Another nondescript period of time, another snippet.
This one's pretty simple. The Silent gives the Ironclad a hug.
———
The Silent opens her arms. The Ironclad gives her a look. She looks right back, before waving her hands at him a bit to prompt him. Like a child.
“You can’t be serious.” He says.
Her arms do not go back down.
“...You’re trying to stab me.”
An exasperated sigh. Okay, so, any stabbing will be accidental at most.
Something nasty and festering living in his skull curls its lip. Who does the huntress think she is? To think herself above him in such a manner, that she can leave herself vulnerable and open for the sake of doling out easy physical affection like throwing scraps of offal to a starving hound. He is above this. Above such softness. Above such weakness.
Something withered and tired and soft, something that he tucked deep in the cage of his ribs to trap and protect in equal measure, stirs. It has been a very, very long time since anyone, anything, has touched him with no other motive than to touch him.
Swallowing his pride (he didn’t think he still had any left to swallow, he’s learning a lot about himself today), he steps forward. Slowly, step by reluctant step, until he stands an arm's length away from her.
The huntress makes no move to close the gap.
Fine. Fine.
He crosses that last step, tucks his head in the crook of her shoulder, and slips his arms under hers. He feels her arms loop around the back of his neck, her hands resting on his back.
Ancients.
Ancients, it’s not supposed to feel like this. The Silent is wiry. Lean and bony. Her cloak is rough and weathered. Her skull is clacking strangely against his helmet. When she shifts, there’s the tell-tale series of clicks that can only come from a small armory’s worth of small blades bumping up against each other in her sleeves. She should be hard to hold.
(He should be hard to hold.)
So the fact that he can feel his will seeping away, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion as it drains out and into the cracked cobbles, is wholly unfair. Not that anything about his life has ever been fair. It makes a twisted sense that this isn’t either. The embrace is leeching something poisonous from him.
But the poison is all that’s holding him up, so he begins to falter.
His legs give out, forcing the Silent to brace herself with a quiet -oof- to slow their descent so he doesn’t drag them both into a messy heap on the ground.
How deeply, disgustingly undignified of him, that rotting part of his mind whispers.
What dignity did I have to begin with? He retorts, and just holds her tighter. She rubs a slow circle into his back. His next breath comes out in a choked wheeze. You’d think she punched him.
They stay like that until he hears the telltale bubbling of the summoning pool. Begrudgingly, he pulls away. The Silent catches his hand, gives it a squeeze and him a meaningful look, before standing up to go greet the others. He watches her leave. He misses her already.
Ancients, he’s tired.
He’s so, so tired.
The Ironclad allows a moment to recollect himself, and then stands to follow.
A little bit ago I wrote a snippet about the Ironclad and the Necrobinder. I liked it, but it was so short that I didn't really want to post it on ao3. So I left it there to collect dust until I could figure out a fic to wrap around it.
And then I saw a post about the two of them (@the-final-sif talkin bout you 👀) and I was like. Fuck it! I'm throwing it on tumblr.
Enjoy!
———
“I-I just… why didn’t he just let us leave?” she sobs.
“Don’t.”
The Necrobinder looks to her side. The Ironclad has sat down beside her, his mouth pressed in a firm line.
“It’ll kill you. Asking yourself these things. It will drive you mad, trying to understand why old, powerful things choose to be cruel.”
He peers at her through his helmet, a grave clarity present in his voice that somehow settles something loose and broken in her chest.
Still loose. Still broken, but it's not tearing itself through her heart anymore.
She sniffles. “...I think. That's the most I've ever heard you say at once.”
The warrior snorts, before pulling his helmet off of his head. The simple action startles her—she’s never seen his face before.
He looks… normal. There’s a massive scar gouging his face from his cheek to his brow, crossing the bridge of his nose, but he looks undeniably mortal. Like her parents. Like she used to. He could’ve been one of her mother’s colleagues, or one of her father’s drinking buddies. He doesn’t look like a man that’s been burning for one thousand years.
“I swear to you. We will kill the Architect.” He says, his eyes burning into the place where hers used to be. “And when my blade tastes his blood, it will not be because Vakuu dug up my corpse to enact his petty revenge. I will feel his bones break beneath my heel for your parents. I will split his flesh for your friend. I will spill his entrails on the Spire floor for the childhood he denied you. For the lives he decided were beneath him, and so meant nothing to throw away.”
And really, what was she supposed to say to that?
The Necrobinder collapses into herself, burying her face in her hands as she wails. For a moment, the Ironclad stiffens, unsure of whether or not he made things worse, and even less sure with how to proceed. He hesitates for a moment longer, before putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. It’s awkward, but the way he allows her to cry against him makes her cry all the harder. She misses her father. She misses her mother. She misses the friendly giant that just wanted to help them.
She doesn’t know how long she cries for, how long the Ironclad lets her stay curled up against his side like a frightened child. Because that’s how she feels. Frightened, and childish, and foolish for thinking she could ever best a god alone. But eventually, the tears stop.
She inhales, scrubbing at her eye sockets.
“I didn’t know I could still cry like that.” The lich mutters. “Or sound this congested. Gross.”
The Ironclad shrugs, preparing to put his helmet back on. The Necrobinder touches his wrist. He looks at her.
“O-Once we kill the Architect,” she starts, taking a breath to steel herself. “We’ll kill Vakuu next. Or, at the very least, I’ll do everything in my power to help you kill him. You deserve as much, after everything you’ve done for us.”
The helmet is still in the Ironclad’s hands, so there’s nothing to hide the naked, grief-stricken look on his face.
No, it’s more caustic than that.
The look on his face is an ancient, angry despair. The look of a man who has been burning for one thousand years, and cannot even begin to fathom the thought that the fire would extinguish.
But the look goes away, so fast and with such little fanfare that the only evidence she has that it was real at all is the bottomless, sinking feeling that’s opened up in her chest.
He puts his helmet back on.
“Thank you.” He says, and at the very least, he sounds like he means it.
