A little place to collect the art made for my Hansry dragon rider au!
My wonderful friend @eeriefeelingsat3amuwu made me some art for Chapter 5 of SSA! Behold, Henry in his riding leathers and dragon!Hans being Very Normal about Henry wearing his colours.
Thank you so much for this beautiful piece, I'm so in love with it!
Another wonderful friend of mine made me some art for Chapter 6 of this au! The first flight!!
Thank you so much, friend!!! It's so amazing to see your interpretation of Hans' dragon form and Henry's little riding outfit!
Happy WIP Wednesday here's something for the second chapter of The Murder of Sir Hans Capon
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“I am sorry things turned out like this, Lord Capon.”
“It's just going to be Hans now- no need for ceremony anymore you drunk bastard.” Despite the harsh words, and the lingering betrayal that was still felt under everything, it was still good to confide in a friend.
Godwin patted the shoulder his hand had rested itself on before leaning back “That’s quite the plan you've brewed up for yourselves.”
“Look, Godwin, we don't need anybody to try and stop us.”
“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22.” Another sip was taken from the wine skin as Henry and Hans looked at each other. “God tells us to make our own happiness, lads. He tells us to eat, drink, and take pleasure in his creations. It is His gift to us. Although I may have taken a little but too much pleasure myself.”
The comment ended with a smile.
“I shan't be stopping you from finding the happiness that God has led to you.”
“why are you, as someone in their 30s, still on tumblr” oh so you think you’re gonna be normal when you’re my age? you think you’re gonna be CURED?? you think the witches’ curse will have been lifted by then?? cmon now
to celebrate may the 4th, reblog with your top three favorite star wars projects in the tags (books, shows, movies, games, legends or canon - anything is fair game!)
So I've done it again - my most thorough compilation yet, 2.5 hours of every dialogue scene the boys have together (Next Gen Edition) and every choice you can possibly make - including stuff I never thought possible!
Killing the butcher in Amorous Adventures, Hans saving you in Night Raid, and this bit of dialogue...
After finishing my first book binding project in almost a decade, there was no other choice but to ask the author (borealis on Ao3) of my all-time favorite Hansry fic if I was allowed to bind their fic "Wrap the Yellow around me" into a physical copy (thank you so much, I hope you think the result does your masterpiece justice in some way- @acecrown-32cl ). 🩵
Now, I tried to incorporate everyones suggestions after I asked for ideas but I remembered that I really suck at drawing armour about 10 seconds after starting that hand that was supposed to hold the other one (it quickly turned into a badly drawn shoulder with that damned ribbon-). Also, of course, that cursed dandelion that made me kick my feet like a little schoolgirl- xD And that dagger... I had to involve the dagger...
In any way, I'm still improving my technique with my heat foil pen (i'm too broke for a cricut plotter, might buy one secondhand if I happen to find one ever) and any designs for the covers. :D (Any feedback and tips would be highly appreciated!) 🩵
Hans' gold pourpoint lives rent free in my mind because his decision to wear that for the majority of kcd2 says so much about him and his image he's trying to project.
Because the thing about it is that it's pretty obviously a reconstruction of Charles de Blois' pourpoint, which exists in the musée des Tissus et des Arts décoratifs de Lyon.
It's made from cloth of gold brocade- the only kind of fabric of the period that would shine in candlelight the way Hans' pourpoint does. The ground of the fabric on the extant pourpoint is ivory silk. Hans' changes colors depending on the lighting- sometimes in Trosky it looks scarlet, most of the time it looks gold. Either way the weave of the fabric is a combination of silk and threads wrapped with extremely finely beaten sheets of actual gold.
It's theorized that the fabric on the extant example was imported from the middle east. And I cannot emphasize how complex of a weave this is because this is before the invention of the jacquard loom, which functioned with punch cards like early computers. These ridiculously expensive threads had to all be dropped and adjusted by hand to get this pattern.
And the thing is- Hans' is even more complex. It's not a geometric repeat, it has scrolling vines and an intensely complicated pattern of birds and deer which makes it even more precious. You can see it a bit here:
The cost of this fabric would have been staggering. And fabric in the era was narrow, maybe 20" wide, and since Hans is a tall man he would need a good deal of fabric for this. Then you add on the fact that it's all pattern matched so that the design is unbroken by the button down chest, and his sleeves are well matched. And the grand assiette sleeves with their unusual tailoring would take even more fabric to keep everything nicely matched up.
Then there's the buttons all the way down the front and on the sleeves, with button holes bound by hand in what would have been silk thread. It can take a good fifteen minutes to cut and bind a buttonhole nicely, so the time spent on those alone is astounding. Each button would be handmade by stuffing a circle of fabric with wool wadding and binding off the end into a thread covered stump (which takes ages to do well, I've never achieved a nice stuffed button in less than ten minutes).
The chest would have also had extra wool padding in it (meaning extra effort to shape and sew it) in order to achieve the wasp-waist effect that gives him such powerful looking shoulders.
So his pourpoint alone is worth more money than most peasant farmers would see in a year. Even in a lifetime, maybe.
It's finer than anything we see on any other character in the game. Von Bergow's clothes are that of a rural lord in comparison. Even Sigismund's royal attire isn't so obviously valuable.
It's also, by nature of being a pourpoint, a military garment at its core. Charles de Blois' pourpoint has arming points in it even though its good condition suggests that it was worn for some ceremony and then probably never used again.
Then you add his hood. Red dye was common, though certain shades of scarlet could be far more expensive. To my eye the gold design on it isn't just simple embroidery but goldwork, aka more real gold threads tacked down to glitter in candlelight, aka even more money worn on his person.
(How he got all of this stuff takes some mental gymnastics- the pourpoint is too well fitted to not have been made for him. Maybe it did belong to him at the start of the game, was picked up by the bandits and sold along to Trosky where it was returned to him. Even a team of the best tailors couldn't put this together in the hours between him being released from the gallows and him going to meet Von Bergow in his chambers, and I highly doubt he would accept Von Bergow's cast offs no matter how fine they are.)
Which is all to say that by wearing this Hans is trying so hard to assert himself as a man of means, worthy of respect. He wants to be noticed. In a room full of well dressed men you still would not be able to take your eyes off the young man wearing more gold on his back than a country lord would ever dream of owning. He wants to be seen as a man who is ready for glorious battle, a true knight in his beautiful pourpoint.
Although sumptuary laws weren't as punishing as they would later be during the renaissance, it could also be read as him reaching above his station a bit because after all, how is the Lord of Pirkstein out dressing the usurper king? It's something of an insult that Lord Capon walks into a room looking like this when his betters don't even dress with such flash.
And that makes it hit all the harder when, at Suchdol during Von Bergow's interrogation, all the men in the room talk over him as though he's not there. He can wear his fine pourpoint but he's not respected as a lord or a military man. It doesn't matter what he does to project the image of a nobleman- he's still not treated as one. For someone who truly believes clothes make the man and everyone should follow social rules as prescribed this has to be a real kick in the gut.
Hans looks like a prince from an illuminated manuscript but none of that matters to the robber barons he's surrounded by. Just another ugly lesson that the rules of the world apply don't seem to apply when it comes to him.
I was tagged in this by @misstwistedmind , thank you for that friend!! :))
Last Song: Currently Wouldn't You Like from Epic: The Musical because Hermes ROCKS. Before that Deutsche Bahn Total by Alte Bekannte since I am on the train X)
Favourite Colour: Somehow I manifested red as my favourite colour the moment I was nicknamed salami. Though I did have the tendency already as a child? Who knows. Dark red!
Currently Watching: Uhhh nothing really, we are a rewatch-household most of the time X). I suppose we are always watching new Jacksepticeye videos though?
Currently Reading: We bought a retelling of Greek Myths by Stephen Fry the other day, so thats probably going to be the next one, I'm looking forward to that.
Current Obsession: Graveyard Keeper is/was free on all platforms so I got it the other day and I am ENJOYING myself. Other than that, obviously KCD. And medieval stuff in general!
Currently Working On: Two I can't talk about because they're top secret summer exchange stuff, but I visited the Medieval (Torture) Dungeons in Nuremberg yesterday so I have a little fic I want to start in the next half an hour that is about Henry down in the Nuremberg dungeons while Hans is upstairs trying to get him out and buying him better food and accommodation and being a very pissy lord (saving him once for a change...)
Last Google Search: my official uni website because Im trying to sort through everything before the semester starts tomorrow X) The digital age sadly means that everything needs to be done online before uni even starts,,,
Im tagging my @im-not-corrupted if you want to join dearest!
I was tagged by my wonderful @seiya-starsniper in this, thank you friend :).
Last Book: I think the last I actually finished was Song of Achilles, just started Gideon the Ninth though.
Last Song: Apparently Wasted Love by JJ, cosnequences of being European ig. That song is fire though. Opera techno mix? Fire.
Last Movie: Might have been the first Avengers movie, I haven't watched movies in a while.
Last TV Show: Perhaps an episode of Barnaby?? Or Doctor Who, some episode with Donna?
Last Museum: Athens in its entirety should count as a museum. I was in the national museum there but also like every historical site I could reach.
Last concert: I was at a video game concert of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II in Frankfurt recently! Had an absolute blast, even though I was forced to see tiddies on screen.
Last meal: Flammkuchen! Imagine thinner pizza, very crispy, topped with sour cream, bacon and onion. (At least the original, other toppings exist). Absolutely love that stuff, one of my favourite meals ever.
Tagging @im-not-corrupted and @mid0khan if you want to join the fun :))
Hansry | M-Rated | Hurt No Comfort | Main Character Death
Summary: A year of bliss. A year of uncertainty. A year of grief.
Bad decisions made, shadows traced too late, a boy growing up with only a painting of his fathers.
Henry goes to war with Zizka only a year after Suchdol, leaving Hans behind in Rattay. Hans loses himself in his lover's absence.
More below or on ao3!
A year.
That is all the time the Lord Almighty grants them, in the end.
A year spent sharing longing glances across the endless tables of the dining hall and stealing kisses in the shadows of alcoves during a moonlit night. A year of week-long hunting trips during even the most cursed of seasons, of sparring matches that last way past the setting of the sun, of bathhouse visits and muffled laughter and smiles hidden behind the mask of friendship.
A single year in which Hans falls asleep to the silhouette of Henry by his side and wakes to trace the shape of Henry's brow in the light of dawn with a reverent thumb. A single year for Hans to learn the shape of Henry's shoulders, waist and thighs beneath his hands, to remember each scar decorating the beautiful canvas of his lover's body.
One year of bliss.
Of peace.
In times of war, however, peace is a short-lived thing.
The letter finds them as they often are: caught up in each other's gaze across an office meant to be used for more important matters. For work. For the dealings of a lord, dull as they are. Henry stands by the door, back straight and fingers grazing the hilt of his sword, though his eyes hold those of his lord across the room. They enjoy playing this game of theirs—seeing who gives up first and stalks across the room to steal a touch or a brush of lips.
More often than not it is Hans who gives in, stepping up to his bodyguard—his friend, his love—with an air of superiority that he has little right to, considering he is the one losing their game. Though however a man could feel like he's losing when being faced with the sparkling triumph in Henry's eyes is beyond Hans. In battle he would be a terrible opponent indeed, tilting his neck to welcome the winning strike just for his last sight to be that of Henry, content with his victory.
It is just as Hans is about to admit to his defeat, ready to bare his throat to the man across the room, when an urgent knock interrupts them. Hans sighs, exasperated, but motions for Henry to open the door for whoever it is that dares to disturb them.
A courier enters, cowering under Henry's steely gaze. He bows hastily before approaching Hans’ desk. “Lord Capon, I was sent to deliver a letter to one of your subjects from Jan Žižka of Trotznov, in the service of John Sokol of Lamberg. It is a matter of some urgency.”
A glance is exchanged over the boy's shoulder, hardened blue dimming as realisation dawns.
“Leave the letter with me. I will make sure it reaches the man you're looking for.” With that said he dismisses the courier, who bows once more and hurries away to make for the kitchens or the road, depending on his orders. Hans cannot say he cares enough to consider whether this boy will wait for an answer to carry back to Žižka or ride off to deliver another message to another poor sod.
Not when he has been dreading this letter ever since Henry told him that Žižka wanted to recruit him for his cause right after Suchdol. Henry said no, then. Said he had a duty to Hans, first and foremost, and that such a decision cannot be made overnight. But Hans knew back then already that should Žižka ever ask for Henry's sword again, his lover would not refuse him a second time.
If there is a cause Henry thinks might benefit the people of Bohemia, he is not the kind of man to stand by as greater men hold the front of the line. No, his lover has to charge into battle side by side with them, because he, unlike Hans, is one of those great men. A knight. A hero.
Hans wishes he had fallen for a more selfish man. A man he knew would choose peace over war if it meant staying by his side even a single day longer.
But that is not who Henry is.
Hans considers this as he rubs his thumb over the thick parchment of the letter, his brows drawn. Once, he respected Žižka. As a leader, as an ally, perhaps even as a friend. After a whole year of silence, Hans almost let himself hope that this letter would never come. That Henry could remain his to hold—to cherish, to love—for the rest of their God-given lives, without the threat of war whisking him away from Hans’ sight.
But, apparently, Fortuna is no longer on his side. He has carried her favour for long enough, and now it is time for him to forfeit her blessing and accept his fate.
Hans considers throwing the letter into the flames of his fireplace. To let Žižka's words go up in smoke, pretend they never existed in the first place. He is selfish like that.
Perhaps, were Henry not standing across from him, he would.
But the harm is already done. Henry knows, and so there is no point in satisfying his own selfishness. Hans holds out the letter to his lover, leaving the seal unbroken and the parchment whole.
Yet he yearns to rip to shreds the implications that piece of parchment holds for the future of their peace.
Hands steady and brows drawn, Henry unfolds the letter and skims the words written in ink black as pitch. Not a time intensive task at all, for there are a mere three lines adorning the accursed page. Three lines. That is all Henry is worth to them.
And it is all that is needed to rob Henry from him.
“Žižka wants to free the king.”
Žižka could plan to find the Holy Grail itself for all Hans cares about his endeavour, fruitful as it may be with a man of Žižka's qualities as a leader. What Hans cares about is the quiet conviction in Henry’s tone, answering a question that has never been spoken aloud.
Henry will heed the one-eyed bastard's call.
“When are you leaving?”
Blue on blue. Hans cannot stand the guilt darkening Henry's gaze, the edge of sorrow turning periwinkle into the promise of a ruinous storm. Surely he does not fare better himself, his hope evaporating like smoke in the wind.
“Dawn.”
Hans nods once, sharply. A mere half-day. That is all the time he still has left with his lover.
It is no time at all.
Hans sleeps little in those hours after dusk falls. Beside him Henry lies, his lips parted on each breath, serene in the low light of the fireplace. The slope of his forehead, the crook of his nose, the strength of his jaw; all of it the fire paints against the furthest wall, shadows writhing as if to devour the memory of the man they portray. Hans looks away from them and instead at the form of his lover, real and solid by his side.
There is warmth and comfort there in the quiet hours, and yet Hans cannot revel in it, for it can never be enough. Come dawn, Henry will leave. The bed will be empty, the quiet hours lonely and cold.
Perhaps Hans might finally share a bed with Jitka, if only to not be reminded of how empty Henry's place seems without him there.
The thought burns. He does not wish to replace Henry.
He does wish for a great many things, though, only the most important of which he tells Henry the next morning.
“I wish you would stay.“
They stand in an empty corridor, cold stone walls to either of their sides, light shining in through gaps too slight to be called windows.
I wish I were reason enough for you to stay.
Henry hears the truth of these words, both spoken and not, and sighs.
“I know,” he says, and it sounds like farewell. It sounds like dismissal, and Hans presses his lips together against the tears threatening to spill.
His eyes wander to Henry's shadow once more, the one that the gaps flooded with sunlight paint against the rough stone of his castle. The curve of Henry's helmet, the buckles and straps, make it impossible for Hans to make out his face in its entirety. And yet, it is a more steady image than that of the fireplace the night before.
He yearns to trace the shadow against the stone with paint, or to carve the silhouette into the walls so that he might have a piece of Henry forever in these halls. To take brush or chisel to the foundations of his home and give form to the hole Henry's absence will leave in his soul.
By God, he is pathetic indeed to yearn for Henry like so when he has not even left Rattay yet.
But it was the same in Suchdol, when Henry left with nary a word in the darkest hours of night to walk to his death. He left Hans behind then, too, cold and alone and with his hope dwindling into dying embers. The bed was empty, his shadow gone, and Hans wished for nothing more than a piece of his lover, however short their time together had been, to stay back with him as Henry stole away into the night.
The odds are better now, all things considered.
Henry is not walking to a certain death, so perhaps fearing such a thing is irrational indeed. But Hans’ heart is not a beast of rationality. It is not one of moderation either, not when it comes to love or fear, and so the dread of losing Henry grips his soul as if it were the fist of the devil himself wrapping around his heart.
Hans does not wish for Henry to leave.
And yet, he will. There is nothing to it. Nothing Hans can say or do will stop Henry from riding through those gates. He holds the eyes of the man he loves, traces the beginnings of laugh lines with his gaze. It will be another decade or two before Hans can call them wrinkles, and until he can count a few grey hairs in that growing beard.
“Come back to me,” he whispers, because he cannot put the longing to see Henry grow old by his side into words.
Henry bows his head, a hand over his heart.
“On my honour as a knight in your service.” Those lips quirk upwards into the ghost of a smirk. “I swear to you, my love, that I will come back to you.”
Henry steps forward to seal the oath with a kiss, chaste and fleeting, and Hans huffs the smallest of laughs. After all, Henry does know what to say to lift his spirits, even if worry still clings to his soul.
“I mean it, Hal,” Hans murmurs, laying a hand over Henry’s heart to feel its steady rhythm beneath his fingertips. “I need you to come back.”
“I know. And I will,” Henry whispers in response, pressing one last fleeting kiss to Hans’ lips before he steps away and makes for the door.
The sun dims as soon as Henry is gone, as if the sky itself already weeps for his absence.
His shadow, of course, leaves with him.
—
A year.
That is the time Hans spends pretending not to be hollowed out by Henry's departure. That he has not become the very shadow he so dearly misses.
It is a year of paperwork being done quicker than it can pile up on his desk, of nobles invited to feasts and hunts and alliances forged over roast boar and the rims of goblets filled with wine. A year of leadership to make even old Hanush gape in disbelief, of responsibilities fulfilled unlike anything Hans previously imagined himself capable of.
A single year in which he plays the dutiful lord by day and by night hides his crumbling soul behind a tight smile as he leads his wife to bed. That, at least, is easier in Henry’s absence, although Hans longs to find his lover in the darkness once the deed is done and bury himself in a body that does not make him crave to shed his own skin whenever he touches it.
But Henry is not there.
His bed is empty, his room bare. Armour, sword and horse are gone, and no longer does Mutt prowl the battlements and corridors of the castle in search of scraps or a pat. There is cold where there was once warmth, a lingering feeling of wrongness whenever Hans looks across the room of his study and sees a nameless guard pressed into the furthest corner of the room where Henry is supposed to stand.
Hans finds himself wandering the corridors aimlessly whenever there is nothing else to occupy his mind. At first he does not fully understand why. The corridors are empty as long as no-one is hurrying through them. There are no decorations, no paintings. Nothing but plain stone and slits for windows.
But then, after perhaps the first month, he comes to the conclusion that he searches them out because they are, essentially, a place of transition. A corridor is only ever a means to an end, a way to reach a destination beyond.
And isn't that just what this is?
Hans is waiting, caught in transition until Henry inevitably returns and marks Hans’ destination beyond. Because this? This is no life. Without Henry around there is no destination beyond, nothing to reach.
There is just this.
Plain walls, and slits for windows.
Dullness, and slivers of light too slight to see the hope beyond. Though the slivers are still enough to paint shadows in the dullness, to mark the hole of Henry's absence in his life.
Perhaps it would be better if there was no light at all.
Hans stands in the corridor where they said their farewells. He looks at the wall and remembers the shadow of his love against the stone—remembers wishing to trace it.
He does not.
He leaves the corridor although it feels like home.
And for one single year, Hans is still the man everyone wishes for him to be. A lord worthy of his station, a husband worthy of his wife and, of course, a father worthy of his son.
Even if his soul keeps wandering the corridors aimlessly, tracing shadows with his eyes.
Little Hynce is born in the eleventh month of that year, and all Hans can think of as he looks at his son's blue eyes and brown hair is that he cannot share this day with Henry. His love will come back and have missed him becoming a father, will have missed the birth of the boy that is his as much as he is Hans’.
By God, the child even looks the part.
The thought pulls at Hans’ heart as he holds Hynce close to his chest, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. No-one needs to know that they are not entirely born of joy.
Jitka meanwhile cares little for the screaming boy aside from the implications of his birth. She is free of her marital duties, having provided an heir for Hans’ bloodline. So when she locks the door to her room that night, Hans finds he does not mind. No, he is relieved more than anything. It is not her bed he wishes to share anyway. But with Henry gone, there is no other place for him.
Their bed down in the shed would only drain the last of his sanity were he to try and sleep in it now, so instead Hans orders a servant to put up a bed within the nursery. Not that it really matters, as most nights he ends up sleeping in a rocking chair, his son held securely in his arms, bed long forgotten.
But even whenever his son rests against his chest, tiny fingers wrapped tightly against one of Hans’ own, his soul is not entirely within the moment. Instead it wanders empty corridors, waiting impatiently, searching for a sign of the man he loves.
Distantly, Hans knows it is a good omen that nothing has reached him thus far. During a war, messengers and parchment are only spared to bring news of the fallen to those waiting for their return. Every day he does not hear of Henry should be cause for celebration, for it means his faithful knight is still somewhere out there.
Alive.
That is all that matters.
“My lord?”
A guard pulls Hans out of his musings and he comes to realise that he has once more found his way to the plain walls. He is staring at the spot of Henry's shadow. It feels like a lifetime ago that they stood here, oaths and kisses fresh on their lips.
A year now, Hans knows.
A whole year without Henry.
“There's a messenger waiting in your study.” Dread immediately settles in Hans’ throat, threatening to choke him on his next breath, but the guard is quick to continue. “He’s wearing the king's colours, sir! Looks like this fucking war might finally be over.”
Hope replaces the dread so quickly it turns Hans’ stomach and makes him dizzy. Could this really be happening? Might the war actually be over and Henry on his way back home to him?
“I'll meet him there in a moment.”
The guard bows and leaves Hans alone once more in the corridor, which, for the first time in months, does no longer feel like home. The light reaching in through the slight windows is not nearly bright enough to reflect the hope now clawing at his chest, threatening to force a sob of relief to spill past his lips.
Hans’ legs cannot carry him to his study quickly enough, his expression that of a man begging for prayers answered that only now dare to pass his limbs in stumbling murmurs. Before, he had not dared to hope, afraid that he would turn God's wrathful eye on Henry with his pleas. That Henry would be subjected to the payback of their sins, of Hans’ insatiable greed, his selfishness in wishing he were more important to his lover than the rest of the kingdom.
It does not matter now.
The war may well be over and Henry on his way back home.
“Lord Capon!” the king's messenger calls out to him, bowing hastily, and Hans waves him off.
“What news do you bring?”
“The king has been freed!” The man's eyes are blown wide with wonder, as if he himself cannot yet believe the message he was sent to deliver to the king's supporters. Hans tries his hardest not to roll his eyes. There are more pressing matters on his mind than the success of Žižka's mission.
He gestures for the messenger to hold his tongue before he can continue, and the boy looks more confused than offended at being interrupted like so.
“Do you know when my man will return?”
The messenger’s brows furrow. His mouth opens, and closes again. Then, he speaks. “Your… your man?”
A small huff leaves Hans’ lips, surprised that Henry for once managed not to talk someone's ear off about the lord he so diligently serves. Hans has come to expect that anyone who knows Henry knows of him, too.
“Surely you've met Sir Henry! He makes friends with any man and their dog this side of Bohemia.”
The messenger remains… unnaturally quiet at Hans’ jest. His face has turned a few shades paler. His hands start fidgeting with the collar of his gambeson, opening the upper most button to make room for him to breathe.
Hans stares at the movement as if the boy's fingers were tying the noose at the Trosky gallows instead.
“Sir, I-I'm not sure what to say. A messenger was sent to you months ago. He… he must have gotten lost somewhere along the way.”
A ringing grows in Hans’ ears, louder and louder, until it resembles the toll of the church bells down in the town square. No. In Trosky. The first bell to mark his end.
Inevitable.
“What are you saying?”
His voice is hollow. Distant. Not his own. He is no longer master of his body, he hovers ten feet above and watches the man begin to tremble as he looks into his eyes.
“There was an ambush. The very first battle, almost a year ago. Sir Henry… he fought like a lion, but it wasn't enough. I–I'm sorry, my lord, but Sir Henry has been dead for months.”
The sound that escapes him is not one made for mortal ears. Caught between a scream and a wail, a cry so unholy it makes the boy step back from him in fear. He knows he shakes his head only because the world turns and twists and fails to righten itself once more, the motion as unnatural as the grief suddenly grasping at his throat and tearing the breath from his lungs.
“You lie,” he rasps, because he must. Because any other option will tear his ribcage open and expose the rot beneath.
How has he not noticed the stench before? He has always known that his heart would die alongside Henry, and yet it took a messenger to point out the blackened flesh beneath his skin.
“I'm sorry–”
The twelfth bell rings. He hasn't heard it until now. One strike for every month, counting down to his own demise. Only it is not the gallows waiting for him outside these doors.
“Leave me.”
The boy shivers at his tone. Hesitates. Perhaps he too can smell the rot.
“Sir–”
Hans hurls a pitcher of wine at the messenger. His hands move without his say, although he would not have stayed them had he known their plan. The pitcher hits the boy square in the chest, and he runs from the study like he fears for his life. Perhaps rightfully so.
Henry is dead.
The thought pulls him to his knees with force, as if the weight of the whole castle suddenly presses down on him at once. He cannot breathe. The lungs in his chest are long dead, his heart a writhing mass of rot. He has been living in a world in which Henry no longer breathed.
They have not shared the same night sky for a year, not the same sun or stars or storms.
And Hans had not known. Had not allowed himself to linger on what his heart had known for months.
Of course, his heart had known. It always knew, when it came to Henry. It tried to tell him all this time, leading him to the corridor, to the gray walls, the evidence of his past failure.
Trace his shadow while you can, it tried to tell him.
And he did not listen.
But he does now.
Hans stumbles out of his study on legs taken by the rot. They barely carry him all the way to the place of their farewells without slipping away beneath his body. The plain walls offer no relief from the images flashing in his mind of Henry dead and beaten, of crows picking at his eyes and tongue and the same rot that is living in Hans’ chest devouring Henry's body until there is nothing left of the man he once loved. The images burn themselves into his mind, red and black and each worse than the one that came before.
If only he had listened.
Perhaps then he would have a piece of Henry here with him now, something to look upon as his mind conjures nightmares of his lover's dead body, of lifeless eyes and bloated skin and lips as gray as the walls before his eyes.
Hans runs trembling fingers along the rough stone and his nails catch on its surface. Pinpricks of pain travel up his arms. They are not enough.
Hans’ nails dig into the stone, hard enough to make him gasp. Perhaps it is a sob, or perhaps he is choking on the black bile slowly filling his lungs. There is no time, no time at all. He will be dead within a fortnight, surely. After all, he is already rotting away.
One last time.
He needs to see Henry’s face one last time. The crook of his nose, the slope of his neck. Fuck, he would give anything just to see his shadow thrown against the nearest wall by the meagre light of a sunless dawn again.
His nails scrape at the stone.
Again and again and again.
They do not make a dent in the wall. He cannot carve Henry's silhouette into existence like so, but the pain is grounding, it is right, and after a while there is red slicking the way, marking the stone in the colour of life and death and love.
Hans traces the memory of Henry's shadow onto the wall. Shoulders, strong and wide, a back bowed by the burdens of a painful past, thighs and legs that once were at home in a saddle, a chest that hid the kindest, most selflessly fucking heart that Hans has ever known.
A sob is torn out of his throat as Hans presses his lips to the figure's heart and they come away tasting of iron. Henry always smelled of iron, both from the forge and the blood clinging to his hands for days after a fight. It was a part of him, and Hans chases the taste on his lips with his tongue, holding onto the memory as he presses his eyes closed and lets the tears mix with the red of Henry's heart.
The face is the last thing he draws, once his fingers are steady enough against the stone. Thousands of times he traced the lines of Henry's profile just like so. In the candlelight of their bed, under the sun down at the creek. Time upon time, his fingers dipped into the valleys and climbed atop the hills of his lover's profile, every cut and laugh line and scar seared into his mind like a brand. His fingers know these pathways better than those of his own face, his eyes having clung to these lines for long enough that his heart could reconstruct them even in his dreams.
Or so he thought.
For when Hans stumbles away far enough to look at the whole of it, he realises that it is… wrong. It looks nothing like Henry, and no matter how often Hans erases the lines with the sleeves of his pourpoint and redraws them with progressively shakier hands, it keeps looking wrong.
The realisation hits him the same moment his knees connect with the ground and a scream echoes through the corridor. It sounds more akin to the wail of a wild animal than his own voice.
He can no longer remember Henry’s face.
—
A year.
Hynce was a year old when his father died.
Withered away by grief, clinging to a shadow traced against the castle walls, his nails bloody and soul torn.
His father died on his knees before the silhouette of the man who held his heart, forever caught in a future long since dead. His body carried on for a while, a broken heart not enough to kill a healthy man at once, but it did not take long at all.
Hynce, of course, does not remember him. A year is not enough time for a child to master their memory, and so all Hynce grew up with of his father was his name.
Hans Capon.
A tragic legend only whispered in the darkest hours of night, when not even faithful Christians can fully make out the sinful taint of sodomy any longer. It is then that they talk of their late lord and his loyal knight.
True friends, some call them. But even they know that it is not the whole truth.
Very few call them lovers.
Most name them twin souls. Their hearts beating as one. Meant to be by each other’s side, both in life and in death.
Hynce makes his way to the corridor of Pirkstein every morning at dawn. His favourite place within the castle. It is a world of colour—reds and yellows and greens, illuminated by sunlight falling through windows wide enough to lean outside and feel the wind against one's skin.
And in the middle of it there is a painting, the edges of it carved into the very stone of the castle by a master engraver.
A kind-looking knight holding the gaze of a man kneeling at his feet. His hand cradles the other man’s face, and the eyes of the man on his knees hold the same blue hue as Hynce’s own.
“Good morning, Father! Uncle Henry,” Hynce greets as he sits down across from the painting, his back against the wall. The sun tickles the back of his neck, his shoulders relaxing as he sinks into the familiar comfort of this place. His home.
Thank you for the tag @misstwistedmind! Thank God you're pushing your luck for snippets of this fic at just the right time, I just got some more words down yesterday :P.
This is from my current WIP, a very angsty Hansry MCD fic.
Hans finds himself wandering the corridors aimlessly whenever there is nothing else to occupy his mind. At first he does not fully understand why. The corridors are empty as long as no-one is hurrying through them, there are no decorations, no paintings. Nothing but plain stone and slits for windows.
But then, after perhaps the first month, he comes to the conclusion that he searches them out because they are, essentially, a place of transition. A corridor is only ever a means to an end, a way to reach a destination beyond.
And isn't that just what this is?
Hans is waiting, caught in transition until Henry inevitably returns and marks Hans’ destination beyond. Because this? This is no life. Without Henry around there is no destination beyond, nothing to reach.
There is just this.
Plain walls, and slits for windows.
Dullness, and slivers of hope too small to be worth living for. Though the slivers are still enough to paint shadows in the dullness, to mark the hole of Henry's absence in his life.
Perhaps it would be better if there was no light at all.
Hans stands in the corridor where they have said their farewells. He looks at the wall and remembers the shadow of his love against the stone—remembers wishing to trace it.
He does not.
He leaves the corridor although it feels like home.
And for one single year, Hans is still the man everyone wishes for him to be. A lord worthy of his station, a husband worthy of his wife and, of course, a father worthy of his son.
Even if his soul keeps wandering the corridors aimlessly, tracing shadows with his eyes.
Tagging @nathalaia in this, if you're not already working on your exchange WIP :33
Thank you for the tag @misstwistedmind , I'm excited for this littl tag game! Ten first lines are quite a lot, I'll have to see which fics those are even from... tagging @nathalaia to try this as well!
1. "Of course, Henry can't catch a fucking break." (From a yet unnamed WIP, whose working title is "I do not fear the judgement of historians, although I am one myself")
2. "It was a warm and sunny morning as Hans and Henry took their now common route towards the market square of Skalitz." (From the 8th Chapter of Blackberries and Honey)
3. "Henry wakes to the rafters of his room cast in the darkness of a moonless night." (From Nighttime Lullaby)
4. "Snowflakes drift lazily through the air, swirling on a breeze before settling on earth as cold as ice." (From Fortuna's Blessing)
5. "The world is a rush of colour." (From the 2nd Chapter of Darkness and Hope)
6. "The streets of Rattay were usually rather quiet by night." (From Spilled Blood)
7. "Grief is the mightiest of God's swords." (From God's Sword)
8. "The ride to Talmberg was an agonisingly slow one." (From the 11th Chapter of Sunshine and a Silver Arrow)
9. "Thunder growls in the distance, wind whips through the treetops and lightning cracks through the sky." (From A Thunderstorm of Grief)
10. "Grey skies, black smoke, and the rotten stink of blood and shit were the only things left after the battle." (From Never far Apart, Even in Death)
