This is a writing-only sideblog for @queenaeducan. Here I’ll be posting or reposting things written by myself or, occasionally, my partner @theshirallen’s as we have a shared universe together. You might also know me from my Solas rp blog @theharellan which I’ve run since DA:I’s release.
Several of the OCs that I will be writing about on this blog are the creations of my partner/spouse, Joly. Ian Lavellan, Cadri Cadash, and Miolvun are all theirs.
tell me about the fic that the hail mary prayer & confession research is for👀👀
hans gets sick and henry takes it personally. it ought to be done by the weekend if all goes well!
here's a snippet of the confession's beginning!
plain text under cut
His eyes itch. He pinches them again, finger and thumb coming away wet. "Do you still take confession, Father?"
"You know I don't," Godwin snorts. He stops, turning to look at Henry trailing behind. Henry can see his feet, toes pointing slightly off to the right. He looks up and finds himself looking at Godwin from behind a veil of tears which he fails to swipe away. "Although perhaps the Lord will understand if I do, just this once. Kneel, lad. I'll hear your sins on God's behalf."
Henry does so. His knees sink into the loamy soil, the tall trees and their leaves not enough to shade the forest floor from yesterday's rainstorm. Water saturates the points where his body meets the ground, soaking through his hose, welling around his kneecap. Godwin signs a Cross, which Henry mirrors, the familiar words pouring from his lips to Godwin's ears:
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was…" He teeths his lips, worrying at the chapped skin. "Must've been… not since-"
The realisation drops like a lead weight in his stomach. Before he can count the days since he'd knelt in the Rovna chapel and recounted his boyish sins to Father Simon. He can't even remember what it was he confessed to— what he would even have to say that weren't the petty crimes of an unrealised man.
Before he can falter further, Godwin offers a respite. "It's alright," he murmurs. "The Lord will understand."
Hans and Henry share a bed after the victory at Suchdol.
Hans x Henry. Fluff. 1,200 words.
After weeks of starving within Suchdol's walls, waking up with a full belly might have seemed to Hans Capon a miracle on par with those found in the Bible. Equatable to the feeding of five thousand or manna delivered from Heaven. Such a thought might well be deigned heresy, were he not layering upon them greater sins— committed in mind and body.
Henry is asleep beside him, his face soft in strange new ways. His cheek is pressed up against Hans's arm, neglecting his pillow for the cushion of Hans's bicep. His hair sweeps in front of his face in a way he would never abide awake, although Hans hesitates to right it for him, afraid the most fragile touch will rouse him. When he stirs (not to waking) the bristle of his growing beard pokes into Hans's skin. He does not mutter, does not toss and turn, as he had so often in their room at the Den. He does not stand, still sleeping, and test the door that he himself had locked the night before— a sound that now tolls the bells of Hans's heart.
He simply sleeps, and Hans lets him.
Hans, himself, drifts off here and there as the morning grows long in the tooth. Each time he wakes, he watches Henry a while, in a manner he often had before, but always with excuse. Their lives riddled with danger, and Henry so eager to thrust himself into danger (or else be volunteered for it), it was only natural that Hans would be worried for him. And though Henry had been charged with his protection, he no more wanted Radzig to lose his only son than for Rattay to lose its heir. Now, he needs no pretence. His eyes blink open, and he drinks Henry in for the sake of it. Admiring the marriage of soft and strong features, and sleeping again.
Until Hans opens his eyes, and finds Henry watching him.
He grins at having been caught, a flush creeping into a face made pale by sleep. His eyes are blue with the fantasy of dreams, framed by dark lashes that kiss his cheek when he blinks. He smiles so wide Hans can see the hole from the molar he'd lost in Semine, a loss Henry had shrugged off in the middle of two bites of bread. 'I'll eat with the other side,' he'd said. Strange, to think the laugh that remark earned had led to this. That every moment they'd shared, foolish and fraught, had become this.
"You've slept in," Henry chides playfully. "You're usually up with the birds, you."
Hans issues a soft, breathy laugh from his nose. It's difficult to know how to respond when they're lying together like this. Beyond these walls it's easy to slip back into the routine of knight and squire, two young men who have fought in battle, and have every reason to laugh twice as hard for the deaths they've escaped. Within them, however, it feels nebulous. This feeling, this them: knight and squire; Galehaut and Lancelot; Hans and Henry. Two friends, two lovers. He hopes.
He hopes.
Hans's eyes point in the direction of his trapped arm and he opts to say, "My wing has been clipped."
He sees confusion knit Henry's thick brow, eyes travelling to the corners so Hans can see their whites. Recognition dawns like the morning they've nearly missed, and he lifts his head for Hans to retrieve his arm— only when Hans tries, he can't seem to move in.
His own brow knits, and he tries again. He can see his arm, laying there, attached to him at the shoulder as it ought to be, but there is no feeling beyond his elbow and even that is faint. He's not even sure he can move his fingers. "What have you done to my arm?" he asks.
"What?"
"I can't feel a thing."
Henry frowns, propping himself up on his elbow to examine it. With his other hand, he prods the skin, which does elicit some feeling deep beneath the skin. "Don't tell me you've never had pins and needles before."
"Of course I have!" he says defensively. He'd woken up too many times with his arms thrown over his head and a tingling feeling in his arms to tolerate such an accusation. "But you can feel those. I can't feel anything."
"Then you've never had them properly. Ma used to complain all the time when I'd roll on her arm."
"So this is a long-standing issue?" he says. "Maybe your head is too thick, Hal."
"Or your arm is too brittle." Henry paws at Hans's arm like a wild animal nosing a corpse on the side of the road. He lifts it by the wrist and watches it fall limply to the mattress, fascinated. "Christ, it really is asleep."
"You've nursed one arm just to cost me another."
"Relax, in a few minutes it'll be fine." Though until then, it appears to be the subject of Henry's mercies. He waggles the hand at the wrist a few more times, as if waving hello to himself, but before Hans can open his mouth to protest Henry threads their fingers together. He feels nothing and everything watching them knit— his fingers like five pieces of led, but his heart jolting up into his throat. Henry seems to take no notice, but twists their wrists together, baring the back of Hans's hand to his lips.
The first brush of them against Hans's thumb seems to bring it to life. For the first time since Henry had freed him, the skin has feeling. Each finger, in turn, is nursed at the knuckle, inspiring life into the appendage. When each have been bestowed, Hans finds the strength to turn his hand to cup the flush of Henry's cheek. His newly-healed thumb strokes the smooth skin of his cheekbone, sweeping to the lines his smile has worn into his face.
"Looks like you're keepin' the arm after all," Henry jests in the moments before Hans drags their faces towards one another.
He feels Henry's breath expand against his chest, the slow draw through the nose so they need not part before they are ready. Hans makes a noise in his throat he struggles to name, and sees no need to, so long as it does not put a stop to this: to the plush of Henry's lips overlapping with his; the tender use of teeth and tongue. He feels his nose bend against Henry's cheek and wonders if it shall be put to sleep, too, before they are finished.
"Mornin'," Henry murmurs against Hans's mouth, unable to contain his smile until Hans kisses it away. They roll together, Henry flattening against the mattress, Hans on top. An inversion of that night Henry had taken his leave from Suchdol. One ear bends against the pillow, pointed tip resembling a dog with a folded flap.
Henry lays his hand upon the bicep of Hans's left arm, stroking new feeling back into it. "Sorry about your arm."
"It's alright," Hans says, kissing him again. Again. Again. Those lips have done more than give new life to his fingers, but rather have breathed it into his whole existence. They deserve to take a little, as well. "Maybe tomorrow morning, it will hurt a little less."
I wrote this this morning, inspired by my own tendency to wake up with zero feeling in my arm. You can also find this on my AO3!
The day of Radzig's departure arrives, and Hans gets his long-awaited hunt.
“Come here. I want to hold you.”
The command summons Henry, who buries his face into the centre of Hans’s chest as if he plans to make a home amidst his ribs. He breathes a sigh so hot Hans can feel it beneath the layers of his hunting clothes; he imagines his own heart chiming back and forth like a bell, moved by the toller’s strength.
Hair that had coiled around his fingers tickles his nose as Hans bows his head to bury it against the top of Henry’s. He can feel his heart beating against Henry’s cheek, slowing to its resting rate— not hurried by the hunt or sex. Not hurried at all, in fact.
“How many days shall we stay out here?” Hans asks.
“How many can we afford to?”
Hans knows it’s not their supplies he refers to when he asks that question. They’d both lived rough before, foraging the woods of Trosky for game and safe water. In the months before he married Jitka he imagined that being their forever. Never seriously, but enough that it comes to mind now, years later. Henry’s beard would grow to his chest and Hans would wear his hair back like a married woman.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “Maybe a week? Jitka and Albrecht can handle matters that long. Longer, even.”
But he thinks of Otta, who had smiled her first smile not so long ago. And Hetty, who misses her brother more than he thinks she cares to admit.
“A few days, at least.”
⚔️ Read the rest on AO3 | Start from the beginning ⚔️
* this chapter includes explicit (sexual) content)
Hans & A Cow. Hans/Henry. Written for @turbotrout. 2,286 words.
When he was a child in Pirkstein, he once told his guardian he was going to run away.
Sir Henry had ignored him. It was always Hanush's job to handle his boyish outbursts. Sir Henry had raised three sons, and likely wouldn't have chosen to raise another, had it not fallen upon him. Hanush told him to go on ahead. Quit his seat, live in the woods, see what the world does without him.
The answer, as it turns out, is that it goes on much the same.
It has been five days since Hans had parted with Henry at the pillory. Five days of eating foraged food and what he could afford off ill-gotten game. Five days of scraping the hair off his chin by his reflection in a puddle.
Five days alone.
He turns his foot as he walks through the woods between Zhelejov and Tachov, avoiding the twigs resting innocently upon the ground. There had been sign of game a few feet back, something that was not so clever-footed as him, and he has a mind to bag it. It has horns; this, he knows from the deep scars in the tree he passes, where it had stopped to scratch an itch. It has fur; this, he knows from the red hairs stuck to the bushes. It has meat; because everything does.
With every step he scans the treeline, gaze piercing through the tangle of the forest, sometimes pausing at the deceptive sight of a sapling whose slender trunk could pass for a deer's leg. He perks his ears, and hears birdsong; then wonders if it has moved on, and if he is hunting a shadow.
Until something crunches, a ways ahead.
He jumps, but keeps his feet planted, and his bow close. Another crunch, and he creeps closer, using the horrid sound to mask his steps. His fingers stroke up the arrowshaft to the fletching, ready to nock. Draws. Aims.
It sees him.
Blue eyes stare him down, placid, unable to conceive of the violence balanced upon the arch of his bowstring. It doesn't even stop fucking eating, jaw working as its ears twitch and its lashes bat against its cheeks and its tail swats a fly off its back.
"What are you doing here?" he asks. The first words Hans has spoken all day, he realises. And he's saying them to a cow.
It doesn't answer, but chews. Crunching like it's chewing up its own teeth. It's then that he sees a smatter of red on its lips. A bright red, like strawberries, or—
There's a hare on the ground between them, half-eaten by flies and by his newfound company. More mangled than any wolf's prey, the only reason he recognises what it is at all is because of its ears, pressed pristine into the soil by a cloven hoof. It doesn't seem to recognise what it's doing, what it's eating, chewing it like it would a patch of clover. Born on a farm to pull a plough and feed a family, it won't know death until it's at its throat.
The arrow slides from its resting place, bowstring going loose as his muscles, slinging the weapon over his shoulder as he steps forward towards its would-be quarry. It blinks at him, one hoof stepping protectively towards the chewed up hare. A single step changes the shape of its whole body, it's like watching mountains part upon its back and come together again. It chews, bones crunch.
"Easy," he says to it— to her. A pink udder swings side-to-side when she moves, and her horns are a little shy for a bull's. "I know the rules of the hunt. The killer keeps the kill."
She blinks again, blue eyes disarmingly sweet within her simple-looking face. For the first time in days Hans sees himself reflected in something other than a mud puddle, his features distorted by the round lens of her gaze. "I suppose when you're done I'll have to take you back," he says. "Someone will be looking for you."
His stomach pinches at the prospect.
As it turns out, cows are in no hurry in nearly any aspect of their lives. He stands for a time, watching her further graze upon the remains of the hare, until his legs start to ache beneath him and he finds the shade of a nearby birch. She watches him, and for a moment he can imagine they're seated across from each other at a tavern. His meal long finished, mere bones to pick his teeth with, while she savours every bite.
"I didn't eat my first kill, you know," he tells her. "I'd shot it in the liver, and it lived long enough that I couldn't find it. Never shoot the liver— unless you have dogs, of course."
He gestures with the point of his dagger, which he then drags against a whetstone for want of something to do.
"I suppose in that respect you're doing better than me."
Lashes against her cheek, he is brought back to the woods outside Rattay. Henry's gaze looking down at the hares he'd bagged, the angle of his head not enough to disguise his smile. They hadn't eaten those, either. The Cumans had seen to that.
The sun rotates overhead, and the slant of the forest changes as the morning turns to afternoon before she raises her head and steps over the body of the hare, already forgotten. She moves on to the dandelion sprouting between some dead leaves, ripping the white heads off the stems with a sickening twist.
"Is that all you do all day?" Hans asks incredulously. "Eat and eat some more?"
She protests, mooing with a sharp flick of her tail, like he's the fly. Then, as if to prove a point, she shits. It falls in a steaming heap on the forest floor. Hans flinches, shaken suddenly back to the gates of Trosky castle.
"Of course," he says after he's recovered. "How could I forget?"
Tiring of this, he stands, bending over to pluck the last dandelion from the earth. He puffs his cheeks and blows the pale seeds towards her, where they land in her brown fur like freckles on her face. A wish flashes white in his head, so fast he doesn't let it come to words, only fleeting glimpses of wants too potent to let himself truly feel.
"There. It's gone. Can we get a move on, now? It's a walk to Zhelejov and I don't have all day." She blinks her eyes at him, and he can only assume she means 'yes,' as when he heads south she follows. "I presume that's where you're from, at least, based on the brand. I don't suppose that lisping fool of a farmer will give me a reward for your return?"
She ploughs through the underbrush with the grace of— well, a cow.
"No, I didn't think so, either."
They walk together, and it's almost like having company again. She lumbers more than his usual companion, and when she chews her lips don't smack as loudly. When he isn't certain of where to turn in the woods, she keeps going, and he finds himself following her. She is a certain step, ploughing through any underbrush that presents a challenge, but not always a quick one— likely to stop to graze on flowers while Hans leans against the trunk of the nearest tree.
"I'm starting to feel like Libuše," he says to her, as if this cow would know the name. Foundress of Prague, and wife to the legendary Přemysl, pauper-prince of the Bohemians. "Although I suppose she placed her trust in a horse. It would be good timing if you were to lead me to the next Přemysl. We could certainly use another… then Uncle could hardly fault me for all that's transpired to this point."
She moos, shaking the birds from their nests.
"You're right. I haven't been blessed with such luck thus far, but you never know! After all, it was good timing that I found you before you… stumbled into a ditch, or ate some nightshade, or ran into a pack of—"
From elsewhere in the woods, he hears something bark. A dog, a wolf. It makes little difference this deep in the trees. Hans's hand finds his hunting sword, drawing the steel an inch from its holster as four quick legs run quickly through the forest, towards them. He's fended off his share of wolves in these last five days when the only life at stake was his own.
Perhaps the townspeople will not recognise him as bellator, but Bessie here will see a shred of what he's capable of.
The barking grows closer, alerting some other member of the pack nearby, no doubt. He waits, and watches, the tension undercut by the incessant sound of chewing behind him.
At last, it bursts through the circle of trees, but it's no wolf that confronts them, no dog, but a—
"Mutt!" Hans laughs his name, and whatever mission the dog had been on is quickly forgotten when he hears it. The focus on his face relaxing into a grin as his tail begins to wag. Something in Hans's chest swells, just to be recognised. He leans over his knees and stretches out his hand, unarmed, for Mutt to nose into his hand and sniff around his ankles. "Christ, I've been looking for you for days. You've some cheek, showing your face now. Henry will…"
He chokes on the name, and swallows it.
"At least I've kept my word."
Before he can feel his luck has truly begun to turn, something else rustles in the bushes. It doesn't bark, or moo for that matter, but it does shout: "Mutt! Slow down, boy, for Christ's sake."
Hans's stomach drops, even before he's appeared. Of course Henry had found him first, of course he was only trailing in his footsteps, as he had every time he'd dared show his face anywhere but the tanner's or the butcher's. Henry emerges from the bushes with less grace than his hound, shielding his face from the clawing branches and itching vines. He's wearing yellow, like he had by the pond. Before they were parted— before he had left.
And his eyes… blue, framed by lashes dark against his cheeks. They blink at Hans with a disarming look about them, processing what Hans has already surmised.
"Some Přemysl you've led me to," he says to the cow. Bessie, he's decided. A simple name for a simple animal. Though he might have opted for Henrietta, instead. "Perhaps there is no hope for Bohemia, after all."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Henry asks, stumbling a little as a thorn snags on his hose. He yanks his foot towards him, grunting as he leans over to pick out the thorn. "And what're you doing with Olbram's cow? You weren't going to…?"
Hans wishes it had been a wolf. A set of teeth in his arm would hurt less than the accusation laid less-than-subtly at his feet. "I'm not that desperate yet, no thanks to you," he scoffs. "And how would you know what that old bastard is missing, anyway? It doesn't seem prescient to our task."
"Anything with coin helps, doesn't it? Besides, if you weren't… y'know, then why were you…?" Henry and Bessie lock eyes. Bessie, chewing cud. Henry, chewing on a question. Jaws working in equally simple ways, to similar ends. "Were you takin' her back, sir?"
"Maybe I was taking her to Tachov," Hans says, obstinate. "Things have grown quiet between it and Zhelejov these past few days, after all."
A smile digs into Henry's cheeks, dimpling it. He steps over some roots, reaching out to pat Bessie's nose with one hand. Henry seems to know exactly where to touch her to charm her, scratching up her nose and behind one long, floppy ear. "In that case, sir, you're going the wrong way." Bobbing his chin up, back the way Hans had come, he adds, "Tachov is that way."
Hans's face burns pink. Too many hours in the sun. Even in the forest, it filters through the branches. "If you know the way, you can take her, then. It saves me the trouble."
"We could go together, sir. Split the reward. It's honest work, at least. What do you say?"
In the break between Henry's question and Hans's answer, Bessie chews. And chews. Working her meal into a fine paste, every grind of her teeth strikes him with a memory. Them in the pillory, him shouting at Henry, Henry shouting back. That simple smile and those blue eyes, they can tear flesh, too.
"It doesn't matter what I say," he says at length. "What will others say, to see a noble escorting a cow back to some peasant? No, Henry… I'm sorry."
His smile may be simple, but his frown carries a burden he'd dragged here from Skalitz. Again, Hans longs for the wolf's bite. "'Course. Dunno why I bothered askin'." He runs his hands along the cow's back, tugging on her with a gentle "c'mon, then." Before they part, Henry pauses at the edge of the clearing, not turning as he says, "I'll come find you with your share. Seems only right, you did half the work."
"Whatever you say, Hal," Hans says in lieu of good-bye. He watches: boy, cow, and dog, disappear into the forest.
For hours after, he feels the shape of Henry's name upon his lips. How his lips hug his teeth to say them, how they will be the last civil words he will say for the remainder of the day, and into the next.
from a wip where henry evidently has something he should be apologising about- according to hans. also there's a dog.
Hans's earlier words portend the chill in the air. The sun is set, and the city hums with the sound of tongues wagging after a long day's work. In the distance Henry hears the Hole's merry making— and in the baths, men who had more success than he'd had. He follows the path down to the stream that runs out of the city, a patchy-patterned dog lifting his head from the pillow of his paws and stretching before joining him. Mutt is at the perfect height to force his head beneath Henry's hand. He lifts his snout, trying to facilitate a rub behind the ears.
Henry ignores it, pushing him away as he rocks off his feet. He settles by the bank, upon a dry spot that doesn't sink into his braies. He can imagine some washerwoman sitting here as he is now, settling back on her heels to watch the sky go orange.
"Hruf," Mutt noses into his lap, wet nose pressing into his arm.
"Alright, boy. You've made your point," he chuckles, curling his fingers in the soft corner of hair between the hound's ear and skull. He bounces one velvet ear, bending it to cover one eye until Mutt looks at him, beleaguered. "Sorry."
"You're apologising to him?" Comes an incredulous voice from behind. "I'm the one you ought to be saying sorry to."
tagging: @troutdraw (i warned u), @rat-spit-village, @darethshirl, @pinacoladamatata, @rowanisawriter, @by-ilmater, @ptacku, @void-slip, @ whoever would care to take part!
Characters: Henry of Skalitz, Hans Capon
Pairing: Henry/Hans Capon
Fandom: Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Rating: E
Other Tags: Docking, Penis in Penis Sex, Cringe Sex, Laughing During Sex, Fluff, PWP
Summary: Hans explores Henry's anatomy.
Relief, Hans Capon has found, can come in many shapes.
It is the first drink of spirits after a siege; the sight of the cavalry upon the horizon; the soft touch of a body after the bite of steel.
It is the sound of Henry, locking the door to their room behind him, and pulling a chair up against it. Just in case.
Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💗
thank yooooou for the ask! these are only a few of my faves i've written. i figured i'd try to highlight some that i'm proud of but get less attention.
Storge (Hans & Hynce, Hans/Henry) - Hans's first son is born and he struggles with feeling alienated from the child during the first few weeks after. Plus some emotional hurt/comfort at the end. Writing depression is always a difficult but rewarding experience, trying to capture feelings I've felt and apply them to different situations in a way that feels true is an aspect of writing I really love.
Fresh Meat (Hans & Butcher Baschka, Hans/Henry) - A fic mostly from the POV of the butcher Hans is selling his poached meat to, leading up to the aftermath of Hans's near-hanging. I really enjoyed fleshing out the minor characters from the game in this, and also depicting Henry and Hans from the perspective of an established adult. Highlighting how young they both are and the ways they're endearing and frustrating to deal with.
Adam's Rib (Henry x Various Female Characters) - A short multichapter fic exploring Henry's various sexual encounters in KCD1 with the twist that he's also gay in this version of himself. Mind the tags, but I challenged myself to write things I end to write around in a way that felt satisfying and rewarding. I also really loved how I managed to pull the thread of Bianca through this, and grew to appreciate her part in Henry's life in return.
Five, Seven, Five (Thora Cadash & Solas) - After an excursion into Thora's ancestral thaig she takes up poetry, an artform she has long-loved but never tried her own hand at (feeling she is unsuited to it as a Casteless). She shares her first attempt with Solas. I wanted to depict how frightening and intimate it is to share art with someone, even someone you care about, and also explore Solas's feelings and guilt about the Titans and dwarves.
Spokes in the Wheel (Mordin x Kirrahe) - A series of double drabbles depicting various moments in Kirrahe and Mordin's lives, exploring their friendship and subtle romance. I really liked what I communicated and the use of the limited wordcount in conjunction with Mordin's clipped speech patterns. Big brain move and I wrote this on a crazy writer's block, too.
A fluffy section of a smut fic that's actually a comedy fic. Tagged yesterday by @rat-spit-village ✨️
Plain text under cut
Henry holds Hans's foot upon his folded leg, kissing the ankle as he pulls off the shoe; tongue darting out, like the tendon is another pair of lips that might kiss him back. Hans feels him laugh, a breath upon Hans's leg as his shin erupts in gooseflesh. No doubt Henry thinks it tickled him. And maybe it did, some.
But there's always something more, when Henry is involved.
"I used to wonder when I was young how poets seemed to find the beauty in every minutiae of life.
He waits, a pregnant silence he indulges while Henry slips him out of his other shoe. This time, kissing the soft inside that doesn't quite touch the ground, just to make it match the other.
Grinning, Henry sits back on the ground with his legs spread: cock falling on his right thigh, head falling on his left shoulder. "Is that right?" he asks, in a tone that says he thinks he knows the answer to Hans's musing, but just wants to hear Hans say it.
The day of Radzig's departure arrives, and Hans gets his long-awaited hunt.
Radzig's departure comes both too early and too late.
His men are no trouble: Borita serves as a companion for Hynce and entertainment for Hetty, and the soldiers can amuse themselves. It is the visiting lord himself that is the point of friction. Sometimes Hans wishes Radzig would simply shout at him as Hanush would have, so at least he could shout back.
Instead, Radzig plays the higher ground, forcing Hans to climb higher— or grovel to his desires.
Take the wine, take the bread, take his son. Take everything.
Every moment he spends in Radzig’s company explains why Hal is the way he is. So eager to please a man who always seems to want a little something more than what you're giving him.
⚔️ Read the rest on AO3 | Start from the beginning ⚔️
tagged by @rowanisawriter & @ptacku
tagging @darethshirl @rat-spit-village @pinacoladamatata @practicefortheheart (art and non-writing wips ok!)
happy wednesday!
here's something from the next chapter of MM
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“He asked if I… if I wouldn’t be interested in returning to Skalitz.”
“He what?” Hans’s knuckles go whiter than the snow. “To do what, precisely? Skitter out of sight every time Lady Anna walks past, lest your bearing remind her of her husband?”
“No.” The defensive tone he’d taken in play earlier returns now, with greater purpose. Henry constructs arguments in a manner that betrays his own division, and as he speaks Hans can hear the way Radzig had likely framed the offer. “You may have heard that my father has new holdings near Čejchanov. He proposed I man Skalitz as his castellan while he—”
“So you will not even have his company.”
“No, but… I would make a better neighbour to you, wouldn’t I? A more generous one.”
“In Sir Radzig’s service your first priority would be him and his subjects, but… even so.” A sound point is not a convincing one. “You are not a token, Henry, to be traded away when you become inconvenient! Radzig allowed you to enter my service because it was determined you posed a threat to his son’s inheritance, and now, for whatever reason, that threat has been determined null.”
The more he talks, the more angry he feels. It twitches inside of him, restless as the forest that knows it will soon be spring. Around them, he sees the tracks of something he can sink his arrow into in lieu of his teeth.
“But if it is your desire to leave my service and take up Radzig’s, you have my blessing, Henry— and my pity.”
“May I pray with you, Hynce?”
“Please, Father.” Subdued by the nearness of his departure, or some need to prove himself as grown, only makes Hynce seem younger. His blond hair falls around his face in two curtains his mother hasn’t yet been able to convince him to trim, and his eyes are as blue as the day he was born. Hans touches the back of his son’s head under the premise of redirecting him back towards the shrine, and the candles burning under the gentle gaze of painted angels.
“You lead,” he says, as he takes a seat beside him, folding his hands in prayer.
Hynce nods, taking a moment before he finds his place.
He says a prayer to Saint Matthew, asking for mercy for the poor and wise judgement in the duty the King has meted out for him.
He says a prayer to Saint Christopher, to watch over their journey and see they find safe harbour under every roof they lay their heads.
He says a prayer to Christ, thanking Him for taking Matthew into his apostles, and for giving Christopher the chance to bear Him across a swollen river.
Hans follows him in his prayers, but in his heart he calls out to Saint Nicholas, Saint Joseph, and Saint Mary. That his son may be protected; that Sir Radzig shelters him as Joseph did Christ; and that Hans’s heart is moved to let him go— as Mary had the strength to do so with her son, to the benefit of all mankind.
When it is over, they stand, and linger in a silence that is almost a good-bye.
Characters: Henry of Skalitz, Black Bartosch
Pairing: Henry/Black Bartosch
Fandom: Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Rating: E
Other Tags: Gay Henry, Friends with Benefits, Pre-Relationship Hansry (mentioned)
Summary: Henry takes up Bartosch's offer for a nightcap.
This is mad, Henry thinks as he bows to Lord von Bergow and excuses himself for the night.
This is sin, he thinks as the hairs on the back of his neck prickle beneath another man's gaze.
This is what he wants, he decides as he closes the door behind him.
The night air feels thick against his skin as he makes the trip from the Maiden to the baths, yawning as he passes by the guards. As if they care enough to notice that he ignores the door to his quarters entirely.
He makes quick work of the lock, slipping inside like a ghost. He starts a little, at the sight of the bathhouse empty, and the absence of sound around his ears. There is always some noise: the whisper of wet skin being worked over by a cloth or the clink of a perfume laid upon a counter. At this hour, the room hums with the memory of its clients, forgetting Henry is here at all.
Why here, he wonders, even if he had been the one to suggest it.
The answer comes in the image of blond hair, slicked back against its skull; flowers forgotten upon the floor; moments of intimacy he doesn't dare let himself remember with any clarity.
Radzig considers Henry's proposal to take Hynce as a squire.
“Is something the matter, Henry?”
Hans’s question cuts through the mire of Henry’s thoughts like a hawk’s wing through a cloud. He looks towards him. Crumbs from their lunch cling to his beard, and it takes the cumulation of ten years practise not to reach forward and dust them away himself. Instead, Henry bristles at his own beard, hoping Hans will get the message.
Henry and his father found the Lord of Pirkstein and his son not long after quitting the castle. True to his word, Radzig immediately offered young Hynce the opportunity to test himself against the visiting lord. A challenge Hynce had eagerly agreed to, as the song of dull steel scraping in the practise ring can attest.
Both are all smiles as they go at it: blocking and strafing and striking. Henry can’t help but think about Jakub, and what Radzig had said about him on their way to Rattay Castle. A studious lad. Does that earn his father’s smiles, too?
“Henry…”
“Nothing’s the matter,” Henry says quickly, to make up for the time that passed since Hans had asked. He thinks twice. “I’ll tell you later.”
Hans snorts. “My dear friend, only one of those things can be true.”
⚔️ Read the rest on AO3 | Start from the beginning ⚔️
Characters: Hans Capon, Original Male Character
Pairing: Hans Capon & Original Male Character, Hans Capon & Captain Bernard
Fandom: Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Rating: G
Other Tags: Childhood, Teenage Angst, Teenage Gay Awakening, Aruthrian Mythology References
Summary: The year is 1397, and a visiting minstrel graces the noble home of a young Sir Hans Capon.
Hans remembers the first goblet of wine he was ever permitted.
The liquid poured, thick and viscous, from the pitcher in Maid Dusca's hands. She was more careful with him than she ever was with his Uncle Hanush, not a drop more than she intended spilling from the lip. He was used to seeing it mixed with water, and undiluted it reminded him of blood, clinging to the sides of the goblet as he tilted it one way and the next— at least until Hanush snapped at him to stop playing with his food.
He remembers how large the goblet was in his grasp, little fingers sliding into the grooves of the relief carvings depicting a saint whose name he ought to know. It seemed so wide he could have drowned in it. And, in a manner of speaking, he had. What Hans can't remember is who had carried him to his bed that night.
If he had to guess, he would say Captain Bernard.
When the same goblet is set before him now, years later, it seems to have shrunk, or the more accurate observation: that he has grown. He traces the relief with the same fingers, and finds their tips do not fit between the carvings so easily. The hares that flank the still-nameless saint are easily obscured by the breadth of his thumb.
"Would you like the red or the white tonight, Sir Hans?" Dusca hasn't grown, but her face has weathered. Married, now, she wears her hair covered and her eyes seem tired, as if the tiny hands of her infant boy have permanently stretched them.
"White," he answers confidently, now knowing he prefers to see to the bottom of his cup than not.
"Don't be daft, boy," Hanush chides beside him. "We're having boar. He'll have the red."
