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“Are you scared?”
Moonshine’s breath smells like fermented vegetables. It’s hard to miss in such a small space. Even with the extra room they built into the coffin, their faces are so close that the tips of their noses are touching. Even though she’s whispering, when Moonshine speaks, Hardwon feels her voice all over his skin. Resonate, like a string plucked on a hollow guitar, through his whole body. He tries not to look at her boobs. Or the freckles in places usually covered up by her clothes. But the drumming has stopped, and it is silent, and it is just Moonshine’s earnest eyes on his in the dark. If he wants to avoid them, there aren’t many other places to look.
Hardwon blinks, and whispers back, “Yes.”
Moonshine stares at him. She looks a little blank, a little unsure — as if she didn’t think she would get this far, and has no idea what to do now that they’re actually here. He thinks of her hair tossing in the wind of Shadowfell’s ocean, as she’d asked to not be alone in wanting him to live. The way she’d phrased it. As if it were just another shit they were stuck in, and would get out of, together. She purses her lips for a moment, and then — her breath fills the space. “Me too.”
That feeling again. Like the heat of her mouth is on the crook of his neck.
Perhaps a part of the ritual is death by fever.
They stare at each other. Hardwon doesn’t want to stay in here. He also doesn’t want to get out. He’s not sure he’s ever been this close to Moonshine before. Or, well — he has, but never for this long. Never this still the whole time. Her fingers twitch against the back of his hand. He squirms his feet against the itchy feeling crawling up his calves. There could be anything waiting on the other side of this coffin lid. And, good or bad, when he finds out, it’s goodbye to this body forever. Perhaps he should just stay in here, with Moonshine, feeling awkward. Feeling scared. If undead, at least he’s still himself. If constantly compensating, puffing up his chest, proving that he was wrong to be left behind a million times in a million push-ups and beheadings and flourishes of an ax — at least this is the body that died for the people that seem, for whatever reason, to like him. At least he’d be in here with Moonshine. Not alone.
Hardwon feels the air in front of his lips hitch as Moonshine takes a breath.
“I’m here,” she says. Matter of fact. Matter of we-both-don’t-know-what-we’re-doing. Matter of but-it’s-already-begun. And yes, there have been a million beheadings, but a million extended hands, a million bandaged wounds, a million palms pressed to the side of his face and in a rush of warmth heal, too. In this small space, the air is shared by the both of them. Warmed by their bodies, pressed so close. “If you need me, I’m here.”
Hardwon nods, the tips of his and Moonshine’s noses bumping against each other as he does so. Anything could be on the other side of this coffin lid. But it can’t be much worse than never again being able to sleep in a real bed, or see the sun. It can’t be much worse than dying, which he’s already done. He reminds himself of the empty feeling that clouds himself often at night, these days. The memories of warm bread, crisp apples, spices thick on his tongue, that already feel eons away. The loathing that grips his chest when he finds himself thinking like those awful things that turned him in Grimhawk, and the dread that pools in his stomach when he thinks of a whole, long life stretched out just like it. There’s a reason he got in here. There’s a reason he hasn’t given up, bled out, left for Moradin and the golden forge every time he’s been sent to the ground.
There’s no going back now. Moonshine’s nose to nose, shoulder to shoulder, boobs to breastplate with him. Summoning all her magic to give him a second chance, as soon as she could. Like a burn rushed lovingly to cold water. Like it was her own life on the line. She stares at him, blinks her emerald eyes. Waiting.
There’s no one else he’d rather be stuck in a coffin with than her.
“Thanks,” he says. And the air is thick, and Moonshine is all over his skin, and he knows what he has to do. Hardwon closes his eyes and lets the magic take him, canoe on the rapids, to writhing.
Hardwon bends the knee.
It’s a joke. Akarat is dead and blood is still fresh on their palms and the doors have opened to a flood of well wishers, eager faces, a cascade of golden light. For all the devils and zealots that were very real and very dangerous just a few moments ago, the crowd rushes in, and Moonshine feels back on the bank of the crick, a game of jacks just won with everyone watching. She feels silly, with this big clockwork crown sliding down her head, in this big golden throne where her feet barely touch the floor. She catches the eye of her father, dorky and giddy. She feels all play-pretend, young’n dressed up in Meemaw’s clothes for the bonfire play. Like it’s all too good to be true. Too close call to be this happy. Too important a seat for Hardwon to be making oaths he can’t keep to it.
“My queen,” Hardwon says, and grins.
“Aw, hush,” she says, and waves a hand at him. Yes, she’s on a throne, and yes, it is nice to be revered, but — that’s not the point. She’s not the hero. She’s not the queen. She’s just a person who sat on a chair for a minute. And really, Hardwon needs to stand up, because there are a lot of people in here who are looking at her and she is blushing. “You know we all played our part.”
Hardwon ignores her and bows his head. “I swear fealty to your cause, my liege.”
“I told you, I ain’t no liege.”
“I will sow the lands with your spores of wet and musk.”
Moonshine narrows her eyes. Cracks in the places Hardwon’s no nonsense, all macho voice always gets her. “Well… alright. You got me there.” She reaches forward, does her best recollection of knighting him on one shoulder, and then the other, and leans back in her chair. “I won’t deny aid to the good spread.”
Hardwon lifts his head, and the grin on his face makes her stomach buzz. Cheek dimpled, smear of blood on the nose, hair curling at the ends where its fallen on his forehead. He looks so easy — as if, now that the worst has happened, he’s loosened the mortar keeping his walls so high, and so tightly together. Just a little bit. As if screw the few extra inches, the couple extra pounds, the perfect biceps, he’s alive again. In the water, in the bedroom, he throws off his shirt, bares his wiry frame with ease, feels the points of his ears and smiles. He’s never cared less about being seen. Moonshine’s never cared more about seeing him — never spent more time looking at him as he talks, eats breakfast, trims his beard before bed. Never spent more time counting the planes of his face in the night, trying to spot all the differences. Tracing the profile of his nose, already straight, now straighter. Watching the light shine on the curls of his tawny hair, already fine, now finer. The curl of his lips as he sleeps. The curl of his lips as he grins, battle tousled, looking up at her.
Not that she’s thinking about his face. Or his lips. That often. Just that she wants to know the ways that he’s changed. Wants to make sure that the Hardwon looking at her now is the same Hardwon that watched her with scared, hungry eyes in the small dark space of the coffin, the Hardwon that preened in the mirror for an hour before they left to see Gemma. The Hardwon that fought down to the knuckle, and back again, in the orange forests of the Feywild. The Hardwon that kissed her, so gently.
“Daughter!” Her father comes gliding up the stairs, arms outstretched. “Blood of my blood! I am so proud of you!” He clasps her by the shoulders, draws her into a hug, and Moonshine is pulled out of the bramble of her thoughts in an instant. They were silly thoughts, anyway. Hardwon is Hardwon. Hardwon is alive, and that’s all that matters. Standing to the side of the throne, eyes politely lowered, hands behind his back. So what if his hair is a little curlier, his cheeks a little higher, the thin line of his lips a paler pink? Her father pulls out of the hug, and she’s left to look at his haughty, prim face, all beaming.
There’s nothing but people and chatter and celebration, and Moonshine is lost in all the giddy. Here, meet the professor of divination. Here, return the crown to its pedestal. Here, her father clasps Hardwon’s hand, shakes it excitedly, likes him. Moonshine feels her chest ache, and a fear she didn’t know she had fade away. Yes, her father sees pointed ears and makes assumptions, doesn’t pay attention to the thick beard, the flask of Crick water, the symbol of Moradin on the hammer at Hardwon’s back, but it doesn’t seem to bother Hardwon much. What’s another people to claim, for someone like him? Another set of robes, another god, another pride to champion and carry? Hardwon straddles worlds easily. He likes Crick food and ladies with beards and calls himself Stormborn. He still always returns to her, to Beverly, to the campfire hot and the bed wide, with jokes and grins. With walls up. With lonesomeness between the eyes, yearning.
And, anyways, now’s not the time for any sad thinking. There’s a party to be had. Balnor has his arm slung around Mavrus. Cooter’s in the corner making out with his new girlfriend. Hardwon is striding out, pumping fists into the air, hooting at Beverly. Gait the slightest bit different, but too confident for his own good all the same.
Moonshine keeps her eyes on his back, and runs into the sea of rejoice, grinning.