This is not the first time that Fitz has walked the halls of someone else's memories, but it is the first time that he has done so without the aid of the Skill. He hadn't thought such an experience was possible without the use of that ancient magic, or the presence of Skill pillars, but if the Skill had been at work here he would have known it. Like a drunk ten years sober, a Skill user will always recognize and yearn for the touch of that magic on their mind. There is no sensation in the world that can compare.
So. All that is to say that the magic at work here is not one that Fitz recognizes. But more than that, as he finds himself striding with mounting dread along the indistinct edges of this memory, anxiously weaving his way through a crowd of people who don't seem to notice his presence at all, he cannot feel Nighteyes anywhere in his mind. The place where his Wit-bond partner is, was, and will always be, is simply a raw and yawning gash in his heart, somehow this feels worse than when the wolf had died the first time, because at least then Black Rolf had been proven correct, for there had been a piece of Nighteyes left behind. Now there is nothing at all but his absence, the pain of it, there is no answering touch to his mind no matter how desperately far he flings his questing Wit sense, and even that act feels like plunging his hands into a vat of molasses. Everything about this is wrong, and that is before he hears the screams, the howls of rage. This--this is--
(This is a temporary parting, though he doesn't realize it yet. Nighteyes was not brought into Huaisang's memory--Fitz was.)
--this is a blood bath.
He comes upon the scene suddenly, abruptly, stepping out of one strange pavilion corridor directly onto a square on a brisk, beautiful sunny day, and can't take his eyes away from the bloody warrior at the centre of the carnage, the warrior who has just kicked his brother to the ground and come within a hair's breadth of killing him with a blade big enough to cleave a horse's head from its shoulders.
"Huaisang!" Fitz only realizes he's just shouted his friend's name, a desperate sound of fear, because his throat feels raw as sandpaper and no one even turns to look at him. But the scent of blood... Nighteyes might not be with him anymore, but their years together have given Fitz a keener nose than he would like, and he can smell the blood on Nie Mingjue--no, it is more than that, as though something in the blood itself is feeding and being fed by this man's fury, and it won't be sated until... what, exactly?
Until Mingjue collapses under the weight of his own body, and something in this place gives Fitz permission to move his legs again. He bolts across the square towards Huaisang, heedless of the faceless people he pushes out of his way to get to his side before he can collapse from his injuries, from the anguish and grief that he wears like a second skin on his face. He reaches his side in time to find himself grasped at by those bloody, trembling hands; there is too much silk and blood in the way to get a look at the wound, to see how bad it is, and at this angle it's hard to tell whether his leg is broken or--
"You?" Huaisang is staring up at him now, speaking to him, "How did you...?" And then he is no longer only staring and speaking, but clutching at Fitz like he is his lifeline, shaking him in his anguish and begging, "You have to help da-ge! He's still alive! He needs someone to pick him up!"
"Huaisang, you're bleeding! Your leg..!" Still, Fitz can't stop himself from looking with transparent despair towards where Mingjue's bloodied body lies in the middle of the square. He does not look alive, he looks beyond even death, whatever that means, but whatever protest he is forming dies in his throat when he looks to Huaisang again and reads the anguish in his eyes.
Another errand for another fool? He can imagine his friend's gentle eyes, how he would say words which to any other ears would make a light of what he knows he's about to do now. Fitz grimaces, then nods. "Lean against the wall," he tells Huaisang, tone unintentionally gruff, then takes his hand and places it against the gash in his arm, hastily murmuring, "I'm sorry, I know it hurts, but keep pressure on it. Keep pressure on it until we can staunch the bleeding properly." Then, meeting his eyes, he places a hand on his shoulder instead. "I'll see to your brother."
Then he turns and, after steeling his nerves, makes his way cautiously towards Mingjue's body.
Fitz is here, and Huaisang wants only for his brother to live. Fitz maneuvers him to the wall and he sinks against it to the ground, looking around mutely for Nighteyes, brow furrowed when he doesn't see the wolf coming around the corner to join them. Then Fitz presses Huaisang's own hand against the gash in his arm and he makes a strangled noise of pain, as if he's just realized it's still cut and he's still bleeding. He knows the scar that will stretch across his skin in due time, and so it doesn't make sense to have it bleeding now.
Now is too vague, he thinks suddenly; now is here with Mingjue and now is far away from him entirely, in the place where Fitz should be, not right here. Huaisang's mind is pain-addled and muddled by too many emotions, but the one most overpowering as he looks up at Fitz turning to go is still— he wants his brother to live.
Later he will realize his error, his fault in this moment. Later he will realize that when he thinks too hard and too desperately about da-ge getting up off the ground, the latent power in his blood takes him far too literally, and it's his own hastily drawn-on power that makes the body of Nie Mingjue twitch and jerk and climb back to its feet, leaning on the hilt of its sword.
(Huaisang feels tears on his cheeks, overjoyed and horrified at once to see Mingjue up and moving again, and he doesn't know, he doesn't know—)
The memory cannot bring Mingjue back to life because Huaisang knows he is dead; this, perhaps, is the logic in it, in how Huaisang's paleblood can puppet him back onto his feet but cannot put the soul back into the bloodied body. Mingjue's corpse hefts the massive sword again with a fresh cry, a raw and guttural sound from beyond, and its first lunge for Fitz nearly overbalances, landing on one knee with an uncomfortable crunch.
The corpse staggers back upright, though sagging to one side now, and lifts the sword again for a second approach. Slower, and dragging its busted leg, and seeing nothing but the figure of Fitz standing between it and Huaisang back there, on the ground.
It's been--how long has it been?--since Fitz last raised either an axe or a sword against another man, but the muscle memory of it comes back to him faster than his own awareness of the danger. At the last moment he flings up his axe--something else he hadn't realized he'd been holding, until suddenly, he is--to deflect that first wild, reckless swing from Mingjue's sabre, and the harsh metallic clang of steel on steel is still ringing in his ears as he goes to his knees under the force of that blow. Winded, he stares at the man whose body he is supposed to be picking up from where it had collapsed under its own dead weight mere seconds ago, watching with mounting horror as Mingjue hauls himself and that blade upright again.
Another fool's errand, indeed--what an understatement. He'll be fortunate if is a fight to the death--
--which only heightens the spike of dread that jolts through him like a lightning strike, because he can't tell, suddenly, whether Mingjue views Fitz as his target, or Huaisang. Whatever bond the brothers had once shared hadn't been enough to protect Huaisang from harm; Fitz won't risk the fatal consequences of trusting in it now. "Hey!" He barks the challenge at Mingjue and Skills the demand towards his mind, towards any lingering scrap of awareness that might remain in his mind. "Don't look at him, look at me!" He lifts the axe, not to strike at Huaisang's brother, but to hold his attention with the sharp glint of steel, his eyes hard and fixed on Mingjue's, a transparent challenge from one predator to another, as he sidesteps carefully around the edge of the square.
"Huaisang," lower, steadier, "I'll try to hold his attention, can you--can you stand, can you get someone to take you to safety?"
This is less than ideal. Huaisang feels foolish to even think something so profoundly obvious, of course it's less than ideal that Mingjue has stood up only to continue his violence, and now Fitz has involved himself for Huaisang's sake— But of course Mingjue is dead, and Huaisang has sent Fitz into the range of his fury out of pure selfishness, and if any of this is real, what happens if a man falls to a dead man's saber in the midst of it?
He doesn't know; he can only cower behind Fitz against the wall, watching with grim horror as his brother's body drags itself around in such an unnatural way. This isn't— He shouldn't—
(Mingjue's corpse hardly understands language anymore, fiction of a memory that it is, but it can feel the force of Fitz's Skill command and swivels its focus from one man to the other, interest in Huaisang seemingly pulled away for the moment.)
Huaisang finds himself already shakily on his feet, uninjured shoulder pressed to the wall for support. He can't just leave, can he? This isn't what he wanted.
"St-- Stop," he manages, raising his voice over the continued guttural growl of Mingjue's corpse to continue, "Da-ge!! Da-ge, don't hurt him! Stop this!"
It's no use, for the corpse hears nothing but Huaisang's distress and lunges for Fitz again, less competently on its bad knee, but the saber swings heavily towards him all the same. Huaisang shouts something again - for Mingjue to stop, for Fitz to run, both - lost in the moment. This isn't what he wanted—
Even for a corpse, Mingjue is a formidable warrior - but if one in every three of his swings goes wide, well, that's just a mystery.
At least the state of Mingjue's knee means that he has one clear 'tell,' which means when he lunges forward with that sabre again, Fitz is able to dodge to the side safely out of range--
--or rather, he would be out of range, if the reach of that sabre was not so wide, and if Mingjue's corpse was not quite so impossibly strong as to wield such a massive weapon like a child's toy. Fitz's sideways lunge gets him well out of range of anything that could kill or seriously injure him, but the sharp tip of the blade nevertheless cuts cleanly through the flesh of his left bicep. A splash of vile-looking green blood arcs away from the site of the wound to spatter across the wall; Fitz doesn't cry out, but seems to bodily shake himself, just once, as if to push his awareness of the pain to the back of his mind to be managed later.
Later, once he has found a way to subdue Huaisang's brother, to subdue him without--without--
The Skill. It had done... something, before. If Fitz can burn that command into what remains of Nie Mingjue's mind, perhaps that could be enough to end this before more blood is spilt, before Huaisang has to watch him die again--or, even worse, be cut down by his blade. He gathers his reserves and focuses his Skill awareness at Mingjue's mind like a javelin, and: "Stop. Stop fighting me." He points towards Huiasang with the hand not wielding his ax, now slick with green blood. "Listen to your brother. Obey him."
Once, he'd poured every ounce of power he possessed into a single Skill command, and he had burned it like a brand into Regal the Pretender's mind: to protect and serve Verity's Queen, Kettricken, and their son, Dutiful, until the day he met his death. Fitz isn't certain he possesses the reserves to deliver such a command to anyone anymore, and he has no way of knowing whether Mingjue, his body as devoid of the spark of life as the Forged Ones had been, could withstand it without shattering. And so he strives desperately for a murky middle ground, but still keeps his ax at the ready, prepared to throw himself between Mingjue and Huaisang again if he has no choice.
The splatter of Fitz's blood on the ground sends a jolt of horror through Huaisang, still half-collapsed against the wall in the back. He didn't want any of this, it is the thought that clouds all other attempts to think, to do something besides cower in the background again while Mingjue loses his mind. He watches his brother's corpse take another swing and miss, blade hitting the ground hard enough to splinter the stone, and then Fitz— does... something—? Something Huaisang can't quite put his finger on, like his words have tangible weight when he speaks to Mingjue; a heft to them, with a power behind it.
The corpse stops its advance, bloodied eyes dragging between Fitz and Huaisang with some muted imitation of expectation, and Huaisang's heart breaks anew to see the wreckage made of his only brother. To see the corpse stood still and waiting like this is worse somehow than to watch its broken leg drag along the cobblestones, through the splash of Fitz's green blood (side note: ask him why it's green).
Huaisang pushes himself off the wall and finds his mouth too dry to speak. He swallows and takes a step forward, and he swears he can see a faint glimmer of hope in Mingjue's dead eyes that snuffs out immediately when Huaisang chooses instead to shuffle closer to Fitz. It will haunt him for the rest of his life, he thinks, the question of whether or not he imagined that this memory of his dead brother wanted him at his side, for once.
"Stop, da-ge," he says at last. The corpse stares through him, still waiting. "You need to stop now."
For a moment nothing happens; the very air of the courtyard seems to hold its breath. Then, without any fuss, Nie Mingjue's corpse crumples back onto the ground, an unmoving dead thing once more. Huaisang makes a noise somewhere between a retch and a sob and reaches for Fitz, for some unbloodied space to hold onto.
He's had enough, and where the other memories he's entered and left have come and go gently, like waking up, this one ends like the slamming of a door: all at once they're back in the clearing behind Fitz's cottage. With today's survival lesson put involuntarily on hold, one can only assume, Huaisang puts a hand up to his own arm as if expecting to find it still bleeding. It isn't, of course it isn't, but when he looks up at Fitz expecting the same, he can nearly taste blood in the air.
What does one say in this situation except, "Thank you."
Huaisang reaches for him, and what else could Fitz possibly do but be there to catch him?
So that is what he does as Mingjue's body crumples to the ground under its own dead weight, and he does not let go even when the unforgiving bite of a winter gale buffets into him from behind, the force of it ripping the memory's remnants away like a bit of loose tarp left to flutter desperately in the midst of a winter storm. But there is no storm, and just as swiftly as that frigid wind arrives to strip away the illusion of Qinghe around them, so too does it peter out into a weak breeze whispering through the dense evergreen canopy overhead. It's only when he feels the bite of his own tears freezing on his wind-burnt cheeks that he realizes he's begun to cry.
When had that started? When had this raw, aching wound at witnessing Huaisang's grief become too much for his heart to carry? The immensity of it brims over like an overfull wine chalice, and the pain has nowhere else to go except out.
Tears have their uses, anyway. They say more than any clumsy words Fitz might attempt to string together, of that much he is certain. Oh, he can pen a screed of introspective memoirs and fill a library to bursting with scrolls of unpublished Six Duchies histories, but a silver tongue had always been the Fool's gift, not his. He looks back at Huaisang in wordless reply, dark eyes blinking away wetness that even now the cold is threatening to turn to frost on his lashes, and can only shake his head once, twice, at the words of thanks. Why, why is Huaisang thanking him?
"Huaisang," he begins, his jaw working, before he abandons whatever it was he'd been intending to say and simply opts to pull Huaisang into a firm hug. A protective arm about his shoulders can't undo the damage of reliving that memory, he knows that. But the air is very cold, and Fitz is warm. He can offer that much, at least.
On the periphery of their senses, Nighteyes flows back into their awareness like a ghost, trekking back towards the cottage through the Trenchwood. He doesn't interrupt.
Fitz is warm, and Nighteyes is near, and Huaisang will never see his brother again. That is a thing he's worn around his neck for what feels like a lifetime now, the yoke of misery of never seeing Mingjue again, no matter how high his temper is flaring or his other moods causing— problems. Nie Mingjue is dead, and Huaisang will never see him again, and as he sinks into the warmth of Fitz's chest he can only wonder, is it awful of him to think of that right now with relief?
(It must be, for in the absence of a father to feel any filial piety for Huaisang's loyalties should default to his brother, and he will miss him like a chasm in his chest for all time, but he does not want to see him again, after that. Not right now.)
Huaisang takes a shuddering breath and puts thoughts of Mingjue away, the way he usually does, where he needn't look directly at them lest this sort of thing start to happen again. He focuses instead on the real, in front of him: the firmness of Fitz's hold on him, the just-a-little-rough texture of Fitz's coat against his cheek, the winter breeze tugging at his hair. It wasn't cold in Qinghe then; the shock of winter freeze after that balmy Qinghe day is its own relief, in turn.
He shifts to look up at Fitz, quite nearly about to thank him again - for saving him like that, for risking his life for him, for taking on Mingjue - but he sees instead the trail of tears down Fitz's cheeks and blinks, brow furrowed. Just like the first time Fitz had sort of encountered Mingjue's ghost, Huaisang thinks, and then without thinking lifts his hands to cup Fitz's face and brush fresh tears away with his thumbs. His hands are absolutely too cold to be doing this, it cannot be comfortable, but it's an immediate impulse he doesn't even try to rein in.
"You'll make me cry, too," he says, near a whisper in the winter quiet. He's teetering on the edge as is after that memory, half surprised he didn't carry his tears back out of there too, but ah: tears or no, it's good to look into eyes full of clarity, and not of blood.
"I'm sorry." It's an automatic, reflexive apology, low and rough in his throat from the strength of emotions that have caught him off-guard, but even to his ears in this moment it seems a silly thing for him to say. He makes a sound that might be a weak excuse for a laugh, under other circumstances. "I didn't mean to."
His tears still sting his eyes, but Huaisang's fingers on his face are so soft, so gentle--how did this man manage to remain so full of gentleness when surrounded by so much rage and violence? And then he registers just how cold those hands are, and guaranteed to get even colder the longer they stand together out here in the isolated quiet of the woods. Fitz brings up his hands to cover Huaisang's against his cheeks; his callused hands are poor shelter for an artist's fingers from the elements, but he offers what he has, even if it isn't much.
Oh, little brother. Nighteyes' thoughts are softer than lambswool, warm and sad. Fitz allows them to rest in his mind and shelves his private confusion over the wolf's tone for later contemplation. Later, when Huaisang doesn't feel fragile as spun glass in his hands.
He draws in a shuddering breath and unthinkingly smooths down a few loose tendrils of Huaisang's windswept black hair. "Come inside," he offers with a nod to the warm yellow light emanating from the cottage window.
Oh, and that's all it takes to bring Huaisang's tears back, it seems - the gentle apology and the sound that isn't a laugh, and then Huaisang can't see Fitz clearly for a moment through the sudden wellspring of tears. He blinks them away hastily, shaking his head for reasons twofold: Fitz needn't apologize for anything, first of all, and these tears are something unlike how he'd wept in that memory. There's no hot coil of dread and greasy nausea in him now, only the catharsis of a dam broken as the tears run freely down his face.
So that's something. He tries to convey this in a hasty headshake and a murmur of 'No, it's fine, I don't know,' looking down as Fitz smooths his hair. Ah, and part of him is loath to leave this spot, to break the spell of whatever all this is and have to put his thoughts in order, to remember to do things like not let himself freeze and so on. But it is very cold, and the glow of Fitz's cottage is inviting, and he wants very much to put a solid wall between the winter mourning and the pair of them, so - alright. He nods.
Quietly, with a beat of humor that takes considerable effort to dredge up, he asks, "Are you going to make me drink milk tea?"
Jokes. He's feeling more chipped porcelain than spun glass, so one step at a time. When he drops his hands from Fitz's face he shifts to grasp his sleeve and then simply loop his arms around Fitz's upper arm in a loose embrace. He lets out a short sigh, determined like marching away from the antler on the ground is much more of an ordeal than it needs to be, and he nods again. Time to go.
Even if he's had to dredge the last remnants of his good humour up from the bottom of his heart to muster it, it's an immense relief for Fitz to hear Huaisang try to tease him. Even if he still has tears shining in his eyes, even if he moves carefully, tenderly, as if to walk too fast or too quickly might shatter the parts of him that are still broken, at least he is walking. At least when faced with the choice between sinking down into his grief, to grow cold and atrophied with the familiarity of it, or leaving it behind, he chose the latter. It's a harder choice to make than many realize, until they're faced with it themselves.
"You're welcome to tea," he admits with a rueful little smile, "but I thought you might prefer something stronger."
The inside of the cottage is warm and tidy, if still a bit spare with its furnishings, but Fitz has been diligent about pending the gaps in the walls to keep out the draft, and there's really nothing that compares to the comfort offered by a lit hearth on a frigid winter night. Once they're both inside, Fitz fetches the bottle of brandy down from its coveted place above his stove, along with two glasses. He unstoppers the bottle, pours a liberal amount of the brown liquor into one glass, then glances at Huaisang in silent question. "Brandy?" A pause, before he chuckles once, "unless you'd prefer the tea."
Huaisang welcomes the warmth of the cottage and the opportunity to simply... sit. To merely sit and exist in Fitz's home, without the ceaseless pressure of all of the things in the past that loom over his head, that sit uneasy in his heart. Here in this little cottage, he can merely be, and it is a reprieve he hasn't noticed wanting until he has it now. It's easy to refuse to take stock of what he wants and needs when he has an act to put on; it's harder by contrast to act when circumstances finally, finally do not demand it of him.
He would even drink the stupid milk tea if Fitz insisted, but oh, they're going to drink drink. Alright. He watches Fitz move around the cottage, taken by the simple act of setting down glasses and pouring a drink. Uncomplicated, freely offered. He might very well learn he hates brandy in the next few moments, but with marginally less effort than out in the cold, he manages a smile.
"I'm never going to prefer that tea," he says, eyebrows raised. He takes a moment to collect himself, to pat at his hair, to tug his sleeves straight; a moment to put himself back together, so he needn't fall apart here at the slightest provocation. With a nod he holds his hand out for a glass, and, "Let's have something stronger."
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deercountry2022-11-23 11:23 am
cw for blood? discussion of nmj's bleeding eyes
So. All that is to say that the magic at work here is not one that Fitz recognizes. But more than that, as he finds himself striding with mounting dread along the indistinct edges of this memory, anxiously weaving his way through a crowd of people who don't seem to notice his presence at all, he cannot feel Nighteyes anywhere in his mind. The place where his Wit-bond partner is, was, and will always be, is simply a raw and yawning gash in his heart, somehow this feels worse than when the wolf had died the first time, because at least then Black Rolf had been proven correct, for there had been a piece of Nighteyes left behind. Now there is nothing at all but his absence, the pain of it, there is no answering touch to his mind no matter how desperately far he flings his questing Wit sense, and even that act feels like plunging his hands into a vat of molasses. Everything about this is wrong, and that is before he hears the screams, the howls of rage. This--this is--
(This is a temporary parting, though he doesn't realize it yet. Nighteyes was not brought into Huaisang's memory--Fitz was.)
--this is a blood bath.
He comes upon the scene suddenly, abruptly, stepping out of one strange pavilion corridor directly onto a square on a brisk, beautiful sunny day, and can't take his eyes away from the bloody warrior at the centre of the carnage, the warrior who has just kicked his brother to the ground and come within a hair's breadth of killing him with a blade big enough to cleave a horse's head from its shoulders.
"Huaisang!" Fitz only realizes he's just shouted his friend's name, a desperate sound of fear, because his throat feels raw as sandpaper and no one even turns to look at him. But the scent of blood... Nighteyes might not be with him anymore, but their years together have given Fitz a keener nose than he would like, and he can smell the blood on Nie Mingjue--no, it is more than that, as though something in the blood itself is feeding and being fed by this man's fury, and it won't be sated until... what, exactly?
Until Mingjue collapses under the weight of his own body, and something in this place gives Fitz permission to move his legs again. He bolts across the square towards Huaisang, heedless of the faceless people he pushes out of his way to get to his side before he can collapse from his injuries, from the anguish and grief that he wears like a second skin on his face. He reaches his side in time to find himself grasped at by those bloody, trembling hands; there is too much silk and blood in the way to get a look at the wound, to see how bad it is, and at this angle it's hard to tell whether his leg is broken or--
"You?" Huaisang is staring up at him now, speaking to him, "How did you...?" And then he is no longer only staring and speaking, but clutching at Fitz like he is his lifeline, shaking him in his anguish and begging, "You have to help da-ge! He's still alive! He needs someone to pick him up!"
"Huaisang, you're bleeding! Your leg..!" Still, Fitz can't stop himself from looking with transparent despair towards where Mingjue's bloodied body lies in the middle of the square. He does not look alive, he looks beyond even death, whatever that means, but whatever protest he is forming dies in his throat when he looks to Huaisang again and reads the anguish in his eyes.
Another errand for another fool? He can imagine his friend's gentle eyes, how he would say words which to any other ears would make a light of what he knows he's about to do now. Fitz grimaces, then nods. "Lean against the wall," he tells Huaisang, tone unintentionally gruff, then takes his hand and places it against the gash in his arm, hastily murmuring, "I'm sorry, I know it hurts, but keep pressure on it. Keep pressure on it until we can staunch the bleeding properly." Then, meeting his eyes, he places a hand on his shoulder instead. "I'll see to your brother."
Then he turns and, after steeling his nerves, makes his way cautiously towards Mingjue's body.
no subject
Now is too vague, he thinks suddenly; now is here with Mingjue and now is far away from him entirely, in the place where Fitz should be, not right here. Huaisang's mind is pain-addled and muddled by too many emotions, but the one most overpowering as he looks up at Fitz turning to go is still— he wants his brother to live.
Later he will realize his error, his fault in this moment. Later he will realize that when he thinks too hard and too desperately about da-ge getting up off the ground, the latent power in his blood takes him far too literally, and it's his own hastily drawn-on power that makes the body of Nie Mingjue twitch and jerk and climb back to its feet, leaning on the hilt of its sword.
(Huaisang feels tears on his cheeks, overjoyed and horrified at once to see Mingjue up and moving again, and he doesn't know, he doesn't know—)
The memory cannot bring Mingjue back to life because Huaisang knows he is dead; this, perhaps, is the logic in it, in how Huaisang's paleblood can puppet him back onto his feet but cannot put the soul back into the bloodied body. Mingjue's corpse hefts the massive sword again with a fresh cry, a raw and guttural sound from beyond, and its first lunge for Fitz nearly overbalances, landing on one knee with an uncomfortable crunch.
The corpse staggers back upright, though sagging to one side now, and lifts the sword again for a second approach. Slower, and dragging its busted leg, and seeing nothing but the figure of Fitz standing between it and Huaisang back there, on the ground.
no subject
Another fool's errand, indeed--what an understatement. He'll be fortunate if is a fight to the death--
--which only heightens the spike of dread that jolts through him like a lightning strike, because he can't tell, suddenly, whether Mingjue views Fitz as his target, or Huaisang. Whatever bond the brothers had once shared hadn't been enough to protect Huaisang from harm; Fitz won't risk the fatal consequences of trusting in it now. "Hey!" He barks the challenge at Mingjue and Skills the demand towards his mind, towards any lingering scrap of awareness that might remain in his mind. "Don't look at him, look at me!" He lifts the axe, not to strike at Huaisang's brother, but to hold his attention with the sharp glint of steel, his eyes hard and fixed on Mingjue's, a transparent challenge from one predator to another, as he sidesteps carefully around the edge of the square.
"Huaisang," lower, steadier, "I'll try to hold his attention, can you--can you stand, can you get someone to take you to safety?"
no subject
He doesn't know; he can only cower behind Fitz against the wall, watching with grim horror as his brother's body drags itself around in such an unnatural way. This isn't— He shouldn't—
(Mingjue's corpse hardly understands language anymore, fiction of a memory that it is, but it can feel the force of Fitz's Skill command and swivels its focus from one man to the other, interest in Huaisang seemingly pulled away for the moment.)
Huaisang finds himself already shakily on his feet, uninjured shoulder pressed to the wall for support. He can't just leave, can he? This isn't what he wanted.
"St-- Stop," he manages, raising his voice over the continued guttural growl of Mingjue's corpse to continue, "Da-ge!! Da-ge, don't hurt him! Stop this!"
It's no use, for the corpse hears nothing but Huaisang's distress and lunges for Fitz again, less competently on its bad knee, but the saber swings heavily towards him all the same. Huaisang shouts something again - for Mingjue to stop, for Fitz to run, both - lost in the moment. This isn't what he wanted—
Even for a corpse, Mingjue is a formidable warrior - but if one in every three of his swings goes wide, well, that's just a mystery.
no subject
--or rather, he would be out of range, if the reach of that sabre was not so wide, and if Mingjue's corpse was not quite so impossibly strong as to wield such a massive weapon like a child's toy. Fitz's sideways lunge gets him well out of range of anything that could kill or seriously injure him, but the sharp tip of the blade nevertheless cuts cleanly through the flesh of his left bicep. A splash of vile-looking green blood arcs away from the site of the wound to spatter across the wall; Fitz doesn't cry out, but seems to bodily shake himself, just once, as if to push his awareness of the pain to the back of his mind to be managed later.
Later, once he has found a way to subdue Huaisang's brother, to subdue him without--without--
The Skill. It had done... something, before. If Fitz can burn that command into what remains of Nie Mingjue's mind, perhaps that could be enough to end this before more blood is spilt, before Huaisang has to watch him die again--or, even worse, be cut down by his blade. He gathers his reserves and focuses his Skill awareness at Mingjue's mind like a javelin, and: "Stop. Stop fighting me." He points towards Huiasang with the hand not wielding his ax, now slick with green blood. "Listen to your brother. Obey him."
Once, he'd poured every ounce of power he possessed into a single Skill command, and he had burned it like a brand into Regal the Pretender's mind: to protect and serve Verity's Queen, Kettricken, and their son, Dutiful, until the day he met his death. Fitz isn't certain he possesses the reserves to deliver such a command to anyone anymore, and he has no way of knowing whether Mingjue, his body as devoid of the spark of life as the Forged Ones had been, could withstand it without shattering. And so he strives desperately for a murky middle ground, but still keeps his ax at the ready, prepared to throw himself between Mingjue and Huaisang again if he has no choice.
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The corpse stops its advance, bloodied eyes dragging between Fitz and Huaisang with some muted imitation of expectation, and Huaisang's heart breaks anew to see the wreckage made of his only brother. To see the corpse stood still and waiting like this is worse somehow than to watch its broken leg drag along the cobblestones, through the splash of Fitz's green blood (side note: ask him why it's green).
Huaisang pushes himself off the wall and finds his mouth too dry to speak. He swallows and takes a step forward, and he swears he can see a faint glimmer of hope in Mingjue's dead eyes that snuffs out immediately when Huaisang chooses instead to shuffle closer to Fitz. It will haunt him for the rest of his life, he thinks, the question of whether or not he imagined that this memory of his dead brother wanted him at his side, for once.
"Stop, da-ge," he says at last. The corpse stares through him, still waiting. "You need to stop now."
For a moment nothing happens; the very air of the courtyard seems to hold its breath. Then, without any fuss, Nie Mingjue's corpse crumples back onto the ground, an unmoving dead thing once more. Huaisang makes a noise somewhere between a retch and a sob and reaches for Fitz, for some unbloodied space to hold onto.
He's had enough, and where the other memories he's entered and left have come and go gently, like waking up, this one ends like the slamming of a door: all at once they're back in the clearing behind Fitz's cottage. With today's survival lesson put involuntarily on hold, one can only assume, Huaisang puts a hand up to his own arm as if expecting to find it still bleeding. It isn't, of course it isn't, but when he looks up at Fitz expecting the same, he can nearly taste blood in the air.
What does one say in this situation except, "Thank you."
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So that is what he does as Mingjue's body crumples to the ground under its own dead weight, and he does not let go even when the unforgiving bite of a winter gale buffets into him from behind, the force of it ripping the memory's remnants away like a bit of loose tarp left to flutter desperately in the midst of a winter storm. But there is no storm, and just as swiftly as that frigid wind arrives to strip away the illusion of Qinghe around them, so too does it peter out into a weak breeze whispering through the dense evergreen canopy overhead. It's only when he feels the bite of his own tears freezing on his wind-burnt cheeks that he realizes he's begun to cry.
When had that started? When had this raw, aching wound at witnessing Huaisang's grief become too much for his heart to carry? The immensity of it brims over like an overfull wine chalice, and the pain has nowhere else to go except out.
Tears have their uses, anyway. They say more than any clumsy words Fitz might attempt to string together, of that much he is certain. Oh, he can pen a screed of introspective memoirs and fill a library to bursting with scrolls of unpublished Six Duchies histories, but a silver tongue had always been the Fool's gift, not his. He looks back at Huaisang in wordless reply, dark eyes blinking away wetness that even now the cold is threatening to turn to frost on his lashes, and can only shake his head once, twice, at the words of thanks. Why, why is Huaisang thanking him?
"Huaisang," he begins, his jaw working, before he abandons whatever it was he'd been intending to say and simply opts to pull Huaisang into a firm hug. A protective arm about his shoulders can't undo the damage of reliving that memory, he knows that. But the air is very cold, and Fitz is warm. He can offer that much, at least.
On the periphery of their senses, Nighteyes flows back into their awareness like a ghost, trekking back towards the cottage through the Trenchwood. He doesn't interrupt.
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(It must be, for in the absence of a father to feel any filial piety for Huaisang's loyalties should default to his brother, and he will miss him like a chasm in his chest for all time, but he does not want to see him again, after that. Not right now.)
Huaisang takes a shuddering breath and puts thoughts of Mingjue away, the way he usually does, where he needn't look directly at them lest this sort of thing start to happen again. He focuses instead on the real, in front of him: the firmness of Fitz's hold on him, the just-a-little-rough texture of Fitz's coat against his cheek, the winter breeze tugging at his hair. It wasn't cold in Qinghe then; the shock of winter freeze after that balmy Qinghe day is its own relief, in turn.
He shifts to look up at Fitz, quite nearly about to thank him again - for saving him like that, for risking his life for him, for taking on Mingjue - but he sees instead the trail of tears down Fitz's cheeks and blinks, brow furrowed. Just like the first time Fitz had sort of encountered Mingjue's ghost, Huaisang thinks, and then without thinking lifts his hands to cup Fitz's face and brush fresh tears away with his thumbs. His hands are absolutely too cold to be doing this, it cannot be comfortable, but it's an immediate impulse he doesn't even try to rein in.
"You'll make me cry, too," he says, near a whisper in the winter quiet. He's teetering on the edge as is after that memory, half surprised he didn't carry his tears back out of there too, but ah: tears or no, it's good to look into eyes full of clarity, and not of blood.
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"I'm sorry." It's an automatic, reflexive apology, low and rough in his throat from the strength of emotions that have caught him off-guard, but even to his ears in this moment it seems a silly thing for him to say. He makes a sound that might be a weak excuse for a laugh, under other circumstances. "I didn't mean to."
His tears still sting his eyes, but Huaisang's fingers on his face are so soft, so gentle--how did this man manage to remain so full of gentleness when surrounded by so much rage and violence? And then he registers just how cold those hands are, and guaranteed to get even colder the longer they stand together out here in the isolated quiet of the woods. Fitz brings up his hands to cover Huaisang's against his cheeks; his callused hands are poor shelter for an artist's fingers from the elements, but he offers what he has, even if it isn't much.
Oh, little brother. Nighteyes' thoughts are softer than lambswool, warm and sad. Fitz allows them to rest in his mind and shelves his private confusion over the wolf's tone for later contemplation. Later, when Huaisang doesn't feel fragile as spun glass in his hands.
He draws in a shuddering breath and unthinkingly smooths down a few loose tendrils of Huaisang's windswept black hair. "Come inside," he offers with a nod to the warm yellow light emanating from the cottage window.
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So that's something. He tries to convey this in a hasty headshake and a murmur of 'No, it's fine, I don't know,' looking down as Fitz smooths his hair. Ah, and part of him is loath to leave this spot, to break the spell of whatever all this is and have to put his thoughts in order, to remember to do things like not let himself freeze and so on. But it is very cold, and the glow of Fitz's cottage is inviting, and he wants very much to put a solid wall between the winter mourning and the pair of them, so - alright. He nods.
Quietly, with a beat of humor that takes considerable effort to dredge up, he asks, "Are you going to make me drink milk tea?"
Jokes. He's feeling more chipped porcelain than spun glass, so one step at a time. When he drops his hands from Fitz's face he shifts to grasp his sleeve and then simply loop his arms around Fitz's upper arm in a loose embrace. He lets out a short sigh, determined like marching away from the antler on the ground is much more of an ordeal than it needs to be, and he nods again. Time to go.
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"You're welcome to tea," he admits with a rueful little smile, "but I thought you might prefer something stronger."
The inside of the cottage is warm and tidy, if still a bit spare with its furnishings, but Fitz has been diligent about pending the gaps in the walls to keep out the draft, and there's really nothing that compares to the comfort offered by a lit hearth on a frigid winter night. Once they're both inside, Fitz fetches the bottle of brandy down from its coveted place above his stove, along with two glasses. He unstoppers the bottle, pours a liberal amount of the brown liquor into one glass, then glances at Huaisang in silent question. "Brandy?" A pause, before he chuckles once, "unless you'd prefer the tea."
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He would even drink the stupid milk tea if Fitz insisted, but oh, they're going to drink drink. Alright. He watches Fitz move around the cottage, taken by the simple act of setting down glasses and pouring a drink. Uncomplicated, freely offered. He might very well learn he hates brandy in the next few moments, but with marginally less effort than out in the cold, he manages a smile.
"I'm never going to prefer that tea," he says, eyebrows raised. He takes a moment to collect himself, to pat at his hair, to tug his sleeves straight; a moment to put himself back together, so he needn't fall apart here at the slightest provocation. With a nod he holds his hand out for a glass, and, "Let's have something stronger."