there'll be only a hole in the soil (closed)

[unsheathedfromreality]

Who: Emperor John Gaius, Illarion Albireo, various other worthies from Bone House and their extended CR
What: A duel goes very wrong.
When: The day of John and Kiriona's network post
Where: Bone House, Gaze –> the Salt Lake via the woods

Content Warnings: Inevitable violence and body horror; spoilers for MHA and Nona the Ninth; additional warnings per thread.

Choose your time, Illarion had said to God, offering him the right of one challenged. The shrike had accordingly chosen the place: On the grounds of the house in Gaze, where the Reckoning's blade had scarred the earth. He stands beside the great gash, an unassuming figure in unadorned black, and waits with Death's own patience for his opponent to arrive.

Comments

[necrolord]

This gives John a chance to fumble them back towards shore. This isn't his first time swimming with another body crowded in against him, but she'd always taken to the water like a fish; she hadn't needed him for that. Not after that first, worst scramble to shore. He thinks of it all the same.

It's awkward, climbing free into the air. John sloshes up into the shallows with Kaworu in his arms, and he doesn't bother to pull them both to dry ground proper: he just sinks down to sit with the glowing water lapping up around his hips, and claps the kid on the back to keep him coughing. His spread palm lingers there, warm against Kaworu's clammy and hitching back.

"There we go," he says, which is the same kind of gentle nonsense. "Easy does it. Let's not add to the casualties, here. I'm already mourning my shirt."

The bird's talons did a number on him: his clothes are a mess. No better now that they're waterlogged and dripping saltwater. Around them, others are scrambling up out of the lake or crowding around the shore— things finally seem to be quieting down.

[peripheries]

Kaworu doesn't even flinch at the hand on his back. He used to lean into that very same touch, given easily as a way to encourage him to move one way or another in the house.

He's tired of coughing. He was already tired. He has no idea where his body has found the energy to do even such a primal thing. He doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand so many things.

"Why...?" He sputters, the word forced out of his core like the salt water.

One word that means so many things. Why did you save me? Why did you leave? Why didn't you save Gideon? Why did you take us on that boat? Why did you take us from the beach? Why did you watch over us? Why weren't we enough?

[necrolord]

Ouch. He wishes he could take that as more of a surprise, but why would God jump in for a dying kid? Why now and not then? He gets it. He really does.

He settles them on the bank, anyway, rocking back off his heels and onto his ass in the grimy salt-scum at the water's edge.

"Better late than never, right?" He mutters it like it's not a particularly good joke. "It's been a long day. Let's not end it like that."

While Kaworu catches his breath, God rubs at his salt-wet face with the callused brown palms of his hands. There is no blood on him, no wounds, no mark of the hideous protracted battle. He's tired. He'll stay here a long while, to catch his breath, or something like it.