𝐖𝐎𝐋𝐅 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐊𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐙!

" 𝔪𝔶 𝔰𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔩 𝔤𝔯𝔬𝔴 𝖉𝖗𝖚𝖓𝖐 𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔡. "

[blacknighted]

𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥? An independent roleplay blog for Henry of Skalitz from Warhorse's Kingdom Come: Deliverance series. As a survivor of a razed village, Henry endeavors to reap vengeance upon those who have stolen and taken from him. A blacksmith's son turned squire, he has become something warrior and knight both.

With 1403 Bohemia as the games' backdrop, Henry holds deeply religious views -- specifically those of Roman Catholicism. Themes of homophobia will be present. Additionally, narratives surrounding war, PTSD, and revenge fantasies will be thoroughly explored.

𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡… @toherdemise, @pawnedprince, @abysswarden, @sanctifisol, @absentpublic, @spiritdreamt, @laperlina/ @travmsoldat, @viciousgrace, @brokenmagxc, and @dracareesi.

Click the read more for rules and Henry's about. View my #verses tag for available verses.

This blog for Henry of Skalitz is private and independent.

More details are as follows:

IMPORTANT NOTES AND DIVERGENCES: I write Henry as 23 in canon, but write him older in AUs. While his age isn't explicitly stated in KCD, he has to stay young enough within Hans' age (20), especially as a blacksmith-in-training under his father. However, this medieval standard (though, with his apprentice status, Henry should've been younger even then) is dropped in other universes, and he will likely slide within the 30s range. Also keep in mind that, by default, I write a vengeful!Henry.

I. Godmodding will not be tolerated. However, for setting up a scene, generic set-ups may be pursued i.e. catching Henry sparring. Go crazy.

II. I will write only with mutual followers.

III. Do not expect immediate follow backs.

IV. This is a selective blog. I will only follow blogs with characters I find Henry can interact with. Second, the blog must have a rules and about page. Additionally, an emphasis in writing must be present meaning there should not be frequent out of character content. I really only unfollow for inactivity.

V. I ask that you unfollow with a hardblock. 

VI. Shipping is open though not the priority. I only ship with one variation of any canon character. I will not ship if you are already shipping with a Henry. This is for my comfort.

VII. On the topic of shipping, this blog is open to NSFW interactions. My writing partners should be +21.

VIII. Let me know of any triggers you may have, and I will tag my posts accordingly. I read everyone’s rules pages; however, things may slip my mind. I personally do not have any triggers.

IX. I practice mains. I may interact with numerous portrayals of a certain character, but a main will remain my priority as well as the default of that character in my writing of Henry. My current canon mains are as follows: @pawnedprince (Hans), also ship exclusive.

X. Don’t interact if you write with geracht/zimwy (Danny), who consistently denies and vocally robs me of my rape experience while ignoring the accounts of other SA survivors, 4ssemble/gallantry (Axel/Briarwood, see here), and goldfanged (Ana, see here), all of whom avidly support my abuser/rapist indeath (Q) and have a history of doing so by stalking and harassing/provoking victims. I have already been harassed, and they have gone so far as to harass my brother. They have already sent vile messages such as this one linked here. This is a hard boundary. Please, do NOT put these people in my space. I will NOT make exceptions. This is my extensive callout. While not necessary, I'd appreciate it if you liked the linked post with the callout to show me you have read and respect this rule in particular.

Out of character, you can call me Dean. I’m Viet and +30.

___________________________________________________

ABOUT.

Name: Henry (Czech: Jindřich) Family Name/Surname (applicable in all verses but canon): Kovar (Czech: Kovář)  Also Known As: Henry of Skalitz and Hal (Jindra) Birthday: May 4, 1379 Age: 23 Gender: Cis Male Race: Caucasian, Bohemian (Czech) Martial Status: Single Sexuality: Bisexual Religion: Roman Catholic Current Residence: Rattay, Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic) Languages: Bohemian (now Czech) Social Status: Peasant

𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋.

Height: 6'0" Build: Muscular Hair Color: Brown Eye Color: Blue Markings: Multiple scars Piercings: None Notable Conditions: None Substance Use: Alcohol use

Gear can be viewed here.

𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 & 𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐒.

Biological Father: Sir Radzig Kobyla of Skalitz Adoptive Father: Martin (deceased) Mother: Ilona (deceased) Step Brother: Samuel (through Martin)

Lord: Sir Hans Capon of Pirkstein Liege Lord: Sir Radzig Kobyla of Skalitz

Henry also has an old grey nag named Pebbles and a mutt appropriately named...Mutt!

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘/𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋.

Mental Health: PTSD due to the raid on Skalitz. Henry has frequent nightmares of helplessness having watched his parents die right in front of him.

MBTI: ISTP, the Virtuoso. Moral Alignment: Chaotic Good.

Positives: Strong morals and sense of justice, responsible, loyal, protective, affectionate. Neutrals: Determined, inspired/passionate, good-humored, and driven. Negatives: Reckless, violent/decisive, stubborn, vindictive, aggressive, insubordinate.

A young man, Henry has all the hallmark traits of someone his age: he is rebellious, rabble-rousing, and is eager to see more, far more than is good for his lot. He has an unstemmable fire to him and a remarkable zeal for life, hungry to see the world and experience all that it has to offer. He's determined, full of vigor, stubborn, and is unlikely -- come hell or high water -- to step back from something he's set his mind on.

With his brazen personality, Henry has shown himself to be slow to respect authority, minding little the seat noblemen possess. He's little problem speaking his mind, and indeed, this very gumption of his has led him to much trouble -- though his desire to make amends and right wrongs have gotten him out of just as much. He's a strong sense of justice beside a deep seated anger, a thirst for reaping that he's every intention to see come to fruition.

A list of Henry's choices can be viewed here.

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒.

Education: As a peasant, Henry is not formally educated. He can, however, read and write, something he pursued ardently after speaking with a scribe in Uzhitz.

Sword: Used by many but formally taught only for the nobility, Henry manages to hone his skill with a sword under various teachers who have seen to the powerful and wealthy. He is, despite his commoner background, surprisingly gifted and a remarkably quick study. While good with shortswords as well, Henry prefers more the longsword.

Archery: While not as good with the bow as he is with the sword, Henry, largely self-taught, but picking some things up under Sir Hans Capon -- a crackshot, admittedly -- Henry can still prove a threat from long range.

Smithing: Under his father Martin, he learned the basics. After his father's death, however, Henry does not abandon the trade and finds he's quite a knack himself at the forge.

Alchemy: Surprisingly handy at alchemy, Henry can brew up tonics, poultices, and potions in a pinch. Quite useful considering his increasingly dangerous lifestyle.

𝐎𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.

Blacksmith apprentice. Henry had shadowed his father, Martin, back at Skalitz.

Squire. Following Sir Hans Capon of Pirkstein, they had originally started off on the wrong foot after sharing a heated scuffle in the tavern. Caught, Sir Hanush of Leipa, Hans' guardian, ordered the two to go hunting together as their punishment. In the end, everything eventually came together, and there is nothing Henry would not do to keep Hans safe.

𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘.

In the beginning, life was simple. A simple blacksmith's son in the quaint village of Skalitz, Henry had much to busy his hands with -- labor, scuffles, the drudgery of life -- but had always desired to go out and adventure.

As it turns out, this wish came to him on a bloody day, the wailing of the butchered folk of Skalitz ringing mad in his ears. Busy finishing up Sir Radzig Kobyla’s sword, it was over the horizon that Henry and his father spotted the incoming Cuman army led by Markvart von Aulitz, lieutenant of the rebel King Sigismund who vies to seize control from King Wenceslas IV. In pandemonium and the whirring screech of madness, Henry, rushing to find his father who had fled to the village center for his wife, witnessed the quick slaughter of both his parents.

He fled Skalitz on horseback, lost, confused, and with an unstemmable anger deeply rooted in his heart.

Taken in by Sir Radzig, his biological father as he would later find out, Henry eventually meets Sir Hans Capon of Pirkstein, brawling with the nobleman in a heated dispute at the tavern. Finding them, Sir Hanush of Leipa, Hans' guardian, orders the two to go hunting together -- for Henry's part, to learn how to respect nobility, and for Hans, to learn how to rule his peoples in a more respectable fashion. Though they had started off spectacularly poorly, fate has a funny way of working, and as Henry is later tasked to protect Sir Hans, people find they, thick as thieves as they are, are just as like to both get into trouble together.

Eventually running once more into one Istvan Toth who steals from him his sword, the sword Henry and his father made for Sir Radzig -- and, indeed, the last tie Henry has to his father Martin -- Henry has nothing but a scathing need for revenge.

Turned page then squire, Henry of Skalitz makes through Bohemia with the humming of war in the background -- the game of royalty, of King Sigismund and King Wenceslas. All the while, he is set on two things: finding his sword and killing the bastards that took everything from him.

𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐀/𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒.

Important people (NPCs) in Henry's life.

Important places that may be referenced.

Henry's relationship with his sexuality versus his Christian faith. [1] [2, largely exploring Hansry]

Henry's relationship with his anger versus his Christian faith.

Henry's stubbornness toward protecting/serving. [1] [2]

Henry's relationship with his masculinity in 15th century Bohemia.

Henry's scars and chronic pain as a result of war and torture.

Henry's PTSD nightmares.

[heliosphage]

𝐖𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝, 𝐠𝐨𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧, 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝. An independent and selective, low-activity Ryland Grace from Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary. This blog will be a steady blend of both book and the movie adaption. Being both multi-verse and multi-fandom with forays into high fantasy and sci-fi settings, expect, too, dabbling into personal headcanons. Themes and narratives include that of space exploration, humanity's last hope, crushing isolation, and becoming, through the grips of the primal terror of death, someone stronger, braver, and brighter for those you love.

An independent Ryland Grace from Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary, drawing from both book and the movie adaptation. Please refer to the pinned post for rules and Ryland's about before interacting. 

𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘺𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦; 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘯.

[blacknighted]

He is a body of endless aches and marrow-deep, innumerables sores. This, he's needed.

It's nice. Dipping lower, lower into the scalding of the bath water, a rocky sigh, low and thick, slips right out him. Ah. It's hardly been a minute since he's been back, and with a swiftness tremendous enough to startle, he had made like a bandit and stole for the bathhouse. Inside, he basks in the swaddling of the fragrances, the herbs, the sweet oils, and even the soaps made of olive for those with the coin. God take him. At once, it's like all of the toils of the road would leave him...! The door cricks. He cants his head. He can't be bothered. "Haven't started servicing as a bath wench coming in here, have you?" Henry jokes lazily; it's all molasses. "Hoping not. Considering your hands, not sure I can take another battering." / OPEN.

[intothewildsea]

It's him. Before he took of his helmet, she knew, but seeing his face makes it real. Makes it true. Her heart feels that it might burst from her chest. Reaching up, she takes off her headdress and veil, dropping them to the ground. Her golden curls tumble free around her cheeks and down her back.

For this moment, she is not a queen. She is not royalty. She is just Niamh.

"You know I've never been good at doing what I'm supposed to," she answers. "And you're wrong. That love of mine is standing right in front of me."

There's no hesitation as she steps closer and reaches up to cup the back of his head. She tugs him down and kisses him like he's the air she's meant to breathe.

[blacknighted]

Had she any sense at all, she would have recoiled at the sight of him. It would have been warranted; he is changed, much changed, and he has left her for decades. Indeed, no man has ought savor such tenderness after leaving but a phantom of his memory for a spring-hearted girl. It is evil. The hurt and the wait he has thrust on her shoulders? The pillory. Or the block. The block, he thinks. The block, he deserves.

Her veil dropping, he knows she's still that heart in her, more enduring in her kindness than the years had found him. His heart stops. That's why he'd loved her in their youth, hadn't he? She grabs his coif, and when their lips slot — something hysterical writhes in his gut.

Oh. "Ma'am." This, this isn't something he deserves. It isn't. She talks like she has clung to the thought of him for autumns, summers, winters, too, and the honey in her kisses? It's all real. With a sound, he's weak to accept it anyway, that beast in him whimpering at a morsel after years of hungering. This is a banquet. Even her smile could have fed him were he not so greedy. He kisses her back. Where to start? My god. The taste of her— He tears away, taut nerves frazzling.

"I've got to get you away from here." Yes. "It isn't safe." He licks his lips. His hair, it's greyer. Notably. She seems to him to have hardly aged a single April, untouched, utterly unspoiled, yes, but where life has spared her with her beauty, angrier, the roads with its brigands swarm with slaughter. "I'll take you someplace, but—" But? His heart aches. "Only for a night, alright?" He starts for an inn.

[luthienne]

I sometimes feel like a post standing in a raging sea, lashed on all sides by the waves. But I am firmly moored, and the years have helped to weather me. I want to live to see the future.

Etty Hillesum, from a diary entry featured in An Interrupted Life: the Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork (translated from the Dutch by Arnold J. Pomerans)

[kitmitsu]

"well, we can definitely say the strength is mine and not yours if people start asking."

they had said they would find a fitting home in the first town they came across... naturally, that had turned to the second, then the third; each place wanting in some way the last had not been, or else failing by entirely different means. the first monastery had seemed too occupied with halls crowding orphaned children. the second had sat wrong in riku's bones for the opposite reason -- too quiet by half and too strangely barren of children altogether. the third, truth be told, had possessed no fault of its own safe one, for the moment they had crossed the convent threshold, the little one had broken into a wail until its face purpled. riku and henry had exchanged a look then, and decided unanimously that they best turn about to the gravelly road again.

that had been a fortnight ago.

a time in which they had said, with no small certainty, that the roads were no place for a child. and yet... here they sat beneath a star-dotted sky, circled round the smoldering bones of a campfire with said child wedged between them, happily gumming away on its own tiny fists as riku tried pry loose whatever hair strands clung to the skin.

indeed, so much for certainty.

"cute when it's sleeping. less so when it decides to pull out all of my damn hair." a titter-- the child, or henry? doesn't matter, riku arches an unimpressed brow nonetheless. "what's so funny, hm?"

@blacknighted

[blacknighted]

"Don't know about that. Enduring you just fine. Look at it that way, I'd argue I've a saintly strength of mind."

How right. The stars, diabolical creatures as they are, giggle in their silvering — and with some derision, evidently, for Riku's humbling. How horrible to mock her! And how villainous to tease her! But so be it; perhaps at least the rest of the hour will show more care. Here, Henry would admit that he has thought of this longingly, a life where he'd both a woman and a babe with his head in the grasses. It possessed a...quality, he supposes, something primordially homey and altogether right, and at once, he thinks of both tartlets made from apples and a cottage with a sheep pen. A daydream. Idyllic! And on the road, plainly impossible.

Or perhaps not.

"Nothing! Just, anyone ever tell you you take to it?" No way. Henry cracks an eye open, head tilting in the pillowing bed of late-May grass, valeria curling like will-o-wisps at his ear, and looks to her. He smiles. The scene is cozying. The toddler — she calls it 'it', and he, 'little devil' — snuggles closer against Riku's thigh. "You know. Being a mum." He shrugs. "He's right obsessed with you."

The weeks have proven that. From a razed village — bandit work — they rescued him.

[blacknighted]

So you walk up to your local blacksmith and he looks like this wdyd / cred.

[blacknighted]

@brokenmagxc asked: i’m running out of goddamn time. / SEALED WITH A LEAD KISS: still accepting.

"Then I'll give it to you!"

Henry's adamant. He says it so simply, too. In his mind, up is up, down is burrowing, and coming last but not least, everything -- again: everything -- I've got is yours. Right. And he says it with such a sobering sense of earnesty, his strong brows furrowing as though he'd stare at enemy ranks. But give what? My sword, that's given. And my loyalty, too. But more than, perhaps my body, my flesh, and my future, too.

Like a servant.

And a servant, a prince had ought to sacrifice.

His hand landed on Arthur's back, anchoring, a hard press to steady him, there, there before it curves into the slope of his hips. Ah. Taller, the demon of Velgorod is made to gaze into those hardened blues, an inferno wicked steadily within them. How dutiful. Trusting. Hal would place his soul into a foreigner's palms, willing when he knew naught of the demand that was needed. A lamb. Obedient, but sharper, still -- a wolf. A wolf who heeded the wildboy he had found in the woods, something howling and animal within him, too. "Give me the order. Whatever you need, Sir, I will give you. Just tell me, dammit."

[littleskrib]

Sleepers Peace @copperboltsblog has suggested that the concept of the sculpture of the same name by Greet Desal would be great do with Henry and his animal companions - and I totally agree! So here's my take on it |06052026

- You want to see WIPs, exclusive content and artworks earlier? Consider supporting me on Patreon ✨

[selfishisuppose]

Dorian snorted, not sure whether his chapel habits had anything to say about whether Henry was good or not, it said more about himself, but Henry had managed to pull him from his self pity, enough to sober just a tiny bit. And then he was unfairly held out, no longer warm and safe like he had been as he lingered too long in safe arms. "Oh, you know. The South doesn't cater to my religious beliefs," he said with a little smile, but the important part was that Henry had made him smile.

Unlike Henry, his eyes did wander, too unapologetic in his current state to even realise that he was very much appreciating his form as he stood there within reach, yet somehow he behaved himself beyond looking. It was tiring to behave, to be good, when he wanted to burn something, yet he was far too drunk not to set himself on fire in the attempt. "So you say, I can see I disturbed," it was obvious that Henry was wearing anything at all because he came knocking at a horribly unfair hour.

Dorian laughed briefly as Henry stated the obvious, had been about to say something clever, something self depreciating maybe, deflect the wounds Henry was poking at. Pretend they didn't exist. The wine cellar was in fact not deep enough, and Josephine had cut him off already, but it was so much better than the swill they served at the tavern that he now had to make do with.

There was an urge to leave, to close this conversation as Henry poked, pull himself away from the one man who could tear down the wall he had tried to build, pretending that he was in fact better than everyone.

"What else is there to do in this horribly cold castle? Throw around fireballs, bother the nobles pretending to play court? No, getting drunk seemed the right choice," at least he wasn't bothering anyone, didn't plan to until he saw the flicker from Henry's window. The walls were coming back up, and maybe it had been a mistake to be vulnerable, it's not like anyone here cared about the person he'd lost. They most likely rejoiced at the thought of the son of a dreaded Magister being gone.

So Dorian pulled away, not quick or violently, and not exactly elegantly either, a slight stumble as he took a step out of Henry's reach. "I really shouldn't keep you. We can talk tomorrow.. evening. I don't expect I'll be very well until then," not with how much he'd drank.

[blacknighted]

No, the South certainly didn't cater to his beliefs, but to its credit, the South hardly bothered to cater at all. At the very least, it'd the decency to sprout up this Warden, this man so...so easy with his smiles as he chronically was. In truth, he felt as though but a daffodil or daisy, something bright and like sunshine amidst all this blight — but, well, blight less like darkspawn and more this gnawing lonely! But them, too. Henry looked at him. The man did it all.

He shook his head. Hesitated. As though a branding, hot, harrowing in its blistering trailing, he felt it like a rod, this mage's longing gaze like a stretch of scorched earth. Evidently, Dorian was emboldened, Hal imagined, by both his drinking and the wantonness of a man twice-starved. In truth, he wasn't quite certain how to take it, this curious and maddening dance of theirs like bees in his belly. It was new. And, sure, not new entirely, no, but this man was no woman, and those rifts that divide them—! Henry's heart thunked. Dorian's uncertainty struck like a hammer.

"Stop that." He looked to him -- plainly. "You aren't bothering me. Opened the door, hadn't I? Always gonna if it's for you."

Right. Suddenly, realizing it as the blow connected, bruised him, he felt it, too: the cold, tapering creep of the ice-cold chill. Huh. Unconsciously, their darling Warden shuddered. Indeed, he rather missed the closeness, too, the warm of it, and was honest enough to admit as much, feeling himself like a stretch of gaping yearning, but a worsening voraciousness for touch and skin. It was why Henry struck his arm back out, his strong hand settling like some tether to Dorian's wrist. "Stay." And don't hide again, or I'll come back running...! Like a dog. And by the all that is holy, may I show no mercy.

"Isn't keeping and having the sort of thing you do?" His hand lingered. "If you're telling me you're practicing temperance now, I'm not gonna believe you." Another joke. Tevinters, as the prevailing thought went, after all, were bottomless pits of men, greedying to their core. It stood to reason that Dorian should've sank in his talons, plunging his fangs, one might imagine, into the blistering, wooshing pulse point by the base of Hal's neck. He should've. He never stopped before, so why was he now? Another conundrum. It spun the mind to think on it. "Maker knows I was to lie awake for a bit anyway. Besides, always slept better with someone after being out alone for weeks on end. Gather yourself, and I'll play your wetnurse come the morning." Another tether. Come. Henry sat on his bed, the space to his right free, and began to bother with something for tomorrow's headache. This was no mistake. "Should come to me when you reach for the bottle next. Not everything's got to be done alone, you know? You keep doing that." Hurting yourself.

[brokenmagxc]

everything is washed in a grey-white film. a moment trapped in shadows and dim lighting, warmth stale and bleached out dry. arthur's got his eyes, dark and dirt-bruised, widening at henry's approach: the sweat on skin, dark hair matted to the forehead, stare narrow and wet, mouth slightly agape as teeth sharpen beneath the lips. the slayer feels his pulse quicken. betrayer. he is not scared. he is not frightened. he can't be. he has met hunger before. he has always been a meal for the hungry.

want feels like many things to him. in some ways, arthur can discern that ache deep between them. you won't hurt me, he says before the thought has finished settling in his own brain. he can feel that cruel desire in henry, a twisting pain for restraint. it shows in the gleam of the wolf's eyes. in the way the beast holds onto him and refuses to let go. in the way his voice, roughened sick, says run but his body stays. betrayer. a thief of feeling, arthur and henry both.

the slayer does not flinch when he is grabbed, claw-like nails digging into meat until his flesh turns red and he blinks like pain is an afterthought to this fragile thing between. he has met hunger before, yes. been reduced to a meal by things far grander and greater than the shivering man before him—the crazed, deranged man with a snarl in his teeth and a tear in his eye, wishing for the world to grant him the mercy of restraint. arthur has stared hunger in the face and seen nothing beyond it but a waiting grave for the whole of him. nothing else but hunger.

this was not that.

henry shakes in his grasp. henry pleads, fierce and frantic. henry panics. henry looks at him like he might cry if he could, if the moon were not as harsh at it promised to be and his head not swimming with so much sin it spilled from the seams of him. arthur watches with those kind eyes of his, the dark browns a little gilded at the edges, the moonlight caught on the pallor of his skin and the thin redness of his lips. yes, i am mad, arthur thinks, and has to stop himself from smiling with that particular curve of insanity that's wrapped him so utterly still in the hands of fear and hurt and hunger. there were times when he thought he would throw his tired body into the endless void of it, fulfill some want or another to end the hunt once and for all.

this was not that.

no. he wanted this because he wanted the man beneath it, still trying to reach him under the weight of his own cursed fate. he wanted henry. and he would do anything for him.

cold hands slide against the warm skin of henry's arms—not pushing away, just holding where the muscle jumps, above the elbow somewhere on both sides. arthur holds henry still as if his grip alone could stop the other's shaking. “ no. ” he says, firmly, in a voice low and deep and sure of itself. he doesn't care that the grip on him tightens, that the edge of his flesh tears, that henry growls with a face contorting in that hunger so viciously that, for a second, it does not look like henry at all.

arthur holds him tighter.

“ i am not going to leave you here to fight yourself just because it gets harder. i trust you, hal. i know who you are beneath all this. and if i have to stay to make sure you come back to yourself, then i will. i will. ” his face softens, the edge of pain pulling his lips into a small, helpless smile.

“ i got you, ” he says quietly, stripped to a barely audible roughness. “ it's okay. i got you. ”

[blacknighted]

Yes, Arthur has seen want. He has. He has seen its sinister colors, its spectrum both yawning and dizzying, and has learned that it's frothier than the midnight and darker than the fens. For years, he has come as though wraith-like in its sombering, but a monochroming slurring of forty-toned wrath. Indeed, want is a royal with his grudges, a royal who would kill for his spot on the throne, and want is a wolf who'd sink its fangs in the sheeplings. It's ugly. To him, want is either grudge or a maw with teeth.

But Arthur — flattened, pinned, hounded solidly beneath his hulk, imprisoned, quartered and with no panic at all — has never, never really, felt want in him. Henry. Gaze wobbly, his shoulders quavering, the knightling feels it keenly, the punch of his moonsick as it goes tearing down rib bones. And to be fair, Arthur's definitively seen his anger, and seen, too, his foul obsession with slaughtering those men who had burned his home. By all accounts, Arthur should further sickened by want, the shades of it always so dark and bruising and dead and cruel, but that's not all...! Look at him! The want for restraint! For something gentler...! And beneath it all: violence with a beauty like spring through the frostbite.

Something animal whines in him, or perhaps something human, but then, Henry imagines now, humoring in a feral bout of lucid thinking, they aren't at all so entirely dissimilar. Want: to him, it is blood, certainly, but as Arthur looks up, expression so enduring -- he feels it festering: the want for protection. To go and protect him. It is human. Arthur's hands glide up his arms, the muscles there straining to control themselves, and this bud of some uncontrollable feeling roots like a seed in the bed of his heart. It's affection, undoubtedly, but his illness them, all his feelings, and intensifies their flavor so that they may fizz at his gumline. It's sweet. Arthur has often stared unto greed, want, but he cannot yet know what stares at him now.

"You--" You've lost it. You're mad. And yet, here, here, here. The boy in him croaks. Henry's nails still sink into his skin, breaking the barrier and letting drip blood blood, and he feels it, the want to drag him closer, greedier past his ribs, and to take him in his heart as one whole being. He's starting to realize this want is the butchering of care, of something very close to love if he just dares but to think it. And he does. He does because he has to, because his body's not his own now. Everything -- it's more intense, more bright, and Arthur's so, so soft.

Henry collapses. He digs his head into the ground next to Arthur's head, confused, and smells the iron of the drops of blood. "That's right. You've got me. But you don't even get it, do you? You don't! Don't even know what that means!"

His heart pounds. The woods are twittering about them, sounding to him like the bursting of handgonnes, and Arthur's heart...! It's louder. Henry's hands press his shoulders harder, meaner into the ground. "You have me, and it's like--"

His world dizzies. "I can't think." I'd kill for you, you know that? That's not having. That's claiming.

[blacknighted]

A core element of Henry's anger is his need for control and exercising a level of authority. It isn't control in the way tyrants need control, however, but more a hunger born from knowing full well what it's like to be at the mercy of others. In other words, this hunger is more a trauma response, taking Henry's penchant for rebellion and arming it with a reaction worsened by fear. After all, on the day Skalitz was sacked, it had began just as any normal day -- warm sunshine, a few sweet words with his girl, a tussle with the village nuisance, and some good ol' fooling about with the boys. Though Henry had always known about the dangers of the world and adventuring from the periphery, seeing Markvart and the Cumans descend upon his home from over the horizon, swords in hand, their King's blessings saddled on in their hearts, murder — guiltless, unfathomable greed — in their eyes truly put the reality of a peasant's helplessness into stark reality. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't no natter how badly he'd wanted to. Dad, far more able than himself, an actual adventurer in his past, an actual soldier, told him to run, and so he had. And when he'd came back, it was only to watch this greedy war machine claim everything he knew and loved in merciless strokes, watching all like a helpeless.lamb, sword in hand, weak, so unspeakably weak, as the invading army but here his folks right before him. After Skalitz, Henry, feeling sufficiently humbled, cowardly, made to feel an outright failure with an unspeakable sense of survivor's guilt, has that desperate need to feel like he can control something, anything in his life. His trauma leads him to vent that toward control, a pure and utter domination of those that have stolen from him, and even puffing his chest out just a bit too much to men of far, far higher social standing. Granted, he'd always been a hothead, and perhaps one could say he'd always had a fantastic lean toward foolhardiness, but besting Sir Hans in duels and commanding the lordling out of his own tavern? It's all helplessness that's made him daring, brash, even rash and foolish -- and of course, that Hans was a twit only helped pave the way. Point is, if Henry has an opportunity to go against the grain, to rebel, to help people in ways he damn well wishes he'd been able to help himself all those days ago, to help even just himself, then he will. He doesn't want to bow to other men again. He never will. He refuses to be another nameless peasant made to suffer at anyone's, anything's hands -- nobles, fate, God or otherwise.

[blacknighted]

@absentpublic asked: [ cuddle ] sender moves closer to receiver as they sleep and snuggles down beside them, finding comfort in their presence / PROMPTS FOR TOUCH-STARVED MUSES: still accepting.

He's sleeping under the trees. Again. She finds him. About them now: fireflies, flower-bloated, and owls clung to the linden and maples.

He softens. He folds her up like a pastry sheet, oozy, her body kept to his middle, and immediately, she becomes some facsimile of some summer-swollen mashing of long-stewed fruit. For his warring, it's here that he feels vulnerable again, but skin and molten wishes, less a sword or a blade but a simple man and he hasn't said how he's needed this, this...feeling of belonging like his spot in her bed. Not yet. But he wraps her up tight where she melts at his breastbone. Half-roused, he breathes, thinking still of sheep bounding happily and summertime crickets.

How sweet. How saccharine. Endeared — very, very much — Henry counts the stars as they sit glittering at her lashes like some mermaid's tail. Affectionately, he thinks about sharing all of his secrets, the sort of words only men, if they're daring enough, might share in the nighttime. And why not? When next will he find a time so tender? He thumbs her brow. Catching a lock of hair, he sweeps it back. "I saw my ma," he lets slip to her, to the dark, to the watching, peering leaves. "I told her about you." She listened. "And she said she likes you."

[blacknighted]

a kiss for athera’s favorite birthday boy

Slowly, he comes to wake.

"Mmm?" Henry, for all the years that the stars have known him, has never cared much to so frivolously want or to so grossly desire. He's simple. He likes simple, tasty stews, and simple, gentle loves — there, in the clasp of her arms by the thump of her heart. To the point, he's learned that it's scarcely the complexity of the matter that would so color all the quality or the heft or the value in something. Not at all. For the fullness of a thing to enjoy on its own? She kisses him. Simplicity! He beams at her, a whole decade or two younger.

"Alright, you." Come here. Quick! He's reaching for her. She's sweet. He thinks of bees, meadow-bright-lullabies, the verdants with giggling, silvery brooks, and bloating groves made fat with the sun-swelled flowering. In his lap now, he feels how cloven she has left him, how divested he has become of both his sword and his armor and duty. He's just Henry. Her love, her darling, and the warm in her bedsheets! He kisses her back, volleying them. Happy birthday. Another year. By you. That's all he's asking.

[blacknighted]

@selfishisuppose asked: look, if you’re about to propose a threesome, i’m tired and i haven’t shaved my chest. / SEALED WITH A LEAD KISS: still accepting.

A what?! Maker help him. Rolling his eyes, Henry swore he tasted the blue to them. A baker, one might imagine, would have likened it to marzipan.

Right. Well, to be sure, there were a few things — scratch that, a million, one billion, trillion things, actually — that came at once as both confoundingly silly and unspeakably dumb. For starters, Henry was undoubtedly hairier, forested enough, one might argue, to make Dorian himself seem hewn from marble, but forget that. A threesome with Henry? A bout with the Warden? What nonsense. With a hammer in hand, Henry stalked to the anvil.

"Alright, fine." Huff. "I'll bite." Clang. Clang. Clang! "And who are you supposing I'd be off sharing you with?" What a question. He labored. Within Skyhold's forge — blistering, Hal impossibly sweaty — perhaps the sheer magnitude of that joke could smelt things, too. "Since you mentioned it, don't think that blown up head of yours really counts as a third. More like a forth. Haven't beds here for that."

[feral-ballad]

I want to make love, but my hair smells of war and running and running.

Warsan Shire, from Our Men Do Not Belong to Us; “Conversations about Home (At the Deportation Center)”

[blacknighted]

@khaeryx asked: i understand if you hate me. (suggestion of Khaeryx's dragon nature being revealed, but whatever inspiration hits you!) / SEALED WITH A LEAD KISS: still accepting.

"What? No! It isn't like that!" It wasn't! "It's just–" Just what? Henry scrabbled for the words. Face coloring with their desperate row, the brightness of it made bolder with his vigorous sweating, he would stand there, heart thundering, with his weepy sword. And, gods, what a vision he had been, this man more a beast. To Hal, he had never much considered, that perhaps his roads might come across such inspiring creatures, but there. Standing in the flesh and there by the trees? Khaeryx loomed. In his mind— Fuck. Henry frowned. He saw still those scales, those claws, and those brigands in his teeth. "You've been hiding it from me. Why?" Why, indeed? Khaeryx saved him. The knightling's helmet fell. He drank in a desperate pour of air, lungs whining, and turned to him with blood still warm in his temples. Everything, my word, ached. "I want to hear it." Yes. "Go on!" Tell me you thought I'd turn on you, turn you to those lich lords!

Impossible. He was a noble character! He'd said that when they met! Khaeryx saved him! The feel of his fire... Stomping now, he neared. "Haven't I got you?! Didn't I promise?"