the cruelty of the cards
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He would make this effort for none other. He has not the heart, he knows, to mourn so deeply each loss levied against him. How many are there now? Thousands, surely. Thousands and thousands. He stopped keeping count after learning of what happened following the fall of Phidoch; someone else, somewhere else, has looked after the list of casualties since then, has handled harrying the news home to those who had homes and seeing to the burials of those who did not. Denam does not know who it is that oversees this – he left it to Mirdyn to find a suitable substitute, he feels, though can’t be sure.
He has little certainty of anything save the grave these days.
Denam pays a visit to Vyce before the sacking of Heim.
(DAY 1/31: GRIEF)
Series
- Part 1 of the cruelty of the cards
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“You cannot know of what you speak.”
“But I can and do know of what you speak. You fear for me, and I here, hale?”
“Such is now, Vyce. It was not always so. You cannot know of…of any of it. You cannot hope to understand the ways in which I saw you, the wounds” – Denam’s hands fumble, one to Vyce’s neck, reaching to rest three cold fingers on his cheek; the other wraps around his back, bringing him near – “that were borne between us.”
Vyce offers what little comfort he can on a rough night.
(DAY 2/31: MIND CONTROL)
Series
- Part 2 of the cruelty of the cards
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“If you could only hear yourself. You’ve always been the one she cares for. Not even your father was good enough for her.” How terribly true. “You’re the only one she trusts – the only one she loves!”
Vyce lunges, levels a left hook to Denam’s lower jaw – still a sting in that, even after all this time. Something or another sounds to crack, somewhere. He ought to wear a helm. He swashes blood in his mouth and spits it to the ground, pushing at the elder's chest with his pelta to put space twixt them.
“No…it’s not too late.” It is, he thinks, too late. It is always too late. He has turned the Wheel as far as it will turn without tearing free and it remains too late. “Whatever you may say, I was a friend to you. And I would be so again.”
“I want no betrayer for a friend!”
Denam reprises the Almorica duel and hopes yet again for a kinder outcome.
(DAY 3/31: BETRAYAL)
Series
- Part 3 of the cruelty of the cards
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,299
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 1
- Hits:
- 64
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Denam takes a shallow breath, swaying slightly on his feet. A useless sibyl after all. “You must be a touch softer with Olivya,” he mutters, apparently a continuation of whatever he had been going on about. “It’s not been an easy adjustment for her. She’s not the same as you and I.”
“What, commoners?”
“No, Vyce, soldiers.”
“Ah, yes. Careless of me to forget the double bond of Bakram blood and blessed children.” Vyce is himself bewildered by the bitter bite, the baseness of his words. Why must he always be so? “Worry not. Your dearest will be given due deference.”
Vyce cannot help but bristle when he sees Denam with her.
(DAY 4/31: JEALOUSY)
Series
- Part 4 of the cruelty of the cards
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The door, now. He knows where to look, immediately catches Vyce’s eye – does he seem any different? Are his eyes set in a glare or a gaze? He cannot tell for a moment, though it is very quickly made clear to him in the stillness of his childhood friend, in the stalling, in the stopping short: no, he is no different. Denam’s fingers curl around the card kept safe in the cloth of his gloves. What good does it do to stay any longer? Might he not leave before the worst of it? Has he not played his part in this pantomime more than enough?
He shakes his head to himself, banishing these wilfully weak wants: each time he returns to this point is a new turning of the Wheel – what is to say this one will follow the tracks of its predecessors? Has he always held such little faith?
Denam returns yet again to Balmamusa, hoping against his better knowledge for a kinder outcome.
(DAY 5/31: CURSE)
Series
- Part 5 of the cruelty of the cards
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“What would I know about that sibyl?”
Gildas inches nearer on his left. “You’d know all that Denam knows, that’s for sure.”
“Pardon?”
“You must know a little,” Mirdyn assents, coming closer on his right. “Don’t you?”
“Why – why would I?”
“Come now, you couldn’t play coy if the commander’s life depended on it.” Canopus laughs. “I know full well you’re his nearest ear. What tells you he? Did he really forget the lass ‘til we found her in Brigantys?”
Vyce scowls. “I have no idea. Haven’t you anything more to worry you?”
“Ought we have? You’re looking awfully worried yourself.”
Vyce shares a drink with the Xenobians, who are very eager to know of their young commander's love life following the appearance of one Olivya Phoraena.
(DAY 6/31: UNREQUITED LOVE)
Series
- Part 6 of the cruelty of the cards
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“You and I saw him at Balmamusa. You know he was blind and deaf to all reason.”
“But perhaps not to me,” he mumbles. Shameless, to make such a comment – his cheeks flush at his own words, not one to be so forthright in personal matters such as this. “He may have heeded me.”
“With that hard head of his? Not bloody likely.”
Denam has Canopus tend to his wounds after encountering Vyce - or some version of him, at least - with Nybeth in Golyat.
(DAY 7/31: FORGOTTEN)
Series
- Part 7 of the cruelty of the cards
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Summary
“And how’s your appetite?”
“I’ve been eating, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Yes, but are you still nauseous?”
“I eat, Vyce. I keep down what I can, as well as I am able. I rise and rest early, I walk the sands before and after each meal, I sit by the sea while the sun shines and by the window when it doesn’t. I do all that was asked of me. Gods, can we dispense with such talk?” Denam huffs, turning away now, shoulders hunched. Were they always so slight, so sad? “I am not a babe yet wet behind the ears. I understand full well my predicament.”
Vyce pays a visit to his ailing commander.
(DAY 8/31: TERMINAL ILLNESS)
Series
- Part 8 of the cruelty of the cards
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 2,811
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 3
- Hits:
- 46
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Denam does not take his eyes from the box before him – ‘old’ tunics, made to look so with the lightest rubbing of mud and moonwort. He regrets having to stain them at all, but he is careful to make it so that the worst of dirt can be simply dusted off; elsewise one might look too closely and ask questions he would rather not answer. “Donations,” he says quietly. “Shall I take anything for you, Sister?”
“Oh no – I don’t grow quite so quick.” Catiua laughs. “I don’t know that you do, either.”
“Pardon?”
“Ah, nothing. Do be careful with whatever it is you’re doing, won’t you? I doubt Father will be too happy if he sees he’s got to get to the tailor again.” He hears her sigh, and glances up to find her staring at him with strange eyes. “I’ll tell him I couldn’t mend them, but only this time, do you hear me?”
Denam never does know when to leave something alone.
(DAY 9/31: NEGLECT)
Series
- Part 9 of the cruelty of the cards
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,080
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 3
- Hits:
- 39
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“I wonder a great deal more than that,” he mumbles. “I wonder if it is you at all.”
“If what is me?”
“This – any of this.”
“What do you mean?”
“You would sleep now, would you not? You would sleep if I would. You are not worried in the least. You would sleep,” he says again, his voice climbing, “and you would hie the morn hither in spite of what it is set to bring. Of course I wonder if it is you at all to whom I speak, to whom I am supposed to swear – of course I wonder. To lay like this–” Vyce moves to make some inelegant gesture to the pair of them but is stilled in an instant by a press of Denam’s bare hand to the small of his back; he scoffs even as his skin warms through the cloth, though he does not try to turn any further. “And now you will not even allow me to look on you.”
Vyce makes ready for the march on Balmamusa.
(DAY 10/31: GHOST)
Series
- Part 10 of the cruelty of the cards
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 2,146
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 3
- Hits:
- 36