Chapter Text
at some point, zam’s name has become synonymous with the blindfold bandits. ever the loyal bodyguards, right? they’ve told him they’re gonna kill everyone else but him. it starts off as a bit, but now there’s this ever-growing sense that he’s solidifying his own inevitable doom at their hands — an accumulating debt that keeps piling on, with each heart they toss him and each death they save him from. he just doesn’t know when repayment’s due, and that makes it infinitely worse.
the others jokingly say he’s obtained scary dog privileges, with the server’s most feared players at his beck and call. but as they tug harder at their leash, jaws snapping and eyes starving, he begins to doubt the accuracy of that comparison. they’re more wolves than dogs, and it’s always been foolishly naive to believe that they could ever be tamed. mane only answers to flame, and flame answers to no one.
“zam, you good?” mane’s voice snaps him out of his daze, and he forces himself to nod. there’s still an easy smile playing on mane’s lips, but that doesn’t mean anything, really. zam’s seen him draw his sword in the middle of a sentence, laughing as he drives the blade into flesh, bathing his hands in blood with reckless abandon. his mood seems capable of shifting in a blink of an eye, and that blindfold he wears is decidedly not helpful in the slightest. he feels the other’s stare digging into his regardless; studying his expressions, scanning for points of weakness, and deliberating over the most brutally efficient way to take him down.
zam doesn’t even know if mane does it consciously, or if it’s been ingrained in him after years of bloodshed. he hates the feeling of being watched like that nonetheless. it’s as if he isn’t a person in their eyes, but a cute little ant they keep around just because they find him endearing (for now.) they toss their scraps to him in the form of hearts, and he gobbles them up while preaching his ideals of pacifism. zam’s a coward, a hypocrite, and a liar so committed he’s fooled even himself. he thinks that the blindfold bandits are acutely aware of that fact.
it sickens him to the core. it makes him want to plead for forgiveness. (he doesn’t deserve it. they don’t understand forgiveness, either way.)