HEY EVERYONE IT'S FINALLY MY TURN!!!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
HEYYYYY Sorry this took so long but it's huge and my OC Bernnard took off with the plot!
SOOOOOO I know y'all would love to read about how Lyonel got so gobsmacked by a certain hedgeknight that he forgot about his not so casual situationship back at home right??????
Summary:
Bernnard’s mouth tightened.
“When I first met you, I was half convinced the Father and the Stranger had taken counsel together and shaped you beneath their own hands. The Father for strength, the Stranger so death would know you by name and keep its distance. Proof that even the Gods, when vanity struck them, could make a man too grand for this world.”
Bernnard’s mouth tightened, caught somewhere between fondness and old disbelief.
“You were too tall, too strong, too bright with passion for everything life had to give. Too full of yourself, certainly, but alive in a way that made other men seem half-finished beside you. You came into every yard as though the world had been waiting for the honor of being trampled under your boots. Men swung at you and missed. Horses that would throw better riders settled under your hand, as if your wild hearts could speak to one another in a language us mortal men couldn't comprehend .”
His gaze dropped briefly, not quite to Lyonel’s wound, but close enough.
“You laughed at hurts that would have laid another man flat for a fortnight. Split lips, cracked ribs, bruises black as storm clouds. None of it seemed to touch the root of you. You would bleed, curse, spit red into the dirt, and then ask for more while the rest of us were still catching our breath.”
A rough breath left him.
“You were unbearable,” Bernnard said softly. “And Gods help me, I was infatuated.”
Despite himself, Lyonel’s expression softened by a fraction. “Still am, I hope. Unbearable, I mean.”
Bernnard did not smile.
“You were impossible,” he said. “That was what I believed. Unstoppable. Unbreakable. Not because you never bled, but because bleeding never seemed to mean the same thing for you as it did for other men. You always came back from it. Always. Bruised, split open, laughing, furious, half-drunk on the glory of it, hungry, demanding a horse or a cup or flesh."
His voice grew rougher there, not with tears, but with the strain of an old certainty being forced apart.
“So when word came that you had been hurt at Ashford, I did what I have always done. I trusted the lie you taught all of us. I told myself you would come home roaring. That you would limp through the gate with some obscene jest on your tongue and blood on your sleeve, and we would all shake our heads and call you a fool and be grateful the Gods had favored you again.”
Lyonel looked down at his own hands.
Bernnard leaned back on his heels, the morning gone cold around him.
“I think a part of me has always believed they did favor you. The Gods, I mean.” He gave a short, bitter sound that resembled the shape of a laugh. “Not kindly, perhaps. They have never been gentle with you. But I thought they had marked you somehow. Set you apart. Given you some rare and infuriating gift to endure what should have broken you.”
He looked at Lyonel then, fully.
“And in all that blind devotion, I missed the man standing in front of me.”
ALRIGHT Y"ALL SHOUT OUT TIME!!!
@starcityrebels- You have been here from the beginning, and everything I have written so far wouldn't be possible without you. You always find a way to make time for me in your endlessly busy life, and I am forever grateful. ALSO, they write on top of hearing me lament my own work, so go check out The Earring over on AO3, plus their other works!
@jowuss- You are my greatest conspirator, and I'm endlessly grateful for all the ideas that you have given me and input during moments when I just couldn't write myself out of a paper bag. You always have the best solutions to my problems and even to the ones I didnt even consider as problems lol.
@crypticranger- You have been such an amazing friend. I love that we became friends via eachother ao3 fic comments. You have kept me grounded and heard me out when I cried and kept reminding me it's just a story lololol. Thanks for all the late-night support, memes, and help with editing when you had your own fic troubles to worry about! And go check out their fic Will You Lay Down Your Armor over on AO3 and their other works!
And Last but not least @duesternis- I am beyond humbled that you chose to reach out and help. The hours you put in reading this beast twice back to back, and the 1000 edits (not kidding, they killed it) are more than I could have ever hoped to ask for. Your input and fine eye made getting this out possible. I promise in the next chapter that I will correct all my commas and apostrophes before I give it over to you 😅😅 And again they're an amazing writer and deserve love. A Squire of Storms End is over on AO3 as well as their other works!
You are all amazing human beings and I couldn't have made this chapter happen. Y'all have kept me sane and I hope me caving to y'alls BarnWIN agenda was a worthy enough thank you for all that yall do!
