Upon the distant star of Zorath, two factions clashed with fervent might, their hearts ablaze with passion's flame. The Dragonborn, guardians of an ancient artifact, and the Silver Knights, sworn protectors of a mystic tome, locked in bitter strife. As the conflict intensified, an unlikely hero emerged: A young bard named Lyrin, whose songs could summon storms or calm the wildest beasts. He embarked on a quest to unite these foes and forge a new destiny, wielding the power of his verses like magic itself. In time, he found the artifacts' secrets united, and the factions became one under the skies of Zorath.
if anyone is interested in women in sports news: i know the girl that runs the Silver Knights socials and she got to go on her first road trip to calgary! they haven't let her go in the past because they "can't justify the expense" because as a woman she can't share a room....
so if you like women in sports and you like brendan brisson content, giving love to any of the tweets/instagram posts from jan 5 - jan 6 is much loved <3
On one of several days of patrol of the Silver Knight’s fighters, Grin and Irin were placed on the same team, which was frequently happening again to train teamwork of the siblings, during the patrol a group of giblins was spotted, long before the Silver Knights react, Grin excited go to attack the monsters that were out of their territory.
Silver Knight: Grin, what are you doing? We should attack together as the-
Irin: Do not worry, he told the veterans that if something happened to him, he would be responsible himself, it looks like he wants to have fun today -Irin gives a little giggle-
Going to the goblins, Grin starts with a scramble in the smaller ones and amends with a circular cut up while the bodies of the little ones are in the air, with a smile on his face he follows towards the big ones, the more nervous of the 3 that were present strikes a cut in the direction of Grin, who holds the great sword with his gauntlet, the force of the blow would throw him away, but the impact was gradually diminished as Grin's hand recoiled due to his control of the air element, using his other hand , he cuts the goblin's belly with his katana.
Grin: Man, it stinks, I will have to clean this later...
The other two giblins with large swords revolt, one of them runs towards Grin and tries to hit him by raising his sword and using all his force toward the ground, the youth evade and in a gesture of mockery stands on the part without cut of the sword stuck on the ground.
Grin: You know I’m not a boar, right? It’s easy to evade that.
He gives a mortal over the goblin using their head as support and throws his katana to the stuck barbaric Goblin. The other goblin, angry for how the boy was acting, tried to attack him with theirs sword but he uses a kick to defend himself from the goblin's weapon.
Grin: Hey, don’t turn your back on my partner!
After saying that, he raises his hand a little and the crystal of his gauntlet shines, as response his sword goes back too his hand spinning fast, cutting in half the goblin that was left stuck behind, the other goblin watches the scene shocked, and Grin uses this to cut it from the bottom up, leaving only one remaining.
Grin: 3 Down, one left!
Different from the first Gobrin, it stays unshaken and run in fury to strike the youth that responds in the same way causing a crash of weapons, small sparks goes off of Grin's weapon, they take distance and continue with the impacts of weapons. After some time, the sword begins to accumulate electricity from the Katana, making the goblin feels other type of shock, it was getting strong and strong with each blow, making it’s reactions slower, Grin takes tha chance to kick the monster towards the air, he raises his hand, making the space around the monster begins to feel heaviest, and with the last word...
Grin: 4... DOWN!
The heavy impact makes the monster faint, as it was jumped from a house’s roof.
Grin: All clean, next time I will leave some for you Irin!
Irin: I doubt it but I can’t wait for it -she opens a smile showing that she’s proud of her brother-
This is a retelling of an old story I made of Grin, it was a bit confused and tiresome to read so I hope it has improved a bit xP It was also removed from his Info to take less space.
Title: Keeping it together (Chapter 20)
Fandom: Dark Souls
Characters: Dragon Slayer Ornstein, Silver Knights
Word Count: 2.245
AO3-Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16328084/chapters/42869501
Previous chapter: https://mrslittletall.tumblr.com/post/183338536279/title-keeping-it-together-chapter-19
Summary: Ornstein has to try and adjust to a life without the other knights.
(Author's note: Lately I try and write a few words every day, so I managed to get kind of a buffer on this story. To be honest, it turned out much longer than originally planned, but we are heading to the end soon.)
Ornstein had scheduled silver knight training for the morning and while it occurred, he caught himself counting over his silver knights again and again. Even with the ones currently on duty he couldn't help but recognize how little of them were left. They had once been the largest army in Lordran, now Ornstein had the feeling that they would struggle when even a small nation would attack.
Earlier, not only hundreds of silver knights would have stand in the way of any foe, they only had to make their way through the four knights of Gwyn, several generals like Havel, they could request help from Izalith whenever they needed, Ornstein's master, the banished prince had been a force to reckon with and then there still had been their Lord Gwyn, but now... Ornstein felt like pretty much the last rock between any army and Gwyndolin. The only comfort he had was that most other countries with their mostly human population struggled with the curse of the undead and hollows would never build an army. Still, this comfort wasn't a good one.
After training was over and Ornstein was in the process of putting the training weapons away, Amira approached him. “Captain?”, she said and waited for his attention.
“Amira, what is it?”, Ornstein asked, leaning himself on a spear.
“We have the reports from New Londo. There seem to be at least ten dark wraiths at loose.”
Ornstein gasped. “That is a lot. Even Artorias would have needed help for this number.”, he ground through clenched teeth. “But.”, he sighed, braced himself for saying it out aloud, “Because Artorias isn't here anymore, I will lead a platoon to face them, I guess 25 silver knights that accompany me should be enough. Please find some volunteers. We will move out in two days.”
“Very well, captain.”, Amira bowed to him and left, leaving Ornstein alone with this thoughts. Fighting Dark Wraithes... that had always been Artorias duty. The wolf knight mostly had took the fight upon himself, only taking Sif with him. Ornstein could safely say that he didn't had much experience fending off this foe. Now he wished he had asked Artorias a bit more about the creatures of the dark he hunted, but now it was too late. He just had to do his best, like always. By the lord's sake, Ornstein was used to fend off dragons, he probably would be able to kill a few scattered creatures of the dark.
It was a creature of the dark who killed your friend, you know. A tiny voice in the back of his head whispered. Stop it. Ornstein thought to himself. This beast was something else... this beast can't be compared to some humans harnessing the power of the dark for themselves. But in the back of his mind he wasn't too sure if not each and every one of these so called dark wraithes would be able to turn into a beast like the one he had seen in the Abyss? Which plagued his dreams?
“Keep it together.”, Ornstein murmured to himself while he swept the floor of the trainings ground with a broom. “They need you as their leader, stop doubting everything...”
After he was done cleaning, it was time for lunch, but Ornstein's stomach didn't felt like it was up to the task. Instead, he decided to start his patrol early and made a beeline for the market place. Luckily, it seemed to be a quiet day. Just like a lot of the houses in the city were abandoned, a lot of the booths at the market stayed empty too. A particular one was still there though and Ornstein stopped at it, after making sure he had some coins on him. He bought some dried fish treats from the booth and decided to steer his patrol into the direction of where he had seen the cat in the night, when he heard the voice of a woman call out to him.
“Sir Ornstein? I haven't seen you in a while.”, she said.
Ornstein turned around and his heart dropped into his leggings when he saw the woman who spoke. The one he usually had called the cookie woman or more, one of her descendants, probably her great grand daughter. He walked over to her.
“I have been out on a mission for a few days.”, he said. What was the name of her again? Stellaris? Ornstein didn't remember, names had always been Artorias strong point, but it felt right enough.
“But not alone, right?”, Stellaris asked. “I haven't seen Sir Artorias either these last few days. Even a bit longer than you.” She smiled at him. “He surely needs some new ingredients for his recipes by now, I wanted to make him a good price. Maybe you could tell him once you see him?”
Ornstein sighed. It was better he was getting this over with now. “Artorias won't come back.”, he said. “He has... fallen in battle.”
Ornstein could see how Stellaris smile fell and she clasped a hand in front of her mouth in horror, tears welling up in her eyes. “But, why, how could this?”, she murmured. Ornstein stayed there in silence, unable to say anything, when the woman managed to get a hold on herself, swallowed down her tears and said: “Please tell me he at least died an honourable death, Sir Ornstein.”
Ornstein didn't knew it was possible but his heart fell even further down his leggings and he was incredibly glad that he hadn't eaten anything, when he opened his mouth and said: “He died as a hero, saved a country from the tormenting of a vile abyss beast.” In only a few days this lie had started to come so easily over his lips. But at least it seemed to help, he could see how Stellaris face brightened up.
“It is what he deserved.”, she said, but then stared at her wares, face dark. “I guess that means we will never taste Artorias' cookies again...”
Ornstein didn't say anything, instead he just stayed there at this booth, where it felt like time had stopped for the moment. After a good while he forced himself to move again.
“I should really continue my patrol.”, he said.
Stellaris looked at him with a stern face and opened her mouth to say: “Sir Ornstein, thanks for telling me the truth.”
This was too much for him. Clutching the bag with the treats, Ornstein basically stormed off the market place, only stopping when he couldn't hear the noises of it anymore, looking around if anyone was near, taking a few steps into a side road and there he broke down, falling on his knees, shivering, awful pain in his stomach, it pretty much felt like someone had kicked him into his guts.
“Keep it together.”, he murmured to himself, spear clutched in his right hand, bag with fish treats in his left hand. “Keep it together, together, together...”, he continued his chant. He could consider himself lucky that he was wearing his gauntlets or otherwise he would have hurt his hands so tight he was clutching around his spear and the bag. It took Ornstein a good few minutes before the breakdown ended. He dearly hoped nobody had seen him like this. As he got up, he realized how cramped his hands were and groaned a bit as he stretched and popped his fingers. Ornstein remembered this side road as the one where he had seen the cat in the night and went looking for it. It didn't took him long to spot the feline and as usual, it wasn't friendly towards him and he got hissed at right away.
“I don't intent any harm.”, Ornstein muttered in a low voice and got on his knees, full aware that he still was awfully huge like this. He wasn't Artorias so he didn't expect that the cat would take the food out of his hands and he also didn't want it to do that, so he opened the bag and just tossed a fish treat at the ground, waiting.
It didn't took the little animal long to come sneaking in the direction of the treat, wiggling flat on the ground like a snake, sniffing, shooting forward to get the treat and retreating right away. Ornstein waited a few minutes for the animal to return and when it did, it had two other cats in tow. The one he would call the leader was white as snow, another one was black with white socks and the third had red tiger stripes. Ornstein counted three treats from the bag and tossed them in front of him.
Ornstein had expected the snowy one to come get it first, but to his surprise, the striped one was the bravest of them and got the first fish treat right away, retreating once it had its prey. The snowy one followed and the one with the socks was the last. Although all cats had food now, they stayed in plain sight munching on their treats. Ornstein threw them another round.
This continued until the bag was empty. At the end of the feeding session the red striped cat had become comfortable enough to lay down at his feet and purr and Ornstein had named the cats Snowy, Socks and Tiger in his mind, cursing himself for being uncreative with names and for Artorias ghost apparently getting into him, he didn't even like cats. At last these ones had stopped hissing at him. He decided to bring them some more treats the next time he would go on patrol.
The rest of Ornstein's patrol went almost uneventful, but he managed to catch at least one thief and put them into the care of the silver knights before retreating to the cathedral, where the paperwork was waiting.
___
“C...Captain?”, Ornstein heard a voice and felt a nudge, slowly opening his eyes, groaning at his pained neck.
“What is the matter?”, he asked, half confused. He could have sworn he had been with Artorias the last hour, when he noticed the silver knight in front of him and the paperwork and realized that his sleepless night finally had caught up on him and that Sira just had saved him from another nightmare.
“I am sorry, Sira, I haven't slept well last night.”, Ornstein said truthfully, but he also felt how his face blushed. How embarrassing, falling asleep like this in front of his knight. Who probably had to debate half an hour with herself if she should wake him.
“Are... are you sure you are feeling alright, Captain?”, Sira asked. “I mean, if... if you are sick, you sh.. should probably rest...”
“I appreciate your concern, but I am fine.”, Ornstein said, but didn't force a smile this time. “Just tired. I will try not to fall asleep anymore. Let us tackle the paperwork until dinner is ready, alright?”
Sira nodded but Ornstein felt like she wasn't completely convinced. He couldn't help it, the paperwork had to be done one way or another and Ornstein cursed himself once more for having procrastinated it for so long. At this rate, they would be stuck another week at it. So he sighed in relief when the servants called for dinner and they could quit the paperwork for the day.
“Tomorrow to the same hour.”, Ornstein said to Sira and the silver knight nodded and bowed, taking a stack of the finished paperwork with her. Ornstein nodded back at her and took a stack of his own, throwing one last gaze at the leftover paperwork, groaning internally.
After dinner Ornstein would normally retreat in his room after he had made the evening roll call for the silver knights, but he still didn't feel like he wanted to go back into this place, so he aimlessly wandered the cathedral, sometimes entering an unused room and searching through it, even though there hadn't been any assassins in years now. Now that Ciaran was gone not even the lord's blades were there anymore, Ornstein guessed the one he had encountered had told the others and they all had gone on their own way. After an hour of aimless wandering Ornstein found himself in the silver knights quarters. This sparked memories... it had been so long since he had stayed here himself as a fresh silver knight, having some trouble adjusting to the new life. He stopped in front of a particular door.
“Captain, is something wrong?” Ornstein recognized the voice, Herman, the silver knight on guard when he had returned from Oolacile.
“Everything is fine, just reminiscing.”, Ornstein answered, still staring at the door.
“Is there a tale to tell about this door?”, Herman asked. Ornstein turned his head to look at him and realized that Jervis was there too, apparently Herman had took the younger silver knight under his wing.
“This was the place where I first have met Artorias.”, Ornstein started to tell.
Two hours later Ornstein had told a whole lot of Artorias' anecdotes not only to Herman and Jervis but to a good bunch of other silver knights who had joined them. At one point someone had brought some wine and Ornstein had let himself talked into drinking a glass too, which had been a mistake, cause his lack of sleep and his intolerance of alcohol made him very tipsy. So when he noticed how late it already had gotten and how tired he felt, he excused himself to retreat to his room. After all, he had to get up early the next day and attend the executions. And this was usually a pretty gruesome sight, so he should make sure to sleep any tipsiness away.
After Ornstein had made himself ready for bed, he laid down in it, pulled the blankets over himself, checked if his comfort pillow was in place and managed to fall asleep in record time.
Next chapter: https://mrslittletall.tumblr.com/post/183845260959/title-keeping-it-together-chapter-21
