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Chapter Text

Zelgius never believed in things such as trivial as destiny.

Destiny was held on such a lofty cloud, those high pedestals meant for those worthy enough of Fate, of having some preordained life written in the script of stars, of leading a life that led to a future grand and above anything the world had seen before. Destiny meant purpose, destiny meant that everything had a rhyme or reason, had some explanation for how it grew and how it died. Who, tell him, who could look upon the plight of a little boy, lonelier than any man who had came before him, hiding himself in a wooden closet to escape sneers and pointing fingers, and say it meant something? That it was worth it? That somehow, through some tragic and cruel and heartless line, suffering was a child’s destiny.

Destiny was for kings and tyrants with ambition that reach the heavens or sought to usurp it. Destiny was for self important fools who fancied themselves heroes and liberators of a world that, as Zelgius saw it, would always be done up in chains. Destiny was not for a young man who fled from his home in the dead of night, knowing that family would always be the coldest storm and loneliness a warm summer. What Goddess could say that he deserved it? That it was his destiny to pay the price of a sin that was not his? That the faults of his forefathers was his destiny, that his fate was merely to be a worthless, hated, wretched blasphemy when all he had done was breathe?

Destiny was for men better than Zelgius. Acceptance, however, was a dear friend.

Yes, he could never believe he had a destiny because there was no conceivable way that the Goddess cared enough for him to even give him one. All She had done was spill an ink well on his shoulder and thrown him out into the world, forgetting him the moment he was placed in his mother’s arms, wailing and covered in blood. Anything after that was the plaything of an empty void and creation’s cruel nature.

He could accept that his life would be fraught with shame and rife with sorrow without believing it was his destiny to endure such suffering. He had decided it after all the world made him believe it was true. He was a monster, he was something to be ashamed of, he was something to hide and he was certainly something to hate.

When he arrives in Askr, Zelgius approaches it with a resigned acceptance. There is no denial. He should have died. Oh, he was so very close to dying, the blood pooling around his body a warmer embrace than the world ever cared to spare him, but he hadn’t.

(Zelgius knows it isn’t the afterlife because someone like him would deserve worse than a realm of cedar trees and falling feathers. That doesn’t change anything though. Zelgius has been a liar far too many times before, but his final breath was not a lying one. He is waiting. He will always be.)

When Zelgius catches a glimpse of eyes of emerald green, somber and soft and perfectly memorized in his mind, he wonders if such things like destiny could apply to him in the end.

It is as if he is full again, as if something within him pounds and beats and sings a song he has always known far too loudly when Lehran turns to him with a gentle smile in spite of the world and says his name. Lehran says his name as if he longed to, as if it were something he missed from the beginning of the world and was finally allowed to speak of it again. Lehran says his name as if it were one of those melodies the heron could no longer sing, written in a language only he could understand. Lehran says his name as if it were a pane of glass once shattered that with every shard he delicately repaired by hand. Lehran says his name and almost immediately after the smile dancing on his lips falls alongside a stray teardrop.

Lehran says his name again, broken and wrecked. And Lehran says his name again after that, as if saying it could force him to believe that Zelgius stands before him. A prayer of disbelief, a prayer of wanting, a litany expanding of please, please, please reverberating across all of time and space and any other plane of existence.

The next moment, Zelgius forgets anything about destiny or acceptance or fate or the Goddess.

He forgets about it because it never truly mattered to him. Nothing ever mattered as much to him as Lehran. Zelgius forgets about it because in the same second Zelgius comes to the conclusion of two things: one, that if destiny truly exists, then would this not mean that a little red string ties the both of them, that the stars they were born from were one, and that they were always meant to meet once and twice and thrice all the way to the very last time and even after, and two, that if he was wrong about that, then Zelgius was right to not care about destiny because it did not even realize the most wonderful thing in the world, and damn it to hell if fate wrote a future where they were not alongside each other.

“ Lehran.” Zelgius says his name, forgetting any formality, any station, any little reservation that he once held in his living breath and says his name with greater devotion and affection and piety and loyalty and love than any word Zelgius has ever spoken before. Any other word was a futile device in comparison to “Lehran.” he says, again, barely even noticing that the two are closer than they were in the seconds prior.

There are worlds of questions to ask, of truths to speak, but neither of them say anything beyond the other’s name. Lehran clutches onto Zelgius, arms pressed against the general’s back, against armor that Lehran last saw broken and caked with blood and encasing a corpse soon to rot. The plead echoes, please, please, please . Lehran holds tightly, cursing that damned blessed armor because it is too cold and hard and it is metal and not flesh and he cannot hear Zelgius’s heartbeat and all over again, he is dead. He wishes it weren’t there, that he could feel the warmth of the general's body, that he could trace ancient words on his skin, that Lehran could know, however death defying and illogical it seems, that Zelgius is alive. 

But his hand cradles the back of Lehran’s head, holding him in a silent reminder that says all that both of them refuse to speak of or acknowledge.

Zelgius should hate himself for crossing such a boundary, for believing himself worthy of such a simple touch, but he does not. He is not able to give such an emotion life in the wake of Lehran.

For how long they remain like that, statues intertwined with each other, neither of them know, neither of them care.

After some time, Lehran speaks on a note as soft as moonlight, “I… I hope you did not wait too long.” It seems as if that is all they had done, all they had sworn to do. To wait and to reunite.

Zelgius stops and ponders that question, pulling away slightly to look at Lehran. “I was not.” Let him speak of the eternities he is willing to let pass for Lehran. To the very beginning of this dreaded world, before the universe was split into fives, Zelgius would wait and with an open heart welcome as all their earthly sorrows were swept away. To its very end, when the world is consumed by holy flame and the stars flicker and dim so far away from where they stand if that meant he would no longer be alone, even in those fleeting moments before the universe fell to void. In that dream of being without, Zelgius can say that only relief is awakening and seeing with. “Nothing would ever be too long a wait for you.” 

Chapter Text

Zelgius had seen many parts of Tellius. Being a general demanded it so, traveling to different soon-to-be battlefields and palaces to sign treaties. Being the confidant of Begnion’s prime minister demanded it as well, to guard Lord Sephiran in foreign matters and in his home, to lead his personal army and to follow him throughout whichever halls the senator so wished him to. Being the blade of Lehran drew him to any corner of the continent which was bid of him. He would have crossed that desert if Lehran only asked him to, after all.

The man remembers some quaint little villages that he and Lehran had passed together after he left the Daein army. They found each other, somehow, without meaning to and meaning to all the same. Their parting words had been vague, and in those five years coming up to Gawain’s departure, Zelgius had wondered just exactly how he was supposed to find a man he had only met once amidst a world of other people who had never looked at him as softly as the lord sage did that day. The wagon rides were not comfortable, and the time they were ambushed by a passing bandit group just as they nearly escaped the mountain range between Begnion and Daein was not, either, a joyful experience (but Zelgius does remember with a sort of muted joy the memory of how the both of them looked at each other after all the bodies fell to the floor and Lehran had haphazardly picked up a tome from one of the bandit’s corpses that Zelgius previously slew and used it, chanting the words the heron once sang and how they laughed , bloody and sweaty and in disbelief that they had won together ) but it had been necessary to reach Sienne. One a few hours below Nox had been Zelgius’s favorite, with a little bridge over a whispering creek that the two had stood by for half an hour, speaking of how the sun shines and the moon falls and all other nothings that did not matter.  

Somehow none of Tellius compares to the sight of this marketplace, flowing with heroes and Askran natives alike as if it were more of flood than a place of commerce. The stalls span for miles, canopies colored with as many colors as the general could name and far more than he could not, their wares the same in familiarity and lack thereof. At a certain point along the line, more and more of the stalls were of foodstuffs, with freshly baked breads and rows upon rows of fruits and produce to perfectly made pastries and candies. He finds one that solely sells caramels, and Zelgius thinks to buy some-- for Sanaki, of course, a known favorite of the apostle to the point where he would often sneak her some, far too soft in reality to say to no to the child-- but he then remembers in a falling second that the empress had not yet been summoned to Askr, not even to begin of thinking if she would even accept a delicate memory of the past after what she now would know of him.  

A quiet thought comes to him of how the three of them could live in Askr, free of Begnion's and the Goddess’s and the rest of the world’s worries. Images of mornings covered in snow as the girl presses a mound of snow together and Zelgius helping her, Lehran watching at their side with a gentle smile that would always reach his eyes with a mug of tea cradled in his gloved hands or afternoons in the summer sun as she drags one of them to where the waves begin to kiss the shoreside, laughing as any child should, laughter that had been denied to her by order of her birth, when Lehran brings her a glimmering sea shell, shining with a gentle pink or perhaps spring nights just barely after the sun sinks below the horizon and a sunrise of flickering lightning bugs surround them, Sanaki pointing when one lands on Lehran’s nose and giggling when Zelgius picks her up, placing her on his shoulders so she can see how they twirl and dance in the field of grass they have taken to and how, when Lehran turns back to Zelgius, countenance embraced by the faint light, the heron looks at him with an emotion he is unable to put to words.

He holds that thought for a second longer, thinking of all they had to give up, and wonders, only for a little moment, if Lehran had imagined that with his first daughter, his actual daughter, and if that was the only image that sustained him before he sunk below a roaring river. He wonders if Lehran still wishes for that now, how much he strains to hear Altina’s voice in every passing hero.

But Zelgius lets it go the second after, eyes catching to a stall he almost nearly ignores, only stopping when he hears a song played on some instrument that he can’t name by only hearing it. The vendor’s table hosts a row of finely crafted lyres and behind him, standing harps with golden strings and golden arches. It isn’t the vendor playing one, but another hero, Zelgius presumes, with long hair that flowed as sunshine does and curls the same way, but they do not speak to him. Zelgius is not even certain that the lyrist notices him, for their eyes show no recognition and they continue their melody as if Zelgius is not there, standing in awe of both the song and the instruments.

One in particular, though, holds his gaze more than the others. Mostly for the carving on its base: the wood dips and rises into veins, growing and growing until the shape comes to one singular line at the bottom, canopied by the hanging branches above it. It is reminiscent of a willow tree, Zelgius thinks, and finds himself smiling at a memory of him and a little bird sitting beneath one, the end of a trail near the Persis Manor, with the weeping branches and their tear drop leaves falling upon them and the book held in Lehran’s lap as Zelgius ran a piece of cloth over his pauldron, silent for all except for the swaying of leaves and the song Lehran was humming even quieter than a whisper.

When Zelgius purchases it, the vendor tells him that he does not quite look like a man who would play the instrument. The vendor does this lightly and with a laugh, but does not seem to question it other than that little comment. But the lyrist, who has now ceased their performance, speaks up, though their voice sounds like a song regardless, “Is it a gift, then? I certainly hope so. It would be a poor use of the thing to merely keep it for decoration.”

Zelgius remembers how all of Lehran’s songs were silent, he remembers the balcony and moonlit night where Zelgius first asked why to a universe of questions, he remembers some aching and burning rage that the Goddess had deemed love a crime for someone like Lehran, he remembers one night when he likely should have been asleep, the resounding sobs after a half hearted croak and a rasping voice from inside his lord’s bedchambers.

“Yes. It is.” the general replies without even thinking of it.

The lyre is left on the bedside table in their all but officially shared chambers, with a neatly written note that reads:

For those old songs, might they be able to be played on an instrument instead? I found this lyre in passing and thought of you. The design reminds me of that one, and well, I could not simply leave it there. If it isn’t to your liking or your need, it is alright; I can find something else to do with it.

yours,

z

Chapter Text

Zelgius remembers the night before clearly as he wakes up.

To anyone else, it would not have been anything of note. Truly. No sudden appearances or sieges upon the castle or strikes of lightning. It had only been Lehran and Zelgius and the faint crackling of the fireplace in their quarters. It was, by all means, normal. Though when your life had been a series of abnormal events after the other, normal was not normal nor would it ever be. There were no cries of battle nor pools of blood nor sinking exhaustion nor even the tight grip of guilt that seemed to follow Zelgius like an albatross. No clashing of blades or whirling of magic. It was a simple night. The moon climbed its way up the sky as it always did and the stars danced on the blue tapestry and the sky did not fall nor did the stars burn out.

It would be difficult to even remember that they were in a strange realm (of course, barring the fact that one of them should be dead and clearly still breathes, but the quasi-resurrection of summoning is not quite the point here) other than the fact that rarely were nights spent together so calm and without worry. That is not to say that every waking moment Lehran and Zelgius shared together were chaotic, but the world always loomed over head. It was not so easy to put aside exactly why they stood by each other’s side, even if it might have been better to. Even if Zelgius might have wished in those quiet nights that it was more simple than their plans. That is not, either, to say that the general held such regrets in doing so.

But who doesn’t wish for a better life? A time where the world did not sink so deeply into the seas that should have swallowed it whole when the very first flood raged. A time where their union could have been brought about by casual happenstance and not their shared condition of sorrow and desperation and Zelgius a victim of the sin that Lehran created in only the most pure and selfless love. A time where a son could be loved by his parents and a time where a father could raise his daughter. A time so simple but yet still somehow so complicated for the world to comprehend.

If they had such a life (and Zelgius notes with a quiet together ) though, who would they be? His existence is so intrinsically written with and for the faults of creation. Who would he be if not a soldier? If he were never driven to that desperation and that blade? That is all he is, truly, for look at him, general and knight, and find what lies beneath but a weak man. Though, if he had the choice, he would like to live a life such as this one. With Lehran strumming the lyre’s strings and Zelgius quietly watching. Intently to how the string vibrates underneath his fingers, how eyes of emerald green are fixed to the base, still unfamiliar in his hands. The melody seemed a lullaby, lulling the covers of calmness over the both of them.

“My lord?” his voice seemed too small against the already quiet song, some hesitation that he had never been able to rid himself of in thinking of the matters between the two of them. “Should I still call you that-- my lord?”

And he would if Lehran so bid him. He could write the sky over and over and over again of what he would do if it was so asked, never ordered. Not even asked, even, if it would merely bring a smile to the face of someone who the world so wronged. If it was just a simple whim that a little bird song of without any thought.

Lehran shook his head, some strands of hair falling over his face (that Zelgius would push aside if they were closer), “I do not believe I am the lord of anything anymore.” He can hear the silent I never was whispering over. The world was never theirs, however long it had taken for both of them to truly understand.

Lord Sephiran was not who he truly was. Zelgius knows this. He knows it as well as he knows that the Black Knight was not himself either. What are they, both, beneath their comforting masks?

“Lehran, then.” he breathed, a secret that he could only speak of, a name that only he knew, and forgive him if that is selfish, but Zelgius held that tightly near his chest, at the very center of himself. A word he could never tire of, even written upon every star and planet. Did it mean something in the ancient tongue, or what that be too sorrowful of a question, and whatever meaning is has now holds more importance than it could then?

Within him, Zelgius knew, Lehran would always be his lord, his master, his all and everything, even if such stratification of vassal and master no longer apply in a world where they are all equals. That could never change, even in those coming years. But it would be different now, he thought, written with another grace, given in another tone of voice. Delicate reverence, gentle piety, all that is deserving for his song of songs, but no longer because respect or status demand, but because he could, because he wished to.

But it meant far more than a name or a title.

A new beginning, even if neither of them believed that they truly deserved such a thing. It would be that life that Zelgius thought of when he had nothing, that light he could glimpse when Lehran would look into him and saw nothing to be ashamed of. What were they both, here in Askr, beneath their comforting masks and around a world that wasn’t theirs, but together?

“I hope you will forgive me if I forget on occasion.”

Lehran looked at him strangely, then, as if there were something in front of him, as if he had to search to find his face, his eyes, his lips. “It is just a name, Zelgius. I only-” the heron paused, still uncertain, still trying to find whatever he was looking for. “I only wish that you do not think yourself unworthy. I am not your lord because I am not above you. We are both here because we wish to be, not out of anything else.” it’s said as a question, almost, hesitantly and treading on something that Zelgius could face.

He should have been the one saying that. Saying that Lehran had no obligation to be with him, that he could leave anytime if it so pleased him. Zelgius would not stop him, other than a wistful note in his heart that resigned to that loneliness he once did a lifetime ago.

But something within him cried at that. That Lehran might believe it had only been duty and nothing else. Only some cold farce of loyalty and that Zelgius did not do everything out of-

Out of-

“I am here, beside you, Lehran, because I wish to be. I would like to be nowhere else, if you so allowed me.”

Lehran shook his head again. “I don’t need to allow you to do anything.” but he smiled after that, and not even the sun could compare to his radiance.

Zelgius remembers it more than anything when he wakes up because there Lehran is there, against his chest, with his arm draped over Lehran’s waist. Zelgius remembers it because he must remind himself that he was, in fact, very much awake. But the shifting of his body and the warmth of it and how much the hollow in his chest aches at the thought, the sight, the feeling of it beg a question that he has been avoiding for a time long enough that it felt like his whole entire life.

Zelgius remembers one more thing before he falls back asleep.

That he would like to wake up like this more often

Chapter Text

It had not been a surprise when the Summoner sent them out into Hel. They are conscripted, after all, pawns to a power that resurrected them. Zelgius is a soldier, made for following orders, crafted with a blade in hand because it was the only walk of life that he was worthy of. A part of him abhors, however, that his lord (still, it is difficult to remove such boundaries in his mind) should be commanded to do the bidding of some young tactician when Lehran has already endured far too much of the world’s suffering; Zelgius offered to perform the task alone (a simple scouting out before their main force moved forward and set camp) even, but Lehran had only shaken his head and told him it was fine, that they will do what they must, and at the very least, they could do it together. It was their atonement, the Order, serving a force that did not belong to their hearts nor souls, but one that moved toward good (well, good being a far too simple descriptor, but point being that they are not calling upon a Goddess’s power to cleanse this world, and rather, aiding a kingdom of cedar trees to defend their homeland). 

Perhaps it could be his redemption, the one Zelgius longs for still, for his birth and all the wrath that came after. He could bury the memory, bury the body of the shadow he had been, and find himself washed in some anointed light. 

Yet, a part of him wishes even more to put his blade to rest for once and for all. He could not redeem himself while he still stands on fields of battles and paints the earth red, could he? Those they fight against are undead, true, corpses of fallen soldiers from a time far past in a world he did not know, but still. He is not a moralist, nor in any position to debate on matters of philosophy, but it is still the motion of killing. A motion he should disdain (and does, to anyone who might think of him as bloodthirsty or savage does not know how much he tried to minimize the eventual load of bodies they would have to return to proud families) with all his body and soul and existence because the life he has led- the one he is wishing to put behind him- had been too rife with it. If he is to become a better man, why would he continue the acts that had made him a bad one? 

But Zelgius is a soldier, and more so bound to the Order by each breath he is allowed to take in some waking world.

The travel was not difficult at least. The terrain is flat for the most part, though the atmosphere is one of dread and drear. No flowers bloom and all the trees are bare, with tendrils of branches snaking up and out, curling like a finger beckoning to come. Ghosts whisper on the same line of the dry breeze, howling songs too old for anyone but Death Herself to recognize. If there were any stars above them when the ghouls danced, it would have been named Wormwood, but the sky is black, as if it doused with raven’s feathers, suffocating him. Zelgius thinks that this is the land he deserved to be summoned to, not Askr in its vibrancy and myriad of heroes, but Hel. It would have fit his gloom in the days he first arrived more than Princess Sharena’s bright smile as she explained what Askr was.

Their walk was simple as well, discussing the matters of recently arrived heroes and other unimportant topics. They had no need to fill the air between them, but they could. Lehran had laughed (gently, as he does, because that, too, is allowed in a world where they are only soldiers) at his embarrassment over the, er, “rather revealing nature of the swimsuits” given to the Muspell and Nifl natives. “It’s the summertime, Zelgius. If that is how they wish to enjoy themselves, then who are we to say anything.” Lehran had told him in a flippant tone (it was wise of the Summoner to send the both of them into such a desolate wasteland over anyone else; they were far too good at ignoring the oppressive atmosphere, or rather, far too used to it to pay it any mind) “They have that right, of course, and their confidence should be admired. Even still, battling with a coconut seems ill advised.” “Perhaps we should try them out for ourselves. It serves the Princess well enough.” “I would rather the spade. Or the dagger.” “If you could take it from Princess Laegjarn, then-” “Is that an order?” he had meant that as a joke (looking back on it, a cruel attempt at one), but Lehran had froze in place for a second after Zelgius spoke it. “Do you think it is?” “Stealing from a member of royalty for our own amusement. It wouldn’t be a difficult one, but no, Lehran.” “They could punish you.” “That has never stopped me before. She’s only one person and the might of Muspell is still recovering.” “It may actually be wiser to merely ask.” “If she is kind enough to let some foreign soldier take her blade.” “You would not keep it, would you?” “No, I wouldn’t, unless you wanted me to.” “And why would I?” “Amusement, perhaps? Watching an armored general in combat with a magical dagger the size of his palm does not sound so serious.” “Then that is what we’ll do when we return.” Lehran had finished with a smile at that matter of their unimportant nonsense. 

It was a sort of freedom they never could indulge in, not without the shackles of their purpose still tugging at their feet. One that, even in the presence of a phantom’s song, both of them could enjoy. Zelgius could not imagine such allowance in the company of any other; to be so open when all he had tried in life was the construction of barricades around himself, to smile, but more so, to see someone smile at him, because of him . It was strange, of course, to be able to hear the sound of sunny days when the ground they trod upon was littered with withered plants and dead itself.

The two resumed to their silence, comforting at the very least, the only comfort that could be drawn, regardless of their fortitude. Not that it was any less important than the simple chatter they could allow in Askr’s- well, Hel’s air. The wind’s howling took to the background, a noise Zelgius drowned out in thoughts of lines crossed and if he truly intended on such a foolish act. 

Well, the point was that he could. More often, he found that happening, being in love with ideas because he had the freedom to do so. No one thought of him stranger for being who he was in this so very strange land. There were heroes who wore brands upon their hands with pride rather than the disgust he was held with it, not that Zelgius could so easily find it within himself to reveal the most vulnerable part of his being, but he could and those heroes hailing from Elibe and Archanea and all those other worlds would not think of him any differently. A princess of Nifl would look upon him and see a common soldier pulled from a door Askr opened on happenstance, not the Imperial General of Begnion nor a Rider of Daein; she would merely see Zelgius, and that is a luxury he has rarely had. He wishes for it, longs for it, finds an ache in his heart craving it more than nearly anything in the world, if he could only move past the tiny, minuscule detail that it was much more grueling to convince himself that he deserved it. 

It had been a surprise, however, when the corpses arose, stumbling behind trees of dry bark and within the undulating waves of fog. 

They were nothing more than bones held together by their old, rotting flesh and some gelatinous substance that could not be natural, but then again, neither were the dead living. Though, if Zelgius is alive and well, then it only serves that they all could be, and they are, after all, in the Realm of Hel. Thin, spindly bones claw up from the ground, dirt falling through their resurrection, stumbling once they stand once more, an act those poor bodies were never supposed to feel again. They were soldiers, Zelgius imagines, thousands and thousands of soldiers who had died in this world’s past wars, and here they were again, to fight one more battle at unwilling opponents. 

There was a wave of bones and strange colors that filled between their ribs or arms or face, attempting so very hard to be human again, but it wasn’t quite right. Some were still clothed in places, a scratched up pauldron with the Askran emblem emblazoned on it was still strapped onto a blue jelly soldier. There was one that Zelgius remembers, that was smaller than the rest, once colorful clothes faded to a melancholy gray and a wilted flower in place of its right eye. They could not have been buried deep, or perhaps they weren’t buried at all, Hel knowing that She could call upon them whenever She needed. They were only tools, both in life and in death, and Zelgius wonders if that is what he could have been if his afterlife had been just. 

He would just be a corpse, a soldier, a tool to someone’s gain against his will. Again.

But he was breathing then, and that would not change. He could not allow it to, not with Lehran already raising his staff, a dazzling light (the only light in this dark) washing over the first line of corpses. 

They exchanged no words. It wasn’t necessary. 

Zelgius willed Alondite to a wide strike, sweeping through the would be torsos of the corpses, and then again. He could afford to be nothing but bold on this field of battle. Their bones had chattered against each other as they scrambled closer to the two. They made no sound when they fell to a pile of bones. Zelgius hadn’t known why he expected them to. He was used to the screams, the wails, shouts of soldiers as a blade ran through them. But these bodies did not bleed, they had no final words, no wishes on their last breath. They weren’t Created. 

And for however many strikes, however many blasts of magic, they continued. They clawed at his armor, they tore at his cloak, ripping a jagged edge right through the red cloth. Their numbers were the problem more than their force. If it had been a small battalion, then Zelgius could easily send them to their second death and the two would be on their way, but they continued, as stubborn in death as creation is in life. 

And they continued, and luckily, he was the larger target, he was the more dangerous target, and he must not let his mind wander further than rightful confusion and strategy (even if there was very little strategy to getting overrun by animated corpses made of jelly and bone). Zelgius imagined he would have the time to admit later that he was terrified . Terrified of the dead, terrified of Hel, terrified for the song bird that stood at his side, both physically using the staff to bludgeon the corpses and to dazzle them, and, intermittently, will the light to fall upon Zelgius whenever his breaths heaved too heavily. Terrified of losing him. 

He would not see Lehran suffer again, not in a world that could be a new life. He would not see him suffer, ever, not when he stood there, armored and armed, completely willing to run to whichever ends of the earth, to slay whatever gods, to sing whatever praises, if it so saved Lehran. He would give his ghost.

A heavy wave crashed onto Zelgius, so many bodies surrounding him, scratching at his face and armor. They drown him, nearly, a sea of bones bearing down upon him, and even as he attempted to raised Alondite, the weight of those corpses was too heavy, pinning him into placed. He would be made a statue there, buried underneath creatures that should have been allowed to slumber, but it would be right, for him to be buried amidst the twice dead. Zelgius was suffocating, and it was not the touch of human flesh, but it was touch enough for it to make him want to burn his skin. He tried to breath, and he could, but they were shallow, and shallow, and shallow, till he rasps out against his heart a wretched, “Run.” 

Because once they were done with him, they would move onto his song of songs, and Zelgius would rather be killed a thousandfold than to have failed Lehran so miserably (even if Zelgius can hear his voice in saying ‘you could not fail me. you never have. you have done for me far more than i deserve, zelgius’ ). 

But Lehran could not hear him. Even if he did, Lehran would not leave him. Not again. He would not live alone again, haunted by the ghost of someone who did not deserve to die for Lehran’s own misgivings, he could not endure the calling of a name to an empty space. 

Zelgius saw a bright light from between the gaps of bone, and almost, he thinks, it almost looked like sunlight through tree branches. He thought he heard his name, broken and anguished, a desperate requiem again of please, please, please . 

Enough fell off Zelgius for him to breathe again, for him to see again, to lift Altina to purify what was left on him. Enough were gone for Zelgius to look at Lehran, into those eyes of emerald green, and to nearly sob for the tears that were so very close to spilling over. 

The knight kicked one that clung onto his leg off, and ran toward Lehran. His body screamed and ached in fire, but Zelgius paid it no matter. It was only a second until they rose back up again. 

Zelgius was not one to bet on losing dogs, aside from what history will call a mistake on his part. He does not bet on himself, not here, not against a ceaseless enemy that does not tire, not when his life, his sun and song, was beside him. Against an enemy that was living, that he knew, that was worthy, he would not have done what he did, but this is no hawk king nor young lion. 

So Zelgius, in a split second of recounting the whole of the battle, takes Lehran’s hand, and runs. 

He runs and runs and runs. They follow, but he runs and so does Lehran, who is without breath to ask why. He runs and runs and runs to goddess knows where. Zelgius clutches tightly onto the hand within his as if it is the very universe, as if he could deify it with touch even in such peril. 

They stop, finally, when the trees begin to grow leaves again and where the grass is truly green and the birds sing, still quietly in the distance, but they sing. They are on the border of Life and Death when Zelgius leans against an oak tree, and turns to Lehran, hands still intertwined, and coughs one “Forgive me” before collapsing.