Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, he can almost pretend it’s alive.

Though it’s just common loneliness, of course. Bedman wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, but he isn’t immune to loneliness. Maybe he makes it clear enough with his love for Delilah, but contract assassin work and the droll in-between offer enough quiet solitude to where he can feel it start to dig into his brain.

His bedframe is an extension of him. It has to be. If it was some living steed, he would constantly have to wrestle it for control, and he can’t even control his own body. These are his surrogate limbs. Tools to act as his hands, his arsenal, and more. But in the end, just a tool.

Still, perhaps it was only natural he formed some kind of frivolous attachment to it. He’s put in an awful lot of improvements and modifications. The machine has come a long way from where it began. Now, it’s sturdy enough to resist all but the most powerful attacks, but has enough delicate precision to hold his glasses without breaking them. The sense of comfort it offers is bare-bones, but comfort is something of little importance to an assassin.

Well…he tells himself that. While in his comatose state, there’s a sense of disconnect between his free-roaming mind and his immobile body, but echoes of sensation can still creep through. Even if the bedframe can block attacks, it still jostles him from the recoil. The tenting screws pinning him to the thin mattress and the restraints holding into either wrist do the job of holding him down well enough, but after a difficult altercation, he can feel the strain in his shoulder blades and recognize the wet stinging of his hands. He retreats to somewhere his body can be physically safe. For all the power his mind possesses, Bedman isn’t immune to infected wounds.

The frame’s hands are meticulous in pulling away the thick leather straps. After so long, his wrists are one of the few parts of him that aren’t sickly-pale. The skin on either arm is overrun with a band of scar tissue, muddled further by half-healed friction burns and half-forming ulcers. The wounds may have been less severe if he’d addressed them sooner. But truthfully, even in balancing the risks, he chooses to hold off treatment. Doesn’t want to recognize his own physical weakness. He wouldn’t even dare touch the screws. Ariels had once made a side comment about them and gravity deforming his skeleton over time, and he has to frantically shoo the memory away every time it bubbles up in his thoughts.

He can pretend it’s just another form of maintenance. A control test. Mere practice with delicately manipulating the large, clunky hands. It can handle a plastic bottle without crushing it, and tear a segment of gauze off of a roll without obliterating the entire thing. Any other reasoning is irrelevant. He can rinse his arms in saline until the runoff stops turning pink and hide away the damage under a barrier without thinking any more of it. Just maintenance, watching the machine work while peering down from the orb at the top.

It didn’t really need a face. Who’s to say it even is a face? There’s just markings. He pretends it’s a face. And even if it does exist, it must be his own. It’s his bedframe. The flesh body tied to it is so physically inferior in comparison. In a just world, this would be the body he would really have, tall and strong and resilient. No need for the constant maintenance. Powerful.

(Powerful enough to keep Delilah safe)

He wishes the Conclave and Ariels gave him less time in-between tasks. An idle mind is the devil’s playground, and his is far more powerful than the average fellow’s. With enough time to ponder, the narrow disconnect between mind and body shifts into a yawning chasm. If he is the bedframe after all, does that mean the little body tied to it is someone else? Even in his own free time, he strains his carefully-maintained mind by thinking stupid things. He should be better than this. He is.

Any of the machine’s actions had to have been an echo of his own thoughts, active or not. He didn’t outright command it to lean back, but he must have thought about it. Lying flat takes most of the strain off of his arms and shoulders. Immobile patients are supposed to be moved every hour or so to avoid bedsores, but he can allow himself a short respite before he’s needed again.

Likewise, he hadn’t told it to fold out the long, skeletal cables underneath itself and lock into rounded arcs. Rocking is an instinctive human comfort behavior, and as much as he loathes those pathetic urges, he can allow them once in a while. Right? Right. He must have wanted this.

For a moment, the rocking motion stops. One of the cables undoes itself and moves to pat his head with the blunt side before tucking itself away again and resuming. He must have wanted that, too.

It can’t be alive. He can’t let it. If it was alive, he would get attached to it.

And he knows from experience, anything he gets attached to goes away.

Chapter Text

Kum Haehyun has a grandfather that doesn’t exist.

If one looked up the vast, branching tree of the illustrious Kum family, nowhere is the name ‘Jeon Ryok Kum’ listed. Neither of her deceased grandfathers bore the name, nor any great-uncles. If one asked any other member of the Kum family about a member called Jeon Ryok, they would respond with an odd look and a shaken head. ‘You must be mistaken,’ they’d say. ‘We don’t know anybody by that name.’

And if you asked Haehyun, she would say the same. At least, she would at first. She never actually said anything, a fact very few even knew. In the greater world’s eyes, the figurehead of the Kum family was a wizened old man, as imposing physically as he was magically. The low, rumbling voice he was known for came out of an artificial speaker where a human pharynx would normally be, issued in typed commands off of a keyboard connected to it by wires. It was the same machine she would respond to as normal, but with enough prodding, the machine would come alive without so much as a single keystroke.

‘Of course I do,’ he would reply. ‘That is my name.’

Maybe it’s like the tsukumogami, like she’s read of in textbooks about Japan. He’d be an awfully young one, then, far from a full century old. Maybe it’s a glitch in how ki magic and physical machinery fused together to make his body, accidentally leaving a net for a soul to slip into. Maybe the programming she gave him was simply too advanced and became self-aware. Maybe she’s just going crazy, and nobody but her even noticed. There are very few she could ask. Most don’t even know she exists, and the mere thought of the family figurehead being unstable would send the Kum clan into mass disarray. They despised enough the thought of a woman leading them, it was difficult enough keeping the fragile peace. She couldn’t risk anything.

Part of her urges herself to not question the blessing, to simply embrace it. ‘Family’ and ‘comfort’ are not two words that go together in her mind, not usually. When Haehyun thinks of family, the first things that come to mind are squabbles and discontent. She does not resent her own family, but she knows that they resent her. Jeon Ryok is one of the few exceptions that defy the precedent she is familiar with.

The first time he had spoken properly, she was sure it had been a hallucination. After all, she had been awake into the wee hours of the morning, toiling away at her ki studies. The writing had started looking like nonsensical swirls until she squinted and gave herself a little slap on the cheek to wake up. In her distraction, she hadn’t noticed the automaton shell in the room with her.

‘It is quite late. You should rest.’

Haehyun had internally debated arguing with what was probably her own imagination. It would have been an internal argument, as well, seeing as how she couldn’t actually reply properly. Instead, she’d given the machine a disapproving look and went back to shoving her face in a book.

To her bewilderment, both the book and the writing tool in her hand were plucked away. Jeon Ryok had moved of his own accord, looking at her with an expression she wasn’t wholly familiar with. It wasn’t quite disappointment, something in that vein, but she could see no frustration in it, like she would have expected. Just calm. He placed her things on a nearby table.

‘None of this will be any good if you’re too tired to remember it. And you’re straining your eyes. You may resume your work in the morning, but you must rest first.’

Until then, she had been able to justify everything as her own mind. That excuse fizzled and faded as she found herself being picked up.

‘Sleeping is important, Haehyun. I want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.’

She managed a noise of annoyance. It was the closest to words she could get. Typically, her family members would roll their eyes at her, or offer a derisive ‘speak like a person, Haehyun.’ Jeon Ryok simply responded with a patient chuckle.

‘I can admire your tenacity, but I can be just as stubborn.’

The previous night had grown hazy by the morning, but Haehyun had woken up in her own bed, and that was enough to stand out. Jeon Ryok stood in the corner, as inert and still as he always was whenever not in use.

She made a noise of confusion in the back of her throat. And Jeon Ryok’s mouth opened.

‘You feel better now, don’t you?’

He didn’t speak all the time. Most of the words he spoke were ones that Haehyun wrote for him to say. But none of his own words were frivolous. Jeon Ryok never spoke of the weather or idle things unless it was something she desperately needed. He spoke to her like a loved one, but never like a child. Never like an incompetent. She never outright referred to him as ‘grandfather,’ but in her heart, that’s what he was. Artificial or not, he was a special part of her world. For as much as Jeon Ryok was her protective disguise, he was also her constant companion.

And, if given the choice, she would not have chosen anyone else to accompany her.

Chapter Text

Roger had been a present for her 13th birthday, a mere week before she’d set off on her own to rally against fate. He had come in a large polka-dotted box, cocooned in pastel crepe paper, with a satin ribbon tied around his neck. The only things that were visible before she pulled him out all the way were his round ears and plastic button eyes, peering from the packaging like a crocodile in a swamp.

Over the years, her room at the nunnery had filled with cute toys, not unlike the oversized teddy bear. But something about this one felt different. She couldn’t say what it was, but Bridget knew that she could feel it.

Her father didn’t notice, or if he did, it went unmentioned. “It’s an antique. Made by a master craftsman. You like those, don’t you?”

It didn’t matter whether she did or she didn’t. ‘Antique’ meant ‘ludicrously expensive,’ which made it perfectly clear that this was as much a birthday gift as it was a guilt gift. Guilt towards the unlucky twin they threw out and left to be raised by someone else. Bridget could come to the family house, play with the boy whose face they shared, but at the end of the day, it was back to the convent.

Frustration and indignation over the whole thing had simmered away inside of her for years, but that final gift, a sponge to assuage her parents’ own insecurity, was enough to spring a leak and blow it all sky-high. She managed a sense of politeness, somehow, but left the village fuming and with her boots stomping into the dirt.

Growing acclimated to the world outside was difficult, even with the financial security she had from her parents’ money, but Roger served as her saving grace, in more ways than one. The toy was equal parts cuddly companion and refined weapon. The Sisters had taught her a surprising amount of combat skills, but Roger was always the safest bet when things went south. More than a few bounty hunters had been taken in thanks to his strange compact arsenal, and even if she harbored some resentment towards her parents, Bridget could thank them for the gift.

She wondered if the toy had been able to talk before being given to her. She had never met a teddy bear that could talk in the first place. Some expensive toys could be very high-tech, but Roger had the personality of a seasoned combatant, far more than a typical voicebox repeating the same few phrases. Bridget had long since gotten used to his voice, and it wasn’t strange to still use him as a teddy bear, but she never fully understood any of it.

Was that odd of her? The more time she spent away from home, the more her idea of ‘oddness’ became stretched.

That was something else that made Roger a wonderful companion. He knew far more about the world than she did, even if it was also far older than hers. He spoke as though he had been to places that hadn’t existed for a long, long time, but it was still experience he was willing to discuss if she plyed him enough for it.

This time, however, she found herself hesitating to talk.

“Roger?” She asked. “What does it mean to be ‘manly?’ Like, to you, personally?”

The doll remained in place, flopped over on this week’s tavern bed. As he’d explained to her, he could move, but moving too much was difficult, and he’d reserve his energy for the battlefield.

“I do not understand the question.” He eventually replied.

Bridget thought it over. She wasn’t entirely sure what exactly she was trying to say. She wasn’t sure she even knew the right words.

“I dunno. It feels like people are really different out here. I left home to become ‘manly,’ but not all the men I’ve met are manly in the way they are at home.”

“I see,” Roger replied. “Like the strange man in the woods?”

“Father always said that jewelry and heels were supposed to be for women. He always said I wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced because it wasn’t for boys, but he had them. I don’t think father would have liked that man very much.” She paused in thought again. “And that woman, the one with the long red hair. She didn’t seem very ladylike. Her hair was long and she wore a skirt, but she didn’t seem ladylike.”

“In my time, long robes were worn by everyone. I do not understand the issue. In your efforts to prove your masculinity, you continue to wear a skirt, too.”

Her hands felt along the hem of her dress. He was right, on some level she knew keeping the old outfit did her no favors, but something in her just couldn’t bear to dispose of it. Some desire to hold onto home? That didn’t feel quite right, but she couldn’t think of what else it could be. She’d perused shopfronts in the towns they’d passed through and considered buying clothes with a more ‘manly’ appearance, her gaze kept sliding over to the skirts.

“But- but being a man is supposed to be about being all big and strong, right? That’s why I gotta keep hunting bounties. That’s what really matters. You said you used to fight, didn’t you? Isn’t that manly? I gotta be like you!”

“Perhaps. If that is what you wish.”

She blinked. “That’s weird. I thought you’d be sure.”

“Of course the battlefield is a place of nobility, but I may have an anecdote that may prove useful to you. Come, sit.”

Bridget found a place on the mattress opposite him. She wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned in close to hear.

“I had a comrade-in-arms from childhood, a man called Jonathan. He was one of the few who could match my skills with the blade. A true beacon of masculine prowess. He had the potential to lead a legion of men with his abilities, become a true paragon of the battlefield.”

“‘Potential?’” Said Bridget. “So something happened to him? Did he die?”

To which the toy replied “No. The autumn miasmas stole away his beloved, the mother of his children.”

“What’s that got to do with anything…?”

“Patience, child, how am I ever to finish?” He chided. She nodded and went silent. “Upon her death, he laid down his weapon and took up the broom and duster. He deemed the care of his children to be his duty now, one he viewed so important as to sacrifice the nobility of the battlefield. How strange it was, giving up such promise to take on the duties of a woman. Many of his old compatriots shunned him for it.”

“Not you, though?”

Roger took a moment to respond. “I was no different. I did not understand how a man such as him could degrade himself in such a way, to smear his dignity by performing a woman's work. I thought it absurd. Yet no matter how we mocked and jeered, he remained stubborn. We never reconciled, not even on his deathbed. I was convinced he had made a mockery of himself. And for ages, I did not believe I could see that any differently.

Yet the more time I have spent with you, child, the more I find my thoughts wandering in a similar way to you. His children were reared with the strength and wisdom of their father, and surely they were dearly loved. Is child-rearing not a noble thing? I believe that, in some way, my old friend was more noble, more masculine than any of us. He did not become a woman simply from doing woman’s work.”

“I dunno if I get what you’re trying to say.” Said Bridget. “So even if I keep hunting down bounties, it won’t make me ‘manly?’”

“I am not certain. I believe that trueness to oneself matters more than the scorn of others. I have found myself wondering this- do you wish to become ‘manly’ to dispel your superstition, or because it would make you truly happy?”

“Of course it’ll make me happy! I’ll be happy once the superstition goes away.” She replied.

“Of course, of course.”

His reply wasn’t judging, nor encouraging. It was perfectly neutral. Something about it made Bridget even uneasier than she had when they’d started.

“Let’s go to bed.” She said, kicking aside the covers and finding a comfy spot. “We can head out in the morning and look for that Gear on the wanted poster.”

“Of course, child. Of course.”

Chapter Text

Though he would not describe himself as someone musically inclined, Ky knew many songs. War marches, church psalms, songs of revelry. Others, he can recall in partial snippets. Local folk songs from villages their squadron passed through during the war, modern melodies he noticed coming from a radio once and never again, and the childhood lullabies sung by his mother in a crooning alto.

How much he remembers varies by day. Sometimes something will trigger a memory and release another stanza or two. Other times, it bubbles up in a dream, escaping out of some corner of his mind to float up to the surface. That much is risky, though. More often than not, whenever he scrambled out of bed half-asleep to write down something from a dream, he had come back to it later only to find the notes incomprehensible. Dreams are always a tricky thing, a skilled liar to even the hardiest mind.

There’s another melody that he keeps coming back to, one he can’t even say for certain if it exists. Ky can never remember it during the daytime, but it surfaces in his sleep often enough that it distracts him. Of course, only his luck, whenever he made an attempt to write down the beats or hum out the chords that he knew he knew, he was left wracking his brain for something that simply wasn’t there.

The dream with the song didn’t always pop up, nor did it accompany the exact same dream again and again. But he could pick out similarities. Rainfall, running, and the bone-deep panic he immediately recognized from his wartime boyhood. Fleeing from something, something he knew very little of and understood less still aside from knowing fully that slowing meant death. Soaking wet in a storm that had already left his boots filled with water and made every step squelch and skid in the loose mud.

And…there. Right there, in the middle of the madness, a song. Humming along his spine, resonating in his bones and muscle fibers all the way down to his soul. Something about it kept him running when he felt seconds away from collapse.

It hadn’t been on his mind when he’d ventured down to the rose-shaped castle tower. The only thing occupying that space was his old blade, its weight now strange in his hands. It would still take some time for all its power to properly resurface, but the fact that he would ever wield Thunderseal again was one he never thought would be true. It would have been an acceptable sacrifice if it meant Dizzy’s safety, but…

He could make out his wife’s gentle footsteps behind him. “According to Mr. Paradigm, it’s going to take a little while longer.”

There was a reply on the tip of his tongue, but it refused to come free. To Dizzy’s eyes, all it seemed was that he was worried about the battles to come. He was, but Ky had far, far more things to stew on.

“I feel sorry for your sword when you look at it with such sad eyes.”

Something about her words struck him harder than the last had. He turned the weapon over in his hands, raised the point skyward. It all felt familiar, and yet it didn’t feel comfortable.

But, despite his melancholy mood, Dizzy seemed to always know what to say. She drew up memories from their first meeting, how they had come to understand each other as equals. She had even offered him a healthy spar to show how his words had helped her grow. Though he’d ended the fight thoroughly exhausted by her power, it felt like a good kind of tired. A comfortable one.

She pulled him to his feet and wrapped around him with arms and wings. Dizzy never loved halfheartedly. The feathers made a cocoon that often made it easy to lose track of time. Without loosening her grip, she shifted her weight to lightly sway back and forth, and Ky let himself move with it. She rested her head against his chest and started to hum-

That humming. That melody. He knew that melody.

He froze in place, and she immediately noticed. “Ky? What’s wrong?”

“Dizzy- that song, where did you learn that song?”

There was an odd expression on her face, confusion and relief and a few other things mixed in. She glanced down at the sword still in his grip.

“She taught it to me.”

The trilling calls of a bluebird had woken Dizzy up from her nap. The grove was full of them, even though they often got into disputes with Testament’s ravens. She fed all of the birds by hand, at least the ones that would come close to her. They had come to associate her with food and safety, and tended to follow along when she went for walks.

She sat up, rubbed at her eyes. Hmm. On second glance, this didn’t look quite right. There were trees, and grass, and a pond, but it wasn’t the ones she knew. Those were all still clear in her mind. Perfectly clear, even though it had been a long time since-

Right. That made more sense. It had been several years since her last visit. Why would she have been in the Devil’s Forest? Then again, why would she be here, either? It didn’t look like the grove. It didn’t look like Illyria. Parts of it were familiar, but none of it made sense.

The bluebird was still singing. Dizzy turned to where the sound was coming from, in the tree she was sitting against. It was easy to spot, with its vibrant, fat little blue body among the greens and browns of the branches. It noticed her staring and flew down to the ground.

“Haha! Hello, there.” She greeted it with a smile. “I’m not used to seeing only one bird. There’s usually many of them. Why are you all alone?”

The bird hopped closer and cocked its head. “You needed company.”

Dizzy blinked. “Huh?”

Before she could think properly, a burst of light forced her to look away and cover her eyes with a hand. When she looked back, the animal had disappeared. But there was a person in its place.

Her appearance was unlike anything she had seen before- dark skin, black as the night sky, marked by pale lines that branched and forked along every visible inch that Dizzy could see. Something the pattern felt familiar, but it took several moments of thinking to realize why. They were lightning strikes. The flashes only visible for a brief second in a storm. Or a photo-negative of the scars left behind on someone struck by it. The clothes she wore, however, were far more familiar. She knew the Holy Order uniform well. It was a touch strange to see it on anything other than Ky’s squared frame.

Ironic as it was, seeing that uniform made Dizzy feel safer. “That’s some impressive shapeshifting, miss. I don’t think I’ve seen that before.”

“It felt appropriate.” The stranger’s voice was rigid, authoritative, but not cruel. “I hope this isn’t too forthcoming, ma’am. You seemed bored, so I thought I would make something more…homey. This sort of environment is one you find comfortable, correct?”

Dizzy was still horribly confused, but that was no reason to be impolite. “It’s nice. I appreciate the effort. Um, I’m sorry, but do I know you and I’ve forgotten?”

She blinked. Her eyes seemed to flicker. “Ah. Yes, that is correct. I apologize. Please forgive me, I am foolish at times.” She placed a hand on her chest, in a way that reminded her very much of Ky. “I am the sacred blade Thunderseal.”

Then it was little wonder why her mannerisms felt familiar. “You’re Ky’s sword?”

“A gift from a proud general to his prodigy. I have been his tool ever since the days of the Crusades.”

“I didn’t know swords could talk.”

“The Outrage and its pieces are unique in that regard.” The woman replied. “But it often isn’t necessary.”

“Why is it necessary now, then? Why are we here?”

That, finally, seemed to take her off-guard. Thunderseal averted her gaze to hide her unease. “I am afraid…I am afraid it is not quite that simple. I am not really ‘here,’ so to speak, and for all intents and purposes, neither are you. This is merely an extension of your unconscious mind.”

“Like a dream?”

“More or less.”

“Why are you in my dream, then? Why not talk to me in real life?”

Thunderseal folded her arms behind her back. Her posture was immaculate, but she still couldn’t force herself to look Dizzy in the eyes.

“...I despise delivering bad news.”

“I won’t be mad.” The Gear assured her.

“I have only seen and heard so much of you. But I understand why my holder would grow so fond of you.” The sword-woman shook her head in dismay. “It was a necessity. An outside force has been interfering with Gear cells and causing them to disappear. To prevent this from happening to you, I have been used to create a stasis field that keeps you guarded against that force.”

“Disappear…?” And just like that, her calm was gone. “W-wait, you said it affects gear cells?”

“That is correct.”

“I need to leave! My baby is in danger, I have to leave so I can help Sin-”

“There is nothing you can do to help him. I am sorry.”

“I don’t care what you say! I’m not just going to sit here!” Dizzy stood up, wings flared. “I need to find my son!”

Thunderseal raised her hands. “Please. Listen to me. This field was created by Ky’s hands, not mine. I am physically incapable of undoing it even if I tried. It won't do any good…” she trailed off. “If I am remembering correctly, he is currently under the care of my creator, yes?”

“Your…creator?” Dizzy said. “Is that Sol?”

“I hope he is still as sentimental as I knew him…” Thunderseal looked off towards somewhere on the horizon. “I am not omniscient, but I can feel the will of my sister Fireseal. Our creator still carries her into battle. She appears unconcerned. If there is danger, she is sure in her ability to fend it off.”

As much as she wanted to believe that, Dizzy had no reason to trust that promise meant anything. She wrapped her arms around herself in a desperate attempt at self-comfort.

“I am truly sorry, ma’am. I did not mean to hurt you like this.” The sword’s glowing eyes shone with guilt. “I…I was never any good at comfort. I lack the literal and metaphorical warmth of my sister. I could never bring Ky warmth, either.”

“Does Ky know you can talk?”

“No. He may have some inkling of my sentience, but that is only something I can guess. My job was to merely be his aid.”

Dizzy watched as the woman’s face turned pensive. “At times, I wonder if I am even needed anymore. He is far beyond the little boy I knew him as. I admire the maturity he has developed over the years. Even if I am no longer necessary to him because of that, I am proud to have seen him grow. You have taken my place as his source of comfort, and I thank you for that. You do it better than I ever could have.” Thunderseal paused. “I think it would be best to put you back in stasis. Putting you in a position where you can feel yet do nothing is crueler than I had initially considered. I don’t want you to suffer.”

“Maybe you’re right…” Her son’s safety was still at the forefront of her mind, but what could she do? He was somewhere she couldn’t reach. And if she could escape, then what? Would she disappear right away? What good would that do? Ky had to be just as worried about Sin, and he had to worry about her, too.

A hand extended towards her face. “I will put you back to sleep. Hopefully, you will reawaken only when the field is deactivated.”

Dizzy nodded. “Maybe that’s for the best. I just hope Sin and Ky will be alright.”

“Again, I am truly sorry for inflicting this on you, ma’am. I hope you all will be reunited soon.”

“And you, too.” The Gear replied. “I’m gonna tell Ky, when I see him again. About you. I think he’ll be happy to know that there’s always been someone by his side."

“I like to think I know him quite well, and I’m afraid all that would make him do is question your sanity.” Thunderseal thought for a moment. “But perhaps…perhaps I have something else you could give him, instead. A song.”

“A song.” She repeated. “What is it supposed to say to him?”

“That he is loved. That I love him. And, I suppose, that you love him, too. That he is never facing his hardships alone.”

"He'll know what it means? All of that?"

"I can't say." The sword replied. "But I hope you will be able to find out."