#this literally hits only when you know that Urien cannot see nor win against Darmon cuz he has no magic in his body

[tryingtimi]

Kill The Flame

Darmon threatens Urien finally. We're here, we've made it, I finally finished. The title came from the lyrics of IN THREES by AS IT IS, Set It Off, JordyPurp which was also one of the inspo songs of this piece. Enjoy.

Context (tho its non-canon): After Darmon and Syon's team saved Evalon, they captured Urien and threw him in the dungeon. Darmon, however, feels he has some unfinished business with him, so he visits.

NON-CANON | SLIGHT VIOLANCE | SLIGHT HOMOEROTIC INTIMIDATION | WC: 1,754

Darmon’s candlelight dimly reflected on the dungeon’s wall as he sauntered deeper into the belly of it.

He left behind all his crystals, except his eye, before he dived down here, and he didn’t accept the torch the guards offered him. His candle had been more than enough.

Scratches ran across the uneven surface of the stone where a spider hurried away from his faint light. Rocks crunched under his boot, still air of mold and age filling his nose when he finally reached the cells.

He stopped there for a moment. Consuming blackness ruled the place, not a hint of brightness trying to overthrow it. Quiet scraping reached him from one of the corners, breaking the complete silence, before settling into stillness again.

Darmon held himself back to squeeze his grip on the candle holder way too strongly.

He stepped inside the hall, the open space’s weight crawling onto his shoulders despite the darkness. He didn’t need to see to know the cell he was searching for was mere steps away; the only chamber that’d been occupied.

His candlelight trembled on the aged bars as he walked closer, weak light revealing the soft silhouette of a figure.

Darmon has seen many kinds of insects on his way inside, yet none of them made him as nauseous as the man sitting on the stole. The eye patch that covered his new eye crystal was something he needed some getting used to, yet it did not disturb his sight. He could clearly see as Urien Eval sat with his straight back to the walls, one leg crossed over the other, his fingers interlocking before his knee, eyes closed. As if he was resting. Peacefully.

Darmon set his jaw when the bastard cracked one unsettlingly white eye open.

“Ah, the human.” Eval’s lips did not turn into a smile. Darmon still felt as if they would in any second. “I must confess, you being my only visitor rather surprises me.”

Thin layer of dirt stuck to his face and clothes here and there, but he held his chin just as high as before. Even his tone did not change.

Darmon stepped closer to the bars, so he could take a closer look at him, the iron’s coldness radiating toward his face.

Eval opened both of his eyes, slightly turning to him while cocking an eyebrow. Darkness blanketed most of his body, heavy shadows embracing his face in the somber room. That hint of a smile became almost visible.

“Hm, I see. In the light of your relation to my bride – be that any of the kind – you felt obliged to come here. Curious. Had she asked you to, perhaps for the sole purpose of intimidating me? What it is she expects to accomplish?”

“The Queen has never been your interest in love, lest your official bride,” Darmon stated calmly. A drop of melted wax ran down the candle, indistinct scattering accompanying it from somewhere deep within the chamber. “Furthermore, Her Majesty has no knowledge of my whereabouts. Not a single soul has.”

The shadows waltzed with the light as Eval unlocked his fingers, then steadily rose from his seat. With every prim step, his figure became more and more visible and clear. Darmon wondered if he should lift his eye patch already.

“Not a single soul,” Eval repeated, humming along with the statement. “And why is that, human?”

The flame of the candle crackled as Dramon brought his hand even closer to the bars. Its light brightened Eval’s figure from beneath, the shadows dancing on his face.

“I wish to speak to you privately.”

The corner of Eval’s lips twitched upward.

“A secret.” He clasped his hands behind his back, gazing at Darmon from his boots up to his face. “Are you not worried, dear sir? I’ve heard you haven’t always been the most reliable link to your cause. Indeed, you’ve been rather an obstacle to your precious group of subjects, for the fault of a previous secret. Ah, you are surprised I know this? Well, there’s no need for that grim expression. I had no interest in your affairs to send my birds after you before. Nor I was aware of your existence. It’s just guard talk.” The bastard stepped closer to the bars, his breath reaching Darmon’s face. “However, you did turn out to be worthy of some curiosity. You’ve come here in the shadows just to converse with me. I assume you require a kind of information you don’t want others to have in their possession. Amusing. Clearly you despise me, and yet here you are. Risking your carefully built little trust.”

Their gazes trembled in the candlelight, the still air turning even more motionless than before. Darmon’s hands itched for his crystals as he watched Eval’s utterly triumphant smugness spread across his face. He’d been living behind bars, deep under and far from everything for weeks now and still, his confidence in victory never seemed to waver.

“Is that what you assume I’m here for? Information?” The mage blinked at him, putting his free hand into the pocket of his robe. Eval’s white eyes flickered with interest when a clinking sound echoed through the room.

“Certainly. With the others, I admit, I’d have my doubts, but with you… I know. Human, you are in my dungeon, which I designed and you still kept it as it’s always been,” he glanced around as if inspecting the place beyond the darkness. “That whispers of so much more than you think. It says we’re much alike after all.”

Snickering, scattering, quiet squealing. All the things that lived in the dark gathered around, but Darmon did not behold the scare of them. He stopped himself from grinding his teeth, slowly pulling a chain of keys out of his pocket. His chest filled with such weight as he placed the right one into the keyhole.

“You might be right,” Darmon started, “yet you’re so wrong. I have no special talent or aspect of my individual. While you have a gift, you see. A quiet special gift. People might wonder, how could you be proficient in more than one thing and what they witnessed when we captured you was something they might never find an answer for. You’re a living legend to them, a secret, a mystery. You have the blessing and the curse of your people. The Royal Eyes, those.”

The lock opened with a click.

Darmon lifted his gaze from the bars and a shiver ran down his spine when he found himself facing the very thing he was expecting. Vile satisfaction in an open smile.

He gripped the bar of the entrance.

“But I am not the people. I’ve studied the nature of many of your eyes and their mechanisms. I know things comprehensively. You might have won against Her Majesty and even Cronyl because of your gift and skills.” Eval backed slowly as Darmon opened the cell. “But there is a reason why I was the only one who could stop you. ”

He stepped inside, the entrance closing in with a quiet thud. There was a moment of utter stillness, silence weighing his shoulder down. He took a step forward, yet Eval had nowhere to back away. Not as if he wanted to, considering everything Darmon knew about him so far.

However, it didn’t matter. He raised his candle to see those predatory white eyes staring at him. Then, he lifted his eye patch.

“With your gift, you’re capable of seeing your kind’s magic inside their body. That’s your advantage. They’re predictable for you,” he said, his replaced eye crystal highlighting the golden magic flowing in Eval’s body. And behind him. “But I do not bear that inside me.”

Darmon gestured with his hand as Eval launched forward in the next moment. His nails sharpened into claws and almost reached his nose before the bastard was forced back to the wall, dropping to it hard while his body and limbs got captured by bronze-gold shackles made of godrind.

With that, Darmon had a better view of him; his ears mimicked his nails, sharpening into almost as dangerous as a knife’s edge. His teeth peeked out as Eval grimaced from the tightness of his godrind tethers and they seemed more like fangs than anything else. His Wildness reached its peak, his whole appearance reminding Darmon of a feral animal.

Yet, he still couldn’t see the one thing on him that he longed for the most.

Trapped and caged, Prince Urien Eval still somehow maintained his confidence and arrogance by looking at Darmon as if he was sitting on his throne, triumphing over him. His barbaric state didn’t matter when his thin lips curled into a smug smile and his white eyes conveyed he did not lose control over himself; letting his Wildness loose was his choice.

Something dark and vile arose inside Darmon.

He stepped close enough to Eval to reach the wall behind him, so with a light touch of his finger he could guide the godrind pieces around Eval’s neck, tight.

“You,” he whispered, feeling his shame drawing back in the shadows from whatever was coming alive in his chest. “You might think you’re indestructible, perhaps some kind of god. With what you possess, you might be close to one of them. You’re someone, because of your ability, and with that, you could have been useful to us. But. Oh, but you chose to do the very thing I cannot leave without consequences; you hurt not only the nation but Syonehlia herself. Thus, you must pay.”

Darmon exhaled deeply, his candlelight violently wavering beside him. He gazed deep inside Eval’s white eyes, searching for that one thing he wanted to see. The thing he came for.

Eval raised his chin as the godrind collar tightened around his neck even more.

“Without your ability, you’re a nobody. And so I’ll treat you like one,” Darmon finished his thought, the deepest, darkest part of himself awakening fully.

The corner of his lips twitched upward while he leaned over to kill the flame to fulfill his promise, obnoxious satisfaction circling inside his veins as doing that, he finally earned what he oh so longed for.

A glimmer of genuine, pure terror.

#Project Metalsea #Metalsea snippets #Darmon Strotagor #Urien Eval #fantasy #writing community #writeblr #idk why i put so much worldbuilding in all of my snippets #this literally hits only when you know that Urien cannot see nor win against Darmon cuz he has no magic in his body #therefore if Darmon blows the candle he'll be able to see Urien with his new magic seeing eyes #but Urien wont be able to see him #which is what terrifies him #anyway #fdasjoféaspko