Work Text:
Disputes over land. Disputes over personnel. Disputes over pay, contracts, and responsibilities. A dozen intricacies of may nots and cans and hitherto known ases that seek to shift liability and blame, motions made not by people who want to solve problems, but glean as much as they can from creating one.
Jace swirls the pen in his hand into another flourishing signature and carefully closes the manila folder, setting it atop the pile of other finished work next to him. His eyes hurt, and his neck is sore. Rubbing away the pain stopped working hours, maybe days ago, but still he digs his fingers into his sockets and shoulders for some kind of sweet release. His body screams for rest, but he has his responsibilities. Things only he can do.
It’s exhausting work. Every decision he makes sets a precedent, and precedents are the kinds of things that the bureaucracy surrounding him jumps upon with glee. “Last week you allowed the Izzet to overtake Golgari ruins for a new subway line—would you concede that we may overtake another set of ruins for a similar purpose?”
They really, really did not enjoy how he explained that experimental turbines were not public infrastructure and no, he would not concede to have ruins reclaimed to build them.
He looks at the pile of reclamation requests he has left, set next to the pile of zoning disputes and overshadowed by the public forum minutes, and he sighs. Coffee. He’ll be needing coffee if he wants to complete any of this tonight.
His knees and back crack and pop as he stands and stretches. The kitchens aren’t far from his office, but his home looks different in the dark of night. The hallways stretch on a bit longer. The rooms feel just a bit emptier. He’s come to expect the sight of Gideon sitting down at his dining table, giving him a small wave whenever he comes by to refill his mug, but in the silvery moonlight his usual chair is neatly pushed in.
Jace stops and gazes up at the moon through the tall, arched window at the far side of his sanctum. Full. Round. Bright. Spilling so much light into the room that it lights up dust motes like glitter and casts the stairwell into a beautiful and cutting figure.
His hand wraps around the railing, his thumb brushing against the finely carved ridges. Step by step, he ascends up into the tower, passing door after door. Most of them hold unused, dusty rooms, furnished for the sake of being furnished, or to hold the overflow of his book collection. Then he’s pushing one open, left slightly ajar on its hinges, and steps inside once he’s sure it’s empty.
It’s a small gymnasium, where ornate chairs have been pushed aside and stacked on one another to make room for racks of dumbbells and hanging sacks of sand, where near-strangers have taken his home and made it their own. Everything in the room has a veiled, ethereal quality to it at night, though he knows it all sees frequent use. Not that he often sees it being used, as busy as he is. Even now he dimly recognizes he’s only running away for a brief moment of respite from busywork, unending and tedious.
But now the evidence of life being lived in his formerly empty halls breathes something vital into him, something familiar. Like this was how it was always meant to be.
How strange and warm their comfort is, already so at ease with him that they could find a little piece of him, unused and gathering dust, and terraform it into something they need, like a farmer taking a rocky hillside and nurturing it into a loamy terrace. His hands ghost across the ridges of shelving as he slowly strolls through the room, over multiple sets of padded armor and fire resistant gear that are slightly scorched and already mended half a dozen times with new stitching, over and down to the racks of scratched dumbbells and weights, and then over the handles of wooden imitations of weapons, all sorts of sizes and shapes, more configurations from blade to hilt than he could have ever imagined.
His hand finds its way around a smooth hilt placed just at his hip, and it feels good. It feels right. White oak, sanded and lacquered, simple in construction and only for training.
How long has it been? How long has he kept his hands away from blades and their like, trusting them only to perform somatic components and sign his name? Afraid if he were to hold a sword, or a dagger, or a knife, that when he looks down, he won’t be the same person anymore?
How long since he last just let himself do something?
It must be the way the moonlit room feels like another plane, he reasons, that it feels like nothing he might do will follow him from it. A transitory place, like a dream.
He pulls it away from the rack, and winces. It’s heavier than he’d expected it to be, but it’s balanced, and the right size. The balance of a sword is a work of mathematical art. Kind of like your precious magic.
Before he knows it he’s unclasping his cloak and letting it drop to the ground, rolling his shoulders and neck for good measure, trying to ease the tightness of deskwork from them. Then, standing in the middle of the open space of the room, he takes a deep breath.
One foot forward, one foot behind; vertical, then horizontal. Stability on two axes. I could push you down or knock you off balance if you didn’t, and then you’d really be dead. Feet are just as much a part of this as the arms. Hours of drills and surprise tackles in hallways make sturdy footwork come to him as naturally as illusions now, as he bends his knees just a little bit and raises the facsimile of a crossguard over his shoulder and near his brow.
His technique isn’t what it used to be, he knows this. It feels unwieldy in his hands, like a spell he doesn’t quite have the mana for, just on the verge of fizzling if he loses any amount of concentration. He positions himself carefully, then he sends the blade through the air, twisting it in his hands in a poor imitation of proficiency as he struggles to keep the angle right in his weak grip.
He positions himself again, crossguard at his brow. Again, he twists, just a bit faster this time.
You want it to be right, not fast. He tries again, and the angle is a bit off. Come on now, I thought you were a quick study. He tries again, but knowledge can’t replace what the body must know, and his already sore hands slip, and the tip of the wood blade clatters against the floor.
He can feel the whisper of an exasperated sigh against his neck, raising the hairs there to attention. Here, let me help you.
He is positioned again, his arms lifted, his backside pressed flush against the hips and chest of a man similar to him in so many ways, save for how strong and practiced his hands are wrapped around Jace’s own. The crossguard is at his brow. He feels a nudge, and he remembers to center it over his shoulder. And you don’t need to hold onto it so tightly, either. Your right hand is holding the blade, your left hand is guiding it. Now do it. Slow, this time.
The blade sails through the air, and the angle feels right.
There you go. Now do it again. I know, I know—you hate it. But trust me on this one, okay?
Reposition, swing. Reposition, swing. Faster and faster, until he’s numb to the ache in the meat of his palms and forearms and gulping air like a fish. There’s sweat on his brow, and what had been a cold night now feels unbearably warm.
Good. Now the next set.
He tosses his head back, but begrudgingly he chooses a new stance, a new strike. Lower this time. Entirely new parts of his shoulder and back begin to ache as he attacks some unseen foe’s legs, and he grits his teeth through it. Again he feels that presence nudge him into the right position, steady him even as he wants to collapse to the ground, tightening a hand against his hip and pulling him closer.
Much better. One more set, just to cool you off.
He ignores it— you really shouldn’t— instead letting the wood sword clatter out of his grip as he claws at the buttons of his shirt, tearing it away from his neck and arms desperately. Then his buckles, and his gloves too, until he’s left to only his undershirt, and dropping the rest on the floor next to his cloak.
When he picks the sword up again, he sees movement just above him, and he only nearly parries the blow.
His face looks just as he remembers it. Just as he always wanted to remember it, with a cocked smile and a blaze of determination in his eyes.
Don’t parry by biting the blades, or I really will kill you.
Jace twists the sword, edge against flat, and he stands until he’s nose to nose with those beautiful blue eyes, so much more enchanting than he could have ever remembered them being. Fierce, but… kind. They narrow in understanding.
Alright, I get it. No more sets. How does a few bouts between friends sound, then?
He smiles back.
The tips of their swords meet, a greeting of steel against steel between them. They pull away from each other, and Kallist’s sword raises up to that same guard stance, poised like a scorpion. It’s his favorite. Because it looks intimidating as hell, and it’s very versatile. Combat has mind games of its own, you know. And sometimes the most dangerous thing is something that is exactly what it looks like.
Jace keeps the tip of his sword high in front of him, the hilt cocked low at his hip and his feet sturdy once more. Kallist’s smile gets wider. Whether it’s because he’s made a novice mistake or the right decision doesn’t matter much to him, and the enchanted moment almost costs him when the first strike comes closer and faster than he’d anticipated.
Their language becomes motion as steel slips against steel, a game of leverage and twisting, both striking blows with his own power and turning what means to hurt him away. They dance around the room, always trying to close the distance between them, but always buffeted away in kind. The tip of that moonlight blade comes closer to Jace far more often than his manages to edge through the impenetrable defense he’s matched with, but Kallist’s hands are sure and skilled, and it never slices through the skin he’s bared.
You’re always so quiet, he chides, his voice light. You have to make noise, Jace. It’ll help.
He half-heartedly grunts with his next strike, unsure of his voice, scared of being loud, and he’s easily deflected.
Come on, like you mean it!
He tries again. Then again, when it still doesn’t satisfy.
The blows no longer come at him as he presses an onslaught, his voice cracking on airy shouts, weak and ill-practiced next to the taut-bellied bellows of his other. The encouragement keeps coming though, and soon he’s striking not only fast but hard , each impact shocking the bones of his hands and arms like electricity. His blade is lifted and pushed this way and that, but he presses on until he’s finally so frustrated the shouts begin to mean something.
That’s it. His edge hits the flat of a sword. You’ve got it now.
He’s grinning, lost in the moment, in the sensation between the real and ethereal in the moonlight, joy welling in his chest as study becomes play, as all the pieces finally, finally fit together. What was overwhelming minutes before becomes a series of gestures he can understand, that when Kallist’s blade is rested on his shoulder, he’s moving in to strike, but when his blade points down he’s anticipating to block one instead, to catch and turn, and then it’s Jace who’s on the defensive again.
He hides behind the sandbags, leads them through a maze of hanging obstacles as he backsteps precisely and smoothly. It doesn’t trip Kallist up at all, his sword like a snake as he twists it around, finding a solution to every question Jace gives him, unbound by the rigidity of needing to practice forms or guards, his sword a true extension of him, body and soul.
False edges wielded by extra appendages begin to weave into Jace’s arsenal, illusions that aim to mislead a swordsman that outclasses him in skill enough to level the playing field. But so fast and quick are those reflexes that they’re hardly enough, closing the gap of skill between them but never overcoming it. Come on, that worked on me once before, but I’ve known you for a very long time since then. Can’t you give me more credit? Quick as lightning, a block to an illusory strike below pivots to block the real one up top.
Finally, too weary to even keep his sword firm in his sweat-slicked grip anymore, Jace trips on his own feet, his back slamming against the rubbery mat beneath him as he collapses, panting.
Knees are placed on either side of his hips, and his chin is lifted by cold steel. He cracks and eye open to see the face above him looking down fondly, and drawing closer. That was pretty good for how out of practice you are. We should do this more often. His chest and arms burn and ache, and he feels like his whole body’s been turned to stone. But for now… why don’t we take a break?
He watches those blue eyes become hooded, deep pools as they come ever closer, the weight of exhaustion and something else becoming heavier atop him. Then they close completely, and he gives in, closing his eyes too and anticipating the light breath against his lips, eager to feel it become another sensation…
“Jace?”
And he scrambles to his knees, kicking the wood sword away and diving for his cloak, pressing it against his chest protectively, his exhaustion forgotten.
Nissa hardly cuts an intimidating figure in the doorway, as short and petite as she is. Her unassuming disposition is unflappable, cooly taking in the scene in front of her without so much as a quirked brow. Truly, there are worse people that could have opened the door.
He could spell her unconscious, but it feels… wrong, after how much trust she’s put into him. Just as soon as his heart stops seizing and agrees with him, he’ll find another way past her.
Her ears droop just the slightest bit as she cocks her head. “I don’t mean to intrude. I heard shouting,” she explains, cutting quickly to the answers she anticipates he would have asked. Correctly, even.
Nissa… understands him. When he’s with her, it’s like their souls and minds sing the same song. There’s no difficulty in trying to communicate clearly, no hedging his words and softening them for some misstep he can’t see until it’s been taken, no judgement for when his mouth and tongue tie themselves into knots over words and ideas that thoughts would better project. She knows what it’s like to experience the world through a lens no one else seems capable of looking through.
It’s the kind of ease he hasn’t had in his life since Kallist.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be so loud,” he apologizes, rubbing at his neck, wondering if it’s too late to put his gloves back on too.
Nissa shakes her head, though. “I was awake, and Chandra and Gideon sleep deeply.” She walks toward the rack of training swords, closing the door gently behind her, and picks one up. “I wasn’t aware you knew how to use a sword.”
“I, uh… I don’t usually practice. Is why.” His face heats. “I used to, a lot, but then…”
His eyes stared vacantly up at the ceiling, skewed limbs jutting from the pool of blue around him on the floor, steadily growing to be some ugly mixture of red and black. My best friend, and I took everything from him until he finally died not even knowing his own name.
And he still would have forgiven me.
“... I see,” Nissa whispers. “I have things I don’t do anymore either.” The confession hides more meaning, but Jace, for once, isn’t in the mood to pry. He knows this pain.
And then,
“Would you like to practice against me?”
Her voice startles him out from whatever spiraling path he was about to embark, enough that he dumbly answers, “ What?”
She nods her head toward the rest of the room. “So you don’t have to practice against an illusion. I could practice with you instead.”
Those big green eyes, completely without judgement, without assumption, are staring right at him. It’s such a small, simple offer for her, like she’d insisted she could share extra food she had lying around anyway. He could say no and she wouldn’t think anything more of it. There’s no danger here in keeping this one thing strictly to himself, between him and his memories, and yet…
“... Yeah.” A slight smile spreads across his face, and the cloak drops from his arms. “Yeah, I’d like that a lot.”
She tosses him another training sword. He stands sturdily, one foot vertical, one foot horizontal, hilt dropped to his hips. Then the tip of her sword reaches out to touch his, and they begin to speak in a language only they can understand.