Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You have spent much time with the Slayer, as of late.” King Novik’s eyes slid in her direction, a single noble brow arching slightly.

Commander Thira looked up from where she stood, watching the moonlight play on the waterfall far below. The estuary beyond the fortress walls was always beautiful at night, its rivers and pools shining like spun ivory beneath the daytime sky’s quieter sibling. But, under the slowly returning gaze of dawn, the alpine paradise surrounding the fortress couldn’t have been more lovely.

Thira’s hair was loose, allowing the cool wind to catch it and make sport with the ends. She wore a lovely white gown, its corset chased with gold and its ghostly white train spread behind her like wings. Her eyes had been painted, but the liner had faded throughout the night; jewelry sparkled from her ears and shimmered from her collarbones, wrists, and ankles. Her lips had been stained deepest crimson, but even the subtle creases of her mouth had been completely scrubbed of pigment.

Thira had never felt more beautiful.

She wasn’t given to finery, not unless it was the practical ostentation of military, with all its steel and studwork and stringency. But, tonight had been a night of surrender, a night without bastion walls and fortresses to defend.

“The Slayer has done as he pleased for five years now,” she said, the corner of her full, handsome mouth quirking.

Novik’s boots clattered gently against the marble balcony as he approached.

“And, my daughter, there is no more reason to keep secrets from me,” he said. Like her, he didn’t care for pomp and circumstance. He wore his battle armor, so that his people could see every scar when they stood before him. Novik led by example, not by birthright, and he wanted all to know.

“I have no secrets, Father,” Thira said. She didn’t look at her father’s face; she knew that his expression of supreme, doting concern would disrupt the quiet that pervaded her thoughts like a warm blanket. She wished the sun would stay below the horizon forever, so that she could pretend that this night was one of those eternal few granted to mortals in fairy tales.

“None at all?” Novik pressed.

“You need only ask the right questions,” she said, amusing herself with her own snark.

Novik sighed grievously.

“There are things that fathers should not ask their daughters,” he said through his teeth, as if the concept caused him great pain.

“Then why trouble yourself?”

“Did he hurt you, Thira?”

She met her father’s eyes and smiled so sincerely that her cheeks hurt and her eyes welled with delight.

“No, father. Quite the opposite.”

Chapter Text

5 Years Earlier

The Slayer’s features would never cease to surprise her.

Thira had come to equate the visor of his helmet with his face, a brutal steel grille taking the place of a mouth and the bottle-glass suggestion of his eyes reducing the real thing to a cruel, shadowed threat. Hell saw that visage in its nightmares and named it “the Beast.” Foes all across existence caught a glimpse of his fury and simply called him “Doom.”

From reputation alone, one would see beneath the helm and expect shrewd, cruel eyes burning with the light of bloodlust above rows and rows of predator’s teeth, all stuck into a skull misshapen by eons of abuse. His life locked in perpetual slaughter ought to have twisted his flesh into gnarled, ugly hide as tough as stone.

But, it hadn't. 

Thira was not alone in her utmost shock when, through the blue static trance of her own soul manifesting, she had caught a hazy glimpse of his face. It was a memory, no, a memory of a memory, but the image had followed her through the months that came after Ahzrak’s fall.

She remembered high cheekbones, a firm jaw and a strong brow where she had expected hollow eye sockets, a tattered scalp, and a face that had endured so much physical trauma that a nose or chin were nothing but knots of keloid ruin. Short, black hair like pinfeathers on a raven had been plastered to his forehead with sweat and gore. He did have scars, but they traced his face in thin tracks, like illuminated calligraphy in the margins of a manuscript. A soft mouth had been drawn back in–not a toothy animal snarl–but a cold and calculated sneer. Thira remembered being almost disappointed at the fact that even the Slayer’s incisors were no sharper than average. In fact, she remembered straight, white teeth in startling detail, each one accounted for and outlined by a sticky film of his own blood.

That face beneath the helmet, while furious and lined with suffering, was handsome enough to dispel any and all concept of the fact that this man had brought billions to the slaughter. If his soul was as black and vicious as she had been led to expect, then shouldn’t its traces be marked on his face?

He was helmed, now, but he setting sun behind him made a single sculpted cheekbone and the sharp pen stroke of his eyelashes visible through his visor, and she privately strained to catch more of his features.

The Slayer had come through the window of her private arming chamber as silently as a man of his height and armored weight could manage. That window overlooked the fortress’ outer walls, and the drop was nearly one hundred feet from the parapet to the upper walkways of that wall. The wall itself was likely two hundred feet, but Thira had seen the Slayer accomplish greater feats of strength than a three hundred foot climb. The impressive part was that he had done it silently enough to startle her.

“Slayer,” Thira acknowledged, rising from a stone bench to pay respect to his presence. The weight of his gaze pressed on her like a chain mail cloak. He was huge, the top of her head only rising to the hollow of his collarbones and the span of his shoulders nearly doubling hers. Fully armored, the air he displaced made Thira think of undersea predators with all of its concentrated, dangerous tension.

He continued to stare at her.

“Do you require my aid?” she asked. “Is there some new battle against the….’

She trailed off as, unexpectedly, he removed his helmet. It was careful, deliberate, as if he were trying not to frighten her by moving too quickly. Thira was almost annoyed. Did he think she was some child frightened by the flinch of someone's hand? 

But then, she remembered that these hands would shatter her, if their owner wished it, and she swallowed her pride. Old habits, formed over years of being undermined and belittled, nothing more.

She met his eyes, and pride fell away in favor of something infinitely more disturbing and much harder to name.

The Slayer's eyes were large, gentle-looking things the color of unsweetened coffee. The lashes were long, and as dark as his inky black hair. Hell called this man “the Unchained Predator” in their infernal scriptures, but the eyes looking down into hers reminded her of deer, if anything. But, that would imply that the Slayer was, in reality, prey under the mask, and he couldn't be further from that. Not an unfeeling aquatic predator, not prey waiting to take flight, his eyes were neither pools of black rage nor hollow earthen pits in his face. They were simply…soft. Soft and dark and magnetic.

And they looked to be on the verge of weeping. 

Thira stared at him, utterly at a loss. She didn't know whether to lay a comforting hand against his arm or to pretend she didn't see the impending tears at all.

He didn't speak to her, but he didn't need to.

The Slayer blinked, eyes flickering to a spot just above her shoulder. He visibly swallowed and his lips thinned slightly. He shifted his weight, and for a warrior with a habit of standing absolutely still, it gave the impression of a youth anxiously shuffling his feet as he prepared to make a request.

“No, you aren't interrupting,” Thira told him, still dumbfounded. “I’m finishing my duties for the night. It’s tedious, but I don’t mind company.”

Slowly, he flexed his fingers and looked at the door, the window, the far corners of the room.

“This room is private,” Thira affirmed. “There is no one here and none will enter without my command. Well, except for you, Slayer.” She laughed nervously. “I doubt I could stop you even if I wanted to.”

At wanted to , the Slayer cocked his head a few degrees and he regarded her with an almost quizzical expression, then seemed to draw some sort of pleasant conclusion in his mind. He inhaled deeply, then let out an audible sigh. 

“Please, sit,” Thira suggested, gesturing to a small stone table and offering him a smile that seemed to smooth away one of the creases between his brows.

Then, she went to an armoire in a far corner of the room. There was wine and a few small things to eat there, meant for royalty to indulge in when their elite prepared to test themselves in the arena. Thira often entertained guests before combat, so the cabinet was always well stocked.

She took two lovely crystal glasses and filled them with easy, expert practice, as if she were serving a fellow Commander or General and nothing more.

The Slayer hadn't moved, watching her with an odd, but unreadable expression.

“This vintage is special,” Thira said, crossing the room to the table and setting the glasses down in their respective places before turning to fetch a small silver plate. “It's said that the vineyard where that wine was made was blessed by the Maykrs, so that all who partake in it find themselves faster and stronger after drinking. I know that it's a bullshit rumor meant to sell more wine, I've been to that vineyard and I saw the stimulants they use to spike each bottle. It does help me focus, though.”

She wondered if she was rambling as she assembled a tasteful assortment of cured meats and smoked cheeses, small things meant to settle the stomach without bogging down the body with excess carbohydrates before a battle.

When she returned to the table, she saw the Slayer listening intently, but his posture was tense.

“You don’t have to indulge,” Thira told him, setting the plate between the two glasses and seating herself. “It’s a formality, nothing more. I believe that it’s rude to let a guest go hungry if you have the means to feed them. But, it’s also rude to force hospitality when there is no need.”

As she spoke, the Slayer quietly sat down, taking his infamous shield from its place on his back and carefully propping it against the leg of the chair.

Outside, the sun began to truly set, bathing the room in wildfire scarlet. A pleasant breeze drifted through the open window. The Slayer turned his head and absorbed the scenery, watching the burning horizon slowly change color from gold to red to deepest indigo.

Thira let silence enfold them. She sipped her wine, the stimulant prickling across her tongue and staining a decent vintage with a saline, chemical note.

As she drained her glass, she found that couldn't tear her eyes away from the Slayer's face. The dying light brought out the earthy undertones in his hair and turned those eyes of his the color of amber stained glass. He was handsome, and she found the unexpected skittishness of his demeanor endearing. She wondered what it would feel like to touch his skin or run her fingers through his hair. His skin and hair were clean, and found herself idly pondering what he smelled like.

She ended the train of thought when the sun finally vanished.

“Was there something I could do for you, Slayer?” Thira asked as the room drowned in dark blue. She didn't turn the lights on, as if by leaving them off, a measure of extra privacy was given to the encounter.

The moment that she finished speaking, the Slayer's jaw clenched as his head snapped around to look at her. She flinched, wondering if she had angered him somehow, but felt awe and compassion wrap its fingers around her neck and squeeze as she realized that he was crying.

A single drop of water had slipped from where it trembled on the rim of the Slayer's eyelid and splattered on the hard shell of his breastplate with a tiny, little tap . Immediately, he raised a hand to scrub away any that followed.

“What…what's wrong?” Thira whispered, almost without thinking. 

His lips parted briefly, and as he placed an object on the table, she realized that he had been holding something in a closed fist this whole time.

A single dragon tooth. 

He stared at it for a long moment, his fingers hovering over it like a cage protecting some artwork in a museum.

“You…you miss Serrat,” she said.

Again, without thinking, she slowly reached out and laid her hand over his, threading her fingers between the studs welded to his knuckles. The metal was cool, and she wondered if the haptics in his suit registered her bare skin.

He scowled down at the contact, but allowed it. He seemed uncertain, as if the gesture were alien and unfamiliar.

“I understand. When my mother passed, I spent a lot of time with Valen,” Thira said, gently brushing her thumb across his knuckles. She wondered at his hand, at the chips in his armor and the cracks in the paint. “I found it was better to be near someone than to carry that ache by myself. Even if he never understood.”

She dared to slip her fingers beneath his, clasping them fully. He continued to permit the contact, so she continued.

“Even now I wish that my own battle plate carried the damage that yours does. I wish that I could have taken all the rage and hatred I have in my heart and inflicted it on whatever was unfortunate enough to be weaker than me. I wish I could have ripped and torn everything in my path to bloody shreds, until it was done. Until the grief was done. I wish that my armor carried the same scars as my heart.”

He was staring at her intently, uncertainty shifting into a subtle look of…sympathy? His hand twitched, and she felt his thumb gently graze the backs of her fingers.

“The anger never goes away, does it?” Thira murmured.

The sympathy on his face transmuted into an expression of pain, deeply felt and rarely understood. But, she realized that he did understand. Perhaps that was why he chose not to speak; he knew that it was easier to suffer and act in total silence than to endure platitudes and infantilizing from those around him.

Time heals all, scars fade, they wouldn’t want you to suffer. All of it was insulting. All of it served to drive the knife deeper, to rip the stitches out. And, like a beast in a cage, with every barb it grew more and more difficult not to bite. The hatred never faded, the fire never dimmed. With every person she tried to share it with, the edges of her love for them wore away as the cinders threatened to ignite and reduce them to ash.

Thira was glad to have left the lights off. No one deserved to witness what she shared with the Slayer. Even the daylight would have defiled the emotion, no–the doctrine –that they held in the space between their hands–

Supreme, all-consuming rage.

She saw it in his eyes, dark like earth charred black after a wildfire, waiting for a breeze to start the inferno once more. She wondered if he could see the neon lightning behind her own, or if he pitied the glass bottle that had become its prison. What sort of ruin would occur if the glass shattered, and the wildfire were suddenly stirred by the howling fury of an electrical storm? The smoke would weigh down the clouds before it, pouring new life into a storm that would never allow the fire to die out completely.

In her heart, she urged him to see it and set them both free, to spur each other on and on until at last they both spent themselves utterly. Let whatever remained suffocate in the ashes they left behind.

The moment abruptly ended.

Suddenly, the Wraith-trails around her fingers began to flicker, flashing the color of liquid plasma. In a fraction of a second, the energy built too quickly to coax back, and it sought release. An incandescent bolt of power jumped from the back of her knuckles and straight into the Slayer’s thumb, like a static shock.

The Slayer inhaled sharply and he flinched hard, shaking the pain out of his hand.

“ Shit !” Thira yelped, snatching her hand away and squeezing her fingers to stifle the electric burning still stinging her skin. “Hell, I’m sorry! I’m still learning to control it. Forgive me, please.”

He laughed first, a breathy snicker that dragged a giggle out of her. The Slayer offered her a subtle, sincere smile that utterly dispelled the intensity of the moment.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she said again, emphatically. He exhaled and rolled his eyes, amused.

Then, Thira stood, surprisingly content.

“I have some things to finish before the night is over, but I will be here. If you need anything, help yourself.”

He opened his mouth and sat forward slightly, barely perceptible. Then, he made a fist and performed a slashing movement across his opposite palm. It was the first deliberately expressive gesture he had made, and Thira suddenly wondered if his muteness was entirely a choice.

“What sort of knife?” Thira asked seamlessly.

He looked down at Sarrat’s tooth and tenderly brushed the pad of his thumb over it, a more thoughtful expression teasing at his brows and lips. She was good at reading people, but now she felt that she was truly beginning to speak his bizarre language.

“For carving?” Thira asked, the image of warriors’ totems springing to mind. 

He blinked at her, as if surprised to have been understood, then nodded.

“I have some from my time dabbling in jewelry,” Thira began, smiling as the Slayer's interest zeroed in on her once more.

She turned and crossed the room to a study, one of a few rooms separating her personal quarters from the arming chamber. Tucked away in a box on the bottom of a heavy bookshelf was a small, lacquered leather case. 

She brought it to her unexpected guest and presented its contents; a selection of small knives, chisels, pliers, awls and punches, meant to be applied to leather, wood or delicate metal. 

The Slayer carefully regarded them, then looked up at her without accepting the case. He seemed almost apologetic, but absolutely certain of something.

“You're right, Serrat never stopped to admire detail,” she teased. 

And neither do you . She left that thought unsaid; something about it didn't feel entirely true.

She departed once more, offering the Slayer her own combat knife instead.

This he accepted, and nodded in thanks.

Then, she turned to finish her nightly duties. She saw to her weapons and her armor, cleaning and sharpening blades, polishing plates, re-laquering gemstones and oiling leather. 

The Slayer removed his gauntlets, laying them beside his shield, then began the art of memorial scrimshaw. His hands were deft, though nimble was not a word that could be used to describe them; they were so battered that a thick layer of muscle and callus had worked them into a near-perpetual fist. His fingers were blunt and square, his palms similarly dulled by thousands upon thousands of impacts. His nails were short and sunk into the beds, as if they had been torn off and cracked so often that the flesh of his fingers was forced to compensate.

But they did remember gentleness. Tonight was proof.

The silence between them once more became comfortable. At some point, the Slayer moved closer to the window, seating himself on a stone bench to watch the stars and listen to the wind. He rested his head against the wall as his face took on an expression of such silent misery that Thira had to ignore him for a moment, lest her heart break a little in her chest. 

She moved to the study and attended to paperwork, filing accounts and sorting miscellany by the light of a single candle. She again, avoided the lights, unwilling to dispel the dimness that insulated their moment of empathy.

At some point, the Slayer appeared to have dozed off. He lay leaning against the wall, Serrat’s tooth cradled in a slack palm, eyes closed and face unmoving. His wineglass was empty and there was no food remaining on the table. She knew better than to check, but she swore that she saw his cheeks damp with drying tears. It could have been a trick of the candle light.

But, what was she to think if it hadn't been?

Was the wildfire, in reality, about to snuff itself out at last?

She finished a daily report, then rose to her feet to see her guest out. 

Damn it all, how is he so quiet ? Thira thought. 

The Slayer was nowhere in sight, and both his gauntlets and his shield were nowhere to be seen.

Not just that, but the bone shavings left from his scrimshaw had been disposed of, and the dishes from her presentation had been cleaned and returned to their places. All of it had been done without her noticing, and she suspected that it was both an act of gratitude and a refusal to impose more than he already had.

Only her knife hadn't been touched, left on the table out of respect. It was insulting to assume one knew how another warrior chose to maintain their weapons.

The night had been strange. He was strange.

Thira looked at her hand and the phantom Wraith-trails running across her skin like lightning. 

Who was she to judge? She was strange, too. Perhaps the Slayer saw a kindred spirit in her and came to her for a small flicker of comfort in his violent, bloody existence.

Perhaps, in that instant that they realized that they understood one another, he had.

Chapter Text

Nine months. It took nine months of relentless siege to break the lines of Hell, commanded this time by a creature known as Beltynia the Walker.

Ahzrak’s demise had left a power vacuum in Hell, and every aspiring champion thusfar had decided to blood themselves on the blades of the Night Sentinels. 

Beltynia had proved to be a worthy aspirant indeed, with one primary tactic serving as her signature:

Keep everything important as far away from the Slayer as possible, and try to drown him beneath the weight of hordes.

After nine months of fighting, cut off from the rest of the Sentinels without support, locator dead and vital signs untraceable, some among the Sentinels feared the worst. Thira knew better, for if the Slayer had truly fallen then Hell would be sure to let the Sentinels know.

At some point, Thira had gone personally to dispose of the Walker, and once destroyed, the line had broken and reinforcements trickled to a halt over the next few days.

It was on a security sweep that she found the Slayer’s killing ground. A trail of death ran for miles, hundreds of thousands of demons cast into the grinder to be pulped against the blade of the Sentinel’s finest weapon.

“Should we go after him?” Valen asked. He served as head of her honor guard for the mission. Thira looked at the trail of corpses from the door of the shuttle, down below at the flies buzzing around bloated, mangled bodies.

“He hasn’t been here for some time,” Thira said. She had a strange feeling in her stomach, something intuitive and indescribable. “Get me closer. Then, allow me to speak to him alone. I will signal you when we need to be picked up.”

“Of course,” Valen nodded.

When the corpses were fresh enough to bleed, Thira disembarked the shuttle and dismissed her company with a gesture.

The air was hot and dry, abrasive with disturbed dust particles. Red shimmered everywhere. As a strange infernal phenomenon, human blood tended to collect on the ground like puddles after a rainstorm. There didn’t appear to be a rhyme or reason behind their appearance, only that they could be found nearly everywhere in Hell.

To her, it seemed as if she stood in the tracks of something colossal, like an engine of war heedless of the army it ground underneath its treads.

That machine of eternal death was finishing his butchery.

He was surrounded by corpses, adding more to the pile as the stragglers made their last stand. But, something was wrong. He was stumbling, his form sloppy and graceless. Parts of his armor were shattered, including the right half of his helmet lens. He was caked in filth and gore, as if he hadn't had a resting moment in weeks. A few inches of liquid blood covered the ground in crimson.

“I found the Slayer,” Thira said into her comms. “Stand ready to extract us, but don't move until my command.”

“ Aye, Commander .”

Thira watched the singular remaining imp in the area pounce on him, scoring fresh red into his filthy skin. The Slayer let out an animal snarl, snatched the creature by the skull and yanked the monster forward to face him.

The Slayer took its head in both hands, shoved his thumbs into the beast’s eye sockets, and began to pull the creature in half. It shrieked as it split vertically, a garbled wail fading as the Slayer cast each half aside. 

Thira began to approach the Slayer, and felt every hair on her body stand on end as he turned on his heels…then lurched into a juddering sprint. Every step the Slayer took was worth three of a normal man’s. His eyes were locked on her, wild and unseeing. Nothing that remained could be considered human; there was only kill-fury and lust for blood.

Thira set her jaw and planted her feet, a growl rising in her throat. 

The Wraith-tracks on her arm lit up and the chilly whisper of ancient power coursed through her.

She raised a hand and clenched her fist. Ethereal energy pooled in the ground beneath her, then exploded upwards in the form of a cephalopod’s grasping limbs.

They shot towards him and snagged hold of his wrists winding around his arms like the tails of serpents.

Thira held out her hands, willing each phantom limb to draw tight like the cables of a bridge and stop him in his tracks.

It was like holding back the weight of an armored transport.

His boots gouged tracks in the earth as he wheeled and began hacking at the tentacles with his shield, dragging a path inevitably forward.

Thira gasped and reached within herself for more power. Shimmering limbs wound around his ankles and he fell to one knee, shouting in fury as other tendrils gained purchase.

Still he resisted. Sweat sheened Thira's skin and her breath began to mist in front of her. She clenched her jaw, both muscle and will straining at the sheer force of restraining the Slayer. She held him by the arms, legs, even casting restraints about his throat to rein him in like a warhorse gone mad.

He thrashed, the same raw, shapeless battle cry ripping out of his throat as before. This wasn't the silent, focused rage that he usually brought to war. This was delirium, an exhausted and belligerent fury thrown on anything within range. How long had he been fighting?

“Slayer,” Thira called, stepping closer and grimacing as her control threatened to crumble.

He bucked, dragging his foot up underneath him to resume the onslaught.

She cried out as she almost lost her hold, and he gained another foot of ground. Sweat was rolling down her face, filling her mouth with bitter saline and stinging her eyes.

“ Slayer ,” she shouted again, but she may as well have been trying to stop a meteor upon re-entry.

He was going to kill her. She felt it in her bones, bones that he would rip from their sockets as easily as splinters from leather.

Nine months ago, she had gazed into the eyes of an unlikely equal before he had all but disappeared. Now, she only saw the burning black pits of a mindless animal. These were the eyes she had originally anticipated to see beneath his helmet. She wasn't prey to him, far less than that, but meat waiting to be shredded apart. 

As it had in the Ancient Realm, terror opened up a floodgate in her.

“Enough!” Thira screamed. Frost exploded across her skin and each translucent shackle wound around the Slayer’s body constricted like a host of pythons, earning an agonized jolt from their prisoner. More appendages rose up and joined their sisters. Veins of energy spiderwebbed across his body and the howls of fury choked off. His eyes widened in pain; his nose began to bleed into his broken helm. 

The effort of holding him stole the breath from her body and tunneled her vision. The ancient soul trapped in her body shrieked in her ears, consumed only by the thought of protecting her; that spirit wanted blood.

Caught between the two murderous entities, Thira felt as if she were being ripped in half at the molecules. White overtook her sight, and she lost consciousness for a moment.

When she came to her senses, it was to the Slayer's final, guttering motions as he at last found the end of his strength. 

A tiny breath of terrified relief escaped her, set free as his fingers unclenched from around her throat and fell away.

His eyes dimmed and grew unfocused. His jaw worked up and down as he fought for oxygen. Then his head lolled on his shoulders before he crashed to his knees hard enough to crack the stone beneath him. The lake of gore rippled in a small imitation of the ocean during a hurricane.

The Slayer’s armor buckled within the crushing force of her grip. Another limb whipped forward like the tail of a scorpion, clawed end aimed for the Slayer’s forehead. The ancient Wraith within her surged forward like a descending banshee, ready to execute the man before her.

“No!” she shouted, and the nearly overwhelming surge of energy wavered. Thira caught the edges of that ancestral power and hauled back as hard as she could manage. It was enough to stifle the kill urge, but only just. The murderous stinger froze mid-strike and dissolved, only a hairsbreadth away from punching straight through the Slayer’s skull.

Metal groaned as some measure of pressure was lifted. The lines of power skittering across the Slayer’s body died, and he convulsed as he drew a shuddering breath and choked on his own blood.

Thira’s feet hit solid ground; for some reason, the spirit of the Wraith kept her feet firmly on the surface of the lake of gore. He was on his knees and his arms were wrenched to either side of him, pinned to the earth with coils of glowing blue. He was reeling, trying to regain his senses.

Thira reached out, then gently lifted his helmet from his head.

Blood leaked from ruptured capillaries in his eyes and his ears, and dribbled from his nose in steady streams. His chest heaved, and each ragged gasp sent tremors through his massive body. 

“Slayer?” Thira asked, softly. “Slayer, can you hear me?”

Slowly, shuddering, he tilted his head to briefly meet her eyes. Thankfully, the berserker fury was ebbing away, losing to exhaustion. 

Thira knelt, taking his face in her hands. His skin was soaked in sweat and he flinched at the touch, baring his teeth as if he were struggling to swallow a ball of molten lead.

“No more of this. It's done,” she said to him, searching his eyes.

He swallowed thickly, tried to slow his labored breathing, then gave a weary nod. Suddenly, an errant restraint twitched near his ear, startling him and upsetting the tenebrous control he had on his own rage. His jaw clenched like a vise. Blood bubbled from between his teeth and a vein pulsed in his forehead. His pupils dilated and he let out a strangled roar of defiance, one that was once again choked off by the spectral limb constricting around his throat.

The anger never goes away, does it?

He locked eyes with her and began to struggle once more, a pale second wind fueling his resistance.

Thira threw her arms around his neck and clutched his head tight against the hollow of her shoulder.

He bucked, flinching in his restraints, but she pushed her fingers into his filthy, matted hair and held him tighter.

“Hush,” she whispered. “Shh…that's enough. It's over. Come back.”

With a sound that sent sympathetic agony coursing through Thira’s chest, the Slayer announced his hard-won victory with a furious scream that trailed off into wet gasping. The echoes of that cry rang off the rocks, carried down the arid wind, then faded like a symphony’s final note to an empty concert hall. Only when silence reigned did the delirium fall away.

A moment passed. Then two.

She released him, blue light yielding to the dusty crimson of Hell’s unholy sky, and he fell limp against her. She put an arm around his waist, a thick layer of old gore smearing her skin like engine grease.

“Forgive me,” she pled, carding her fingers through his hair. She wondered if, during the nine months that had passed since she had seen him, he had stopped fighting for even a moment. 

A moment passed before she felt him slowly, agonizingly, lay a hand against the small of her back, softly nosing her jaw as he did so. Warmth seeped into her skin, both from the unshod palm of his hand and the steadily growing puddle of blood dribbling from his nose as it soaked into her clothing. 

“Valen,” Thira said into her comms. “I'm sending you our coordinates. I have the Slayer. Pick us up.”

“Copy that, Commander. Does the Slayer live?”

“Yes, but he's…injured.” 

She retreated, leaning back to inspect the damage.

His chest was still heaving, eyes half-lidded and shoulders slumped forward. His face was filthy and gouged with old, inflamed lacerations. The flow of blood from his nose had stilled, pooling at the edge of his mouth and falling to the ground in slow, lazy strings. His lips were chapped and split. Pale tracks formed in the grime caking his face as sweat rolled down his forehead. 

Thira cast her eyes to the lake of gore. The slayer was submerged to his knees in crimson, but Thira knelt on top of it as if it were a solid surface. Excess energy still skittered through the air in her lungs, and an intention formed in the back of her mind. She touched the surface of the pool, exhaling that power as an iridescent mist.

The entire pool flashed, becoming a mirror of blue light. Ozone spiked the air for a moment, then took on a clean scent that reminded her of snow.

When the light died, every drop of blood in the pool had transmuted into cold, pure water.

“Here,” she whispered, shifting to kneel beside the Slayer and dipping her cupped hand into the lake. The water was crystal clear, like a glacier spring. She raised her hand and held it to the Slayer’s mouth. He swallowed thickly, eyes focusing after a long, disconcerting moment. Then, his hand flew up to snatch hers and shove it against his lips in an act of desperation that Thira had never expected to see from him. Only some of the water made it into his mouth, and he coughed quietly as his parched throat refused to accept it.

“Slowly,” Thira demanded gently, reaching down to try the gesture once more. As she did so, she removed the cloak from her shoulders and let the water soak its fibers.

As the sound of thrusters reached her ears, Thira gently began to wipe away the grease from the Slayer's face. She didn't accomplish much, but the Slayer seemed grateful by the way he leaned into her touch.

The shuttle came into view a minute later, and Thira took hold of his arm, casting it around her shoulders. 

“Can you stand?” she asked.

The Slayer only offered a nod.

Chapter Text

The Slayer had almost forgotten how it felt to be well and truly exhausted. 

He'd been tired before. His life was littered with moments when he found himself so beat up and worn out that he had to take a minute and lay down somewhere to feel sorry for himself. But, since that Maykr machine, those moments had been completely non-existent. 

His bones felt as heavy as lead, and every ounce of meat on his body down to the micromuscles in his cheeks felt wrung out like old rags. He was shaking, and he had to fight to keep most of his weight off of the Commander even as she appointed herself to be his crutch.

She was only human, and ill-equipped to carry the bulk of him. Some bitter, sardonic side of him amused itself with the idea of crushing her, toying with the irony of killing her by accident after everything he had endured thusfar.

He had become something great and terrible, a one man army, an angel of death. But the Commander? Hot as fuck and tougher than any G.I. Jane he’d ever met, but still just a chick.

Sure, it would be a crying shame to reduce a woman like that to paste, but it would be kinda funny. Funny in the way that those old cartoons were, the ones where that stupid little coyote creature found himself underneath an oversized ACME anvil and got all fucked up when it fell on his head.

The Slayer preferred the real thing, of course. Boneless cartoon animals didn’t bleed when they were pulled in half or stomped into the dirt or cut up with chainsaws. Snarky, rubber-band rabbits and so-called “martians” in gay little bowling shoes weren’t nearly as satisfying to watch when their oversized heads got punched into their ribcages, and they definitely didn’t seem to understand things like hate. The real thing was better. The real thing met his eyes and hated him back. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, there wasn’t anything better than–

He stumbled.

An errant spar of stone caught his boot, and when he tried to put his foot out and stop himself from collapsing, his muscles didn’t respond. Lactic acid burn shot up his hip like lightning and he prepared to hit the dirt, no doubt dragging the Commander with him and popping her head clean off her shoulders because even flinching was destructive now. 

A cartoon accident beneath a cartoon anvil shaped suspiciously like him. 

But he didn’t hit the ground. 

The Commander’s left eye was glowing neon blue, and spectral chitin had appeared above her skin like a semi-solid pauldron. 

He was aware of one arm around his waist and the other against his bicep, but other limbs had joined her. Quick as lightning, the Wraith living in her body had slipped behind his back, snaked down around his leg and fixed itself in the shank of his boot like a stirrup. Another circled his chest, following the dent in his breastplate left by its previous ventures. Unlike before, the pressure wasn’t crushing, but supportive. Strong. More like guardrails than constrictors.

Broken ribs twinged in the Slayer's chest and he spat blood, then ventured to look down at her. She was gazing up at him, and the look on her face had him reeling.

She’s beautiful .

He forgot what he was thinking about a moment before.

He took a deep breath. Noticed her palm on his bicep. Tried to count each individual eyelash framing her cobalt blue eyes.

The Slayer fought to collect his thoughts, watching the shuttle circle above them and descend for landing. What had he been thinking about before? It must have been important, it had to be important. 

“Forgive me,” the Commander said again. Her thumb gently traced a circle across his arm and he stared at her for a moment. He nodded, and some of the remorse on her firm, angular face dissolved. That pleased him. The Commander was so gentle towards him, so unafraid and….

The thought trailed off.

He had almost killed her.

In the last dregs of his stamina, the Slayer had only seen another being, and had made no distinction between friend and foe. After Christ knows how long facing nothing but horde after horde, he hadn’t registered her identity. He had almost grabbed her by the sternum and cracked open her chest cavity as if she were some shitty plastic Barbie doll and he were one of those fucked up teenagers that grew up to be serial killers. If she hadn’t stopped him, then he may not have realized until he received notice of her closed-casket funeral. He almost ripped her to pieces, torn her limb from limb.

Rip. Tear. Rip and tear. Until it was done. It was never done, not for him. Never for him. He didn’t deserve a finish line anyway. Fuck it, he didn’t need one, wouldn’t even know what to do with the damn thing if he were offered a lifetime getaway to a tropical island planet only populated by underwear models and that one dyke-looking bartender from Salt Lake motherfucking City. She had been ugly as hell but she had also been the only one to listen to him complain about his life while he was stationed there. Of course, she was on the clock and no woman in their right mind would risk pissing off a 6’8”, 350 pound jarhead with too much Jim Beam in his system, but she had listened to him. But he would probably end up killing her too, so it was probably better that she had died out with baseball and prom night and the Louvre and hound dogs and roses and the 4th of July and color-by-numbers and Metallica and humpback whales and German chocolate and fresh peaches and the redwood forest and everything else good on Earth. 

He didn't realize that he was aboard the shuttle until Valen’s scarred face filled his vision.

“--alright?” Valen was speaking. 

Valen. Who named their kid Valen anyway? A bunch of Viking wizard knights from space, that's who. 

“Slayer?” Valen asked, snapping his fingers in front of his face.

He scowled at Valen, trying to recall…something. Maybe whatever the Slayer had forgotten just then hadn't been important. 

“You doing alright?” Valen asked him. 

The Slayer nodded and licked his lips, suddenly missing the water given to him by the Commander. Perhaps he missed her soft, dear hand pressed against his mouth. 

He was a little alarmed at what that had done to him. He often felt like a beast, cast off and feared by all those around them. Novik was the alpha of his pack, and had made it clear to the Slayer that he would never walk among Novik's wolves as an equal.

But the Commander? The Commander didn't see him as a beast to begin with. She met his eyes and called his name and didn't flinch when he moved. When he had, at his wits end, come to her quarters just for something besides the empty, Serrat-shaped hole in his heart, the Commander had given him so much more than a distraction.

She was so gentle towards him, so unafraid and….

He had almost killed her. 

That was what he had been thinking about.

He looked around for her, moving to stand but freezing when he realized that she was still tucked beneath his arm. Her head rested against his chest, one hand draped across his thigh while the other clung to his bicep. Her eyes were closed and her breath was slow and even.

“Novik is on the comms…he's requesting a report from the Commander,” Valen said, barely concealing a smile.

The Slayer blinked slowly, eyes flinty, and did not move so much as a finger. 

The corner of Valen’s eyebrow quirked, as if he were straining to keep a straight face.

“I'll let him know,” said Valen, turning and walking away, grinning as he did so. 

The Slayer let his head fall back against the steel wall of the shuttle.

Never again. Never again would he put her in danger as he had today. 

His hand rested near her elbow, and he ventured to gently squeeze her arm, cradling her closer to him. 

He swore an oath then, with Heaven and Hell and the Maykrs and all the Demon Council as his witness; he would protect her with everything he possessed. 

Especially from himself.

He laid his cheek against the top of her head. Her hair smelled like sweat and brimstone, but a little of her perfume reached through. He liked it. It suited her. 

The air on the shuttle was cold. He liked that too. It reminded him of…of…somewhere hot. And. A transport? Air conditioning. California?

He frowned and softly nuzzled the Commander's head. Lazily wondered about kissing her hair.

He remembered California. Deserts, beaches, mountains, people. Big trees. Like…really big fuckin trees. Redwoods. Right.

He sighed heavily. The Commander might have liked the Redwoods.

(O)

The Doom Slayer talked in his sleep.

Something within Thira knew a hospital ward would spell disaster, so she requested that he stay in her personal suites at Sentinel Command. The last thing anyone wanted was an irritable human super weapon with a deadly temper stalking around command, but his equipment needed to be reforged and his sanity ascertained.

There seemed to be two men in the Slayer's body. She recognized one. He was silent, attentive and dangerous in that cinders-on-dry-prairie way, more of an impending cataclysm than an outright threat.

The other reminded her of a dragon, but one with a terrible case of cholic. He was anxious and aggressive, baring his teeth, flexing his fists, staring into space and sneering at nothing. Occasionally, Thira would return from her duties to find him pacing around the room like a caged wolf. He would promptly meet her eyes, then melt into the quiet version of himself as if it had never happened.

She squashed the idea that her presence provided some sort of calm. The concept was distracting, more distracting than his own presence in her chambers already was.

A cot had been brought into her arming chamber along with a small team of healers, but the Slayer had adamantly refused any of their service, preferring to treat his own wounds and mind his own peace.

The nurse, a man no older than twenty, lasted an hour before Thira personally relieved them all of duty. A brave young man, he had gone so far as to complete a scan of the Slayer before his instincts got the better of him and urged him to flee.

Only one healer lingered, and Thira cared most about what she had to say.

“Commander?" The head psychologist was an aging woman of about seventy, and she did not seem amused.

“Could you find out anything?” Thira asked her, taking her by the elbow and pulling her aside. Thira could see beyond the partially closed door and watched as the Slayer seated himself at the window, drawing one knee to his chest as he watched the scenery below.

“From what I have gathered and compared to previous reports of the Slayer's…um…mental stability…I can only make an educated guess.” The woman took a pair of spectacles from her nose and began to clean them on her smock. “I suspect that he is experiencing post-traumatic disassociation. You said that he exhibits symptoms of short term memory loss?”

“In a way,” Thira mused. “He has moments where he becomes aggressive.”

The psychologist raised an eyebrow.

“The Doom Slayer? Aggressive?” she said slowly.

“It is different,” Thira pressed. “He's very gentle around me. He isn't dangerous when he doesn't mean any harm.” 

“I mean no disrespect, Commander, but have you considered that he is kind because he happens to be a man, and you are a beautiful young woman?” The psychologist grunted incredulously. 

Thira’s face burned. 

“Or, maybe I'm the only one that doesn't treat him like a runaway Atlan?”

“Atlans tend to be less destructive,” the woman sniffed. “And what of his memory loss?” She continued.

Thira sighed deeply.

“It's…like an episode. When it passes, he acts as if he doesn't remember.”

The psychologist took a few notes on a data pad, then paused to read something.

“Does he speak?”

“When he is sleeping, he does quite often. As for awake, I've heard him mumble under his breath.”

“What language?”

“English,” Thira said. “I've studied some.”

“And what does he say?” 

“It's…jumbled. The clearest I have heard was something about a ‘High School’ and a few names. ‘Daisy, Elaine, Caleb, Taggart.’ Usually he simply rambles. I don't understand most of it,” Thira lied.

She left out the sheer amount of apologizing and bitter cursing that fell out of the Slayer's mouth like broken teeth. There were few who understood him well enough to know what to do with the information anyway.

“Daisy? How… odd . Is that a person?” the old woman smacked her lips, displeased. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Thira told her.

“If you want my professional opinion, Commander, I would say that he is simply suffering from overexertion. I suspect that it began with the Maykr’s tether device and concluded with the stress of the past nine months.”

“That…makes some measure of sense,” Thira said lamely.

“Beltynia the Walker was intelligent, and the Slayer has been known to make complete recoveries in twenty minutes or less, so perhaps the demons knew better than to allow him even a moment to breathe? Commander, his body may be divinely empowered, but his mind is still human. He came to us as a broken vessel, and I suspect that we are watching the cracks beginning to re-appear.”

“Is it temporary?” Thira anxiously gnawed on her lip.

“Maybe,” said the psychologist. “You don’t know how much water that vessel already contains. Let the water remain and it will eventually break under the pressure. But, remove the water, it is likely to shatter anyway.”

“I thought he was a man , not a teacup,” Thira snorted, not in the mood to entertain metaphors.

“Nonetheless,” the psychologist rolled her eyes and replaced her spectacles. “Good day, Commander.”

“Please keep me informed,” Thira sighed.

“If I somehow manage to put together a diagnosis concerning a patient that refuses to speak and skulks around the room waiting for a chance to rip me to pieces, all from my office twenty floors away, you will be the first to hear about it.” The old woman shuffled away, muttering. “Fifty years and they still expect sorcery of me….”

Thira kneaded the bridge of her nose, then returned to her quarters and shut the door. She locked it and stood there for a moment, worry swirling through her thoughts like silt upturned from a lakebed.

When she turned around, the Slayer was watching her, his face etched with concern.

Without armor, he was a significantly less imposing figure, though Thira’s more personal angle stripped him of the grim mystique that tended to keep others away.

Stubble shadowed his jaw and his hair, once cropped short, was a tousled mess across his forehead. Bruises mottled his skin and self-administered stitches made tracks across his arms and neck.

He wore only loose white fatigues and a few self-applied bandages. Amusingly, he had rolled the pants up around his calves and neatly deprived the shirt of its sleeves.

Thira sat across the sill from him, looking down at the mountains from the window. It was raining down below, and the clouds insulating the sky cast a quiet repose over command.

He continued to watch her, as if he knew that she had something to say and was patiently waiting for her to string the words together.

But, one didn't have to bring nuance. The Slayer preferred otherwise.

“Who are Elaine and Caleb Taggart?”

The question hung in the quiet like a bullet in a suspensor field for a long while. The Slayer went completely still, his face blank and not even his chest rising and falling to breathe.

Then, the Slayer's posture adjusted. The tension left his shoulders and he rested his arm on his knee in the same way one would place a weapon on a table. His eyes went languid and his lip drew back in a sneer.

Suddenly his presence no longer felt like a heavy cloud of impending destruction, but some arrogant young warrior interjecting at a council meeting. It was domineering, hostile and almost hard to stand.

“Elaine was some broad I married out of High School. Caleb is what she named our kid,” he said in English, then his mouth snapped shut. His voice was deep, but raspy and broken from disuse, and the sound of it seemed to embarrass him back into silence. 

“Is…that all?” Thira asked, unable to mask her shock.

He scowled and lost focus, as if he had walked into the room only to forget what he came there for. Thira put a hand against his arm.

“If there's something in you that wants to speak, let him,” she continued.

The Slayer looked confused, perhaps a little disgusted, then sardonic once again.

“Th–” he stopped, cleared his throat. “Thanks, babe.”

“Babe?” 

“Don't take it the wrong way,” he groused. “Just calling it like I see it.”

“Um…right. Slayer, are you…are you alright?” Thira removed her hand from his arm.

“Slayer?” The Slayer blinked, then chuckled. “That's fuckin’ sick . Yeah. I–” he coughed once again. “I like that.”

The Unchained Predator, the Hell Walker, the Beast, the Outlander from Beyond, the Doom Slayer…was a jackass?

“What are you usually called?” 

“Corporal Flynn Taggart. I also answer to dumbass, maggot, jarhead, ‘hey you’. Oh, yeah, and Fly.” He adjusted himself, putting his arms behind his head and kicking one leg as it dangled off the sill. 

“Your name is Flynn?” Thira asked, thankfully unable to translate most of what he had said. Oddly enough, she still spoke to him in Argenta, but he replied exclusively in his own native tongue.

“Fruity, huh? I shoulda been called William Joseph after my grandpa. That guy was such a goddamn  stud, he could clear rooms full of Nazis with only a fuckin table knife. Makes sense for a William, but Flynn? That guy has elbow patches on his fag jacket and you'd catch me dead before I wear stupid shit like that. They called my grandpa B.J. for short. Could have called me Billy, like Billy the Kid. Man, I could go for an old Western right about now. You like westerns? How about Budweiser? Might be nice, just us, a few beers and an old cowboy movie–by the way, are your parents home?” 

Thira stared at him as he rambled, a strange sadness curling in her stomach. She didn't understand most of what he was talking about. It was all alien jargon from a dead, alien world. What was incomprehensible to her had meaning to this man, and by the way the cruelty on his face dissolved into snide amusement, it seemed to have a lot of meaning.

“No,” she said, unsure of what he meant but leaning into the delusion. “My father isn't here. My mother died before I earned my wings.”

“Pilot? That's badass. Makes sense, a woman like you would be a pilot. Someone's gotta remind those little Chair Force fairy boys who's boss,” he snickered. He swung forward, rolling his weight until he sat beside her, scarred hands gripping the edge of the sill.

“Sorry about your mom,” he added, scowling as his voice began to scrape in his mouth. “How did it ha-appen?”

“She was killed protecting me from a demon invasion,” Thira told him. “I don’t–”

“--hold on a sec. Have you got anything to drink? This seems like a drinking story.” Flynn raised his eyebrows.

“In the cabinet in the next room,” she told him, too stunned to get to her own feet and procure it herself.

“Sit tight, sugar-tits,” he told her with that funny, lopsided grin of his. Then, he got to his feet, grimaced as one of his many wounds smarted, then went into the next room before she could gather her wits.

It didn’t take long for him to return.

“Is your daddy rich? Everything in there looked expensive,” he said, holding out a black glass bottle. He had a good sense for alcohol; that vintage was notoriously strong. Flynn sat down beside her, closer this time, then pinched the cork between two fingernails and removed the entire thing in one effortless motion.

“Flynn, do you know where you are?” Thira suddenly asked, caught between compassion and genuine irritation.

“Baby, if I stop and think about that for too long–” his face abruptly paled and his dark eyes widened. He shuddered, then took a long pull straight from the bottle. “--I think I’ll lose it for real. Come to think of it, I forgot that I’m not doing so hot. Like. Jesus Christ on a cracker, I haven’t been this amped since Mars first shit the bed. Anyway, you’ve got mommy issues. Let’s hear about it.”

He offered her the bottle, and, abandoning all sense of decorum, she took it from him and tipped far too much into her mouth to be proper. It burned all the way down like grain alcohol did, only it was far too sweet to enjoy in small doses.

“Mommy issues?” she snorted. “You think I have mommy issues?”

“Duh. You’ve listened to me go on for more than twenty minutes and you haven’t slapped me yet, which means that you probably want to fix me.”

Thira took another drink.

“You aren’t broken,” she huffed, then passed the bottle.

“Honey, I’m a fucking monster and you know it. Nobody comes out of what I did without a few cracks. Now, are you gonna talk or what?”

“ Fine ,” Thira groaned. “Maykrs above, you’re pushy.”

“Tit for tat, babygirl,” Flynn smirked. “I bitch about my own bad decisions, and then you fall into my arms and cry on my shoulder. It’s only fair." Restless, he lowered himself to the floor and rested his back against the wall.

She scoffed, but laughed at the rude humor. Flynn was abrasive and aggressive, but as the alcohol made its rounds through her system, she was beginning to enjoy his demeanor. He didn’t need to know how often she thought about his shoulders. She almost declined the bottle when he gave it back to her.

“Unfortunately for you, I haven’t cried about this story in years. It’s good. I promise. I don’t remember much, but I remember my mother’s last stand. She had a combat shotgun in one hand and a sword in the other, and she cut down so many demons that I ended up trapped under the bodies. All I could hear were gunshots and carnage. Thankfully, the corpses hid me from the demon Lord searching for me, and when my father finally found me–”

Thira scooted down to the floor to sit with him, planting herself perhaps a little too close. Flynn rested his arm on the windowsill behind her head in an effort to seem nonchalant. He smelled good, like soap and something completely unique to him.

“--I found out that my mother had killed every single one of them, then died standing up with one last shell in her gun.”

“Mother of God ,” Flynn laughed. “That. That has got to be the single most badass thing I have ever fucking heard of.”

“Isn’t it?” she grinned stupidly.

“Fuck yeah it is,” Flynn told her. “Now, let me guess, your daddy is a helicopter parent.”

“What the hell is a helicopter?” Thira snickered.

“A deathtrap, don’t worry about it,” Flynn chuckled. “Nah, I meant that you’re your daddy’s little princess, right?”

“Very funny.”

“I ain’t laughing, babe.” He was smiling, and Thira marveled again at the fact that he still possessed all of his teeth.

The bottle returned to his custody and Thira leaned her shoulder into his chest. Flynn smirked, and she couldn’t stifle a small giggle as his arm circled her back until his hand rested firmly on her hip. He tugged her close, earning a girlish exclamation of surprise from her.

“Why do you keep calling me things like that?” Thira said. Already she was beginning to feel giddy. “Baby, honey. sweetheart…all of that.”

“Maybe I’m trying to piss you off,” he snickered. 

“What if I like it?”

“Ooh. You’re freaky, sweetheart.”

“Am not ,” she frowned.

“Horseshit.”

“I love horses,” she said, then realized it and slapped a palm to her forehead. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“You’re drunk, honey, and horses are cool as fuck. My grandpa used to keep ‘em. My favorite was this big ol’ palomino named Hitler. Grandpa called him that because Hitler hated all the other horses so bad that he got his own pasture. Grandpa said that the horse was a tyrant and that he was going to get somebody’s fingers one day.”

Thira laughed, listening to his heart through the soft cotton of his shirt. Between the alcohol and the heat of Flynn’s body, she was beginning to feel sleepy.

“You seem to like mean animals,” she murmured.

“Animals ain’t mean, they all got good hearts. You just gotta prove that you’re badder than they are and suddenly you’re best friends with a horse named Hitler.”

“What about you? Have you got a good heart?” Thira looked up at him, and was surprised to find that he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“I’ve…I’ve made mistakes.”

“We all have,” she insisted.

“Yeah. I guess. Hey, before I forget; Elaine wasn’t just some broad. She was student body president, valedictorian, liked to work on her uncle’s beat up Jeep when she wasn’t busy being the captain of the softball team. Kind of the perfect woman.”

Thira fell silent, reaching up to sketch her fingers across his collarbone as he started into another stream of consciousness.

“I was a little punk with a Kawasaki Ninja, so I guess that made me the bad boy, and you pretty much know the rest. Asked her to prom. Got her pregnant. I joined the Marines when she had Caleb to try and take care of them both. I only saw them five times after that. I tried to be a good dad–at least better than my dad was–but it’s kind of hard when your family is a thousand miles away from you or more at any given moment. I gave it hell, I really did. The last time I saw them, it was around Easter. Caleb found a little bunny rabbit abandoned in a box and begged his mom to let him keep it; I guess she was left behind by some asshole who thought that living beings are cute holiday toys for ungrateful kids. Call me a pussy or whatever, but it was the sweetest damn rabbit God ever had a hand in making, and before Elaine had made up her mind, I’d already gone out and bought all the stuff to take care of it. Named her Daisy ‘cause she had these white spots on her face that looked like a little flower. Best month of my entire life.”

Thira was drunkenly trying to bite back tears as he spoke.

“You ever wake up one day and feel like you’ve changed?” Flynn continued, eyes fixed on some point in the distance that only he could see. “I don’t. Never have. I didn’t tell Elaine that I was being shipped to Mars on account of ‘disorderly conduct.’ Don’t worry, the CO I decked deserved it. I’d do it again, even if I knew that I would find out that Hell is real and that it’s hungry. If I had one wish, it would be to know when I woke up, wiped the blood out of my eyes and turned into a skinwalker wearing my own goddamn face.” 

“Flynn,” Thira whispered. “You are human, I promise.”

“Oh?” he looked down at her. “How do you reckon?”

“Your heart. You said it yourself–animals aren’t mean, they all have good hearts. And…I know I said that you weren’t broken before, but what I really meant was that I like the cracks. I can see you through them.”

“That’s…sweet. You’re sweet. At least, you are when you get past all the high-and-mighty-Sentinel-ice-princess bullshit.”

“That’s kind of you to say,” Thira closed her eyes, and an errant teardrop soaked into his shirt from where her cheek was crushed against his chest. “I admit, I’ve always been curious about your voice. I didn’t expect this.”

“Speaking of that,” Flynn sighed. “I’m about sick of hearing myself. It was quiet up here for a while, and I miss the silence.”

“Me too,” Thira snickered.

“Wow,” Flynn rolled his eyes. “Thanks for that.”

“Do you want me to lie to you and tell you that you aren’t obnoxious when you open your mouth?” she teased, reaching up to trace the hollow of his throat with the tip of her finger. His heavy, scarred hand covered hers and squeezed.

“I know I am,” he huffed, planting a kiss against her hairline so quickly that she almost missed it. “I have to listen to me twenty-four-seven, three sixty-five. It’s a fucking nightmare.”

“I don’t mind,” she told him honestly.

He gazed at her for a moment that seemed to stretch into hours.

“Thira,” Flynn said, and she smiled a little at the way her name sounded in his mouth. He leaned a little closer to her; her heart jumped so hard in her chest that she wondered if he could feel it. He released her hand and gently laid his against her cheek. She nuzzled his palm as he continued.

“Thanks,” he said, then began to close the gap between them.

Chapter Text

The door alert chimed, and in that moment, Thira swore that she possessed enough furious wrath to tear a man’s head clean off his shoulders in one motion if they got too close to her.

The closest man to her grimaced, an exasperated sigh escaping his nose and warming the planes of Thira’s angular face. The Slayer–Flynn Taggart, opened his eyes and gazed at her softly. His nose brushed the curve of her cheek and her forehead bumped against his. The distance between their lips was so spare that she could feel the warmth of his skin radiating into hers like an electrical current. 

She was close enough to see the tawny streaks in his irises and smell the wine on his breath. He was holding completely still, waiting for her command. She could close the distance, and in doing so, throw open a completely new door, leading to paths unknown. Part of her wanted to run headlong across the threshold, but the sober corner of her brain made its stand and held the line–not yet.

Reluctantly, she sighed and withdrew from him. 

“I should get that,” Thira told him, a little sad. She was still drunk, far too drunk to be speaking to colleagues.

For a hairsbreadth of a second, he looked just as mournful. But, the look passed as quickly as it had come. He audibly snorted in reply, then offered a hand to help push her to her feet.

She wobbled to the door, performing in her best impression of a straight line as she did. Nearly punching the lock console, she grabbed the handle of the door and yanked the thing open with such little ceremony it was a wonder that the entire door didn’t come off its tracks.

“What?” she snapped. 

“Commander–” Valen stopped short as he laid eyes on Commander Thira. She wore her nightclothes and her face was flushed scarlet by the heady kiss of alcohol.

Valen’s eyebrows jumped to his hairline. Never in his life had he seen Commander Thira, Sovereign Princess to the Sentinel Throne, look anything less than perfect. Much less drunk.

“King Novik wishes to speak to you,” he said carefully.

“I'll be there in a minute,” the Commander said coldly. 

“Are you…alright?” Valen asked her, but genuine concern mutated into unfiltered shock when a massive figure shadowed the doorway behind her.

“H-ey, Ace,” the Doom Slayer rasped in his heavy, shale-chip voice, delivering the first full sentence Valen had heard since the first few weeks of his arrival on Argent D’Nur. “She’s kinda… ahem …she's kinda in the middle of something.” 

The Slayer, that silent, relentless terror of a man, known by many and feared by more to be an unstoppable shotgun-toting nightmare with no regard for reason or limits on a good day, was unkempt and thoroughly intoxicated himself. Valen wondered if anything else had followed beyond drinking alone in the Commander's chambers.

“By the gods ,” Valen wheezed, unable to stop himself from letting out a single bark of stupefied laughter.

Thira groaned and wheeled around, staggering. She misstepped and lost her balance, but the Slayer reached out and effortlessly caught her by the shoulders to steady her.

“Im fine,” she slurred, pushing his hands away. “Now go away, you're embarrassing me!”

The Slayer smiled at her and Valen swore that the look he gave her was one of total, all-consuming adoration, even as she swatted at him. Her face turning crimson, she ducked beneath the Slayer's arm and disappeared into the room beyond. 

“‘In the middle of something?’” Valen repeated, meeting the Slayer's eyes. “Right. Got it.”

The warrior grinned at Valen, then stepped out into the hall and shut the door.

“I knew it. You two have had something going on since the day you met,” Valen chuckled. “The way you two look at each other, you can practically taste it!”

The Slayer shrugged and rolled his eyes in a noncommittal smirk.

“How was it? Did you actually….”

The Slayer shook his head, but a funny expression crossed his face, somewhere right between intrigue and…longing?

“You doing alright?” Valen asked as soon as the door closed. 

The Slayer sighed and nodded slowly, his gigantic shoulders sagging as if he had just put down some enormous burden.

“You sure? I haven't heard you speak since the last time things got…intense.”

He nodded again, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. He opened his mouth, cleared his throat, and spoke once more.

“Flynn Taggart,” the Slayer said.

“Who?” Valen frowned 

The Slayer pointed at himself with his thumb.

“You…you finally remembered?” Valen asked in awe. The name seemed odd to Valen; the name Flynn Taggart ought to belong to someone softer and happier than a man like the Slayer. “That's wonderful, my friend. I'm happy for you.”

The Slayer bobbed his head, smiling faintly as he absently rubbed at his chest, as if some overtaxed patch of muscle ached just above his heart.

Sadness softened his features then, glazing his eyes and canting the corners of his mouth.

“You…” Valen hazarded. “You remembered a lot of things.”

The Slayer wet his lips. 

“It w-as never really…about the rabbit, Ace.” 

Valen clapped a hand over Flynn's shoulder.

“I know,” said Valen. “But you obviously cared.”

Flynn side-eyed him, a single brow arching like a question mark on the end of a sentence.

“I discovered something when I was researching with the translators,” Valen continued. “And there's a species of flower on Argent D'Nur that looks a lot like a daisy. In our tongue, we call it ‘Serrat.’”

Flynn smiled ever so slowly, a knowing glint in his eyes. Then, he let out another grievous sigh and scratched at the spot beneath his chin.

“Restless?” Valen asked.

The Slayer nodded again, pursing his lips and looking around the hallway for exits.

Then, the door flew open once more and Thira stalked into the hallway. She had almost perfectly reset her makeup and hair, returning herself to the flawless vision of beauty she had been before her debauch had been discovered. She looked perfect, but if one scrutinized her face one could see the fury etched between her brows and the intoxicated lilt in her steps.

“Right,” she huffed. “Stay here.”

The Slayer nodded before he watched her leave, then immediately turned around and darted into the room, making for the window.

“Be safe,” Valen said, dutifully facing the opposite direction.

(O)

Three weeks passed, and Thira noticed that she felt progressively lonelier as time dragged on. 

Of course she had been disappointed to find him gone. The last time she had seen him had been almost a year ago, shortly after Serrat’s death. Now after two days, the Slayer had vanished, and Thira’s opinion of him had radically changed once again.

He was a walking paradox; brutal enough to slice a man in half without a second thought, but as gentle as could be to the soft, lovely things life had to offer. Reckless and relentless as the sea in a storm, and just as impossible to chain down. Uncouth, but somehow polite enough to return dishes to the cabinet and wait on the edge of a knife for a kiss.

The man called Flynn Taggart was a fine blade shattered by some forgotten battle, and each moment spent with him revealed another splinter of the whole. Thira wanted to root out every individual fragment and, perhaps, reforge the blade into something new. Something stronger. 

What a thought.

“--your thoughts, my dear?” 

Thira frowned at the interloper, blinked once, then recomposed herself.

“Forgive me, my lord,” she said evenly. “I’ve been…distracted…as of late.” She pretended not to see the sidelong glance King Novik threw in her direction.

“Obviously,” replied Lord Mikael Ennias, raising his glass to his nose and scenting the crystal rim. “Is it the wine, your Majesties? I admit, I am not entirely satisfied with this vintage. You will have to forgive me for the offense.”

“There is no offense,” Novik replied. “The war has affected us all in different ways.”

“I look forward to the benefits of our agreement,” Thira added. “Your warriors will be a welcome sight, and your farmlands will feed many souls that have gone hungry for far too long.”

“Please, I am the one who gains the most from this arrangement, Princess Thira,” said Ennias. “As a gesture of goodwill, my second brother has offered his quarries and mines, while my youngest sister is more than glad to bolster your armies with steel from her own foundries.”

“That is gracious,” said Novik. His chilly blue eyes warmed with some comfort, a little of the age fading from his face.

“A trifle, compared to the hand of the Princess. When shall I prepare for the wedding?”

Thira stifled a sigh, devoutly refusing to be annoyed. Ennias was a competent warrior and well liked by his people. He had land and supply lines, and he was fairly handsome, with blonde hair and sea-green eyes. However, there was a softness to his face and an arrogance to his demeanor that Thira found…uninspiring. He wasn’t quite irritating, but far from interesting, as if he were born without the type of intensity required to hold her attention.

Perhaps she felt lonely, not for the absence of the Slayer, but for the presence of the man she was meant to raise children with.

“We can discuss a date at a later time,” she said heavily. “There are duties that I must attend to. With your permission, Father, I would take my leave.”

Novik raised a hand in polite dismissal, and Thira departed in a worse mood than she had been in a long time. 

She needed a break.

(O)

Her mother’s tomb was high in the mountains, constructed beside a pristine glacial pond and sheltered by huge, ancient trees. 

A marble pier aproned the mausoleum, reaching partially into the pond like the prow of a ship. On the edge of the pier, a stone rendition of the late Queen of the Sentinels dipped her fingers into the water, face forever frozen in joyful bliss. Perfect sapphires had been set into her stone irises, a flawless mirror of Thira’s own Wraithlit eyes. The statue had once been inlaid with gold, but nature had tarnished the precious metal so badly that it looked like plain stone.

Her mother had loved nature, and Thira saw the wear as a last fulfilling of her mother’s final desires.

Thira removed her boots and rolled the legs of her pants up around her calves. Then, sitting beside the statue, she submerged her legs in the cold, crystalline water. 

She could see straight to the bottom, where filtered sunlight glinted from the backs of slender, sparkling fish. Pebbles made pinholes in verdant green moss that waved like the brush strokes of an oil painting, and the ripples that drifted from her legs reminded her of shockwaves from some devastating orbital strike.

You didn't always think of war in this place, she cursed herself.

Once, she would have thought the ripples looked like the rings of gas giants or the silver bands young girls wore before they were made into warriors.

But Thira hadn't been a girl in a long time, and her own silver band had vanished almost entirely out of memory. She didn't miss her youth or its fairy tale delusions.

But the warrior she had become was such a hard creature. She wondered if the little girl would even recognize her, and if that child would be afraid of what she saw.

Thira sighed and looked down at her arm. The Wraith lines looked like scars, as if the first layer of her skin had been neatly flayed away and had healed completely. Corroded tracks traced the statue’s stony collarbones in perfect imitation of Thira’s own markings.

Something cold within her stirred. It wasn't unpleasant, but the familiar, almost nostalgic chill of her slumbering heritage.

She has the soul of an ancient Sentinel god within her, Prince Ahzrak had said. Her nose crinkled in a sneer at the thought of him and the expression reflected back up at her from the surface of the pond.

There were many reasons to loathe Ahzrak, but the one that irked Thira the most was the fact that Ahzrak seemed to understand more of her power than she did, including how to use it. Where she needed holy mantras and ironclad focus to manifest merely an extension of her sword arm, Ahzrak had bid the very gods of the Cosmic Realm to fight by his side.

Thira rose to her feet and began to whisper words of meditation, recalling the moments where her power had been most accessible: during the Ritual of her Awakening, and the moment of terror where she had subdued the Slayer long enough for his fit of madness to relent.

Things like deadly stingers or constricting limbs were simple to understand. Chaining the Slayer down had been nothing more than a contest of wills–her terrified mind against his delirious one–but acts like transforming blood to water or forcing the Slayer’s own body to betray him were much less…physical.

Drown his strength. Make blood as water. Lightning trapped beneath the skin. Ships suspended in eternal silence. The images in her head were beginning to gain momentum, half-remembered scenes that begged to take her hand and run away with her.

She let them.

Shining carapace frosted over Thira’s right shoulder, a shimmering tentacle winding around her arm and reaching forward. Her breath began to mist, and she didn’t realize that she had lost track of the mantra. Holy scripture had been replaced by semisolid memories, all connecting and fractalizing and growing .

Drown the ships. Lightning trapped within blood. Silent strength.

The clawed tip of the ethereal appendage touched the glassy water, and the edges of the pond shifted. Perfect ripples began to skate across the water in reverse of their natural order.

Drown him. Silence before the storm. Spill his blood as water.

Halfway within the throes of a trance, Thira stepped off the edge of the pier. As the ripples came together, they met in the place where her bare foot was set to land. For a moment, she swore that she could see a sickly green glint, flashing on the eyes of every silvery fish in the pond. They were watching her. Or, something beyond things like fish and ponds had turned its eager attention to her.

Drown.

Silence engulfed her. The lightning beneath her skin burned with cold, intoxicating power, so much that her very blood felt like every drop had been replaced with raw, unfiltered power.

And, she saw ships.

She was underwater, but not beneath the surface of the memorial pond. Ephemeral green light filtered down from far above, and the depths beneath her had no plumbable bottom. The edges of her perception were a neverending, horizonless graveyard of broken ships. Voidships and seafaring vessels from every possible era lay torn in forgotten repose; detritus left by peoples that were less than playthings to beings that saw the very Maykrs as insects.

She was one of them. One of the Great Ones, children of the cosmos’ Old. Her roots drew life from great and terrible soil, the cyclopean loam of something eternal, sleepless, and beyond power itself. Life and death were jokes, not even significant enough to imply insult. Time and space were the arbitrary rules to a game played by children. Everything was small to her and had always been so.

She sensed something. A nagging, insistent itch, like the bite of a mosquito. 

By will, she turned to spot the annoyance, and laid eyes on a…what was it again…a human? Yes, that was what they were called. But, other humans weren’t like this one. She only remembered the little beasts existed at all because this obnoxious speck of dirt looked like them, and this one was interesting enough to be worth recalling.

The thing drew close to her, its form clumsy and ill-suited to the eternal depths. She laughed aloud at the sight of it, watching the way it paddled through the abyss while its body fought a losing war with suffocation. It grimaced in pain when her amusement played its music in the water. Poor thing, unequipped to appreciate the sound and sensation of proper joy.

It had only two bright, black eyes, both of them fixed on her, and possessed four, primitive limbs with joints and bones and only a small spectrum of light reflecting from its outer pigmentation. This one was dun and dark on the outside, but inside was a spark of bloody crimson. Funny little thing. 

She drifted towards it, closing the distance in a motion as easy as a magnetic breeze in a stellar nursery. 

It was smaller than she was; she reached out and gently prodded at it with one limb. When it swatted her away with a strength that surprised her, she caught it with all eight of her lovely, elegant limbs, holding its clumsy little arms and legs tight to its sides. It went still, but its funny little eyes were still locked on her face.

“What do you want?” she asked it. When its face twitched in obvious pain and trails of red appeared in the water around its nose and ears, she decided that speaking to it was useless.

She released the thing, suddenly bored, and turned to depart. She hadn’t meant to hurt it, but it was going to die anyway, with no helmet to recycle its oxygen. Poor thing, most terrestrial creatures died afraid, and for good cause. Suffering awaited them when they shed their flesh. It was unfortunate, but a reality nonetheless. As annoying and simultaneously amusing as that human creature was, it was only a….

When did she recall what a helmet was? More importantly, when had she forgotten?

She felt a hand on her uppermost limb, and the memory of hard, brutal fingers softly cradling her wrist assaulted her. She had forgotten that she had once owned a wrist, and the flesh that came with it. She remembered relief and fear and fingers and skin and taste and a dozen other things, all of them deeply connected and utterly her .

She turned, following the gentle pull of the man behind her. That was what it–what he was. She remembered that she knew him. She remembered home. Her name was Thira and she wanted to go home .

That hand seemed to sense it, and he drew her close to him in an embrace whose strength would have been frightening if not for the owner. 

When Thira’s head broke the surface of the water, the arm of none other than the Slayer wrapped around her midsection like a lifeline, she finally remembered how it felt to breathe.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Something was wrong with Thira, and it had nothing to do with the fact that she had suddenly metamorphosed into an ethereal fish creature. One moment, she had been drifting in an aqueous void, face turned upwards and palms held out. The next moment, she had become something that almost defied reason. 

It was taller than him by several feet, tiny compared to the leviathans stirring the depths in his periphery (he refused to acknowledge those), but its arms were triple his length or more, and the creature was practically shimmering with undirected energy.

Corporal Taggart had arrived at the shrine in the mountains and had been shocked to see the Commander sitting on the pier. Over the three weeks, he and Misery had stumbled across that shrine and claimed it as a stronghold, a little safe haven to defend from roving warbands of disenfranchised demons. The place was remote, and when he had first seen the young woman through the trees, Taggart had almost believed it to be an illusion. But, witch fire was a difficult sight to forget, and when he had seen Thira’s powers ignite even as she fell face-first into the pond, Taggart hadn't hesitated to go after her.

As always, his instincts were a finely honed instrument, and he had battled back the unpleasant nausea that came with arriving in the Cosmic Realm through the newly opened portal.

What had taken the place of the Commander, drifting in front of him like a submerged angel, was, without question, a Wraith. 

The name didn't feel quite right when applied to the creature before him. “Wraith” wasn't beautiful enough to describe the pearlescent scales marching down its form like the Fibonacci spiral of a seashell, nor elegant enough to capture the way its limbs flowed like the fronds of some huge and beautiful anemone. “Wraith” wasn't terrifying enough to capture the horror of the many stiletto fangs gleaming like icicles from its lipless mouth, or the osseous halo formed by its horns about its head.

He didn't have a better name than Wraith, but Taggart imagined that he would experience a similar blend of awe and adoration when he finally met the Virgin Mary; the Sentinels called these things gods, and goddamn, did they have the right fucking idea. He wanted to swear an oath to the thing, to bind his soul to it and pull the heart out of his chest for an offering.

Actually, he did have a name for the thing. Thira. “Thira” was musical enough to suit her silky black hair and her fathomless cobalt eyes, but hard enough to describe the razor sharp angles of her mind and body. “Thira” was a name that smelled like ozone and delicate florals, and tasted like the white-hot wine of ethereal rage.

The creature had let out a terrible roar, then attempted to grab him. He pushed it away, but she tried once more and there was no escaping her then.

Thira screamed at him, popping one eardrum and readjusting his sinuses so forcefully that he felt blood well in his nose.

Taggart experimentally writhed in her grip; he felt like one of those oysters dropped into an octopus tank for the little bastard to crack open. The tentacle gimmick was beginning to piss him off, and he confirmed that he could probably rip his way free if he felt like it.

But, he refused to leave so much as a bruise upon Thira, if he could help it. He made a promise to himself, and he didn't care for people that went back on their word.

The trick was finding out how to persuade her to transport them both back before he ran out of oxygen. His last jaunt through the Cosmic Realm had been much easier within the confines of his battle armor. 

Thira regarded him with her eyeless, abalone face, and a pattern of lights rippled down her body like a deep sea fish. One of her sinewy arms slipped around his throat and squeezed, twisting his head uncomfortably shy of snapping his neck. 

Something was wrong with her. He felt bruises piling on top of bruises–his formerly cracked ribs threatened to re-break. But she wasn’t trying to hurt him, instinct told him that. She wasn’t angry or terrified, just blindly curious and suddenly unaware of her own strength. It was as if something in her had snapped, like the slipped gear that seized up an engine.

He understood something of that. Though, she fell to pieces much more elegantly than he did.

Then, some switch had flipped. She released him all at once, limbs swaying to propel her away from him and into depths unknown, not unlike that same octopus fleeing its handler as soon as it finished with the oyster.

Hell no , he thought. I'm not losing you now.

Fast as anything, he reached out and caught one of her shining, serpentine limbs in his hand. The contact sent jitters up his spine and set his teeth on edge, as if he had touched a live Tesla coil.

She froze for a moment. He blinked. The electric charge evaporated. Suddenly, his fingers were gently wound around Thira's beautiful, delicately scored forearm.

Her eyes–one burning with neon fire, the other the color of ancient icecaps–focused on him. Her beautiful lips parted, and she looked confused. Bubbles skittered from her mouth and she choked. The image of her was tunnelling, the edges of Taggart’s sight fading to black as his body harried him for air. It was time to go.

He insistently pulled Thira close, and it took little persuasion. She folded into him, fingers grasping at his collarbones and head bowing to bury her face in his chest. She screwed her eyes shut and clung to him like he was her only salvation. That feeling was dangerous. Could get addictive.

He kicked his feet, frantically reaching for the surface that his mind knew wasn’t there, but his instincts screamed that he would find. Blessedly, he felt his fingers break water.

Thira convulsed, spluttering and choking. 

Taggart gasped, devoutly paddling towards the shore, maintaining a sidestroke to keep her head above water. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before he could touch the bottom, and he hauled her onto the bank beneath him to shield her from any malicious onlookers with incoming fire–old habits, he realized, when chirruping cicadas reached his ears instead of hellish weaponry. Well. One ear. The other rang obnoxiously, and blood still dribbled from his nose. 

He knelt over her for some time, bent double, watching the fireworks in his vision, listening to her retch and thanking God that she had survived.

“S-Slayer?” Thira piped around a lungful of water. She had blood on her face, the fingerprints left by his persistent nosebleed. 

He nodded wearily, unable to still his own labored panting. He collapsed into his side, pushing an arm beneath Thira's head to spare her the discomfort of laying her head on hard gravel.

“What are you–” she gagged once, a full-body heave that wracked her elegant frame.

He shook his head and squeezed her shoulder.

“Why–?” She pushed herself to her elbows, shaking as water spilled from her lips and splattered the stones beneath her. She finished vomiting up everything she had swallowed, then miserably let her head fall against his arm once more. 

His eyes were closed, but Corporal Taggart felt her go still. A moment passed. He liked this. A little adrenaline rush, then a lakeside cuddle? 

Yeah. He could get addicted to this. 

He heard a tiny noise from her: a soft, miniscule mewl, forced between the gaps in a throat that had been holding the line for far too long.

He opened his eyes in time to watch Thira snatch a sudden fistful of his shirt and throw her free arm around his waist. Her nose was crushed against his breastbone, and she let out a raw, unrefined wail. His waterlogged shirt warmed as tears mingled between the fibers of the fabric. 

The action stole his breath away and sent his heart racing at the same time as it twisted something deep in his guts.

He wrapped her in his arms. With one hand, he cradled her head over his heart. With the other, he softly pressed his fingers into the muscle of her back and gently kneaded at the tension. This turned semi-strangled sobbing into outright weeping. 

God, he hated to see a woman cry. Especially a woman like Thira. She was so composed and regal, and after their little “encounter” three weeks ago, Taggart had wanted nothing more than to see her smile like that again. To hear tears after laughter, to watch her cry her perfect little heart out all over him after she had laughed with him? It hurt to watch. It hurt bad.

He lay there beside her for a long while, wishing that he could pull her close enough to shield her from whatever pain had piled up to the breaking point, before he–

Easy there, pal, he scolded himself. He had almost kissed her hair. And her cheek. And anywhere he could reach.

She's not ready for that. Give her time.

He gently nosed her temple, trying not to lose himself in the scent of her. Then, he began to muster the energy to speak.

He had nearly forgotten that Thira didn't need him to. He didn’t know how she did it, but Thira seemed to have mastered the art of reading his goddamn mind.

“I'm fine,” she hiccupped. “It's nothing. Really.”

Bona fide, Grade-A, all-Argenta-made bullshit. But women were like that, no matter what planet they were from. They always set the table before serving what was truly on their mind; especially when it was something really hard to chew.

“I was…frightened. That's all. That place…reminds me of…difficult things.”

He thought of Ahzrak and that Witch, and of the ritual that tore Thira's being from her body. He wondered if that whole ordeal had hurt. Pain was nothing to him, but it would be cruel to demand the same stoicism from others. She did a good job of acting unafraid, but she was far too sensible to walk out of something like that unscathed. Like him, she had probably just buried it.

Taggart stroked her hair sympathetically. 

“I’ll be fine. I promise.”

He sighed heavily, then sat up. She weighed almost nothing as he pulled her with him, setting her in his lap and crossing his legs, supporting her with one arm beneath her knees and another around her back.

He waited for her to meet his eyes, then waited some more.

“What?” she sniffled, scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her palms.

(O)

The Slayer continued to stare at her expectantly.

What was there to say? That she had lost control of her powers in a lapse of self discipline? That she felt like a piece of flotsam in a flash flood, caught between the war with Hell and her duty to her people? She had been raised from birth to lead, to be an unbreakable warrior for the crown until the day she was to wear it.

Why, then, was she so angry?

She tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Everything she wanted to say stuck somewhere behind her teeth and ran back down her throat like acid reflux.

“Why are you here? How did you find this place?” she demanded lamely.

A peculiar expression crossed the Slayer’s handsome, scarred face before he made some sort of conclusion. He blinked slowly, then shifted, offering to let her stand.

She thought that he would insist on hearing her divulge her thoughts, but the Slayer had seemed to drop the subject entirely. That feeling of mutual understanding overcame her once more, chilling her fingertips.

She moved to stand, but the Slayer suddenly went rigid.

“What's wrong?” She asked, alarmed. She instinctually flinched closer to him, grabbing his shirt in both hands. 

He chuckled softly and shook his head, then carefully set her down on the rocky shoreline. He stood up, then began to walk around the pond to the pier, towards where her boots lay discarded.

It was then that she finally noticed the state of his kit.

He still wore the fatigues given to him while his armor was being repaired, and some effort had been put forth to keep them clean. However, blood wasn't an easy stain to remove, and whatever wasn't tattered or singed had been thoroughly dyed brown.

His feet were bare and covered in dirt. His hair was messy, and a short beard concealed his jaw, struck through by the old scars on his face. New scars glared from his skin, all in varying states of healing.

Deprived of his weapon harnesses, his shield was left on the beach beside the wicked, double-barrelled shotgun that had become his trademark. The shotgun was tarnished, old gore packed into the creases and staining then black. Only his shield was unblemished, blessed as it was by Thira's own abilities. 

The Slayer retrieved her shoes, but he paused the instant he turned around. His eyes rested on something behind Thira, and it was then that she heard the heavy tread of something . The Slayer's eyes went wide and he broke into a sudden sprint.

Thira whirled around and saw something massive and dark prowling from the treeline.

Her skin crawled as she laid eyes on a horse. It was the biggest one she had ever seen, black as night and its teeth as long as her hand. Its scaly front talons flexed intermittently, flashing the huge, scythe-like claws at its thumbs. 

It was growling at her, lips pulled back and head held low as it edged closer to her. 

She remembered begging her mother for horses as a little girl, like the ones the Wildmen supposedly tamed and rode into war, only to have similar experience to the one she was having now. She still had the scar left by the creature's murderous talons, and she never grew tired of watching packs of them run.

The Slayer reached it before the thing decided to charge. 

He put himself between it and Thira, then marched up to it as if the bane of herdsman everywhere were no more than a house dog.

The beast tossed its head and snorted tempestuously, but the Slayer reached out and, deftly avoiding its monstrous teeth, he snatched the beast by the rim of its jaw, close to the soft web of skin linking the two halves of its mouth.

It whined as he dug his thumb into the soft place beneath its mouth, scissoring its jaw in protest as if it were trying to dislodge some piece of bone.

The Slayer clucked low in his throat, dragging its enormous head close to his so he could stare it in the eye. He hissed between his teeth, and Thira watched the thing’s ears pin back and forth while it pawed the ground.

She breathed a sigh of relief and a little awe. Of course the beast belonged to the Slayer, and of course it was as massive and brutal as he was.

Then, the Slayer looked at Thira, his eyes flickering to where he had dropped her shoes beside her. She put them on and got to her feet when he gestured for her to join him.

“So this is what you have been up to?” Thira asked. 

The Slayer nodded and bumped his forehead against the horse’s midnight black cheek.

Then, he held out his hand. She took it, and he gently brought the back of her knuckles towards the horse's carnivorous maw.

He kept a firm grip on its face as the beast scented her. He squeezed once more, hissing as the creature winced in discomfort.

It let out a shrill whine, then lowered its head and rumbled obediently. The Slayer then placed Thira's hand on its scaly nose with an affirmative nod.

“I’ve never been this close to one that wasn't trying to eat me,” Thira smiled, the youthful corner of her soul suddenly becoming giddy. “What did you name her?” 

The Slayer’s brows furrowed and he thought for a moment. Then, his lips canted in an apologetic grimace.

Thira laughed. 

“Tell me if I’m close, alright?” she said. He looked at her, amused, and she continued,

“Tulip?” 

The Slayer snorted and rolled his eyes, smiling as he went to pick up his weapons. The horse stared intently at her as he left, but politely left Thira’s arms attached to her body. She rubbed the animal’s muzzle, unable to stop herself from grinning at the contact. The patches of smooth scales gave way to coarse, velvety hair. On males, those scales were closer to bony growths and often grew into a set of antlers, or horns to use against other males during rutting seasons. Thira used to search for sheds to make into jewelry, and still owned a few beautiful specimens. The males were smaller, with dainty cloven hooves and colorful coats. The females were huge–this one being the largest Thira had ever seen–and owned wicked front talons for hunting.

“May I have a hint?” Thira asked as the Slayer returned to her side.

He thought for a while, then stuck out his lip and traced an imaginary teardrop down the side of his face. 

“Sadness?” Thira asked. He held up his hand in a mock pinching motion. “I'm close? Let's see…” Thira thought, considering his tastes and particular sense of theatrics. “Misery?”

The Slayer’s eyebrows jumped in surprise, and his face split in a smile. He placed his hands across the horse's bare back and hoisted himself onto it, then offered a hand to Thira.

“You named her Misery? It suits her.” Thira grinned back, taking his hand and allowing him to pull her up in front of him. The creature had no saddle; she felt her heart skip a beat when the Slayer put his arm around her to steady her. His palm rested just below her navel, each finger firmly sealed against soft flesh. 

He only had to reach a little lower to… oh .

Thira felt the bulk of his chest against her back and the walls of his thighs against her hips, warm and strong as solid iron. His breath danced in her hair and brushed against her ear.

She wondered if he had placed his palm there on purpose, or if her thoughts were simply polluted beyond all rationality.

The Slayer clicked his teeth twice, and Misery began to move. 

She was fast, fast enough to outpace many transports, and surprisingly nimble as she weaved in between banks of ancient root and ferns. It felt like flying, low and fast and hard through towering green trees. The dying sunlight flickered like a bonfire between castle-tower trunks, and cicadas began to shriek as they struck up their nightly symphony.

Mist collected on the ground as the air cooled, and Thira's thoughts began to fall away into the steady drumming of claws and hooves on the undergrowth. 

(O)

Taggart felt her lean into him and quietly grinned. 

You're a smooth bastard when you want to be. Chicks dig horses. 

He liked the country here. Lots of mountains and old growth forest, humid and close enough to the sea to smell it when a storm rolled in. He was running out of demons to kill, but the roaming warbands drifting around the shrine– mausoleum , he had discovered–had served their purpose, and it was nearly time to go home.

He was overdue to retrieve his equipment. It had been almost a month of fooling around in the forest like Argent D'Nur’s own Davy Crockett, hunting for his food and roaming the countryside with no destination in mind, and it was about time to return to the war.

But, he had the Commander with him now, and something was eating at her. Since he knew he couldn't survive a day in her shoes without shooting someone, he figured he ought to show her a good time.

He took her to a high outcrop of granite that overlooked the valley. Sentinel Command could be seen in the distance, hovering above a misty carpet of ancient mossy forest.

Corporal Taggart dismounted, holding out his arms to help Thira down. He watched her cheeks flush pink as she allowed him to lower her softly to the forest floor, and couldn't help but glow a little when her hands seemed to linger against his chest for a moment longer than proper.

How long had it been since someone made him feel like that?

Forever and a day. Maybe never.

Taggart sat down on the edge of the cliff face, letting one leg dangle in the open air.

Again, something in him leaped when she sat beside him. Misery, too, joined in, folding her powerful legs beneath her and laying her massive head on the ground beside him. 

Softie , he thought with a smirk, reaching around to scratch her muzzle.

Thira let out a sigh, her eyes the color of an ocean storm. Almost a year ago, a sunset like this one had first illuminated his quiet feelings for her, and now those feelings had never been so all-pervading and bright.

Jesus Christ Almighty, she was beautiful. Beautiful like firefly summers down south and cool water in hell. Even when monstrous and alien, he had been drawn to her, to the music of her, as if he had spent so long in silence that he would stop on the side of the highway just to catch a hint of whatever angel in disguise was picking a steel-string for a couple of bucks.

“That felt good, thank you,” Thira laughed. “But if you don't mind me asking…are you alright?”

Me ? Shoot… he thought, startled. What about you ? He pointed at her heart, aware that the question was rarely wise to redirect, but unsure about how to respond.

“I'm fine,” she insisted, and he almost believed her this time. She put her hand on his arm and a little thrill shot through him.

Are you alright? 

Damn.

He folded his hands in his lap, twiddling his thumbs together, suddenly feeling very timid and small. He didn't like that question very much. Downright loathed the answer six ways to Sunday. 

He mouthed a little “ Why ?” in an attempt to throw her off, but the problem with finding someone that didn't require you to speak to them was the simple fact that you didn't have to say a damn word for them to know what you really meant.

“Because you owe me an apology.”

Not to mention that, the fact was, when women asked you what–

Oh . 

He had misinterpreted the question.

An uneasy feeling crept up his throat and a leaden ball began to roll around in his stomach. 

“You said some…interesting… things to me before you left without so much as a goodbye. I expected some audacity from you, but that borders on disrespect.”

He would have felt sheepish if the emotion weren't overshadowed by full-blown, bare faced shame .

He had been told that he suffered “episodes,” but didn't recall enough of them to worry much. The last one, however, seemed to have cracked him open like a jar of peaches and left him on the floor, scratching his head and wondering where all the glass had come from.

No, he hadn't done anything untoward. But Taggart had said plenty of things that would have had his Grandma Anya heading for the willow switch nonetheless.

Old habits die hard, and he'd defaulted to the version of himself that the UAC had sent to Mars all those years ago. That Flynn Taggart was bitter, lonely and wouldn't hesitate to bite anything brave enough to bark first. He hadn't been given enough time to pick the glass out of his skin before Thira had accidentally stepped in the mess.

Privately, he hoped that she had been too drunk to remember.

He took a deep breath to steady himself. As a rule, he had very little to say to anyone concerning any subject at any time, but when he got all amped up and on a rail? It was easier to stop a train than to pull him off the track and prevent all sorts of shit from falling out of his mouth.

And Thira was looking at him, just the way she had on the night he had his little breakdown, eyes all soul and intoxicating safety. She had gotten her hooks in him without him noticing and now she was hauling out his demons like catfish from the creek.

“My bad,” he blurted, then ground his teeth.

God dammit.

(O)

She hadn't expected the Slayer to speak, and the words of the court psychologist echoed in her mind.

Dissociative episodes, water and cracked teacups.

“Do you…?”

“Know w-here I am?” he rasped. The Slayer looked down at where his hands continued to fidget in his lap. This time, he spoke in fluent Argenta instead of English, and the gentleness had returned to him in full. He murmured each word as if by raising his voice, the mere act of doing so would shatter some ephemeral glass. “Yeah. About thirty miles Northwest of Sentinel Command.”

“I wanted to be sure,” Thira said, scooting closer to him and laying her cheek against his huge, warm shoulder, seeking the comfort. Something in her was beginning to list hard, like a building on the verge of toppling.

“It…ain't like before,” he murmured. “I…had remembered some unpleasant things. Sorry for the way I spoke to you. It was no way to treat a lady and I don't have an excuse.”

“You were having a breakdown, Flynn,” Thira told him. “I was teasing you, just then.”

“Still. Ain't right.”

She left out the fact that part of her liked the pet names and utter disregard for decorum. If another man had tried it, she might have cut him down on the spot. But from Flynn? She liked the possessiveness from him, no matter how startling it had been at first.

“You saved my life today,” she reminded him. “That makes us even.”

“It ain't square if it's something I'd do anyway,” he said back, and she melted a little.

“You don't have to,” Thira hugged his arm close, letting her lips hover over one of the many scars hatching his biceps like fault lines.

“I won't let anything happen to you, Thira. I'll die first,” he whispered, and his eyes took on an intensity that held her locked in place as firmly as gravity itself.

Thira placed the ghost of a kiss against that scar and fought back the growing urge to burst into tears. 

“I'm more upset that you left without telling me,” she said, honestly.

“Had to.”

Thira sighed as the backs of her eyes stung.

“I understand,” she said, but her hands had begun to shake.

“Hey….”

Flynn reached out and tucked her hair behind her ears. Then, gently, he took her chin in his fingers and tilted her head to meet his gaze. He searched her face, and she wondered if he could see right through her.

His skin seemed to burn where it touched hers. She couldn't breathe.

“What are you hiding from out here?” He sought in a barely-audible half whisper.

Her face screwed up and her eyes welled in such an expression of bottled-up fury that even Flynn looked surprised.

She got to her knees, hands balled into fists and lips pressed into a thin line.

Then, she threw her arms around him and kissed him.

(O)

During his active duty years, Taggart would have planned on something like this. But, it was easy to predict a kiss when you were hot-blooded and young, and your life was a long parade of army bars and clubs with cheap cocktails. You got lonely, you went out, and you pretended that the hole in your heart wasn't about to drive you nuts.

Maybe he'd gotten old without noticing. Maybe he'd lost the edge.

Or maybe he'd never fallen for anyone like this.

As surely as if he'd thrown a timing belt, every cylinder in his head stopped firing. His whole body went deer-in-the-headlights, and the sudden pang in his chest made him wonder if he was about to keel over and die of a heart attack.

He didn't know what to do.

Kiss her back, dumbass !

But he was locked up, tagged out and full blown petrified. If he wasn't sitting against Misery's massive shoulder, he might have fallen flat on his back with the shock.

Thira noticed him freeze up and pulled away from him, face still all twisted up in rage. Tears wobbled on her eyelashes, and she held his gaze with something just as intense as hate, but nothing like it all the same.

Say something. Do something. Spin the wheel, Taggart, and pick something!

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he whispered, coughing softly as something in his throat protested. He was burning up so bad that he felt it in his ears.

Thira's lovely hands rose to her lips, the tears in her eyes spilled over the lids, and suddenly she was bawling again. 

That bad ? He wondered stupidly, before he gathered what few wits he had about him. It ain't about you.

“I'm sorry,” she said, her voice strained into a wet, reedy whisper. “I'm so sorry.”

She shifted, as if to get to her feet and run, but Taggart shut that down so fast that Superman would have blinked and missed it.

He snatched her in his arms and bundled her close to him, refusing to give her the chance to panic and fall out of the dimension or something more painful than that. He grimaced at the thought, almost expecting the Wraith living in her body to rear its head and try to throttle him again.

She pawed at his chest, one tiny fist tapping like a hammer against a solid wall of scar and muscle. Compared to her, he felt like an ugly, brutal thing, like a cinder block next to the slender stem of a day lily.

“I can't do this anymore,” Thira sobbed. “So many people are dying every day and we're running out of food a-a-and we need more recruits and the Maykrs still haven't chosen a new Kreed so I've been overseeing energy supply lines and you've been out of the picture and if I lose you then it causes all sorts of problems and I…and I… I can't do this anymore. ”

And there it was. Some sort of breaking point had finally split the earth beneath her wide open and she couldn't hold it back anymore. Earlier, she had let a few tears slip out of fear and relief. Taggart had seen plenty of tears like that on the front lines–had even let a few out himself. But the raw, ugly sobbing that shook her to the bone in that moment was something else entirely. It was the half-choked wailing of a survivor lost in the desert, wasting his last water as he realized that the oasis had been a trick of the light all along: desperate, humiliated and utterly hopeless.

“ Shh ,” Taggart breathed, hugging her tighter. 

He caressed her back, tangled his fingers in her hair, nuzzled her forehead, losing himself entirely to the act of comforting her.

That, he could do, and do it gladly.

The sun slipped behind the horizon and the cool blue of night settled over the mountains like a blanket before Thira finally cried herself out.

She hid her face in her hands, desperately trying to scrub away the evidence of tears with the heels of her palms.

“Sorry,” she whimpered. “I'm sorry. This is humiliating.”

Taggart sighed. Enough time had passed for him to take a roll call of the few wits he possessed. He took her face in his hand, smudging away tears with his thumb. Her lip still trembled rebelliously; her eyes were puffy and red, but clearer now. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers as softly and sweetly as he could manage.

She made a small noise in her throat and smiled faintly, fingers over his heart. He drew her closer, desperately trying to memorize the taste and scent of her, and wishing that he could lay down at her feet and offer her everything, a hound before a worthy mistress.

He did like to compare Thira to the ocean. Now, he wanted to drown in her, let her throw him wherever she saw fit, even if it was to smash his body against the rocks of some undiscovered shore. 

Then, Thira softly pushed against his chest and he painfully, unwillingly withdrew from her.

“Flynn,” she told him. She was out of tears, but some unknown grief made her gaze flinty. “I need to tell you something.”

He brushed the tip of her nose with his, wordlessly asking for another kiss, but holding her eyes in a show of solidarity.

“I'm getting married.”

Chapter Text

The Walker had returned. 

Over the last three years, rumor had spread about Beltynia’s infamous reappearance, and month after month had been wasted in a long game of cat and mouse.

However, the line was holding, and much of it was owed to House Ennias.

Their military elite filled in the gaps left in royal leadership, and strong fighters swelled the ranks of Sentinel foot soldiers. Food and medicine kept the survivors fit for war, and the influx of raw resources allowed their army to steadily gain a foothold.

It seemed, for a time, that Hell was on the verge of losing at last. But, like a graveyard revenant, Beltynia the Walker had swept in from the great beyond and retaken control of the demon hordes. 

Those hordes seemed infinite. As with before, the Slayer was suddenly faced with an endless, unceasing flood. To keep from drowning, he was forced closer and closer to Sentinel lines, leaving him less effective a weapon with every expedition into hell. Without him to spearhead a path for their armies, the Sentinels struggled to break enemy lines at all.

“It's as if they are being resurrected en masse,” said Thira to the King's Council of War. All of Novik's most trusted warriors and advisors and their staff were gathered there, a meeting that had happened many times over the years.

Surprisingly, the Slayer himself had attended many of these meetings. Being the restless and high-strung creature that he was, he was not the sort of man to endure meetings and councils with grace. 

The Slayer had earned a seat at Thira’s left, meant for a trusted advisor, while the right was saved for her closest comrade-in-arms–a position belonging to a warrior’s spouse by default. Before her betrothal to Ennias, Valen had served as both over the years, but had been promptly shunted out by Ennias.

The advisor's chair–given to the Slayer so that Thira had an excuse to be near him–was never occupied. Even now, its owner preferred to pace the back of the room, stalking murderously between columns like a captive animal as he loaded and unloaded his weapons. It was unsettling to the table, especially at first, but those who knew him were aware that it was more of an anxious tic than a show of intimidation.

The fact that he came to these councils at all was shocking and endearing, and Thira privately knew that he was using the same tactful excuse as her to be close to her without intruding on the social order. Evidently, a few precious hours in the same room as her was worth suffering for him, particularly with nowhere to go on the battlefield.

She adored him for that, and was grateful for his company. Ever since their encounter near the mausoleum, the Slayer often placed himself near her. He was never overbearing or disruptive–at least never more than usual. He simply chose to be close to her, whether that meant guarding the space in her periphery when she was in public, or escorting her to her next destination when the setting was more private.

When Ennias wasn't hovering over her, Thira and the Slayer would often find themselves walking for hours just to prolong each other's company. He spoke to her occasionally, but never more than a few whispered words of conversation. 

There had been affection in between the lines. There were gentle moments on the battlefield, inconspicuous gifts given in secret, stolen kisses in between objectives, once a nap in his arms beneath a tree, and a dozen other chaste, gentle things that delighted and pained her in equal measure. It had all the sweet saccharinity of a fairy tale. Perhaps they both knew that it would never become a reality, so they played out the fiction for what small comfort it had.

Unfortunately, Thira had grown to truly, deeply love him. 

Thus, she had procrastinated the day she was to marry Ennias for as long as possible. All things consiered, her fiance had been very patient and gracious with her “cold feet”, but she was running out of excuses.

“That cannot be possible. I was under the impression that demons ceased to exist once they were killed,” said the Ensign to murmurs of agreement.

“We have slaughtered millions of Hell's forces, and yet they don't seem to suffer any losses,” said Commander Valen. “Either the Walker has opened up some new birthing pit we know nothing about, or the demons are being recycled somehow. We are running out of leads.” His son, Marok, nodded beside him. 

“We suspect that it’s the second. Our reconnaissance team picked up an energy signature during our last push,” Thira continued. “It was large enough to detect from a massive distance. We think that it may lead us closer to discovering the Walker's secret.”

“What do you propose?” Novik asked from his throne, offering a stately nod.

Ennias stood before Thira could reply.

“I propose,” Lord Ennias said from Thira’s right. “That Princess Thira face the Walker once more.”

A hush fell over the room, and Thira met her fiance’s eyes before she slowly nodded her permission.

“You would have the Commander risk her life when the Slayer is better suited to the task?” Novik asked, refusing to hide his irritation. 

“Ah, but he isn't,” Ennias held up a finger, and Thira glared hard across the table at the Slayer, hoping that Ennias hadn't noticed the way the Slayer bristled at the insult.

“The Walker knows him and his methods, we saw this at the battle of Castle Torran,” Ennias continued. “She knows to deflect or avoid the Slayer at all costs, even at the expense of her own hordes.”

Heads nodded as the Council remembered. That battle had been a slaughter. 10,000 demons had fallen, where the Sentinels had lost a meager 50, all in the span of three days. The Walker, surprised and backed into a corner, had thrown her entire horde between her and the Slayer in order to force a bottleneck tight enough for her escape. The Slayer, bogged down once more by sheer numbers, had not been able to make up the lost time.

“I propose,” said Ennias. “That Thira goes by stealth to face the Walker with Commander Valen, but only to serve as an anvil. When the Walker takes the bait, myself, young Marok and the Slayer will have revealed ourselves to be the hammer. The Walker will have to choose between Thira–who killed her once before–and the Doom Slayer. She will have nowhere to run.”

“Noble of you to offer yourself for the advance party,” Novik acknowledged. “But I am not certain that placing two commanding officers, a House Lord and an aspiring champion directly on the front lines is worth the risk. Working beside the Slayer is not a task for the…unprepared. He works alone for a reason.”

“With respect, my king, what have we to fear from the Slayer? Are we all so afraid of the Beast that we forget the noble soul underneath? He has given us no reason to think that our lives are not safe in his hands.”

“The Slayer is a weapon whose power should not be underestimated,” Novik added, stone in his voice. “Least of all, by his allies. Placing him anywhere besides the fore of the vanguard will slow him down and put lives in danger.”

Thira glanced at the Slayer as murmurs filled the room. He was standing perfectly still, flinty black eyes locked on Ennias beneath his helmet. She could see the temptation to protest aloud in the way the bridge of his nose creased. He agreed with Novik.

“It's true,” Ennias said, puffing out his chest and raising a hand in the Slayer's direction. “We speak of him as if he were some temperamental spirit of destruction to be conjured at a moment's need and dismissed as a bad omen, and I say that we ought to be ashamed. I am a stranger in your noble nation; our only common ground is loyalty to our King. But, during these three years, I have seen nothing but honor and unmatched courage from your Slayer. He has demanded no payment or glory. He has asked for no lordship or land. He has not even been allowed into the ranks of the Sentinels! All he requires from you are the tools to fight, and he has repaid you in the blood of Hell's greatest warriors. Why, he brought you the head of Prince Ahzrak himself, and has asked for nothing in return! Speaking for myself, I will not ask this warrior to endure my distrust on top of my ingratitude.”

People were looking at the Slayer, who continued to stand stock-still as Ennias turned to Novik.

“Your Majesty, the Walker has shown us that previous tactics are useless. If the Slayer is given support until the final strike, I think there is a chance to cut him an opening. We offer him support, and in turn he guarantees our safety. On my life, my King, there are no lives at this table more important to me than that of Princess Thira. But, if I may be so bold, I insist that we can depend on the Slayer. He will not let our lives go to waste.”

Novik, Thira, Valen and the Slayer simultaneously glanced at each other. If Ennias noticed the unease slithering through the Council, he gave no sign. He wasn’t incorrect in his judgement of the Slayer’s character, but Ennias seemed to be deliberately softening the Slayer’s brutal, merciless and often destructive rules of engagement.

They all wanted to fight, but Ennias had never fought Hell up close. He was a capable warrior, but all of this seemed like a grab for the glory of ending a powerful demon at the right hand of the legendary Doom Slayer.

Ennias didn't seem like front line strike team material. 

Ennias was also completely unaware of the fact that the Slayer didn’t like him.

(O)

Jackass, Taggart thought with a sneer.

The little blonde fuckwit already left a bad taste in his mouth, but after a long-winded, corny spiel about how the esteemed Mr. Flynn “Unchained Predator” Taggart was, actually, He-man on a white stallion, he decided that Mikael Ennias was the type of dipshit they warned you about in the Corps; a rich boy that bought into his own propaganda so deeply that he thought his optimistic delusions were the truth about reality.

Or, maybe Taggart was jealous. He did get jealous, and Thira was no exception.

God in Heaven, he loved that woman. Her hair, her smile, her magnetic and stern charisma on the field, the way she fidgeted with her fingers when she was uncertain, the fact that she could do anything from jewelrymaking to stunt piloting. And her eyes, bluer than blue was ever meant to be; he let himself get lost in those eyes whenever he had the chance.

Why she wanted to deal with a violent lone wolf all juiced up on Argent Energy and adrenaline was beyond him, but Taggart had the sense to assume that she saw something in him that he had lost the ability to perceive.

That was the poetry that women wrote. If you let them, they spread out all your ugly parts on the table and made you realize that you weren't as broken as you thought you were, as if they saw you as a jigsaw puzzle and had the box art the whole time. Taggart couldn't see the picture yet, but he wanted to do right by Thira’s vision, and maybe that picture was why she wanted him.

Or maybe it was the fact that Flynn Taggart–if nothing else–knew when to keep his damn mouth shut.

He stared at Ennias and tried not to think about how working with the little weasel would feel. He would talk a lot, try to claim his kill when he could. The others knew that Taggart didn't like to share those kills, and had the sense to stay out of Taggart's way. He could see it now, Ennias raising his blade and crying “have at thee, evildoer,” at a cybernetically augmented Mancubus as if the thing gave a shit, where Taggart could have rushed it, stunned it, then sawed the demon clean in half by the time Ennias got the words out.

 At least Ennias had volunteered Valen's boy as well, which was some relief.

Taggart liked Valen, and he liked Marok. They made him wonder what Caleb would have grown up to be like, had Hell never invaded. Caleb would likely have been around Marok’s age by now. Maybe. He didn't remember.

Christ .

Taggart snarled to himself as all that hatred and grief oozed to the surface caught fire. He began to pace again, trying to cool down and pay attention to what was being said.

Ennias was debating with the Ensign and a few other noble stooges that he, frankly, didn't care about.

Valen was watching him. Good ole Valen. Tough as nails, sharp as tacks and reliable to a tee. His boy was a spitting image, and Valen loved that kid more than life. A perfect father to a perfect son.

Taggart could make a better son than Ennias ever could. Sure, Ennias was rich and not entirely repulsive to look at, but could he pull the head off a cyberdemon with his bare hands? Pigs hit Mach 3 with the Blue Angels first. Did anyone really think that Ennias could raise anything but a goofy, Kroger-brand Novik with no backbone and the silver spoon still sticking out of his mouth? The boy's mother wouldn't stand for it.

Taggart stopped himself there. The idea of Thira in bed with Ennias was infuriating enough to make him come unglued, and nobody in a thousand klicks wanted that. He ground his jaw until his teeth ached, racking and unracking his shotgun to channel the fury into something that wasn't the nearest stone wall.

He tried to pay attention once more, but the Council was still debating some boring detail. Why didn't they get off their asses, grab the bronco by the reins and break the damn thing themselves? Wars weren't won by talking about it, they were won by killing the other guy first . He couldn't focus on bureaucracy without pissing himself off, and he couldn't clear the thoughts of fathers and sons from his head.

Maybe he wanted a son. There was a thought. Teach him what's right, how to work, how to protect his own. Hell, a little baby girl would be perfect, too. Raise her strong and smart and meaner than all sin in a scrap. Taggart wouldn't complain if he ended up with two little munchkins running around with his eyes and his temper. He could teach them about destiny and what was worth fighting for, and be reminded of those things in return.

Maybe he wanted to start over again.

Was he ready for that? 

The dream was tempting. Part of him wanted to make amends with God or karma or whatever it was that gnawed at his soul for being a lackluster father to Caleb. Another part of him warned that those kinds of cycles weren't broken easily. The quiet part of him wanted nothing more than to lie down under a tree somewhere warm with the woman he loved under his arm and a gap-toothed toddler playing with the dog in the field, and doze off before dinner.

Mostly, he wanted this goddamn meeting to end.

Thira was talking. That got his attention; every word out of her mouth sounded like gospel music.

God in Heaven, he loved that woman.

(O)

“My strength has only grown since I last faced the Walker. With the Slayer and the Sentinel’s best at my side, there is no way we can lose. I am in favor,” Thira concluded, rising and drawing her sword. She set it on the table, its crimson blade pointed towards the center.

“As am I,” Valen called from across the way, adding his weapon. Other members of the council joined in, until a ring of swords and axes had formed on the table.

Thira looked to the Slayer, and found that he had taken a few steps closer to the table, but his eyes were firmly fixed on Novik. Indifferent to the Council, he was waiting for the King’s call.

Novik slowly regarded each member. Concern etched his forehead when he met Thira's eyes, and she implored for him to rule in Ennias’ favor.

Novik looked at the Slayer last, an unreadable expression on his face.

Through the blur of his visor, Thira watched the Slayer's brow furrow and the rise of his cheek soften in an expression of solemn determination.

Your call. You can trust me either way.

She could read the Slayer almost as clearly as if he spoke aloud, and something twisted in her chest at the sudden pang of longing.

“Very well,” Novik declared, dragging Thira’s thoughts back to the present. “Ready our armies. We depart for Hell in three days.”

The Council announced a war cry, but the Slayer was still looking at Novik. Some unseen resignation passed between them, and Thira watched the Slayer blink slowly, a barely perceptible nod distorting the light reflecting from his visor.

(O)

She found him in the stables.

Misery shook her head when Thira entered the room, and the horse’s lip inverted in a warning display, flashing her huge white fangs with a low growl. Wicked gunmetal plate covered the beast’s neck, breast and haunches, and a modified ballista had been mounted to her saddle, so that one could mistake her for a runaway tank if they weren’t paying attention.

“Afternoon,” Thira said, hefting a parchment package that she had brought with her. Misery lowered her head and licked her chops, tracking the object in Thira’s hands with predatory intent.

The Slayer was fully armored, checking the heavy weapons harness that made up Misery’s tack. He turned and his eyes softened beneath his helm. They flickered to the parcel in Thira’s hand. He blinked and returned to the task at hand.

With his permission secured, Thira unwrapped the package and held out a fine cut of raw steak.

“Go easy,” Thira told her firmly. Misery’s ears pinned, her bloody crimson eyes glanced sideways at the Slayer, and the beast slowly craned her neck, reaching for the offering with her odd, prehensile lip. Thira couldn’t help but laugh at the way the two watched each other, as if waiting for the other to suddenly burst into flame. The creature fumbled for its prize, lip flapping like a thumbless, fingerless hand, until Misery caught the edge of the gift with a fang and yanked the whole thing into her carnivorous maw, chewing twice before swallowing it whole. Thira didn’t think she would ever stop wondering at horses; they were such bizarre creatures.

Unafraid, Thira placed a hand on Misery’s scaly forehead and began to scratch between her ears. When Thira looked up, she saw the Slayer watching her, affection written on his face by the crease of his eyelids and the smoothing of his forehead.

Thira clung to the moment for a precious while, trying to pretend that this moment was the truth of her reality. She had gotten good at convincing herself, and fingered the chain of the elegant engagement medallion beneath her breastplate as she imagined a matching one peeking from the Slayer’s fur collar.

Thira sighed as she remembered why she was there.

“Flynn, I can’t put the wedding off any longer,” she murmured. “Ennias means to announce a date to the public as soon as we return from the fight.” The Slayer cast her a sidelong glance, his brow re-furrowing before returning to his inspections. He had been wondering when time would run out for a long while, and the news was far from surprising.

“The summer solstice is next month. He wants to do it then,” said Thira, miserable.

The Slayer didn’t respond.

“Flynn?”

He readjusted the pintle mount supporting the saddle ballista.

“Flynn, please.”

He paused. Closed his eyes for a moment. Then, turned to face her. Even if she could meet his eyes, she wouldn’t have been able to read his expression.

(O)

She put a hand against Taggart’s arm, warm and soft and everything he could have wanted in that moment.

When she called his name like that, there was nothing that she could ask him for and not receive. If she wanted the moon, he would go and get it for her. If she wanted to rule the world, he would see it done. If she wanted anything he would give her everything .

“If something happens to Ennias,” she said in a tone that reminded him of razor blades, bad news and empty magazines in a firefight. “Then…something happens. That’s all.”

Except for that.

Taggart hated the guy’s guts, but not enough to really consider killing him or leaving him to die in some charnel pit. No one deserved that. Sure, Ennias was a dumbass, but being an obnoxious pill was hardly a crime worthy of backstabbing.

Taggart stared at Thira, watching the ice behind her eyes turn steely. He turned away from her, rolling his shoulder to break the contact where her hand touched him. The fact that she would ask something like that of him…that pissed him off.

“Think about it,” she continued. From the frantic tone in her voice, he knew she was stuck on a track, heading for panic. “There’s no honor lost. It’s a dangerous mission, no one would bat an eye.”

Taggart wet his lips and took a breath.

“That’s fucked .”

The venom in his voice was enough to make her flinch back a few steps. But, ever the warrior, she regained her composure and clenched her fists.

“Then I’ll kill him myself,” she hissed, and the hair on the back of Taggart’s neck stood on end as he felt the snakeskin whisper of Eldritch power creep through the air.

He wheeled on her, and she didn’t so much as blink out of fear or alarm as he did. He stared her down, silently furious.

“All that strength and you won’t use it when I need it the most?” Thira demanded. The air got chilly, and Misery tossed her head anxiously, growling and pawing the ground as she did. Taggart slowly put a reassuring hand against her huge, midnight black neck. There were too many things he could have said in that moment, so he opted for nothing at all. He simply held his ground, staring Thira dead in the eyes.

“If he dies in combat, then we lose nothing between our nations and…and my father is beginning to accept you. Maybe I can convince him–”

He couldn't stay angry with her. He had to de-escalate.

Taggart sighed and took his helmet off and tucked it beneath his arm before he turned once more and met Thira’s eyes.

“No.”

“Why not?” The air tasted dangerously of ozone, and Taggart braced himself for the pain of broken ribs and punctured lungs as he remembered when Thira had lost control of her power in the past.

“Flynn,” she growled, continuing. He didn’t answer her beyond a subtle baring of his throat–the closest thing to a sign of deference that he would give to anyone.

Her shoulders began to shake and her eyes welled. Taggart held his breath as he prepared to have the life nearly strangled out of him. But, she didn’t cry this time, and her control had increased a thousandfold. All at once, the static in the air evaporated, and the excess energy escaped her beautiful lips as a puff of frozen mist.

“Forgive me,” she whispered.

Flynn reached out and took her hand, gently bringing it to his lips and pressing her palm against his mouth. 

He understood, and if they were two normal people, things would be different. But Thira had a kingdom to nurture and tradition to uphold. And, no matter what anyone thought of either one, he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his soul to change the way things were. To do so would be to betray the trust of King Novik, and to snuff out one of the last flickers of good left within him.

Taggart walked her back to her quarters that night. She didn’t have anything to say to him, but he didn’t mind the quiet. There was tension, but he ignored it, content to exist in her company for what little time they had left.

As he brought her to her door, she took his hand and gently squeezed. The motion sent little tingles up his spine, even three years later.

“Flynn,” she said. “Will you stay with me tonight? Please?”