#i have watched lovers get dressed in sunlight. i have handed things back on riverbanks | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

galadrieljones · 6 years

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zero: chapter 9

Fandom: Horizon: Zero Dawn | Pairing: Aloy x Nil | Rating: M (Mature)

Content: Angst, Existential Angst, Touch-Starved, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Alcohol, First Love, Slow Burn, Violence, Love Triangles, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love

Masterpost | AO3

Heavy

They slept beside one another. It was only a few hours before the sun got hot and high. When she woke up, he was no longer pressed around her, like when they had fallen asleep. The tent was too warm. But he was close, on his back with one hand resting on his chest. He breathed even, heavy and deep. The black hair curled back off his face and around his ear. He hadn’t woken once that morning, no shaking or mumbling. His mind seemed all quiet. She was still in her clothes from the night before. After the kiss, they just went into the tent to go to sleep. As she drifted, he lie behind her and told her about Carja parades in winter, and how they would be happening very soon, maybe even right now. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. He seemed to be separating the pieces of her hair—or something—with his fingers. She couldn’t tell exactly. Some of this was new, but Nil touching her hair wasn’t new. He had braided it before.

What do they celebrate? she said, her head resting on the inside of his arm. The Carja parades.

It’s more an invocation, said Nil. She could sense that his eyes were closed, even just as he spoke. A prayer to the sun, mostly in the night.

Is that all the Carja do? she said, kidding. Pray to the sun?

I once heard the Nora spend all their time praying to a mountain. Are we so different?

Aloy appreciated this. Though she had never once personally prayed to a mountain.

When Nil woke up, they went about their morning routine in a kind of normalcy. It was time to go. Aloy had never gone back to the woods to refresh her traps. It was time to get out of this unlucky bandit country. They would come back for the rest of them when they had more time. Nil took down the tent while Aloy buried the fire. They decided to leave the bodies, like a warning. She went over to Dawn, who had grown still in the morning. Sickle had used to do a similar thing. It was like some form of recharging. They’d make a whirring noise and the light in their face would grow dim, and they’d be very still. When Aloy approached, Dawn stirred, and her light came back to its full capacity. She seemed to wake up. Aloy patted her on the flank and gave her an apple that she had saved from breakfast. Nil worked quickly, and the air was muggy, so he had taken off his shirt. The sunlight came through the canopy in heavy, oppressive bars. For winter, it sure was hot in this part of the Sundom. She watched him drinking water from a canteen, and then he handed it to her and went back to work packing in the tent. He strapped it all firmly to Dawn on the loin, and then he patted her again like he had the night before and stood beside her, eating a green pear. He had tied his hair into tight knot at the top of his neck. He was taking a break.

Aloy was fully dressed for the road by now. She had begun to feel anxious about their kiss, but Nil didn’t seem anxious. He must have sensed her staring at him at some point, because he smirked at her, still chewing his pear.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said, still smirking. He wiped some of the juice from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” said Aloy.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” said Nil.

“Because,” she said. She got red and frustrated, but it was stupid. It made her laugh. “I have no idea.”

They took turns riding Dawn back to the Maizelands. It was still mostly quiet in the terrain, but it had only taken a single night for new machine herds to move into the area. There were Glinthawks, too, in the wake of Nil’s initial hunt, and this seemed to agitate Dawn, who was a little more sensitive to her surroundings than Sickle had ever been. The revelation was strange for Aloy. She hadn’t realized machines could develop personalities, but Dawn had been living in a much more stressful terrain than Sickle, and maybe that had something to do with it. They hid in the outcroppings of a huge mesa somewhere along the road and picked off the Glinthawks one by one. Their absence made Dawn much calmer, and they got moving again.

“It’s okay,” Aloy said to Dawn, whispering into her mechanical ear. “Nobody likes Glinthawks. It’s okay.”

With the path cleared, they were able to make it back to the civilized parts of the Sundom by nightfall. Nil wanted to camp by the river, but Aloy was tired of the outdoors. She was used to certain creature comforts, even as an outcast, and even as she did not always feel that she deserved them. She let herself fall prey to her desires for cottages and warm food every once in a while, and tonight, that was what she wanted. So she convinced him that they should spend one night inside the Maizelands. They needed a break from the wild, and though he seemed to agree with her sentiment, he was tense. He did not like treading this close to Avad, and he did not like taking up civilized quarters in his kingdom. The tension between them was palpable and filled with anger, and she could see it in his face, the way he tightened his jaw as he nodded in consent, and she wished she could know more—about them, about what had happened to make them this way, but now was not the time.

“It’s not Meridian,” said Aloy as they approached the gate. “And you’ve come into the Maizelands before, to go to the tavern, haven’t you? It won’t be so bad, Nil. I promise, and if it is I'll take all the blame.”

“There's nothing blame anyone for,” he said. He seemed to unclench as the time went by. It was passing. “You’re right. It's okay.”

They tied up Dawn in one of the little farms outside the city walls. There were chickens and boar and some donkeys in a makeshift stable. Some people gave her a strange look as she did it, but they all seemed to know Aloy in these parts by now, and that she could override machines for her own purposes, and they weren’t brave enough to confront her over their anxieties about having a machine on the premises. She paid the man at the makeshift stable for a one-night’s stay.

“She eats apples and grass,” she said. “She's just like anything else. Okay?”

The man wore a bowler hat and had a craggy face. He was chewing on his corncob pipe. He nodded in a trustworthy manner and said, “I got it.”

After leaving Dawn, Aloy wanted to wash her hair in the river before going inside. She thought she must smell like shit.

“You smell good,” said Nil, shrugging.

Aloy didn’t believe him.

She rolled her pants up past the knee and waded into the water. She dipped her head in, and Nil sat down on the riverbank to wait. He ran some water through his own hair and seemed relieved by this. He was growing calmer. The sun was down, and it was twilight and cooling off considerably. Nil had removed his armor back at the farm and was just back to his trousers and boots and a linen shirt put together with very fine, colorful stitching. The Carja always had beautiful clothes. She wondered if he had learned the technique from his mother, who was dead, or if it was something he had taught himself. Either way, she knew him well enough to know that he had not purchased the garment from a Carjan artisan. He would have made it with his own hands.

“Do you think Dawn will be okay?” said Aloy. She was standing in the river, shaking her hair out. Nil had prepared a plain cotton towel for her. He handed it over, and she wrapped it around her head.

“Yes,” said Nil. “Stablemen are different than civilians. They like animals better than people.”

“Dawn isn’t an animal,” said Aloy. “She’s a machine.”

“Yeah, but she acts like an animal. It’s all the same once you get past the metal. Either way, nobody is going to mess with you, Aloy. You can count on that.” He smiled. Then, he studied her.

She became very suddenly self-conscious. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“That’s a good look for you,” he said, pointing to the towel on her head.

“What?”

She saw him smirking again and shoved him once in the shoulder. But she was flattered.

“Shut up, Nil.”

He laughed.

Inside the Royal Maizelands, it was just like Nil had said. They were getting ready for a night parades. There were people standing around, waiting, and a path had been cleared through the main part of the settlement. There were women dressed in elaborate costumes, and children with their faces painted like the sun and stars. Even in twilight, they loved their god. And it was fortuitous for Aloy. Nobody noticed her, like they so often did. Nobody stopped her or tried to sell her things or to ask her if she had seen their bumbling husband or idiotic hunting partner while out on her various travels. She was so sick of people knowing who she was. It just got annoying. But that night, nobody cared who she was. They were preparing for their Carjan festivities. It seemed that some outlanders had come to join the celebration. A band with a lute, a harp, and several wind instruments played on a low platform nearby. The melodies were sweet and upbeat. The merchants had filled little jars with lit wicks in candle wax and hung them from clotheslines, strung up in the trees and all across the paths and walkways and entrances to the marketplace. As they walked through the display, Aloy looked up at Nil to try and measure the proper reaction. He seemed content and like he both noticed but also did not care about the differences in the atmosphere. Sometimes, he belonged to her, and sometimes, he was a total stranger. She wanted to know his whole life and everything in it.

When they got to the tavern where Brissa worked, it was full but not bursting. Aloy feared all the rooms would be already rented upstairs. But Nil told her that it was mostly locals in the Maizelands that night. “There will be some outlanders,” said Nil, “but not all of them.”

Aloy hoped that this was true. There was a small group of Oseram travelers in the bar, drinking out of huge flagons, but they weren’t causing any trouble. Aloy tried to remember the last time she had seen another Nora face. It had been so long ago. She tried not to miss that place. It had done her no favors in her short, stupid life.

They went up to the counter where Brissa leaned, shining up a bar glass. She smiled to see them both. She mostly confirmed Nil’s prediction and said that she had one room to rent. She said she had been holding it for a friend from the big city but that her friend had not been able to make it. “It’s all yours,” said Brissa. “Free of charge.”

“What?” said Aloy. “Noway. I’m paying.”

“Please,” said Brissa, waving her off. “I neither want nor need your money.”

“Accept it,” said Nil to Aloy. “It is a great honor to be offered a gift like this by a Carja merchant.”

“Are you bullshitting me?” said Aloy.

“Yes,” said Nil. “But why does it matter?”

Brissa was laughing. She wore a pretty headdress that night. She had a piercing in her nose in the shape of an elephant. “You should listen to Brother Nil,” she said. “He is a wise soul.”

“That, I am,” said Nil. He sat down at the bar with a sarcastic sort of confidence. Aloy gave into their joint theatrical nature. “Give us wine, barkeep,” he said.

“Right away,” said Brissa. She gave Aloy a long, knowing look after that, and then she went away for the bottle. Aloy felt perpetually confused by these sorts of looks. She thought she must have missed out on something in her youth. Of course, she had missed out on a lot of things, one of those things being a mother. But she tried to remember Rost, if anything at all. She had seem him conversing with women at the outcast markets. The outcast markets were these little shit markets for outcast artisans and farmers to come and sell to one another. Rost made beautiful weaponry. He made many trades at the markets for food and supplies, and he did so in a quiet confidence. He did not speak much, but when he did, he seemed to know what to say, and people liked him. Women liked him. He never showed them any real sort of interest beyond gratitude, but he was attentive. Aloy knew that Rost had once been married, but that his wife had died, and that was enough or him. He would not marry again. At the markets, she watched him closely anyway. He always told Aloy she had a kind of natural wit that endeared her to all the people at the market, and it would carry her a long way in life. Aloy still didn’t know what this was. She often felt unsure of herself in social situations. But she liked people. She liked their sounds and their warmth and their company. They made her feel strong.

Brissa served their wine in pretty glasses with twisty stems. It was a warm, sweet yellow wine made of grapes grown in a nearby vineyard. Aloy liked it very much. It reminded her of the winters she’d used to know. Nil was amused by its sweet taste and though he finished the glass, he asked for something a little stronger to help wash it down. She poured him a little brown liquor, and then she served them dinner on heavy porcelain plates. White fish with grains and a light salad with citrus fruits. Aloy enjoyed the food and the whole room and her conversation with Nil. He spoke easy and told stories like he always did, so good at talking it could make you forget all about the world outside. Brissa was a calming influence on them both. She talked about her wedding on the Daybrink not two years before. “I wore a dress that went all the way down past my feet, and it had a train that was ten feet long,” she said. Aloy didn’t understand the extravagance, but she was enchanted by the idea and desperately longed to see the dress. Brissa told her that next time Aloy was in the Maizelands, she would take her back to where she lived near the docks with her husband, and show it to her. She said Aloy could even try it on if she wanted, but Aloy demurred.

After they were finished, Nil got up from the bar, very tired seeming. It had been a long day, and he was ready to go upstairs. Aloy didn’t want to go quite yet, and this made him smile. It was in his nature to leave her be, and he said he would try to wait up, but she told him it was okay. They said goodnight, and Brissa went down the bar a little bit to help a young woman uncork her bottle of wine. There was a moment. Nil seemed to bite down and swallow his pride, or at least that was what it looked like to Aloy. He set his hand on her shoulder in a reassuring way. It was firm but gentle, like everything with Nil, and then he bent slowly and kissed her on the temple, soft, and he stayed there for a moment, and she thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. He smiled, and he released her, and then he went upstairs.

She felt very high up and far away and right inside the sun’s warmth, sipping her golden wine alone at the bar. But Aloy’s instinct was always to make these things into some flight of fancy, as this was safer, so she cleared her throat as if to speak, and then she had to make her heart quit pounding and shut the fuck up, so she took a long drink, polishing off the glass.

“You seem to know him,” said Brissa, coming back now. She had a towel over her shoulder, and she leaned on her elbows, close so that they could speak privately.

“I do,” said Aloy. “Better now than I did before, last time we talked.”

“He is careful with you,” said Brissa, sort of lost in the moment. “He considers your needs. And you got him to spend the night inside the village? That is a triumph. You are good together.”

“Yeah,” said Aloy. “I guess.”

“What’s the matter?” said Brissa, sensing something had gone off just then, like a tilt in the earth’s access. Somewhere nearby, there was uproarious laughter. The lute continued to play its upbeat serenade to the moon, which held the sun's place in the night.

“We’ve only kissed,” said Aloy. The moment she said it, she knew that it was a big part of what had been on her mind. She was paralyzed in some ways. She didn’t know what came next. She gazed down into her empty glass. “I don’t really think we’re…together? Or, we haven’t—I mean, we haven’t.”

"You haven't what?”

“You know,” said Aloy.

“Oh,” said Brissa, surprised. She smiled and took the towel off her shoulder and set it down in a pile on the counter. “So what?”

Aloy gave her a look. “So what?”

“Everything comes at its own pace. That part of your relationship will express itself when the time is right.”

“But when is it?” said Aloy. She suddenly seemed to need Brissa’s advice very badly. She felt so fucking stupid sometimes, shifting around in her seat like a little kid. “I mean. When is it right? You seem to know about this stuff. Is it right now?”

“It is right when you know it is right.”

“But that’s confusing,” said Aloy, putting her head in her hands. She pushed the hair off her face and blinked hard. She felt suddenly like she might cry. “How am I supposed to know? I’ve never done it. I mean—I know the basic procedure. But I’ve never thought about this before. Not with anyone. I’ve never had to.”

“Aloy,” said Brissa. She placed her hand on Aloy’s hand. Then she picked up the bottle from under the counter and poured her another glass—this one was smaller than the last. She put the bottle away and continued, smiling very sisterly. “You worry too much.”

“Why doesn’t he just…I don’t know? Make a move?”

This made Brissa laugh. “He is hesitant, because he doesn’t think he deserves you, and he’s still trying to figure out why you haven’t left yet.”

“I leave all the time.”

“You know what I mean, Aloy. Maybe you leave, but you have your reasons. What’s important, is that you keep coming back.”

“But what does that mean?”

“You just have to use your instincts,” she said.

Aloy laughed this off. She took a drink of her wine. “Yeah, my instincts,” she said. “If only I were as confident with Nil as I am with killing machines.”

“You are a woman of your heart,” said Brissa, out of nowhere. She took her hand off of Aloy’s hand, and she placed it over Aloy’s heart. “I sense this about you. You have romance living inside you. The romance of the earth and the skies, of metal. The way you keep and name your machine companions, and how you decorate the braids in your hair with thread and beads. Men are much simpler than these things. They may seem smart and strong on the outside, but they are brute creatures within, and sometimes that is all they are used to and so all they have come to expect. But you offer more. I see it, and he offers you something, too. He makes life seem…safe. He is a fixture, a constant. The world is funny and carefree with Nil. It’s just all full of stories. Like the good times don’t have to end, and they don't. You’ll know when you know. The time will come, if it is meant to be, and when it does, you will not hesitate to make your move, Aloy. Trust me. I’m always right about stuff like this.” She smiled and took back her hand. She was leaning far over the bar and had her arms folded beneath her.

Aloy looked down at a moth that had dropped into her wine. It had got caught and flapped around in a panic. She sighed and helped it out with her pinky finger, and then she set it free into the tavern atmosphere. It was fine. It flew away. She looked at Brissa who had become dreamy. “Thank you,” she said, her heart full with gratitude and feeling calm now. “I don’t have a lot of people to talk to about this. You’re a big help.”

Brissa smiled. “It’s what I’m here for,” she said. And then a man called her name from down the bar, and she went to pour him another glass of brandy.

Aloy went upstairs a little while later. She thought she’d find Nil asleep, but he was very much awake, lying on his back with his head propped up on a few pillows, reading a heavy book. He was happy to see her, but they went about their nightly routines. There were two beds with pretty blue silk covers. It was a nice room with a window, and Nil had opened the window so that a cool breeze blew in. The room was lit with many candles, and it had bookshelves full of books with titles Aloy had never heard of before. She sat down on the bed opposite of Nil’s and began to undo her braids. She was sleepy and a little tipsy, but she felt relieved by her conversation with Brissa and glad that she had stayed at the bar a little longer. She liked nights like this—the ones that went on just a little too long. She liked to enjoy the evening and be around people like the sort that lived in the Maizelands. Even though they were still Carja men and women, they were simpler than the nobles of Meridian. It did not annoy her the way life annoyed her in the Palace of the Sun. Nobody fussed over her, and she didn’t have to be under guard or followed around by servants and spies and handmaidens.

But then, a change. Just as she was about to remove her focus for the night, she heard a flicker come from the inside. It buzzed in her ear and then static, clicking into place. The curtains rustled at the window. Outside, you could hear all the people still, way out there on the promenade like ghosts.

Aloy.

It was Sylens. She sat up straight real fast and she took out her focus, and she set it down on the bedspread like a little, poisonous jewel, and she stared at it. She really stared. It was so small. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed, as it was not time to cry. “Fuck,” she said. She felt tiny and insignificant, like a dumb pebble. She picked up her knees and hugged them to her chest and closed her eyes.

It was a couple minutes. When she opened her eyes again, she saw Nil sitting there, with his feet on the floor, watching her. He had closed his book and set it neatly on the nightstand. His hair was knotted off his face, and he was concerned. “What was that about?” he said.

She took a big breath and shook her head, making a big show of trying to smile. She took off her boots one by one and sat across from him, hugging her arms to her chest. She studied the frostbite near her elbow and how it was almost healed. She felt her hands against her own body, and how clean they were, and she stopped smiling. “It was nothing.”

“Aloy.”

“I have to go,” she said, nodding to herself. “That’s all that was. A reminder that I have to go.”

“Now?” he said.

“No,” said Aloy, looking at him, trying to be soft. She didn’t mean that. She shook her head and said it again. “No, of course not.” He was waiting, listening, staring deep into her with his familiar focus. "Not tonight."

“Tomorrow,” he said.

“If I wait any longer, Nil, things are going to get...worse."

He nodded, understanding and secure. She did not need to explain herself to him. The breeze blew in again. This time, it rattled the shutters a little bit. Nil paid it no interest. He became much more serious after this. They had never really talked about what she was going through, but she knew he had gleaned a great deal on his own. He knew that she was dealing with the Shadow Carja and Helis, and she had mentioned the mystery surrounding the woman she thought might be her mother, and Sylens, though only in passing, and this was enough to sober him.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “You don’t have to be sorry Aloy. Just answer one question.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Outside, there were the sounds of fireworks. They were far away in the distance, but you could hear the people ooh-ing and ah-ing. The question had surprised Aloy. It shouldn’t have. He always asked this. Every time she left him in those recent months, every time they parted in the wild, he always asked if she needed his help, and he was always earnest in his intent. But this time, it was different. They weren’t in the wild. They were in a safe, clean place with soft lighting, and outside, you could hear the music and the laughter and the parades and fireworks, representing their happiness in the world. The invocation of the sun.

She did not need his help. She knew this, but whether she needed his help was not his question. Did she want him to come with her? That was the question. But Aloy didn’t see this. She couldn’t see past what she already knew. She just saw him, and how he was always worried, but for some reason, it just now seemed to feel true. That he did care for her, and she cared for him—enough to ask Brissa the questions she’d asked her tonight. Aloy was guarded in these moments. It wasn’t selfishness. It was self-preservation. She did not realize how much the bad things in her life had come to affect her. When she had watched Atral die, she had a moment of clarity that drove her back to Nil out of some reckless abandon. It was their routine. But now, in the Maizelands, that abandon was clouded with more uncertainty, mixed up with her feelings for Nil, which were so real, they had transcended her ability to articulate them in any way that made sense. Brissa had made her feel better for a moment, like the future was simple and like it would come right to her if she just let it, but that was back in the tavern, and back in the tavern, Aloy’s life, was simple, just like Brissa's, and up here, it was simple, too, but out there, it wasn’t simple. She stared at him.

If he came with, something bad could happen, she thought. If something happened to him, she would have no one to return to. Nothing to look forward to. What would become of her?

Outside the curtained window, outside the walls of their tent when they were in it, that is where her troubles lived. Alone. She had decided this long ago. He couldn’t go there with her. He had to stay, where the air was clean and clear and the nights were gold.

“No,” she said, trying to smile again. “I’ll be okay.”

He studied her, like he was reading her mind. Maybe he was. He seemed to have that ability, and she had lost her will to second guess. His brow furrowed, waiting, but when she said no more, he knew the matter was settled, so he nodded once, jaw firm, and he conceded. “All right,” he said. “Will you at least tell me where you’re going?”

“Yes,” said Aloy. This, she could do. She could make a plan. Plans were good. They made sense. She told him where she was going. She made him a map, on paper. This small reassurance comforted Nil, though he did not say much else after that.

They put out the candles, all except for one in a brass holder by the door. They were in their separate beds. The time was not right. Aloy stayed awake for a while, staring past him as he slept. She stared out the curtained window, thinking about her life and how certain she was that she had to face it on her own. She had wanted to go to Brissa’s house by the harbor and look at her wedding dress, but this seemed foolish in hindsight, a stupid dream.

She finally fell asleep when her brain went numb and she couldn’t take it anymore. It was a couple of hours before dawn. Meanwhile, downstairs, Brissa stayed up all night in the tavern, serving the revelers brandy and cigars and her own charming wisdom from the bottom of her heart. Back at the stables, Dawn had gone into her whirring rest mode, just like always, and the craggy-faced stableman had come out of his little house in the middle of the night just to study her. But like Nil had said back at the river, he was only curious. He did not wish to disturb. He was a man of nature. The parties in the village did not quiet completely until morning, but Aloy would sleep through this, when finally the sunrise culminated all of their prayers and brought its relief to the Maizelands. It touched everywhere and everything in all the land, making it new. Even in her restlessness, the sun spoke to her through her dreams. It spoke to him, too, and it kept him calm. Nil saw her again just like before, standing in the river, holding that basket full of fruit, laughing like it was so easy. He knew that’s not what it was. Easy. This dream was some kind of stupid teenager reverie, but the old mind plays tricks. He knew that, too, and he let it play on, because he knew the difference. His mind held onto her like something good to keep the darkness behind the horizon in his dreams. The truth is, he already loved her.

#zero #aloy x nil #aloy #nil #horizon zero dawn #hzd #horizon: zero dawn #hzd fanfic #horizon zero dawn interlude

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softproko · 6 years

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Gold Dust

A gift for @defractum for their prompt of Kevin/Riko with Fantasy AU. A part of All For the Game exchange @aftgexchange

Read it on AO3 here.

Disclaimer: I own no characters – they belong to Nora Sakavic. I will gladly say that the idea of the storyline is my own. In this short story, Kevin (and the other characters as well) is about 24-25, but in the flashbacks he is in his early adult years (perhaps 17-19). Riko is implied to be older (being a non-mortal? non-human?) both during the flashbacks and during Kevin’s interactions with his friends.

The ending can be read just as you want to read it.

Gold Dust

Knight Kevin Day had barely started with his breakfast when Guard Captain Andrew Minyard slid his plate onto the table across from Kevin, and sat down. With great disdain, Kevin noted that there was equal parts of honey and porridge on his plate.

“Heard the news yet?” Andrew asked, mixing the honey into his porridge.

Kevin shook his head, looking down at his own eggs and bacon combination, carefully cutting the meat into smaller pieces. “I’m afraid not. Is it war? Is the Queen due earlier than was expected?”

“Renee had a dream,” Andrew said through a mouthful. “A prophecy, she said.”

Renee Walker was one of the strongest oracles the kingdom employed. All her dreams reflected the future; none of what she had promised had not happened.

“That is not unusual.”

Renee had told Kevin of his future many times. She had told him to watch out for mysterious figures. He had not listened. She had warned him to look out for golden eyes and sharp teeth. As much as he had tried to keep himself away from danger, Renee had still been right when she said that he himself would bring misfortune to himself and the whole kingdom.

Andrew continued as if Kevin had not said anything.

“She saw golden dust floating in the air. She said that it tried to take the shape of a man.”

At that, Kevin froze, stopping chewing and swallowing what little he had in his mouth. Gold dust in the shape of a man… Another one of Renee’s prophecies that had come true.

Andrew narrowed his eyes slightly, as he watched Kevin closely. “But that cannot be true, can it? How many people must testify that a man is dead for him to be truly dead?”

“Who’s dead?”

Neil Josten, messenger, spy, occasional hunter, and Andrew’s right-hand man, sat down next to Andrew, a plate full of sweet-looking and sweet-smelling goo in his hands. He nodded as a hello for Kevin, and touched Andrew’s hand briefly. If Andrew noticed that Kevin noticed, he did not say anything.

“Who’s dead?” Neil asked again, taking his spoon, happily digging into his breakfast.

“Moriyama. Riko Moriyama.”

Fortunately, Neil managed to swallow his food before looking at Kevin. They both did not move. Slowly, Neil nodded.

“He is, yes. I saw him die.”

Kevin had also seen Riko die. Multiple times in his dreams, once in a vision that seemed a hazy hallucination, and once in real life; a blurred painful memory that was much in the past and sealed away, sewn shut as if a wound that would not heal on its own. And now Andrew had torn apart the stitches and left Kevin bleeding all over again.

Kevin had also been bleeding the first time he met Riko. He had been young, reckless and stupid – he had chased after two poachers on his own, but the hunters had been much more experienced than him, and one of them had shot an arrow at Kevin. Kevin’s reflexes were fast, and so his hand caught the arrow before it could penetrate his chest. He had screamed in pain as he fell, had yanked the arrow out of his hand and had tried to find a body of water to wash his wound clean. He had not cried.

“You should get that looked at.” A man said from behind him as he held his hand in the cold stream, and with his right hand, Kevin drew his sword, looking at the man. The man was short, but looked rather threatening in his dark robe and slacks, which made him look more washed out than he probably was.

Kevin gulped, wounded hand still in the water.

“I am armed,” he told the man, eyeing him over again. “Don’t come any closer!”

The man simply smiled and took a few steps closer, gesturing to Kevin’s hand. “Let me have a look. I am a healer. I will not harm you…”

He waited for Kevin to give him his name and his hand. Reluctantly, Kevin did.

“It’s Kevin. I’m a knight… I… Perhaps wanted to do more than I should have.”

The man nodded, gently conjuring a healing aura to slowly heal Kevin’s hand. The aura, Kevin noticed, was golden and warm.

“What’s your name?” Kevin asked, wincing slightly as his hand was healed.

“Riko.” The man had said before giving Kevin’s hand a quick one-over, and leaving as soon as Kevin turned to wash his hand.

Kevin had not even thanked him.

Renee found Kevin in the courtyard under a tree, a book in his lap and a frown on his face. She folded her cape under herself as she sat down next to him, smiling gently.

“There is much on your mind. Andrew has told you of my dreams, has he not?”

Kevin could not hide the turmoil in his mind, and so he nodded, setting his book aside. “I know it was wrong of me to ignore the warnings, and I know he was the devil, but…”

With a sigh, he turned to look at the falling leaves.

“No man can defeat death. Nobody can come back from afterlife. No riches, no intelligence, no virtues are enough to drag anyone away from the brink of death.”

Renee’s hand on his was cold, but felt reassuring enough. “Dreams are confusing things, Kevin. Not everything we see can be taken as they appear to be.”

Kevin thought for a while, his eyes following a single leaf that was golden in the sun.

“Is he still alive, Renee? After all that happened?”

Renee’s smile was almost forced.

“I don’t know, Kevin. Is he?”

Kevin never told his superiors about the accident with his hand. It would have been too much trouble about nothing – his hand was healed and the scar looked more like a little burn than a stab wound. He never told anyone about the man either. Not when he saw him lurking in the woods again; not when Renee confided she had had a dream of a man with golden eyes, dressed in black, trying to pull Kevin apart with his claws.

Instead, Kevin approached the man with a smile and with polite inquiries into the man’s well-being. On the first evening, he learned the man’s name. The second evening took him to the small cottage Riko had. The third evening he did not return to the barracks, instead spending the night in Riko’s bed. Renee’s warning did not ring clear in his mind even if Riko’s nails dragged down his back, leaving deep red welts in their wake.

Riko was quiet, but Kevin welcomed it. Riko let Kevin talk and Kevin did, singing of his day like a little bird as Riko’s warm hands massaged his shoulders and his back, helping him to relax after a long day of patrolling. When his hands wandered, Kevin became louder.

“Oh, Kevin,” Riko stroked his hair after Kevin had told him of his day in the castle and after they had both gotten a rather lovely conclusion to their evening, “You tell me such wonderful things.”

Kevin whined when Riko’s hold in his hair got stronger, and Riko pulled on it so that Kevin was forced to look him in the eyes.

“I could listen to you ramble for hours… But I do not have the time for that right now. Sleep.”

Kevin fell asleep before he could see the golden gleam in Riko’s eyes.

Kevin rode out the next morning, as soon as the dawn brought light to the kingdom. He wanted to see if the dreams Renee had had were true, or if they were just that – dreams. Would he find Riko in the moors? Would he hear his laugh when he rode through the greens? Would Riko surprise him from behind, wrapping his arms around Kevin’s wet torso as he dried in the sunlight near the riverbank?

It had been years, Kevin thought as his horse trotted down the road, heading to the woods he had met Riko in when he had been young and foolish. Would he even recognise Riko’s touch? Would he appreciate it?

The whole day he spent like so, riding on his horse, listening to the wind, trying not to freeze as the snow fell, smelling the air. He heard no whispers of gold, no traces of dust and felt nothing to remind him of Riko’s presence. Perhaps Renee had read her dreams wrong, or perhaps she still had anger and sorrow in her heart. Kevin had apologised, of course, when Renee’s protector Allison was wounded by a golden arrow that was of magical origin, but Renee still held a grudge. Maybe she wanted Kevin to suffer like she had – she wanted Kevin to hope the man he loved was still alive until someone would drag him to the shallow grave that marked Riko’s passing.

“Where are you?” Kevin asked, brushing the snow away from the stone, a flat piece of rock on which Riko’s name was written. It was not the most delicate or elaborate headstone one would want, but considering that Kevin had had to commission it in secret, it was not bad. Hidden carefully in the woods, nobody but Kevin knew where to look if one wanted to reminisce about the death of a man so many had called a demon, but so few a lover.

“Where are you, Riko?” Kevin pressed his forehead against the cold stone. “Are you still alive?”

“Where are you, Riko?” Kevin laughed, looking around himself and trying to see behind which tree Riko had hidden himself. They were playing hide-and-seek during the dusk, and it was Riko’s time to hide.

As Kevin looked around, he heard an odd wind whoosh around, and turned to see if Riko was there. A few leaves fell into his face and he smiled, stepping towards where the leaves had come from.

“Are you up in the trees, Riko?” he asked, stopping under one of the bigger trees, looking up then, grinning when Riko looked down at him, a finger over his mouth to quiet Kevin. They did not move, merely looked at each other. Kevin broke character first and climbed the tree, sitting next to Riko on the branch, kissing the back of his delicate hand.

“I found you.”

Riko’s smile never reached his eyes.

“What a clever little fox you are, Kevin. Will you hide for me now?”

Kevin shook his head, resting his head on Riko’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to hide from you. It’s been hard in the castle…” he took a deep sigh and then told Riko what was on his mind – how the queen was expecting her first child and how the security was heightened. He did not notice how Riko seemed to memorise everything, so busy was he with complaining and with feeling how Riko rubbed his arm to soothe him.

They kissed goodnight and Riko cradled Kevin’s face between his palms.

“I wish I could keep you, Kevin, but alas, I cannot.”

Confused, Kevin frowned, but leaned down for another kiss, then another, and one more until Riko pulled away and left as he always did – quickly and quietly.

The next morning the queen was found nearly dead, her unborn child ripped out of her body and brutally murdered. Around the dead fetus was a circle of golden dust. When the person with the most magical talent in the castle, Nicolas, was brought to investigate the dust, he only had to sniff the air to turn around and to say he could pick up three scents from the golden sprinkles – chocolate, old wine and metal.

To everyone’s surprise, it was Kevin that smelled of gold, of the bitter grapes and of luxury chocolates. It was only because Kevin had an alibi of being with two other guards at the time of the murder that he was spared from the death sentence. Still, he was beaten and interrogated, forced to reveal all his secrets.

Nicholas had been positively intrigued by the mention of a man who was magical; Andrew called Kevin stupid and told him to think with his brain, not with the rest of his body. Although Kevin had flushed in embarrassment and shame, he had tried to warn Riko before the knights found him. He had seen Riko last a few seconds before Riko died, the golden gleam of his eyes disappearing as Kevin held his body close, begging for Riko to return to him.

Kevin sat by the headstone for what seemed like an eternity. On one hand it would be better if Riko was dead – some things were better left as they were, and besides, Riko had nearly murdered the bloodline of the empire. On the other hand, Kevin still missed him, missed how vulnerable he could be with Riko. Andrew had called him foolish many times, had tried to get Kevin to believe that Riko had only used him; had Kevin not used Riko, too? Had he not made the man into his solace, had he not complained and rambled, had he not eaten and drank what Riko procured? Had he not slept in his bed, took his pleasure from Riko?

The snow fell slowly, little cold white flakes contrasting beautifully with Kevin’s dark hair. A warm breeze, very unlike the winter winds brushed Kevin’s hair, almost as if playing with it. When Kevin reluctantly looked up, he could only see trees in the snow, standing tall and strong.

And then, suddenly, the snow was not white; and it was not snow that fell. Golden flecks circled the tombstone, and sparkling dust rose up instead of falling down. Kevin could see that for a couple of seconds, the dust took the shape of a man, a figure that Kevin knew well.

“Riko?”

Warmth washed over him again, and when he closed his eyes, he could swear he heard a whisper of Kevin in the air. The golden dust was gone in a blink, disappeared when Kevin’s eyes opened again.

Behind him, steps. Kevin squeezed his eyes shut again.

“Kevin?”

#the foxhole court #aftgexchange #defractum #kevin day #riko moriyama #kevin/riko themes #my writing #this was such a good prompt i love me some fantasy and some rikev and i hope you also enjoy it!!#(i check the tags and i read the comments/reviews so pls pls pls)

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