, because to lose a weapon is to lose the fight.

Helsknight is the first one who manages to get to his feet. He is a dark tower rising, the kind of thing that eclipses and imprisons. Welsknight can taste blood in his mouth from Helsknight's elbow ringing hard against his helm. His vision is a spattering of stars and colors that aren't supposed to exist.

Helsknight waits, impatient and seething, for Welsknight to get back to his feet. Sometimes, Welsknight wishes the flower of chivalry wasn't so good at reducing him to a pile of steel and guts. He might bring himself to respect it, if it didn't.

Welsknight is tired. He can't catch his breath. His vision still tilts slightly.

Helsknight is a dark tower risen.

Take a breath now.

Helsknight springs. When his sword lands on Welsknight's, it sends lightning through every nerve. Welsknight retreats a step.

Take another.

Another. Another. Metal on metal. Welsknight's only thought as he parries and steps backwards, is that he continue to circle.

I will tell the player a story.

Helsknight's satisfaction is cloying. It fills Welsknight's mouth with a taste like vinegar and rot. Welsknight's guard breaks. He can see his mistake and do nothing about it. Helsknight's sword shivers and rings as it rebounds off his chest plate and plants its tip in Welsknight's armpit, where the plates in his armor gap. The wound isn't deep. It dips in and out of his skin so quick and seamless, Welsknight feels the trickle of blood long before he feels pain.

It contains the truth safely, in a cage of words.

Helsknight's two-handed stroke steals Welsknight's sword from his hands. Welsknight leaps the next sword strike, rolls, and gets a cut on his ankle for his trouble. Standing is a labor.

He still can't catch his breath.

Helsknight's blade has so little blood on it, only the handspan at its tip glitters darkly. Why, then, does Welsknight feel so shaky. Dread of the inevitable prickles his spine, and chasing it like a hound is Helsknight's vindication. I knew I was better, I am always better.

Why do we even play these games?

Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story

Helsknight waits for Welsknight to pick up his sword. He is a shark circling, mad for a few drops of blood. Welsknight stands in the center of the island and waits, turning, for Helsknight to spiral towards him. They are a disaster, a collision course, gravity pulling. They are the inevitable, and their blood pulls them to each other just as much as thought and wit and loathing.

A lodestone in their souls.

Helsknight springs.

And yet they play the game

Welsknight gets a single lucky strike. His sword tears between two of Helsknight's plates, and he feels the soft resistance of flesh against his blade. It's low on Helsknight's hip, painful, but far from deadly. Helsknight proves it by slamming the pommel of his sword into Welsknight's faceplate. If it weren't for the nose guard, his nose would be broken. His eyes still phosphor from the hit, a world of infinite, blinding stars. His feet are kicked out from underneath him.

And the player started to breathe faster and deeper, and it realized it was alive

Welsknight reaches for his dropped sword again. Helsknight doesn't back away from him this time. Welsknight deflects the stab that would have killed him, swings the pommel of his sword against Helsknight's knee.

You. You.

Helsknight drops, a hand on his battered joint. Then he lunges, and they are wrestling again. Blood from Helsknight's wound spatters Welsknight, makes one of his hands slick. He holds his sword in both hands and uses it as a staff, trying to ward away Helsknight's blade locked against it. With the force of his shoving, and the weight of him bearing down, Welsknight's arms are giving.

You. You.

His arms are giving. The crossed blades are too close to his neck. He kicks. He grunts.

Helsknight is a dark tower, the kind that eclipses vision. His eyes are red stars in the dark, distant and bloody.

You are alive.

One of Welsknight's arms collapse. His brief hope this might pitch Helsknight off-balance flickers out before it can really settle.

Helsknight is a perfect knight. Tenets. Poise. Form. Kit. Bloodlust. Bloodlust. Bloodlust. Welsknight can feel it like a wound on his skin. Like blood in his eyes. Like iron on his tongue. Like a netherite blade so close to his neck he can't catch his breath.

I want to help them speak the word they fear.

Helsknight kept his blades sharp. It probably had something to do with perfection. In the moment before blade touches skin, Welsknight searches his other half. He finds what he expects to see.

Disgust at what is happening, and blood and pain and struggle. Resentment at being brought here only for this one thing, for this spiral to an end. Vindication of his skills, pride in his efficiency, disdain for Welsknight's clumsiness.

Welsknight does not find what he expects, as well.

He does not find remorse.

He does not find guilt.

He finds only a subtle annoyance where those things should be, disdain that Welsknight bothers to search at all.

Welsknight smirks. He doesn't need the reminder that his other half is evil, but it is nice to know, even if he's lost, he's still right.

The days were short; there was much to do; and death was a temporary inconvenience.

Helsknight is alone on an island in the end. He is surrounded by the remains of Welsknight's gear, and the spattering of his own blood against the end stone. Whenever Welsknight dies, when they fight here at the end of the world, with nothing to distract each other from each other, it feels like Helsknight has woken up for the first time in a long time. The smothering thoughts, emotions, intensities of his Hermit lift and dissipate, and it feels like he has finally caught his breath for the first time in years.

Helsknight sits on his knees on the stone until his joints ache, and his hip burns, and his leggings are a mess of blood, and he breathes. Long, deep, like cold water in a desert.

Finally, he stands. It takes effort. He has to use his sword as a crutch. But he stands. He looks out at the nothingness, at the end, at the jaws of the universe in every direction.

And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream.

Helsknight snorts derisively.

"I would rather sleep," he says.

He vanishes back to hels.