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Chapter Text

Banquo hadn’t wanted to accept the dagger sticking out of his chest.

He'd left earlier in the afternoon, the sun bright and clouds sprightly dancing across the sky, setting out to the banquet that Macbeth had so earnestly pleaded for him to attend. Ignoring that sinking feeling. Ignoring his niggling doubts about Duncan's unexpected demise.

Yet now, it seemed that his suspicions had been confirmed. Macbeth had been too far gone. There was nothing that he could've done.

Banquo had signed his own death warrant the second he'd expressed any suspicions towards the whole ordeal. But perhaps that didn't matter. Perhaps he was to die, regardless.

He'd asked the offender. A man clad in surprisingly average garments, whom he had attempted to strike up friendly conversation with.

They'd paused by the side of a small pond to let their horses rest - his own, a beautiful black mare that Macbeth himself had named. Macbeth himself, had given to him after they'd both made somewhat of a name for themselves upon the battlefield. The soft leather of the chestnut saddle that his wife had made for him - crafted out of the hide of the cows back in her home village. She was an admirable woman - intelligent, funny, working away at her own creative projects. Qualities that not many had embraced in her fellow woman. The wind whistled around his ears, desperately howling away and blowing great gales through the reeds, but he'd not heeded their warnings - even idly commenting about the weather to Horatio. 

The assassin's bone-white knuckles should've been another indicator. The way 'Horatio' - if that even was his name, had swallowed uncomfortably at the statement, tensing. Then the knife within his chest. The panicked neigh of both the steeds and the rushed clip-clops of their swift escape. 

He clutched at the tunic his wife- Adriana, had so lovingly crafted, feeling the wet, sticky substance that had began spreading its red tendrils through the woven linen. A gasp for air only illicited more pain striking out through his chest. 

Dimly, he wondered what would become of his beloved Adriana and his children. The prophecy had spoken of his son and Macbeth... surely he would not kill the child? His heart ached doubly as his mind struggled to cling onto the ghosts in his vision. His feeble attempts to come up with something - anything, a way to warn them-

The grass was damp beneath his knees, and vaguely, Banquo thought he could hear the soft, alarmed quacking of a duck as he sank deeper into the banks of the pond, disturbing the reeds. Blood mixed with water, and a familiar phrase wriggled its way back into his mind, and in spite of everything: he laughed.

I suppose that the blood of the covenant... was not thick enough for you, my dear friend.

Chapter Text

“Hath he slain thee also?” 

Banquo blinked in alarm, desperately trying to push himself back up, but his arms weighed down like lead. His eyes strained to make out the vague silhouette of a… man? Words not fully registering in his muddled mind. There was a kindly quality to it - a sort of, comforting presence to his mysterious companion. The quality of his voice was mellow, and just within his blurred vision, he could make out the vague blob of whiteness - was it some sort of holy light?

He tentatively reached out a hand, eliciting a chuckle. 

“What dost thou think thee be doing?”

A calloused, yet gentle hand embraced his own. Warmth that he was not expecting, as, if he were indeed dead, surely the afterlife would have been frigid. 

But as Banquo was slowly pulled onto his feet, his eyes cleared, and the spots faded.

“My liege?” If it were possible, the blood would’ve drained from his already pallid visage. But alas, yet another gift Macbeth had robbed him of, in his death. 

Duncan’s face wrinkled into a smile, the crow’s feet by his eyes crinkling in a familiar motion. Soft. Kindly. His melodic voice reverberated in his chest.

“Please, we are all equals in the eyes of God,” His king began, humble as ever. As though he had not rightfully earned this position. “You, of all my most faithful servants, should address me as a peer.”

“Yes, my- understood, Duncan,” He fumbled over his words, the name foreign on his tongue. Yet, the more he mulled it over in his mind, he came to wonder why he had not uttered it so from whence he was alive. They had been close, the two of them. The closeness and familiarity bred through many years of companionship, servitude, and comfortable quiets. Though their positions had not allowed such friendship, it managed to bloom in the discrete hours of the night, under the watch of the nightingale. They would walk, side by side then, and Duncan might enquire as to his next-morning plans, and Banquo would return to his wife. The memory of his wife did bring a smile onto his face, though the fondness was overshadowed by his fear for her life. 

Duncan saw the imperceptible flicker, observant as he was.

"Walk with me."

And so he did, following the radiant trail of the other.