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“Surely he’s not allowed himself to be captured for some horrific reason,” Thancred reasons.
The warrior of light hums contemplatively in return, rubbing their chin with a gauntleted hand. The two of them lean against the cavernous wall in the Fringes, watching the bustle of its inhabitants as the sun begins to set. Caravans pack up for the evening, with merchants calling out their numbers and stock to their assistants hurriedly penning the words down in lengthy tomes; the smoke of pipes and fires lazily drift up towards the darkening sky. A people undaunted, despite the horrors of war haunting their minds and threatening their home. “Surely,” they agree, although they are lost in thought.
They had battled Zenos yae Galvus earlier that day and resorted to some underhanded tactics in an attempt to capture him; and for some strange reason it had worked . He had cast his swords aside, removed his helm and held up his hands in surrender without much preamble. The accolades came tumbling in next, with Raubahn congratulating them profusely for hours on end and the men of the Fringes celebrating bawdy and long in the day. Lyse had immediately set up the date for a trial alongside Lord Hien–although Zenos was not the lynchpin to the bloody massacres that had taken place in the glorious name of Garlemald, his capture certainly was a much-needed turning point in the war. And yet…it was not the bloody clash the prince had sought after. Something had glimmered there, cold and promising in his indecipherable expression, as he had allowed himself to be covered in chains and lead to a frigid cell hundreds of yalms beneath their very feet. He had not said a word despite Lyse’s obvious chagrin and her interrogation attempts entrenched in an unsettled fear. He had merely stared, impassively, at the warrior watching from the wings.
And hours had passed since then in a troubled silence–they had waited for a garrison to pour onto their doorstep, for the fighting to ignite once more and a true clash to tear apart the Fringes as it had at their first introduction to Zenos, but there was nothing. No armies surged forth in the vacuum left behind by the man. No retaliation, no attempts for rescue, no bartering from the Empire. “Well,” they amend their previous statement, “it’s wishful thinking that I’ve managed to single-handedly defeat him–”
“Which you have,” Thancred interjects.
“--But I cannot shake the idea that he allowed his capture.” The warrior of light continues as if Thancred hadn’t spoken. Raubahn stands in the distance with Pippin perched upon his shoulder, and the two of them pour over a map alongside a few soldiers. They watch him lead as they think, their brow furrowing deeply. “So he must have ulterior motives. I just…I have no idea what they even would be.”
The surrender of Zenos yae Galvus. What a strange and foreign thought! As if he’d ever willingly hand himself over to the enemy to be put to trial and, inevitably, to death. There has to be some scheme there, underneath the bolstered speech and gaudy intensity; he had practically placed himself on a silver platter. They replay the fight over and over in their mind, their other hand coming to an uneasy rest upon the hilt of the sword at their hip. He is an enigma they are determined to unravel–he’s taken up their thoughts for the better part of the day to no avail. “Granted, Hydaelyn’s light grants me an unnatural strength,” they muse, half to Thancred and half to themselves, “but even so…he had all but torn me to shreds in our previous battle before allowing me to go so that I may become stronger. It was as if he had lost interest today and simply thrown in the towel. Perhaps…yes, maybe that’s it?”
“What, that he’s lost interest?” Thancred readjusts himself and crosses his arms over his chest, one of his hands reaching up to play with the threads of his eyepatch. “You’ve provided him with poor enough sport that he’s given up, both on you and life ? I highly doubt that.” His visible eye narrows as he turns to look at the warrior in the fading light. “I’m all but certain this has something–everything, in fact–to do with his single-minded obsession with you. Have you spoken to him since he’s entered his newfound lodgings? No doubt he’s chomping at the bit to drop the frigid prince routine and wax poetic with his ‘hunt’.” His voice becomes snide and pointed at the end, verbally expressing his distaste for the Viceroy.
“I had assumed nobody wanted me to speak with him,” they respond almost morosely. “Raubahn has not asked me to, nor Lyse; besides, I haven’t the clearance required to go to the cells.”
“I’m sure our friends would be more than happy to give said clearance to the warrior of light.”
There’s a strange coyness to his voice that gives them pause. They turn towards him inquisitively. Thancred gives a half-shrug, a tilt of his shoulder towards them that they immediately recognize as his plotting. “Thancred…” they begin, a warning painting their tone.
“All I’m saying is,” Thancred says, appraising them intensely with his one good eye, “if anybody were to get a motive wrenched out of that behemoth, it would be none other than yourself. Not for a lack of trying, per se, but moreso that he wouldn’t deign to speak to anybody else. And if he were…” He trails off into silence as a caravan nearby lights up and a few merchants hop out, buzzing with idle gossip and beginning to load a few waiting barrels into the dark of their stores.
The two of them wait patiently as the newcomers work, and after a few minutes the strangers hop back inside, the lights flickering out once more.
“...And if he were to mysteriously die , while in custody…” Thancred continues in a low voice, giving another little careless shrug. “Well. I’ve no qualms about that, personally, and in my opinion I believe it’s the easiest way for him to go.”
Ah.
They’re not exactly surprised at the suggestion but they are taken aback at the boldness of Thancred’s idea. They stand as guests in Gyr Albania, overseeing the war at the behest of Lyse and Raubahn, and Eorzea as a whole. To sneak down to the cells and slit the throat of the crown prince…to even consider such perfidy would be treasonous enough. Zenos dying in custody would throw the war into full swing, and they have no idea if Gyr Albania would survive the ensuing invasion. It would cause far more deaths than it would alleviate. And they’d be labeled, once again, traitor to a different city-state, even with the best of intentions guiding the dagger. The thought brings a pang of pain to them as they remember the chill of Ishgard and the ghosts that haunted them through its gates.
“Lyse,” you respond quietly, “would kill me.”
“Only if she knew it was you.”
“Who else could it be, Thancred? Who else could kill him?”
Thancred holds up his hands in self-defence, that raw anger never quite leaving his darkened gaze. “It’s easier to put rabid dogs down,” he says, like he’s justifying it to himself as well. “Think about it–the litigation they plan to subject him to could take months, years even. Who’s to say that the war won’t get worse in time while he molders behind bars? Having him here alive endangers us more than hosting his corpse does.”
“It’s not what’s best for the war, and for the people suffering from it now ,” they respond sharply. “The ramifications of even considering something like that–”
“So don’t consider it,” he says harshly, voice little more than a tenuous rasp. “Just act . That’s what your role is, as the warrior of light.”
They know he is led by a grief-fueled fury, dogged by the death of Minfilia, and so they bite back their own heated retort, taking a deep breath to steady themself. It would do neither of them good in the long run to cut each other so cruelly. “If I were to act, blindly , at your behest,” they say in a low voice that crawls out colder than intended, “I would no doubt land us in a situation similar to the Crystal Braves back in Ul’dah. The difference would be that, this time, it would most assuredly be our fault, and I doubt we would find any shelter anywhere else. Are you so keen on separating us all again? Who will we end up losing this time to our own follies?”
Thancred takes a deep, shuddering breath and turns away, reaching up to rub his chin. And truly, it’s a low blow, they know this; they don’t intend to play on his own self-flagellation but they aren’t keen on destroying a tenuous peace with the death of a major player. That, and ultimately it doesn’t feel right. Zenos dying alone and cold in custody…no, something within them tells them that he will die by the singing of steel, brazen on a battlefield.
But how does he escape a situation like this? Why would he have relinquished his pursuit so easily? Would he really have lost interest in their clash?
“I understand your thought process, Thancred. I truly do. But I will not be seeing him,” they say sharply, as Thancred turns towards them again, whatever sentence he had prepared dying on his lips. “Dead or alive–I will not be the hand that makes that judgment now that he is captured. He will remain, alone, until Lyse takes him to Doma as soon as dawn lights the horizon. It is not up for discussion.”
Thancred thinks for a moment but finally relents, shoulders slumping forwards with defeat. “You’re right,” he concedes quietly, something broken in his tone that shoots a pang through the warrior’s heart, “of course you’re right. I’m…I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me.”
They put their hand on his shoulder and begin to lead him to his quarters, pushing him gently but firmly. “I hold nothing against you, Thancred. Get some rest. We can discuss this more in the morning.”
He allows them to pilot him away; he begins to speak on something else but the words fall muffled upon the warrior’s ears. Their head is still yalms below, wrapped tightly around the mystery that is Zenos yae Galvus.
Night falls, a velvet cloak descending upon Gyr Albania, offering cover to treason.
Well, the warrior of light reasons weakly, standing before a large iron dungeon door with a torch clutched in their fist, a conversation isn’t treasonous inherently ; they had no intention of killing him as he remained in custody for fear of the consequences the fallout would bring. They just…are curious , that’s all. The question of why he had folded so errantly springs into their head to burn too bright and too hot to be stifled without ever asking. This is the one night they’d have the opportunity to do so before he’s whisked away into a world of tribunals and the gallows, far out of their prying reach.
And yet they have crept silently down here all the same without speaking to Lyse or Raubahn or even Thancred, all guards in their wake put under a sleeping spell so as not to sound the alarm. On paper it reads as duplicitous. In fact, in every which way you look at it–coming after dark has fallen, telling nobody, conspiring with a Scion earlier this very day to kill him–it is betrayal. Betrayal of the trust they’ve been bestowed and the goodwill they’ve accrued; only acted upon because they know if they had asked someone else or let their allies know of their intentions, they would not be allowed to face this beast alone.
But they still cannot fully explain their own actions in coming to see him. Specifically, why they had also obtained a key that now weighs heavily in their pocket, pilfered off of one of the sleeping guards. Having this in their possession would most assuredly be reason enough to shackle them alongside their quarry–after all, it is the key to Zenos’ shackles in prison. It’s only kept on their person for contingency, they tell themselves. Should he be abused or set upon in some way by guards or jilted townsfolk it is to release him to save him from death before he is fit to stand trial. Not for any other reason.
Certainly not for any flights of fancy they may have about where and how he should die.
They open the door and it creaks obscenely loud, a shuddering of hinges that echoes damply around the space beyond. The warrior of light pauses for a brief moment, frozen in place with their free hand jumping to their sword, half-expecting a coalition of guards to surge down the steps and throw them in alongside their enemy–but the hall and the long series of steps are silent, blissfully unaware of their intruder.
Breathing a quiet sigh of relief, they step into the cell.
It’s blacker than the night they had emerged from, and they raise the torch high to take stock of the place. The room is rather large, the floor cold stone mottled with small piles of sand. Empty sconces line the walls of the room, along with a quiet occasional clanking of metal against metal. A chill holds in the stagnant air and they cannot help a shiver as they are enveloped fully within it. An unmistakable shape rests in the middle of the floor, but Zenos is not yet fully visible in what little light the torch can cast from the doorway.
“You are a balm against my wounds.”
Of course he immediately knows that it’s them. And even now he’s able to be wry, a dry sarcasm painting his deep voice that booms around the cavernous space despite the quietness in which it's said. Interesting–so he has no immediate qualms about his situation. It disconcerts them more than any threat spit under duress or mindless rage would have. They raise the torch higher as they take a few steps forward, finally bringing Zenos into full view. “Are you injured?”
“Only in how long it took you to come to me.”
The first thing they notice are the chains; his arms are bound behind his back as he kneels in the middle of the freezing floor, but behind him is a darkly comical amount of shackles connecting him to the wall. It looks like whoever locked him down here grabbed every manacle they could find to attach him to the inlaid stones. Two huge chains already flank him on either side of his body, interlocked around his waist, but the smaller ones are just repeatedly attached to where his wrists and forearms must be and then locked against the wall and the ceiling. The way they all fan backwards and up into the far rock is reminiscent of wings, and they gently clank and rattle with each breath Zenos takes.
The prince himself seems none the worse for wear. There is a dark bruise adorning his clavicle that the warrior of light immediately remembers giving him with the hilt of their sword in the midst of battle; but he wears no new scars or scratches. There are dark purple circles under his eyes and they wrack their mind trying to remember if he had those during their fight or if those are a new addition. His armor has been stripped from him, leaving him in black trousers and a simplistic dark-colored top with laces interweaving from his collar bone to about mid-chest.
He’s smaller without the metal he is normally clad in but he’s still huge, and being hunched over does nothing to hide his enormous stature. But here his power over them is gone, in the torch’s flame and in the chains and missing armor. They feel no fear looking down upon him–here in the dungeon he is merely a deeply disturbed man, trapped alone with his thoughts and the loom of a trial pressing down against his shoulders.
The question springs to their lips before they can help it, and they blurt out, “Are you cold?”
Zenos gives a shrug and the clank echoes around him. His unreadable eyes appraise them as they take a few steps over to the wall closest to them and place the torch in an empty sconce, allowing it to light the room unimpeded. “The temperature has not affected me yet,” he says stiffly. “Would you care if it had?”
“‘Care’ is a strong word,” the warrior of light responds airidly. “But it’s probably for the best that you don’t freeze to death.” They return to the center of the room, standing only a few fulms before him. Even slouched upon his knees he is enormous–half their height at a fraction of his stature. “Though I suppose Garlemald is much colder than some dingy basement in these empty deserts.”
“How quickly you sell this city-state short,” he responds with that peculiar wry humor, blue eyes glinting.
They remain silent in response, hand palming the hilt of their sword absently. The two of them scrutinize each other in the ever-changing light for a long moment. The warrior lets their gaze travel across his face, taking in each small scrape and crease, attempting to decipher any sort of meaning from his impassivity. Zenos gives a ghost of a smirk in return and allows his eyes to roam across their entire form shamelessly. They couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was looking for in them.
“Why are you here ?” The warrior asks, after a long pause. “Why did you come?”
“I could ask you the same thing, my warrior,” Zenos replies.
The warrior of light ‘hmm’s idly in response. It’s like he endeavors to make everything difficult. “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”
A small scraping noise escapes his lips. It takes them a moment, but they realize it’s a wheezing chuckle crawled forlorn out of his throat like a wounded animal. “It is fair enough,” Zenos acquiesces. “A trade of information. I will oblige my captor.”
They frown, slightly. “Captor? You allowed yourself to be captured. You could have easily had my head. I fought recklessly, and you…you just laid down your swords in surrender.”
They cannot help the trickle of disappointment oozing into their tone, and Zenos leans forward slightly into them, a smile beginning to grow upon his face in earnest. “Ah, so now you know my same unfed hunger,” he sneers, “and, upon tasting the truth of the hunt, you ache for more. I regret leaving you so unfulfilled …but I would take measure of your character before I continued my pursuit of your life. Consider this my reason for giving up my person; I desire to know my prey fully and entirely before I fell it. Rest assured, my beast, you and I shall both have our fill of pure violence; the universe and all your gods shall bear witness to the glorious acts we shall sunder upon each other.”
The way he speaks and the words he uses are so…salacious, and a hot embarrassment creeps up their cheeks and across their nose and they rub at it self-consciously, biting the inner corner of their mouth. “You are truly insane,” they insist, attempting to deflect from the intimacy of his speech.
Zenos squints his eyes, his fervor fading slightly in his thoughts. “I am familiar with the concept,” he rumbles, “but I doubt the veracity of my lunacy.”
“You don’t think you’re insane,” they translate, and Zenos gives a singular assured nod. “Of course you don’t.”
He shifts slightly and the chains binding him groan and pop in protest. “Insanity implies that I am not in control of my faculties or actions,” he says pensively, blue eyes transfixed on something unseen in the middle-distance. “Insanity is when man gives in to the madness of the soul and allows the turmoil of his nature to take him over, to guide him into blind misjudgements. The few desires I do possess are wholly my own–I am not steered by something so banal as madness . Indeed, I follow what could be considered obsessions, but it is due to firmness in my convictions and not the lack thereof.”
The warrior of light squints back, crossing their arms over their chest. It’s the most words they’ve ever heard him say in succession. Thancred was right–it seems he will drop pretenses around them alone. Were it anyone else on the shard they’d feel almost flattered. “Obsession,” they say, and Zenos bows his head in affirmation. “Obsession with the hunt? Obsession with me?”
“A mixture of both, I am certain. You are the only prey that has ever given me the true excitement of the hunt.”
They sigh in response, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. It’s not what they were looking for. What measure would he be taking from them–how well they do under pressure? If they came to save him in time? Well–they’re not here to save him, they think. Zenos watches them closely through their turmoil, every minute detail picked up by his ever-scrutinizing eyes. He leans forwards towards them, beginning to close the space remaining between, his blonde hair falling around his shoulders. “I unnerve you,” he says quietly, lips parting ever so slightly, white teeth glittering orange and red in the changing light. “Why is that?”
“You’re hunting me to kill me,” they respond blithely. “Can you blame me for my misgivings?” But Zenos shakes his head in response, the answering jangle of chains echoing around them.
“No, it is more than that.” He leans forward again, this time physically dragging himself forward a few ilms, and the chains around his waist creak in protest. He’s only about half a fulm away now, and he straightens up as if desperate to get closer to them. No longer slouched, his head reaches just below their sternum. The warrior of light forces themself not to move–they will not be unsettled by such a display so easily. They will not wilt . “There is something about me that digs under your skin and settles there. I see it in your eyes, my warrior; you recognize something in me, do you not? Something you are unable–or, perhaps, unwilling, given your hesitations–to see within yourself.”
“So you came here to ‘take measure of my character’,” they respond coldly, skating thinly over his accusations. His self-proclaimed hunt is one sided, they decide, they have to decide; his fulfillment will not be their responsibility nor will they have any say in his vainglory and his murder attempts. Whatever thrill they feel from the heat of the battle cannot compare to the mindless ramblings of the beast before them. “How do I measure up in the mind of the great Zenos yae Galvus?”
“You can deny my words,” Zenos continues like they had never spoken, ardor glittering in his flinty unyielding stare, his gaze glued to their own, “but you cannot deny your nature. Your disappointment in our fight ending so soon, the light dancing in your eyes when we clash, glorious and gory–do you think I do not see it? Do you think I would have become so enthralled to your fire had I not seen it burn ? When I gaze upon you, sword coated in blood, hands red and heavy with carnage…” He trails off, a foreign laugh bubbling up from his throat, bright and disconcertingly wrong, “...I see you for what you are. I look upon a mirror and gaze deep into a kindred spirit.”
They move without thinking; their foot comes up and firmly plants itself into the juncture between his shoulder and neck, and they lean their weight into the motion in an attempt to distance him once again. He doesn’t even budge . “I am not your mirror,” they sneer angrily, fists curling at their sides in anger; but the roiling inside them tells them a different story. Are they really so transparent in their love of the hunt? Why did they have to have similarities, of all people, to an anhedonic hedonist consumed by a lust for violence so powerful it knocks every rational thought from his head? “Just because I like to fight doesn’t mean I’m anything like you .”
“Is this what you tell your comrades, for fear of judgement?” Zenos bites back, almost laughingly, that bright bubbling of mirth still lightening his tone. “Is this what you tell yourself, so you can find respite at night? There is no one here to save face for, my friend. It is you and I alone. Such intimacy should not be blanketed in secrets and marred by your perception of duty. I do not ask to speak to the warrior of light–I speak to you, beyond the veil, beyond the pre-conceived notions of allegiances and fealties we wear in the daylight. I bare myself to you, and you will bare yourself to me.”
They feel that irksome flush crawling up their face again and they press down with their boot as hard as possible. Zenos still does not move, remaining stock-still staring at their face hungrily. “If I were like you I’d be a madman,” they spit, “and I’m not. I’ve a level head on my shoulders, Zenos, and I’ll cut you down because of my obligations to the people I protect–not just for the hells of it.”
His eyes close as soon as they hiss out his name, as if savoring the sound of it in the air. “Then why did you come, warrior of light ?” He murmurs, taking a deep breath and holding it in his chest for a moment. “Why have you crept down here, under the cover of nightfall? Doubtless you could endure me when the sun is high–or did you, perhaps, bypass the legions of peasants keeping myself under lock and key through your well-loved violence?” His eyes flash open and he almost mockingly peers around them at the open door of the dungeon behind them. “Intriguing; I see no guards or any of your proles for backup or protection, nor are you coated in their blood and viscera. Could it be, then, that you came entirely alone…with none the wiser?”
“I…I-I just…” they trail off and swallow hard. He sees through them like they are glass. “I…needed to…”
But the words don’t come as the realization forms within them, the thoughts in their brain unable to manifest themselves in their mouth. They take their own deep breath and hold it in their chest for a moment, reaching up and rubbing their forehead. Every word he speaks is true. Conflict bites back and forth in the depths of their soul. It isn’t right, to be here alone facing the maw of the beast with naught in hand–but it isn’t right in their own mind, and for their own desires , to let him sit down here alone and rot; life on a taut wire waiting to snap when justice is meted out by each respective city-state. There is something tantalizingly bright in Zenos that draws them to him like a moth to a flame, they realize with a heavy dismay.
He is entirely and frustratingly and devastatingly correct–when they look upon him they see a kindred spirit, too.
“I don’t…want you to stand trial,” they say finally, and a million mutinous warriors of light echo it back softly, their tainted words bouncing around the cavernous space. “It’s not…right. I mean, it is right, but…it’s not what I want…for you. I want to kill you on the battlefield. I don’t want to watch you wither away into nothing; I don’t want you to die a diplomatic death. I want your blood on the palms on my hands.”
Zenos’ head falls to the side slightly and lands with a quiet ‘thunk’ upon the gauntlets protecting their leg, foot still planted firmly on his shoulder. He looks quietly satisfied, they think, but that thinly-veiled obsession still runs rampant in his gaze. “I would feel the same for you,” he confesses in a near-whisper. “Were I to defeat you and Garlemald were to take you, lock you in a cage to waste away, your flame burning down to the quick…I would stop at naught to stoke that inferno once more. I would not allow something as commonplace as dying in custody to extinguish you–the only thing that can would be my grip upon your neck.”
They nod slowly, considering his speech earnestly. It’s similar enough to their own proclamation that a tightly wound pit develops in their stomach, half guilt and half disgust. He doesn’t die here–he can’t die here. Another tidy accolade to gather dust in their own books, Zenos forgotten by time as the worst-case scenario of Garlemald’s scientific prowess and horrors. No. It’s all wrong. Lyse would never forgive them, though, were she to find out their hand was behind these nefarious mechanations. Most of the Scions probably wouldn’t, either. It’s throwing away the end of the war, a genuine light on the horizon that they’d–what? Toss in the bin for a whim of their own?
But they know their answer, and they suspect they’ve known it from the moment they pilfered that key from the guard before the door.
They remove their foot wordlessly from his shoulder and snake around his form, inspecting the chains tethering his wrists to the wall. Despite their great number, they are secured with one heavy set of iron shackles, upon which dangles a large, ornate looking padlock. No doubt the guards of the Fringes believed the hundreds of chains and heavy shackles would be enough to hold his might–and if for some reason they hadn’t, the heavy metal door would at least keep him inside until they found a solution to their monstrous problem. They reach down and retrieve the key from their pocket and slot it neatly into the awaiting keyhole. It gives with a quiet ‘click’, and the padlock falls from their grip into the sand upon the floor. The shackles follow suit, thudding loudly onto the stones below, and the chains all fall from his body gracelessly in a waterfall of metallic rain.
In no known world is this okay–but the die has been officially cast. It’s too late to back out now, they reason, watching Zenos slowly rise and stretch languidly in the dungeon. Their sword is at their side, ready to be drawn should he try something. But what is there to try? Would they have a bloody duel here in the pits of the Fringes, ripping and tearing each other to shreds like the beasts they liken each other to? Surely Zenos has more self-restraint than that, and the warrior would have some semblance of an upper hand with their sword and armor still donned.
Zenos, to his credit, does not lunge at them as they had momentarily believed he would. “I hope you have sated your burning questions regarding my motives,” he rumbles, idly reaching up to rub his wrist as he towers fully over them.
The warrior of light shrugs in response uncomfortably, guilt and uncertainty weighing them down. “You wanted to know me,” they say weakly, summarizing the evening’s tense showdown, “and…I wanted to know why you came. I guess we’ve both gotten our answers.”
They move in tandem, at the exact same second–Zenos’ hand comes up and grasps the back of their neck to draw them a few ilms closer as the warrior of light grabs his wrist and sinks their nails into the exposed skin, their other flying to the hilt of their sword.
Zenos’ enigmatic smirk only blooms. He tilts his head slowly, eyes roaming wide and wild across their face. His grip on the back of their neck is iron-tight–he does not yet squeeze but the warrior of light is tense, awaiting an attempted throttling or some form of him chucking them against the wall.
Instead, he inexplicably leans in closer to them until his forehead is pressed up against their own, and they feel the coolness of his Garlean eye as he gazes into them unblinking and unknowable. “When I find you again,” he breathes in a deadly sotto, “you and I shall duel in earnest, and I will not disappoint. I promise you that our clash will be undeniably fulfilling to you, and you shall never want for the glory of blood and the singing of steel again. Would this be enough for you, my friend?”
Their fingernails sink into the thin, chilled skin of his pale wrist and draw blood–they can feel the warmth of it seeping through the fabric of their gloves. The warrior of light nods slowly in response. “Yes,” they confirm, eyes narrowing into a cold stare, jaw set stonily. “That would be enough. It would…it would be more than enough.”
Zenos sighs, near blissfully. “It is enough for me as well. It is all I want–all I ask.”
The two remain there for a long moment, interlocked and unmoving, before Zenos finally releases them. He turns and strides the open door, illuminated by the fiery torchlight, leaving the warrior of light standing forlorn and uncertain in his wake.
They cannot help but feel they have made a terrible mistake.