Chapter Text
“Go!” Percival barked.
Lancelot hesitated. Vane opened his mouth to protest -- “What are you thinking, Percy?! We can’t leave you behind!” -- and Percival continued to argue, bathed in flames as he dashed forward.
“You’re on a mission, you have your targets, and I’m not it,” he growled, ducking out of the way of a spray of snow and sharp ice.
“You don’t have to act cool, Percival! Not now!” Vane hollered, practically hanging off of the still-lowered gangway and reaching for him.
“I’m not trying to be cool, you stupid whelp!” Percival broke his focus just long enough to glare at Vane. “This is the best solution and you know it!”
“No!” Lancelot objected, raising his voice against the rising wind. “Percival, I don’t care how sensible you think it is, we’re not agreeing to you taking on a primal by yourself!”
They were starting to outpace Percival, who was just on foot in snow. The boarlike primal was entirely focused on him, leaving the ship full of the Feendrachen cartographers they were sent to rescue the first window they’d had to escape.
“Then I think I can offer a solution.”
Siegfried’s presence went from unnoticeable to flooding the space like lamplight as he stood before Lancelot and Vane on the gangway, fully armored and sword shouldered. This time, when Vane opened his mouth to protest, Lancelot cut him off.
“...We’ll leave them at the village where we first rendez-voused, and we’ll return immediately,” Lancelot said, voice clear but brows knitted. Vane couldn’t argue, though he didn’t look pleased by the solution. “With reinforcements, if we can.”
Sieg nods. “We’ll try not to go much further than the mapmakers’ outpost.”
“Just do what you need to and don’t lose Percy, Siegfried! We’ll find you, whatever it takes!”
Sieg gave a thumbs-up as he closed his helmet, and somehow, even now, Vane and Lancelot could find reassurance in the gesture. Both felt the slightest bit less uneasy, watching Siegfried leap off the ship, and land into a roll in the snow without losing momentum. As he rushed the primal (whose tusks had been locked against Percival’s sword as he struggled to keep ground), Lancelot issued the ship crew the order to increase speed and altitude.
Vane gritted his teeth as he returned to the deck and pulled the gangway up properly.
“Ahhh, I hate feeling helpless like this,” he muttered under his breath to only Lancelot.
“I know,” Lancelot replied, matching his volume. “But of all the people we could’ve put in such a tight spot…”
“Yeah,” Vane reluctantly agreed.
Siegfried, Percival, and the primal were now far enough that it was difficult to read whose movements were whose. Soon, it was just the hulking, shimmering form of the boar of ice, the blur of black and red armor, and Percival’s bright flames all blending beyond anything meaningful.
Lancelot couldn’t bring himself to look away. Vane put a hand on his shoulder. “Lancey, if you want me to take point on the mapmakers….”
“No, no.” Lancelot placed his hand over Vane’s with a small sigh. “They’re all in rough shape, and we’re already on a skeleton crew. It’s all hands on deck.”
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“Lohenwolf!”
Percival’s attack blazed furiously, perhaps more unrestrained than usual. This stretch of mountain was barren, just empty fields of snow and craggy rock, and there was next to nothing for him to damage. There was also next to no-one to fall back on past Siegfried, though Percival has long known that relying on Siegfried was like relying on an entire army.
The flames, as aggressive as they were, did little to effectively damage the beast. Percival had managed to make it tread back, startled by the display, finally giving him ground after an entire battle on the defensive. But the fire itself only seemed to melt the sharp ice frozen over its fur like quills and armor.
Sieg had barely been in the battle a moment before he seized the opportunity Percival presented. He rushed through the flames, climbing partway up the beast before it noticed, writhed, and squealed as Sieg plunged his sword into its haunch. Percival marveled how quickly Sieg had already found the primal’s dead angle and adapted to the unexpected opening; in truth, Percival had predicted (or perhaps hoped) his attack would have functioned as something far more effective than a light show.
That’s just how it is, Percival thought to himself in the scant moment he had to slow down and relax just a hair, especially now that Siegfried was on the offense. I have only one path to victory against frost. I’ve known this. My only way forward is to rely on the skills of others.
But as glad as he was to see Sieg, his jaw clenched as he watched him calmly cling on and dig his sword deeper, even as the primal practically convulsed to shake him off. Since he had first gotten the beast’s attention (entirely by accident -- the primal just reacted violently to the sight of him), Percival had failed to land as effective or as solid a hit as Siegfried since the primal first found them. He would sooner surrender the heirloom armor he wore than let any of his companions, much less Siegfried, not only witness him be useless, but be forced to carry the weight of the battle for him.
The boar charged forward with blinding speed and power, giving up on twisting Sieg off. Sieg grunted as he was thrown from the primal, the sword dislodged from sheer force, and Percival rushed to his side as he was thrown into the snow.
Sieg, as Percival found all too often, had no real need of his help. He cooly uprighted himself, barely breathing any harder than normal, while Percival had long been panting and exhausted.
“It’d be nice if it just kept charging like that until it tired itself out,” Sieg mused, the primal still charging ahead and away from them.
“I doubt that’s how it works, Siegfried.” With a startling crash, the boar collided with a rocky structure about its size, the whole thing collapsing into dust on impact. Percival winced, thinking about the village they had taken off from, an already delicate system with little room for a disaster. “Without collateral, anyways,”
“Ah, of course,” Siegfried replied, speaking with the same gentleness and ease Percival still found comfort in.
The boar had screeched to a halt after running into the boulder, and now it turned around and looked dead in their direction with the sense of irrational, feral rage a rampaging primal wore. Percival and Sieg instinctively took their readied stances as the beast sunk its weight back, preparing to surge with speed and power right at them. The old habits of the Black Dragons seeped through Percival’s body and instincts, and he thinks to look to Sieg for orders…
Percival frowned without realizing, his heart recoiling so strongly from the thought he was still acting like a rookie footsoldier. In a moment of capriciousness, he decided to give in to an urge, an act of pride, an inelegant and half-formed idea.
“Siegfried, follow my lead.” His chest was still heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
“Did you have an idea?”
Percival gestured at a unique piece of mountain terrain a bit behind them. The ground split into a higher and lower path, and the higher jutted upwards before curving over the lower, like an ocean wave solidified in the random, craggy shapes of stone.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed it chases me and only me, if given the opportunity.”
“I wonder why that is?”
“I must’ve hurt its feelings when I called Vane a pig. He packed an entire cavalry’s worth of homemade jerky for the day’s rations, you know.”
“Ah, yes. I saw you wolfing some of that down earlier. It looked tasty.”
“--Anyways.”
At this point, the primal had started its charge.
“I’ll lead it there. I should be able to get it to crash into the side while the top collapses, and if that’s not enough, I’m sure you can encourage it along. I want you to come in from above -- I expect that we can slow it down significantly, if not trap it until we have a more concrete solution to calm it.”
“What about you escaping all that rubble collapsing, Percival?”
“Humph. Are you finding excuses to go easy on this beast, Siegfried?”
Sieg smiled both fondly and worriedly at Percival. “And if I am?”
“Then I’d tell you to just trust me and go wild.” Percival’s grin was as confident and challenging as ever. Sieg laughed a bit.
“Well, then. I suppose I’ll have to.”
The boar was now too close to try and discuss any other strategy, but at Percival’s signal, it was clear both he and Sieg were committed and trusting enough of the plan to follow it through. They break, and Sieg dashed up the higher path, Percival the lower.
For a few fleeting moments, Percival let himself feel almost giddy with the confidence that his on-the-fly plan would turn out to be as effective as he had hoped.
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The boar primal was a wondrous-looking thing, shimmering delicately with a rainbow of cold, fresh-looking crystalline colors, but sporting the powerful frame and silhouette of a real and suitably massive boar. At a different time, with a different expression, under different circumstances, its face could have looked strong and friendly, and its sharp, curving tusks, with ice blooming in lovely geometry off of and all over itself, would just be beautiful.
From Siegfried’s vantage point, it only made an animalistic ferocity burn in him. As expected, the rocky overhang cracked underneath him as the boar rammed into the wall below. He drank in the momentum of falling with the rubble, placed his foot in his sword’s hold, and aimed for a vulnerable, key point in its back. He felt somewhat bad; it was clear that the primal was not acting in malice, just raging confusion, but he kept the apologies he felt towards it withdrawn entirely from his body.
He made a clean hit, the blade sinking in deeply with the crunching sound of breaking snow. The boar tensed, squealed, and writhed, but it was too trapped and overwhelmed to throw Sieg off or move much of anywhere.
Sieg gripped the sword tighter and looked for Percival through the chaos. The rush spread through his whole body. It had been so long since he’d drank Fafnir’s blood and he’d already so thoroughly adopted it into his fighting style, he often wasn’t sure if these feral rushes were the dragon’s or his. But as Sieg made out Percival, pinned to the rocky wall, wearing furious determination as the writhing boar’s tusk tore through his body, he knew the boil in his blood this time would be entirely his own.
He started to call to him but was interrupted with a violent crack and thwack to his head (from crumbling rock, Sieg assumed) and he felt a piece of his helmet split off, the edge digging into his scalp. His head rang as blood flowed down and clouded his vision.
Sieg had been nearly sure something would go wrong, as things did in the sloppiness of haste, battle, panic, and survival, but he was happy to trust Percival’s confidence and their collective power. He knew Percival was quick-witted and decisive enough to readjust his strategy quickly and easily, and there was a part of Sieg that was fine if not eager to follow that lead. Even if his habits as captain of the Black Dragons were still second nature, they still felt rusted after all the time he’d spent in isolation. And he had to admit -- he wanted to better see how Percival had grown, to see what approach he’d take. How it would differ from Sieg himself, Lancelot, Vane, Gunther, Josef…
“Is this what you needed?” he heard Percival project, somehow still with all the aplomb and goading of a heel. “Did you need to draw blood to satisfy your rampage? Fine -- ah-- ”
Sieg tugged at his sword blindly with one hand while wiping his eyes with the other. Something had locked it in place -- he guessed it must be the ice it armored itself with, scabbing over to protect a fresh wound -- but when he managed to wriggle it slightly free, the boar twitched underneath him. With nothing but Percival and a rock wall in front of him, its tusk only plunged in deeper, and though most of the rock overhang had already fallen, it rumbled precariously like the rest of it would.
“Percival!”
By the time Sieg had wiped the blood away, Percival had once again fiercely locked eyes with the boar, grinning confidently, only breaking his eye contact to meet Sieg’s. Sieg’s chest swelled with equal parts worry and admiration. He wanted to rush to his side, the bodily memory of seeing so many of his dearest people fall and bleed out threatening to blend with his battle-blush and take him over completely. The urge to leap further into the fray, armed only with an urgent, berserk sense of care was hard to resist, especially as he confirmed solid ice had grown from the primal’s wound and locked his sword in place. There were, in fact, several new icy barbs and quills as long as Sieg’s blade itself that had formed around it.
“Oi, Siegfried!” Percival barked. “Was I unclear about how we have no room to go easy?” He conspicuously raised one hand, the faint black glow of X-Seele gathering, and gripped his sword with the other, stoking his flames.
Sieg felt like he had been tossed an anchor. “What was it you asked me to do? Just trust you and go wild?” He understood instantly and changed his grip on his sword accordingly.
“Of course. I’m relying on your brilliant swordsmanship, not a half-witted style. Now --” He turned his attention back to the primal. “If it’s my blood you want, then you had better know who it belongs to,” Percival boomed. “I’ll teach you to fear the Lord of Flames -- and return you to your truest state!”
He crashed his hand on the primal’s tusk, the black glow erupting like fireworks before pulsing through its body, up until it reached whatever governed the primal like a brain. The beast was petrified, too overwhelmed for just long enough to do anything but become still. After taking as deep a breath as he could, Percival coated his sword in flames, thrusting it forward. The blade cut nothing, but the flames flowed around Sieg, melting the ice and freeing his sword.
Once again, Sieg was seized by a swell of mixed emotions. There he saw the royal charisma and decisiveness Sieg had admired in Josef. Percival was truly growing from an aristocrat who could wear armor to a young king, and Sieg was proud to see that and sad to have not witnessed more of that transformation. Fear and memory reminded Sieg to be terrified, wondering if this would be Percival’s last hurrah, but above all Sieg felt a burning desire for victory, the urge to act and trust that the future must be seized, not survived.
“O sword of the black dragon that races across the earth…” The words felt more grand than usual. “...Run them through! Schwarze faenge!”
Sieg moved with such vigor that his joints stung from impact. He launched himself from the beast’s back, letting himself bathe in the furious rush of emotions and adrenaline. He made effective contact with the primal’s flesh and vital points of its body, but the strike he was counting on most was to the tusk. He sliced through the one impaling Percival, leaving as much on the boar as he could, and despite Percival’s furious effort, his legs crumpled underneath him, leaving him awkwardly leaning on his sword, trying to find some sort of stability.
Sieg smoothly transitioned out of his attack into gathering Percival over his shoulder. The boar’s frozen panic wore off, and Siegfried and Percival felt a violent rush of air as Sieg narrowly dodged it charging one last time into them.
The last of the crumbling stone structure fell and buried the primal, and Siegfried rushed to the nearest stretch of of snow as the pile of rubble settled, became quiet, and by some miracle remained still.
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The snow stained dark red quickly as Siegfried put Percival down, the tusk piece still running through his side. Percival clutched at it, panting shallowly as he tried to catch his breath but not exacerbate the wound.
“...Siegfried…you’re bleeding.” The cut from the break in Sieg’s helmet was still bleeding freely.
“So are you.” Sieg began to undo his scarf.
“Humph.” Percvial had avoided looking at his side, keeping his arm and hand wrapped over it. His head swam from processing the sheer amount that had happened on top of the shock of the injury.
Sieg placed his hand on Percival’s, prying his hand off the wound with the gentleness Percival had always known him to have. He balled his scarf up around the wound and began to assess the damage, while Percival could only lie helplessly, trying not to yelp in pain.
He felt himself fading. He had to find something to focus on, and all he could think to do was run through how disastrously his plan had gone. Getting severely injured almost immediately, failing to think about how the crumbling stones would be a hazard to Sieg, a victory once again coming to rely on Siegfried’s strength instead of their collected effort…
Siegfried was saying something. Percival couldn’t process what, his mind too foggy, both from exhaustion and his frustration at himself, but Sieg cupped his face with a cold, armored hand when he closed his eyes. Fine, Sieg wanted him to stay awake. He could at least do that.
Sieg’s face hovered over him, streaked with red from under the visor, the hair peeking out matted with sweat and blood. He looked as reassuring as ever, which irritated Percival. He was obviously worried. Things had obviously gone very, very wrong. He didn’t need to reassure Percival of anything, not even that he was there -- because of course Siegfried was there. He always was. Just late, most of the time.
Percival hated the thought Sieg would waste his energy like this, but the words to express it just would not come. Instead they turned to the disgust he felt with himself for getting them into this mess.
“It seems …” he started. Speaking felt like pushing back against a heavy weight lying on his chest, pressing out ink to fill his throat. He coughed as it tried to clear, and the subsequent pain in his side made his mind go to fuzz.
Siegfried was talking again. Percival watched his lips moved meaninglessly and his face creased more as he hid less and less of his distress behind that soothing smile. Something about saving his strength, not needing to talk, something like that, Percival would guess.
Percival couldn’t find the breath to say it out loud, but it was the last thing on his mind before he couldn’t fight off fading any longer.
It seems all I’m fit to lead are moths to flame.