Work Text:
1st of Severe Winter, 1992
Cowdenbeath, Kingdom of Dundee
Planet Earth, Solar System
A623433
Knock, knock, knock.
Ralathor looked up towards his door, peering up from over his book. He didn’t move from his spot, too comfortable in his pajamas and on his armchair by the fireplace. Surely whoever was there could come back in the morning.
Knock, knock knock.
Ralathor rolled his eyes and went back to his book, fully content on ignoring the knocks. Humans and their “needs” were always so… needy. Was it truly necessary for them to have whatever they desired right at that moment? No, it was not. In fact, what they most often needed was a well-taught lesson in patience.
Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock.
Ralathor flipped the page in his book, ignoring the knocks.
Knock knock.
Another page.
SLAM.
Ralathor startled and almost fell from his seat. He shook his head to clear the veil of shock from his senses and put a bookmark into his book. He reanalyzed the situation.
Clearly, this was one persistent human, and honestly Ralathor didn’t feel like needing to replace his door again this week. One Hootsman visit caused enough damage to his home to make him truly consider perhaps finding a new place to live (though then he’d remember how much work and effort that required and decide against it).
He sighed to himself and put his book on the table near the chair. He got up from his seat, stretching his back, for even an immortal’s muscles had a tendency of not cooperating fully after holding one position for a long time, no matter how comfortable. With a wave of his hand, he summoned a cloak over himself. After all, one had to maintain appearances, even when wearing fluffy pajamas beneath it. (That said, he did not cast a glamor to hide his fuzzy bathies. No one bothered looking down at his feet anyways, and if they did then it was usually because they were about to end up dead.)
He approached the door of his home, taking his sweet time as he mentally planned the fate of the mortal behind the door if their request proved to be trivial and did not warrant them banging down his door at such an hour (which would almost surely be the case). After a few moments, he was in front of his door. He straightened his cloak, making sure it covered the design sewn onto his pajamas. (Yes, there were small axes and bears on the pajamas. Yes, this was a gift from Hoots. No, Ralathor would never admit that he actually liked it, especially not to the Hootsman himself. Ever.)
Using a rune, Ralathor had the door open dramatically, almost smacking the person on the other side. “What?” the hermit demanded to know, sounding as pissed off as an immortal who had just been torn away from comfortably reading a book by the fireplace.
“Brother, I need your h-”
Ralathor slammed the door shut as hard as he could and went back to his seat, not even picking up his book again or magicking away the cloak. What the fuck had that been? Surely Ralathor had just been seeing things, right? There was no way Zargothrax himself was actually at his door.
Knock, knock.
Ralathor ignored it. This had to be a prank, and he swore to track down the imbeciles trying to play him for a fool later.
Knock, knock, knock.
He growled to himself and got up, storming over to the door. He opened it just a crack.
“.. really need your help with--”
“No.” Ralathor shut the door. Okay, it was definitely Zargothrax, supposedly. Maybe one from another dimension, given that this dimension’s Zargothrax should be well frozen in liquid ice and unable to escape.
Or at least, he tried. There was a black armored foot stuck between his door and the doorframe.
“But brother--”
“No,” Ralathor repeated, brain trying to think of something to say while also running in overdrive to figure out what the ever-loving Hoots was going on. Had the damned barbarian slipped something into his drink at the last council meeting?
“Please.” What?
“Later.” That was the only possible answer Ralathor could give. When? He didn’t know. Whenever his brain was capable of processing this.
“When?” Of course that question came up.
“When you learn some patience and I get some fucking sleep.” Ralathor opened the door, rune in hand, and cast the rune at the figure beyond the door. While the force would have made most get knocked into the wall down the hall, it only stumbled Zargothrax, who had managed to cast a shield at the last moment. Fortunately for the hermit, it stumbled Zargothrax enough for the hermit to shut his door.
Ralathor went to bed and fell in, not caring to magic away his cloak. Clearly, this was all a hallucination that he just needed to sleep off.
The night was blessedly silent, and Ralathor slept better than normal. Perhaps it had been his imagination all along; last night did feel unusually surreal, and there was nothing odd about his home. He’d need to get back at the Hootsman for spiking his drink, but other than that, no harm was done.
Ralathor got dressed, changing out of the cloak and fluffy pajamas he had slept in and instead putting on his more usual clothes. He mentally went over his plans for the day: go to Cowdenbeath to get ingredients, work on finding a cure for the plague that had been threatening settlements along the kingdom’s borders, and pack for his extended trip to Triton to check up on the knights there -- after all, he had promised his old friend several decades ago to help watch over the knights, and he didn’t plan on breaking that promise.
As Ralathor opened the door and walked out of his home, he tripped over something and almost faceplanted against the solid rock ground, managing to catch himself with his runes at the last second. He cussed several times.
“Is that your way of saying ‘good morning’ to your brother?”
“Fuck off, Zargothrax.” Ralathor got up, brushing the nonexistent dust off of his dust-resistant cloak. “Why are you here? More importantly, how are you here?”
“I took the intergalactic metra,” Zargothrax responded nonchalantly. “Do you know how much a ticket for one of those costs? It’s scandalous!”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, that. Being trapped in ice for a few centuries. Well… let’s just say that the guards were getting a bit boring. Nothing against them -- clearly, no one had taught them about my reputation properly, and truth be told I was getting bored of watching them as well. So, I left, and now I am here.” Zargothrax gave what appeared to be his best attempt at a smile but came out looking more like an evil grimace. It creeped out Ralathor more than if the dark sorcerer had been laughing, and the hermit did his best to hide the shiver that went down his spine.
“Why are you here, then?” Ralathor asked, doing his best to maintain his patience and calm.
“I need your help.” Zargothrax’s tone went suddenly serious, and Ralathor didn’t like that.
“With what?”
“I want you to help me be not evil.”
Ralathor was now fully convinced that he was, in fact, still asleep and dreaming.