Work Text:
By the gallows in a damned metal wasteland, on a hill most people cared to avoid, sat a man. A man cloaked in religious symbols that carried little meaning to most, and with shoulder-length hair combed to the best of his abilities, even if this world allowed little time for such things. The man was known as Galahad.
Above him, hung from the gallows, wrought in copper and wire, was a robot. The Hanged Man, who had been there for as long as anyone living could remember. With old letters, worn away, that most could only interpret as “MERLIN”.
Galahad liked to come there. Liked to sit by the quiet hanged man, likely dead, but somehow still haunting that hill. There was rust, framing the hanged man’s body, rust, across the hanged man’s face.
It was a shame, Galahad thought to himself. A shame that such a beautiful face should be buried beneath rust, abandoned there without a caring hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to clean it up. It felt wrong to touch something so ancient and beautiful. He was a preacher, not a divinity.
He liked to speak to the hanged man, even though he never got a response. Of course he didn’t. But he talked, shared everything, because no one else was going to listen to the crazy preacher’s ramblings.
“They don’t understand,” Galahad told him, “I want them to understand. This world is full of sin and damage, but there has to be a way to salvation.”
He looked at the robot, hanging from the gallows. Wondered what crime had landed him there. Wondered if Merlin too had said something others did not want to hear. Wondered if he too, would end up in the gallows.
“It ain’t easy. We deserve the suffering, we always have. But there’s more out there. A world beyond. That’ll be where the final judgment happens. And I may not make it, but I want to help others try. Is that so bad?”
Galahad grew up in a community that valued God. Loved God more than anything. If you didn’t, if you questioned it for a moment too long, then you’d better hope God would be there to save you nonetheless.
Galahad had questioned once, but not anymore. Not when God’s light was so clear in his mind, not when everything was hopeless and lost. Not when there was still a chance to salvage something. If not him, if not this generation, perhaps the next. Someday the station would be saved, and Galahad would try his best to get that to happen. No matter what he’d have to sacrifice for it.
He sighed to himself as he stared at the rusting man. A friend through many years of his life. Though the hanged man had been old already the first time he saw him, Galahad still felt he’d seen changes throughout his life. Had heard the faint hum of electricity that really shouldn’t be there, that most people didn’t realize was there. Galahad knew though. How could he not be drawn to that comforting hum?
The world was growing hotter. Galahad didn’t know why, but he was fairly sure it wasn’t a good sign. He felt the warmth cling to him as he preached on the streets, felt himself grow dizzy with dehydration as he tried to reassure the few people who’d follow him.
He prayed every night. Had done so since he was a child. Added sentences and paragraphs as fit, requesting salvation and forgiveness, begging for some kind of sign to cling onto. Not that he really needed one. Faith was a powerful thing, and faith was enough.
“Do you get hot?” he asked the hanged man once, knowing full well he wouldn’t get a response, “Do your circuits ever overheat?”
He laid down beside Merlin, his hands placed gently on his own chest as he inhaled the dry heat, “I hear you, you know. You’re probably not alive, but I hear you,” he wasn’t sure if he’d ever said, “I think our God might’ve sent you. Is that wrong to say?”
He spoke to the hanged man when he was just a little younger too. A little dumber, and nearly shot multiple times by the Stone gang. And the hanged man had listened, even as Galahad had sprouted blasphemies from his tongue, that he hoped he could get some kind of forgiveness for eventually. Not once had the hanged man seemed to judge him. Not once had the hum changed from its usual comfort. And the hanged man was still listening.
Most likely because he didn’t have a choice, but he was still listening.
The station had been a sinful and broken place for as long as he could remember. He’d been taught as much, had preached as much.
And yet he couldn’t help but feel that something was coming, when he woke up at night sweating, when he watched the heat and tensions grow by the day.
God was his primary escape of course, as they’d always been. Even if his mind occasionally drifted to the hanged man, and how alone he seemed when no one was there to speak to him. Galahad visited still, each time he preached anywhere near the gallows. Talked about everything on his mind, spoke about the faint hope he sensed.
It was all the same as usual, until the hanged man opened his eyes.
Beautiful amber eyes, staring right at Galahad from the gallows, the faint movement as elegant as it was calculated. And Galahad took a step back as his heart skipped a beat, even if something within him begged him to step even closer.
“Galahad…”
The voice was soft, and seemed to reach both sides of Galahad’s head even if he could clearly tell where the sound was supposedly coming from. He watched the hanged man, Merlin, who’s expression was as neutral as it had always been, but with faint differences most wouldn’t be able to see. Little quirks in the shape of the frown.
“Hanged man,” Galahad whispered, the name feeling so much different when it was directed at someone who was looking at him, with eyes Galahad desperately wanted to fade into.
He wondered if the hanged man really had heard him the whole time. He couldn’t even bring himself to feel embarrassed as his heart rate increased with a wide range of emotions.
“Deep within the depths of the station,” Merlin said faintly, “You’d find the key that brings your salvation. Ornate and hidden past pain and privation, it’s clutched in the Captain’s cold hands.”
Galahad felt each word falling into his mind, felt as if Merlin was much closer than he was, holding him as he whispered the reassurances and visions.
“So take your seat, the one that they warn you from. Galahad, be strong,” Merlin continued, and Galahad wanted to fall to his knees but couldn’t get himself to do so, “Its visions may overwhelm, but they won’t steer you wrong. Follow them through to your fate.”
And at this, Galahad smiled. As if his God had made him do so, rather than himself. His back straightened as he stared into the hanged man’s eyes.
The prophecy was unbelievable. He knew that. Knew that most who would’ve heard it would’ve dismissed it out of hand, even if they knew the source.
But not Galahad. Galahad’s life had been full of people refusing to listen to him, no matter how truthful his words were.
The station was in danger, much as Galahad had suspected, had known for years. Merlin had told him as much.
But he had also given him a way to save it. The hanged man had spoken to Galahad , and finally Galahad had a fate and a purpose.
So he did as he was told. He sat in the damned chair, and felt the flames fry his mind as he saw horrible visions of death and destruction. Terrible visions of the fires of hell, and this world finally being punished for its sins.
He gave his speech, eyes aflame and his mind feeling different from before, as he shared the visions. Most people who sat in that chair didn’t live to tell the tale, but Galahad had lived for a reason. He was still alive for a reason and he’d die for a reason as well, eventually.
Even if most dismissed Galahad as crazy, even if that might’ve been simultaneously more true and more false than ever after he sat in that chair, he wasn’t a preacher for nothing. His visions drew the attention of the Pendragon gang who ruled the town. Of Sheriff Arthur himself.
And soon, Galahad was on that fateful quest he’d known he’d eventually end up on his entire life. Side by side with the sheriffs, who ruled as three. Each night as their companions died around him he prayed and thought of those amber eyes that seemed to have faith in him. Had chosen him.
When he saw the turrets, witnessed what they were capable of, he knew exactly what to do.
Galahad wasn’t afraid of dying. He never had been. Ever since he was a child, he’d known the day would come eventually, and while he hadn’t looked forward to it, he didn’t really have much of an opinion on it all together. When you grew up on Fort Galfridian, death was all around you. Ghouls died in the darker levels, sickly from the radiation. People on the upper levels died from bandit raids, starvation, dehydration, and petty fights alike. People died because the world was full of sinners, and damnation would reach them all eventually. Galahad was most likely among them, no matter how hard he tried to salvage it.
“What are you going to do?” asked his sheriff, seeing the fire in Galahad’s eyes.
Galahad felt that fire, the searing heat within his bones and mind. He remembered those beautiful amber eyes and the prophecy. Galahad be strong . He thought of the Pendragons, the sheriffs ruling as three, and their deep love for one another. He hoped that this would keep them safe. That they’d be able to send each other uncomplicated smiles once this was all over. He recalled each time those poor damned bastards had dismissed his word, and he knew that sometimes they might’ve been right to, but not this time. This time Galahad knew he’d gotten it right.
“I’m going to do what I was chosen to do,” he said, his eyes not leaving the turrets as he grinned. This was the fate the hanged man had spoken of, this was what his God wanted him to do, and he was going to follow through with it.
As he ran towards the turrets, his heart was full of faith as his body was shot. He barely acknowledged the blood and the pain, as his smile only grew until his mouth was shot unrecognizable. Continued ahead until he fell to the floor. Tasted blood in his throat until everything finally turned dark.
And yet, impossibly, the last thing he remembered was the touch of rusted hands cupping his cheeks that shouldn’t be able to feel. The faint hum of electricity in the air heard by his ears that shouldn’t be able to hear. And the sight of amber eyes, seen by eyes that shouldn’t be able to see.