Author Games Compilation [Cycle 2]

Task 6 - A Knight's Rest [VERE]

A PRINCE'S WAR - TASK SIX: A KNIGHT'S REST

Vere Lebriole, Vere Lennox - however you'd like to put it, whichever surname you fancy - stares his son and the incarnation of Death in the face, equal parts love and fear, equal parts relief and confusion. Vere Lebriole, Vere Lennox, it matters nothing to him which surname winds up on his tombstone, but everything here, in this moment, his back pressed into the wet earth, mud squeezing through the armor like cheese through a grate, tickling him with cold dirt slugs, it all matters. He doesn't move his gaze or his body as he stares that boy with the grey-blue eyes in the face; they match the mucky sky, and if not for his dry eyes, the two might've blurred and blended together.

If not for his heavy heart, he might've moved at the sight of the blade sitting firm in the grip of his, is this his son? It has to be. It's his son. In the grip of his son's hand. Vere only briefly flicks his eyes to the short blade before going back to his face. The only creases there exist because of the gurgling, choking girl beside him, and the boy doesn't seem to register any sort of recognition, no familiarity. "You killed an Adrigolian," he accuses, "for an Elusian. But you meant to hit me." It sounds like reassurance, like the boy is trying to reassure himself.

"No," Vere whispers, and it's taken by the fight around them, "no, I meant to hit her."

But the boy doesn't hear this, and he takes his sword and raises it above Vere as if to plunge it into his chest and he drives it down and then-

"Josias! We need our medic on hand right now, put the sword away and do your job! We need pressure on this wound!"

-the blade drives itself into the wet earth beside Vere. The ground can't sustain it and it topples against his chest harmlessly, but by the time he's knocked it off, the boy is gone, and he can't discern which way he went.

He sits there a moment, dirty palms smearing more dirt across his forehead, massaging those old temples. They throb. He shakes. Dear heavenly father, I pray to thee: tell me this was a wicked distraction to force my repentance. If I never see him again I'll know it was falsity. It's just the condition. It makes me see things that aren't there sometimes. That's it. I've hallucinated him. But the girl. Sancta lays there, head lolled back and a crimson crack in her throat, spurting and mixing with the world beneath her face. He wants to vomit. Hands wind tight into his hair. I can't go back to Adrigole. I killed one of our own. I'll be hung as a traitor. Fuck, fuck, fuck! A plan. A plan.

Shakily, he pulls himself to a stand, but the second he becomes eye level with the Elusians, he's a target, and he drags his legs into a run, and then he's fleeing the scene, with no regard for where he's going or what sort of place he's leaving behind. It feels unreal, all the green and grey and red rushing by, intermixing. But there's a violent burn in his lungs, rising into his throat, so he knows it's real. But how much of it? Doesn't matter. A plan. Oh, his son's grown so tall, so big, so magnificent. Eyes sting, water. Stop it. Just run.

He spends the next half hour ducking between desolate alleyways, absentmindedly reading signs with only a vague familiarity. Attention lies mostly on sound, anyhow. How far away the battle is. From which direction footsteps come. He presses himself up against Elusian walls and flattens himself on Elusian dirt and he is surrounded by this broken kingdom, no real king to lead it anymore. And as he flees, he thinks of the logistics of this whole thing. He'll be a wanted man in Adrigole, maybe, and a wanted man here. They'll mark down his splendid nose and his strong forehead but what might they get wrong?

He looks down at himself, pressed between two brick walls. My size. Hands travel along the breastplate, the metallic guards on his body. They enlargen him, so he strips them clean off, ditching them in that alley before taking off again. Part of him feels torn in this decision; how shall others see his gallantry if he does not shine with every step? But then he remembers the blood that will soon rust that armor, and the weight of it, and his son - the armor doesn't matter.